Didn't bend, didn't cower, emerged with dignity intact

I finished the book Leg, the Story of a Limb and the Boy Who Grew From It by Greg Marshall. This is a memoir of Greg growing up with “tight tendons” that cause him to walk with a limp and about recognizing he is gay and beginning to act on it. He doesn’t learn the true reason for his limp until he’s close to the age of 30. The setting is Salt Lake City in the 1990s and beyond. Marshall is one of the few in his school who is not Mormon. His mother cycles between bouts of cancer with chemo and remission, still hanging on decades later. Marshall seems to accept being gay more easily than walking with a limp. He is afraid that no one will love him. Between the short term trysts (with fear of AIDS) he does have three long-term boyfriends. He wishes that two of them were more honest, and he talks about why that matters. When he’s in middle school the French Club goes to France. His father is one of the chaperons and Marshall is a bit jealous how easily his father gets along with some of the natives, even though he knows little French. A decade later his father develops ALS and Marshall is a key caregiver, partly because his mother is going through another round of chemo. I enjoyed the book. My Sunday movie was The Adventures of Mark Twain, directed by Will Vinton, the subject of the documentary Claydream I watched last week. In my description last week I said it was rated PG-13, if that rating was around in 1985. I was wrong – it is rated G. What the documentary said was that the movie has adult themes, but marketed to kids. I had interpreted that wrong. The adult themes were not about sex. They were about topics children wouldn’t understand or have much interest in. Those topics were Satan and Heaven and Twain’s ridicule of them. The time is 1910 and Halley’s comet is in the sky again. Twain had held the belief that since he was born with the comet in the sky he’ll leave this world when it comes back. In this story to help that happen he has created an airship so he could rise up and actually meet the comet. Three of his characters – Tom Sawyer wanting to be famous, Huck Finn and his pet frog Homer, and Becky Thatcher – steal aboard. During the flight they encounter more of Twain’s stories. Homer becomes the star of The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. Then comes The Diary of Adam & Eve, Twain’s version of the story from the Bible. There is The Mysterious Stranger, a novella Twain never finished in which the main character is Satan who has a rather poor view of humans. Another was Captain Stormfield’s Diary, which gave Twain a chance to criticize the popular view of Heaven. These are some of the views a discouraged Twain developed later in life. Through it all the story takes advantage of all the things that Vinton had developed during his work on claymation. I enjoyed it. My favorite quote of the movie: Twain says...

The human race, in all its poverty, has only one truly effective weapon: laughter. Against the assault of laughter - ha-ha-ha-ha! - nothing can stand.

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Daily Kos quoted from Carbon Brief:

Renewable energy has overtaken coal to become the world’s largest source of electricity in 2025, according to think tank Ember. The growth of solar and wind meant that, for the first time since 1919, the share of coal power was lower than that of renewables. Fossil-fuel generation fell by 0.2% in 2025, the think tank’s latest annual review says, with wind and solar alone meeting 99% of the growth in electricity demand last year.

Nadra Nittle, in an article for The 19th posted on Kos, discussed book bans and libraries. Nittle tells the experience of librarians faced with demands to ban books and dealing with hostile school boards or city councils. It’s a story that’s been going on for a while, so here are some of the ideas included: Pennsylvania is behind Texas and Florida in highest rates of library censorship. Many people think other states would be higher. Because of the hostility “few fully certified librarians remain in the Philadelphia school district.” Back in the 1990s there were over 170.

“This is also a class war,” [American Library Association President Sam Helmick] said. “Whether people read freely and have access to information is really at risk. We’re in an information age. If we’re not willing to invest in our communities so they can successfully navigate the digital divide and digital citizenry, we will not be equipped to continue to be a nation of, by and for the people.” ... Despite a sustained years-long effort during the 2020s to restrict reading materials, Helmick finds hope in polls indicating that 70 percent of the public opposes censorship of any kind. “That’s quite incredible because I joke that 70 percent of Americans wouldn’t agree that water is wet,” they said. “The vast majority are uninterested in this, which makes me wonder why we’re attacking the public information sector in the middle of an information age.”

Tracy Fitzmaurice, a librarian in rural North Carolina warned her fellow librarians not to buckle to outside pressure.

Don’t do anticipatory compliance. ‘If I just move this book, maybe they’ll go away.’ They won’t. These people have been at it for five years. What it really comes down to is local elections.

Nittle linked to the American Library Association list of the most challenged books of 2025. There are 11 books in this year’s list because there is a four-way tie for eighth place.

The 2025 data reported to ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) shows that the majority of book censorship attempts continue to originate from organized movements. In 2025, 92% of all book challenges were initiated by pressure groups, government officials, and decision makers, up from 72% in 2024. Less than 3% of challenges originated from individual parents.

As has been the case for many years the usual justifications for filing a complaint against a book are false claims of illegal obscenity for minors, LGBTQ characters or themes, or topics of race, racism, equity, and social justice. There were 4,235 unique titles challenged in 2025. That’s second only to the 4,240 titles in 2023. In 2025, 1,671 (40%) titles were about LGBTQ people and people of color. Out of the 11 books in this year’s list three of them are definitely about LGBTQ characters. There are likely more, but book descriptions are not on the page of the list and I don’t recognize the titles. An email from March For Our Lives discussed the number of shooting deaths over the first quarter of 2026 compared to prior years. In these three months of this year there were 3,103 lives lost to gunfire. There were shooting deaths in every one of the 50 states. That is way too many. But MFOL sent the letter because that number is lower than every year since 2015, which was slightly above 2026. The death toll rose each year with the highest in 2021 at well more than 4,500 deaths in 3 months. The chart doesn’t show actual numbers. Since 2021 the death toll has dropped. The MFOL message is that the culture is shifting away from guns and their advocacy to reduce and halt gun violence is having an effect. A week ago Emily Singer of Kos reported:

Since retaking office more than a year ago, the amount of corruption and lawlessness President Donald Trump has engaged in has been truly staggering. Between his grifts and profiteering off of the presidency, his pay for play pardons, his use of the Department of Justice for political retribution, and his shredding of the Constitution to impose tariffs, launch wars, and commit war crimes without congressional approval, Trump is committing impeachable offenses at a fast clip. And now, a majority of Americans agree it’s too much, with a new Verasight/Strength in Numbers poll finding that 55% of Americans say Trump should be impeached for a third time. Another 37% opposed and another 8% said they were unsure. “That net +18 verdict puts Trump in the neighborhood of the numbers Richard Nixon saw at the peak of the Watergate scandal in August 1974,” “Strength in Numbers” author G. Elliott Morris wrote.

The nasty guy is losing support from Republicans – 21% of those who voted for him in 2024 now support impeachment. In Saturday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a tweet from Kevin Kruse commenting on the Department of Justice dropping its criminal investigation into the Federal Reserve and its outgoing chairman Jerome Powell. That investigation was more about intimidating Powell to get him to lower interest rates to boost the economy before the midterm elections.

Didn't bend, didn't cower, didn't even feel the need to stand next to Trump grinning awkwardly like it was normal. And now he's emerged unscathed with his job and his dignity intact and his reputation even stronger than before. Huh. Seems like this could be a model for others in power.

Jonathan Last of The Bulwark

Yesterday Secretary of the Navy John Phelan was fired. Twenty-one days ago, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George was fired. Fifty-four days ago, the American military launched its largest war in a generation. These datapoints are linked. They are an admission by the president that America is losing the war. Because the simple fact of the matter is: You do not make high-level personnel changes in the middle of a war if you are winning.

In Monday’s roundup Dworkin quote Mike Brock of Notes from the Circus discussing an article Ben Shapiro wrote explaining why he voted for the nasty guy. Shapiro admits that the nasty guy is what every liberal critic says he is – a usurper who was constrained by strong American institutions. Brock then quoted and discussed Shapiro’s reasoning on why voting for the nasty guy was still a good idea.

The reasoning is the lunacy: “The guardrails would largely hold… his worst mistakes would end up being mitigated by the pushback of reality.” This is the argument. The president of the United States is a man who would, if he could, end the constitutional order. The reason it is acceptable to elect him is that he probably cannot. The institutions are strong enough to contain him. The Madisonian architecture will hold, the Supreme Court will strike things down, the Treasury Secretary lives on Earth, the bad picks will be replaced by the merely bad picks. The wannabe dictator is, in the Shapiro analysis, a manageable risk.

Sheesh, wasn’t that said about Hitler? In Tuesday’s roundup Chitown Kev quoted Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo.

