Confused, not Dazed

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Trump's world

I’m confused. I always thought sincerity and empathy were two highly-valued traits in our leadership. I thought that honesty, devotion to duty, personal sacrifice for our country, and having a shared love of country was honorable and desirable. But then I encounter the brave new world of politics in the post-reality environment we now find ourselves in, and I wonder how we have migrated so far off of the tracks.

I’m confused. I thought overt racism and tiki-torch marches in favor of white nationalism was a relic of the past in this and in other countries. I believed that we were evolving into becoming one human race, instead of fragmenting ourselves into artificial divides based upon minor genetic differences. Now I see moral equivalence declared between liberal protestors, and the followers of Richard Spencer. I see the white race proclaimed as being the savior of the human race, since obviously no other race has ever made any contribution to civilization.

I’m confused. I thought our culture had long gotten past the point where women had validated their worth to society, past the point where they were viewed as merely eye candy and were subject to being considered as the property of their alpha males. I thought that women in our country had earned the right to govern their own reproductive processes without governmental coercion. But now I see misogyny celebrated, declared to be “not politically correct” and exclaimed with adulation, while at the same time women’s rights to control their own body are dying the death of a thousand legislative cuts at the hands of males who ask their mistresses to get an abortion because a pregnancy would not be convenient to the male legislator.

I’m confused. I thought with the near total collapse of communism, that would enable the world to devote some of the excessive expenditures for armaments and armies into works to benefit the mass of humanity. I believed that beating swords into plowshares was good for humanity. I didn’t expect to see ever increasing funding for more and more complex weapons systems, and I didn’t expect to see a call for a return to the nuclear weapon level of the 1970’s.

I’m confused. I thought with the rapid advances in technology and communications, fostered by advances in science, we would be enabled to have a shared vision of reality as defined through science. But now we see alternative facts extolled even though objective reality denies their existence. We see individuals proclaim their right to their own reality, even though that reality may in fact cause risk to their own families and to society (anti-vaccines). We see legislative mandates to “teach the controversy” of evolution when there is no controversy there. We see the denial of all of the evidence of a warming world, and we declare that since trace gases in our atmosphere are such a tiny fraction, there is no way they can influence climate.

I’m confused. I thought Evangelical Christians took a firm moral stand against greed, and vanity, and lust, and unchastity, and wrath, and pride. Yet when presented with a candidate who embodies these traits wholly and completely, they unhesitatingly supported him in the Presidential election. This in support of someone whose familiarity with Christian rituals ended with the death of Norman Vincent Peale, and someone who enjoys only having his little wine and little cracker when at a service.

I’m confused. I thought this country had made substantial improvements in our environment from the days of my youth, when rivers caught fire, and soot-based smog choked the life out of unfortunate people in Pennsylvania (actually before my time). I thought that the return of the bald eagles represented the triumph of wise stewardship of the earth, and I looked forward to exporting these environmental improvements to other countries through provisions in trade pacts. But now I see wholesale and rapid abandonment of environmental progress and trade pacts, all in the name of increasing profits for business (and maybe reclaiming jobs until dwindling resources disappear).

I’m confused. I’ve heard the Republican drumbeats calling out the evils of deficits, and the need to ensure austerity in order to prevent the collapse of our government into a pile of indebted rubble. I’ve seen balanced budgets at the Federal level only once in my lifetime, under a Democratic administration. Yet I see the Republican’s gleefully hop onto a runaway train of tax cuts, aimed not at reforming our tax system, but instead swelling the assets of the top 1% while tossing animal crackers to the masses in order to persuade them of the generosity of their tax cut.

I’m confused. I thought leaders were those who were able to display the trait of reasonableness, and who were able to enunciate the principles for which they stand. I thought they would engage the nation and the legislators with cogent thoughts and well-reasoned opinions. But now I see what passes for Presidential prose as 140-character cartoon bubbles, devoid of depth, internally inconsistent, and lacking in human sensitivity. I see wrath-filled tweets sent during hours when most should be sleeping. I see covfefe extolled as gospel emanating from the fingers of the tweeter-in-chief.

I’m confused. I thought that even with the ongoing decline in educational and moral standards of this country, there was no way the people of this nation would elect a charlatan and singularly vile representative of humanity as its President. I was wrong.

 

Some will say that this commentary represents a sense of denial about the election. Let me say, no, it does not. I see the election of Donald Trump as the last stand of those who are unable to adjust to a changing world. This President has lived up to every one of my expectations of his behavior and policies. I just didn’t realize the pain that the embodiment of his misguided policies would cause as the administration lurches from one self-induced crisis to another, all the while denying there are any problems with their agenda (and besides, it’s all McConnell’s fault). My sincere hope is that for those who still believe that Donald Trump is working for the benefit of any other than the billionaire class, I hope they come to their senses and realize that Donald Trump has a singular achievement that may never be duplicated. He committed the greatest con job ever on the citizens of the US.

The Decline and Fall of Which Empire?

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Nebraska stadium

Empires die, if they are lucky, with a whimper, not a bang. On October 14, 2017, Memorial Stadium in Lincoln Nebraska let out a huge whimper. On that night, the team representing the University of Nebraska laid down and allowed Ohio State to eviscerate the Husker’s defense. Meanwhile, the Ohio State defense smothered the offense, eventually allowing meaningless second half touchdowns, but shutting out the home team throughout the first half while amassing a 35 point total when they were not stopped once. Five possessions, five scoring drives.

The whimper was heard in the second quarter. A tradition of Nebraska football is that fans purchase red helium balloons, and release them when the first score happens for the home team. In the middle of the second quarter, the Huskers gained their second first down of the game. First a trickle, then a flood of balloons started to dance in the strong north wind, signifying the depression that the fans felt due to the humiliation they were witnessing.

At half time, the wind picked up considerably. The huge American flag flying over the north stadium snapped loudly in the breeze as it stood straight out as if starched. The noise of the wind muffled the whimper being sounded by the hordes of fans filing down out of the stands, and eventually out of the stadium to face the cold strong wind. I joined the exiting throngs along with my brother’s family.

