True Skill versus Hacking

Many of us have realized that the Republican Party has begun to fragment over the last few years.  (So have the Democrats, but the Dems, at least, are more in tune with the conventional workings of government, whereas the Republicans are not.)

Let us first assume that the mechanics of Congress, the Supreme Court, the Senate, and the White House, and the ways they work together to govern the country has worked, and will continue to work in the near future.  Whether it does or doesn't is a discussion for smarter minds than mine.  Then it behooves those who are sent to Washington to learn how to do this to the best of their ability.  However, in many areas of life, we see that the newer waves of people apprenticed to work in any area are simply content to learn certain tricks that work, and simply employ them repeatedly.

Mitch McConnell, for example, has learned to drag things out as long as possible, when a Congressional Democratic majority is in power, to (1) not address any legislation that has been sent up from the House, and (2) not consider any supreme court justices that a Democrat President nominates.

This pattern has been extended as follows.  If any Democrat President tries to do anything in a bipartisan way, the Republicans pretend to try to accommodate him or her.  After months of negotiating have delayed the proceedings, they then stop negotiating and vote against the (successfully weakened) legislation.

The Democrats, however, are usually accomplished lawyers, who usually argue their cases in good faith, and do not try to subvert the dominant paradigm, as the saying goes.  The Republicans know this, therefore they try very hard to break the rules.  Whenever they discover a 'charismatic' leader in their midst (though it's hard to think of Donald Trump in terms of charisma; he's more of a showman, a sort of Liberace who can't play the piano), and who does not stand for the usual procedures of Washington, they make the best of it, and encourage him to wreak havoc in Washington, to the extent of subverting the Justice Department, the Immigration Service, and many other institutions that are not intended to be interfered with by political people.

So, as fewer and fewer strong, knowledgeable and skillful Republicans are elected to national office, and the party is left in the hands of hacks, their strategies will drift ever increasingly towards obstructionism, and such things as voter suppression, and playing with the Supreme Court, and wild litigation.

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Power Politics, and Getting Things Done

Why people consider politics as something dirty is because there are two aspects to it.

The first is to get into City Council, or the State House of Representatives, or Congress, or the Senate, and somehow get some legislation you really want passed; hopefully some law that will make things better for everybody.

The second is to get yourself elected.

Members of both parties are concerned with both aspects of politics; you can't do either without the other; sometimes someone who aspires to public office has to compromise on his or her objectives in order to persuade voters to elect them.  Some people go as far as lying about what they want to do once elected, in order to get votes.  Others are brutally honest about their agenda, and endure not being elected for years and years, hoping that the electorate will finally see that their agenda is the best for the electorate.

Now, looking around us, we can't help noticing that there are two terrible forces that are advancing on us: (1) The relentless advance of climate change.  Just like the GOP has finally recognized that it is insane to urge their people to refuse to get vaccinated, so we must hope that those who insisted that climate change was temporary, and not a result of society's disregard of environmental effects, will see reason.  Many fools who screamed at the science that was trying to persuade people that it was going to get too hot and too wet to continue to live the way we like to live, are belatedly coming round to say: we have to do something.  (2) The fact that it is the poorest among us, African Americans and all sorts of minorities, immigrants, women, single parents, disabled, and uneducated, who suffer most from the excesses of the society we live in; in particular, and increasingly, the ravages of climate.

I have, most of my life, dreamed about going into space.  If society was equitable, if poverty was not something that was going through the roof, if there were no more suffering in the world, not to mention the USA, I would have dearly loved an opportunity to go into space, and so would have many others.  But given the horrible future that awaits us if we keep going in the direction we have been, there's something a little crass about billionaires riding out on their own private spaceships, to satisfy their craving to get into space.

There's no doubt that we have to pull out the big guns now---figuratively speaking.  We don't need to choose between dealing with (1) above, or (2); they have to be dealt with together, and with a steady eye on the long term effects of what we do, and what they do to oppose us.