Donald Trump lost this war in its very first days. Everything that has happened in recent weeks — the threats, the negotiations, the live-on-social-media breakdowns — has simply been a matter of trying to get free of that fact. This isn’t a political attack. It’s simply an accurate appraisal of what we all see. More importantly, it is the only way to understand what is happening now. Everything that’s happening today and for weeks has been focused on breaking Iran’s hold on the Strait of Hormuz, something it didn’t have before the war started. That’s the definition of failure: fighting a war and continuing a war to clean up the mess the war of choice actually created. By this measure, the best way to achieve what is now the central war aim — opening the Strait — would have been simply not to start the war in the first place. You can see the reality of the power balance in the visible fact that Trump wants negotiations and an end to the conflict more than Iran does. He keeps asking for them or demanding them. Iran holds back. They have the upper hand, notwithstanding all the vast damage to infrastructure, civilian and military, Iran has suffered.

In today’s roundup Dworkin included a tweet from Anne Applebaum mentioning and linking to an article on Financial Times. Applebaum’s tweet:

Hungarian oligarchs begin fleeing the country, transferring assets, in anticipation of corruption investigations.

The article title and subtitle:

Hungary’s business elite pivots away from Viktor Orbán. Several loyalists have moved overseas while others vow to form ‘constructive co-operation’ with incoming premier.

David French of the New York Times:

A remarkable thing has happened on the world’s battlefields. Ukraine — a nation that was supposed to dissolve within days of a Russian invasion — has fought Russia to a stalemate, revolutionizing land warfare in the process. It has become an indispensable security partner in the Western alliance, including in the war against Iran. Now, Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, is taking the next step, one that would have been unthinkable even as recently as 2024. By word and deed, he’s showing Europe and the world how the post-American free world can preserve its liberty and independence. This is what happens when, as Phillips Payson O’Brien wrote in a piece for The Atlantic, “Kyiv appears to have given up on the United States.” If that is true — and it looks as though it is — it may be worse news for the United States than it is for Ukraine.

The right has a great deal more “pearl-clutching energy”

I finished the book Following the Equator by Mark Twain. Through more than 700 pages and with lots of photos and drawings he describes his year-long trip around the world. The trip may have started in Southampton, England, which he doesn’t mention until the end and doesn’t include the trip across the Atlantic and across America. Most of the book is his visits of several months each to Australia, India, and South Africa. He also describes visits to Fiji, New Zealand, and Mauritius. He couldn’t go ashore in Hawaii because of a cholera outbreak. He took this trip in 1895-96 to give lectures, which was a major source of income. In the book he rarely mentions the lectures and doesn’t describe what he said. At the beginning of the book he mentions the date but not the year. He does mention seeing a lunar eclipse on September 4, and an online NASA catalog showed an eclipse on that date in 1895. In each place he describes his travels by train and ship and includes encounters with locals and descriptions of local customs and history. A regular travel book. When an incident jars his memory he’ll tell a story about something that happened in England or America. Along with that he includes much praise of the indigenous people and some condemnation of the European colonizers. Some of the highlights of the story: His condemnation of the Queensland, Australia slave trade. South Pacific islands were raided to supply workers for the sugar cane fields of Queensland. This is brutal work. The only good thing is the slavery was for three years rather than life. Twain says the Australians claim the experience “civilized” those they enslaved, but such “civilization” didn’t last long. That doesn’t mean the freed men returned to savagery, but that the definition of civilized was meaningless. Twain tells the story of Cecil Rhodes in Australia finding a newspaper clipping in a shark that told of impending war. The shark had come from England a lot faster than a ship could. Rhodes used the information to make himself rich. In South Africa he talks again of Rhodes, texplaining about how much he ruled over the country, both in and out of the government. So I looked up Rhodes in Wikipedia. It talks about how much Rhodes was involved in the formation of the De Beers diamond company, which became close to a worldwide monopoly. The man created Rhodesia and is buried there, though modern locals aren’t too happy about that. Wikipedia also says there is evidence to say Rhodes was gay. The page mentions Twain writing about Rhodes in this book then adds a footnote saying the story of the shark was not true. Yup, not all of the stories and incidents Twain tells are true (a shark that visits both England and Sydney in a week?). And that’s not really a surprise, though it leaves one wondering which stories were not true. In India Twain describes over many pages the Thuggees, a group that worshiped a god that demanded they murder. They committed many (tens of thousands?) in the early 1800s. Twain credits the British for stopping the Thuggees, and goes on to say that’s why the British rule of India was a benefit. He takes a train trip into the Himalayas. That was nice. What was better was the trip down. It was by handcar where the only control was the brake. The 35 mile downward ride was the delight of the year. I enjoyed the book, though by the end I felt it was too long. It does have a lot of Twain’s dry humor and I’m pleased at his support for indigenous people, who in his telling don’t seem so backward and inferior as the white people justifying colonization claimed at the time. During 2025 I read 44 books. Lake Superior State University released its annual list of words that should be banished for “mis-, mal-, over-use, or general uselessness.” 2026 marks the golden anniversary of the list. This year’s offenders: 6-7, that popular phrase that has no meaning. Massive, for incorrect use and overuse. Incentivize, where motivate should be enough. Full stop, where a period should be enough. My bad, an infantile way to apologize. And for general overuse: Demure, Cooked, Gifted, Perfect, and Reach out. This year LSSU included a list of repeat offenders, words that refused to stay banished. Banished three times is the phrase, At the End of the Day. Words and phrases banished twice are: Absolutely, Awesome, Game Changer, and Hot Water Heater (water already hot doesn’t need to be heated, it’s just a water heater). At the start of last week Jacob Wendler of Politico reported that a dozen staffers of the Heritage Foundation, the people who created Project 2025, left that group and went to Advancing American Freedom, which was founded by former vice nasty Mike Pence. Those that left were the heads of the legal, economic, and data analysis teams and several members of their teams. The reason for their departure stems from Tucker Carlson airing a friendly interview with Nick Fuentes in October. Fuentes is a strong antisemite. Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation stood by Carlson’s decision to interview Fuentes. Several conservative voices rebuked Roberts. That turned into an internal squabble at HF, with some saying antisemitism has no place there and others saying only so much dissent is permitted at HF. Some reports imply those who left HF were terminated, others say the departures were voluntary. Even so, an HF spokesman seems glad they’re gone and replacements will make them stronger. However, the infighting is reverberating through the Republican Party. Kate Plummer of Newsweek explains the situation in more detail and used the headline “The Heritage Foundation is Imploding.” I would be delighted if the Heritage Foundation fell apart. But I’m skeptical it will happen soon. Steve Inskeep of NPR spoke to Republican strategist Marc Short, who is also described as the chairman of AAF. Short described the HF story from the AAF viewpoint. He went on to describe general conservative goals. As a part of those goals Short complained about the government “picking winners and losers.” They want “a limited role of government in the economy and allowing the marketplace to thrive.” My first reaction to that is they want limited government because government protects the little guy. And I guess “thrive” now has a definition of making money any way they can, including fleecing customers and polluting the environment. My second reaction goes back to a post in November where I discussed late-stage capitalism. Democracy and capitalism exist together only when democracy tightly controls capitalism. Short is saying an important part of conservatism is rejecting those tight controls and letting capitalism continue to its end stage where billionaires control everything. Alas, conservatives have a few key phrases they repeat whenever they can and media, including NPR, don’t delve into what is meant by that. The way conservatives say it limited government is a good thing. But, as we’ve seen in the last year, limited government in practice means no consumer protections (goodbye CFPB), no environmental protections (goodbye EPA), and no safety net for the poor (goodbye affordable care act premium support). And Inskeep didn’t delve into that. This seems to fit right in. Two weeks ago Oliver Willis of Daily Kos, as part of his series of Explaining the Right wrote about Why Republican scandals and misdeeds get a pass. I’m sure I’ve written many times of something the nasty guy or Republicans did and note that if Biden or Obama had done them they would have been quickly impeached and convicted, while Republicans remain unscathed. Willis gives other examples of other Democrats who faced tough scrutiny that sometimes ended their careers for things that were much less severe than what Republicans now commit seemingly daily.

Why does this happen, and with such regularity? The mainstream media has an institutional bias towards both-sidesism, which is the notion that the Democratic and Republican parties and the related liberal and conservative movements engage in outrages at the same pace. This simply isn’t true by any objective measure.

