Three profound misunderstandings in one small Bible verse

Yesterday I wrote about an episode of Rachel Maddow’s show in which she talked about how election deniers who are now election clerks are planning to refuse to certify their county’s election, thus throwing the whole thing into chaos. newusername, the author of the Daily Kos post with the video of Maddow’s show provided an update. Part of the update is that there are groups that are working on this, including Democracy Docket and ACLU. Both need donations. The author provided a link to a post by chloris creator with other ways we can help: Work to win and win big. Also win the Senate and especially the House so that Hakeem Jeffries and not Mike Johnson is Speaker by certification day. Be careful not to vote for election deniers. This post links to a list of those to avoid. In Michigan Voters Not Politicians (the group that brought independent redistricting to the state) is pointedly asking every candidate in every race they can whether they will abide by the results of the election. Be seen and heard before the election with signs and merch. The more such displays are seen the harder it is to buy into the idea the nasty guy won. Speak up against election deniers. If a person denies the election integrity say that we have one of the safest election systems in the world. Offer support to your city, county, and state election officials. Michigan’s Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson talked about being threatened after the 2020 election and how much citizen support meant to her. If you can, be an election worker or a poll watcher. In addition to the ACLU and Democracy Docket donate to State’s United Democracy Center. One of their videos is at the end of this post (alas, it is 50 minutes). Mark Sumner of Kos reported on an interview between the nasty guy and Laura Ingraham of Fox News to explain what he meant when he said we won’t have to vote anymore. It’s quite something when Fox News recognizes a statement’s difficulties and tries to hand a person a ladder to climb out of a hole. It’s also quite something when that person rejects the ladder and digs deeper. I’ve mentioned many times Project 2025, the conservative playbook to turn America from a democracy into an authoritarian state run by them. Thankfully, news about Project 2025 is now being distributed widely. The more people hear about it the less they like it. Even Between the Lines and Pridesource have an article about Project 2025. This one is by Sarah Bricker Hunt and talks about how it calls to get rid of transgender rights, same-sex marriage, gay and lesbian rights, and DEI programs. Hunt reported on other goals in Project 2025: Abolish the Department of Education and severely harm public education in general. End student loan relief. Privatize the weather service, abolish Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, privatize the Transportation Security Administration. Severely restrict Abortion. Leave the Paris Climate Agreement and refuse to do anything about the climate emergency. Overhaul the Department of Justice and FBI to be tools of conservative retribution. Alter the tax structure so the poor pay more and the rich pay less. Cut Medicaid and Medicare and other parts of the social safety net. Describe China as a “totalitarian enemy” to prompt pulling out of World Health Organization and United Nations agencies. Kos of Kos reported that news of Project 2025 is getting such bad press, people were finding so repulsive, that its sponsor, The Heritage Foundation, is shutting down the project. Project 2025 director Paul Dans is resigning. The nasty guy disavowed it a long time ago, though Vance is praising Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts for having the foresight to create Project 2025. Kos says don’t believe it. Project 2025 is a blueprint or a roadmap. One doesn’t “shut down” something like that. Also, there is another component, a database of 20,000 conservative minions eager to implement it. That is most definitely not getting shut down. Michael Harriot has a thread in Threadreader about a passage from the Bible that is a warning from God that has long been used as a weapon of hate and a justification for MAGA and similar efforts. The passage is in the Old Testament and found at 2 Chronicles 7:14. Harriot quoted the King James version:

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

When Reagan was sworn in as governor of California his Bible was open to that passage. When Pence became the vice nasty he wanted the same Bible opened to that same passage. It was cited in 1793 when a yellow fever pandemic broke out in Philadelphia. The pandemic was blamed on abolitionists and free black people. It was cited as payback when the Confederate Army surrendered and a week later Lincoln was shot. Also shortly after that Confederates loaded 1,800 Union POWs in a steamship. It exploded. It is still the deadliest maritime disaster in US history. It is used to explain segregation, mass shootings, the anti-abortion movement, the anti-LGBTQ movement, and why some church leaders say a second civil war is coming. And a lot more. I got to be thinking about the assumptions that prompt this passage to be so misused. I’m pretty sure the author of this passage (written originally in Hebrew about 3000 years ago) meant by “my people” was especially the country’s leadership, both religious and governmental. Americans see that and assume two things. First is that America is is ordained by God for greatness (all that Manifest Destiny garbage) so “my people” refers to the whole country. Second, they assume that God is not calling themselves to repent. God is calling the rest of the country, everyone but themselves, to repent. This passage (at least by itself) does not define “wicked ways,” so they say they get to. And they define it as those don’t follow their religious teachings, those who permit abortion, and those they label “sexual deviants.” They assume God has ordained a social hierarchy (with themselves at the top) and a wicket person is one that doesn’t uphold that hierarchy or one who refuses their “proper” place low in the hierarchy (see that bit about free black people). Since they defined “wicked” their way I’m going to define it my way – a person who believes in retribution and oppression instead of the love that Jesus teaches and demonstrates, one who works to uphold and enforce a social hierarchy that Jesus consistently teaches we should ignore, undermine, and subvert. The passage says that if people turn away from their wicked ways God will heal the land. It does not say that if people remain wicked God will smite them. So when a ship explodes and kills 1,800 people it should not be interpreted as an action of God against the wicked. It is not payback. I understand the interpretation (though also disagree) that if wicked people are still about then God will withhold his healing and we as a country won’t be as great as it can be. But the passage talks about converting and forgiving, not about killing off. Wow. Three profound misunderstandings in one small Bible verse.

