The Books of Bokonon

For those interested, it is streaming live. I don't know if the full live stream will be archived, but just in case: Some action - any action is better than nothing. I am glad to see this. If he can last long enough to disrupt some of Tuesday's Senate business, that's even better. There's something to be said about good trouble.

Last night I finally got some down time and decided to watch a film recommended to me on Netflix called Leave the World Behind . The film has an ensemble cast (Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Kevin Bacon, Myha'la, and Mahershala Ali, among others). It is based on a book that I will now want to read. Based on the reviews I read after the fact, the book is probably far superior to the film, and I say that while at the same time noting that I found the film to be pretty darned good.  It's an apocalyptic film with a fairly basic premise. A bored and out of touch yuppie couple decide to go on vacation with their teenage kids in a beachfront hamlet not far away from their home in Brooklyn. Julia Roberts' character comes across as something of a Karen. Ethan Hawke's character is this superficially politically correct college professor who seems to succeed by charming his way through life (there is something a bit skeezy about that character). Their vacation starts off fairly munda...

I am going to post the last two videos in the series here. I have been meaning to for some time, but this has been a very busy calendar year for me so far. Timothy Snyder's book, On Tyranny is one I have said time and time again is a must-read. I read it the first time in a single sitting. It's factual, easy to read, and provides a basis for the resistance to an impending fascist regime that will be necessary as we go forward.    All we can do now is learn these lessons and be as courageous as possible. We have a long and difficult road ahead of us.

  This was the scene at one of my local stores (I know - a Walmart) just days after the WHO announced that Covid-19 was a global pandemic. To be blunt, this was starting to happen well ahead of then. This aisle was the one where you were supposed to find toilet paper, paper towels and the like. If I hadn't been so focused on just getting the last necessities my household needed to survive for a few weeks, I would have taken tons more photos of the other aisles. By that point, there was almost nothing left on most shelves, except perhaps for items that were not necessities. The behavior was about what I would have expected. People were panicked and the federal government was already AWOL. Trump did nothing to reassure the nation that the full power of our national emergency services, our public health agencies (CDC), etc. would be used to make sure we were as safe as possible. There was no clear display of empathy. There was nothing but bluster. Most state governments in my area wer...

Five years ago today, the WHO declared Covid-19 a global pandemic. By then it was pretty obvious what was headed our way. After all, it was hard not to doom scroll during the first couple months of 2020 as Covid-19 spread from Wuhan to the rest of China and shortly thereafter Europe and the rest of the planet. The data we were seeing on reputable news sites and health sites were already frightening. Obviously that only continued to get worse for a while.  My life at the very start of 2020 was really no different from the previous year aside from the increasingly grim news from across the Pacific Ocean. I attended events held by a couple local organizations I belong to (including my county's Democratic Party meetings each month), went out once a week with my wife for a meal together, taught my classes and attended or led committee meetings where I work, did the usual grocery shopping, and otherwise tried to carve out some time to walk along some of the riverfront trails (which typic...

If Lawrence is soon to be off the air (his contract ends in June), he is going to go down swinging. Here is his take on Trump and the GOP's cowardice:

Okay, since I am not well and can't really sleep, I will post a couple videos. I'll start off with Jon Stewart as he tries to cut through the crap old Trump and Vance pulled last Friday - an event that still has me muttering Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: The pro wrestling metaphor is fitting, actually. That's about as sophisticated as Trump and Vance can manage. And the Russian government and its state controlled media are jumping for joy. I'll finish with Jimmy Kimmel who had his own reaction to whatever old Trump's SOTU address was.

Still a couple more videos in this series to post. As a quick aside, I urge anyone who reads this to buy or check out a copy of On Tyranny. You'll thank yourself later. We are clearly at a point where any semblance of normality is out the window. I've read elsewhere on how it took Hitler only 53 days to consolidate power. It's reasonable to assume that there are still plenty of people in denial about the dangerous times we live in, and they will be in shock when the bubble inevitably bursts. Keep calm and carry on, as Winston Churchill once said.

Rachel Maddow lays it out. Call it a thought experiment, or call it just asking questions. It doesn't really matter. Clearly someone is benefitting from actions at the White House now that Trump has been reinstalled.

Say what you will about James Carville, but he is correct in pointing out that Trump is more unhinged than ever. Just like the self-styled heterodox crowd, he deftly uses the tactic of stating that he is "just asking questions" regarding the state of Trump's mental health given the debacle that happened on Friday. Maybe it's just the accumulation of decades of a bad diet, bad sleep habits, and a generally bad attitude. Maybe Trump has an undiagnosed  personality disorder that leads him to think (along with Vance, who also ain't right) that ambushing the leader of an allied nation is a "good" idea. Or maybe the Kremlin has some kompromat on Trump that can explain what happened Friday. Personally, I don't give a fuck what the reason or reasons behind Friday's ambush of Zelenskyy who was gracious enough to appear at the White House and effectively surrender some of Ukraine's wealth to soothe mad King Trump's easily bruised ego. The point is ...

I already considered Trump's attempted shakedown of Ukrainian mineral rights to be thuggish and unhinged. What happened on Friday during what was around the start of my lunch break was at a completely different level of insanity. Don't believe me? See for yourself:   Chris Hayes' commentary strikes me as spot on. But even if you want to skip his commentary, watching the 7-minute meltdown that occurred at that particular event is a sight to behold, and I do not mean that in a good way. It was beyond embarrassing, and it was something many of us would have predicted as likely to happen - maybe I would not have predicted this clusterfuck from yesterday, but some other unhinged rant followed by a betrayal of our allies was to be expected. Many of us warned you. Many of you did not listen. After this debacle, old Trump let slip that the US government was turning its back on Ukraine. Again, this was predictable. If we interpret what old Trump and Vance did as an ambush on a leade...