As we wound our way back through the campus, we heard the roar of the stadium at our back as the team managed to strike with a lone long touchdown pass. But nothing could disguise the utter demolition of a team with a proud history by one of the few teams with even a prouder history. That pride has shown itself through the 55 years of consecutive sell-outs of the stadium, longest sell-out streak ever in either college or pro sports. If the performance of the team continues to match that of the last two games, even that tattered remnant of empire will fade away, if not this year then certainly next season. But the rise and fall of a college football empire will affect only a small fraction of the population of this country, and does not represent an existential crisis.

Empires do have a finite life. Empires fade when the cost of maintaining the empire exceeds the tribute brought in. They may be overthrown from without, or within. But until this year, I never heard of an empire being overthrown by its own government. With its initial effort, the new President withdrew from the Trans Pacific Partnership trade treaty. That treaty, intended to align nations in the Pacific watershed away from the growing maw of China, was a symbol of the American empire of commercial dominance. However, the new administration believes all trade agreements are win/lose propositions, and that the verdict of history is that the US has lost with all of its trade agreements. What this administration does not realize is that the US has used its position as the owner of the global reserve currency to enable this country to run both substantial trade deficits and Federal governmental deficits. The reserve currency is the symbol of the American empire, since it ensures demand for US dollars and US debt instruments. Imagine what the cost of imported goods would be if the US dollar suddenly was not required for international transactions?

Yet the current administration ignores these macroeconomic factors, arguing instead that all of our trading partners are taking advantage of us since we do run trade deficits. This administration believes that if we just pull back from international engagements, trans-national agreements, and treaties, we will be able to set our own trade terms and retreat into a world of US sourced products that fulfill all of the nation’s needs.

The effects of this near-sighted policy is already making itself felt. China is pressing Saudi Arabia to accept yuan as a mode of payment for its oil imports. When that happens, look for other countries to follow suit and then the whole house of cards propping up the US economy will be left teetering in mid-air. Other signs of the US ceding its international role are showing with Europe turning inward as the US President disparages NATO and other treaty obligations. A fundamental misreading of the Iran nuclear treaty shows that this administration does not recognize the treaty as only having jurisdiction over nuclear matters. No, this administration insists that Iran is not adhering to the spirit of the treaty by invoking factors that were never included in the treaty.

And then there is the elephant in the room (sorry, Republicans, you didn’t make the cut). How do you solve a problem like Kim Jong-un? Apparently, this President believes that intimidation and crude insults trump all other choices, like, maybe diplomacy? After all, intimidation and crude insults helped him triumph over all of the other prospective Republican candidates. Why wouldn’t the same tactics work with the still-young heir to the North Korean political dynasty? Everyone fears the US military!  We’re invincible (but we must do something about the appalling lack of nuclear weaponry. What have we been doing since the 1970’s anyhow?). No, North Korea is not a problem you can bluster your way through.

The history of the US empire post WWII took a wrong turn after the end of the cold war. Instead of using the opportunity to begin limited withdrawal of US forces from the excessive number of bases we maintain overseas, we felt the need to expand our footprint. The events of September 2001 enabled the US to go even further to increase our presence throughout the world, and all in the name of the war on terror. We should pursue reductions in bases and overseas presence of our military. It now is viewed as divisive across the world instead of being a soothing presence. But with an administration whose head decries diplomacy, and threatens fire and fury, do not look for this empire to go gently into that dark night.

When you have an empire replete with a naked emperor, and simpering sycophants in his party who still fear the tweet of doom, nothing good will happen. I can only wish that the American Empire does not go out with a bang. Yet I fear that, for once, cooler heads will not prevail, and we will find ourselves in a conflict with unimaginable casualties, and unprecedented global consequences.

Swallowtail Chaos

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swallowtail-butterfly-364329__340

You have to wonder. Does former President Obama rue the roasting he gave to Donald Trump at the 2011 White House Correspondent’s Dinner? Was that the final motivation that a fragile yet swollen ego required to forge the decision to go all in on a future run for the Presidency? Was the public humiliation of Donald Trump the equivalent of the butterfly flapping it’s wings, magnifying its effects through chaos, and eventually resulting in the hurricane which now envelops us?

No, this one single event did not trigger the madness. Donald Trump had for decades revealed himself to be a small-time hustler who used the modern media environment to peddle his brand image. Each media conquest fed that ego, as he gained the fawning attention of the B-list celebrities who tried to resuscitate their brands by playing as apprentices. That was one reason why the jabs at the Correspondent’s dinner hurt so much – they were true, and the joking reference to decisions as to who to fire on the show would cause President Obama to spend sleepless nights tore at the shredded remnants of Donald Trump’s psyche. And all the while, the President knew that the operation to take out Osama Bin Laden was taking shape during the dinner.

All that Donald Trump could perceive at that moment was that he was once more, not a true member of the club. He was an object of ridicule. They weren’t laughing with him, they were laughing at him. You can tell from the stern look on his face as he faced his taunters from the podium. He was plotting his revenge. And to the dismay of those who prefer peace to fire and fury, he now is fulfilling that primal urge.

We can all ponder the madness of the electorate in 2015 and 2016 as this shallow ideologue harangued his campaign rallies, providing the spark for the disaffected of the nation to strike back at all of the misery caused by the elites. No one would ever mistake Donald Trump as an elite figure. His boorish manners, his stunted vocabulary, his appeal to the baser emotions of his core of supporters, all of these tactics showed his adoring fans that HE was one of THEM! And they lapped it up – calling out “Lock Her Up!”, turning on the press as he called them “LYING”. No, it is not surprising that Donald has kept up with a need to feed off of crowds at rallies, far away from any election. The emotion that feeds him also feeds his crowds, making them feel real emotions and allowing them to imbibe in the energy of the mob. Donald Trump’s success came from his ability to tap into this inchoate dissatisfaction with the world, and enabled him to ride the wave of anger his movement unleashed.

