Sunday Morning Coming Down

 Last Sunday I went to Publix across the street from the University of Miami and there was a younger looking fellow that was playing sort of classical music at the entrance to the parking lot. Along with the boom box amp, there was a request for donations. As a long time Miami resident, panhandling kind of goes with the territory.  Usually, it's just a request for any level of support greatly appreciated.  And then there's the exceptional panhandlers who sell fruits and vegetables, cold water, chewing gum, putting lessons?, and in this case electronic violin selections. Just about every intersection has these folks dodging traffic while trying to supplement their income. I do my best to ignore these folks that just have the cardboard signs. I've bought chicle, water, and limes, and if I still played golf I might have asked the guy in the golf shirt for a tip. The guy with the violin got called out Next Door like he was some kind of a fraud.  Something just didn't see...

The storm that became Hurricane Andrew formed in the Atlantic Ocean on August 16, 1992. If you lived in Miami back then you probably still have vivid memories of the hurricane and the aftermath that you will carry with you for the rest of your life. Today was sort of a hurricane season rehearsal.  I had bought a charger than can do more than charge your phone, like add air to tires, jump start your, a light that you can read by and two USB ports.  The instructions say it should be used monthly and recharged and recharged monthly. While on the phone I was cutoff and thought it was my cable company, a few minutes later I opened the fridge and realized the power was down. My cell phone was recharging on the new charger.  I was able to get information from FPL, that help was on the way and would be restored at 4:15pm.  FPL missed the mark by a little over an hour, but my cell phone got a full charge pretty quickly.  After a light lunch at American Legion Post 31, I ...

Superman on TV was always fighting for "Truth, Justice, and the American Way".  Yes, Superman is aspirational and a comic book creation.  To most watchers these days it seems almost corny to look up into the sky and for people to see Superman disguised as Clark Kent flying off to help friends, catch bad guys, do the right thing while fighting off really bad guys who would sap his powers with Kryptonite. This morning I came across a series of tweets by Jennifer Mercieca describing what real leaders of a democracy would be saying about the shortcomings of the previous administration as revealed in the past ten days or so. A serious statesman would comment about how important national security is, admitted mistakes were made in the proper retention of documents related to national security and promised actions to correct previous mistakes and thank agencies and the good people responsible for maintaining our security in the FBI and Department of Justice for all their efforts. In...

 Alternative histories seem to be all the thing at least for the last week or so or maybe the last five years. The charges and counter charges of what went down at Mar A Lago has brought out commentators of all stripes and it is all about what didn't happen during the general election of 2020, the results of the election in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. There have also been two impeachment trials brought by democrats and dismissed almost entirely by republicans. On January 6th, 2021, there was a riot, insurrection or failed coup attempt depending on who, what, when, and why you believe.  Where it all started is open to conjecture to some, but the preponderance of the evidence is that republicans at the highest level of government tried to muck up the results of the 2020 election for president.  The potential for a bipartisan search for the truth was again rejected by an almost straight party line vote.  Was the republican senate taki...

To let go of something is not always a bad thing.  Same can be said to forgive and forget. And then there is the rest of the story, which can lead you to never again, never again. The Reganism of ""trust but verify" is another "down the rabbit hole" of public policies. It would be step forward if politics were not be subverted by the threat of vetoes in all its forms.  The ultimate truth that incumbents choose their voters and moderates in both parties get primaried by folks that believe moderation in politics is wishy-washy, election results are suspect, as long as it is politically expedient and by extension so is just about anything your opponent is for, without the need for any alternative. Yesterday, I heard a story about a 30 by 30 plan which would save, conserve and improve 30 % of the nation's lands.   The 30 by 30 plan  is the federal push to conserve 30% of U.S. lands and waters by the year 2030. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, right now ...

 The following are members of the United States Senate that voted against a January 6th Commission: John Barrasso of Wyoming John Boozman of Arkansas Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia John Cornyn of Texas Tom Cotton of Arkansas Kevin Cramer of North Dakota Mike Crapo of Idaho Ted Cruz of Texas Steve Daines of Montana Joni Ernst of Iowa Deb Fischer of Nebraska Lindsey Graham of South Carolina Chuck Grassley of Iowa Bill Hagerty of Tennessee Josh Hawley of Missouri John Hoeven of North Dakota Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi Ron Johnson of Wisconsin John Kennedy of Louisiana James Lankford of Oklahoma Mike Lee of Utah Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming Roger Marshall of Kansas Mitch McConnell of Kentucky Jerry Moran of Kansas Rand Paul of Kentucky Marco Rubio of Florida Rick Scott of Florida Tim Scott of South Carolina Dan Sullivan of Alaska John Thune of South Dakota Thom Tillis of North Carolina Tommy Tuberville of Alabama Roger Wicker of Mississippi Todd Young of Indiana. Only six Repub...

I haven't been to an office for a while, but in the "old" days, people left voice mails on your desk phone and there was a business issued e-mail address.  If  the company didn't buy you a cell phone for work you could almost guess they were being used were used for personal stuff.  Like, call me on my cell phone, not on the office line because they might be hooked up to something where there was a record of the communications. With government issued phones I'm surprised that there isn't a record of all communications somewhere and that they can't be recovered, and this would apply to text messages as well. If extraordinary measures were taken to delete text messages, you can be forgiven if you think something is fishy.  In my old experience government computers were rarely state of the art so the erasure of messages might also be related to outdated technology. The time involved with sorting the personal from work related stuff may be so daunting and over...

Thomas Malthus wrote that whenever the human condition improved we added more people instead of trying to maintain a better standard of living when fewer of us died of starvation.  He was also ahead of his time in proposing that increased abundance brought on inflation rather than an effort to improve the standard of living for the poor and disabled. There were examples of a utopian existence for some but a continued level of poverty for the masses. What seems to be happening is a combination of all the situations that Malthus said would limit population growth, a growing middle class under pressure, and environmental stresses that may checkmate increased growth and an improved standard of living for all. Are these issues transitory or are they something that is getting baked into how the Earth is and will become? I'm really not sure which of these issues is the most important, whether it is war, famine, global climate change, or poverty, some other major problem like an ongoing pa...