Another reason is that for over six decades the right has relentlessly been “working the refs,” hitting the media with false allegations of bias. The media now consistently rolls over for the right – yet still gets attacked for bias. A third reason is the right has a great deal more “pearl-clutching energy.” They remained outraged over liberal misdeeds with more noise and for a longer time than the left can maintain over conservative misdeeds. I’ll add a fourth reason – many mainstream media outlets are owned by billionaires or others who have a large stake in conservative goals. So they’re inherently biased. Willis wrote that media companies can take things only so far. They fail when Americans can see the truth with their own eyes. Right now no amount of spin can mask the problems in the economy. At the top of today’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev included a photo of the midnight swearing in of Zohran Mamdani as the mayor of New York City. It was done a subway station that’s no longer used that leads directly into City Hall. It’s a pretty location. Mamdani had a second swearing in, this time during the day, on City Hall steps, and with the public able to attend. Kev quoted Hayes Brown of MSNOW discussing the many artists who have canceled gigs at the Kennedy Center, especially after the nasty guy added his nasty name to the building. Ric Grenell, president of the Center, called these artists “far-left political activists.” Brown wrote:

Grenell essentially accusing performers of being performative illustrates an utter lack of understanding about the arts and audience. It’s as though his mind cannot fathom why an artist might decide to withhold their work from certain audiences at certain venues. And as though there is not a rich tradition of art as protest in this country, either in boldly staging performances calling out injustice or in shunning stages that demanded segregated audiences.

Then Brown discussed Grenell’s focus on “sound fiscal policy.” He wants arts that actually sell tickets and make a profit. That misses the point of arts. It is why most arts institutions, including the Kennedy Center, are non-profit. Arts are important whether or not they make a profit. The Nation magazine reposted a 2015 essay from Toni Morrison that gives another reason for what Grenell is really up to.

Dictators and tyrants routinely begin their reigns and sustain their power with the deliberate and calculated destruction of art: the censorship and book-burning of unpoliced prose, the harassment and detention of painters, journalists, poets, playwrights, novelists, essayists. This is the first step of a despot whose instinctive acts of malevolence are not simply mindless or evil; they are also perceptive. Such despots know very well that their strategy of repression will allow the real tools of oppressive power to flourish. Their plan is simple: 1. Select a useful enemy—an “Other”—to convert rage into conflict, even war. 2. Limit or erase the imagination that art provides, as well as the critical thinking of scholars and journalists. 3. Distract with toys, dreams of loot, and themes of superior religion or defiant national pride that enshrine past hurts and humiliations.

In the comments is a tweet by Prof. Peter Hotez:

Year One MAHA: 1. Measles returns to America 2. Pertussis returns to America 3. Chronic hepatitis liver cancer returns 4. Pandemic preparedness gone 5. Swung & missed on autism 6. CDC disassembled 7. Biotech industry shutting down 8. Brain drain underway.

I see that as more oppression by the wealthy. Those near the top of the social hierarchy and most invested in their position make their lives appear better by making the lives of others worse. Killing others off through unrestrained disease is one way to accomplish that goal. That tweet was followed by one by Dan Diamond. It includes a link to a Washington Post article that is the source and includes a way for a person to look up the stats of their own county. Diamond wrote:

5 million-plus kindergartners now live in counties where schools don’t have “herd immunity” for measles, Washington Post reporters found.

A comment by pelagicray lamented the destruction of the federal executive branch, which included...

That came with significant deaths, many infant and children deaths, from USAID shutdown so chaotic medicine and food went bad in warehouses rather than into a final distribution. That is on us. We let it happen. While many of us voted for the good, collectively it is on all of us. A piece in the U.S. Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health notes

The Trump administration’s decision to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths from infectious diseases and malnutrition, according to Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Atul Gawande.

After all that something light and sweet. Rund Abdelfatah, host of NPR’s Throughline brought to All Things Considered and 8-minute segment on the history of chocolate. The link also has a transcript.

No use for robust public corruption investigations

I finished the book A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain. I’m contrasting it with the book The Cross-Time Engineer, by Leo Frankowski and the rest of the eight books in his Conrad Stargard series. Twain’s book, published in 1889, is about Hank from that time who gets a blow to the head and wakes up 528. A couple days later he uses a solar eclipse to save his life and establish himself as a magician to rival Merlin. Not many people in the 19th century know the dates of eclipses thirteen centuries before. Hank becomes The Boss, top aide to King Arthur. Frankowski’s book was published almost 100 years later in 1986. It is essentially a remake of Twain’s story. Conrad, a young engineer in Poland, is transported back to 1231. Once he realizes what has happened to him he sees he has a huge task – Mongols will destroy Poland in ten years. In time travel stories the question is whether or not to change history and in what way. There is a subgenre featuring time police. If the goal is to change history, does the change take hold by the end of the tale and we understand it will persist, firmly altering the history we know? In Twain’s tale, the basics of Arthur’s legend are there – Guenevere, Launcelot, Morgan le Fey, Mordred have their usual roles. The Round Table and its knights are there but Twain says nothing about what made the table special. Instead, Hank declares his disgust with kings – nobility in general – and church officials who fill the heads of commoners with superstitions to keep the nobility in power. Hank tries to work the system to bring about a republic, a society of equals. Since he is second only to Arthur he tries to sell that idea. Over four years he develops schools and the basics of 19th century industry, which soon includes the telephone and guns. But when Hank goes out in public he is still expected to wear armor, which gives Twain a chance to rant about how uncomfortable it was. I was disappointed that Twain didn’t show how Hank caused that industry to come into being. But Twain wasn’t an engineer and went with his strengths, portraying the injustices humans perpetrate on each other. But he recognizes the superstitions the people grew up with will not be overcome. That’s one reason for the schools. Causing that industry to come into being is exactly what the Frankowski books are all about, which is why I was disappointed it wasn’t in Twain’s book. Conrad builds one concept onto another, first the basics of industry and schooling, then modernizing Polish society, especially the military so it can repel the Mongols. Every so often I fantasize about how I would go about things (minus the military part) if I was in Conrad’s position. I enjoyed Twain’s book and appreciate his defense of democracy and the equality of humans. The first five of of Frankowski’s stories were printed from 1986 to 1990. I enjoyed them very much when they came out. The sixth book came out in 1998. I was annoyed enough with the ending that I was done with Frankowski’s stories. So I didn’t read the prequel (that explains the time machine) that came out in 2002 or the final book that appeared in 2005. From online reviews I didn’t miss much. I might have a different opinion of the whole series if I read them today because Conrad’s dealings with women isn’t the best. Fandango at Home lists three Connecticut Yankee movies. One featuring Will Rogers came out in 1931. Another stars Bing Crosby in a musical version released in 1949. The third was released in 1989 and it is a black woman who goes back in time. Alas, none appear to be highly rated. Wikipedia has a long list of adaptations as movies (the first in 1921), TV movies and series, cartoons, stage shows, and other books. Frankowski’s books aren’t in the list. Long ago I saw a scene from the Bing Crosby version and today I watched the trailer. I don’t think I want to see this story as a musical. Lisa Needham of Daily Kos reported on a surprising ruling from the Supreme Court. The case is out of Oklahoma and is about whether the Catholic Church can run a public charter school and have it teach Catholicism. Yes, that’s a violation of the separation of Church and State. So the decision should be simple. But we’re talking about a very conservative Supreme Court. The first surprise is that Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the case. This is a Court becoming known for justices not recusing themselves even when the outside world can see a clear conflict of interest. Justices don’t have to give a reason for a recusal, but Barrett likely did it because she taught at Notre Dame University and their religious liberty clinic represented the case before the court. The second surprise was that the decision was deadlocked at 4-4, not the expected 5-3. When deadlocked the Court doesn’t need to give its reasoning and doesn’t have to tell how justices voted. Even so, oral arguments suggest Chief Justice Roberts voted with the liberals. So the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling stands, which said the Catholic Church cannot run a public school. Don’t consider the issue dead. The Catholic Church will try again, perhaps through another state. This next time they won’t ask Notre Dame to represent them. Or... Needham reported that Republicans are proposing a federal voucher system. It would allow federal money to be spent on religious schools (see Church and State above) which would pull money from public schools. These schools discriminate against LGBTQ student and don’t have services for learning challenged or disabled students. For conservatives, all that is a big win. The proposed system would demand participation from states that have laws or constitutions that prohibit funding church related schools. Also, the funding proposed, $5 billion a year for four years, won’t be nearly enough for the expected demand. Voucher money is mostly claimed by parents who have already been sending students to private schools (showing they can afford them) or homeschooling them. Which means the money not going to public schools affects poorer students. Conservatives like to proclaim vouchers give parents a choice, meaning the parents would choose the better schools. But these schools are shown to mostly be a lot worse than public schools. Kos of Kos reported Senate Republicans voted to strip California’s right to set its own vehicle emission standards. That’s bad because it is hostile to the climate and defiant of states’ rights. If it gets any further than the Senate it will be tied up in courts for years. Kos found good news in the move – for Republicans to get their way they gutted the filibuster. The filibuster, requiring a supermajority of 60 vote, is anti-democracy. And it has a long history of being used in racist ways. Also, even though at the moment Democrats could use the filibuster to stop some things Republicans want to do, most of the time the filibuster hurts Democrats. That’s because the Senate gives more power to smaller states, which lately are strongly Republican. Also, Republicans have carved out filibuster exceptions whenever it suited their agenda. So why were Democrats clinging to it (see Joe Manchin)? As for the current situation:

Yes, it means Republicans can pass bad laws when they’re in charge, but that’s democracy. Let the public see what happens when they put the GOP in power. Let Democrats offer a clear alternative. No more hiding behind obscure rules, no more excuses.