The same wave of anger has swelled in many nations at this time. Europe has a multitude of movements where the tendency is to pull inward, take care of those most like us, and show hatred for all who are different. Donald Trump is the manifestation of this impulse in the US. Unfortunately for all of the citizens of the world, he is the manifestation who has the accumulated power of the greatest military force in the world’s history at his beck and call. And thus we were treated to the image of President Trump, flanked by almost exclusively men in uniform and their women, as he referred to a gathering as the “Calm before the storm.” This is from the President who seems incapable of serious reflection, preferring instead to send out 140 character instruments of mass covfefe.

The nuclear response capability of the US is stuck back in the 1970’s and 1980’s, where rapidity of response would be required to ensure that our forces were unleashed before the incoming volleys from our prime adversary could land and take out our ability to retaliate. The premise was that there was a confirmed attack underway, and this speed in response was absolutely required. Thus, there are deliberately very few barriers in place between the time that a President determines nuclear response is required, and that response being activated. Now we have a President of the United States who has extremely poor impulse control, who internalizes any criticism as disloyalty to the nation (and himself), and who exhibits zero unscripted empathy (paper towels, anyone?). This President could unilaterally decide to plunge the world into nuclear destruction.  What could possibly go wrong?

Meanwhile, this President is exacting his revenge upon the legacy of his predecessor. Witness his pitiful attempts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Time and time again, he praised the latest Republican attempt as a wonderful plan, only to back away and claim it was a hateful plan once it failed to run the legislative gauntlet. He had zero input into these plans. Their only redeeming virtue in his mind was that they would eliminate that hated plan that Obama created.

So maybe it isn’t possible to directly delete the ACA via a frontal attack. Throw up administrative barriers to ensure that it fails. Anything to remove the legacy of that horrible president, who after all wasn’t born in the US. Where else can we undermine his actions? Of course, trade and treaties. Forget whether they are in the interest of the US, they were part of the legacy of that hated predecessor. Toss them out! And yes, any of the environmental actions taken during the last 8 years? Cease their enforcement, rescind their authority, and unleash a flood of fossil fuels to fill gas tanks for our nation.

Yes, one wonders whether President Obama wishes to apologize for his jibes and jabs during the 2011 Correspondent’s Dinner. His partner at the dais Seth Myers did apologize for his part in the taunting of Trump that night. Apologized for assisting in unleashing this madman on the nation. Of all of the symbols of President Obama’s legacy, it may be that steeling Donald Trump’s quest for revenge may be the most significant, if unintended, consequence.

Draining the Swamp

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“Pssst – Do you think they’ve given up?” The slime monster arose from the fetid waters of the Potomac swamp, trailing tendrils of foul-smelling algae from its scaly skin. “Do you think they’ve stopped trying to drain this wonderful environment?” the creature asked me, as I was sitting alongside the tidal basin on a fall afternoon.

“That’s difficult to say,” I replied, only slightly startled to be addressed by a creature that should have been typecast to come out of Tokyo Bay instead of DC. “It looks like their plan is proceeding very well, and succeeding beyond their wildest dreams. By using a master of distraction to rivet the nation’s attention, no one seems to be paying heed to all of the shenanigans happening behind the curtains.”

“That’s good to hear,” said Slimey (or so I named him, though he had not referred to him (or her)self as having a name). “Mind if I sit beside you? It gets a little cold down there in the water this time of year, and it’s good to warm my bones.”

“Help yourself,” I said, though I did scoot down a bit towards the end of the bench, as much to get away from the drips streaming from Slimey’s arms and torso instead of out of concern for Slimey’s clawed limbs. I said, “You know, we don’t often get to see your kind around here. What brings you out of the depths?”

Slimey stretched, wrapped his tail over the side railing of the bench, and sat silently for a bit, as if pondering the question. Then, he shrugged and said, “Last year we heard they wanted to drain the swamp in DC. Kept hearing it again and again. When he won, we figured that we needed to move somewhere else where we would be appreciated, like maybe lower Manhattan. But then, we heard about the people he brought in, and we kept going, that fellow isn’t going to drain the swamp. He’s going to expand it. We just didn’t get it.”

I nodded, understanding the confusion. I told Slimey, “We were surprised as well. He kept talking about how the nation was being taken over by Goldman Sachs during the campaign. Berating Ted Cruz for his and his wife’s ties to Goldman. Complaining about Hillary being beholden to Goldman since she gave a speech to them. Then, POW, onto the Trump team comes Cohn, and Mnuchin, and Bannon, and other underlings, all from Goldman Sachs. The art of deception. Say one thing, then quietly implement the opposite.”

Slimey sighed. “Then there’s all that talk about how bad the banks were during the campaign, how they were getting away with murder after the financial crisis, and he was going to break them up. Do something good for the little people. But once he took office, all we hear about is breaking up the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, and freeing up the banks from Dodd-Frank. ” Slimey held up a front limb to shield his eyes from the sun. “Don’t the “little people” see that he’s helping their enemies, and destroying their friends?”

I turned my head for a moment, looking back over the monuments of our nation’s history. I realized that never had our founders anticipated such a bizarre disruption of our national character when the avenues of this town were laid out. Then, realizing that Slimey was looking at me in anticipation of my answer, I said “Those “little people” don’t see it. They are used to only listening to their leaders on TV and the radio, and following what they say. They’ve lost their ability to analyze what they are hearing and seeing, they only believe what comes their way on Facebook. How else can they keep believing their ears when their eyes see the opposite?”

Slimey nodded, his crest flapping loosely atop his head. He turned to me and said, “There’s one thing I’m glad to see, though. That Pruitt guy at EPA, he seems like he’s our best friend.”

“How so?”, I asked.

