Resistance Is Not Futile

To understand the political universe in which we live, it is necessary to analyze the motivating forces. Dividing a large group of very diverse humans into just two camps is an oversimplification of fact and detrimental to our understanding. No two Democrats or Republicans have identical influences, education, or life experiences. Using a cookie-cutter approach to understanding political motivation is doomed to failure.

Science fiction is rife with examples of such thinking. In the original Star Trek series, the Borg were a pseudo-species of cybernetic humanoids from the Delta Quadrant. No single individual existed within the Borg Collective as they were linked into a common hive mind that shared information equally. They strived for perfection by forcing sentient species into the hive so their technology and knowledge could be assimilated. A warning line from the Borg prior to assimilation was, “We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.”

If we treat our fellow Americans as cybernetic humanoids, understanding is futile. Take the issue of abortion. An oversimplified analysis would be that Republicans are all very religious people, whose deeply held religious beliefs will not permit human intervention in a process they have assigned to “God’s will.” Democrats, on the other hand, must be godless heathens to even consider occasionally intervening in this heavenly plan. Common sense, a commodity in perilously short supply, tells us that this isn’t true. Religion isn’t the exclusive domain of Republicans any more than social conscience has been copyrighted by Democrats.

The issue of abortion is much more complex. The birthrate in the US has fallen over the years. In 1960, the average US woman had 3.65 children. By 1970 that number had dropped to 2.48, and in 2020 we were at 1.64. Logic thus tells us that if two people are replaced by fewer than two additional people, without immigration or some other such supplementation, our workforce and population will diminish. With advances in medicine, people are also living longer. A lower birth rate and an aging, less productive population, are not good things.   Like any good detective story, it is always wise to “follow the money.”

If you are wealthy, you want to not only maintain your advantage, but you want to improve your status. You need someone to work in the slaughterhouse to provide you with meat protein. You want someone to clean your sewers, mow your lawn, and paint your yacht. You do have a yacht, don’t you? If you additionally abhor the thought of immigration as it might diminish your perceived political advantage when “those people” are predicted to vote for the opposition party, a higher birthrate is in your best interest.

Outlawing abortion and forcing women to bear unwanted children is therefore financially incentivized. Admitting that you are motivated by economic factors is distasteful, so it is easier to claim a religious objection. This brings us to individuals like the former president whose moral turpitude and religious acumen are widely known personality traits. To declare Donald Trump to be a pious person would generate laughter in most circles, even amongst his supporters. He was, however, not above having peaceful George Floyd protestors tear-gassed so that he might pose with a Bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church. Reports that he had his Secret Service escorts hold lightning rods to deflect any bolt from above are believed to be false. His is a religion of convenience. Donald Trump supports the banning of abortion on religious grounds while his true motivations must lie elsewhere.

As with many topics in the world of politics, what motivates people is often obscured with more palatable explanations. For many, being called racist is distasteful, even if you know you have such thoughts deep within your little black heart. You will deflect such a label and use reverse discrimination, white supremacy, or some twisted interpretation of the Bible to shield you from derision.  Understanding the subtle differences between intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation is key. In this instance, intrinsic reasoning is self-motivated for pleasure or self-esteem. Extrinsic reasoning is generally geared toward personal acceptance or avoidance of that which is disagreeable.

Neither Republicans nor Democrats are part of some Borg Collective with a groupthink mindset. What motivates each of us is highly individualized. While many people have avoided independent thought and are easily herded like sheep with scary rhetoric, it remains the duty of the rest of us to promote more creativity. Another example of misdirection in recent political activity has been the attempt to control the messaging in our schools by controlling content. A comprehensive education that promotes independent thinking goes against authoritarian philosophy.

We must avoid all attempts to follow some herd mentality. Resistance cannot be futile as it is necessary for the survival of our Democracy. We need a balance between a pure profit above-all scenario and a social structure that allows both the economy and its people to not only survive but thrive.

BTW, rumors that the Borg once tried to assimilate Donald Trump and rejected him because his rhetoric was too disruptive and the Collective couldn't get anything done, are false. It was only that, once he was attached to the hive, they had great difficulty separating fact from fiction and he kept trying to grope the female cyborg next to him.

Should the Bible be banned in Florida?

Banning books in Florida has become the latest WOKE pastime for some. One woman managed to get a book containing the poem, "The Hill We Climb" banned from the elementary section of the library because it offended her sensibilities. The poem, by Amanda Gorman, had been read by the author at Joe Biden's inauguration.

