Democrats: What Now?

I recently read that the NY Attorney General plans to sue if House healthcare legislation becomes law. There are some things to consider about the current state of American politics. These ideas apply equally to people across the political spectrum but given the way power works it's usually the people out of power who have cause to take them to heart.

Legislatures decide policy, not constitutionality. The courts decide whether something is constitutional or not. Courts (usually) do not pick among different policy choices. Just because someone is pursuing a policy preference you truly despise doesn't automatically mean it's unconstitutional. The courts can't and shouldn't rule on the political merits of a given policy. There is a whole universe of policy initiatives that I don't like but which are not unconstitutional. In short, the courts will not save you from all of the effects of a Trump Presidency and Republican control of both chambers of Congress. Only the people can do that. Like it or not Trump won. Right now the only people who can legally remove him from office are other Republicans. That's because, drunk on moral certainty, starting around 2010 Democrats forgot how to win seats. 

On policy questions, no political party or movement can accomplish much without winning over voters. Obtaining voter support doesn't mean that you must agree with every "deplorable" voter stance. It does mean though that you must visit the voters, listen to them, be seen to work on their issues, and build both a logical and emotional argument on why you and your policy are their best options. Hectoring them and lecturing them don't work.

Book Reviews: Dracula vs. Hitler

Dracula vs. Hitler
by Patrick Sheane Duncan

As filmmakers use the found footage trope to introduce movies, authors can use the found diary or found documents trope. In real life Duncan is an HBO producer, an author and director of the documentary series Medal of Honor. Duncan writes that he found these strange documents when he was researching female spies and partisans in World War Two. These documents were so strange and important that Duncan felt that they deserved to be shared. Sometimes a book's title tells you the exact story. This is one such title. It's truth in advertising. Romania originally joined the German side during World War Two.

Romania only switched sides after it had become clear the Nazis were going to lose. Like F. Paul Wilson's book The Keep, Dracula vs. Hitler asks the reader to imagine what would happen if the upstart Nazis ran across an older entity that views them as trespassers.

This book starts in 1896. Professor Abraham Van Helsing, with the help of Quincy Morris and Jonathan Harker, has defeated Prince, not Count, Dracula. But Stoker's story was wrong. Dracula is only immobilized, not destroyed. Van Helsing tells himself that it's because of scientific curiosity that he decided against destroying Dracula. By 1941 Van Helsing is an old man who has settled in Romania. He has a beautiful young adult daughter Lucille or Lucy upon whom he dotes. Lucy is no shrinking violet. She's a well traveled fiery feminist who's insistent upon proving she's just as good if not better than a man in every endeavor. Lucy's a skilled saboteur, spy, linguist and would be artist. Lucy and her father are leading Resistance members. Initially they run circles around the incompetent German and Romanian soldiers. They make such an impression upon the British that Great Britain, desperate to put mud in the German eye, sends over British special forces agents to deliver supplies, coordinate attacks and gather intelligence. 

The British leader is the grandson of the original Harker, also named Jonathan. Jonathan volunteered for this assignment. Having been unable to learn about Dracula from his grandfather, Jonathan is eager to meet Van Helsing and get the real story.

Bates Motel Series Finale

This A&E series lasted for five years. It didn't overstay its welcome. It featured very intense story lines and acting by the two leads (Farmiga, Highmore). But every recurring character in this story was well written. Even the minor characters fit well into the story. This series may have started out as a prequel to the Psycho film but the producers and writers made it clear that Bates Motel was much much ambitious than a prequel. It was something that may have been inspired by Psycho but was not tied down by that film. It was a re-interpretation and reworking of the Psycho movie. Although there was the obvious bad guy the viewers also came to understand that the man, Norman Bates (Freddie Highmore) was not in control of himself. He was a very disturbed one. He was capable of great kindness upon occasion. He ran into more attractive women than you would expect a weird loner to find. But Norman was never going to enjoy happiness for long because he was increasingly divorced from reality.

At the end of Season Four a depressed and angry Norman decided to kill his mother Norma (Vera Farmiga) and himself in a murder-suicide. However although his mother died, Norman didn't. In a stroke of luck for Norman the authorities, with Norman's connivance, assumed that the breakup note that Norma wrote for her husband Sheriff Alex Romero (Nestor Carbonell ) was actually a suicide note.  So everyone believes that Norma was actually the crazy one who tried to kill her son via gas poisoning. Well that is everyone except Alex. He knows how dangerous Norman is. He blames Norman for his wife's death. And he intends to do something about it. He's put people in the ground before. Unfortunately for Alex though before he could make his move some of the evidence of his corruption has caught up with him. He's arrested and later convicted.

