Those Who Can....Teach

I have a lot of friends who are teachers or former teachers...and this post is dedicated to the ones still on the job and beginning a new and challenging school year.

First to those who will actually be entering classrooms: Stay safe. Stay healthy. You face a multitude of new problems--can you effectively communicate through a facemask? Are your eyes enough to transmit your meaning and emotion? Are the students' eyes sufficient to tell you when they are struggling or really getting it? How will it feel when you want to be close enough to a student to offer encouragement but social distancing prevents it? Do you want to be the COVID-19 cop, constantly enforcing mask and distancing requirements? Isn't maintaining order and discipline enough of a challenge under normal circumstances?

And now to those who will, for the time being, teach remotely: Stay calm. Stay focused. Yes, you had a six-to-eight-week trial run on this in the spring...but that was all on the fly and no one could realistically expect perfection. But now, I suspect they will. Students, parents, administrators will expect you to be on the ball, ready to deal with all the vagaries of the internet, different household requirements, and communication without contact. While you won't have the obstacle of masks, you will instead have the obstacle of long-distance communication. Is the screen subtle enough to let you read a student's expression? Is there enough time to deal with all the questions in an on-line environment? Can you manage a private conversation with a student when required?

Finally, to the parents and public in general: Don't grouse. Yes, this will not be the best way to teach (no matter in person or by computer). But it's what we have to work with right now. There will be those among the public who are certain that this is simply a way for teachers to make their jobs easier (I've already seen postings and such to that effect). Believe me, it is not. I do not know a single teacher who wouldn't prefer to be starting school exactly the same way they did in September 2019. Running things this way is meant to protect not only teachers, students and staff, but all of us--it prevents a whole lot of possibly infectious people from circulating in the wider community.

Once again, to all of you: Stay safe; stay healthy; stay calm; stay focused.

Future Life

What do the next six months look like? What businesses will re-open and under what conditions? If they do, can they survive with the reduced revenues those conditions will entail?

Museums in many areas, such as Philadelphia and New York, have re-opened or will re-open in the coming weeks. They are all requiring masks and social distancing and restricting attendance to some percentage of capacity (the exact figure depending on rules in their location). I suspect that the capacity restriction will be moot, as few people will wish to visit under those terms.

Movie chains, notably AMC, are announcing re-openings, again based on the regulations in the respective theaters' regions. What, exactly, they will be showing remains a question. Hollywood has not been in production, not even in post-production, for months. There are some major films that were completed and ready for release in the spring, but some of them have already gone direct to streaming and there is the possibility that the studios will prefer not to release others until the possibility of a strong box office is more viable. Some places have announced plans to show "classic" films for the time being (but "classic" seems to mean nothing older than the mid-1980s). Will that draw people back to the cinema?

Live theater--Broadway, local and community--seems to be in the most trouble. The Broadway theaters do not expect to be operating before February...and even then, a lot of theaters will be dark, as the shows they had on the boards have decided not to try to re-open and there are few new ones ready to open so soon. Local theaters rely to a great extent on the national touring companies, all of which are currently shut down and will likely require months to be back in operation. Community theater, with which I am very familiar, has now lost half of last season and probably the beginning of the 2020-21 season as well. In some cases, that could mean losing their venues, as the places they rent from have either moved on or will want higher fees.

Restaurants, already re-opened in some form in most areas, may do better. They have had some revenue thanks to take-out over the past few months. The issue, again, will be whether they can be profitable with reduced seating.

Am I missing anything?

Keeping in Touch

How are you staying in contact with friends and relatives? For me, in addition to this blog, I'm on Facebook, I attend a regular Zoom meeting on Friday or Saturday evening, and of course I call and text.

Somehow, it doesn't seem enough. I miss face-to-face encounters. I miss the gatherings where we could just sit around and shoot the breeze. I'm going to miss a family wedding this fall, because I just can't figure out a way in which it will be viable.

I'm not saying my situation is any worse...or any better...than anyone else's. I'm just tired and bored and not pleased with the prospect of at least another six months like this.