It's sort of a no-brainer that controlling sales of firearms will reduce gun violence across the USA.  But conservatives of all sorts are stockpiling their own personal armories because they expect that the poor will come looking for them, for all the wonderful things they're hiding in their basements, such as a second freezer, and the computers on which they play computer games.  The vaccination fiasco has shown us that conservatives are not the smartest people in the country.  And their leaders are not even as smart as they are.  In a recent article in the New York Times, a writer exclaims why he's sure that Trump will run for President again in 2024.  Not to make things better for the country.  Not to make money out of his hotels.  Rather, to take revenge on everyone who didn't support his electoral bid the last time!  The country is burning on one side, and flooding on the other; his followers are dying of COVID, his fellow-Trumpers are perjuring themselves and ruining their reputations to remain in his favor, and does he care?  No; his first objective---according to this writer, and the idea makes sense to anyone who has been paying attention to the sorts of things that Trump has done while president---is to take revenge on his political opponents.

It is no time for pettiness.  Every act of pettiness detracts from our resources, our time, our energy, all that it takes to move society, and the law, towards dealing with the climate that is grinding towards an intolerable condition.  Many Democrats, in particular, those considered to be among the so called Left Extreme, but who are quite moderate in actual fact, have tried to portray Clean Energy as something that could Profit the big Energy Companies.  Some of the energy companies have bought into this, and have tried to take over some parts of the clean energy industries, and proceeded to build wind farms, and solar farms, with the usual heavy-handed, environment-destroying, jack-booted style with which they were accustomed to developing their energy assets.  They've plunked down solar panels right in the middle of virgin forests.  Wind farms in residential areas.  What are they trying to do?  Make citizens hate wind and solar, to that they will get the OK to drill for more oil?  This is interesting.  The conservatives are now motivated more by hate than by greed.  This is not the time for Democrats, and progressives and liberals generally, to fall into the same trap.  It is almost impossible to avoid feeling hate, because of the destruction that the conservatives are causing.  But it is a mistake to act on hate.  It is not just that liberals and progressives are superior---which they probably are---but that we have our eye on the ball, and we can't get where we want to go by retaliation.

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Humor, News, and Things Going Very Wrong

Well.

How is everyone?  I don't expect you to answer that, but I thought I'll start out on a less egocentric note than seems natural to me.  (You have to expect that bloggers, by their very nature, tend to be egocentric, because they're usually blogging about what happened to them.) 

My wife and my stepson---or at least, my wife---like to keep the house temperature cool, like 69° or 70° F, which is a little too cold for me.  So I obtained a Hoodie, and wear it until I start perspiring, at which point I take it off.  (I get hot flashes, and sweats, possibly because my Urologist shot me up with Estrogen, while he was fixing my middle, as the limerick says.  Don't ask me for the rest of the limerick.)  Now ... what was I saying?

I have a huge problem with short-term memory, though heretofore a lot less trouble with long term memory.  It's a little like ... What did you say your name was?

Ah, temperature.  Because it is kept so cold around here, I suddenly realized that the most comfortable place in which to sit and blog, for me, is---the bathroom!  It is a tiny space, which has its own baseboard heater, and I can set it exactly at the temperature that I like!  Except, of course, that it would tie up an essential facility ...

I hope you found that funny, because that is the Humor segment of today's post.

About News: since I started reading the New York Times, I regret to say, I find it harder to maintain my customary relentlessly optimistic outlook.  Many things get me depressed.  The  arguments over whether the 2020 elections were stolen; the break-in of the Capitol (and the subsequent misbehaviour); the Democrats' slim majority in Congress; frequent news stories of accumulating piles of plastic waste; the problems with schools reopening, and my own doubts about whether I could have functioned in a remote classroom; and the race of Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson to send themselves into space.

But almost the worst story of all is the utter dysfunctionality of Haiti, as a nation.  All the news stories that outline the history of the country seem to indict the USA as---if not the principal culprit, at least one of the culprits who have kept Haiti in its state of dysfunctionality.  Only a Haitian can take the reins of any improvement of that country's condition.  One expects that it has to be an educated Haitian, because modern government requires a certain degree of awareness.  But it looks as though all educated Haitians are cynical in the worst way.  There seems to be no way out of the mess.  As far as the international community is concerned, it looks to be a money pit, and throwing good money into it after the bad will not get anyone anywhere.

