Weather Or Not

 How about this weather, huh?

As I have mentioned here previously, when a conversation turns to the weather, I figure we have reached the nadir of interpersonal communication. This is why I have a pretty strict policy when I am teaching PE outside on the playground and the temperature is somewhere above what could be considered "room temperature," then I ask the kids in front of me to take one minute to complain about the heat. Then anything else that is discussed must be about the game we are playing or the proposed tariffs on imported goods from the Republicans. Nothing they say is going to change the fact that they are not as comfortable as they would like to be. 

For the record, the past week was unseasonably warm in Oakland, and the children who ran and played at times under protest all survived. 

The same cannot be said of those in the path of Hurricane Helene. More than two hundred people died in that weather event, and there are still a great many missing. Like the heat here in the Bay Area, the storm that passed through the southeastern United States is a sign that points directly to Climate Change. Climate, as many of us know form our studies, is different from weather. Global temperatures have done little but increase since 1850. That doesn't mean that it won't ever snow again in Buffalo, New York. It means that all meteorological events will be subject to those extremes. 

Noted meteorologist and doorstop Marjorie Taylor Greene has taken this theory one step further, as is her fashion. Late last week, Marge tweeted, “Yes they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.” This comes form the same mind that gave us "Jewish Space Lasers" in 2021. Back then, she was accusing The Rothschild family of starting a deadly series of wildfires in California. Following this line of reasoning, why wouldn't you expect that Democrats were behind creating one of the deadliest hurricanes to make landfall in the United States? She even backed up her claims with a map that showed how the storm's path seemed to follow a path that affected primarily Republican voters. 

Perhaps it's more of a matter that the average Hurricane Alley resident is stubborn and insistent that this new breed of storm won't touch them, and that their inclination to ignore science in the form of weather reports is what is keeping them in the way of catastrophe? But maybe Marge could riddle me this: Why haven't the evil Democratic Weather Wizards simply cooked up a typhoon that could take out Mar-A-Lago? Or would that be too discrete? 

I'm going to step outside and enjoy the sun while I still can. No more talk of weather until I say. 

What Goes On In Your Mind

 All this anxiety over the election and the attendant avalanche of email that greets me each morning does have me wondering: Has anyone else been reading the news or watching the video of the Orange Blob of protoplasm? It's easy enough to paint the happy midwestern face presented by the Vice Presidential debate on this past month and pretend that what is going on is normal. 

I can assure you, it is not. It took Richard Nixon years to dive down as deep as he did into his all-consuming paranoia. The convicted felon who has never won the popular vote in an election in which he was running seems to be on the edge of some sort of nervous breakdown. 

To be fair, if I were facing multiple indictments and half the country thought that I belonged in jail rather than within twenty miles of the White House, I might be more than just a little nervous myself. 

The latest filing from special prosecutor Jack Smith has been described as "bombshell after bombshell." Again, it should be noted that the space around the GOP candidate for "president" looks like an artillery range, what with all those previous bombshells surrounding him. This one seems to be taking more direct aim. This one seems to be pointed directly at the man who sells one hundred thousand dollar watches to help pay his legal fees. The freshly unsealed report includes new details of Trump’s disintegrating relationship with former Vice President Mike Pence. Then there is FBI evidence of Trump’s phone usage on January 6, 2021 as when overtook the US Capitol; and conversations with family members and others where the then-president was fighting his loss to Joe Biden.

Let's pause for a moment and enjoy the phrase: "Then President." 

As opposed to "Now President." 

That squealing sound you hear is that of the "Then President" insisting he has immunity because the Supreme Sycophants he appointed said so. To which the special prosecutor notes: “When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office. At its core, the defendant’s scheme was a private one,. He extensively used private actors and his campaign infrastructure to attempt to overturn the election results and operated in a private capacity as a candidate for office.” All of this leading to the conclusion that the man who is guilty of so many things should stand trial for his attempts to disrupt the peaceful exchange of power, guaranteed in out Constitution. 

Will this be game over for the seller of watches not nearly worth one hundred thousand dollars? It is frightening to think that any major political party would continue to support someone who obviously has lost not just his grip on reality, but is attempting to foist it on those too "busy" to read. If there is anyone left in this great land of ours who claims to be undecided about this coming election, I encourage you to take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with this document. Or just watch the convicted felon babble for a few minutes about "the late great Hannibal Lecter."

Psst: I'll give you a hint. He's a fictional character. 