Un-Caped Crusader

Wednesday, I wondered if Donald Trump could learn a lesson from the origin of Spider-Man ("with great power comes great responsibility") and decided no, such thinking is alien to him. Today I woke up thinking, maybe I picked the wrong hero. Bruce Wayne is a lot more like Donald Trump: rich, inherited wealth, businessman, reputation as a playboy. Maybe Batman should be the role model.

Bruce Wayne saw his parents gunned down on the street. Traumatized, he vows vengeance...but not just on the person who killed his family. He vows a war on all of crime and evil...and he sets out from a very young age to follow through--with training, with education, with using his wealth to fund his campaign. Further, that wealth not only allows him to design, build and maintain his arsenal of weapons, it allows him to aid the victims of crime. Eventually, when Bruce finds the man who killed his parents, the crusade doesn't end--it turns from one of personal vengeance to societal protection.

What would Donald Trump take away from that story? I fear he would decide, as he would with Spider-Man, that Bruce Wayne is a chump. Why is he wasting his time and money on all these lesser mortals? Don't search for the killer yourself--hire some mercenary organization to do it for you. All those "wonderful toys" (as the Joker puts it in one of the films) shouldn't be used in crime fighting--they should be marketed and sold for a profit. And a foundation that helps others? Well, we know what Trump did with his foundation.

No, to become Batman, Bruce Wayne had to see his personal tragedy reflected in the tragedies of others and act on that realization. The evidence of his life is that Donald Trump is incapable of that.

Rittenhouse Scare

I thought the killing of Jacob Blake in Kenosha was bad enough. If anything this is worse:

Kyle Rittenhouse, a rifle-toting teenage Blue Lives Matter and Trump fan, has been charged with murder after allegedly shooting two people dead and injuring another during protests in Kenosha over the shooting of Jacob Blake.

Rittenhouse, 17, was arrested in Illinois and faces charges of first-degree intentional homicide, according to Lake County, Illinois Clerk of Courts public records.

And then we get the usual idiots actually defending Rittenhouse's actions. These are the words of Tucker Carlson on Fox News:

“Kenosha has devolved into anarchy because the authorities in charge of the city abandoned it. People in charge from the governor of Wisconsin on down refused to enforce the law. They stood back and they watched Kenosha burn,” Carlson said.

He then added: “So are we really surprised that looting and arson accelerated to murder? How shocked are we that 17-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would?”

How anyone can defend this...or defend Tucker Carlson...is beyond me.

With Great Power....

Earlier this month, I suggested that Donald Trump was acting like a comic-book villain. Today, as I was watching coverage of the Republican Convention (I refuse to watch in real time), I wondered if he could be educated by reading the adventures of some of the great comic-book heroes, such as Spider-Man...and then I decided, probably not.

Consider Spidey's origin story: Peter Parker accidentally acquires super-powers and his first impulse is to use them to earn money. He becomes a costumed wrestler and then a TV personality. At one of those TV appearances, a thief runs past him and he makes no effort to apprehend him. He is then berated by a security guard, who correctly notes that--given his abilities--Spider-Man could have captured the thief easily.

Later that evening, Peter returns to his home to discover that his beloved Uncle Ben has been killed in a botched robbery. Pursuing the criminal as Spider-Man, he learns that the killer is the same thief he had refused to help capture at the TV station. Distraught, he decides to dedicate himself to using his powers not to enrich himself but to fight crime and defend the defenseless. As a final caption notes, "With great power comes great responsibility."

What would Donald Trump learn from this tale? Probably that Peter Parker is a loser. After all, Peter forgoes the rewards of fame and wealth that could be his and decides to help others, basically anonymously. Donald Trump not only uses his "power" to enrich himself, he has a history of treating others as mere pawns, as victims of his own schemes--Trump University, Trump Foundation, etc.

If he hasn't learned anything about compassion and selflessness from that Bible he awkwardly displayed in front of a church he has never entered, how could he learn anything from Stan Lee and Steve Ditko?

Seven Shots

Jacob Blake was shot in the back by police officers. Jacob Blake was shot seven times in the back by police officers.

I don't care what they thought he might have been doing as he reached into the car....there is no reasoning they can give that is an excuse for shooting a man seven times in the back. It's been said they thought he had a knife, or was reaching for one. OK...the rational thing to do in that case is to back away, out of reach from the knife. It's been said he was following an order to get his documentation from the car. OK...if you think he might have a weapon in the car, the rational thing to do is to get the documentation out of the car yourself.