We don’t need the votes

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reported on a paper published in the Journal of American Medical Association that shows an enormous number of unnecessary deaths during the COVID pandemic. These deaths aren’t directly because of the nasty guy, but because of the actions by state governments.

As many as one-quarter of a million Americans died simply because their state governments refused to impose good public health standards. They died as appeasements to the twin gods of ignorance and politics.

I’ll let you read the details of how the analysis was done. The refusal to take proper precautions wasn’t about saving money. I’m sure the states lost money through medical expenses. It also has an estimate in the trillions on the value of lives lost (though I didn’t understand that part).

The sheer number of people who died because a group of red state governors chose to—not had to, but chose to—implement policies they could brag about at the next big Republican event is simply devastating. Those amoral governors may never answer for these lost lives in any meaningful way, but voters can make sure those who are still in office get their just desserts at the ballot box.

Alas, many of those governors were and are praised for the actions that caused these deaths and have already been voted back in. In an article from ten days ago Aldous Pennyfarthing of Kos discussed a new Florida bill that opens schools to additional counseling services for students from outside organizations. It is a way to get religious “chaplains” on the school campus. Though the volunteer chaplain can, but doesn’t have to, disclose their organization Gov. DeathSantis is clear that the intent is to insert Christianity into public education. Members of the Satanic Temple are ready to join the volunteer chaplains. Pennyfarthing wrote:

The temple is really more secular than satanic, and uses the dark threat of “Satan” to make a point about religious pluralism. Its leaders see the new law as an entree—not for satanism, per se, but for reason and fairness. Satanic Temple members are ready to bring the good news of Satan and all his fictional works—as well as the Founding Fathers’ very real work product—to Sunshine State schoolchildren from the Panhandle to the Keys. But this isn’t a joke or a prank. It’s a serious effort to wake America up to the theocratic cancer that’s currently metastasizing across the country. “You have theocrats pushing further and further, signing unconstitutional bills into law, and they realize there’s no consequence,” Lucien Graves, co-founder of The Satanic Temple, told The Guardian. “And they also realize that when people see these laws passed, and the outrage comes, they’re not even necessarily going to recognize or realize when those laws are later overturned by the courts. “They’re giving everybody the impression that these types of things are legal, this is just the environment we’re living in,” Graves said. “And in that way they’re really numbing people to when these things actually do take effect, or when they are upheld by a corrupt judge who’s just playing partisan politics.”

So when you vote, fill out the entire ballot. Not voting for the lower races means Republicans have a higher chance to slip in a theocrat at the state or local level. You started to vote, so finish the job. In a pundit roundup for Kos from last week Chitown Kev quoted David Litt of The Atlantic who discussed Biden’s proposed (at that time not yet released) reforms to the Supreme Court:

As the Court has become more politicized, its conservative judges have insisted that checks and balances ought not apply to the judicial branch. Chief Justice Roberts declined an invitation to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee, citing separation of powers. Alito went further, arguing that Congress doesn’t have the ability to set rules and guidelines for the Court at all. Meanwhile, although no one has formally declared the change, it has become generally accepted that no justices will be confirmed while the Senate and the White House belong to opposite parties, and that justices will not retire while a president of the opposite party is in office. When you combine these two factors, the old method of checking the Court—winning elections and letting time take its toll—has been rendered unworkable. The Court is thus, to use a phrase popularized by Game of Thrones and embraced by Donald Trump and his movement, demanding that the American people bend the knee. It is asking them to accept that their country will continue to become more conservative for decades, maybe forever, no matter what they want or whom they vote for. In proposing checks on the Court, Biden is refusing to capitulate to this new arrangement. This is particularly notable given his former opposition to such changes. He is going beyond a single decision or appointment and taking on the structure of the Court itself.

Kos of Kos listed several reasons why the nasty guy had a bad weekend after having a bad week: The broader electorate is now paying attention to his fascism. Harris is motivating Democrats and independents. The more voters see her they more they like her. She is hauling in the cash and volunteers. Fox released a poll showing Harris ahead in four swing states (and ten points ahead in Michigan!). She’s not firing on all cylinders yet. Vance continues to demonstrate how bad he is and he’s been the butt of jokes. The nasty guy’s favorables went down – the assassination attempt and convention didn’t give him a bounce. He’s still campaigning against “sleepy Joe.” Democratic surrogates – Buttigieg, Walz, and Beshear – are hitting hard and effectively. Biden is and can continue tossing out policies that voters want but will only happen if Democrats control the White House and Congress. The description of the nasty guy/Vance as “weird” has taken hold (and is only better than “creepy”).

