Visit to the Veterinarian

I woke up Thursday with a sense of dread. After avoiding making veterinary appointments for my cats Charlie and Linus, the day had finally come when I would have to capture the little beasts and confine them to their carriers. Fortunately, their appointments come only once a year, but I had vivid memories of the battle of wits that had occurred last year. By the time I had put the cat carriers into the car, I was bandaged and exhausted, and I was only slightly relieved that the cat hunt would likely not make us arrive late at our destination.

Charlie and Linus are wonderful and loving cats that, for most of the year, are a joy to have around. After sitting down at my desk or in front of the television, one or both cats usually finds his way to my lap. Well, Linus likes to be on my lap. So does Charlie, though he often climbs on my shoulder, which can make it hard to type or see the television screen.

I have never had any trouble picking up Charlie, to take him to the bathroom scale for a weighting, for example. (Each cat could afford to drop a couple of pounds. At the suggestion of my vet, I have been feeding them an obscenely expensive prescription food and making an attempt to monitor their weight.) Linus is another matter. Although the cats are litter mates, Linus has always been much more skittish than his brother. When I was first saw them considering adopting them, Charlie was willing to come close to me, but Linus did his best to hide.

Linus

Linus, in fact, is almost impossible to carry. If he is sitting on my lap and I try to rise and pick him up, he quickly escapes my grip and runs away. If he feels himself being restrained, he fights with a fearsomeness more often associated with the largest and meanest of carnivores. Although both cats often disappear behind or under furniture, Linus sequesters himself more frequently.

I had a plan for getting the cats into their carriers. To begin with, I followed the advice of various pet authorities and have had their carriers out and open for the past year. At one time or another, each cat had voluntarily entered one of the carriers, but this had not become a regular habit. Besides, I was less concerned with their comfort at being confined than I was with the process of confining them in the first place.

Charlie

Preparation for the task ahead began with getting dressed. I put on my long-sleeve canvas Carhartt work shirt and had my leather gloves handy. I was hoping that shirt and gloves would provide protection from frantically waving claws. I closed the bedroom door to prevent any cat from retreating beneath the bed. (Extracting a cat from under the bad had proven difficult in the past.) Because the cats often sit on my lap or approach me in the bathroom, I had positioned one carrier beside my desk chair and one carrier in the bathroom just in case I got lucky.

My timing was probably a little off. In the early morning the cats are always out and about, waiting for food and fresh water. A bit later—I had not realized this before—they tend to nap, often in out-of-the-way places. I had timed the appointments to avoid rush hour traffic and to allow time to catch Charlie and Linus and put them into their carriers. I also took into account that I could have a helper, Olivia, around should she be needed. I put out two small bowls of cat treats in the hope that this would lure the animals out of their hiding places, but, when we pulled out of the driveway, the treats remained untouched.

One of the cat carriers

When my schedule called for corralling the cats, they were both under or behind furniture. It was time to call Olivia. Her job would be to wield a broom to flush the cats into the open. This worked pretty well for Charlie.  He walked out of his hiding place, and I was able to grab him without difficulty. I lowered him into the carrier, and Olivia zipped up the cover.

One down and one to go. Linus was hiding under a daybed. Two sides were blocked, and the two short sides were partially blocked. Olivia worked one side, and I worked the other. I thought I might be able to grab Linus as he came out from under the bed. He was, of course, much too fast for me. He ran between the litter box and the cat tree, which was set against the wall. I thought I had him trapped, but I was fooled again. Linus ran at breakneck speed across the room and up the stairs, a move I had not expected. At the top of the stairs was a closed door, so I seemed to have Linus trapped in a blind alley. I lunged to grab him, and he literally tried to climb the wall. The wall, however, was featureless plaster, and, although Linus gave it a good college try, there was nowhere for him to go. Moreover, his attempt to climb the wall meant the his body was stretched out so as to make him easy to grab. I clutched his torso, and thrust him into the carrier, which Olivia had brought up behind the two of us. A moment later, the top of the carrier was zipped up, and I was ready to put the cats into the car.

The trip to the vet was relatively uneventful. The cats rode in the back of the car, each huddled at one end of a carrier. They whimpered now and then, and I tried to say something reassuring in reply. Surprisingly, both cats were reasonably well behaved on the examination table. The vet even picked up and held Linus without injury to anyone present.

The ride home was uneventful. I let the cats out of their carriers at the top of the stairs, and I went downstairs myself a few minutes later. By that time, the treats had disappeared, and so had the cats. I poured myself a glass of port and relaxed with a movie. Charlie and Linus showed up later in the evening as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Schools and Guns

I am encouraged by signs that the latest school massacre may actually result in some helpful legislation, largely due to the activism of the students who survived it. It is not at all clear that the students will get the changes in public policy they are demanding, however, either from the Florida legislature or from the Congress.