The Kenosha police union is arguing the video doesn't show the whole circumstances. Fair enough, what are the missing elements that explain why Jacob Blake had to be shot in the back even once in order to protect those police officers? Let alone shot seven times? There are at most three officers on the scene. For seven shots to have been fired, one or more of them had to have fired at least three times...three shots from a distance of a few feet? Really?

I'm sorry, you can tell me "Blue Lives Matter" all day, and there's still no explanation for this.

Four Months

At the end of this week, it will four months since I retired and began this blog. In that time, I have posted every day, for a total of 115 posts. The most read post was "Who Was That Un-Masked Man?",  which discussed my own mask-wearing habits and those of others in the pandemic.

Just a bit of info if you're a regular reader here.

Open and Shut?

There's a controversy in my area--and probably in yours, too--about whether schools should open with in-person learning or only with on-line instruction. There appears to be a small but vocal group arguing that it is perfectly safe for kids to return to the classroom as long as masks, social distancing, etc. are part of the protocol.

On one level, I agree...but I don't think the people advocating in-person school have really considered what that means. In my area (and I suspect in most others), classrooms are designed to hold 20 to 30 desks at normal spacing--call it four or five rows of desks, each with just enough space for a chair between each desk in a row and an aisle of maybe four feet between rows. Change that spacing so that there's six feet between each desk in all directions and how many desks can you put in that room? Half as many? Less? Let's call it half--that means we need twice as many classrooms to hold the same number of students. And, assuming one teacher for every room, twice as many teachers.

While it might be possible, I suppose, to hire double the number of teachers (or maybe some para-professionals) to cover those extra rooms...where are the rooms going to come from? The school buildings were built with X number of rooms. I suppose gymnasiums and cafeterias might be utilized to some extent, but that leads to questions of noise control, classes interfering with each other, etc.

And so far, we're really only talking about elementary school conditions, where students largely stay in one room for the whole day. What happens in middle schools and high schools, where students change rooms four to six times a day (depending on schedules)? How do you maintain social distancing in the hallways? I've heard suggestions that students remain in place and teachers move from room to room...but different classes require different equipment, different books, different configurations.

Doing any of this will require more spending, and schools are already increasing budgets for other COVID-related expenses, such as cleaning and PPE supplies. I'm already seeing complaints in the local papers about rising school taxes, especially from people who seem to think their taxes should have gone down since the school buildings were closed for three months this year.

I'm sorry....but even in the best of all worlds, in-person learning in a safe way is probably impossible before January at the earliest.

Fall Sports

The organization in charge of high school sports in Pennsylvania--the PIAA--has decided that those schools that want to proceed with outdoor interscholastic sports this semester can. That would mean football, predominantly, but also soccer, cross-country track, and, I think, field hockey. They are still advising against indoor sports (such as volleyball). And the state regulations still pretty much prevent fans in the bleachers (limit is 250 people...so maybe family members of the players could be permitted).

Not sure how I feel about this, when so many other non-athletic extra-curricular activities are still prohibited--no band or choral concerts, no plays or musicals. (I'm assuming the marching bands will not be doing their traditional half-time shows or pep-band material, since they are not permitted to practice.) This seems to put the athletes on a different level from all the other students.

Your thoughts?

More Home Memories

Last weekend, I posted a photo of what the house I grew up in looked like in 1940...and what it looked like for most of the time I lived there.

Today, I've got a picture of what it looked like in the 1980s, after new siding, new windows and a new front porch.

It still looked basically like that the last time I saw it in November of 2019. I don't know if my sister intends to make changes to the exterior as well as the ones I know she's made inside.

Watch List

Yesterday I talked about binge-reading. I'm really not a binge-watcher, though; I prefer to mix up the kind of things I watch in an evening.

And I'm watching some stuff that some of you may never have seen. Murder City is a police procedural from the early 2000s, set in Melbourne, Australia. The team of detectives has a nice chemistry and the occasional looks at their backstories help make them seem like more than devices to carry forward the plot. If you've watched The Doctor Blake Mysteries, you'll want to see Nadine Garner in the series she did before that.

