Mr. Trump Goes To Washington

You may recall that the issues that won Donald Trump the Republican nomination and ultimately the Presidency were things that more or less had simplicity and economic nationalism in common. Trump wove a story of feckless elite American leadership that was either compromised by, intimidated by or in bed with foreign interests.Trump was going to change all this by putting America first. Now people who bothered to look at Trump's business history and that of his family knew that this was at best unlikely. But what the Democrats and their candidate didn't understand was that there was a hunger for the narrative that Trump was selling, that America needed to put its own economic and military interests first and stop dancing to the tune called by others. There is obviously a very strong racist and anti-Semitic undertone to some of this. But as I've written elsewhere in and of itself nationalism is not always a bad thing. Many of Trump's most fervent supporters were drawn to his oft simplistic, yet  generally nationalist stances on trade, immigration, jobs, foreign policy and infrastructure. Well the Presidency has a way of changing people. There were plenty of indications of this even before the latest news but over the past ten days or so the President has gone out of his way to reverse himself on many of his statements prior to becoming President.  

My Office Hours Are From Nine to Five

In the movie The Five Heartbeats there is a classic scene in which the singer Bird, disturbed by some irregularities with his royalty payment amount and frequency, confronts the cheerful gangster record label owner Big Red at a party. Big Red jovially attempts to explain to Bird that Big Red prefers to handle business during his office hours, which are nine to five, and not during his time off. Bird expresses his displeasure at this stance. Big Red then convinces Bird to see things his way. I was reminded of this movie scene recently when I was in line at the local post office. It was just before closing time. At closing time one of the post office employees will lock the entry door. At that point if you aren't already in line you won't be allowed into the post office service lobby.  Roughly two minutes after the workers had locked the entry door a man who may or may not have been mentally challenged came into the post office and started ranting and raving about how he needed to pick up a package. The workers said that the office was now closed. This man yelled that if he didn't get the package today then he would lose his job. The senior post office worker responded that the man's problems had nothing to do with them and that the man needed to close the door and leave. The man left. But he was wandering around the parking lot gesticulating and screaming. 

Then an older woman who was apparently either the man's caretaker, mother or grandmother came in. She also started yelling and making snide comments about how "you people" should help the man because he was about to lose his job. The post office worker again said that the office was closed and that the woman needed to leave. 

Book Reviews: The Phantom Tollbooth

The Phantom Tollbooth
by Norton Juster

This was one of my favorite children's books from back in the day. A few months back I reread it to see if the story held up to a more jaundiced eye. It did. I believe that this is one of the rare books that can be equally enjoyed by both children and adults. Adults and precocious children alike will appreciate the unending wordplay, puns and explorations of paradox. Adults, especially those who have more time behind them on this earth than they have remaining might also take to heart the book's underlying message that time is precious and what you do on this planet truly matters. The Phantom Tollbooth can also be understood as a quirky Alice in Wonderland story and enjoyed purely on that level. You don't have to find deeper messages in everything, after all. The book made just as much of an impression for the illustrations, provided by famed cartoonist Jules Feiffer, as it did for the story. This is a relatively short story that doesn't waste a lot of time on character development. This makes sense because the protagonist literally doesn't have time for long discussions with one or two people. He's thrown immediately into adventure. People are annoyed that he doesn't get up to speed as quickly as they would like. This is an ongoing source of humor throughout the book. It is interesting that this author was able to get so much out of the "You could do it all along" trope which is found in Dumbo, The Wizard of Oz, and many other stories. Again, I would bet that this book has more puns contained within than any other book with the exception of stories written by Terry Pratchett.

Milo is a preteen child who is, despite his tender age, bored and cynical about the world. He can't stand school and views afternoons as nearly impossible to get through. Although he's not suicidal or anything he is a little depressed. Life seems pretty meaningless. And there's too much of it left. 

Santa Monica PTA and Equality

I thought that this story coming out of Santa Monica was interesting because it obliquely and not so obliquely touches on a lot of the fault lines of modern life-race, class, gender, citizenship status. It also reminded me, as many social programs are likely to do, of Kurt Vonnegut's dystopic satire Harrison Bergeron, in which equality is not only the law of the land but is affirmatively guaranteed and vigorously enforced by action of the government. In this story equality of outcome, not equal opportunity, is what is mandated. So no one is allowed to have more or less of anything than anyone else. Smarter people have electrodes placed in their brain to disrupt their thinking. Attractive people must wear prosthetics to make themselves less good looking. Strong people must have weights attached so that they can't take "unfair" advantage of their strength. And the Handicapper-in-General is licensed to arrest or execute anyone who tries to use their natural talents.

Broadly speaking, Vonnegut was a man of the left. But the Harrison Bergeron story, which today reads as if it were written by a right wing libertarian, remains a prophetic piece of sci-fi. So this story out of California was intriguing.

