Sunday Morning Coming Down

 Four years ago I cringed when I heard Hillary Clinton call out a lot of folks as a "basket of deplorables" that were racist, sexist, homophobic, and xenophobic.  She deserved to be called out on this.  I'm not sure how the American electorate would score themselves score themselves on a scale of  0 to 10 with 0 being not at all and 10 being absolutely racist, sexist, homophobic and xenophobic. This morning I read a Jared Kushner pronouncement on race: "   Black Americans have to "want to be successful,".     Everybody wants to be successful.  Having a white kid that was born with just about every advantage call out Black Americans for not having ambitions is the height of  "chutzpah". Maybe this resonates with Bill Cosby but it's hardly a winning political argument. 

 The results of Sweden's attempt  to invoke the "third way" of dealing with COVID 19 are less restrictive financially but have resulted in more deaths than other countries that have common borders with Sweden.   A total of 5918 deaths out of 103,200 cases as of 10/19/2020.  Sweden's population is about 10.2 million people. Hospitality and kindness are positive values as is "everything in moderation" and egalitarianism. Sweden has been the poster child for herd immunity.  From the New York Post: But the country’s public health agency has said this week that it will start giving authority to local regions that are experiencing outbreaks to instruct residents to avoid certain public spaces, such as shopping centers, concerts or sports games. “It’s more of a lockdown situation — but a local lockdown,” Johan Nojd, who leads the infectious diseases department in Uppsala, which is experiencing a rise in cases,  told the Telegraph . Sweden has seen new cases r...

The vote by mail ballot for the November 3rd election came last week.  It was completed and mailed on October 6, 2020.  The ballot was received by the Elections Department on October 8, 2020.  So far so good.  It's been reported that Miami Dade County will begin counting mail in ballots on October 12, 2020. This is the first time in my life I have voted by mail.  I have usually voted in person on the appointed election day and have only missed an election while in West Virginia for graduate school.  I had an advantage in voting because my employer gave me an hour off of work to go vote.  I have also been poll worker, voting registrar, and election day troubleshooter and a person who helped screen punch cards to make sure they would go through the computer and be counted.  These election jobs were something I got assigned to as a county employee loaned to the Elections Department during my 30 plus year career with Miami Dade County. Meanwhile:...

 Charlie Sykes wrote this :  I know I’m dating myself with a reference to Helmsley, whose reign as the “Queen of Mean,” in the 1980s has been eclipsed by so many more deplorable villains. At the height of her notoriety,  Forbes later wrote , “she was as big as Donald Trump or Kim Kardashian.” Her comment that “Only little people pay taxes became America’s version of ‘let them eat cake.’” In 1992, she was   sentenced  to four years in prison for tax evasion. Really, really rich folks usually figure out ways to avoid or defer paying taxes.  And in my lifetime I've been to the homes of three people who were very wealthy and worked diligently to accumulate that wealth.  Real estate that is on the water in Miami has a way of appreciating in value in ways that defy most measures of value, taxes, inflation and most normal folks incomes.  The houses of the "rich and famous" are the backbone of their wealth. Living in a modest 700 square foot apartment in ...