Avenue 5 is a science-fiction comedy starring Hugh Laurie; it's all about a luxury space tourist liner that winds up on a three-year trip instead of the six-week tour of the solar system it was supposed to take. Each episode is only 30 minutes, but they pack a lot of story and a lot of laughs in that time.

Pointless is a British game show that could be described as the opposite of Family Feud. The object is not to find the answer most people gave in a survey...but the one the least people did. In the final round, a "pointless" answer will win you the jackpot. (One caveat--even the pointless answers have to be correct.)

Binge-Reading

Lots of people binge-watch...choose a TV series (old or new) and watch it in order, often several episodes in one sitting, until you've seen everything.

I am currently "binge-reading". Have you ever done that? Chosen a series of books, preferably a long series that is still all in print, and read every title in the order they were written and published? I'm going through all of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe series...he wrote 42 books (some novels, some short-story/novella collections). I'm about to finish number 35, The Final Deduction.

When I finish the last one, I have to decide whether to continue with the handful of Wolfe novels written by others with the consent of the Stout estate.

Are you binge-reading in the pandemic? And what have you chosen?

Edited to correct an earlier error--Stout wrote 42 Wolfe books, not 86.

Background Info

So, I finally have a web camera to use in all the Zoom meetings I'm doing these days. Lots of people create CGI backgrounds for themselves for these meetings (my wife uses the ceiling from the Library of Congress sometimes) and I'm trying to decide what I should pick.

A few of my ideas:

1. The TARDIS interior (maybe a classic one from Tom Baker's era, or the one Matt Smith had)
2. The Adam West Batcave
3. Some version of Superman's Fortress of Solitude.

Any other suggestions?

Lock Them Up?

When Al Gore, back in 2000, talked about "lock-boxes," I don't think mailboxes were what he had in mind.

The top image was posted on Facebook; the second one is from Mark Evanier's blog--it's the mailbox outside his local post office. I checked some of the ones near me--one that had been there a long time is now gone, another is still unlocked. (But I live in a strongly Republican neighborhood.)

Positive It's Negative

This past Tuesday, in anticipation of a medical procedure scheduled for this coming Thursday, I took a Covid-19 test. On Friday, I got the results: Negative, I do not have the corona virus.

While I was pretty sure I didn't--not having had any symptoms of it of any kind in the past six months--it's good to know for certain.

Memories of Home

Thanks to a link in a Facebook post, I was able to find this picture:

That is 70 DuBois Ave, on Staten Island, the house I grew up in (but not where I was born; my parents moved there in early 1953, just before I turned one year old), as it looked when the City of New York took photos for tax purposes 1939.

It still looked pretty much like that most of my school years; the siding and front porch were replaced, as I recall, in the late 1960s. And by the time I knew it, the driveway on the right no longer existed. The old wooden garage it led to was still standing though, used as storage by my family until it literally fell down in the 1970s. The most interesting thing about it was that the previous owner, who did use the garage and driveway, had decorated the interior walls with all his old license plates, going all the way back to this era. I suppose he owned the house when this photo was taken.

For the record, the room I shared with my younger brother was the front second floor window on the left; the one on the right was a "dressing room" for when our bedroom had been the "master bedroom." It was basically extra storage space for us. The rear window on the left indicates where my parents' room was....and my sister's room was all the way in the right rear corner.

My sister owns the house now; she bought it from my mother who continued to live there until just before her death earlier this year. It's being remodeled for my sister to rent or sell in the future.

Obligations, Responsibilities

In recent days, I have come across several examples of people who served in the military using the phrase "I fought for your rights" in response to those who disagree with them on matters of race, politics, or protest...almost always from people taking the most conservative stance on those issues.

I honor, respect, and thank those who have served in the military, such as my late father, who was a SeaBee in WW2, my late father-in-law, who retired as a full colonel from the Army, and my niece, a West Point graduate who is currently a captain in the Army Reserve and has taught at her alma mater. But having worn the uniform of your country does not excuse you when you act in a manner that sullies that uniform.

