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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Here’s a chain of comments from fellow alumni and me at Trinity College in Hartford, CT on the subject of Tucker Carlson, who (regrettably) also graduated from the institution:

Alumnus #1: Not another dime until Trinity disavows Tucker.

Alumnus #2: Are you against free speech, which is granted by the Constitution? How about a debate? That is what I learned at Trinity.

Me: There are limits to which the “free speech” argument can be taken, and Carlson is far past the edge, IMO. I’m referring specifically to threats of violence if Trump loses.

Alumnus #3: Trinity has responded, magnificently, by continuing to produce decent, hardworking graduates, who strive to improve the world around them. “The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.” ~ Marcus Aurelius

Me: That is inspired!  Another thought, and this is what I think we’re actually dealing with:  A top representative of the college pointed out to me, “Are you aware that most of the people writing tuition checks for their kids are worth at least seven figures, some of them eight or nine?  They love those Trump tax deductions for the top 1%.”

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

The meme here caught me by surprise, because my kids had different aspirations.  One wanted to pick fruits and vegetables 12 hours a day, and the other had his heart set on washing and/or bussing dirty dishes in a restaurant.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I had a conversation with a senior hospital administrator the other day, and the subject of universal healthcare came up.  I mentioned that the United States is the only country in the developed world that doesn’t offer this to its citizens.

He made it clear that this will never happen in in America, because our population is too large.  I had two responses:

1) Large numbers are actually good for insurers, whether they’re private or public.  Sure, in a population of 330 million there are more sick people than there are in the populations of medium-sized European countries like Germany, France, and the Netherlands, but there are more healthy people too.

2) Civilized nations don’t have people suffering and dying from treatable disease–even if somehow there are expenses associated with preventing this from happening.   The idea that people who fought for this country are now dying in the streets because they can’t afford healthcare is utterly disgusting.

The guy really had no replies–even to my second point.  Yikes.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

As former Labor Secretary Robert Reich puts it, “Remember, Trump is not running for president as much as he’s running from the law.”

It;s impossible to list all the terrible consequences of a second term for Donald Trump, but one is the end of any hope that he’ll be held accountable for his attempts to overthrow the U.S. federal government.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

As suggested by the highway billboard here, Trump is not at all well, and that’s true across several different dimensions.

For one, he babbles incoherently; we can see his diminished capacity to hold a thought.

Perhaps worse, however, is that he has no sense of right and wrong.  In the nine years since he came onto the American political scene, we’ve never seen him take a single action that benefitted anyone but himself.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

It seems that not a single day passes in which the United States doesn’t find a new and disgusting way to embarrass itself.

Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, whose net worth is north of $200 billion, has shown our country, and the rest of the world as well, how American democracy can be sold at the whim of the world’s third-wealthiest person.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

If so, you’re not alone, but I personally don’t share that feeling; I look forward to staying abreast of the criminal proceedings against him.

If this country is to re-establish itself as essentially honest and orderly, Trump must be held accountable for his attempts to overthrow the U.S. government.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

It’s unlikely that we will ever completely unravel the strange story of Trump and Giuliani, in particular, how the former president appears to have grabbed “America’s mayor” by the neck a few years back and forced him to destroy himself to keep Trump in the White House, Recall, if you will, that this happened at the expense of everything that made Giuliani one of the most admired figures in U.S. government in the months and years post 9/11.

It’s easy to sympathize with the average Joe hotshot entrepreneur, say a building contractor, who got fleeced by a conman, whose only frailty was his lack of skepticism about the morals of a billionaire. But what about a man who knew full well there was no substantial fraudulent voting in the 2020 election, but who somehow was coaxed into using his position as an extremely prominent attorney to overthrow the U.S. government?

Maybe he was convinced that he’d somehow get away with it.

The only thing anyone could possibly say under these circumstances is: he deserved exactly what he got.

 

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

I know the majority of Americans share the viewpoint of the author of the meme here.

My father was a B-17 pilot in WWII, who, after 29 successful missions bombing oil refineries in Germany, was shot down, and, with his crew, spent the last six months of the war in a POW camp.  He died in 2010, and so, regrettably, I couldn’t ask him how he regarded Trump’s antics post the former president’s loss in the 2020 election.

Dad was a deeply conservative, life-long Republican, but he was a man of honor.  Moreover, he lived and died before the right-wing became so unhinged with its hate, ignorance, and embrace of fascism.

I’m quite sure, if I had been able to ask him about Trump 2024, he would have said, “Under no circumstances would I vote for someone who tried to overthrow the U.S. government.  It’s that simple.”

This is, most certainly, a deeply regrettable point in our nation’s history.

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Sustainability

I would say the answer is a combination of greed and tribalism.

We evolved living in groups, distrusting/hating people from outside our group who do not look like us, worship like us, etc.

At the same time, the socio-economic paradigm in the developed world of 1000 years ago, i.e., medieval Europe, morphed from feudalism to free-market capitalism, eventually giving rise to greed and, in general, indifference to the suffering of others.

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