“Well, he just seems to be turning the clock back on all of the environmental regulation of the past. We figure it’s just a matter of time before he rescinds the regulations on pollution in the Chesapeake watershed, and when he does, we’ll get all that luscious nitrogen and phosphorus coming back downstream. You wouldn’t believe how good that is for all of the green glop we love.” Slimey licked his chops as he thought of the bonanza he expects to come sliding on downstream in a year or two.

I pondered what this basin would look like festooned in green and blue growths of algae in the turgid waters. The odor it would create would match the mood in the city. Suddenly I grew tired of the conversation, and straightened my body against the bench. Slimey sensed my mood.

“Friend, I’m going to go on back to my kind” he said. “But before I go, there’s one thing I wish you’d help me to understand. Why was it that all of those evangelicals, who oppose the sins of the flesh, supported someone who cheated on his ex-wives, who curses in public, who oozes greed and lust? Someone who waxes wrath on twitter any time he’s criticized. I’ve never seen someone who epitomizes all seven of the deadly sins at once. And he’s the one with the control over the most massive military force the world has ever seen? Can you explain that to me?”

I nodded, finally having an answer that I know would satisfy this creature. “He wasn’t Hillary,”

Slimey stood up, bowed stiffly to me, and said. “Of course. That explains everything.” Then he stepped off into the tidal basin, disappearing into the dark waters, never to be seen again by me.

 

After Vietnam Protests at College, Streaking!

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streaking-1974-streak-in-spectators

Photo courtesy of the UT History Center of the crowd watching streakers in Austin, Texas.

Spring, in 1974. The cloying stench of Watergate hung over the nation’s senses. Vietnam remained in the nation’s conscience, even though US troops had pulled out the year before. In early March, an unseasonable warm spell brought the college students outside at the University of Nebraska. And the attention of the country was drawn to – Streaking!

I was a college sophomore at the time, trying to make it through my classes of organic chemistry, engineering calculations, classical physics, and partial differential equations. Meanwhile, my roommate who had a ROTC scholarship, but had decided by that time to deliberately flunk out since he would not have a service obligation if he didn’t finish his sophomore year, was drawn to the ongoing pursuit of women. He and I were polar opposites when it came to our success with women at that time. There was once when I went to bed in the bottom bunk, and awoke the next morning and found that the top bunk held two people, but I digress (I was a sound sleeper).

March 6 dawned chilly, but by the afternoon, had warmed up into the 70’s. The first warm day in spring on a college campus brings out the hedonism of the students. Blankets were stretched out in our quadrangle, and shirts are shed in order to soak up the first of the spring’s sun rays after the horrendous winter weather on the prairie. After supper, as we should have been studying, word started spreading from floor to floor, and from door to door. “Hey, they’re streaking around the fraternity houses”.

Our quadrangle was smack dab in the middle of campus. On the far side of our dorm, along 16th street, stood the large fraternity houses – Sigma Phi Epsilon, Sigma Nu, Kappa Alpha Psi, Phi Kappa Psi, Pi Kappa Phi. And then there were the sorority houses – Alpha Omicron Pi, Alpha Phi, Chi Omega, and others (Google Earth is great for reconstructing these sorts of memories). Beyond 16th street were other high rise dorms, so all in all, a critical mass of horniness and hormones flowed out onto the streets of Lincoln that night.

For those of us in our quadrangle dorm, we wore our non-Greekness as a badge of honor. In fact, I had penned a t-shirt with the symbols of ΣΦØ, or Sigma Phi Nothing. But if the Greeks were putting on a free show, me and a few thousand of my close friends were more than happy to share in the event. A group of us from our floor first fortified ourselves with a toke or two, and then joined the thronging crowd that quickly grew large enough to block the arterial 16th street. Lincoln suffered a traffic infarction that evening, as the campus police did nothing to disburse the crowd, but instead redirected traffic around the blocked artery. There were thousands of men and women out enjoying the warmth and the wild experience.

We were out there, wondering when the show was going to start, when suddenly a group of naked men dashed out of their fraternity and ran around the building, going back in through a side door. The crowd cheered as we inhaled the aroma of released inhibitions. Then at one of the sororities, someone appeared at the window, topless. The crowd surged towards the sorority house just as the fraternity’s show ended. Then another fraternity joined in the display, with a group of men jumping out from the bushes and taking a quick lap around their house. Back and forth went the show, and there was even a sorority house that joined in the naked laps. Eventually, though, the show quieted down, and folks drifted away. Traffic flow was reinstituted, and we went back to our own rooms to reflect upon the night’s events.

Not my roommate, though. He proceeded later in the night to streak the girls portion of the quadrangle, and was rewarded for his deed by having someone join him in a combined streak. He never did come back to our room that night.

Thus ended the great streaking surge at the University of Nebraska. Incidents of streaking broke out sporadically, but never again was there a huge surge in place to watch a few exhibitionists strut their stuff. It turns out that the first week of March 1974 was the peak of the streaking epidemic. Ray Stevens had his novelty hit The Streak that very month:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiR3Jy3-MPWAhVJ9YMKHWP-DgoQyCkIKTAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DXtzoUu7w-YM&usg=AFQjCNHz9UXM8EvOFet2ryxAKe6y0f64fw

Though for a few years, some schools kept up the tradition, it now is a rarity for a streak to break out, and it will never be the phenomena it was in ’73-’74. And if a repeat were to happen today, the videos would be all over the internet instantly.

It makes me wonder what the next faddish behavior will be. A generation before I went to college, it was the era of the panty raid. My father had mentioned panty raids at Purdue when he had gone to school, but I never knew if he took part in one of those raids. One of the questions you wish you could ask, but never will be able to now.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

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Trump's world

 

Of course we knew it would work out well. Having our bully-in-chief in person addressing the UN General Assembly couldn’t possibly have any downside, could it? No, it went exactly as I expected. Vitriol was unleashed, the base went wild, and the Donald smiled his happy place smile.