Genuine

 Maybe it shouldn't come as any surprise that the Vice Presidential Debate held this past Tuesday was one of the most cordial events to be associated with the pending election. Not that Julius Domingus Vance and Tim "Fixit" Walz are specifically polite toward one another's views and ideals. The polite, for the most part, exchange could be a reflection of these two men's Midwestern roots. This means to the outside observer that these two men were treating each other with care and respect, but for those watching in the Midwest, this was a knock-down-drag-out. 

Instead, I would like to suggest that this Vice Presidential meeting of the minds was mostly about paying tribute to one of the most decent human beings to hold public office: Jimmy Carter. The man who had the supreme challenge of bringing our country out of the morass that was Watergate celebrated his one hundredth birthday on October 1. The man who said, "We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams," and "My position has always been, along with many other people, that any differences be resolved in a nonviolent way." 

That last one is a far cry from the current state of our political rhetoric, but it shows how this man was able to bring Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat together to forge a peace between Israel and Egypt. His honesty and candor got him into trouble at times, but Jimmy Carter did not shy away from the truth. And he expected us, as a nation to be able to handle it. With inflation raging and an energy crisis that saw gasoline at nearly a dollar a gallon, President Carter did not make empty promises, but rather he asked us all to look within ourselves to help bring our country out of the stupor of the late seventies. Traditionally referred to as "The Malaise Speech," it opened the door for political opponents like Ronald Reagan and Ted Kennedy from his own party. 

Jimmy Carter was ushered out of office by what is now referred to lovingly as "The Reagan Years," and the 1980s were a monument not to a commitment to individual accomplishment and support of one another, but a hazy decade of greed and excess. Jellybeans for peanuts, if you will. 

And now, forty-four years later, the United States is faced with another crisis of confidence. Will we follow the path of the former game show host, a morally bankrupt caricature of Ronald Reagan, or will we be drawn to the legacy of the man who founded Habitat For Humanity? 

It's no debate for me. 

Out

 Pete Rose.

I'll let you mull on that one for a moment. 

He went to the big diamond in the sky on Monday. He was eighty-three. He goes to his eternal rest with four thousand two hundred fifty-six hits in the Major Leagues. Second place on that list is the late Ty Cobb. Then the late Hank Aaron. As a matter of fact, there are only two players still alive in the top ten when it comes to hits in the Major League, and both of them have retired from the game. Which means that it will probably be some time, if ever, for that record to be broken. 

Most of you know that this kind of distinction should put a player in the Hall of Fame, but somewhere along the line Pete fell off that list to be inducted into Cooperstown. He had to do something equally as bad in baseball as he had done good. 

But first, a digression: When I was a kid in baseball-free Colorado, I watched the Big Red Machine of the 1970s. The team from Cincinnati dominated the National League of my youth. Pete Rose was a large part of that. So was Johnny Bench. While I was told to respect and admire the ferocity with which Pete played the game, earning him the nickname "Charlie Hustle," I preferred the more self-effacing Johnny Bench. Johnny played his entire seventeen year career with the Reds. Pete played for the Reds, then moved on to the Philadelphia Phillies before finishing up his playing days in Montreal. He returned to Cincinnati to manage the Reds from 1984 to 1989.

And that's where the trouble appeared. Pete Rose was declared permanently ineligible for consideration for the Hall of Fame because while he as a manager he was betting on Major League baseball games. Including his own team. 

Johnny Bench never did that. His rough and tumble teammate was the one caught up in one of baseball's biggest scandals. The "hustle" in Charlie Hustle began to take on a new meaning. From the time of the ban in 1991, Pete Rose declared his innocence. In 2004, he confessed to the gambling issue, perhaps with an eye toward making himself available once again to be enshrined in Cooperstown. 

That didn't work. 

And now he has gone. The base paths on which he stomped are only part of the Terra where Pete Rose left his mark. Now we have this cosmic discernment to make: If Pete Rose was given a lifetime ban from the Baseball Hall of Fame, do we feel obligated to let him in now that that lifetime is over?   

Running For Precedent

 How I miss those precedented days. Days went by without another scurrilous headline. Catastrophic storms were rare. Politics were boring. 

You read that right: Boring.

Not that they were not always intrinsically necessary and fascinating to the wonks and the policy fringes. I do, for instance, remember learning about tariffs back in grade school history, and wondering as most elementary students do, "Why do I need to know this?"

Tariffs are taxes imposed on imported goods with the expectation that the increased price will encourage consumers to buy domestic products instead. They are not fines levied on foreign governments directly. The consumers are the ones who end up paying for the difference. Not the foreign governments or manufacturers. 

Good thing I was listening to Mister Conklin that day. 