You have an obligation, a responsibility, not to use that service as a cover for your racism, your disrespect for those who honestly disagree with you, your wholesale disregard for the values of the nation you say you fought for. Don't tell me you fought for my right to protest while you simultaneously tell me I shouldn't be protesting. Don't tell me you fought for my right to vote while you simultaneously support those who would deny that right to others.

Live up to the oath you took when you put on that uniform and performed that service you claim to be proud of.

Tanks a Lot

Believe it or not, the police in one community near me are actually arguing that they need this monstrosity, now that the mayor and township council have sent it to another municipality in the state. The damned thing doesn't even fit through many of the streets in the township. The cops, through their FOP and a Republican councilman, say they need it to "protect" them in cases of riots and to effect water rescues. It has been used for the latter purpose just once--this past week after Tropical Storm Isaias--and even then was not useful in some areas because of its sheer size. Inflatable boats were handier, more versatile, and easier to maneuver in most circumstances.

Oh, and should such a vehicle be needed in the future...several nearby departments have one they could loan out.

No Pleasing Some People

I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is a called a disgrace.... No, sorry, that's John Adams at the beginning of 1776.

What I have concluded is that it's simply impossible to please some people--especially, currently, some segments of Star Trek and Star Wars fandoms. And I'm not just talking about the incel/comicsgate/sad puppy brigade who reject anything that suggests that those fictional worlds should reflect or comment upon current events in the real world...particularly if they tend toward a liberal viewpoint.

No, I'm talking, in addition, about the ones who seem to think there's no room for humor or light-heartedness or satire in the canonical material of these two universes. The ones who object to Star Trek: Lower Decks because it is comedic; the ones who think any Star Wars story must be about the battle between the Light and Dark Sides of the Force.

For god's sake, guys, lighten up. Some of the best remembered episodes of the original series of Star Trek are the comedies: "The Trouble with Tribbles" and "Piece of the Action." Some of the fan-fave scenes in the very first Star Wars episode are the humorous ones: "Aren't you a little short for a storm trooper?" "Reactor link, very dangerous...."

The creators of these universes aren't writing Scandinavian noir thrillers. They are writing light entertainment for the masses.

Going Down at DC

In what may well come to be known as the "Monday Massacre," about one-third of the staff of DC Comics and the DC Universe streaming service were "laid off" yesterday. (In this case, "lay off" is simply a euphemism for "fired," as it is unlikely that any of these people will be asked to come back at some later date.) For more on what and who, I recommend this report:

DC Comics, DC Universe Hit By Major Layoffs

Many in the comics world had been expecting something like this since DC's corporate owners, Warner Entertainment, were acquired by AT&T last year. It is widely thought that AT&T sees Warner and DC in particular as simply a collection of valuable intellectual property and copyrights, with no real interest in creating new material to add to that collection.

So, what is likely to happen to DC's properties now? Though I have not been active in comics journalism for two decades, I keep my eyes and ears open, and here's my prediction.

AT&T will, within a year, license all the publishing of DC-owned properties to other publishers (notably not Marvel, IMO), while maintaining ownership of said properties. I can even see that these properties might be parceled out to more than one publisher (why put all your eggs in one basket?) And, again IMO, I could see that only the big three--Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman--are licensed for long-term, ongoing titles or projects, and maybe each to a separate publisher: Superman to IDW, for example; Wonder Woman to Dynamite, Batman to Image (that last is because I think the Image brand best fits the current attitude toward the Dark Knight).

The others? Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman, etc.? They will be licensed for occasional projects, timed to coincide with other media versions: when there's a new movie or TV series about to debut, for instance.

Time will tell if I am right.

Come Saturday Morning

I'm about to reveal just how old I am. This is a remembrance of how I spent Saturday mornings between the ages of roughly five and thirteen.

Depending on how early I got up, the day began with either Crusader Rabbit or Howdy Doody (later on Shari Lewis would replace Buffalo Bob and the residents of Doodyville).

I don't remember exactly the order these came in but after that would be:

Andy's Gang ("Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy")
The Roy Rogers Show ("Happy trails to you....")
Mighty Mouse ("Here I come to save the day....")
Fury ("The story of a horse and the boy who loved him...." and the first place I saw Peter Graves)
Sky King ("Out of the blue of the western sky....)
The Lone Ranger ("Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear")

By that time, it was lunch and then the family went off for weekend shopping.