Any thinking person understands that the most effective and most obvious “solutions” to the problem of school shootings necessarily involve restrictions on the availability of guns. Despite this fact, politicians, “influenced” by the NRA, are loath to adopt any provision the NRA will construe as chipping away at Second Amendment rights. And virtually any proposal to make guns less available in any environment whatsoever will be so construed. It makes no difference that the arguments put forth by the NRA are simply insane. (At CPAC yesterday, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre delivered an angry speech calling any attempt to limit guns to be part of a socialist plot to “eradicate all individual freedoms.” LaPierre really shouldn’t go off his medication.)

Though heartened by possible solutions to mass shootings being widely discussed, I am distressed that the idea of arming teachers, an idea being advanced by President Trump, is being treated in the media as anything other than the harebrained idea that it is. Teachers generally chose their profession because of their interest in education and love of children, not because they want to hunt down miscreants intent on killing themselves and their charges. Perhaps the hazardous-duty pay Mr. Trump has advocated will find some takers, but I doubt that many schools will be able to enlist a posse of 20% of the faculty that the president proposes.

Our president—not my president, I am tempted to say—has opined that he disapproves of active shooter drills. This, like most of his remarks on the subject, is crazy. Does he disapprove of fire drills as well? Should we abandon school fire drills and simply give volunteer teachers fire extinguishers? Students can do whatever seems reasonable at the time.

Because most school shootings are perpetrated by actual students, security, whether in the form of armed guards, metal detectors, or key entry systems,will likely not deter a determined shooter, who has lots of time to identify lapses in security defenses. Moreover, once a shooter begins a rampage, he —invariably he—must first be found before anyone with a gun, be it a guard, member of the staff or faculty, or a law officer responding to the attack, can engage him. Even if the NRA’s good guy with a gun identifies the gunman, shootouts are notoriously unpredictable affairs. I doubt that many teachers anticipate with anything but dread a gunfight at the OK corral in the corridors of their school. Are armed teachers supposed to abandon their students to their own devices while they play Wyatt Earp? A shooter who knows that some teachers are armed—a student shooter might even know which teachers are armed—is likely to try to kill teachers first. Have eager teacher volunteers considered that?

In light of the foregoing considerations, I offer two alternative suggestions, each of which might be found desirable by our moron-in-chief or the NRA: First, we could simply replace all teachers with armed police officers. They can take on the instruction role and will be available for defensive duty when the need arises. (I’m not sure what to do with the displaced teachers. Perhaps they can find a more lucrative profession.) Second, if there cannot be armed adults everywhere, we can arm all the students. Therefore, wherever a shooter shows up, a good guy with a gun is guaranteed to be readily at hand.

Are my suggestions any crazier than Donald Trump’s?

What Does Putin Know?

Donald Trump continues to insist that there has been no “collusion” between his campaign and Russia. If by “collusion” is meant discussion regarding ways in which Russia could help the Trump campaign, wherein all parties had an explicit, shared objective, it may well be the case that there was no collusion. Trump’s assertion that the absence of collusion is an established fact, is simply fake news, however, or yet another instance of alternate reality in which the president indulges.

People rationally suspect some nefarious connection between Trump and Russia because (1) members of the Trump administration have a surprising number of connections to Russia; (2) Trump himself has such connections but regularly denies their existence; (3) Trump has refused to increase sanctions on Russia because of that country’s interference in our electoral process; and (4) Trump is loath to say anything negative about Russia or Putin and has, in fact, said some very positive things. Yet, anyone who has paid any attention to international affairs in recent years is well aware that Russia is not a nation friendly to the United States.

Of course, Trump seems fond of strongman leaders generally, with the exception of Kim Jong-un. Perhaps Trump is fond of dictators because he envies them. Putin, however, seems to be a special case. I have been perplexed by this, but I now have a working theory to explain it. Putin must have something so damning on Trump that our president dare not anger Putin, lest the Russian leader tell what he knows.

Given what we already know about Donald Trump, Putin’s hole card must be pretty damning indeed.

The Trump Parade

I was distressed when I learned that President Trump has asked the Pentagon to stage a military parade in Washington, D.C., at some future time. The president was impressed with the Bastille Day parade he attended in Paris last year. That parade has a long history and, according to The Washington Post, often includes troops of countries other than France. (There were U.S. troops in the parade Trump witnessed, for example.) The Bastille Day parade is a French institution and not simply a display of French militarism.