Top from the Bible
Bottom from Amanda Gorman's poem

In her complaint about the poem Daily Salinas, an obvious product of Florida's "superior" school system, was quoted in her objection as saying the poem was, “not educational and have indirectly hate messages”. She had also done her due diligence research on the topic as she attributed the poem to Oprah Winfrey and not Ms. Gorman.

After seeing that this poem managed to get a book banned I asked myself, why not the Bible? Why isn't it listed as pornographic and inappropriate for children of all ages? How is it that the mere mention of racial strife or an "unfinished nation" gets banned but the Bible with its sexual messaging, bestiality, and references to rape remains?

To this point, I give you the Song of Solomon, an erotic poem in the Old Testament, “How beautiful and pleasant you are, O loved one, with all your delights! Your stature is like a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters. I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its fruit.” And again in Chapter 19 in the Book of Judges, where a Levite rapes “a concubine,” and then later dices her up into twelve parts.

While banning the Bible in Florida schools may seem far-fetched while doing research I found that a Florida Man (you can always rely on anything you find that begins, "A Florida Man...") filed a lawsuit. In this case, the Florida Man was Chaz Stevens from Deerfield Beach. Stevens proceeded to question whether the Bible is age-appropriate, pointing to its "casual" references to murder, adultery, sexual immorality, and fornication. "Do we really want to teach our youth about drunken orgies?"

He also took issue with the many Biblical references to rape, bestiality, cannibalism, and infanticide. "In the end, if Jimmy and Susie are curious about any of the above, they can do what everyone else does – get a room at the Motel Six and grab the Gideons," he wrote.

Escambia County Superintendent, Tim Smith placed the Bible on the Restricted List while under review. He did this on a Sunday, but by Wednesday his actions were reversed. I'm sure someone cracked his knuckles with a ruler.

Sarah Holland was the person in Escambia County who filed the original challenge to the Bible back in October of last year. In her appeal, Ms. Holland wrote, "...the Bible includes accounts of sexism, sex, violence, genocide, slavery, rape, and bestiality, all of which should be grounds for removal." Other objections to the book include "examples of eating children" and a claim that the Bible causes "religious trauma syndrome" that should be reserved for adult readers.

Yes, it is quite apparent that the Great Florida Book Purge has little to do with pornography or the ever-present sin of WOKENESS, and everything to do with racism, homophobia, the religious right, and its' political mouthpiece, the New GOP. All of this is as envisioned by their Messiah Donald Trump and his rising acolyte, MoRon DeFascist.

All of this makes me long for the days when the racy section of the library was their National Geographic collection. Methinks this is Much Ado About Nothing. Speaking of which, Shakespeare should also be banned. Have these parents not seen that excellent purveyor of all things pornographic, the Internet? Perhaps the point of this is to ban books so that children will do what they have done for centuries when told that they can't do something, they will actually read a book. Oh, the horror.

I need to end this now as the National Weather Service has issued its daily afternoon Severe Weather Warning and I need to move away from my office window. After writing on this topic of banning the Bible, I can't risk getting struck by lightning.

Time

Time is relative i.e., the more relatives you have visiting at one time, the slower it moves. I’m not sure this is what Einstein was referencing with his theory of relativity, but it makes as much sense as other explanations I’ve heard.

In a recent announcement of an upcoming high school reunion, the advancement of time was brought into stark focus. The number of classmates who were on the “In Memoria” list was 200. For each of us, our time here is limited.

I’ve always had an interest in time. I got my first Timex watch when I was rather young.  How young I was, I don't know because I just got my new watch and calendars would have to wait.  I remember that commercial where they attached a Timex watch to an outboard motor propeller. John Cameron Swayze told me “it took a licking and kept on ticking.”  I wasn’t sure when I would need to mount a watch on a boat propeller, but it was nice to know that option was available.

1954 Timex Commercial

Time is a way to divide up our day, keep appointments, and know when your carriage would turn into a pumpkin. A 12-hour clock is divided into two periods of am and pm or as we say in Latin, ante meridiem and post meridiem. Why Latins have anything to do with time is beyond me as most take pride in being late for everything. My Cuban friends call it “Cuban Time.” Most of the Caribbean has the same attitude. Now that I’m retired, I’m beginning to see their point.