One of the most frightening facts that have emerged in the last year is that there is a vast number of Americans who do not believe anything except what their favorite truth peddler tells them.  They don't believe that Trump lost the 2020 elections, they don't believe that Trump has cheated on his taxes, they don't believe in Climate Change, they don't believe in the seriousness of COVID, they don't believe in vaccinations.

Put it all together, and what do you get?

I have a feeling that the GOP is going to get elected back into both Congress and the White House sooner or later, and repeal every good action that the Democrats will take in the next year or two, whether good or bad or indifferent.  If they (Good Actions of the Democrats) improve our lives in the long term, these Unbelievers will doubt that it was the Democrats who made it so.  (Compare, for instance, how Obama lowered the unemployment rate, but Trump took the credit.)  Even if some action of Biden's makes lives immediately better for every American, we know who will get the credit: Trump.

It hardly seems worth Biden's while to try very hard.

On top of all this are the twin divides of Racism/Xenophobia, and Classism/Education-phobia.  I can only conclude that Haiti is merely a foreshadowing of what will happen to us.  The difference is that we have a lot more resources, more oil, more learning, none of which will be permitted to make a difference.  Already the youth are heading towards cynicism.

If one of our Axioms is going to be that we cannot combat Global Warming, saddled with the broader political picture that sits like a stationary cold front over our society, what should be our guiding principle?

Some people choose to be optimistic, even if that choice is not supported by the facts.  I suspect that some denominations are going to style themselves Church of Hope in the Face of Despair.  Churches are so good at believing in irrational things!  They call it faith.

Should we continue to recycle, given that we know no US government is going to attack the problem of pollution head on?  The American political system is designed to move incrementally.  We have incrementally painted ourselves into a corner, and now we need quick action, but the system is not designed for it.  We thought we were the poster boys of everyone working together, or at least, everyone who mattered.  But vast stretches of the US is populated by those who did not get the Memo, and don't believe that the Earth is round, to begin with.  As for me and my house, to quote the prophet Joshua, we will continue to act as though our actions make a difference.  Burn less gas, eat less meat, elect more environmentalists, practice less hate, and so on.  It isn't easy, but it gives us something to do.

Meanwhile, the plastics industry is making plastic cheaper and more convenient to use, the gas industry is making gas more readily available.  (Can't they make gas out of plastic?  Apparently not; plastic is very low-energy stuff, into which you need to pump a lot of energy to make anything out of it other than more plastic.)

It's a rainy day over here, but that's clearly better than temperatures in the triple digits, as they have in some places in California.  I don't understand why Californians continue to stay there with the prospect of murderous summers in the foreseeable future.  (According to their laws, the Big Farms have control over their water, so that most citizens can't get the water they need.  But the state government dares not change the laws, because Trump will label them as the destroyers of Californian agriculture.)

Keep up your optimism, or at least, act as if you're an optimist!

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Cut-throat Competition is Not Good For Everybody

Yesterday and today are the days of Homemade Days, an annual festival that takes place in Brandon Park, close to where we live.  On the face of it, it's just a neighborhood festival for our town, but has also the features of an arts festival.  We have other things sort of like it: a First Friday monthly event, and a Saturday morning Farmers' Market.

This year, Homemade Days were poorly attended, but consider that last year, we didn't have Homemade Days at all, due to COVID.  I don't quite know what the psychology of the vendors and the customers is, but I have noticed that there was quite a good attendance at the morning's Farmers' Market, which is a place where folks who grow produce in their small farms or their homes bring them into town, to this space set up in a parking lot, and sell their produce direct to the customers.  Some of us have suspected that some of these vendors don't actually grow this stuff, but get it wholesale from other vendors, and bring them in, so they're effectively shopkeepers, with mobile shops.

These are not the products we would have looked for in the Homemade Days (often spelled Homade Days), but rather the fun things to be found in a fair, e.g. funnel cakes, lemonade, music in the band-shell, ice cream, deep-fried cookies, hot dogs, and . . . handicrafts.  You can buy anything from necklaces, sea-shells, items made of wood, paintings, potted plants, jewellery, and so on.

