Two years ago I started a small business doing electrical work with my daughter. Word of mouth and low rates led to us soon being covered up with work. We both work full time outside of this business so it was supposed to be a part time thing. One thing led to another and we wound up with so much work that we can't do it all, no matter how many days a week I work. Around December I decided we needed to scale back and started turning down work for everyone except friends and people we had done work for previously. I determined that I needed to work 7 days a week for at least a month to catch up. That month turned into six weeks soon enough but I was within a weekend of catching up when the Coronavirus hit.
Like most everyone else, I was not prepared for this. I work for NASA as a contractor in my full time job. We were already working four ten hour days as a way of saving utility costs so I had started working Friday, Saturday, and Sunday on my electrical work some time ago. Then, someone at the center tested positive for the virus and we went on a telework system for most all of our projects. This is of course temporary as we do hands on testing but there are procedures that needed changing and a lot of similar type issues that will keep us busy for a little while.
Unfortunately, last Wednesday I started having a dry cough and feeling like my lungs were feeling irritated. Neither symptom is bad and neither is something I would really be concerned with normally as I had been crawling around under a hundred year old house for two weekends when that occurred. However, since we had the scare at work and since whatever this is no one else wants to get it I have self quarantined since last Friday. I talked to my doctor but his best advice was to stay home and call him if I start running a fever. There have been no available tests where I live to check who might actually be carrying the Coronavirus so that's pretty much out of the question.
So.... before the centre shut down I had already self quarantined but now everyone is working from home unless it is a drastic emergency. My side work has also shut down as the last thing I want to do is be a carrier for the virus. Odds are that is NOT what is going on with me but I have no way of knowing so I am going to just wait it out in the interest of protecting everyone else.
Working seven days a week for so long had kind of worn me down anyway. I have spent more time at home in the last five days than the previous 3 months. It strange going from such frantic activity to spending every day at home. I am doing telework some 8-9 hours a day but it still seems like I have slammed to a halt on most everything. It's not the worst thing in the world and I am certainly not complaining but it is an odd feeling to go from sixty to zero with no in between.
My off hours have been spent reading, watching Netflix, accelerating my workout routines, and doing things around the house that have been put off for a while. Not that there is any shortage of them but it's quite a change from my schedule I had been living on for a while. A lot of people are seeing pretty drastic changes from the effects of this virus. I suspect we are really just getting started with them. All in all, going from sixty to zero has been kind of pleasant.
Wednesday, March 18, 2020
Sunday, March 15, 2020
Facts Matter
Testing is important. It is the first and most important building block of planning when presented with an unknown variable. Without testing as soon as you have an unknown variable you must choose an action based upon assumptions instead of facts. This is the blueprint for disaster in any field. Faulty assumptions invariably lead to more faulty assumptions so that progress is impeded and whatever one is trying to accomplish soon fails when enough bad decisions are piled one on top of the other.
At the moment the critical lack of testing availability for the Coronavirus is crippling the country. This lack of testing is doing two things that are extremely harmful for people in the United States. IT is causing responsible people who probably have a common cold or respiratory infection to stay at home for up to two weeks because they don't want to spread what could be a deadly contagion for older people. It is also causing irresponsible people who don't understand the problem to continue in their daily routines so that if they have the virus they are spreading it to a lot of other people. This is effectively the formula for turning a contagion into a pandemic such as what we have right now in most of the rest of the world. We don't really know if we have one here because we don't have the availability of tests to answer the basic question of whether people should stay home or not.
It is the one most critical tool to reacting to a contagion of any kind and we are missing that tool no matter how many times our President lies to us by saying we have it available. The fact of the matter is that the test kits the federal government had as late as the end of February were inconclusive when administered. Think about the massive incompetence that implies. The one tool we had to determine who had the virus was inconclusive. Add in the fact that the number of tests we had were laughably low. My state was issued a little over one thousand tests. Up until last week, the only place that thad these tests was in Montgomery. In a state of almost 5 million people we have 1000 tests. This means we could test 2 people out of every thousand that live here.
It's hard to accurately state how unprepared this country was for this event. I'm sure in the weeks and months ahead we will find out a lot more about how unprepared we are in many other ways but the lack of effective testing has made it impossible for us to make good decisions and that alone has caused this to spin so far out of control. Add the initial responses from the right wing conspiracy mongers who currently have power in this country and the assumptions that were allowed to rule because we didn't have facts and you have the real reason we are now in the state of disaster we find ourselves mired in.
Unfortunately, we have a President who doesn't deal in facts at all. As Kelly Anne Conway pointed out to a stunned media at the start of his presidency they have "alternate facts". This is a euphemism for hopeful lies. Lies that suit the narrative Trump lives by. People who constantly lie make bad leaders. Leaders who make critical decisions based upon their own lies and ignore facts are indescribably dangerous. The lack of availability of testing has led to the disaster were are in at the moment. As bad as it is, it pales in comparison to the basic lack of understanding of the necessity for FACTS in making decisions that exists in the mind of Donald Trump as President of the United States.
At the moment the critical lack of testing availability for the Coronavirus is crippling the country. This lack of testing is doing two things that are extremely harmful for people in the United States. IT is causing responsible people who probably have a common cold or respiratory infection to stay at home for up to two weeks because they don't want to spread what could be a deadly contagion for older people. It is also causing irresponsible people who don't understand the problem to continue in their daily routines so that if they have the virus they are spreading it to a lot of other people. This is effectively the formula for turning a contagion into a pandemic such as what we have right now in most of the rest of the world. We don't really know if we have one here because we don't have the availability of tests to answer the basic question of whether people should stay home or not.
It is the one most critical tool to reacting to a contagion of any kind and we are missing that tool no matter how many times our President lies to us by saying we have it available. The fact of the matter is that the test kits the federal government had as late as the end of February were inconclusive when administered. Think about the massive incompetence that implies. The one tool we had to determine who had the virus was inconclusive. Add in the fact that the number of tests we had were laughably low. My state was issued a little over one thousand tests. Up until last week, the only place that thad these tests was in Montgomery. In a state of almost 5 million people we have 1000 tests. This means we could test 2 people out of every thousand that live here.