The military uses a 24-hour numbering system to confuse civilians and almost everyone else in the military. The mere fact that you now have to subtract twelve in your head for anything event past noon is ridiculous. This is especially true when all accuracy goes out the window at the cocktail hour by saying, well, it's five o'clock somewhere. Then there is the ever-amusing, oh-dark-thirty.  This is only amusing to those of us sleeping in but not those who need to do something in the early morning hours known as zero-dark thirty.

This brings us to a different type of clock, the Mu Meson. These Mu Mesons, aka Muons, travel in the fast lane at around 0.9998 times the speed of light. They have short lifespans that result in decay.  I was first introduced to them in 1965 by accident. Through no fault of my own, I found myself in the college library. My roommate and I were looking for some cheap entertainment and we previously discovered that the library had films we could watch. In their vast collection of 16mm movie celluloid were many of the original Twilight Zone dramas.

All the films were only listed by a sometimes abbreviated title without a description. I guess students would get assigned to watch something and were given the title for the assignment. In order to find the Twilight Zone episodes, we had to guess which titles sounded like something Rod Serling would have come up with. This evening we saw the simple title, Mesons. Thinking that Mesons could be creatures from outer space we ordered the setup of the film.

A library attendant brought out the large aluminum film canister and threaded our evening’s entertainment. Much to our dismay it was a film for the physics department and its’ real title was, “Time Dilation, An Experiment with Mesons.”

Study this chart, there will be a quiz.

The opening of the film was promising as it showed a truck driving up a snowy road to the top of Mt. Washington in New Hampshire. The spooky music and sound of the wind howling around the truck soon gave way to a scientist pouring a liquid onto a disc. So far so good.  Our bubble burst at the one-minute mark when a physicist in a plaid shirt turns to the camera to tell us, “One of the most startling predictions of the theory of special relativity, is that moving clocks run slower by a factor of one minus the square root of v-squared over c-squared.”  Huh?

For the next 35 minutes and 53 seconds, we were "entertained" by these two nerds at a chalkboard explaining how exciting it was to count the mesons as they gave off a neutrino and an anti-neutrino as he could measure with his oscilloscope. I know all of these things, not because I have an eidetic memory, or that we watched the movie a second time, and a third, but because I found this 1962 gem on YouTube. In the film experiment, their muons lived twelve times longer than muons at rest. The moral of the story, keep moving.

We actually did memorize some of the jargon from the film and would use it in banter at a bar to make nearby females of our species think we were smart. It never worked, but we had fun with it anyway. We would discuss that, "special relativistic time dilation means that the faster the relative velocity, the greater the time dilation between one another, with time slowing to a stop as one approaches the speed of light."

“One of the most startling predictions of the theory of special relativity is that moving clocks run slower by a factor of one minus the square root of v-squared over c-squared.” 

I would later find out that, in 1971, these experiments in time dilation would be repeated by two physicists who flew atomic clocks on commercial airliners in opposite directions around the world. As the atomic clocks were accurate to within 1 billionth of a second, they were able to confirm Einstein’s theory. They did it again in 1975 flying a U.S. Navy plane at 270 knots over Chesapeake Bay. The onboard clock lost 5.6 nanoseconds, just as I would have predicted. My Timex lost that much in a single day, give or take an hour or two.  I would assume, based on these experiments that, had I strapped my Timex to an outboard motor prop, it would have lost even more time and the clock face would have been very hard to read.

If my calculations are correct, this article contains just over 800 words and you have been sitting in one place for all that time. Further calculations predict that, at a normal reading speed, you just wasted a total of 5 minutes. I would go on but it's time for my nap during which, all time stands still.

Postscript, you knew there would be one, didn’t you? Rod Serling wrote the original teleplay for the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse in 1958. It was the concept script for what would become The Twilight Zone.  That story was called, “The Time Element.” 

In The Eye of the Beholder

Yesterday’s release of John Durham’s investigation of the investigation report was Breaking News on all the major news channels. Officially the report is called REPORT ON MATTERS RELATED TO INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES AND INVESTIGATIONS ARISING OUT OF THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS. Unofficially, it was a Trump directed, via Bill Barr, special counsel investigation of the FBI investigation of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign as it involved the Russian government and its agents.

Confused yet? The resultant 306-page report cost taxpayers $21,241.83 per page. Taxpayers got a slightly better deal as there were more pages to the report that will remain secret due to their source material coming from FISA authorities, i.e.., “it’s classified.” If you wish to see these classified materials, you will either need to get a security clearance or a job as a caddy at the Mar a Lago Resort where their Caddyshack has an unabridged classified documents library. There, the classified portion of the Durham Report can be found on the shelf next to the gopher poison.