Several Democrats warned that when they’re in power again they have a lot of bills they want to pass and will be glad Republicans can’t stop them. Needham does a weekly column on how the nasty guy is trying to weaponize the justice system and the people fighting back. In her column from a week ago this is her last bit:

Can’t get in trouble for corruption if you stop investigating corruption. The FBI is shuttering its public corruption squad. You’d think an administration so committed to pretending to be rooting out fraud and firing traitorous deep state federal employees would want to keep the team that was responsible for those things. But the public corruption squad, working with special counsel Jack Smith, is the unit that investigated Trump’s many crimes. In this instance, the squad wasn’t likely shut down simply because it hurt Trump’s feelings. An administration that is 100% committed to its own graft and enabling the graft of others has no use for robust public corruption investigations. After all, that would greatly interfere with Trump’s effort to turn the government into his own personal corruption machine.

In a separate post from this past Tuesday Needham discussed the ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell that was filed in response to DOGE forcibly dismantling the United States Institute of Peace. The USIP isn’t a government agency, but a nonprofit corporation. Yet, DOGE showed up with with the DC Metro Police and the FBI to break in. Howell’s ruling listed a lot of reasons why this DOGE action was unlawful. But it didn’t put a stop to the destruction. The administration obeying this order is doubtful. From their point of view the longer they drag this out (with appeals to Circuit Courts and Supremes) the more likely the USIP can’t be put back together. It has already been damaged. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a tweet by Billy Binion reacting to the nasty guy’s announcement of a 25% tariff on Apple iPhones not manufactured in America:

You will not be able to afford an iPhone. You will own 2 dolls. You will work in a factory. And you will be happy about it. That is actually the MAGA platform right now. What a wild time to be alive.

Down in the comments Carol *Resister Sister* posted a cartoon by Clay Bennett. It shows a car with several bumper stickers saying “Equality” with a rainbow background, “Climate Change,” “Gun Control Now,” “Black Lives Matter,” “Abortion Rights,” “Harris 2024.” The car has been stopped by the Department of Justice. The caption says, “Driving while Democrat.” The Naked Pastor posted a cartoon showing Jesus visiting the nasty guy. Jesus says, “Hey, I have an idea! Why not use your power for the good of all?” The nasty guy says, “Get behind me, Satan!” The caption says, “The problem is, unwise people often think the evil they are doing is actually good.” Bill in Portland, Maine, in yesterday’s Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, quoted late night commentary.

"Another wildly destructive day in Washington D.C. They pulled another all-nighter in the House, where they passed Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill.' And, man oh man, if this is the beautiful bill, I'd hate to see the ugly one. I'm not sure which part of the bill is the most beautiful: the part where we take food from hungry kids, or the devastating effect it'll have on college education, or the trillions of dollars it'll add to our national debt, or the almost 700-billion dollars in cuts to Medicaid. Either way, say goodbye to Grandma." —Jimmy Kimmel "If something is beautiful, you don’t do it after midnight." —Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who voted against the bill "How weird is it that the ‘news’ is selling you a book about news they should have told you was news a year ago for free? It's just fun to watch them continue to push the book in light of this difficult news [of Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis], but to actually frame this difficult news as even more of a reason to buy this book. ... Some observers might think, do these CNN people work on commission? Like, why are they hawking this f---ing thing? Is this a Girl Scout cookie situation? Whoever sells the most Tapper books gets a Schwinn?" —Jon Stewart, on CNN's disgusting 24/7 infomercial'ing of Jake Tapper's Biden hit job

Where democracy has become a blood sport

My Sunday movie was Heartstopper, season 3, episodes 7 an 8, which are the end of the season. As before there are plot points (also known as spoilers) and my discussion. The start of episode 7 is a moment in sex ed class. Yeah, they’re teenagers and one thing on their minds. So we know where Nick and Charlie’s relationship is headed. In episode 5 both Charlie and transgender Elle have body image issues that get in the way of sex with their partners. Elle is also facing confidence issues from the interview that went wrong in episode 6. In these two episodes Nick is now looking at where he wants to go to University. One concern is how far he’ll be from Charlie, who has one more year of high school. Charlie is feeling more fully recovered from his eating disorder and more ready to get on with life. A big question about the series. There have been three seasons, yet there are six books. So I checked the later books in the series. The description of book 5 matches what happens in season 3. Will there be a season 4 with what happens when Nick leaves for University? Will it be filmed before the characters are too old to play the parts? I finished the book Pudd’nhead Wilson and the Extraordinary Twins by Mark Twain, published in 1894. The author explains that after writing the novel he saw that it wasn’t working and it took a while for him to realize that he had crammed together two stories, one a tragedy and one a comedy. He separated the two stories, though they are published together. They share the same setting – Dawson’s Landing, Missouri before the Civil War – and many of the same characters and even some of the same incidents, though told from a different point of view. The first story is Pudd’nhead Wilson. Though he’s the title character, he’s actually rather minor. He’s trained as a lawyer, but in his first day in town he makes a comment the locals think is stupid and they name him Pudd’nhead. The name sticks and there goes his efforts to be a lawyer. Beyond the odd jobs he does to get by he collects fingerprints of the locals. In the 1840s the uniqueness of fingerprints is not known, and not so much in 1894. It’s much later than that before fingerprints are used by police and the courts. So Twain was ahead of his time. Roxy is one of the main characters. Her single black ancestor is four generations back, but because of the laws of the time she is considered black though she could easily pass for white. Her son Chambers is born the same day as her master’s son Tom. The two boys look very much alike and she cares for them both. When the boys are just a few months old Roxy realizes her son could be sold “down the river” to a harsher owner. To protect him she swaps clothing and cradles and her son is now Tom. And he grows up to become the arrogant son of the estate. Yes, fingerprints play a major role. And Pudd’nhead does the lawyering. Roxy is one of Twain’s better black characters, perhaps even better than Jim in Huckleberry Finn. She is a driver of a great deal of the plot. She is quite annoyed at how arrogant her son has become. Each chapter begins with an excerpt from “Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar” – a witty saying for each day. A couple examples:

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved. The true Southern watermelon is a boon apart, and not to be mentioned with commoner things. It is chief of the world’s luxuries, king by the grace of God over all the fruits of the earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the angels eat. It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took: we know it because she repented.

Now for the Extraordinary Twins. They are supposedly Italian Counts who come to town. Since nobility in Dawson’s Landing is rare they are fawned over. In Pudd’nhead Wilson they are portrayed as one expects twins to be portrayed. However, in Extraordinary Twins they are conjoined twins – two heads and four arms on one pair of legs. This gives Twain the chance to have a bit of fun with how absurd he can make the situation. Morgan Stephens of Daily Kos discussed several ways Republicans are trying to restrict free speech. Florida Gov. DeathSantis and Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo tried to block local TV stations from playing ads for the state abortion amendment on the ballot. The nasty guy threatens any news organization that tells the truth, which makes him look bad. He said he would talk to Fox founder Rupert Murdoch to ban negative commercials in the last three weeks of the campaign. There are also those who try to exploit free speech by running gruesome ads that displayed dead fetuses. ABC aired them, because they had to, though added a content warning. Stephens concluded:

The ultraconservative second Trump administration blueprint, Project 2025, created by 140 of Trump’s allies and colleagues, details plans to defund PBS, NPR, and any other public broadcasting. Trump’s ongoing threats to media networks and calls by those like DeSantis to cease and desist what they don’t like and revoke licenses, only reiterate the GOP’s broader strategy of controlling narratives and silencing any voice that does not placate their lies.

In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included quotes discussing the nasty guy’s appearance at the Al Smith dinner that raises money for Catholic charities. Jonathan Last of The Bulwark equated the whole thing to Japanese Kabuki theater.

Donald Trump has inverted this proposition. His presence at the Al Smith dinner last night turned the event itself into kabuki theater, in which everyone participating pretended that the man who attempted a coup, says he wants to be a dictator, calls his opponents “vermin” and “the enemy within,” and has raised the possibility of using the military against American citizens is normal. ... Trumpism corrupts. And Trumpism has turned events like the Al Smith dinner—which used to be balms for democracy—into weapons against it. The people running the dinner thought they were using Trump to raise money for Catholic Charities. The reality is that he was using them to normalize his authoritarian project.