It's hard to accurately state how unprepared this country was for this event. I'm sure in the weeks and months ahead we will find out a lot more about how unprepared we are in many other ways but the lack of effective testing has made it impossible for us to make good decisions and that alone has caused this to spin so far out of control. Add the initial responses from the right wing conspiracy mongers who currently have power in this country and the assumptions that were allowed to rule because we didn't have facts and you have the real reason we are now in the state of disaster we find ourselves mired in.
Unfortunately, we have a President who doesn't deal in facts at all. As Kelly Anne Conway pointed out to a stunned media at the start of his presidency they have "alternate facts". This is a euphemism for hopeful lies. Lies that suit the narrative Trump lives by. People who constantly lie make bad leaders. Leaders who make critical decisions based upon their own lies and ignore facts are indescribably dangerous. The lack of availability of testing has led to the disaster were are in at the moment. As bad as it is, it pales in comparison to the basic lack of understanding of the necessity for FACTS in making decisions that exists in the mind of Donald Trump as President of the United States.
Tuesday, March 10, 2020
Coronavirus
There were 3 reasons to vote for Donald Trump for President of the United States.
1) You hated Hillary Clinton and couldn't stand the thought of four years of her as President. I actually struggled with this one myself but as the saying goes I held my breath and voted for the lesser of two evils.
2) You were ignorant of what Trump is now and always has been about. Trump is for Trump. Any means of boosting his ego and his bank account are eagerly sought after, whether they have anything to do with truth, honesty, or integrity or not. Trump is a habitual liar and always has been. Not only that, but he is devoid of integrity, basic honesty, or any other values that might interfere with his first and only love, promoting Trump. I can actually understand those who voted for Trump because they hated Clinton. I don't understand anyone who didn't take the time to do even a modicum of research to realize how debased and stupid Trump is and always has been. The number of people he has cheated, stolen from, and abused in every way in his long climb to notoriety is mind boggling. If you didn't or haven't taken the time to figure this out it is only because you are incredibly lazy or don't want to. I have as little respect for one as the other.
3) You are among the owner class that cares for nothing as much as how much money you can make. This applies to those who ignore Trump's basic dishonesty and trampling of ethics because they are personally enriched by his schemes AND those who think they might be in the future. In either case, it doesn't say much for who you are as a person if you fall into this category.
Regardless of who we are to blame for Trump being in the position he is in, we are now stuck with it for at least another year. Even though everyone knows he has continually broken laws, defied the Constitution and personally enriched his family and business partners while in office. Despite all this Republicans united to maintain their power base instead of protecting the Constitution and voted not to throw him out of office despite the fact that most or all of them realized he was guilty as charged; both in the case of trying to bribe an ally into investigating a political adversary and in the 2016 election investigation when he repeatedly and blatantly interfered in a justice department investigation into him and his cronies. Despite the fact that many of his closest confidantes are now in prison, Republican's still insist that Trump himself is innocent of doing anything but aggravating Democrats.
We have made our bed and now we must lie in it. We have slept with dogs and woken up with fleas. Now it's time to pay the piper, and pay the piper we will. The long term effects of what he has done to the economy will no doubt come home to roost soon but that is not what I am talking about at the moment. The Corona Virus that will no doubt soon infect large portions of the population will be Trump's hopefully final parting gift before leaving the stage. I am not going to claim that Trump somehow is responsible for the virus OR even try to claim that he could have stopped it. What I will say is that his incompetent approach to handling any and every crisis is critically at odds with what is needed now and we will pay for that with thousands of deaths in this country that didn't have to occur if we had a real leader in the White House who understood what is going on. All Trump can see is that it is hurting his chances for re-election and worse yet, hitting him where he can't stand to be hit; squarely in his massive and overblown ego.
Deny, deny, deny and deny louder are his first and automatic responses to any suggestion that his judgment might be faulty. We are in stage three of that at the moment. I am sure we would see several more stages if he had his way and was able to cover up what is actually going on but this one is beyond his control. In other words, he can't bully, intimidate, lie, and bullshit his way out of this one even though he is trying. Eventually, the numbers themselves will tend to show how ineffective blustering is when faced with a real problem. I sincerely hope all the experts are wrong. I do not want to see a pandemic that kills and sickens thousands and thousands of people decimate the population and wipe out large numbers of older Americans but it may be too late already. In any case, his continuing denials and refusal to put even basic pandemic safeguards in place are making it worse than it should be.
Republicans and Conservative Republican's specifically have been saying for years that the government should be responsible for protecting it's citizens to the exclusion of every other responsibility. This mentality has seen the cutting of public health initiatives for many, many years. Trump himself has steadily dismantled this system from his first day in office simultaneously while he added trillions of dollars to building American military might. If some of them would read the Constitution they profess to uphold they would recognize that a military defense is only ONE of the basic goals of the document. I'll save you the trouble of reading it by quoting from the Preamble below (highlights are my own).
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
As you can see, a common defense is only one of the basic reasons for creating the Constitution, no matter how many Republicans deny it. Without getting too far into the other goals of the people who wrote that document I think you can easily see that "promoting the general Welfare" is also an important part of why it was written. De-funding federal programs long put in place to protect us against the reality of pandemics is no less important when it comes to protecting Americans. As we may soon find out the hard way, it's a duty that the government itself is uniquely qualified and able to do.
Here is the gist of what Conservatives fail to recognize about Government. Promoting the general welfare involves a lot of things that aren't profitable. That is why we have government agencies that are created with that purpose in mind instead of private entities that are only interested in profits. They are not the same thing for the simple reason that they have completely different goals. Trump's recent defense of his policies by pointing out that it's not "good business" to keep a lot of doctors on staff to prevent outbreaks like this points out the basic fallacy of electing business people to run governments to begin with. It's not good business because it cuts into profits but it IS good government because it has saved a LOT of people's lives in the past and will no doubt save a lot of people's lives this time around because Trump and his ilk had not managed to completely destroy the CDC yet. Business and government are not the same thing. They never have been because they have vastly different duties and goals.