I’m reminded of a paraphrase of one of my favorite movie lines from the Treasure of the Sierra Madre. “Diplomats? We don’t need no steenkin’ diplomats!” Tensions between the US and North Korea keep growing, yet as of today, we do not have a new ambassador in place in South Korea. The last headline I saw in late August indicated that Victor Cha would be named as that ambassador, but I do not see an official announcement, nor have there been Congressional hearings scheduled for this position. This inexcusable failure to staff one of the most critical diplomatic positions is typical of the complete and utter disorganization of the Trump administration, and the disdain that this administration holds for all solutions diplomatic.

One wonders what opinions our former Presidents would have of this pathetic excuse for a leader. I can just see Teddy Roosevelt preparing to lift up his big stick to smite the person who is turning his famous aphorism about speaking softly on its head. And still, his base clamors for more baseness to chastise the coastal elites. More blasphemy for the international order to digest. The world watches as the US prepares to exit from any active role in world affairs – except, you know, to threaten other nations with complete and total annihilation.

I see the writings of his supporters. They are ecstatic as they consider how good of a job he is doing at draining the swamp. They relish the digs at those the base considers as their oppressors, cheering at the discomfort of those who are victimized by the cruelty inflicted by those whose racism has been unleashed through the phenomena of Trumpism. Personally, at this time, I think many of this President’s base are on acid.

What the election of Donald Trump as President has unleashed is the virulent strain of nativism and racism that long simmered beneath the surface in the US. President Obama started the fermentation of this strain merely by being non-white. His actions were seen through a lens of racial intentions, and he was viewed as being extremely racially divisive. The very thought that someone of mixed racial background would rise through his own merit and intelligence to occupy the presidency enervated those who believed that racial policy was a win/lose phenomena. If a non-white won, the white race lost.

Donald Trump has enabled those who hold racist and anti-intellectual, anti-elitist positions to crawl out from under the rocks and spew their venom indiscriminately. I see it on internet bulletin boards where references to the Protocols of Zion are mixed with diatribes against all blacks. I see it in the ongoing series of campaign rallies that Donald Trump uses to energize himself by wrapping himself in a mantle of adulation, while decrying the media as being fake. The echoes of the Nuremberg rallies resonate in each Trump rally. The only thing missing is a uniform dress code for his supporters to make the analogy complete (MAGA hats are just not enough of a fashion statement).

The anti-intellectual bent of this administration is alarming. In one department (USDA), Politico has just published the results of their reviews of nominees for positions within the agency. Here is the link to the article: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/21/trump-agriculture-department-usda-campaign-workers-242951    What Politico reveals is that a majority of the appointees may lack any Agricultural background or knowledge, but that lack is off-set by their personal loyalty to Donald Trump. Over half of the resumes reviewed by Politico showed Trump campaign experience as their most relevant qualification.  Actual knowledge of a subject matter just isn’t relevant in order to obtain a lucrative position in Trump world. It seems it is more of a disadvantage.

Scientific expertise is being especially dishonored. As of late September, President Trump has not named a science advisor. Unfortunately, in that absence of action, he is following in the footsteps of many previous Republican presidents. In his abbreviated second term in office, President Nixon abolished the position and the attendant committee that serves to provide guidance to the administration on scientific affairs. Both Presidents Reagan and President George W. Bush took actions that minimized the effectiveness of the advisory position. Why this reluctance to consider science as integral to policy? Probably because scientists have this peculiar habit of speaking truth to power, letting politicians know that their preferred policies are scientifically unfeasible, or will cause adverse consequences. See anthropogenic global warming.

So if you don’t care about science, and don’t believe that science is the engine that grows the economy, you punish the departments that rely upon scientists. Huge budget cuts are prescribed by the Trump administration for basic research and for the National Institute of Health. Of course, all funding that relates to climate monitoring is unnecessary, since it is proven that man cannot affect the climate (according to the Trumpistas). EPA? Overreach. Slash its budget by 30%, then drown it in the bathtub.

Just to show that there’s no hard feelings from the Trump administration, other government functions are severely hamstrung. The State Department takes the largest hit, with a 30% reduction in proposed funding. The administration is in effect implementing its objectives by simply not proposing nominees to many positions previously staffed in former administrations. If no one is working there, you don’t have to pay for their salaries. Voila! A fait accompli in reducing government spending.

And then there’s the holy grail of Republicanism, the dismantling of Federal government programs to support the people of the United States. Repeal and Replace is the mantra that was chanted by all card-carrying Republican politicians. Given the complete reins to power in the Federal government, they have so far proven incompetent in accomplishing their stated number one objective. Now in this next week we face one more spasm of Senatorial action aimed at undoing the previous administration’s signature accomplishment. It may be an unholy alliance of those who believe Graham-Cassidy is still too generous and a few Republican Senators who understand the severe implications of removing health care insurance from tens of millions, that alliance may be enough to derail this last best chance of throwing the health industry into chaos.

You see, Republicans have never ever been in favor of Medicaid. Ever since it was proposed by the known socialist Lyndon Johnson, it has been viewed as an affront to each and every Republican politician. The bills to end the ACA are the Trojan horse that will enable the death of Medicaid. It may take a decade to accomplish its goal, but the equine statue may actually be admitted behind the walls of government if only 50 Senators can scramble inside.

Meanwhile, the drumbeat of the Russia probe is starting to throb within the halls of the White House. The denials of any knowledge of, or business dealings of the Trump campaign and Trump family members with Russia or Russians always rang hollow. Now the Mueller investigation is encircling the White House, leaving enough investigative breadcrumbs in place for outsiders to discern his methodology. As reported this week, with the invasive search at Paul Manafort’s house, the investigation is behaving more like it is pursuing an organized crime family instead of a typical white collar criminal. Bill Moyers has documented a timeline showing the interactions of the Trump organization with Russia and Russians dating back decades. See this for more information on those ties that the family just keeps on forgetting:

http://billmoyers.com/story/trump-russia-timeline/

Still, the resilience of the Trump base to refuse to acknowledge the veracity of any failings of their dear leader keeps on plugging along. One of the truly insightful things that Donald Trump ever said was his claim that he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and he wouldn’t lose voters. If an indictment does issue from Robert Mueller, and impeachment follows, the base of Donald Trump will not go gentle into that good night. Instead, they will rage, rage at the dying of the light.