So, what are your memories of Saturday mornings?

Singers I Love

Prompted by a piece in today's paper--on a totally unrelated subject--I started thinking about the female singers I enjoy, the ones I wish could sing every song I've ever loved.

Top of the list is Karen Carpenter, who I consider the best female pop singer of the past 50 years. I think there is probably no song she couldn't sing and make it better. She turned a silly ditty from Sesame Street, "Sing," into a Top 40 hit and the Beatles' "Ticket to Ride" into a minor-key lament. Listen to her version of "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina," and you'll wish she had dubbed Madonna in the movie. I think it's a tragedy she died before she could record an album of American standards and Broadway classics.

Second is probably Gloria Estefan. Her vocal range is much the same as Karen's, but she brings a Latin flair to everything she does...and does numbers Karen probably wouldn't have attempted, such "Conga" or "Go Away". But on a ballad, she's on a par with the best--if you can sing along with "The Words Get in the Way" without a catch in your throat, you're not human.

Third is a bit more obscure--Marilyn McCoo, once one of the leads in the Fifth Dimension. Another alto, she puts soul into the ballad mix, as well as a little jazz, with numbers like "Wedding Bell Blues" and "One Less Bell to Answer".

One more who died too young: Laurie Beechman. I first saw and heard this remarkable performer as the narrator in the original cast of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. After appearing in lead roles in other shows, notably Les Miserables and Cats, and recording some solo albums, she died of cancer at age 44.


You'll note an absence of sopranos. IMO, too many of them let their ability to sing above the melody obscure that melody in vocal tricks. Whitney Houston would have been a much better performer, again IMO, if she stopped trying to show off.

Any thoughts?

Why We Need the Electoral College

There's a lot of talk, as there is in any presidential election year, about abolishing the Electoral College. It always centers around "one person, one vote" and they way that the votes of the citizens of, say, Wyoming have more clout than those of, say, California. That the EC, in other words, dilutes the value of votes in the most populous states and increases the value of those in the least populous states.

Further, it is often said that the EC was created by the Founding Fathers to keep the Southern States from rejecting the Constitution and is, thus, inherently racist.

All the above may be true.

But it neglects the one problem with a direct popular vote for President: It would, effectively, disenfranchise the citizens of about two-thirds of the states. How? Let me explain: the bulk of the population of the United States now resides in the urban centers of a double handful of states: Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Florida, Illinois, Texas, and California. There are enough voters in just the big cities and surrounding suburbs of those states, not even counting their rural and exurban populations (and two of them, NJ and CT, don't really have rural areas), to be a majority of voters in a Presidential election...in fact, to be an overwhelming majority.

It might be true that the two biggest cities in Texas--Dallas and Houston--would be outliers in that calculation, that they--unlike the other major metropolises--would be more likely to vote Republican than Democrat (but I'm not really sure of that). Still, the major metro areas of other states--Denver and Seattle, for instance--would likely take up the slack.

What do you think would happen if we elected a President in a system where only urban dwellers have a real voice in the result? How would the farmers of Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas react? What would the miners and oil riggers of West Virginia and Oklahoma think? Do you think they would simply acquiesce in a system that essentially treated them as irrelevant?

And they would be irrelevant, at least politically. No President would feel any need to invite their representatives to the table. What they would not be is irrelevant in other ways. They would still be relevant economically....but their economic importance would not grant them any political power any longer.

No, the EC is now the way we keep the energy belt and bread basket of this nation as supporters of the Constitution...and we, who dwell in the big cities, better keep that in mind.

Too Basic Communication

"What we have here is failure to communicate."

I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that famed line from Cool Hand Luke applies to much of our political and social discourse in the current climate. As an example, I've been trying to argue that the phrase "defund the police" is poor communication, because it's too easy for opponents to define "defund" as "abolish" and thus completely misrepresent the intentions of the cause. The problem is "reform the police" doesn't quite cut it, either--because police reform, historically, has been about official corruption not about the basic functions of the police.