Trump has proven a lying, narcissistic, egomaniac with little regard for anything but his own ego can indeed be a successful businessman. We can argue all day over whether such unethical behavior SHOULD be something anyone recognizes as good business but he is living proof that a man can enrich himself without principles of any kind. Unfortunately. eventually he will also prove that these qualities are notoriously unsuited for running a government. Please think about that the next time you go vote. Either that or grit your teeth silently and hope you don't get the Coronavirus. The fact of the matter is that if you voted for Trump you have exponentially increased your chances of doing so.
1) You hated Hillary Clinton and couldn't stand the thought of four years of her as President. I actually struggled with this one myself but as the saying goes I held my breath and voted for the lesser of two evils.
2) You were ignorant of what Trump is now and always has been about. Trump is for Trump. Any means of boosting his ego and his bank account are eagerly sought after, whether they have anything to do with truth, honesty, or integrity or not. Trump is a habitual liar and always has been. Not only that, but he is devoid of integrity, basic honesty, or any other values that might interfere with his first and only love, promoting Trump. I can actually understand those who voted for Trump because they hated Clinton. I don't understand anyone who didn't take the time to do even a modicum of research to realize how debased and stupid Trump is and always has been. The number of people he has cheated, stolen from, and abused in every way in his long climb to notoriety is mind boggling. If you didn't or haven't taken the time to figure this out it is only because you are incredibly lazy or don't want to. I have as little respect for one as the other.
3) You are among the owner class that cares for nothing as much as how much money you can make. This applies to those who ignore Trump's basic dishonesty and trampling of ethics because they are personally enriched by his schemes AND those who think they might be in the future. In either case, it doesn't say much for who you are as a person if you fall into this category.
Regardless of who we are to blame for Trump being in the position he is in, we are now stuck with it for at least another year. Even though everyone knows he has continually broken laws, defied the Constitution and personally enriched his family and business partners while in office. Despite all this Republicans united to maintain their power base instead of protecting the Constitution and voted not to throw him out of office despite the fact that most or all of them realized he was guilty as charged; both in the case of trying to bribe an ally into investigating a political adversary and in the 2016 election investigation when he repeatedly and blatantly interfered in a justice department investigation into him and his cronies. Despite the fact that many of his closest confidantes are now in prison, Republican's still insist that Trump himself is innocent of doing anything but aggravating Democrats.
We have made our bed and now we must lie in it. We have slept with dogs and woken up with fleas. Now it's time to pay the piper, and pay the piper we will. The long term effects of what he has done to the economy will no doubt come home to roost soon but that is not what I am talking about at the moment. The Corona Virus that will no doubt soon infect large portions of the population will be Trump's hopefully final parting gift before leaving the stage. I am not going to claim that Trump somehow is responsible for the virus OR even try to claim that he could have stopped it. What I will say is that his incompetent approach to handling any and every crisis is critically at odds with what is needed now and we will pay for that with thousands of deaths in this country that didn't have to occur if we had a real leader in the White House who understood what is going on. All Trump can see is that it is hurting his chances for re-election and worse yet, hitting him where he can't stand to be hit; squarely in his massive and overblown ego.
Deny, deny, deny and deny louder are his first and automatic responses to any suggestion that his judgment might be faulty. We are in stage three of that at the moment. I am sure we would see several more stages if he had his way and was able to cover up what is actually going on but this one is beyond his control. In other words, he can't bully, intimidate, lie, and bullshit his way out of this one even though he is trying. Eventually, the numbers themselves will tend to show how ineffective blustering is when faced with a real problem. I sincerely hope all the experts are wrong. I do not want to see a pandemic that kills and sickens thousands and thousands of people decimate the population and wipe out large numbers of older Americans but it may be too late already. In any case, his continuing denials and refusal to put even basic pandemic safeguards in place are making it worse than it should be.
Republicans and Conservative Republican's specifically have been saying for years that the government should be responsible for protecting it's citizens to the exclusion of every other responsibility. This mentality has seen the cutting of public health initiatives for many, many years. Trump himself has steadily dismantled this system from his first day in office simultaneously while he added trillions of dollars to building American military might. If some of them would read the Constitution they profess to uphold they would recognize that a military defense is only ONE of the basic goals of the document. I'll save you the trouble of reading it by quoting from the Preamble below (highlights are my own).
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
As you can see, a common defense is only one of the basic reasons for creating the Constitution, no matter how many Republicans deny it. Without getting too far into the other goals of the people who wrote that document I think you can easily see that "promoting the general Welfare" is also an important part of why it was written. De-funding federal programs long put in place to protect us against the reality of pandemics is no less important when it comes to protecting Americans. As we may soon find out the hard way, it's a duty that the government itself is uniquely qualified and able to do.
Here is the gist of what Conservatives fail to recognize about Government. Promoting the general welfare involves a lot of things that aren't profitable. That is why we have government agencies that are created with that purpose in mind instead of private entities that are only interested in profits. They are not the same thing for the simple reason that they have completely different goals. Trump's recent defense of his policies by pointing out that it's not "good business" to keep a lot of doctors on staff to prevent outbreaks like this points out the basic fallacy of electing business people to run governments to begin with. It's not good business because it cuts into profits but it IS good government because it has saved a LOT of people's lives in the past and will no doubt save a lot of people's lives this time around because Trump and his ilk had not managed to completely destroy the CDC yet. Business and government are not the same thing. They never have been because they have vastly different duties and goals.