The National Catholic Reporter commented that the problem wasn’t that Harris declined to attend but that the nasty guy did attend and spoke.

The real controversy is that an event that touts its history of raising funds for society's most needy is going to host someone who is one of the culture's greatest threats to that kind of caring. The real outrage is that Trump, given the public nature and extent of his repulsive record, should be invited to a fundraiser for an organization, Catholic Charities, that has long worked in the trenches to save and transform lives on society's farthest margins. It is tragic that the guest of honor this year will be someone whose personal example and policy wishes are in a collision course with the principles of Catholic social teaching.

Down in the comments are a couple of good cartoons. In the nasty guy’s trial for inciting the Capitol attack he tried to block some of the evidence from being made public. He said it would election interference. Judge Chutkan refused his request. A cartoon by Dave Whamond covers that moment. He has Judge Chutkan saying, as she points to an image of the attack, “Releasing evidence isn’t election interference, Mr. Trump... That’s election interference!” The second cartoon is by Bill Bramhall. It shows Harris wearing a shirt that says, “I went on Fox News and all I got was interrupted.” Oliver Willis of Kos reported that on Sunday the nasty guy pretended to work at a McDonald’s. As part of her life story Harris has been saying she worked at a McDonald’s for a while, so she knows what that kind of job is like and will help people in those jobs. The nasty guy has been claiming that she never worked there and somehow his stunt would reveal that. Or at least mock it. And yes, it was a stunt. The restaurant was closed. Those who came to the drive-through window were fans and screened by Secret Service. The fans didn’t order, they just took what he gave them. While there reporters asked about raising the minimum wage. He ducked the question. Willis reminded us of his other policies that help billionaires at the expense of the people who normally work at McDonald’s. Willis also reported the reaction to the stunt. Republicans were, of course, delighted. Republican Rep. Chuck Edwards of North Carolina gave the nasty guy a “French fry certification pin” while Hurricane Helene debris can be seen in the background. Democrats and many entertainers were scornful of the stunt, calling it “cosplay” and insulting. Emily Singer of Kos wrote that the nasty guy’s incoherence has increased over the last few weeks. She gives many examples. Media, such as the New York Times are starting to write articles about his mental fitness. And Harris is talking about his fitness during her campaign events. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev included several good quotes. First, from Michael Tomasky of The New Republic:

How Republicans win presidential elections, according to the factual record: They cheat. This has been true in most elections in recent American history...

The full article listed many of the different ways they cheat. Lora Kelley and Elaine Godfrey of The Atlantic discuss one of those ways to cheat – disinformation and conspiracy theories that will continue to bombard us through Election Day. Laurie Roberts of the Arizona Republic wrote about security measures around the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center. A 7-foot high wrought iron fence, concrete barriers, armed guards, metal detectors, snipers on the roof, and drones.

Sounds like overkill, but this is Arizona 2024, where democracy has become a blood sport and the red, white and blue has given way to the red, white and black and blue. ... Inside, election workers have been drilled on how to barricade themselves into a room or wield a fire hose to repel armed mobs. In the pursuit of democracy, everything has changed.

Down in the comments are several cartoons about the nasty guy at McDonald’s. One by Nick Anderson shows the nasty guy hanging out the drive-through window saying, “Want lies with that?” Beside him is Elon Musk saying, “Want bribes with that?” Further down exlrrp posted a meme with the same setting and the words, “Do you want crimes with that?” And a ways below that exlrrp posted another meme, “She worked at McDonald’s. He pretended to work at McDonald’s. ...Good analogy for how they’ll govern.” A tweet by Joe G shows a photo of Harris with the words, “Please don’t tell Donald that I also took ballet lessons.” Just below that posted by TruthPlease is an image of the nasty guy with a tutu wrapped around his suit. And exlrrp posted a meme with this question, “Why is it black people are told to get over slavery but white people always have Civil War reenactments?” Willis reported that in the nasty guy’s tax plan is the goal to eliminate taxation on Social Security benefits. Sounds good? Well, other than most of that benefit goes to the richest people, the ones with the biggest Social Security benefits. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget explains it this way. Those taxes on Social Security benefits go back into the SS fund. So not taxing benefits means a $2.3 trillion shortfall (time span not specified), causing a 33% benefit cut for everyone. And the ones most reliant on SS benefits would be the most hurt. Lisa Needham of Kos wrote about the nasty guy holding a rally in California (the one where he stranded his followers in the desert) and a big fundraiser in New York. He won’t win either state, so why campaign there?

It’s not just weird that nine days before the election, Trump is holding a rally in New York, which he lost by roughly 22 percentage points to Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 and then did even worse against President Joe Biden in 2020. It’s also weird that nine days before the election, Trump is doing a massive fundraiser instead of stumping for votes. But he’ll need that money if he plans to win the election via post-election litigation instead of, you know, votes.

Now that I’ve mentioned Musk... Eric Lipton of NYT tweeted:

Musk is simultaneously in fights with the FAA, DOJ, FCC, FTC, Interior, EEOC, NLRB, EPA, etc. Now Musk has nudged Trump to put him in charge of an effort to curb government rules. Why is Musk working so hard to get Trump elected?

Yeah, a huge conflict of interest. The tweet has a link to the NYT article and I think it’s not behind the paywall.

A conscience is a chink in one’s armor

I wrote on Saturday that I would watch the 1937 version of The Prince and the Pauper soon. And on Sunday I did. Some thoughts after watching it: The twin boys playing the prince and the pauper were a bit too big to play ten year old boys (in history Edward gained the throne at age nine). At the time of filming the actors were actually fifteen. The boys did a good job acting. By the end of the film I think I could tell them apart and I don’t think they switched roles. Of course, a lot of Twain’s story had to be left out of a two hour movie. And, of course, there were some differences. The king’s great seal plays an important role in the plot and it’s purpose is better explained. The guy designated as the underage king’s High Protector is shown to be more devious – with a pauper boy in the role of king the High Protector would have more control over him. So the palace guard is sent to find and kill the real king. The character Miles Hendon becomes Edward’s protector and was played by Errol Flynn. So of course there was a big sword fight – and while Flynn was occupied with two associated why didn’t the captain go ahead and kill Edward? During filming there were complaints that Flynn, a star at the time, doesn’t show up until nearly halfway through the movie. Tom, dressed as the prince, is advised by his father the king to be ruthless to protect his crown. A conscience is a chink in one’s armor. One needs to be willing to kill rivals. As mentioned in my last post one aspect of the story is that Edward develops a conscience. The script thankfully dropped Twain’s efforts to have the characters speak in the English of the 1500s (none of the “Thou dost...”). I’m not sure the actor’s accents were all that English. The filmscore was by Erich Korngold and the main theme was adapted a few years later into the last movement of his Violin Concerto (the other two movements are based on themes from other movies). Korngold was a composing child prodigy in Austria and fled when the Nazis took over. He ended up in Hollywood and became famous as a film composer. My travelogue of my recent trip. In the afternoon of July 1 I went to Aunt and Uncle’s house in northern Ohio. Also there was their daughter and her husband and my brother with his two daughters, a son-in-law, and two of their children. The time together continued until after lunch the next day. I left one brother to visit the other near Pittsburgh. I stayed with him and his wife two nights. In between, Brother and I visited the Carnegie-Mellon Museum of Art and Natural History. On Thursday, July 4 I drove to New York City. The cousin I had just seen in Ohio had offered the use of her apartment in the Bronx, even though I would get there the day before she and her husband would. Seeing New York fireworks from their 11th floor balcony sounded pretty cool. Before I left Pittsburgh Cousin texted me to say her husband had tested positive for COVID and they were going directly to their apartment. After thinking about that for many miles I realized the protections they proposed would be insufficient and staying with them could jeopardize the rest of my trip. So sitting in a restaurant in the middle of Pennsylvania I worked to find a hotel on Manhattan as I fretted about the miles and hours I still needed to travel. That’s when I was introduced to the “facility fee” included in the final price of every hotel I checked. I knew about it before I clicked on “book,” but it made the comparison prices on Google Maps meaningless. I chose one where the facility fee was $25 a night. Some appeared to be as high as $60 a night. I appreciate more Biden’s effort to get rid of “junk fees.” With my chosen route now obsolete I relied on my car’s navigation system, which is eleven years old and doesn’t know about traffic. I didn’t use my phone because I didn’t have a place to display it. I got onto Manhattan just before the fireworks were to start, but by the time I found the hotel, checked in, and parked the car (which stayed parked for the rest of my time in NYC), the fireworks were over. The hotel room was small, just a bit bigger than the bed. That meant no chair, no desk, and the only place to open the suitcase was on the bed. I had a place to stay! In Manhattan! When first started planning this trip I thought about leaving my car at a train station well outside the city. That idea was dropped when Cousin offered letting me stay with her, which included a spot for my car. But as I passed train stations on my way to Midtown I thought of it again. Parking near the hotel was $44 a night and that was supposedly with a hotel validated discount. On Friday, July 5 I saw the Museum of the City of New York. Cousin joined me there, wearing a mask. It’s about the history of the city, its growth, and its immigrant communities. One hall had displays of activism by various groups wanting their rights – black people, women, unions, and more. I was surprised the display around LGBTQ rights was focused on trans people. In a way it makes sense. A big driving force of the Stonewall riots was the drag queens.