Trump’s parade is something else. After praising the French procession, the president said, “We’re going to have to try to top it.” Trump, of course, always has to have the very best. The White House suggested that a D.C. parade will give citizens an opportunity to honor our military. One must suspect, however, that the event is less for him or the nation to honor the military than it is for the military to honor him.

Autocrats love their militaries, as the military is the ultimate source of an autocrat’s power. At least for now, the military is not the source of our government’s authority, but the president does enjoy the trappings of dictatorial power. No doubt, Mr. Trump admires Soviet Union and Russian parades and, most likely secretly, those of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea as well.

The predominantly military parade is America is an anomaly. Such affairs have been staged mainly to celebrate the successful conclusion of wars, though inaugural parades during the cold war sometimes have had more than token military components.

For Trump, presiding over a military parade would be a demonstration to North Korea and the rest of the world that our military is powerful, that the president’s nuclear button is very big, as it were.

To American citizens, on the other hand, the proposed extravagance is a profligate use of time and money, as well as a distraction of the military from more pressing missions. Americans hardly need additional opportunities to honor the troops; one could easily argue that our military gets more attention than is healthy in a democracy. Do we really need warplane flyovers, military color guards, and ceremonies honoring wounded warriors at sporting events, for example?

To allies and adversaries, the Trump parade will be a sign of increasingly unpredictable and unilateral militarism on the part of the United States. It will be seen as a threat to world peace, discomforting both friends and enemies.

It is my hope that citizen shaming, and perhaps even congressional action, will kill the idea of staging a military parade in Washington so President Trump can say that his parade is bigger than President Macron’s.

Why Can’t You Get My Name Right?

My last name is not a common one. I guess you could call it unusual, but, as surnames go, I don’t think it’s weird. It sounds like it looks, as long as you know that in German ie and ei combinations are always pronounced as though the first letter isn’t there. (Think diesel, for instance, or leitmotif.)

I often have to spell my name for someone, either—think about that word and its pronunciatory variations for a moment—in person or over the telephone. I will say “D-E-I-M-E-L,” or, to prevent mishearing, “D-E-I-M, as in Mary-E-L.” The latter form is to prevent may name from coming out Deinel, which sometimes happens.

However carefully I spell my name, people write it down or type it as Diemel as often as not. Apparently, many people have so internalized the i-before-e rule that they write (hear?) ie even when what was said was ei. Meticulous pronunciation is incapable of preventing people from making this error. Sigh!

I was buying light bulbs today at an electrical supply house that stocks a particularly wide variety of lamps. (I’ve been swapping out compact fluorescent bulbs for LED ones.) I don’t have or need an account there, but, for some reason, the company needs a name to put on an invoice. I spelled my name in the usual way. What got typed into the computer was Dimeling.(See below.) I have no idea what combination of aural perception, cognitive processing, and neural communication produced this mangling of my name. The counter man set a new record for faulty transcription!

Martin Luther King Day 2018

I heard a report on the radio today that referred to the Civil Rights Era in a way that made it clear that it was viewed as a historical period that ended some time ago. When did it end and why? Surely the Civil Rights Era did not end because all the goals of the civil rights movement were attained. War, poverty, discrimination, and unequal justice are still with us. Moreover, civil discourse no longer is about ending poverty. Instead, we talk about helping the middle class while in fact working only to further enrich the wealthy and sanction discrimination on bogus “religious” grounds.

Such thoughts on this Martin Luther King day inspired the graphic below. Feel free to use it elsewhere as is, except possibly for size.

Today is a good day to think about where we are as a nation and the direction in which we are headed.

Make America Democratic Again

Many Americans are asking themselves how we can return to a pre-Trump America, a time when the United States had challenges but did not seem destined to become a fascist plutocracy. It is clear that if the country does not change course by the time of the 2020 presidential election, the American experiment may be finished.

The answer, of course, is that Americans must take back their government, which means that we must throw out Republicans and elect Democrats to Congress in 2018. Given Republican gerrymandering and voter-suppression efforts, this will not be an easy task, but the preservation of our Republic demands it.

To remind us all of what we must do, I offer the graphic below. Readers are free to reproduce it elsewhere without alteration (except for size). Click on the image to see a larger version of it.

Posting Here, There, and Everywhere

When I created this blog, I described the intended content as “Random quick takes by Lionel Deimel.” I expected to be posting brief comments or essays that didn’t seem to justify being added to my Web site, Lionel Deimel’s Farrago. As it happens, many of my “takes” have not been quick at all, that is, they have been anything but brief.