Trump has proven a lying, narcissistic, egomaniac with little regard for anything but his own ego can indeed be a successful businessman. We can argue all day over whether such unethical behavior SHOULD be something anyone recognizes as good business but he is living proof that a man can enrich himself without principles of any kind. Unfortunately. eventually he will also prove that these qualities are notoriously unsuited for running a government. Please think about that the next time you go vote. Either that or grit your teeth silently and hope you don't get the Coronavirus. The fact of the matter is that if you voted for Trump you have exponentially increased your chances of doing so.
Monday, February 3, 2020
Prolonged Absence
It's been a while.....
I'm going to renew my efforts here in the near future. I'll write more tomorrow.....
I'm going to renew my efforts here in the near future. I'll write more tomorrow.....
Monday, September 25, 2017
Strange Politics in Alabama
My hometown of Huntsville, Alabama had the honor of a Trump visit last night. Trump is campaigning in a Republican primary for the candidate of his choice. Nothing wrong with that I guess even though it is almost unheard of for the National Party to interfere in a state primary; much less the President of the United States. Trump couldn't seem to help himself as he stirred up more controversy by attacking football players protests and cursing them explicitly. His base loved it of course. Red meat for the masses.
In any case, the supposed reason for Trump's visit was to push for the election of Luther Strange, current sitting US Senator from Alabama. Strange was appointed by Governor Robert Bentley to finish out the term of Jeff Sessions when he vacated that office to assume the mantle of Attorney General in the Trump administration. Bentley appointed Luther Strange while at the same time eschewing a special election until the normal end of the term even though this was against Alabama law. No surprise there. Bentley was being investigated by the Attorney General of Alabama for misuse of campaign finance and state funds. Luther Strange was Attorney General of Alabama at the time. Strange held up the investigation long enough to get the appointment to the Senate. Bentley gave him the Senate seat and decided not to have a special election which would have given Strange several years before having to run for election.
Unfortunately for Bentley and Strange, the next attorney general he appointed did proceed with letting the legislature investigate Bentley and he wound up being forced to resign. Bentley was also convicted of misuse of campaign and state funds. The misuse was used to pay his lover, Rebecca Caldwell Mason, and her husband some $500,000 in campaign and state funds to assist him in public relations. Mrs. Mason, an ex TV weather girl, wasn't satisfied to collect a lot of money; she more or less ran the governor's office for the last two years of Bentley's term as his "special assistant" paid directly out of campaign funds. Having a public affair with someone else's wife who also worked for him wasn't enough to get Governor Bentley in trouble in Alabama; but he made the mistake of asking the legislature for a tax increase to help fund the collapsing state prison system before the Federal Government shuts it down for cruel and unusual punishment. In Alabama, as long as you go to church and act Christian a lot of things are seen as acceptable, but raising taxes to cover government essentials such as a prison system is not one of them.
The new governor, Kay Ivey, correctly called for a special election as soon as she took over after Bentley resigned. Luther Strange found himself facing Mo Brooks and Judge Roy Moore for the Republican nomination. It's technically a Republican nomination but essentially the general election because since Obama was president, there is almost no possibility of a Democrat winning a Senatorial race unless all the Republicans running are convicted felons and even that wouldn't make it a sure thing for a Democrat. Luther Strange also presided over the investigation, at least until he recused himself, of the powerful Speaker of the House of Alabama; Mike Hubbard.
Hubbard, who ran the Alabama Republican Legislature with an iron fist, was indicted on 23 felony counts shortly after Strange recused himself. That didn't stop the thoroughly crooked Alabama Legislature from re-electing Hubbard as Speaker AFTER he was indicted. Like I said earlier, you can get away with a lot of things in Alabama politics if you go to church and act pious. Hubbard was soon convicted on 12 felony counts and sent to prison which did necessitate his being removed as Speaker or I am sure he would still be there.
Meanwhile, Judge Roy Moore was removed from office as the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court for refusing to follow the US Constitution and US Supreme Court decisions. Moore, not satisfied with putting his own decisions above those of the legal authority he was sworn to uphold also advised lower courts in Alabama to do the same. This happened to be the SECOND time Moore was removed from the same office for the same offense. His first removal was over a Ten Commandments statue he had installed in the Alabama Supreme Court building. He refused to remove it when ordered by a Federal Court to do so and found himself booted out of office while the state was stuck with the legal fees for fighting the case all the way through the system.
Roy Moore is a cartoonish figure who has been around Alabama politics for a long time. He has stated on numerous occasions that the Bible is the root of all Constitutional law. This is a strange position for a man named as Chief Supreme Court justice in the state but you have to remember we are in Alabama (see my earlier comments about being a good christian). Moore has suggested that homosexuals should be imprisoned in one of his more enlightened comments and started out this campaign by going on a local radio show where he openly admitted he didn't know what the DACA program was. He promised he would look into it and form an opinion about it. I suppose if DACA isn't in the Bible, Moore can't be expected to know much about it. Add to this a constant litany of woefully ignorant quotes regarding Islam, abortion, and an abysmally misinformed understanding of actual history; and you begin to get a picture of the mental midget bigot that Moore has always been proud to be.
In short, we have an ex State Attorney General who wouldn't do his job and investigate the Governor or the Speaker of the House of Alabama. The Governor then rewards him for his inaction by appointing him Senator and ignoring Alabama law that says a special election has to be called so that he can build up a war chest of funds when he does have to actually run for the office. He is opposed at the moment by a twice removed ex Supreme Court Justice whose personal ignorance is quite possibly exceeded only by Donald Trump himself. Trump may have found himself a home in Alabama. We would probably appoint him lifetime Governor and give him the unlimited power and praise he desires if he would just ask.
THAT.... is how strange politics are in this state since the Republicans took over. It would be funny if it weren't so depressing.