Basically, we're stuck in a time when every issue has to be able to be reduced to a three- or four-word slogan, when the reality is that there is a long, nuanced policy proposal behind the sloganeering. But nobody has time for long, nuanced proposals anymore....and they don't fit in headlines or television chyron crawls, anyway.

In an episode of The West Wing during the preparations for a campaign debate, Jed Bartlet's staff are seeking a "ten-word answer" to the difficult questions of the day. Finally, Jed comes up with this:

That’s the ten-word answer my staff’s been looking for for weeks, there it is. Ten-word answers can kill you in political campaigns, they’re the tip of the sword. Here’s my question: what are the next ten words of your answer? Your taxes are too high? So are mine. Gimme the next ten words: How are we gonna do it? Gimme ten after that, I’ll drop out of the race right now … Every once in a while, there’s a day with an absolute right and an absolute wrong. But those days almost always include body counts. Other than that, there aren’t very many un-nuanced moments in leading a country that’s way too big for ten words. I’m the President of the United States, not the president of the people who agree with me. And by the way, if the left has a problem with that, they should vote for somebody else.

That sums up how I feel about political and social discourse right now.

Weather or Not

OK...we were lucky. Tropical Storm Isaias gave us a mildly flooded basement (but we have one corner that gets wet in any rainstorm), but we never lost power or any other utility, no trees came down near us, and by 1 PM on Tuesday we had bright sunny skies and cool weather.

Wednesday was one of the nicest days this summer...not very hot, not very humid, a breeze blowing.

This morning, we woke up to a thunderstorm--not violent, but enough to say "I'll wait for a bit before I run errands."

My thoughts are with all my friends and associates in PA and elsewhere who have experienced severe flooding, damage from fallen trees, and utility outages, including some who will apparently be out for at least the weekend, and some who cannot work because of it.

Rain, rain, go away.....

Trump: Comic-book Villain?

I haven't watched the entire Axios interview with Donald Trump (I have far better ways to spend that much time), but I have seen enough, with his responses on a wide array of subjects, to know that this man is either eternally confused, simply not interested in learning anything, or adamantly opposed to anything he doesn't see as being in his own best interest. Possibly all three.

And it doesn't seem to do any good to present him with evidence that refutes his position. Told that blacks are proportionally more likely to be killed by police than whites, he responds "I don't know that" and reverts to the argument that whites are killed as well and in higher numbers. Either he doesn't know what "proportionally" means, or he ignores it because he thinks his base audience neither knows or cares. Possibly both.

Clearly, in his mind, if he "doesn't know" something, it is either wrong, a lie, or simply doesn't really exist because, after all, he's a "stable genius," the smartest man he knows, the person whose advice he most relies on in regard to all subjects--and if he doesn't know something or knows differently, all other data must be false.

In my experience, these are indications of malevolent egotism, the kind we once associated with fictional villains like Lex Luthor and Doctor Doom.

Lantern's Light

Moving away from politics and current events for a bit....

When I was an active comics collector, one of my favorite titles was Green Lantern. For those unfamiliar with the character, GL was a test pilot named Hal Jordan who was recruited to become one of 3600 interstellar police officers throughout the universe by the group's founders, the mysterious Guardians of the Universe.

As a member, he was given three things: a power battery, shaped like a green lantern; a uniform; and a ring which, when charged at the battery, would emit a green energy that could be shaped and commanded by his will and imagination into anything he desired. A good deal of the time, GL used that ability to create giant, verdant versions of familiar objects: boxing gloves, fans, arrows, you name it.

That, of course, led to a question: Why use the power that way? I had my own theory--the ring was limited, as described, by the ring-bearer's will and imagination...but I figured it was also limited by his knowledge and abilities. He could create and manipulate those objects because he knew how they worked. He couldn't create a weapon that would vaporize an opponent because he had no idea how such a device would work...or even if it were possible.

Over time, I had to give up that theory as the writers came up with ways to use the ring that Hal Jordan couldn't possibly have understood (in one case, he used it to turn himself into a robot in order to enter a room filled with deadly radiation). But I always thought it was a logical limitation on his power...and one that would differentiate the various members of the Green Lantern Corps as they came from differing backgrounds and planets.

"Invaded?"