Over the years—I began this blog in 2002—the World Wide Web has undergone many changes. Blogs—and even conventional Web sites—are not as prominent as they once were, having been eclipsed somewhat by social media. The older formats remain important, but visits to them are often mediated by tweets, Facebook posts, or Google searches.

I find myself expressing many of my current “random quick takes” on Facebook, on my own page and, sometimes, on pages of groups of which I am a member or visitor. This guarantees a modest audience, though the reach of such posts usually does not extend beyond the group of people I know. Facebook friends seldom share my posts, however clever. No post has ever gone viral.

Less frequently, I comment on Twitter. My likely audience there is smaller, though I occasionally do get responses from people I don’t know. The tagging system on Twitter makes it marginally more likely that a tweet will be seen by someone I’ve never heard of.

On Facebook, I post items from elsewhere, mostly news items. I also post brief commentaries, either as pure text or as graphics. I also post links to essays on this blog or, less frequently, to essays on my Web site. I tweet similar items, though news items are usually retweets.

Social media are best at communicating that which is of immediate interest. Twitter, for example, has been a boon to journalists, who can track unexpected events as they happen. On the downside,  information quickly dissolves into the fog. On Facebook, for example, I sometimes see two stories in my news feed that I want to pursue, but, after checking out the first, the second has seemingly disappeared. Social media are bad about letting you find something that has not been placed online recently.

Ideas that seem to deserve a half-life of more than a few hours tend to find their way to this blog. To make people aware of my posts, I write about them on Facebook and Twitter. It is easy to find a post here after the fact using Google, the search box at the top of the page, or—few blogs have this—my table of contents. (There are various ways of following what is going on here, which you can explore in the column at the right.)

Material of greater or longer-term interest usually shows up on my Web site. If it is of immediate interest, I may use my blog or social media to call attention to it. Lionel Deimel’s Farrago has its own table of contents.

Actually, all of the foregoing is just prologue to what I really wanted to say here, namely that I intend to be posting more brief comments here, either as text or embedded in graphics, the sort of think I have mostly placed on Facebook or Twitter.

Stay tuned.

My Movie Project

A couple of months ago, I completed a longstanding project. My goal was to watch every movie on the list of the top 100 American movies compiled by American Film Institute. I was working with the 2007 version of the list, which updates a 1998 list.

Before I began this project, I had already seen nearly three-quarters of the movies on the AFI list. Most of  the titles I had to find were in the bottom half of the list. Completing the project mostly required my getting DVDs or Blu-ray disks from Netflix. My final movie, Do the Right Thing, was streamed from Amazon. (This turned out to be one of my least enjoyed, by the way.)

Some of my favorite movies were not on the list, as they were not American. (A movie was deemed “American” if it were financed with American money, even if were otherwise “foreign.”) Thus, for example, Truffaut’s Day for Night was not on the list, though it may not have made the list anyway. Neither was The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

It is interesting to compare the two lists nearly a decade apart. Certain films moved around on the list, some, both recent and not, were added, and 23 films were dropped. (The Wikipedia article for the first list analyzes differences between the two.) I was surprised that The Birth of a Nation was dropped. For good or ill, it was certainly influential, even though I did not like it. I would like to have seen Doctor Zhivago kept, as well as Fantasia, each of which greatly influenced me personally. My top pick would have been Casablanca, which dropped from second to third place over the decade.

My movie project gave me an excuse to experience some excellent movies I would not have seen otherwise. I now have an increased appreciation of Charlie Chaplin, for example. My concept of the Western was definitely stretched through experiencing Unforgiven and The Wild Bunch. (Watch these at your own risk.) I also saw movies, such as Spartacus, which I should have seen a long time ago.

The movie that was my happiest discovery was F.W. Murnau’s 1927 film Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. The movie straddled the silent and sound eras. There is no spoken dialogue—speech is conveyed through title cards—but there is an original synchronized soundtrack containing music and sound effects. (Sunrise used the Fox Movietone sound-on-film system.) The movie succeeds despite its being a silent picture. It is a touching fable of conjugal love and rural vs. urban tensions. Sunrise won several awards at the first Academy Awards ceremony, including Best Unique and Artistic Picture.

If you are at all interest in cinema, consider a project similar to mine. There are many more worthy movies out there, of course, but the AFI list will help you hold your own in cocktail party conversations as long as the topic of recent movies doesn’t come up. If you are not much of a movie fan and haven’t seen many movies on the list, the project will take a while.

More Legislative Reforms

The passage of the Republicans’ tax bill is a complete lesson in how not to create new laws. Nothing about the process that resulted in the passing of this bill can be viewed as desirable, reasonable, or moral. Readers of this blog are likely to accept that as self-evident fact, so I won’t belabor the point.