In any case, the supposed reason for Trump's visit was to push for the election of Luther Strange, current sitting US Senator from Alabama. Strange was appointed by Governor Robert Bentley to finish out the term of Jeff Sessions when he vacated that office to assume the mantle of Attorney General in the Trump administration. Bentley appointed Luther Strange while at the same time eschewing a special election until the normal end of the term even though this was against Alabama law. No surprise there. Bentley was being investigated by the Attorney General of Alabama for misuse of campaign finance and state funds. Luther Strange was Attorney General of Alabama at the time. Strange held up the investigation long enough to get the appointment to the Senate. Bentley gave him the Senate seat and decided not to have a special election which would have given Strange several years before having to run for election.
Unfortunately for Bentley and Strange, the next attorney general he appointed did proceed with letting the legislature investigate Bentley and he wound up being forced to resign. Bentley was also convicted of misuse of campaign and state funds. The misuse was used to pay his lover, Rebecca Caldwell Mason, and her husband some $500,000 in campaign and state funds to assist him in public relations. Mrs. Mason, an ex TV weather girl, wasn't satisfied to collect a lot of money; she more or less ran the governor's office for the last two years of Bentley's term as his "special assistant" paid directly out of campaign funds. Having a public affair with someone else's wife who also worked for him wasn't enough to get Governor Bentley in trouble in Alabama; but he made the mistake of asking the legislature for a tax increase to help fund the collapsing state prison system before the Federal Government shuts it down for cruel and unusual punishment. In Alabama, as long as you go to church and act Christian a lot of things are seen as acceptable, but raising taxes to cover government essentials such as a prison system is not one of them.
The new governor, Kay Ivey, correctly called for a special election as soon as she took over after Bentley resigned. Luther Strange found himself facing Mo Brooks and Judge Roy Moore for the Republican nomination. It's technically a Republican nomination but essentially the general election because since Obama was president, there is almost no possibility of a Democrat winning a Senatorial race unless all the Republicans running are convicted felons and even that wouldn't make it a sure thing for a Democrat. Luther Strange also presided over the investigation, at least until he recused himself, of the powerful Speaker of the House of Alabama; Mike Hubbard.
Hubbard, who ran the Alabama Republican Legislature with an iron fist, was indicted on 23 felony counts shortly after Strange recused himself. That didn't stop the thoroughly crooked Alabama Legislature from re-electing Hubbard as Speaker AFTER he was indicted. Like I said earlier, you can get away with a lot of things in Alabama politics if you go to church and act pious. Hubbard was soon convicted on 12 felony counts and sent to prison which did necessitate his being removed as Speaker or I am sure he would still be there.
Meanwhile, Judge Roy Moore was removed from office as the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court for refusing to follow the US Constitution and US Supreme Court decisions. Moore, not satisfied with putting his own decisions above those of the legal authority he was sworn to uphold also advised lower courts in Alabama to do the same. This happened to be the SECOND time Moore was removed from the same office for the same offense. His first removal was over a Ten Commandments statue he had installed in the Alabama Supreme Court building. He refused to remove it when ordered by a Federal Court to do so and found himself booted out of office while the state was stuck with the legal fees for fighting the case all the way through the system.
Roy Moore is a cartoonish figure who has been around Alabama politics for a long time. He has stated on numerous occasions that the Bible is the root of all Constitutional law. This is a strange position for a man named as Chief Supreme Court justice in the state but you have to remember we are in Alabama (see my earlier comments about being a good christian). Moore has suggested that homosexuals should be imprisoned in one of his more enlightened comments and started out this campaign by going on a local radio show where he openly admitted he didn't know what the DACA program was. He promised he would look into it and form an opinion about it. I suppose if DACA isn't in the Bible, Moore can't be expected to know much about it. Add to this a constant litany of woefully ignorant quotes regarding Islam, abortion, and an abysmally misinformed understanding of actual history; and you begin to get a picture of the mental midget bigot that Moore has always been proud to be.
In short, we have an ex State Attorney General who wouldn't do his job and investigate the Governor or the Speaker of the House of Alabama. The Governor then rewards him for his inaction by appointing him Senator and ignoring Alabama law that says a special election has to be called so that he can build up a war chest of funds when he does have to actually run for the office. He is opposed at the moment by a twice removed ex Supreme Court Justice whose personal ignorance is quite possibly exceeded only by Donald Trump himself. Trump may have found himself a home in Alabama. We would probably appoint him lifetime Governor and give him the unlimited power and praise he desires if he would just ask.
THAT.... is how strange politics are in this state since the Republicans took over. It would be funny if it weren't so depressing.
Sunday, August 20, 2017
My First Close View of Racism
I grew up in the south. I have lived in the south for most of my life and I lived through the civil rights battles of the sixties in the south. Even though I was very young at the time, I remember those times and how they affected me and my family.
My grandmother was a racist. I don't mean she was a member of the Klan and burned crosses in people's yard but she was definitely a racist. I discovered this when I was seven years old and it shocked me quite a bit. In those days in the south, it was not at all an uncommon thing. The N word was in common usage; I heard it used daily and it was most definitely a term of derision and ridicule. My father was adamantly opposed to any such terminology but beyond that; he was even more opposed to the ideology of judging people's character by the color of their skin. Maybe that's why I had such trouble recognizing it in other people.
After my grandfather died, my father moved my grandmother from Birmingham to Huntsville where we lived in order to take care of her. She lived a few blocks away from us and most weekends either my brother or I would spend the night on Friday and Saturday night at Mimi's house. Mimi loved us dearly of course and we were at first very happy to get some alone time with her as well. She was a very proper southern lady, but she was also terrified of many, many things. I didn't realize this at first. Her admonitions to wear a hat or you'll get the cancer or put on a jacket so you don't get the pneumonia were kind of funny at first but I soon realized there was a deep mortal fear attached to each of them. They weren't just things to say, they were a kind of overwhelming fear that seemed to dominate her life.