Cousin went home. I found how useful Google Maps is when using public transportation when I went to the World Trade Center Memorial. That place is intense. After reliving what happened that day I was tired and drained by the time I got to the interesting part of the planning that went into pulling off the attack.

On Saturday, July 6 Cousin said she had tested positive for COVID. She arranged for a friend to take the tickets for the two Broadway shows I had bought for her. In the morning I walked through a street fair that had closed off 6th Avenue, then browsed a few stores in Times Square. The show on Saturday was a matinee of Stereophonic. It had just won the Tony Award for best play. It is basically about a five member band recording an album with the help of two technicians. The front half of the stage is the control room and the back half is set up as the soundstage. In addition to a few songs that get performed all the way through there are also the problems of actually recording – having to do retakes, hearing a rattle coming from the drums, and is the drummer slowing down? There’s also a lot of interpersonal conflict – the band leader comes across as too tyrannical, one is going through addiction recovery, some of the relationships are more than bandmates and those aren’t going well. Nothing momentous and all interesting. The program said six of the seven actors were new to Broadway. Two of them got Tony Awards for best featured actor/actress. After the show I went down to Greenwich Village. The first stop was the LGBTQ community center and its bookstore, where I bought a couple. Then to stop by Stonewall Inn, which was still basking in Biden’s recent visit to declare the site to be a national monument and open a visitor center (closed when I got there). I wandered the area a bit, got supper, then headed back to my hotel. On Sunday, July 7 I realized I needed to wash one brief and one pair of socks. I filled out the hotel’s laundry request and took it to the front desk. In the morning I roamed around Rockefeller Center, though the only buildings I went into were a basement level concourse (to get out of the heat) and FAO Schwartz. It didn’t have the diversity of toys I expected. It does have the music keyboard on the floor Tom Hanks made famous.

In the afternoon I finally saw Hamilton. Niece wanted to know what I thought of it, so I’ll share: Dislikes: Loud. Sometimes the rap songs could be hard to understand, mostly because they went too fast – I couldn’t savor the rhymes. And it was too visually busy with the near constant background movement of the company and the frequently changing light patterns on the floor. Likes: Good story, historically important, and well told. Great use of a mixed race cast – a black George Washington, a jiving black Thomas Jefferson! The music was good and innovative, especially the rap and the use of the phrase “my shot” used through the show. Excellent performances (of course). And King George was a hoot! I see it fits the definition of an opera, in which the whole story is told through music (and yes, in this case, rap is included). After the show I went down to Hudson Yards and walked a long section of the High Line. This used to be an elevated freight train route to supply west side food businesses. It has been turned into an elevated park that, while I was there, got a lot of use.

There is also artwork along the path.

Back at the hotel I found my laundry hadn’t been done – no service on Sundays. The evening desk clerk told me he didn’t know service was not offered on Sundays. The morning clerk didn’t know either. Why didn’t they know? Cousin, who was feeling better, offered the use of her building’s laundry facilities. So, on Monday, July 8 I accepted her offer, now needing to do a full load. Between cycles we sat outside. Then I briefly saw her apartment while I changed into freshly laundered clothes. After doing some driving through a bit of the Bronx I headed to Hartford, Connecticut. On Tuesday, July 9 I headed to eastern Connecticut to see a cemetery on the property where ancestors lived for a couple generations. Alas, the most important gravestones were too old to be legible. From Tuesday evening to Saturday afternoon I attended a handbell seminar. In that time there were fourteen class sessions and eight concerts (and a ninth at a local carillon tower), all of it wonderful to a handbell geek like me. On Sunday, July 14 I toured the Mark Twain House in Hartford. The author lived here for 17 years, his most productive time. Of course, many of his books were for sale in the gift shop and I bought a few I haven’t read yet (see above and my previous post). After that came laundry again, this time at a laundromat open on Sundays. In the evening I walked the Esplanade over the highway between the hotel and the river. On Monday, July 15 I drove to the Catskill Mountains (Brother, who has lived near much larger, would insist they're only big hills). The first stop was the home of Frederic Church, which he called Olana. He was an important painter in the Hudson Valley School. Alas, his house is not open on Mondays, though I could walk around the outside. Thomas Cole was the founder of the Hudson Valley School and his home is just across the Hudson River from Church's. It is also closed Mondays. I didn’t stop.

After lunch I went hiking to Kaaterskill Falls (yes, there are people swimming in the pool at the bottom) with hopes of going on to escarpment lookout points. I got a ways, but the trail was too rough.

I had an enjoyable Bed and Breakfast place that evening. On Tuesday, July 16 I went to Hunter Mountain Resort to take their chairlift to the top for the scenic view I missed the day before. I found it ... closed. I thought I had checked hours ahead of time. Just now I checked the website. It said the chairlift started summer operations at the end of June, but it was hard to find hours of operation and nothing about being closed on the 15th. I had talked to a Kaaterskill ranger the day before about other good views. She suggested the Five State Lookout on route 23 between Cairo and Windham, NY. It is indeed a marvelous view, but from its designation one should be able to see into five state. But I don’t see how one could view more than three.

In the afternoon I went on Rail Explorer trip of about two hours. Transportation is by vehicles that sit on abandoned railroad rails and are pedaled. One can get a two or four seat vehicle. I got a two-seater.

At the appointed time all those on the current tour set out, with some space between vehicles, for an eight mile journey. We met up before crossing the main road so we could all cross together. At the halfway point the vehicles are turned around by being lifted up from the track and spun (this photo from the starting place). Then it is back to the starting point. Since this is somewhat uphill constant pedaling is required. But it isn't strenuous because once the pedals move at a certain speed an electric assist kicks in.

The guys who shepherd the tour, guide the highway crossing, a turn the vehicles around (and pedal just as much as we do) certainly get a workout and did a good job of keeping it all running smoothly. It is billed as scenic, but trees lining the rails mean we didn't see much. Once moving the vehicles are noisy and jarring. The seat shifts and rattles with each stroke. Even so, I'm glad I did it. This is one of several sites around the country where they run tours.

I drove on to Cortland, NY for more family research. Some of the family in eastern Connecticut moved to this area for about a dozen years, long enough for the next generation to be born. And from there I drove home.