My observation here has nothing to do with the meat of the report but with the coverage by the top three (?) cable news channels. As this story broke in the media, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News all interrupted their regular broadcasts to report that, at that moment, they knew absolutely nothing and had not yet read the report. Each news source did, however, have an opinion as to what was or might be contained in the report and they would share their views ad nauseam with their viewers.

The meat in this report, according to Fox News, was a thick juicy tenderloin complete with a loaded baked potato, side salad, and a delightful Cabernet Sauvignon. Over on CNN, they were reporting on a Big Mac with fries and a chocolate shake. MSNBC was reporting what they knew to be fact, and they described it as a tofu patty served in a Buddha bowl with quinoa and stir-fried vegetables.

Yes, true to form, Fox News said that the Durham report all but declared Trump to be the de facto winner of the 2020 election, the new king of America, and the Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler of the International Order of Friendly Sons of the Raccoons, as he was completely exonerated of any wrongdoing by asking for Russian help with the election. It must be assumed that they were busy with a traffic report when Trump asked, “Russia if you’re listening — I hope you are able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.”

On CNN, I heard that Republicans would be rejoicing in the streets with the release of this long-awaited report, as it surely excoriated the FBI and their overreach in this matter. They went on to confuse viewers with conflicting announcements while their on-air talking heads were trying to report the breaking news, read the report during ad breaks, and listen to the people in their earpieces telling them what they just learned. While they were describing their “Big Mac with fries” the picture they were painting was more like a Salvador Dali rendering of a Mcdonald's poster. CNN seems to be searching for a new identity and they are hoping to offer a life raft to the disenchanted rats swimming away from the sinking Fox News ship.

MSNBC had their "ever-handy team of experts on all matters of any importance," pontificating on the report. In their view, it was a “nothing burger” as there was no more beef here than in a tofu patty. They claimed that “bull” Durham spent 4 years and only managed to get one FBI employee convicted of an overstatement in an email for which he had to do 400 hours of community service. Two other trials resulted in not-guilty verdicts.

If, like me, when you first heard that the Durham report was just released and said, “Who?”, you can feel justified in knowing that this all goes back more than six years. During the campaign that culminated in the November 2016 election of Donald Trump, members of the Trump campaign “spoke” to Russians, some of whom were government agents (spies). They shared campaign information. Several investigations were initiated after the FBI concluded the 9+ month Crossfire Hurricane investigation, one of which was the special counsel Robert Mueller investigation which resulted in a 448-page report that convicted Paul Manafort and got guilty pleas from Michael Cohen, Michael Flynn, Rick Gates, Alex van der Zwaan, George Papadopoulos, and Richard Pinedo. Then there was Roger Stone who was convicted of seven felonies but was pardoned by Trump days before he was to report to jail to serve his 40-month sentence. This was the outcome from the Mueller Report where he was hamstrung by DOJ policies that prohibited him from charging the sitting president. The Mueller Report got 30 people indicted, including four members of Trump’s campaign team or administration, 26 Russians, and three Russian companies.

I “glanced” at a CNN-provided copy of the Durham report and concluded that, if you remove the footnotes, references to work by other people, government BS, and legal doublespeak, the whole document would be a ten-page book report that might get a C-. Rating it as a Trump-sponsored hatchet job of the FBI, I would give it an Incomplete. As to Crossfire Hurricane, I give the FBI an A+ for clever inspirational naming. I don’t know what a crossfire hurricane is, but it certainly sounds exciting.

To the cable news media, struggling CNN and Fox seem to be bailing their lifeboats with a sieve. MSNBC gets a C+ for making the early tofu patty call regarding the meat content of the story, but they will still pound this nothing-burger into the sidewalk until it is pre-empted by another Texas mass shooting or an interesting Tik Tok video of a cat chasing a laser pointer.

For those of you of a certain age who may have gotten the above reference to the International Order of Friendly Sons of the Raccoons, you also know the name Ralph Kramdon. I will leave you with a bit of trivia I stumbled upon when researching this post. It is the list of benefits and privileges bestowed upon anyone winning Raccoon of the Year:

- Opening the first clam at the annual clambake;

- Steering the boat on the annual ride up the Hudson River to Raccoon Point;

- Free burial with a spouse at Raccoon National Cemetery in Bismark, North Dakota;

- Opportunity to run for Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler;

- Throwing the first bag of water out of the hotel window at the Raccoon convention.

