* In the late Edwin Bayley's great book, "Joe McCarthy and the Press," published in 1981, Bayley, who was the top political reporter for the Milwaukee Journal (who covered McCarthy from his first campaigns in the late 1940s forward), said the key to avoiding the hysteria McCarthy played upon was to report the senator's statements as either not proven or supported by evidence, or to say the statements were factually wrong. What Bayley, who died in 2002, could not have imagined was the rise of corporate cable "news" and how more and more older Americans especially are impervious to principled argument, good government, or even facts that are verifiable. My wife and I were privileged to know Bayley and his wife in their last years, and he always got a kick out of the fact that I, a non-journalist, had read his book before meeting him. His book sold a few thousand copies, I think, and was mostly read by journalist professors, and not enough journalists, though his book did shape, I think, the idea of fact checking that has developed since the 1990s. But as we see in this impeachment of Donald Trump saga, it is not enough for too many of our fellow older Americans. No matter how clear a case there is for impeaching Trump, and frankly, reason to investigate further Pence's role, based upon Pence being part of the months' long calls to the then-new Ukrainian leadership starting in the spring of this year, and seeing polling data showing support for impeachment declining from half to less than half, one despairs for rational discourse more than in a long time. See The American Conservative concluding there is strong reason to impeach, as well as Robert Reich, erstwhile progressive economist, saying the same.
*I remember 40 years ago, Disney had a robust union and its wages and benefits were the envy of Orange County. I know. I worked there in the summer of 1980 and they paid significantly more than minimum wage, 50 cents, which is not much in today's terms, but in purchasing power at the time, was significant (For those who may inquire, I was a Jungle Cruise guide..."Welcome aboard the Leaky-Teaky. I'm your captain, Les Capable!" "There's something you don't see every day--I do (moaning)--the back side of water!" Things began to fall apart by the end of the 1980s and now we learn people are living in their cars, as they can't afford rent, while working at the "happiest place on earth."
Bonus point: In 1980, what position received the highest hourly wage for a staff park employee at Disneyland? Ready? Custodians. Disney management would say to employees it is why the park was so clean. Today, they make the $14 an hour that leads to living in a car. Imagine that, imagineers.
* The Confederacy continues to stack the courts to ensure white supremacism for the next twenty to thirty years. The backlash will be a more robust use of impeachment for these judges, who are clearly unqualified. This latest one is shocking because so many of this fellow's colleagues were so strong in their negative opinions of him, calling the nominee "lazy," "arrogant," and other words that would describe someone not suited for a lifetime appointment to the federal judiciary.
* I originally was outraged at learning from the initial NY Times report that Trump was changing the meaning of being Jewish from a religion to a nationality. Judaism has not been a nationality since the Diaspora, and became an ethically based religion for the past 2,000 years. People move in and out of Judaism as with other religions. To suddenly tie us to a "homeland" in the present form of Israel is deeply misguided, and will eventually play into the hands of anti-Semites who do not see Jews as "true" Americans. Then, I read this article in Slate, and thought, maybe we are overstating all this. But now, I read this article and see my initial take was essentially correct. The expanded definition of anti-Semitism now ties Jews to Israel in a way that I would not agree with at all. The definition the Trump administration is using for anti-Semitism includes statements denying Jewish people their "homeland," and specifically defines as anti-Semitic that the state of Israel constitutes a "racist endeavor." Sorry, I dissent from that broad a definition of anti-Semitism because Israel was created as a political act, not a religious one. Ben Gurion and his advisers were, almost to a person, male and female, atheists and mostly socialist in outlook, not religiously motivated. Further, the entire idea of Zionism from Theodor Herzl was an express reaction to European nationalism in the late 19th Century that was a culmination of European Christian anti-Semitism. The reason most, but not all orthodox groups opposed Zionism in the early to mid 20th Century was, as they would caustically state, because God, not Ben Gurion tells Jews when to return to Israel. Trump continues to stoke anti-Semitism in various ways, as his speech last week to a Jewish organization shows.
* There was a bumper sticker in the past decade which said, "Republicans for Voldemort," which was meant to show the values the Republicans were espousing were inherently evil. I loved the sticker because it so creatively and ironically stated what has gone wrong in the Republican Party decade over decade since the 1960s, especially. But now satire has once again been eclipsed, where an official Trump campaign has placed Trump's head over the Marvel Universe's most powerful villain, Thanos.
* I am starting to think the Boomers on my FB page did not understand my one liner, "Kids, you know what to say," in response to this meme about good ol' Walter Cronkite. I had to resort to a statement in the comments section, stating the meme is closer to one of those Boomer and Oldster memes about the "good old days," this time, about corporate media. Uncle Walter, as we used to call him, actually did offer opinions, and those opinions drew Republican ire in 1972, as he was the only newscaster who would report on the work Woodward & Bernstein were doing at the time of Watergate. He offered opinions in a report over two nights, two weeks before the 1972 election, saying the scandal, already being called "The Watergate Scandal," was one that showed Nixon was a threat to our nation's electoral integrity and more. Also, it was Uncle Walter who told LBJ in 1968 the Vietnam War was no longer "winnable," prompting LBJ to lament, "When we've lost Walter Cronkite, we've lost the country." Walter Cronkite, ironically, was a Republican in his voting habits, and, early in the Nixon_Agnew years, regularly played tennis with Spiro Agnew, as this book, "Air Time: The Inside Story of CBS News," I believe, stated. Cronkite also recognized the little amount of information his show provided. He said in interviews he was essentially reading headlines and adding pictures for 22 minutes a night. He thought anyone relying on him instead of reading actual news stories were making a grave error. Oh well. Boomers and Oldsters. So pathetic. So very, very pathetic. For the last line in the meme, "I am not making this up," is actually, um, wrong. The meme is "making it up." And therefore my line was intended to mean, "Ok, Boomer." Sigh.
* And a defense of Elizabeth Warren over her latest imbroglio, her consulting fees over thirty years: $2 million in consulting fees over 30 years is about $67,000 a year, isn't it? But I think she had to stop doing consulting work after her senate victory in 2012, so the average is probably closer to $85,000 a year. Either way, that is still a lot less than I had assumed from the imbroglio over this issue. And yes, we ourselves have represented companies and some big corporations over the years, though I wonder whether I would have done that had I been in the type of professorial positions Warren held starting in the 1990s, and had medical insurance from a university. Still, I am not dragging Warren over the coals on this issue. Her public advocacy from the mid-1990s forward should be far more important with only one exception: Her fight for the company fighting the union over medical insurance benefits.
* My former mock trial high school student, Matt Klickstein, has written what looks to be a well received comic book, "You Are Obsolete." Sounds great. Matt, of course, has written or co-written a number of books already, as seen here at Amazon's listing for him.