About three weeks ago, I suggested that Senators and Representatives should actually read the bills on which they vote. (See A Commonsense Legislative Reform.) In this essay, I want to suggest two additional reforms that, though radical, would likely produce better laws and perhaps even better lawmakers.

Reform 1

Every word in a bill should be formally attributed to a particular legislator.

Moreover, if a single word is changed—often a significant matter—that change should be attributed to someone. Crafting a bill is sometimes a committee effort, but someone needs to take responsibility for the words on paper. In some circumstances, it may be appropriate to ascribe some text to more than one person, but to attribute it to a large number of legislators would militate against the strict accountability this proposal attempts to create. Voters should know when their representatives are responsible for particular provisions.

This reform is especially aimed at making legislators accountable for last-minute changes to a bill done to help special interests. Such small last-minute changes have a way of sneaking under the legislative radar. The reform would, of course, have more general beneficial effects.

In times past, my suggestion might have been impractical. Computers, however, can hyperlink text in various ways to facilitate this reform.

Reform 2

Each individual provision of a bill should be accompanied by (1) a statement of the issue or problem it purports to address and (2) an explanation of how the particular provision is expected to improve the state of affairs described in the aforementioned statement.

This proposed reform is the more important one. Admittedly, it would be onerous to implement, and it would be useless if the rationales demanded were not required at a very low level. One might go even further, making explicit the overall purpose of a bill and requiring that all provisions address the problems and expected outcomes of the bill generally.

The benefits of this reform are legion. As does my first suggested reform, this one improves accountability. Moreover, it encourages debate about the actual mechanics of a provision, as opposed to mere assertions that one provision is “better” or “worse” than another. It is therefore likely to result in better and more transparent legislation and more edifying debate in the halls of Congress. The required expected outcome provides a standard against which the empirical results of the bill-become-law may be measured. This feedback would encourage the repeal of bad or ineffective laws and the improvement of good or effective ones. Documenting the problems being solved and the mechanisms by which legislation attempts to provide solutions would surely slow down the legislative machinery. Given our recent congressional experience, that would seem not to be a bad thing.

Epilogue

Thomas B. Edsall has provided a depressing analysis of the just-passed tax bill in The New York Times. (See “You Cannot Be Too Cynical About the Republican Tax Bill.”) In it, he points out that some provisions were inserted for the benefit of particular legislators, but, often, one cannot tell this for sure. Additionally, some provisions of the bill have no obvious rationale, and different parts of the bill may actually operate in different directions. My proposals, particularly the second one, assays to head off such anomalies.

Of course, the bill in question was produced by a totally rogue process, and, if Republicans are allowed to get away with this kind of law-making, our democracy is doomed. We can and must do better.

Whither Episode Nine?

Star Wars: The Last Jedi poster
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Some have suggested that the Star Wars movies are intended as fairy tales for our times. I saw Star Wars: The Last Jedi a few days ago. The ending brought to mind the current state of our two political parties. Think of the First Order as the Trump administration and the Congress, and the Rebel Alliance, whose principals escape with reduced numbers by the skin of their teeth, as the Democrats.

The depressing ending of The Last Jedi raises the question of what will happen in the final ninth episode of the Star Wars saga. It is natural to expect the good guys, downtrodden but not defeated, to triumph in the end. Perhaps a more powerful, relevant, and, at this point, logical, ending would see the final destruction of the Rebel Alliance and the triumph of the First Order.

Will Disney actually forego a happily-ever-after ending?

The Tax Bill Cometh

It seems likely that, contrary to all reasonable calculus, the Congress will pass the regressive Republican tax “reform” bill tonight or tomorrow. The cynical interpretation of this is that our legislature is driven completely by self-interest—by the desire to satisfy their donor clients on one hand, and the siren-call of personal financial self-interest, on the other. The most generous interpretation is that our Senators and Representatives are clueless.

What GOP legislators have been saying in interviews is that (1) the tax code is being simplified, (2) the middle class will get a big tax cut, (3) corporations will get a big tax cut, and (4) corporations will repatriate money stashed abroad.

Well, the more than 500-page bill will not simplify taxes. (No doubt, administrative rulings will expand the number of words needed to explain federal taxes.) The middle class, qua class, gets no tax cut. Some will benefit; others will not. Individual tax provisions go away in a few years, in any case. Corporations will indeed get a big tax cut, and there is a bipartisan consensus that a cut is in order, though maybe not a 40% one. No one really knows what will happen to corporate money abroad. (Firms like Apple don’t need the money in the U.S.; they have plenty on hand that isn’t being used.)