Elderly Woman Body Slammed At Pool Party

You must be able to get along with other people. You don't have to like them but you must live with them. Our actions continually impact other people. When you are neighbors with someone you recognize this. You and your neighbor can't solve every dispute by shouting and fisticuffs. When you are neighbors with someone there's a good chance that neither of you is going anywhere anytime soon. You and your neighbor may need each other's help someday, whether it's something as prosaic as your neighbor plowing your driveway during the Winter Deathstorm of 2017 or you being willing to let the police know the license plate of the van that was parked outside your neighbor's house while it was burglarized. 

So when your neighbor asks you to turn your music down you might be annoyed. But if you are normal you'd remember the time that your neighbor helped you to change a flat. You'd probably turn down the music. Even if you didn't know your neighbor from Adam, you might consider granting their request because, as mentioned, reciprocity often works. You and your neighbor will be in a position to help and hurt each other for a while. 

But people who aren't neighbors and who aren't normal may not recognize the benefits of relationship reciprocity, as 68 year old North Lauderdale, Florida resident Nancy James discovered when she asked a group of teens to turn down their music at a pool party. The teens, many of whom did not live in the complex, didn't appreciate her request.

China Destroys Ocean Fisheries

When people say globalization they usually are referring to the greater corporate economic integration between and among the so-called Third World and Europe and the US. Depending on whom you are speaking to, this can be a good or bad thing. The problem however is that different nations on the planet have different footprints in their economic impact on the planet. Numbers matter. If one or two people cut across your lawn once or twice a week it might not be worth your while to make a big stink about it and get into a nasty fight with the trespassers. I mean life is short right? Why waste your time in conflict? But if a few hundred people decide to do the same thing every day then you have to do something or soon you won't have a lawn. You might have to show a more unpleasant part of your personality. China is not the source of all evil in the world today. Not by a long shot. But China's immense population and ever growing demand for natural resources are putting immense stress on resources that may not be as renewable as we once thought. 

Joal, Senegal — Once upon a time, the seas teemed with mackerel, squid and sardines, and life was good. But now, on opposite sides of the globe, sun-creased fishermen lament as they reel in their nearly empty nets.“Your net would be so full of fish, you could barely heave it onto the boat,” said Mamadou So, 52, a fisherman in Senegal, gesturing to the meager assortment of tiny fish flapping in his wooden canoe. A world away in eastern China, Zhu Delong, 75, also shook his head as his net dredged up a disappointing array of pinkie-size shrimp and fledgling yellow croakers. “When I was a kid, you could cast a line out your back door and hook huge yellow croakers,” he said. “Now the sea is empty.”

Overfishing is depleting oceans across the globe, with 90 percent of the world’s fisheries fully exploited or facing collapse, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. From Russian king crab fishermen in the west Bering Sea to Mexican ships that poach red snapper off the coast of Florida, unsustainable fishing practices threaten the well-being of millions of people in the developing world who depend on the sea for income and food, experts say. But China, with its enormous population, growing wealth to buy seafood and the world’s largest fleet of deep-sea fishing vessels, is having an outsize impact on the globe’s oceans. 

Book Reviews: Carter & Lovecraft

Carter & Lovecraft
By Jonathan Howard

This story is miles apart from some of Howard's earlier work reviewed here. It doesn't have quite the same sheen of sarcastic humor laid over everything. That makes sense as the subject matter is different. This is another story in a crowded field of works inspired by the late writer H.P. Lovecraft. Although it has a few Grand Guignol scenes for the most part this story stays true to Lovecraft's trick of implying what was wrong as opposed to coming out and saying it. The mood is more important to this novel than some of the events. Of course Howard is a better writer than Lovecraft so his characters are better developed. Even though I didn't enjoy this as much as Howard's Cabal series I still thought it was worthwhile reading. The book is just over 300 pages and has more than a little in common with the film Angel Heart in some aspects.

The author H.P. Lovecraft lived at a point in time when science was rapidly advancing and overturning previously closely held myths. Einstein's theories of general and special relativity along with other later discoveries made some people think that maybe they weren't at the center of the universe after all. Worse, the idea of quantum physics made people deal with the idea that reality itself was random and unknowable and an illusion. Lovecraft didn't write down, as later speculative fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke did, the dictum that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" but it is a concept which pervades many of his stories, most famously "Dreams in the Witch House". If reality itself is only a set of probabilities and creatures or events can exist in mutually exclusive categories before we actually observe them, what would happen if someone or something was able to hack reality? What would that look like? What would happen if someone could alter reality via his understanding of advanced mathematics? These and more are the questions which are raised in this book. 

Babies Eating Lemons For First Time

This is a pretty clear example of why it's remarkable that any kids ever trust adults. People say that when life gives you lemons make lemonade. I say why would someone you trust give you a lemon to eat in the first place? That right there would ruin my faith in parents.😱 Are there any foods you won't eat under any circumstances?