What’s remarkable about these words from Pope Francis isn’t that they accurately express an important truth; anyone with any sense and integrity recognized the fallacy of trickle-down economics decades ago.
What’s worth noting is they came from the leader of the Catholic Church, an institution that hadn’t done much for humankind over its 1600-year history until Francis came along.
To follow up on earlier posts in which I suggested that there are enormous segments of the U.S. electorate that find Trump an abomination, there clearly are those with a natural affinity for the former president.
At left is a guy whose truck is far larger than some of the apartments I occupied as a young man. I submit that anyone attracted to these vehicles probably has what it takes to pull the “Trump” lever.
If you live in Connecticut, you know how much U.S. Senator Chris Murphy has contributed to keeping us safe from gun violence.
It’s true that there are some pretty scummy people in congress, but it’s also true that we have some true champions.
In an earlier post I mention the disdain that U.S. military veterans have for Trump.
As suggested here, there are other groups that have also figured out that the former president represents them very poorly–in this case, organized labor. Unions are back on the rise, and Trump has done absolutely nothing to help these people.
On top of all this, we have a great array of groups who have a natural antipathy toward Trump: women, LGBTQs, people of color, environmentalists, college graduates, etc.
Yes, our country has its share of hateful morons, but they are nowhere near a majority.
As one might expect, a great deal has changed about the way we warn about the danger of wildfires. First is the word “wildfires” itself, which, up until the last couple of decades, were called “forest fires.”
Second is the Smokey the Bear icon, and his famous phrase, “Only you can prevent forest fires.” Smokey is no longer used in today’s PSAs on the subject.
Above, we see that some clever person has morphed this to address what is virtually certain to happen on the planet if we’re unable or unwilling to mitigate climate change.
Of all the segments within the U.S. electorate who are working hard to have Donald Trump removed from American political life, it’s impossible that our military veterans are the most steadfast.
It’s likely that there is a combination of related causes here, but what lies at the core is that vets are people of honor. True, integrity doesn’t have the same weight in our society that it did a few decades ago, but these folks took an oath to the Constitution, and are not happy that the former commander in chief did everything he could to overthrow the U.S. federal government.
As we get into the later years of our lives, after we’ve lost a parent (or both) and more than a few school chums, we start to consider, perhaps for the first time, our own mortality.
Dylan Thomas is best remembered for his poem that begins: Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
As shown at left, however, the Stoics had a far different, and, I would suggest, healthier approach to the event that ultimately confronts all of us.
Their Latin saying, Memento mori, “remember that you [have to] die”, may sound equally macabre, but it carries the same life affirming concept as does “Carpe diem.” Make every moment count, toward whatever you wish to achieve for yourself, and/or for those around you.
From Robert Kennedy Jr.:
The latest polls show me ahead of Biden and Trump among voters under age 45. But I need your help getting on the ballot in all 50 states. Let’s break the two-party system and bring real change to America…. Donate today.
It’s said that all politicians lie. But sorry; this simply can’t be.
It would be interesting to know the precise set of factors associated with this fairly dismal report, summarized in the bar chart below.
Certainly the high costs, especially those associated with student debt, play an important role.
Another contributor, to be sure, is the belief among the right wing that our colleges and universities are essentially manufacturing facilities that crank out liberals. I.e., only those with progressive views do well in courses like political science, history, and the rest of the humanities, because of the bias of the institution and its professors.
A competing view is that conservatives suffer from thought processes that tend to be narrow, selfish, indifferent to human suffering, and often deeply religious / anti-science, and that universities have no responsibility to present what could be called a “Fox News interpretation” of the world around us. Perhaps it’s actually a good thing that our young people are encouraged to develop belief systems that feature compassion, inclusion, and sustainability.
This from senior energy analyst Robert Rapier on the graph below:
GDP is one of the most important economic indicators. This measures the monetary value of all the stuff a country makes in a year. It is also used to determine recession (two consecutive quarters of GDP declines). It is not the only important indicator, but it is a big one, and it says the U.S. is outperforming other major developed economies.
In a related matter, Americans are more confident in the U.S. economy than they have been in two years.
I’m sure Biden and his advisors are wondering why they can’t get a break in the polls; maybe this is the news voters have been waiting for.