Although Republicans mostly avoid saying it, the party has an unshakable, but empirically unsupportable, faith—“belief” is surely the wrong word—in trickle-down economics. Republicans repeatedly tell us that the tax bill will grow the economy, but they fail to explain by what magical process this is supposed to happen. Never have the benefits of reduced taxes really trickled down to those who most need a break. But, of course, history may come out differently this time.

Apparently, large corporations, newly flushed with money, are supposed to invest in new plant, hire more workers, and slash prices, all leading to economic growth and universal happiness.

Yeah, right!

Banned Words

It was reported yesterday that the Trump administration has banned the use of seven words or phrases by the CDC, namely, “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based,” and “science-based.” A secret government-wide banned-word list has not been disclosed before now.

Click on image for a larger one

On Being a Proud Christian Democrat

The media often act as though “Christian” means “evangelical Christian.” When commentary on current affairs is desired from a Christian perspective, it is more likely than not that reporters will call upon someone from a very conservative Protestant denomination to deliver it. It often seems as though the media, mainstream or otherwise, are oblivious to the existence of more traditional Christian perspectives. When was the last time you heard someone interviewed who claimed to be a “liberal Christian”?

This state of affairs has bothered me for a long time, but two related matters set me off today. First, of course, is the Alabama Senate election that takes place tomorrow pitting Democrat Doug Jones against Republican Roy Moore. Moore’s strong support among “Christian conservatives” or “white evangelicals” has repeatedly (and properly) been remarked upon. Not much has been heard from Christians who not only do not support Moore but who also reject the sort of Christianity he is known for wearing on his sleeve.

The second thing that upset me today was a discussion on the WAMU program 1A, which is carried by many NPR stations.“What Roy Moore Reveals About The Religious Right” was a conversation among host Joshua Johnson and several self-identified evangelicals. The 1-hour discussion never suggested that there are other Christian perspectives that differ quite substantially from those being expressed.

I believe that evangelical Christians have given Christianity a bad name. Not all Christians read the Bible with mindless literalness, consider abortion murder, believe that the poor reap what they deserve, consider homosexuality a grave sin, and support the Republican Party no matter what it supports or what its members do. Somehow, it is difficult to communicate this fact through the media.

An essay on my modest blog will not change the public perception of Christianity, but I can stake out my own position and make it easier for others on the Web to do the same. This led me to create the graphic below. I realize, of course, that one can be a non-evangelical Christian and still be a Republican, but my picture aims to make as sharp a contrast as possible to Christians who seem joined at the hip to the Republican Party.

For the foreseeable future, my new graphic (see below) will appear on my blog in the right margin. Click on the image below for a larger view and feel free to use it elsewhere to proclaim that you are both Christian and a Democrat.

An Atomic Anniversary

On this day, December 2, 1942, 75 years ago, Chicago Pile-1 produced the world’s first artificial self-sustained nuclear chain reaction. CP-1 (see picture below) was built of uranium, graphite, and wood. Control rods, which were intended to prevent a runaway reaction, were fabricated of cadmium. The pile was developed under the direction of physicist Enrico Fermi and was an early part of the Manhattan Project, the secret government program to develop the atomic bomb.

Chicago Pile-1 (Click on this and the picture below for larger images.)

CP-1 was built under the West Stands of Stagg Field on the University of Chicago campus. By the time I entered the university, CP-1 was long gone. The site is now marked by the massive bronze sculpture “Nuclear Energy” created by English artist Henry Moore.

“Nuclear Energy” by Henry Moore

More information about Chicago Pile-1 can be found on Wikipedia.

It need hardly be said that learning how to create nuclear chain reactions has been a mixed blessing. Its ultimate effect on humanity—indeed on the entire planet—remains to be seen. For now, the concluding words of Stephen Vincent Benét’s John Brown’s Body seem appropriate:

If you at last must have a word to say,
Say neither, in their way,
“It is a deadly magic and accursed,”
Nor “It is blest,” but only “It is here.”

A Commonsense Legislative Reform

The tax bill nearing passage in the Senate runs to nearly 500 pages and includes text written in nearly indecipherable longhand in the margins. Democratic senators have complained that they have had no time to read the bill. In fact, it is certainly the case that nobody has read the entire bill on which senators are expected to vote.

This reminds me of a legislative reform I have long thought appropriate. It is this:

No legislator should be allowed to vote on a bill unless he or she attests in writing and under oath to having read it all.

This is, I suggest, perfectly reasonable. Unfortunately, since senators and representatives have a tenuous relationship with the truth, it would probably be necessary to give legislators a test administered by a non-partisan third party to assure that their attestations are factual.