Walks of a long distance

I’m home, arriving yesterday evening. The day’s drive, one of two long ones, was from Corning, NY. I hadn’t know how hilly the “southern tier” of New York is. I did about seven hours of driving with about 1:40 in rest stops. Total driving for the trip was 1812 miles. Though that looks definite, it is approximate because I forgot to set the trip odometer when I started. I’ll save a travelogue of the trip for another post and today write about the four books I read. I’m doing it that way because I had done much of that writing while sitting in hotels during the evening. First was American Ramble by Neil King Jr., a true story. After cancer treatment King decides to walk from his home in Washington DC to New York City. His departure is delayed a year by the pandemic and he sets off late March 2021. His route is not direct. He heads north from DC to York, PA, curves through Mennonite country to Philadelphia, then north to NYC. Through a lot of research ahead of time he has many particular sites to see and people to meet. There are also a lot of experiences that can't be planned, people he just happens to meet, some at the end of their driveway as he walks by. He tells us about the Mason-Dixon Line. The train station in Hannover Junction where the line splits, and that Lincoln traveled both lines, one when he went to deliver his Gettysburg Address, the other taken by his funeral train. He recreates Washington Crossing the Delaware, though in a simple kayak. He visits Cranbury, NJ, a town that saved its historical roots by sacrificing the land east of town to corporate warehouses. He visits a huge landfill to hear its workers talk about how much trash they handle per day and year. The author is amazed at the number of people, when they hear about his walk, will do small, and sometimes big, things to help him along. They seem to be saying, "I admire what you're doing and want to be a part of it." The book is an interesting and enjoyable read. He has some good historical stories. The second book is The Dockporter by Dave McVeigh and Jim Bolone. The setting is Mackinac Island, which is between the two peninsulas of Michigan and is well known as a worthy destination. A prominent feature is no motorized vehicles are allowed. When visitors get off the ferry the way to get their suitcases to their hotel is by horse drawn carriage (if going to the classy Grand Hotel) or by a guy on a bicycle, a dockporter. Both authors spent time doing that job. This is the story of Jack. His family owns a cottage on the island, so he lived there every summer. Now in his early 20s he's hustling for tips hauling luggage. He's got several buddies also working as porters and there are the usual things young men do, including too much drinking and attempts at love. Early in the summer of 1989 Jack makes a bet with Gordon, a childhood buddy who has gone corporate in the family real-estate business. The bet is to repeat the record of hauling 21 pieces of luggage in one load. The consequences of the bet are more dire than Jack first realizes. Yeah, we know where this is going. However, there a great deal of fun in getting there. The third book was Walking with Sam by Andrew McCarthy. He is an actor, famous for his role in Pretty in Pink and other films. In his early 30s and with many things in his life that were messed up he walked the Camino de Santiago. This is a pilgrimage trail from southwest France, across northern Spain, to the Cathedral in Santiago. That walk of 500 miles over five weeks helped him sort through and renew his life. Twenty-five years later he offers to walk the Camino again with his son Sam, now 19. After a bad breakup with his first love Sam agrees. They are on the trail a week later. The bones of Saint James were supposedly found in western Spain and the Cathedral in Santiago was built to house them. The pilgrimages started in the 10th century and at its peak more than 250,000 pilgrims made the trek every year. Visiting Compostela was third in popularity after Jerusalem and Rome. Over the centuries the practice died out, then was revived in the middle of the 20th century. Between McCarthy’s first and second walk as its popularity increase more of the towns and villages along the way turned to caring for the pilgrims (the village alternative was to die out, and many did). 446,000 people made the trek in 2023 (according to Wikipedia). The walk is not easy. There is the length and time commitment. The trail includes crossing the Pyrenees and even taller mountains towards the end of the trip. Also, in the center is a hot plain with many days over 100F and with very few trees. Many days the same people stop in the same village or town for the night, even though they walk separately during the day. Friendships develop, including with “Taxi Roger” who frequently takes a taxi from one village to the next. McCarthy talks about a second evaluation of his life and how his relationship with his son changes as Sam becomes a man. At the beginning Dad harangues Sam on how slow he is in the morning (he is a teenager...). Soon Dad decides to head out on his own and let Sam catch up. When they do walk together Sam has a great number of discussion topics that Dad is glad they have the time to mull them over. It is an enjoyable and worthy read. But to me something is missing from the story – how did the Camino affect Sam? How did it affect his maturing process? How is he different at the end than he was at the beginning? McCarthy writes that he sees the effect on Sam, but doesn’t provide details. One of the few things he does say is at the beginning of the trip Sam talks a lot about The Ex, and by the end can go for days without mentioning her. Perhaps as McCarthy was writing the book Sam declined to give permission for his side of the story? I looked up Andrew’s film credits. He now also directs and produces. From that I see Sam is also an actor with several credits. He started working at age 14, well before the walk. Yeah, this was the second book about a walking journey I read while traveling. The fourth book was The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain. When one visits the Mark Twain House in Hartford, CT one stops in the bookstore to buy a few titles one hasn’t read yet. This is the story of Tom Canty a poor boy who happened to be born in London on the same day Prince Edward was born. Also, without their clothes, the two look identical. Both are unhappy with their place in life and, when they meet, they swap clothes. This is one of Twain’s efforts at historical fiction. This Prince Edward was the son of King Henry VIII of wife Jane Seymour. The story opens in 1547, just before Henry dies, and concludes at the coronation of Edward VI. Twain did his research (and includes sources) and knew this setting was possible for his story. Edward gained the throne at age 9. His reign (only six years) included removing many of the oppressive laws that had accumulated, including the huge number of small crimes that required the death penalty. Edward agrees to swapping clothes because he is delighted with the prospect of occasionally playing in the mud. To escape his dire circumstances Tom pretended to be a prince, so was delighted to make it real. But even when dressed in rags Edward insists he is the prince and commoners should treat him accordingly. Tom insists he is not the prince, though he is wearing princely clothes and is in the palace. Both are treated as having gone mad, though the nature of the mental affliction is a strange one. So Tom gets used to life in the palace and all the strange rituals (like being dressed) that go with it. He is kind and countermands some harsh punishments. Edward also sees how horribly many commoners live and are treated and that prompts his overturning the worst of the laws of punishment once he regains his crown (what, you were thinking he wouldn’t?). The language of the book took some getting used to. The narration is 1880s American English and the dialogue is Twain’s recreation of 1540s English, with a lot of “Thou dost...” While reading the book I thought about the movie adaptations I had heard about. I haven’t seen any of them. According to Wikipedia there have been seven faithful film versions and thirteen that adapt the basic idea, such as giving it the Bollywood treatment, replacing the boys with girls, and even getting Barbie into the story. There are many more created for TV. Many of the faithful versions used one child actor for both Tom and Edward because there are only two scenes where they appear together. The 1937 version (also starring Errol Flynn) used identical twins for the boys. I had heard from some radio program that the boys, Billy and Bobby Mauch were so identical the crew couldn’t tell them apart and the boys kept switching who played who. The Wikipedia page for the boys says that happened during a different movie when one twin was cast and the other was his stand-in. I may have to watch this one soon.

When the dealer stacks the deck in advance

I finished the book The Further Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Yes, the main character and narrator was created by Mark Twain. No, Twain did not write this book. Greg Matthews did. The copyright is 1983, I see that is almost 100 years since the original was published. I’ve had this hardcover edition sitting on my to read shelf for probably a couple decades at least. I don’t remember why I bought the hardcover instead of paperback. This thing is 500 pages (the original is just over 300), which is a good reason why it sat on the shelf. The story begins shortly after the previous one ends. Huck and Jim are wondering what to do next. Huck visits Judge Thatcher (Becky’s father) and finds he was recently murdered. Huck picks up the murder weapon just as other people burst into the room. Huck has help breaking out of jail and he and Jim head west. It is 1849 and gold has been discovered in California. A good place to hide himself. More than half the book is about the trip. But Becky has hired a very good detective who pops up regularly to attempt to haul Huck back to Missouri to face murder charges. The important question is whether this is a worthy successor to the original Great American Novel. One reason why I bought it as a lot of reviews said it is. But it has been too many decades since I read the original for me to compare. This one is indeed a good story. It continues Twain’s efforts of writing in the dialect of the characters, which can get strange since this character is fourteen and hasn’t had much education. Words routinely get mangled. It also continues Twain’s attempts to highlight the racism of the time. Huck treats Jim as an equal friend, not as a black man or slave, though everyone else tries to. The story highlights the poor treatment of the natives – the Injuns – and the Chinese and Spanish in California I’m sure an aspect of Huck that is in the original and continued here is he is a very good liar, though one who knows he is lying. He spins some good yarns. Many times it is of necessity – by the time he gets to St. Joseph and the Missouri River, there are wanted posters with his name. He also spins some good yarns when trying to explain things to Jim, such as combining Richard the Lionheart with Rapunzel. I downloaded Michigan’s COVID data, updated yesterday. In new cases per day, the peak at the end of December has been revised up to 18,330. The peak in the first week of January was revised up to 24,225. The peak in this last week was 19,234. The peak in early January is about three times the peak last April and not quite three times the peak of two weeks before – omicron is spreading fast. Starting the last week of December and going for ten days the deaths per day has been in the 79-89 range. Data more recent probably isn’t reliable yet. Last week I mentioned death data without dates. I figured these deaths would be assigned to a date as more data is processed. That didn’t happen, at least not yet. The number of deaths without date rose by a handful to 1162. Joan McCarter of Daily Kos reported Schumer had planned to hold votes in the Senate on the voting rights bills on Martin Luther King Day, which is Monday. Between senators out with COVID and a looming snowstorm (and recalcitrant Democrats), Schumer said the Senate will not work over the weekend. Attempts to hold a debate on the bill will resume on Tuesday. The Supreme Court issued a ruling on Biden’s attempt at mandating vaccines in workplaces with more than 100 workers. Mark Sumner of Kos reported that in a 6-3 ruling the justices said the mandate was not permitted, that OSHA didn’t have the authority to issue it. The justices did it in a way that may essentially abolish OSHA. Wrote Sumner:

In this ruling, the Supreme Court is explicitly saying that COVID-19 isn’t an “occupational hazard” because it can also occur outside the workplace. Which provides every employer, every conservative organization, and every Republican attorney general the perfect opening to destroy safety regulations across the board. ... The test the Supreme Court appears to be setting up with this ruling is that, in order to be regulated under the authority of OSHA, a hazard must be a threat that takes place in the workplace, but also one unique to the work environment. For example, workplaces might still be required to regulate the operation of heavy equipment, but passenger trucks … hey, people have them at home, at sporting events, etc. Lifting of heavy objects? That’s certainly something that people do away from the workplace. So is the use of power tools. Exposure to loud noises is something that happens in everyday life. ... What the ruling is spelling out here is an explicit gutting of OSHA’s authority to regulate safety in the work environment. It’s a ruling that will become a touchstone for anyone seeking to bypass safety requirements big and small. It’s a get-out-of-jail-free card for placing workers at risk, one that essentially eliminates authority to oversee worker health and safety.