Mimi lived in a small two bedroom house but slept on a pullout sofa right next to the front door in case the house caught on fire. She took old tomato cans and tied them together with string to make trip wires that would clang the cans around if an intruder came into the house. She slept with a .38 pistol under her pillow. One night the wind blew through an open window hard enough to blow them over and woke us both up. She immediately sat up in bed with that big pistol pointing at the noise and announced "I have a gun and I WILL use it." I was afraid to move for fear that she would shoot the next movement and there was a long, uncomfortable pause as we both listened to the wind blow before she leaned over and turned the light beside the bed on. After she searched the house and closed all the windows, it was stifling in the house but she kept vigil sitting in a rocking chair beside the bed with the big pistol in her lap the rest of the night. I didn't sleep very much after that either but I can still remember waking up sweating and seeing her sitting there peering around the room telling me to go back to sleep.
On Saturdays we would ride a bus into the old downtown of Huntsville that was known as Twickenham. She would go to the drug store and buy incidentals enough to fill up one bag. We would also usually go to Belk Hudson's store and she would insist on buying me a belt or a pair of dress pants. I had very little use for dress pants and often told her so but she would insist and tell me that just because my mother dressed me like a ragamuffin that didn't mean she had to. When we started out on Saturday she would make me take a bath and clean up while she shined my shoes and ironed my clothes. For her part, no matter how hot it was she would put on a Sunday dress complete with matching hat and long elbow length lacy gloves. Sometimes the hat would have a black veil that would cover most of her face but I didn't get the import of that for quite a while.
We would walk to the corner to catch the bus. If it was sunny, she would carry a parasol and insist that we both stay under it to keep the cancer off of us. I wasn't allowed to examine rocks, catch insects, or follow any of my normal instincts when I was with her. I was to "act like a young gentleman" and try to curb my curiosity about most things. My dad had told me that when I was in her care I was to live by her rules. My dad didn't say things to hear himself talk and I was smart enough to try to follow his directions without argument. The bus driver knew Mimi by name and would always smile and greet us with "How are you today Miz McLeroy?". She would just barely perceptively nod in return as she put her token in the box and he would usually kid me about what kind of candy I was going to get at the drug store. He always called me "young master McLeroy" which I thought was overdoing it a little but he was unalterably cheerful and smiling every time we caught his bus.
The best part of our Saturdays in Twickenham were that we would always eat out. Our family never ate out. We couldn't afford to for one thing but since there were five kids of varying ages, it was also quite an ordeal to get everyone dressed and ready. Saturday with Mimi meant we either ate at the Rexall Drug Store counter or at Britling's Cafeteria. I was partial to the drug store counter because they had those little round orange stools that would spin around if I was lucky enough to catch Mimi not looking for a minute. They also served a little cheeseburger and Mimi would let me have a whole order of fries by myself so Rexall was always my choice. Britling's Cafeteria was the old kind of cafeteria where all the food was displayed and you would make your choices as you went through the line. The only odd thing about Britling's was that they didn't serve you a plate at the end of the line, they just wrote down what you picked out from the sample line and then had waiters that brought the food to you after you found a seat.
Britling's was quite a plush place. The carpet was a deep red and black patterned carpet that was absolutely noiseless as you walked on it. The tables were all covered with pristine white tablecloths with a nice little flower arrangement on each. The chairs and tables were heavy oak burnished almost black with careful polishing. There was a stainless steel handrail all down the food line perfect for discharging the heavy static charge I could accumulate by dragging my leather soled shoes on the carpet and slowly pushing my finger toward the handrail. Over several steps I could generate a charge loud enough to make an audible pop and see the small arc of electricity that resulted. Of course Mimi would instantly remind me this was uncouth behavior whenever she caught me but I could usually do it a couple of times before she noticed.
Once we placed our order we would find a nice table and Mimi would wait for one of the waiters to pull her chair back so she could sit down. I tried to do it for her one day but she told me that was the waiter's job and had me stand by while we waited. She wouldn't say anything of course or look at the waiter, it was simply their job to see she was ready to be seated and respond. The waiters were all black in Britling's. They wore high waisted black pants with a black velvet stripe down the leg and bright red velvet vests. Their shirts were starched white with stiff collars and a black tie tucked neatly down inside their red velvet vests. When they saw her waiting they would hurriedly step over and pull her chair back with a kind of slight bow and nod of the head. A soft "ma'am" would escape their lips as they pulled the chair back. When she was seated they would softly maneuver the chair in place as she lifted herself just slightly enough so that three little moves were necessary to get her under the table properly. It was quite a practiced ordeal, this getting the chair under the table with her in it but they had it down to a science. "Will there be anything else Ma'am?" always followed.
"No thank you," she would say without looking at them. I would always scramble into my chair while this was going on because I found it slighly embarrassing in some way and was always anxious she was going to make me go through the same actions to be seated but she never did. I suppose she settled for what little order she could impose on me without trying to train me completely.
One particular Saturday I was lobbying hard for the Rexall lunch but she overruled me. I was having a hard time with her rules that day as I knew my brother was off playing ball with our friends and I had a new baseball mitt and I had traded some army men and a bunch of good baseball cards to get. Every time she scolded me for slouching or dragging my feet that day was a fresh reminder that I wasn't where I wanted to be. I felt a little bad for being put out with her but it was still in my mind when we got to Britling's. I hadn't exactly argued for Rexall but she knew I was out of sorts to begin with so I suppose she was trying to explain her choice when this happened. After we placed our order and the waiter went through the elaborate seating routine she said, "That's why I like this place. These people know their place here."
It took me a minute to understand what she was saying. The waiter was still standing there when she said it. Once I caught her meaning a red flush of embarrassment washed over me. I looked at the waiter but he pretended not to hear what she said. "Will there be anything else, ma'am?" he said without a touch of any resentment. His eyes met mine for just a second after he said it and I could see something flicker across them. I couldn't tell if it was anger or pity for me because he could see I was flushed red and completely embarrassed. I scrambled into my chair and tried not to look at him again. I was ashamed. I was ashamed of what she had said and I was ashamed of my reaction. I wanted to apologize to him but I knew I couldn't. I wanted to tell her how wrong what she had just done was but I couldn't do that either. All I could do was sit there and be embarrassed for all of us.
