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grooming

  Political parties have long used wedge issues to encourage their members to turn out to vote.   Sometimes these issues are inflammatory, employing demonization, occasionally to the point of being dangerous.   I fear that this year, we are witnessing such an issue: the accusations of pedophilia.   I realize that the Q-Anon conspiracy theorists have made this an issue for a couple of years now, but there is a new, and much more dangerous twist, that is surfacing that may turn out to be far more insidious.   Rather than merely accusing all Democrats and liberals of being child-trafficking pedophiles who drink children’s blood, they have broadened out the accusation to include grooming children for pedophiles.   A bit of background:   you may remember the ardent believer who took a gun into a New York pizza parlor where he was told children were being kept in the basement by a cabal of pedophiles led by Hillary Clinton among others.   Fortunately, when he arrived, he was persuaded th
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Recent posts
 Bannon Up! This analogy is far from perfect, but it represents to me a futile mindset.   A sacrifice bunt in baseball involves giving up an out to advance a runner into a better position to score a run.   Occasionally, a pitcher tries so hard to throw pitches that are difficult to bunt, that he ends up walking the batter, which moves the lead runner into scoring position, gets no out, and puts another runner on base.   I’ve heard former coaches and players announcing games cry, “He’s trying to make an out.   Let him!”   I believe Steve Bannon wants to go to prison, to make himself a martyr and hero to the right-wing nuts who support him.   I say, let him.   I’ve heard some pundits worry that convicting him would further infuriate the right-wing nuts.   I think it’s time to abandon that type of thinking.   We have seen time after time that making concessions to appease these people is completely unproductive.   They see concessions only as weakness.   Even so-called reasonable
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Musings

  Right-To-Lifers Don’t Go Far Enough       I was pro-choice, but I’ve changed my mind.   The problem is not that the State should govern what a woman does with her body, the problem is that the State has not gone far enough.   The argument is that to protect the life of a fetus, the State must overrule a woman’s privacy and bodily autonomy and regulate her body for her.   Fine.   If we want the State to be in the business of protecting life through bodily regulation, then go all in.   Stick to the prime directive.   Protect all life.   The State should govern both men and women to protect life.   The State should tell any healthy person what to do with their body in order to protect life.   So, if someone needs a kidney, liver, or any organ transplant to save their life, the State should find someone and take whatever parts are needed to save that life.   If not, then we are allowing organ-icide.   (Let’s start with the Senate and the Supreme Court.   They’re mostly old and on
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The Divine Watchmaker Fails to Persuade

                                The Divine Watchmaker Fails  to Persuade Some Thoughts on an Old Argument        I b elieve that actual philosophers have created far better treatments of this, but I haven't read them.   So, I can proceed without intimidation (maybe a little trepidation).       Christian fundamentalists argue that a clock could not possibly be created by evolution.   The complexity of it requires that there must be a watchmaker.   Likewise, complex creatures, such as humans, must have been created by the Creator.   To me, it suggests the opposite.   Many creatures have clock-like functions built in, e.g. circadian rhythms, jet lag, etc., which are more biological and less mechanical in our way of categorizing,   For some reason, two unconnected examples also have popped into my head, sleep and mosquitos.      First, sleep.   Why would the watchmaker create sleep and dreams, particularly rapid eye movement (REM) sleep which occurs during dreaming?        I
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  The Trump Legend        What is the Trump story?   It will be quite different for followers and detractors.   I believe the reason that so many people can have completely opposite views of the same person and events lies in great part to our American, and perhaps human, myths.       I had occasion once to be watching a televangelist in the company of some fundamentalist in-laws.   Seeing this person crying while singing a hymn, I thought he was the phoniest person I had ever seen.   But one of my wife's aunts turned to me and said, "Isn't he the most sincere person you've ever seen?"   I didn't answer, but it occurred to me that we were sitting in the same room watching the same event with completely opposite views.   I love studying history, but I am now more careful to try and research the historian.       Some of us like to believe in heroic leaders following their "gut instincts" despite evidence to the contrary.   Television characters
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On Coronavirus

On Coronavirus   On July 28th, in his corona virus update, President Trump said that there are large areas of the country that are free from the virus.   He was immediately attacked for that statement.   That attack was unfair because, contrary to his normal struggles with integrity, in this case he was exactly correct.   Three undeniable examples confirm this.   Firs29t, take deserts for example.   The high deserts of the northwest states combine with the Mojave, the Sonoran, and the other southwest deserts to comprise an area of 200,000 - 300,000 square miles which are almost completely plague free.     Add in Alaska, almost all of which is covid free, and which is nearly one third the size of the contiguous states and you have an extremely large area.   Second, lakes.   The Great Salt Lake is great.   Don't forget Lake Tahoe, a million lakes in Minnesota, and the Everglades and other swamps.   Then there are the Great Lakes, not only close to 95,000 square miles, but
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Further Thoughts on the Con Man in the White House

Further Thoughts on the Con Man in the White House        Honest people are generally consistent.   If you are dishonest, there are a couple of ways to operate.   Either you remember all of your lies and work to sound as consistent as possible, or you take several positions on everything: when confronted, you quote whichever position clears you.   As an example, you can advocate relaxing mitigation policies to slow the spread of covid-19, tweeting to your followers to liberate particular states, then hours later claim that you are against Georgia's relaxation policy.   An added bonus is that if things go well in Georgia, you can take credit for encouraging the "liberation";   if things go badly, you can blame the governor.   Con men never stop conning.      Similarly, you can repeat that you closed the borders to China as a defense against failing to do anything else.   (Note: even with the Chinese ban, thousands of Chinese still came to the U.S.; meanwhile, the
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