Both Sides?

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My apologies to Judy Collins. The words about both sides being equally guilty of fomenting hatred and violence caused my inner earworm to focus on her song, and my brain worked to find new words.

Rows and flows of orange hair

And ice cream two scoops in my chair

And tweet storms flowing everywhere

I’ve looked at hate that way

 

But now it only hides my truth

The media says I’m uncouth

So many things done in my youth

But hate got in my way

 

I’ve looked at hate from both sides now

Antifa and the alt-right, wow

It’s hate’s delusions I recall

I really don’t know hate at all

 

Crowd so loud, how good I feel

They love me, now I feel their zeal

That protestor, he is a heel

I’ve looked at me that way

 

But now, I cannot make them go,

They vote their way, they just say no,

Repeal, replace – they are so slow

I’ve seen Congress that way

 

I’ve looked at politics right now

No give, all take yet still somehow

No politics for me this fall

Politics – I will not play ball

 

Leers and jeers and feeling wowed,

To see them fail, that I have vowed

They have their schemes, I have my crowds

My enemies I slay

 

But now they say I’m acting strange

I laugh at them, I’ll never change

Well let them wail, I’m still orange,

I hate them every day

 

I’m President for both sides now

I won they lost and still somehow

I keep the Russians in my thrall

I really don’t know life at all

Past Performance Is No Predictor of Future Performance

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Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man’s nose begins. This adage has meaning beyond its original intent when considering our current world. Like it or not, since the earth is now crowded with billions more folks than it had 50 or 100 or more years ago, and thus the free range of motion of our own arms has shrunk. We no longer can pull our nation’s head and legs into our own shell and exist on our own island. The fallacy of this isolationistic perspective is being tested with the self-defeating policies that the Trump administration is attempting to implement.

According to the Trump doctrine, in order to make America great again, it is necessary to reverse decades of stitching together the nations of the world in greater interdependence so as to allow American exceptionalism to reign supreme. The world we knew when everyone who wanted entree into the middle class could walk into the nearby factory and punch their timecard in a manufacturing plant, that world no longer exists. We can mourn the absence of the world that existed when the US served as the only intact manufacturing entity after WWII, and thus held an immeasurable competitive advantage for decades. Those were the decades of greatness that the America First agenda wishes to bring back.

It is always foolhardy to craft national policy on the basis of nostalgia, but that apparently is what is motivating the America First crowd. Instead of looking behind us for inspiration (Immigration Act of 1924, Leave It to Beaver, Homestead Works of Pittsburgh belching sparks and smoke), I prefer an attempt to steer our country and its economy towards the future. What does the future hold? Where are the opportunities for new jobs that can provide a true middle-class lifestyle?

First, let’s acknowledge that many of the jobs of the future look a lot like the jobs of the past. In particular, skilled craftsmen and women have a bright future ahead of them. Manufacturers cannot get enough skilled welders. An industry trade group projects that the nation will need 290,000 new welders by 2020 in order to accommodate those welders who will retire, plus handle the new jobs being created within manufacturing and the energy industry. There will always be opportunities for plumbers, and electricians, and for skilled carpenters. These professions also offer the chance to become an entrepreneur, since most opportunities in these fields are local. The demographic wave of the baby boom generation crested long ago, and that wave is withdrawing from the shores of the labor market. The vacuum in the labor market must be filled, and for those who have desires to work with their hands, there are opportunities. What is needed is strong vocational training and/or apprentice programs to transition folks from novices to skilled craftsmen and women.

Next, let’s talk about energy. This field runs the gamut from solar panel installation, to wind turbine construction and maintenance, to electrical grid modernization, to drilling rig worker, and to pipeline construction worker. In my state of West Virginia, where the coal industry has scalped the tops of our small mountains, leaving behind ground denuded of topsoil, but a relatively flat surface, we have the opportunity to develop large-scale solar farms. These farms can be integrated with small scale agriculture intended to take advantage of the shade provided (ginseng, anyone?), and can serve as a career option for the last generation of coal miners and those who currently have no hope and are surrendering their future to oxycontin and heroin.

Now let’s address the elephant in the room – the Republican-led conspiracy to deny that changes in energy policy are necessary, in order to mitigate a warming environment due to burning fossil fuels. I’ve seen the entire range of beliefs of those who refuse to acknowledge that atmospheric effects from anthropogenic emissions are changing the thermometer setpoint of the earth. Some of their stated beliefs are possibly correct (example – we may be entering a solar minimum period that may overwhelm any changes from atmospheric composition). Some of their beliefs are simply incorrect (temperature records are invalid since they represent a change from rural to urban temperature measurements, and besides, climate scientists have fudged their records, and besides, you know, thermodynamics is just so wrong). Some of their beliefs are based upon religious claims, like mankind has no capability of overruling God’s control over our environment. And some are purely conspiratorial in nature, such as the belief that claims of global warming are a tool of the one-world agenda deep state that wishes to impose political control over each and every aspect of life in our country, causing us to cede our sovereignty to a one-world government.

To refute each of these beliefs would take more space than my blog normally uses, and besides, my argument is that in order to transition away from fossil fuels, it is actually necessary to use one version of fossil fuels more extensively than we have in the past. Of course, that fuel is natural gas or methane, which has the virtue of emitting much less carbon dioxide per kilogram of input than any other hydrocarbon. Simply put, displacement of a high carbon fuel source (coal) with methane is the main reason why the US has reduced CO2 emissions over recent years. According to the US Energy Information Administration, CO2 emissions in the US decreased 12% between 2005 and 2015, and the drop is mainly attributed to replacement of coal by natural gas in electric power generation. So if we are waiting for renewable energy to take its place as the primary power source , or if we are awaiting for advancements in either fusion or fission (see thorium reactor cycle) in nuclear energy, then methane serves as a reliable bridge fuel.