The ruling said that vaccines are required for health care workers because dealing with COVID patients is unique to the work environment. Or maybe the justice kept it because, while they don’t go into factories, they do go to the doctor. Leah Greenberg tweeted:

just a reminder that the Supreme Court made everyone involved in hearing the vaccine mandate case take a PCR test in advance, guaranteeing a level of protection that is wildly out of reach for nearly every worker affected by this decision

Lucy Lipiner tweeted a response to someone who equated a vaccine requirement to the Holocaust:

Holocaust survivor here. Vaccine mandates are not comparable the Holocaust. Showing a vaccination card is nothing like being starved, uprooted from your home, beaten in the streets, having your houses of faith set on fire, then deported and murdered. Please stop.

Ben Collins of NBCNews tweeted his encounter with Denise Aguilar, who runs Mamalitia and Freedom Angels. He met her when she was protesting vaccines at a school board meeting in Stockton, CA. Collins also saw her at the Board of Ed of San Joaquin County. She doesn’t have children in either district. After she spoke at the San Joaquin board meeting, two parents echoed her fraudulent claims. The board sided with these parents (I would guess they were already inclined to agree). Wrote Collins:

This is how militias and domestic extremist groups are winning since January 6th. They’ve evolved, encouraging local action at school boards and city councils, while recruiting and spreading their messages through culture-war debates like vaccines, race and education. ... By the way, after the vote, I asked Aguilar if she would put her kids in public school now that the school board voted in her favor. “No,” she said, firmly. “Schools are a dangerous place.”

I had reported that Ohio citizens voted for new provisions in their state Constitution to lessen gerrymandering. I also reported that when state Republicans drew new legislative and Congressional maps last year they completely ignored those provisions and made gerrymandering worse than the maps for the previous decade. Democrats were unanimous on voting against the maps and took the maps to the state Supremes. Republican Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor is a moderate and sided with the Democrats in a 4-3 decision that told the legislature to produce more balanced maps. The ruling included this: “When the dealer stacks the deck in advance, the house usually wins.” Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Dan Froomkin of Press Watch:

The current push to pass ambitious voting-rights and election-protection legislation may be the last chance our republic has to bolster our democracy before it takes some serious damage. But top news outlets have been covering it like any other partisan dogfight — without any sense of urgency, without crucial context, and without even explaining what’s in the bills in question. They have, consequently, failed to explain why those provisions are there, why they are essential, how commonsensical they are for the most part, and how opposition to them is based solely in the Republican Party’s preparations to rule as a permanent, authoritarian minority government.

We need strong libraries

I attended two documentary films last weekend. Yes, my week was so busy I couldn’t post before today.

The first was Ex Libris: New York Public Library. The goal of the film was to document the wide variety of things the NYPL system (and by extension, libraries across the country) do for their patrons. We see programs of various kinds – author lectures, discussions, concerts, dinners, book clubs, and such. We see library staff engaging kids after school. We see job training and job fairs. We’re in on staff meetings and board meetings for discussions on finance and staffing. We visit the branches, ones in poor neighborhoods, the one in Chinatown, the one devoted to braille and talking books (we even sit in on a session as a talking book is recorded). We meet the staff member who signs for deaf patrons. We see some of the special collections, such as for images and for race relations. The NYPL is a large system, covering Manhattan, Bronx, and Staten Island (Brooklyn and Queens have independent systems), so we go into the facility that brings in materials from the branches, sorts them, and sends them out to the proper branch.

As fascinating, informative, and wonderful as this was, I do have a few complaints about it.

First of all, it was long. It ran for 3:15.

Second, there was no narration or text to explain anything. When we saw speakers they were not identified unless they or their hosts did or said something. And a few of them didn’t. The speakers in staff meetings were not identified nor were we told what kind of staff meeting it was.

Third, when the film sat in on a program, lecture, or meeting, it did so for lengthy chunks. I didn’t actually time them, but would guess many were over five minutes. Each individual speaker was fascinating (and I noticed none spouted a conservative viewpoint), but after two hours I wondered could we just hear an excerpt?

The film demonstrates that a library and a library system provides a huge range of services vital to their patrons and vital to a democracy. We need strong libraries.



The second was Score: A Film Music Documentary. Through discussions with a long list of famous film composers (John Williams of Star Wars fame among them) we understand why film music is important – it tells us how to feel. The original King Kong movie was cheesy until the music was added. We get a bit on how the music gets composed, though each composer works in a different way. We see how composers interact with directors (sometimes over some now iconic tunes). We get a historical tour of great moments in film music. This includes jazz introduced with the James Bond movies, the central role of the guitar in Morricone’s spaghetti westerns, the resurgent of the big orchestra in Star Wars, and a few more.

What was most fascinating for me was the visits to the recording studios where the notes on the page are turned into sound. I’m used to watching a symphony orchestra conductor who has eye contact with the players. But film music conductors (when not the composer) have their heads down and eyes on the score. The difference is that when conducting a symphony the conductor gets the score well ahead of time and studies it in detail. The performers do too. But the film score conductor and all the session musicians get the music that morning. The prized skill, a big reason why they were hired, is the ability to sight-read.



On to a pair of books I finished recently. Both are set in the West of more than a century ago.

I most recently finished The Wistling Season by Ivan Doig. I had read another book by Doig and enjoyed it enough to look for another. The story is set in rural Montana in 1909. The narrator is Paul Milliron, then 13, his brothers Damon, 12, and Toby, 7. Their mother died the year before and they are being cared for by Father. He spots an advertisement of a recently widowed woman seeking a housekeeping position in Montana, though she is clear she does not cook. The family accepts her offer, though the boys are disappointed in that one stipulation – Father is not a good cook.

A major part of the story is the one-room schoolhouse where at least 35 kids in eight grades gather. Paul is glad he is in 7th grade because many in the current 8th grade seem to have gotten stuck there. The teacher is good at keeping all the kids busy, though there wasn’t much portrayal of the younger kids asking the older ones for help while the teacher was busy with another grade. I hadn’t realized that in a place like Montana most, perhaps all, of the students arrived on horseback. All three boys have their own horse and the author calls them the “Milliron calvary.”

I enjoyed the book for the interesting story, the insights to the situation the author inserts, and the author’s rich writing style.



The other book is Roughing It by Mark Twain. This has been on my book shelf perhaps a couple decades. In 1860 Twain’s brother is appointed to be secretary to the governor of the Nevada Territory and he goes too. He describes the three week stagecoach ride from St. Joseph, Missouri to Carson City. Once there he has a variety of adventures. Those include trying to mine silver and gold (he tells us how it is supposed to be done). He serves as a journalist in Virginia City and in San Francisco. He also grabs an opportunity to spend a year in the Sandwich Islands (now known as Hawaii). Along the way he tells us about every eccentric character he meets and does it in the dry wit we expect from Twain.

One story Twain tells (alas, I can’t retype the whole thing) is during the stagecoach trip. A man named Bemis is on a horse and is chased by a bison bull. The saddle slips off and as it slides over the horse’s tail it give a mighty kick, sending Bemis sprawling and the saddle sailing. Bemis dashes for a tree and climbs it. The saddle lands in the same tree. The bull starts climbing the tree and he is able to use the saddle’s lariat to snare the bull’s tail, then he shoots the bull and leaves it hanging in the tree. Back with his comrades we get this exchange:

“Bemis, is all that true, just as you have stated it?”

“I wish I may rot in my tracks and die the death of a dog if it isn’t.”

“Well, we can refuse to believe it, and we don’t. But if there were some proofs–”

“Proofs! Did I bring back my lariat?”

“No.”

“Did I bring back my horse?”

“No.”

“Did you ever see the bull again?”

“No.”

“Well then, what more do you want? I never saw anybody as particular as you are about a little thing like that.”

I made up my mind that if this man was not a liar he only missed it by the skin of his teeth.