Lacking such assurance in the present case, I suspect that many GOP senators will regret their votes when they realize what they have foisted upon the American people.

God help us!

Waiting for “Tax Reform”

As I write this, I am waiting to see if there are at least two Republicans in the Senate who will vote against the “tax reform” bill that is a giveaway to the rich and to large corporations. I am not hopeful. Despite the concern of the so-called deficit hawks and the plea for “regular order” from Senator John McCain (who has indicated he will vote for the bill), I expect that the bill will pass in the Senate, perhaps tonight. I pray that it will not, but integrity seems to be in short supply among Republican senators.

It is likely that no senator has read the bill being voted on in its entirety. There have been no hearings where interested parties could express opinions on what should be in a tax bill. There have been no contributions from Democrats. All the independent analyses of the bill say that it will do little to increase GDP and will greatly enlarge the federal deficit. But GOP leaders are marching forward knowing that most voters opposed this bill. The bill is, however, the darling of big Republican donors and the ignorant know-nothings who are Trump’s base.

God help us if this execrable bill passes. That would not make it law, but it would move the process along of writing it into law.

Below is my take on how bills become law in the Age of Trump. It is a sad process. (Feel free to use this graphic elsewhere. Click on it for a larger version.)

Support Our …

It has become commonplace for politicians to talk of “supporting our troops.” My own church even prays each week for “those in the armed forces and uniformed services,” presumably our own. Additionally, people have been encouraged to say “thank you for your service” when encountering someone in uniform. (This was said to me for the first time the other day while I was claiming a 10% month-of-November discount at a local restaurant. I protested that I had only been an Army bandsman.)

It isn’t really clear what “support” means or whether ordinary civilians have concrete ways of effecting it. Most of us are not sending care packages of cookies to soldiers or performing for the troops with the USO, though some people do provide monetary support to organizations that help wounded veterans.

I don’t know exactly when we began talking so much about supporting our troops. During World War II, when our troops were truly defending our nation to the death, we supported the war effort by buying bonds, displaying stars in our windows for the fallen, and going without so our troops could have what they needed to fight. Supporting our troops was not so much a slogan as a way of life.

I suspect that the Vietnam War had much to do with the popularity of expressing explicit support for our troops, as the conventional wisdom asserts that we showed disdain for soldiers as pot smokers and baby killers during that war. An unpopular war, somewhat unfairly, made our fighters unpopular as well.

Speaking of supporting our troops focuses attention on those who fight because they are ordered to do so and diverts attention from the policies that cause those orders to be delivered. It also assuages any guilt we may feel resulting from the fact that few us actually serve in the military. All this serves the purposes of politicians.

President Trump seems to have a love-hate relationship with our military, calling it inadequate and its leaders incompetent in one minute and confidently threatening to use it to destroy other nations in the next. In the end, though, the military, to our president, is a major tool of foreign power to back up his own bluster and intimidation. Trump wants billions of dollars more for the military, while his secretary of state, the inexperienced Rex Tillerson, asks less for the State Department, which he is rapidly depleting of its diplomatic resources.

Neither Trump nor Tillerson seems to understand or appreciate diplomacy. This administration seems to have disdain for diplomacy unless it is carried out by its principals. After all, it has the military as backup for any diplomatic failures.

Americans are growing tired of our ever-expanding wars, however, and wondering if our troops are truly engaged in protecting our nation. Why, for example, are we in Afghanistan, where we are in the middle of an apparently unwinnable civil war? What does it mean to support our troops in Afghanistan?

At a time when the world seems increasingly dangerous, why does our government have so little regard for negotiation? Why, for example, does our president insult and attempt to bully Kim Jong-un and effectively refuse to talk with North Korea? Saying that we won’t negotiate with North Korea until that nation does what we want from it gives Kim little incentive to come to the bargaining table.

We should certainly appreciate the sacrifices and made by our troops, but using our military is always a sign that diplomacy has somehow failed. As we watch this administration slowly destroy our diplomatic capabilities, we are more likely to call upon our troops in desperation.

Trump sold himself as a consummate negotiator. In fact, he is a consummate con man and bully whose fatal flaw is his susceptibility to flattery. Trump needs a more realistic evaluation of his negotiating skills, along with a willingness to avail himself of what expertise may be left in the State Department.

Given current circumstances, we should be talking less about supporting our troops and more about supporting, enhancing, and appreciating our diplomatic corps. The Web should contain more graphics like the following:

Feel free to use it elsewhere. Click on it for a larger version.

Are North Koreans Terrorists?