Which would not be such a big deal in and of itself, but each time the gutter is reached by the convicted felon chosen by his party to run for "president," I believe that we have heard the worst. Oh, but if that were true. This past week found the GOP candidate insisting that his Democratic rival was "mentally impaired," and should be prosecuted. This coming from a former game show host who has stared at a solar eclipse, incited insurrection, and has been convicted himself on thirty-four felony counts. He is also the guy who during his time in the Oval Office, altered a weather map with a Sharpie to show what he imagined was the path of Hurricane Dorian, which never did make landfall on the continental United States. 

This "very stable genius," in his own words, continues to spout invective to anyone willing to sit in front of it and continues to babble about the "concept of a plan" that will Make America Great Again. Given the connections already well known and established, he could just go ahead and lash himself to Project 2025 which would actually give him some sort of platform, he feels more content in announcing the upcoming reckoning of the country he wants to lead again. To get crime under control, the Orange One suggests, "If you had one really violent day.. .. … One rough hour. And I mean real rough. The word will get out and it will end immediately."

There is still a month to go before election day, and I do not believe that we have reached anything close to the bottom of the barrel. Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy month.

Branded

 Full disclosure: In the mid-1980s I owned a white linen jacket. It was my curious nod toward being "in fashion." I say this because it was off-brand for me, a brand that I had worked for decades to establish. T-shirt and jeans were my thing. I could count the times I wore that jacket out in public, sleeves rolled up, on three fingers. It was a chance, a shot I was taking at trying something new. 

Oreos were first made, I hesitate to use the term "baked," in 1912. Since then they have been by their own account, America's favorite cookie. 

Coca-Cola was first brewed in 1886. They have been filling our soda needs for nearly a century and a half. First place in the pop culture was never in doubt, in spite of Pepsi's mild attempts at making things different they now show up in third place behind Coke and Dr. Pepper. 

Oreo and Coke have controlled the snack aisle for more than a century. Which is probably why both companies have felt more than comfortable playing fast and loose with their brands. I could go ahead and remind everyone of the New Cocke debacle, but after forty years by their own admission it was a mistake. Which hasn't kept them from playing fast and loose with their secret formula. My son harbored a perverse fascination with Coke Starlight back in 2022, using our basement to store cases of the "space flavored" version of their original recipe. 

Many of the same flirtations with Oreo's success. We as a nation have surrendered years ago to the notion that we needed twice the sugar-infused lard filling in the form of "Double-Stuf," opening the door for all manner of flavors sandwiched between those semi-sweet chocolate wafers. Sometimes you have to look around a little to be sure that what you're getting is a package of Oreos as the National Biscuit Company intended. 

Which brings me to the sadly obvious nexus of this operation. Once upon a time I tried putting myself in a Don Johnson wrapper, but I didn't fool anyone. This past week end, my wife and I were in the grocery store and we came upon a display for, I kid you not, Oreo Coke Zero. You read that right: sugar free Coca-Cola infused with Oreo cookies. The promotional materials suggested that if I looked around, I might find Oreos infused with Coca-Cola. At this point, our senses were too overwhelmed to seek them out, let alone purchase any of them. 

I am confident that this too shall pass. In another few months, Coke will be Coke again. Oreos will be Oreos. And I will still be looking for that white linen jacket. Just in case. 

To Hvae And Hvae Not

 Technology is your friend. I have tried to make this case for years. Decades even. This has a lot to do with the fact that I have spent my grownup life teaching chldren to use machines to help them learn. I passed this appreciation along to my son, who now works putting devices together and taking them apart to make other people's lives with technology easier. Better. 

I live in a house where I shout requests to the ether with the expectation that a series of machinations and lights come on or TVs spring to life. Just a few years ago I was burdened with light switches and remote controls. Now I can relax and have the Googles do my bidding. 

I am living in the future. 

At the same time, as I was typing that first line, I absently wrote "hvae." Before I could notice the mistake, there was a flash on my screen and magically that unknown word became "have." I didn't do that. The Googles did that. They obviously didn't want me to suffer the indignity of a typo. Then, when I decided to relate this to you all, the machine decided that I obviously didn't have a clue when it comes to the word "have." But of course, what I meant to write was "hvae" because it was the point I was trying to make. Then again, as I was explaining my explanation, the machine gods "helped me out" again. 

Thanks, Googles. 

Still, more often than not, these bits and pieces of electronic assistance are clever and appreciated. And they don't come with an animated paper clip that says something like, "It looks like you're trying to show off your sense of humor." We're living in the future where things are easy, or at least easier. Except when you hvae to make things work off the edge.