However, over the years, the quality seems to have declined.  I think the problem is that the vendors are now focused more on trying to identify what sort of things will sell, what sorts of things are easy to make, and not at all on what sort of things they can make really well.  Making things really well takes a lot of work, and understandably, nobody want to spend a lot of time making something well, when people just won't shell out the money for it.  The customers know the value of money, and would rather keep it to spend later on a quarterpounder, rather than some delectable work of sheer handworked beauty.

Handicrafts are not the only things that have become slaves to market research.  The survey kings have taken over everything from TV to movies to politics, to conspiracy theories.  The New York Times, too, wants to know "How are we doing?"  Fair enough; they would like to know whether I think they suck.  "What sorts of articles would you like to read?"  YouTube wants to know "Is the video above a good suggestion for you?"

There's no going back!  Polling, or market research determines what people are going to do.  Even health systems decide on which departments they would invest their money in, based on customer surveys.  (Shall we create a department of Asthma, or a department of Athlete's Foot?  These are the decisions that will make or break them.)  Meanwhile, Geisinger Health Systems play a vicious game.  They look for any location where the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center takes over an existing health facility, and immediately acquire land close to it, and put in a facility of their own, to compete with it.  (I have heard, on the grapevine, that this is sort of an economic war between Aetna on the one hand, and Geisinger Insurance Corp on the other.  I hope it is false.)

The only people who have the luxury of completely ignoring marketing are those, like me, who are retired.  But even we sometimes worry whether the Home Insurance we have is the best according to recent surveys.  And of course, you probably know well---those of you who are also retired---the volume of junk mail that comes to your house.  In addition, because my wife sends money to charities, all sorts of charities hound her continually to send more.  I don't blame the charities themselves; they hire fresh graduates for their direct mail departments, who have earned pestering by mail degrees which are precisely focused on this particular job for accredited non-profits.

Anyway, this is the greatest country in the world, and our junk mail is the best.  Let that thought give you consolation.

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What Barack H. Obama delivered to us

I'm going to talk about all sorts of things, and if I lose track of what I'm saying, my apologies in advance!

Five years before Obama arrived in the Senate, nobody would have thought seriously of the possibility of a Black president.  But it's a lot deeper than just that Obama made it into the White House.

Imagine a little 5th grader, who was seeing the elections on TV.  This kid is about 9 or 10.  But eight years later, when this kid watches elections once again, the kid is now 17 years old, and has his or her own opinions, and Obama has been in the White House for eight years, half the lifetime of this kid.  So when people talk about women and minorities running for national office, if they talk scornfully about it being unimaginable that minorities should run for national office, this kid is thinking: whyever not?  Wasn't Obama president?  And wasn't he one of the more effective ones?

Kids who might have been a little older, would have had similar opinions, especially when they hear Trump boast about what he did for unemployment.  Some of this explains what happened during the mid-term elections.  The point is that race is much less of a factor among people just coming into being eligible to vote than it might have been before Obama.  For older men, whose self-images depended on their being able to boss Black folk and minorities around, race was even more of a factor.

Let's not be too critical.  For people whose jobs had been managing mostly Blacks and minorities, this could have been a huge deal; for instance, prison guards.

 

But that is not the main point I am making, actually, though none of this would have come about if not for Obama's ground-breaking presidency.  If you would like to see the article that sparked my thinking: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/01/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-barack-obama.html  (I'm not sure whether the NYT will let you read that for free.)

For decades, the guys who ran for president were: George H.W. Bush; Bill Clinton; George W. Bush.  Then along comes Barack Obama.  When Obama gave a public address, you got the distinct impression that he was measuring his words very carefully.  And he was not doing it in real time, no; it had all been done days, even weeks in advance.  He had estimated---usually accurately---what the reactions of the public would be; in fact, all the possible reactions of everyone with different political leanings, and how important would be their reaction to the health of the Federal Government.  Now, to be sure, advisers to the presidents did this all the time, since the beginning of presidential advisers.  But in Obama's case, you got the impression that a lot more of these planned statements were from Obama himself.