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Of all the inequalities between rich and poor public schools, one of the more glaring divides is PTA fund-raising, which in schools with well-heeled parents can generate hundreds of thousands of dollars a year or more. Several years ago, the Santa Monica-Malibu school board came up with a solution: Pool most donations from across the district and distribute them equally to all the schools. 

This has paid big benefits to the needier schools in this wealthy district, like the Edison Language Academy in Santa Monica, where half the children qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The campus is decorated with psychedelic paintings of civil rights icons such as Cesar Chavez and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the work of the school’s art teacher, Martha Ramirez Oropeza, whose salary is paid by the pooled contributions. That money has also funded the school’s choral program, teacher aides, a science lab and a telescope. 

Book Reviews: Say Nothing

Say Nothing
by Brad Parks

It is fascinating that by browsing in a bookstore you can find books that you never would have found online. That's the biggest reason why I still patronize bookstores. You can get a feeling for a story by holding the book and flipping through it that you can't get otherwise. I don't think I had ever heard of this author before. Without his book being on display I would have continued on, blissfully ignorant of his work. Well that would have been a loss. Don't get me wrong. You can also get some truly bad clunkers by picking up unheralded books but overall I've been pretty lucky in finding some heretofore hidden gems in bookstores. Now for all I know this book could have been hyped endlessly in various newspaper reviews. I don't know. All I know was that it was new to me. I enjoyed it. Although this book is not by any means a horror story I found myself being reminded of Stephen King for the quick easy way that Parks outlined his characters and put them in some very dangerous yet believable situations. A truism about life that is both wonderful and yet terrifying is that something horrible can happen to you, something that will change your life forever, and the world will keep on turning. Right now someone somewhere is drawing their last breath. Someone is falling in love. Someone is being fired. Someone just got shot. Someone just got promoted to partner/division head/managing director. Someone is beating their spouse. And someone is joyously listening to their child's first words. And despite all of that the sun is going to rise tomorrow.

Suburban Virginia resident and Federal District Judge Scott Sampson experiences the seeming arbitrary nature of life one Wednesday afternoon. He is, as is his prerogative as workplace boss, about to leave work early to pick up his six year old twins, Sam and Emma, from school. The plan is to go swimming at the YMCA as they do every Wednesday.  Scott really enjoys being a father. He enjoys every second he spends with his offspring.

Illegal Immigration and Discrimination Against Black Americans

With Donald Trump's election there has been a sharp shift in interior and border enforcement against unlawfully resident foreign nationals (illegal immigrants). Per Trump's directives, most of the people detained so far by ICE have been people with felony records and/or previously existing orders of removal. Many people, American or not, fiercely oppose the new Administration's policy changes. Some folks demand that there be not a single more deportation. Others have dropped their pretenses and now insist that the US have open borders. Scarcely a day goes by without one of the major newspapers of record (New York Times, Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, etc) featuring a story, editorial or column decrying the possible removal of illegal immigrants. Some people have drawn analogies between deportations and the US enslavement of Africans or the Holocaust. There have been multiple demonstrations and even a few disturbances here or there. But many people have overlooked the impact that illegal immigration can have on American citizens. This is a story from December of 2016 but it's still quite timely in my view. 

A group of African-American men filed a lawsuit Tuesday in Chicago federal court alleging systematic discrimination by a temporary staffing agency and several of its clients they say passed over black applicants in favor of Hispanic workers. The alleged discrimination took place at MVP Staffing's Cicero branch office, which the lawsuit claims was directed by clients not to send African-American workers to their companies for assignments.
Those wishes allegedly were communicated using code words, according to testimony from former dispatchers and on-site representatives given in prior cases and attached to the filing as evidence. For example, according to the lawsuit, "guapos," which translates to pretty boys, would be used to refer to African-Americans to suggest they don't want to do dirty work. The terms "feos" (translated to mean "dirty ones")," "bilingues" (bilinguals) and "los que escuchan La Ley" (referring to people who listen to Spanish-language radio station La Ley) were used to refer to Hispanic laborers, the lawsuit alleges.

Game of Thrones Season Seven Trailer(2)

Well another day another HBO Game of Thrones Season Seven trailer. Like the one before it this one appears to be designed to give away precisely nothing while increasing speculation. There are, or apparently will be, three power centers in Westeros now: the reconstituted Starks in the North, Cersei Lannister in King's Landing and The Westerlands and the soon to be arriving Daenerys Targaryen, who will possibly have the support of everyone in the South who doesn't like Cersei. And since Cersei has never been shy about murdering her enemies, that's a lot of people. All three rulers appear set on a collision course. 

Will Daenerys and Jon learn that they are aunt and nephew? Will the rulers have to make common cause against the long delayed White Walker invasion? And what do Sansa and Littlefinger really think about Jon ruling the North? Jon doesn't exactly have a lot of loyal retainers to call upon since he only survived thanks to intervention by the Vale (which means Littlefinger). Can Cersei and Jaime possibly forgive Tyrion for the murder of their father? Stay tuned I guess. Clip is a little over 90 seconds. Nothing happens.