President Trump has returned the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) to the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. (See New York Times story here.) From any other president, this would seem an odd move. From this president, it’s par for the course.

Mr. Trump is obsessed with North Korea and frustrated with his seeming inability to affect that nation’s course of weapons development. Severe sanctions have been applied to North Korea to no conspicuous effect. Even China has been coöperated in this project, despite concerns that a collapse of the Kim regime would flood China with refugees and put an American ally on its doorstep. What more can the U.S. do?

The answer is not much. But officially labeling North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism allows the president to imagine that he is doing something significant.

He is not. Not only will the designation have little effect North Korea’s ability to function, but the president’s action degrades the significance of the terrorism list itself. At least as far as the public knows, North Korea has done nothing in years that can be called terrorism. The administration cites the assassination of political enemies on foreign soil and the development of weapons of mass destruction. These are not acts of terrorism, which are acts designed to terrorize a population. If what North Korea has done are acts of terrorism,  the United States is also a state sponsor of terrorism. The CIA has carried out assassinations; President Trump himself has as much as threatened to unleash nuclear weapons on North Korea.

Mr. Trump had no reason to label North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism. He was simply running out of insults to heap on the Kim regime and thought branding North Koreans terrorists was a clever next step. He thereby has called into question whether the designation of North Korea (or any nation) as a state sponsor of terrorism means anything at all.

Diocesan Convention Ignores the Needs of the Handicapped

It’s convention time again for the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. I have been attending these annual events every year since 2002. The diocese’s 152nd annual convention will be held tomorrow and Saturday at Christ Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh’s North Hills. I'm not looking forward to it.

The venue (or venues) for the annual convention varies from year to year, and some facilities work better than others. When since-deposed Bob Duncan was the bishop, at least in the later years of his tenure, the location of the convention was apparently chosen from among churches whose congregations were sympathetic to his theological proclivities. Such preferences led to meetings in churches that were ill-suited to hosting a convention.

Happily, since the departure of Bishop Duncan and his sympathizers, the annual convention has been held in churches that, in large measure, are suited to the purpose to which they are being put. The last five conventions have been held either at Trinity Cathedral in downtown Pittsburgh or at my former church, St. Paul’s, in Mt. Lebanon.

Which brings us to this year’s convention. The last diocesan gathering to be held in North Hills was that of 2011. I have certain negative associations with that church, as I broke a laptop screen at that convention due to my own stupidity, but the church is not responsible for that. However, Christ Church used its basement as well as its worship space. Most notably, the Friday night meal was held in the basement. I was attending with someone who was wheelchair-bound. Although the church proper is handicap accessible, a person in a wheelchair cannot reach the basement from within the building. Access to the basement is provided by a door that opens to the parking lot. An exceedingly steep temporary ramp placed over a series of steps leads down to basement level. Transit over this ramp in a wheelchair is best described as scary as hell.

In the six years since the convention was last held at Christ Church, one might have imagined that either the church would have provided more appropriate access to the basement or the convention would be staged elsewhere. I was told that the church is running a capital campaign which, I assume, will rectify a serious access issue, but the issue remains for this convention.

Why is our church not more sensitive to the needs of the handicapped? The convention need not have been held at Christ Church. I suspect that the fact that the rector of Christ Church is Secretary of Convention and responsible for much of its planning is not unrelated to this year’s choice of venue. That is a poor excuse for making attendance at the convention so difficult for the handicapped.

The 152nd convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh should have been held elsewhere.

Update, 11/12/2017. Convention at Christ Church, North Hills, was even worse than expected for the handicapped. Some of the breakout rooms were totally inaccessible to persons with mobility problems. Displays, refreshments, and box lunches were in the basement (undercroft) reached by temporary ramps. The ramps were solidly built but were nonetheless inadequate. To reach the basement, one had to negotiate two ramps placed over sets of stairs. The ramp from the parking lot to the first landing was outrageously steep and could not be negotiated by someone in a wheelchair without help. Going up alone would simply be impossible—this required two strong helpers—and going down alone could only be done if one had a strong death wish. The second ramp, from the landing to the basement itself, was gentler, if not ADA compliant. It included a surprise at the lower end. A wheelchair invariably ran into a post at the end of a ramp if the notch at the bottom of the ramp was encountered unexpected. My wheelchair-bound friend vowed never to set foot (or wheelchair) in Christ Church again.

The pictures below will make clear how difficult entry was.

Steep ramp from parking lot to landing

Ramp from landing to basement, which necessitates a 90° turn

Sign above ramp to basement (where I hit my head only once)

Notch at bottom of ramp to basement guaranteed to snag a wheelchair wheel