In fact, there was a lot of belief that Obama was a lot cleverer than working-class Whites could tolerate.  If there was one thing worse than a Black in the White House, it was a clever Black.  (And the only thing worse than a clever Black in the White House, it would be a Puerto-Rican woman.  I just don't get it about Puerto Ricans and Americans; why is Puerto Rico still not a state, and why are Puerto Ricans so reviled?  It just does not compute for me.  And why did Trump toss rolls of paper towels at them?  Was there a sort of dog-whistle insult there?  I strongly believe so.)

Consider the 2020 elections, and the debates leading up to it.  Andrew Yang was a candidate, and there was no doubt that he was quite a clever gentleman, even if his grey cells might not have been up to up arm-wrestling those of Obama.  Let's face it: because of how complex our National problems are: health, economics, culture, environmental, social justice, you could expect only an at least moderately bright and highly-educated person running for president under the Democrat banner.  Under the Republican banner, you could expect either someone glamorous, someone who was a TV personality, someone who has had lots of illegal affairs with teenagers, but someone whose public face would be: 'I'm as Dumb as a Couple of Posts!'  That does not mean that the Republican candidate would not be guided by clever policies.  But they would be policies put together by behind-the-scenes guys that are designed to (1) get the Republicans elected, (2) make it very inconvenient for Blacks and minorities to vote, and if there's any time left over, (3).make it almost impossible to develop Clean Energy.  Then, of course, there is the almost irresistible desire to destroy any delicate peace deals that the Democrats might have put in place.  And ruining any plans to provide more affordable health care for poor Americans.  (One thing the Republicans just can't stand is poor folk who are too healthy, at low cost.)

Finally, I wonder whether the Republicans are thinking at all.  Every inane scandal they get into, every silly conspiracy theory they swallow, every instance of gullibility they exhibit, is one more reason, one more bit of evidence for the entire Republican ticket to be rejected by Millennials.

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Inside the Mind of a Browser

So, most people seldom give a thought to the psychology of a browser.  (Maybe we should call it the Spychology, for obvious reasons.)

My browser is Firefox von Mozilla.  A while ago it asked me to upgrade to its new version, but I was in a contrary mood, and I said, no, nuh-uh.

OMG.  Little did I know how this would upset the thing.  The first thing it did was to tell me that it has trouble doing something or other, and can it reload?  So I said, Not Now.  It did not appear to do anything in response to that, and I proceeded to wait until it opened up the half-dozen tabs I had open, but ... i t   w a s   s o   s  l   o    w.

Unfortunately for me, I have had just enough computer background to be able to get into the sad mind of this browser.  You see, it probably doesn't expect users to deny it permission to update.  The updating Team has not reckoned with senior citizens (me) who have suffered under earlier updates that invariably make products work not-good-ly.

What happens, at the level of pseudocode, is as follows.  There is probably a switch that is present, at top level, that sends control to Old Firefox, in the unlikely event that the user has said: Don't Update.  But, even in Old Firefox, they have probably embedded numerous switches, all throughout, that keep checking whether the user has decided to change his or her mind, and update.  So the control flow probably looks like this.

Check whether to update:  CHECKING...

Update? : NO.

Do a couple of steps:  OKAY...

Check whether to update:  CHECKING... 

Update? : NO.

Do one more step:  OKAY...

Check whether to update:  CHECKING...

Update? : NO.

Oh, come on; check again: CHECKING...

Update? : NO.

I can't believe this! : ???

Yes, debugging computer performance can be invigorating, except possibly in this case.

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Dealing with Things We Don't Completely Understand

Back in the dawn of computers, the number of people using computers were very few.  This handful knew all about computers.  Some decades later, they were able to do miraculous things with computers, and around the late 1960's, they even sent a team to the moon, (something that quite a few people do not yet entirely believe).

Of course, by the time inexpensive Personal Computers were available---the mid 1980's---everybody just had to get in on computers, whether they had a clue as to how the things worked or not.  By the time smart phones were freely available, even more people had to get one for themselves, though, as we know, smartphones are in fact computers, which connect with computers in some central locations, to enable us to make phone calls.