Methane also offers many opportunities for jobs. Since much of the methane resources available through fracking are not in areas with pipeline infrastructure, it is necessary to build new pipelines, and that is a key source of job opportunities. Fracking also requires many more drill rigs due to the rapid depletion of fracking hydrocarbon reservoirs. I know that there is much dispute over environmental damage done by pipelines and by fracking. But it is not realistic to transition directly from dependence upon coal, to a totally green energy solution. Methane offers a transition period that enables maintenance of the living standard we enjoy that relies upon intense consumption of energy. Those who rely upon and believe in the moral superiority of coal and oil will not give in easily, though. In West Virginia, one of the bumper stickers used by the proponents of coal is “Let the Bastards Freeze in the Dark”. Those stickers are often affixed to the bumpers of diesel pick-ups that have been fixed with special combustion controls that dump excess fuel into the cylinders, causing a cloud of black smoke that they use to obscure the visibility of Prius drivers, like myself. I’ve been coal rolled a few times.

rolling coal.png

Photo of rolling coal from Jalopnik.com. Justin Westbrook credited on story.

Jobs in agriculture have been decreasing for generations. Many city dwellers are now several generations removed from the farm and from rural life. Yet amazingly, farming is now coming into the cities. High technology hydroponic farming is making it possible to use some of the urban real estate that used to house factories, and convert it into high-yielding produce farms. In the suburban/rural interface, high-tunnel greenhouses are allowing intensive cultivation on small plots, enabling small-scale farmers to supply the local produce markets for cities that want organic produce sourced locally. As western diets move away from corn and soy based food chains to more vegetables, look for the number of people making a living growing food to increase steadily.

One area where the job demand is increasing is also one where the wages earned do not reflect the value provided to society. That is in the personal care industry. Whether we are looking at home assistance provided to the elderly, or the labor needed for assisted living facilities and nursing homes, these workers provide a service that our society should value. The low wages provided for these workers shows that the current job market does not value these workers, and as a result, those who are in the field are often overworked. Abuse (either intentional or not) can result, since in our society we do not properly value this form of labor.

What should we not look for in the future job market? We should not look for low-value manufacturing to return to this country, regardless of the tariffs imposed on those exporters who are accused of manipulating their currency to hurt us in the US. It is unlikely that we will ever see inexpensive metal implements to be manufactured in the US again. It is also unlikely that we will see basic garment manufacture to be sourced domestically again – unless the manufacturing processes are automated to such an extent that the number of jobs associated with the manufacture is reduced by an order of magnitude from the old garment mills. US manufacturing jobs will increasingly be focused on huge, high-tech machinery, or on processes that can be completely automated. Either way, the new manufacturing worker must be educated and trained well beyond the existing labor forces capabilities.

What we will find as we swing our nation’s fists wildly in an attempt to protect ourselves from the rest of the worlds increasing integration, is that our fists are as likely to strike ourselves in the nose as we are to rain blows down upon our perceived adversaries. The world’s economies are too tightly interwoven to enable one country to extricate ourselves from the tentacles of commerce without ripping our own economy to shreds. Beware the effect of unintended consequences as we try to make America great again.

Try To Remember, the Kind of September

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bulbs in ground

August slid seamlessly into September. We have missed the normal stressing of the tulip poplar trees, since we’ve had plenty of rain during the summer. Sometimes by early September, the poplar trees are half denuded, and shriveled brown leaf corpses skitter along the driveway, but not this year. If you look carefully though, you see tinges of color beginning to affect some trees. Most leaves are still bright green, but some trees have a yellowish cast to their edges. Dogwood trees have taken it a bit further, and have red tinting the edges of their leaves.

We just got back from a quick trip through the Potomac highlands of West Virginia. Up at 3500′ elevation, some trees had already transitioned to bright red, and not just the ground sumacs. Before long, the entire woods will look tired, and ready to adopt their brief display of fall brilliance before they drop their yearly crop of leaves to feed their roots. I’ve begun to harvest the daffodil bulbs for use by others. When I met up with my son for the eclipse, he received a plastic bucket filled with bulbs for his use in landscaping in Richmond.

The picture at the top shows what a cluster of daffodil bulbs looks like when they begin to crowd the surface. I’ll see these bulbs as I’m out weeding, and wait till the heat breaks a bit before digging the bulbs out. The bulbs keep budding and going higher till they break through the surface in the summer. After living in the same house for 25 years, I can harvest hundreds of bulbs each year and still not touch many of the clusters that could stand to be thinned. I’ve found if I keep the foliage intact until it dies back, it may look ugly for a month or two, but you will always provide the bulbs with enough energy to grow, multiply and prosper into the future.

bulbs

This second picture shows how many bulbs come out of a single cluster. You never know how many bulbs are hidden below the surface. In this cluster, I took out 35 bulbs, and left 6 back in the hole to reproduce, ready to bloom next spring. I excavated a second cluster, taking 40 bulbs out to spread around. In 5-10 years, I’ll be digging the bulbs back up again and harvesting the next batch for springs to come.

We managed to keep our outside plants watered and growing through the summer. Just now we have a bit of stress showing on some of the planters where we missed a watering or two. Normally we have shriveled baskets by this time of the year, so we are happy to have blooms still gracing our porch and deck. The hummers are still around, fighting their aerial combat missions trying to gain access to the feeders, while the alpha hummer tries to play Spitfire and beat up on the Messerschmitt fighters. One day soon, we will notice that we’ve not seen a hummer for several days. That’s when we know the peak of summer has gone away to stay.