This is a follow-up to yesterday's post about the Black Lives Matter march and rally in Ridley, where I live.

Yesterday, a counter-rally (unfortunately, much bigger) was held at the site of the police station...and while it appeared to be peaceful and the organizers made all the right noises about "only supporting the police" (see the article in today's Daily Times--I'd link to it, but the paper only allows me to read three articles on line a month),  including a statement from chief organizer Joe Carafa, who said, "What happened yesterday had nothing to do with us." But it was clear that many of the attendees were the same people who screamed, shouted obscenities, and attempted to disrupt the BLM march--including some pick-up trucks that were identified as the same ones that deliberately spouted black exhaust at the marchers on Saturday.

More disturbing perhaps were a couple of comments in the "Sound-Off" column this morning, a feature in which people can call or e-mail and make anonymous remarks.  One caller proudly announced "I was there and flying a Confederate flag, why is it wrong?" Well, my friend, if you have to ask, you clearly will never get it.

Even worse, though, was this one: "We have our rights. This is our home. We don't want it invaded and we can stand up for ourselves...." [emphasis added].

"Invaded?" If that is the way you speak and think of your fellow citizens exercising their rights, then you don't have any idea what the United States of America is about.

Shame on Ridley

I moved to Ridley Township almost exactly 22 years ago, in August 1998. In all that time, I have been happy to call myself a resident and have never felt my neighbors in the township are a problem. Yes, I've met a few jerks, but on the whole, they are polite, respectful people.

Yesterday, I was ashamed to admit I live here. A small Black Lives Matter march and rally was held (I counted the participants at under 100) and was met by a rude and, yes, violent counter-protest of about the same size.

While the Black Lives Matter protesters marched along MacDade Boulevard, two pick-up trucks stopped in front of them near Kedron Avenue and burned a bunch of black smoke in front of them.

Throughout the route, which started at the park across the street from Frontier Saloon, then went down Academy Avenue to Holmes Road, then down MacDade to the township police station, both sides yelled at each other with shouts ranging from "Go the f--- home!" to "We love you!"

That's a quote from the article in this morning's Delaware County Times.

I didn't join the group until they got to the township police station, which is a short walk from my home. The violence was over, thanks to the local police who professionally separated the two sides, but the rudeness and stupidity from the counter-protesters continued. I heard one man yell to a speaker, "You're a Marxist!"--which makes me question if he even understands the word, because the speaker had said nothing that could remotely be characterized in that way, unless of course to be in favor of justice for all, no matter race, ethnicity or religion, is now a Marxist precept. Another yelled for the speaker to "Go back where you came from," but since the speaker, a young black man, spoke with no discernible foreign accent, that could only be a call for him to return to his own home, which was just as likely to be in Ridley as anywhere else.

I give full marks to the Ridley Township police and those from other jurisdictions who were also present. They did not turn out in riot gear, though some of the non-local cops wore visible bullet-proof vests. At one point a line of the police was deployed in front of the police station, in an obvious move to "protect" it--although the marchers gave no indication they intended to attack it in any way. In fact, shortly after that action was taken, the speakers announced that the marchers were returning the way they came and left to go back to their initial rallying place.

One more point: The marchers all wore masks. For the most part, the counter-protesters did not.

I am sad for my neighbors who were so badly misrepresented by the few who showed up yesterday. I urge you all, let it be known they did speak for you.

Updates

1. Updating yesterday's entry on baseball: there is now at least one more team out of action, the St. Louis Cardinals, who had several staff test positive on Thursday. Whether that will affect the team they played earlier in the week, the Minnesota Twins, remains to be seen.

2. Updating Thursday: The heat wave here has broken, after thunderstorms Thursday night and rain nearly all day Friday. Now, we're waiting to see how much we're affected by Hurricane Isaias. (Ad how are your local broadcasters doing with pronouncing that one? Consensus here seems to "Ee-sigh-as".)

3. Updating Wednesday: Thursday's paper did not include all the things missing from Wednesday's edition--except the classified ads and death notices (which are paid for, so they have to run them). It did however include, again, the "special section" aimed at senior citizens, which ran complete--as near as I can tell--in Wednesday's paper.