A lot of things became clear to me in the next few minutes of thought. Mimi was a racist. Her refusal to acknowledge the bus driver's greetings, her refusal to look at the waiters at Britling's except to make sure their eyes were downcast as they addressed her. It all made sense to me and it shamed me. Mimi came from a long line of privileged wealthy people. The wealth had dwindled by the time she met my grandfather but the expectation of privilege never did. The loss of her wealth was hard on her but the idea of racial equality was completely foreign to her and she both feared and hated it. I noticed a lot of things after that with Mimi but I can still remember that moment quite clearly. The moment I first saw racism in its naked ignorant ugliness.
My grandmother was a racist. I don't mean she was a member of the Klan and burned crosses in people's yard but she was definitely a racist. I discovered this when I was seven years old and it shocked me quite a bit. In those days in the south, it was not at all an uncommon thing. The N word was in common usage; I heard it used daily and it was most definitely a term of derision and ridicule. My father was adamantly opposed to any such terminology but beyond that; he was even more opposed to the ideology of judging people's character by the color of their skin. Maybe that's why I had such trouble recognizing it in other people.
After my grandfather died, my father moved my grandmother from Birmingham to Huntsville where we lived in order to take care of her. She lived a few blocks away from us and most weekends either my brother or I would spend the night on Friday and Saturday night at Mimi's house. Mimi loved us dearly of course and we were at first very happy to get some alone time with her as well. She was a very proper southern lady, but she was also terrified of many, many things. I didn't realize this at first. Her admonitions to wear a hat or you'll get the cancer or put on a jacket so you don't get the pneumonia were kind of funny at first but I soon realized there was a deep mortal fear attached to each of them. They weren't just things to say, they were a kind of overwhelming fear that seemed to dominate her life.
Mimi lived in a small two bedroom house but slept on a pullout sofa right next to the front door in case the house caught on fire. She took old tomato cans and tied them together with string to make trip wires that would clang the cans around if an intruder came into the house. She slept with a .38 pistol under her pillow. One night the wind blew through an open window hard enough to blow them over and woke us both up. She immediately sat up in bed with that big pistol pointing at the noise and announced "I have a gun and I WILL use it." I was afraid to move for fear that she would shoot the next movement and there was a long, uncomfortable pause as we both listened to the wind blow before she leaned over and turned the light beside the bed on. After she searched the house and closed all the windows, it was stifling in the house but she kept vigil sitting in a rocking chair beside the bed with the big pistol in her lap the rest of the night. I didn't sleep very much after that either but I can still remember waking up sweating and seeing her sitting there peering around the room telling me to go back to sleep.
On Saturdays we would ride a bus into the old downtown of Huntsville that was known as Twickenham. She would go to the drug store and buy incidentals enough to fill up one bag. We would also usually go to Belk Hudson's store and she would insist on buying me a belt or a pair of dress pants. I had very little use for dress pants and often told her so but she would insist and tell me that just because my mother dressed me like a ragamuffin that didn't mean she had to. When we started out on Saturday she would make me take a bath and clean up while she shined my shoes and ironed my clothes. For her part, no matter how hot it was she would put on a Sunday dress complete with matching hat and long elbow length lacy gloves. Sometimes the hat would have a black veil that would cover most of her face but I didn't get the import of that for quite a while.
We would walk to the corner to catch the bus. If it was sunny, she would carry a parasol and insist that we both stay under it to keep the cancer off of us. I wasn't allowed to examine rocks, catch insects, or follow any of my normal instincts when I was with her. I was to "act like a young gentleman" and try to curb my curiosity about most things. My dad had told me that when I was in her care I was to live by her rules. My dad didn't say things to hear himself talk and I was smart enough to try to follow his directions without argument. The bus driver knew Mimi by name and would always smile and greet us with "How are you today Miz McLeroy?". She would just barely perceptively nod in return as she put her token in the box and he would usually kid me about what kind of candy I was going to get at the drug store. He always called me "young master McLeroy" which I thought was overdoing it a little but he was unalterably cheerful and smiling every time we caught his bus.
The best part of our Saturdays in Twickenham were that we would always eat out. Our family never ate out. We couldn't afford to for one thing but since there were five kids of varying ages, it was also quite an ordeal to get everyone dressed and ready. Saturday with Mimi meant we either ate at the Rexall Drug Store counter or at Britling's Cafeteria. I was partial to the drug store counter because they had those little round orange stools that would spin around if I was lucky enough to catch Mimi not looking for a minute. They also served a little cheeseburger and Mimi would let me have a whole order of fries by myself so Rexall was always my choice. Britling's Cafeteria was the old kind of cafeteria where all the food was displayed and you would make your choices as you went through the line. The only odd thing about Britling's was that they didn't serve you a plate at the end of the line, they just wrote down what you picked out from the sample line and then had waiters that brought the food to you after you found a seat.
Britling's was quite a plush place. The carpet was a deep red and black patterned carpet that was absolutely noiseless as you walked on it. The tables were all covered with pristine white tablecloths with a nice little flower arrangement on each. The chairs and tables were heavy oak burnished almost black with careful polishing. There was a stainless steel handrail all down the food line perfect for discharging the heavy static charge I could accumulate by dragging my leather soled shoes on the carpet and slowly pushing my finger toward the handrail. Over several steps I could generate a charge loud enough to make an audible pop and see the small arc of electricity that resulted. Of course Mimi would instantly remind me this was uncouth behavior whenever she caught me but I could usually do it a couple of times before she noticed.