People, at this point, have become comfortable using gadgets---technology---which they never understood.  There are many people who do not understand the workings of a vast pile of things: the government, smart phones, GPS, the school system, Colleges and Universities, jury trials, electric chairs, cataract surgery ... you name it.  They don't understand how Congress and the Senate work, and so they gradually become deeply suspicious about the workings of the government.  After all, we get to vote on the people who go to Washington, don't we?  We pick the ones we like, and Boom!  They go to Washington and enact laws which we don't like.  How come?  There is something suspicious going on.

Along comes a fellow, Trump, whom we know well, because he's on TV, firing his Apprentices, just like we want to fire these losers for whom we voted.  So we send him to Washington, and sure 'nuff, he fires more people than almost anyone before him.  We cheer him on, because these fellows whom Trump is firing are sure to be no-goodniks, and he must be firing them for a reason.

Trump also convinces everyone that the bad news everyone reads in the news, and which the TV newspeople tell us, are ALL LIES.  This is easy to believe, because we don't understand how anything works anyway, and now we have a reason for it: it's all lies.

Halfway through his term, Trump began to realize that he himself didn't understand how a lot of government worked, either.  He did understand that lobbyists come bringing gifts, and in return you have to pass laws that the lobbyists like.  Beyond that, all of Trump's legendary intelligence boiled down to a few rules of thumb that he had managed to acquire, and this 'know-how' was basically about real estate, golf courses, hotels and casinos.  There was a book published back in the last century called "Winning Through Intimidation", and it is entirely possible that Trump learned all he knows from this book, and the twisted advice his late father used to throw at him.

Trump was also quick to pick up on the fact that a lot of people were beginning to be uneasy about immigrants and minorities.  Focusing on keeping migrants entirely out, by building an expensive wall along the southern border accomplished two things: the base that elected him (those who watched The Apprentice) loved it, and Trump was quickly able to point the finger at those who opposed the wall (the Democrats and others whom he named Libtards) as The Enemy.

Then the COVID pandemic arrived.  This was entirely unplanned for.  Dealing with it required Trump to have some intelligence and information and experience that he did not even remotely have, and neither did his advisers.  Somehow, the Democrats stumbled into winning the election---it was by no means a sure thing.  At least, the Democrats had experience dealing with epidemics and public health, and having won the election, set about earnestly dealing with the pandemic.

The rank and file of the GOP must be seriously baffled.  A large number of them must now be aware that the central Brains of the party don't understand much of anything that is going on (least of all how to leave teenage girls alone).  Many of the GOP state governors are having trouble dealing with the pandemic, and Trump's lies about voter fraud at the same time.  A tiny bit of voter fraud is inevitable; there are known instances of people interfering with ballots, about half of them Republicans.  (Trump keeps harping on his belief that thousands and thousands of ballots have been altered, or whatever.  In fact, in every instance it seems that it is a dozen or fewer, and they have been caught every time.)

There's no going back to a world where we only use things that we completely understand; we have to use smart phones, we have to use ballot machines; many teachers, now, have to use zoom to teach their classes remotely.  Overactive kids, whom teachers could quiet down in person, now have to be quieted down by their parents.  In addition to not knowing how anything works, parents don't know how their children work, either.  Teachers have had to become experts in dealing with kids, who did not want to settle down and learn lessons without a great deal of magic from their teachers.  I believe that it was not inevitable that kids have become so difficult to manage, but then I'm probably in the minority.  (Some would claim that kids are hard to manage because they are more intelligent!  Sure.  That's why they'll vote for Trump.)

To summarize: it is tough to keep going when the GOP seems to be determined to make politics into chaos so successfully.  A century or so ago, there was an actual strategy among some conservatives to deliberately make politics chaotic, as a way of allowing big business to take over the government; I'm fairly sure that the majority of members of the GOP are not aware of that plan.

Short term, the Democrats will solve some of the most pressing problems that are facing the nation.  People will either cheer, or sneer.  Then the Republicans will come in, and claim that the Democrats ruined everything!  Let's just be prepared.

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