A Muslim Country

 A Muslim Country

There is a Muslim country run by a ruthless autocrat. That country’s leader imposes the will of a minority of religious leaders which is contrary to the will of the majority of its citizens. He has a constitution but ignores it when it gets in his way. When a law is inconvenient, he has his congress specifically exempt him from that law. He tramples on the rights of women and uses his power to enforce religious doctrine. He interprets the Koran in such a way that any books that might have contrarian points of view or which may discuss inconvenient truths are banned. He punishes anyone who might promote their use. When the scientific community has an established majority position that might interfere with profits in industries that support him, he shops around to find someone in that scientific community who is willing to agree with him.

To promote his form of government he has taken over the schools and universities to advance his ideals. Anyone who disagrees with this leader will suffer his wrath. Even major corporations that don’t wholly support his policies will be attacked with threats of taxes and special legislation designed specifically to hurt their business. He will appoint his own judges, and school boards, and will even remove elected leaders to be replaced by those who will support his beliefs.

If you have read this far and haven’t guessed which country it might be, perhaps a few more clues will help. It is home to almost 22 million people. Foreign-born individuals comprise 21 percent of the population. Now, all you must do is substitute the word Christian for Muslim, Bible for Koran, and state for the word country. Then you should be able to make a good guess. Yes, that ruthless autocrat is none other than Ron DeSantis. He runs Florida like Ayatollah Hajj Sayyid Ali Khamenei runs Iran. He is the twelfth most famous person in Florida. His notoriety is superseded by Floridians Pitbull, Ariana Grande, Jim Morrison, Tom Petty, Deion Sanders, Sidney Poitier, Debbie (Blondie) Harry, Faye Dunaway, Wesley Snipes, and Tiffany Trump. Tiffany Trump was born in Florida while Donald was born in Jamaica. I wonder if we should ask him for his birth certificate. He claims it was Jamaica “Hospital” in the Queens borough of New York City, but I haven’t seen proof.

Ron’s new slogan is, “Florida, where Woke goes to die.” Actually, it should read, “Florida, where Freedom has died.” Ron DeSantis is Florida Man, the world’s worst superhero.

Ron "Florida Man" DeSantis

In a previous musing, I wrote of a few “Florida Man” stories and have since run across many more. Things like, a Florida gun enthusiast builds a 55-foot swimming pool shaped like a revolver with a hot tub in the hammer. Then there is the 32-year-old who bit the head off his girlfriend’s pet python during a domestic dispute. The 40-year-old opened a beer during a traffic stop. There was the father in Orlando who punched a bobcat in the face for attacking his daughter’s dog. Lastly, we have the woman in New Jersey who tried to board a plane with her emotional support peacock. Yes, the woman was from New Jersey but the peacock was from Florida.

We have all heard about the governor’s attack on the Mouse House (Disney) after they disagreed with his “Don’t say gay” bill. But there is also the Tampa Bay Rays who crossed the governor when they tweeted support for gun controls after the massacre in Uvalde, Texas. He promptly vetoed state funding for a new training facility. His reasoning was that subsidizing political activism would be inappropriate. Among the many freedoms now dead in Florida is Freedom of Speech. He worries about the cost of political activism while trying to financially hurt the state’s second-largest employer, Disney World. This is in a state where its number one business is tourism. Disney had over 21 million tourists in 2019 before the pandemic. All of this financial concern from a Florida Man who paid out over $1.6 million to fly 48 immigrants, not from Florida, but from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard. Now Florida is on the hook for the legal expenses of the lawsuits resulting from that debacle.

loanDepot park (aka Miami Marlins Stadium)

Yes, Florida Man is still making headlines and hopes to be your future president. He will first have to get around Tiffany’s dad to win the nomination. If there is one thing we have learned here in Florida, Florida Man is capable of anything. How about a cage match with Trump, DeSantis, a 14-foot alligator, an 18-foot python, a Florida panther, and a lionfish. Fill the cage half with water and start the match by dropping a peacock through the roof opening of LoanDepot Park stadium. If you hadn’t heard of LoanDepot Park stadium before, join the club. It is the official name of the $634 million Miami Marlins ballpark. I thought it would be a good place to hold our cage match as the Marlins don’t do much there. I would certainly buy a ticket and it would be my first trip to the site since it was home to the Orange Bowl. I actually sold soft drinks there as a kid.

Sex Education in Florida Has Been Replaced With A Poster