Once we placed our order we would find a nice table and Mimi would wait for one of the waiters to pull her chair back so she could sit down. I tried to do it for her one day but she told me that was the waiter's job and had me stand by while we waited. She wouldn't say anything of course or look at the waiter, it was simply their job to see she was ready to be seated and respond. The waiters were all black in Britling's. They wore high waisted black pants with a black velvet stripe down the leg and bright red velvet vests. Their shirts were starched white with stiff collars and a black tie tucked neatly down inside their red velvet vests. When they saw her waiting they would hurriedly step over and pull her chair back with a kind of slight bow and nod of the head. A soft "ma'am" would escape their lips as they pulled the chair back. When she was seated they would softly maneuver the chair in place as she lifted herself just slightly enough so that three little moves were necessary to get her under the table properly. It was quite a practiced ordeal, this getting the chair under the table with her in it but they had it down to a science. "Will there be anything else Ma'am?" always followed.
"No thank you," she would say without looking at them. I would always scramble into my chair while this was going on because I found it slighly embarrassing in some way and was always anxious she was going to make me go through the same actions to be seated but she never did. I suppose she settled for what little order she could impose on me without trying to train me completely.
One particular Saturday I was lobbying hard for the Rexall lunch but she overruled me. I was having a hard time with her rules that day as I knew my brother was off playing ball with our friends and I had a new baseball mitt and I had traded some army men and a bunch of good baseball cards to get. Every time she scolded me for slouching or dragging my feet that day was a fresh reminder that I wasn't where I wanted to be. I felt a little bad for being put out with her but it was still in my mind when we got to Britling's. I hadn't exactly argued for Rexall but she knew I was out of sorts to begin with so I suppose she was trying to explain her choice when this happened. After we placed our order and the waiter went through the elaborate seating routine she said, "That's why I like this place. These people know their place here."
It took me a minute to understand what she was saying. The waiter was still standing there when she said it. Once I caught her meaning a red flush of embarrassment washed over me. I looked at the waiter but he pretended not to hear what she said. "Will there be anything else, ma'am?" he said without a touch of any resentment. His eyes met mine for just a second after he said it and I could see something flicker across them. I couldn't tell if it was anger or pity for me because he could see I was flushed red and completely embarrassed. I scrambled into my chair and tried not to look at him again. I was ashamed. I was ashamed of what she had said and I was ashamed of my reaction. I wanted to apologize to him but I knew I couldn't. I wanted to tell her how wrong what she had just done was but I couldn't do that either. All I could do was sit there and be embarrassed for all of us.
A lot of things became clear to me in the next few minutes of thought. Mimi was a racist. Her refusal to acknowledge the bus driver's greetings, her refusal to look at the waiters at Britling's except to make sure their eyes were downcast as they addressed her. It all made sense to me and it shamed me. Mimi came from a long line of privileged wealthy people. The wealth had dwindled by the time she met my grandfather but the expectation of privilege never did. The loss of her wealth was hard on her but the idea of racial equality was completely foreign to her and she both feared and hated it. I noticed a lot of things after that with Mimi but I can still remember that moment quite clearly. The moment I first saw racism in its naked ignorant ugliness.
Friday, June 16, 2017
Integrity
One of the ethical precepts I was raised to respect is the simple idea of doing the right thing. My dad was a stickler for this idea. Doing the right thing isn’t that hard according to his teachings. It isn’t about always knowing what is right, always being correct, or always knowing all the answers. It is about being true to yourself and your values. Anyone can follow directions. Anyone can do what they think is right when circumstances encourage correct behavior. The hard part is doing what is right when circumstances don’t encourage it.
I will be the first to admit that I haven’t always done the right thing. There have been instances in my life where I knew what the right thing to do but chose to do the easier thing, or the thing that was more fun, or the thing that would advance my standing. I have always felt terrible when I did this, when I knew what the right thing to do was and simply didn’t do it through personal weakness or laziness.
As I have gotten older, I have found it easier to do the right thing consistently, both for my own peace of mind and because it is simply what I am supposed to do. Correct actions tend to breed correct actions. I have found that standing up for what I think is right is more powerful and necessary than anything I might gain from the opposite action. I always am able to discern what I am supposed to do and for quite a few years it has been the basis for deciding everything in my life.
I don’t suppose that I always know what is right, but I do know that I can follow what I think is right no matter where it may lead. People respect others who follow this principle, even when they disagree with the rationale for deciding the difference between right and wrong. It is more formally called integrity; the effort to do what you believe is right regardless of circumstance.
Unfortunately, this idea of doing what we think is right seems to have fallen into disuse in most aspects of our lives. The idea that the end results outweigh the means seems to be the more prevalent understanding today. Doing what you know is right is a foreign concept in most of the business world today. It is considerably secondary to maximizing profit and market share. This is perhaps the main reason why I have so little use for business leaders running for government positions. The government is not an entity built to make a profit, it is the only means we have of making sure that people are able to do the right thing and still live a good life.
Integrity in our government is perhaps the most important aspect of our government. In a democratic system it is an absolute necessity. The tendency of our leadership to display integrity directly correlates to their ability to effectively govern. There is no substitute for doing the right thing in governance. It is the mortar that holds the edifice of government together and without it, the whole thing inevitably collapses.
We seem to be seeing an appalling lack of integrity in our government presently. From a President who doesn’t have the integrity to tell the truth about almost anything to the Director of the FBI who doesn’t have the integrity to tell the president he can’t discuss active investigations with him. We have seen numerous high government officials in the last couple of weeks testify under oath before Congressional Committees charged with fact finding that they refuse to answer questions about conversations with the President and yet insist they are not invoking Executive Privilege.
We may as well not have Congressional Committees if they are not going to compel testimony from witnesses that appear before them. Any refusal to do so in open or closed session should be immediate grounds for holding the person testifying in contempt of Congress. We should hold those testifying responsible for telling the truth and we should hold the Committee members they are testifying before responsible for making sure they do so.
Doing the right thing is often hard. It involves withstanding political and personal repercussions accordingly. It is also absolutely necessary in our form of government and we should insist that the people we elect adhere to the principle accordingly. I am not sure our form of government can survive the idea that we don’t need integrity. Unfortunately, it looks like we are getting ready to find out if we can or not.
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