The vegetable gardens are winding down. Squash and cucumbers are yellowing and dying back now, but the Roma tomatoes are still providing salad and sandwich slices. Our green and hot peppers are producing – it took forever for the hot peppers to grow to maturity. With luck, they’ll produce till the first freeze of fall. We have the last crop of green beans coming to maturity and should have some good meals out of them yet.

A thunderstorm is approaching as I write this. Thunder is rolling from ridge top to ridge top as it heads towards us. It is ushering in a cold front that will drop our temperatures down into fall-like levels. As this front droops through the southeast, it is expected to steer Hurricane Irma up onto Florida, and keep it from marching across the Gulf. My hope is that this storm will lack the punch and destructive power of Hurricane Harvey. But with its winds at 185 mph, it will need to shed a lot of energy if it is not to generate its own weather catastrophe.

Why so close? Chemical plants and oil refineries, and water.

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Chemicals, oil, and water are linked eternally in a faustian bargain. In order to produce most chemicals, and all petroleum products, it is necessary to have access to immense quantities of water. Thus, the infrastructure for these industries is found in the low-lying areas alongside of rivers, and within the inlets and bays along the coastline of the oceans. When the inevitable floods happen, the potential for releases of chemicals and oil, and even explosions as seen in Crosby Texas this week can and will occur.

Why is there this dependence on huge quantities of water? In order to make many chemical reactions occur, it is necessary to provide heat. That heat normally comes in the form of steam. Steam is also used to enable separations of chemicals through distillation. The tall columns seen in chemical plants and refineries are usually distillation towers, where products and wastes are drawn off at various levels in the towers. These products must then be condensed, and they are condensed in heat exchangers with water being used to cause the vapors to condense. The chemicals and the water don’t mix in these condensers, since they are found on opposite sides of the heat exchangers. But immense quantities of water are used in heat exchangers, and the water is thus warmed, reducing its effectiveness in condensing and cooling chemicals.

The water used in heat exchangers and condensers may only be used once. This is single-use water and it is necessary to have a large volume of water nearby in order to release the warmed water without adverse ecological impact. If the water is reused, then it is necessary to cool the water back down in order to use it again. This is done in cooling towers, and you normally will see the plumes of water vapor coming up from these large structures, where water is cooled through evaporation as it drips on down through the wooden framework of a cooling tower. Cooling towers increase the concentration of salts in the water, since a portion of the water is lost to evaporation and may have many cycles through the cooling tower before being discarded to a body of water.

Since it takes lots of energy to move large quantities of water, and lots of money to run long lengths of piping, most chemical plants are found just adjacent to the water. They are sited so that they are above the normal flooding levels, but when unprecedented flooding happens like with Harvey, they are supremely vulnerable to damage from water. In my career in the chemical industry, I worked at two plants (in Tennessee and in West Virginia) that were situated along rivers. The plant in Tennessee did have problems long after I left when flooding from the Mississippi caused backwater flooding that buried part of the plant, which was situated on a smaller feeder stream. Fortunately, it didn’t cause the release of chemicals, and was not a large problem, but it highlights how close proximity to water comes with its own set of risks.

I have been to plants in Texas that were totally inundated from the floods this week. One along the end of the Houston Ship channel, that immense concentration of oil and chemical plants along Texas 225. The other was in Beaumont, situated right next to the marshlands leading to the Gulf of Mexico. The facilities at these plants are designed to be safe and to be able to be shut down without causing chemical releases. But. There are limits to what you can do and still be safe. When you have feet of floodwaters covering a site, then the power of the water can do things that cannot be controlled. Water can erode pipe supports, and the dangling piping will bend and break, releasing the contents of the lines. Floodwaters can shove vehicles and boats into pumps and piping, causing them to break. Even in the normal process of shutting down facilities, excess venting and flaring of flammable and toxic compounds can happen, which can cause irritation and concern among the neighbors of these facilities.

Just as there is a faustian bargain between these facilities and water, there is another relationship that comes into play. That is the relationship between the workers and their families, and their proximity to the plant. Very often the workers for these facilities are found in the neighborhoods surrounding the plants. Entire generations of workers have grown up nearly in the shadow of the towers of refineries and chemical plants. This is especially true in the region around the Houston Ship Channel. The towns of La Porte, Pasadena, Deer Park, and Baytown have a symbiotic relationship with their industrial behemoths. Only a single road separates the residential areas from the properties of the oil and chemical companies. Quite literally, the companies and the towns are all in the same boat at times like now.

The plant that had the explosions this week was a different type of chemical plant. This plant was not adjacent to a large body of water. What it manufactured was a chemical that is essential in the manufacture of plastics, but by its own nature, it was extremely unstable. In my chemical plant in West Virginia, we also manufactured a similar material. These materials are known as polymerization initiators, and they make it possible for chemicals like ethylene (two carbons bound by double bonds) to react with each other, and form long chains that we know as plastics (polyethylene). The materials we produced in West Virginia also have to be kept refrigerated or they will grow unstable and catch fire. Part of the lore of the plant involved the time when the manufacturing line for this material had a problem, and the temperature rose to the point where the chemical decomposed and ignited. That fire was remembered long after everyone who worked during the fire had left the plant. What made the situation in Texas worse, was that the organic peroxides they made are not only flammable but are explosive when they decompose.

Part of the manufacturing process for chemical plants involves process hazards reviews. In these reviews, the participants go through a systematic review of the inherent hazards of the process and facilities, and determine if there were adequate safeguards to prevent incidents and injuries. Sometimes a significant hazard is discovered, one that had not been previously considered, and then the management of the plant faces the task of getting the fix done to remove the hazard. Since it takes time to implement new facilities (and get the authorization to spend the money to build facilities), normally there are administrative controls that are put in place to temporarily mitigate the risks. But even though I participated in many process hazards reviews in my career, I do not remember ever having considered the case of having my plant submerged in multiple feet of floodwater, and having no way to get anything working for days at a time. I imagine that the chemical and refining industries will have to go through substantial work trying to come up with new safeguards that will prevent releases and explosions such as are being seen in Texas now.