For Republicans, the problem is that it’s true. Their obsession with sex is weird. Their archaic notions about the role of women and autonomy over their bodies is weird. Their dalliances with white supremacists and Nazis are weird. Their love for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is weird. Their hysteria over the Paris Olympics is weird. Much of what’s in Project 2025 is weird. Yes, they’re obviously dangerous, but weird captures the zeitgeist far better than any alarmist language (no matter how justified).

That bit about the hysteria over the Olympics: The opening ceremonies featured drag queens and a tableau many are claiming mocks Jesus and the disciples at the Last Supper. Weird they don’t complain about the headless Marie Antoinette. Kos concludes:

Guys, we don’t just have a chance to win, but we have a chance to win big. And winning big doesn’t mean just nipping any second Trump insurgency in the bud. It means lifting up all electoral boats—the Senate, the House, state governorships, and legislatures.

newusername of the Kos community posted a segment of Rachel Maddow and is wondering if Democrats have a plan for dealing with it. The six minute video is included in the post. I replayed parts of it to make sure I got the quotes right. This segment seems to be the end of Maddow discussing the many weird things about the Republican and nasty guy campaigns. Harris is running a traditional campaign. The nasty guy isn’t. In this part she started by saying the nasty guy had called on his supporters to vote “just this time.” Then they won’t have to do it again – as if voting is a burden would would be relieved to leave behind. But democracy is based on voting. And what the nasty guy said is exactly what one would think it is. He said that on Friday. The day before he said it a bit differently: His supporters don’t need to vote for him this November. He had said frequently “We don’t need the votes. We have so many votes.” Saying that is truly weird. Because it means, as Maddow said, “He doesn’t need to win the vote...to win the election. He doesn’t need to win the election in order to take power. He thinks something other than votes is going to determine whether he gets back in the White House.” Rolling stone reported they had identified at least 70 pro nasty guy election conspiracists and denialists working as county election officials in six swing states. Their purpose is to make sure November’s votes do not get certified. They are assuming if they don’t certify in several small counties, the statewide results cannot be certified. Maddow said, “They are not planning on the vote being counted as normal. They are not counting on the election results being tallied as normal. They are not counting on the vote, and in fact Trump is now repeatedly saying the vote will not matter. The Republicans are counting on the election results not being certified, thereby creating chaos in Washington around the results.” These 70 people are in place to make sure there won’t be official results. Maddow concluded: “Are [Democrats] prepared for this level of weirdness after the votes are cast? Are they ready for what’s coming?” I’m including a link to this post of LGBTQ literature not because of the book mentioned (the host took a break) but because the photo at the top is of Harris in a rainbow vest. She’s with us.

You're not on your own. Neighbors help neighbors.

My Sunday viewing was the Netflix movie Yeh Ballet. I think it translates to something like “These Ballet” according to Google Translate. The translation was briefly mentioned near the start of the film, but I didn’t remember it. The story takes place in Mumbai, much of it in the slums. We meet Asif as he is break dancing with his buddies, proclaiming himself the king of their group. And he’s good enough his buddies mostly agree. We meet Nishi as he is dancing in a talent contest. He doesn’t go on to the next level, though is awarded a special prize (which is recognition and little else) by one of the judges. His parents are giving him money for college but he is actually spending it on dance classes. The third main character is Saul. He’s a white guy, quite angry with the world. He is in Mumbai because Nishi’s dance school invited him to teach. We later find out he’s there because he couldn’t get a teaching job in America, Israel, or anywhere else. He loudly grumbles that nearly all the students in his class aren’t ready for what he can teach them. I’m not sure I followed the circumstances on why Asif ended up in the same ballet class. As Saul tries to teach the class he soon sees that Asif and Nishi actually have considerable talent. But there is disapproval from parents and community – when the family is so poor why spend money on ballet? Asif gets in the middle of a Muslim/Hindi conflict. Add a bit of tragedy. And what future is there for ballet dancers in India? I enjoyed it. The movie is based on a true story. Back in 2017 Sooni Taraporevala wrote and directed a 15 minute documentary of Manish Chauhan and Amiruddin Shah, two young men who rose out of Mumbai poverty to be accepted in ballet schools in America and Britain. I don’t think that documentary is available. In 2020 the same director expanded the story into this two hour movie with Chauhan playing the role of Nishi (essentially a version of himself). Last Thursday Mark Sumner of Daily Kos wrote that the nasty guy seemed to have disappeared from the news. Understandable in the week Biden bowed out of the race and Kamala raised vast sums and volunteers. But it’s a new feeling for the old guy – who has dominated the news for nine years and last week didn’t. Isn’t it nice? Alas, the fresh air won’t last. He’ll say something outrageous and media will give him the attention he demands. Just today he said that Harris will destroy the country in the same way she destroyed San Francisco. Which sounds pretty good to me since San Francisco is humming along quite nicely. On Friday Sumner wrote about all the things that in the nasty guy’s view had gone wrong last week. Which means it was a good week for the rest of us. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that FBI director Christopher Wray told the House committee investigating the assassination attempt on the nasty guy that it isn’t clear whether that ear was hit by a bullet or much smaller shrapnel. The only official word on what struck that ear is from the nasty guy’s doctor Ronny Jackson who was not the attending physician and whose authority to practice medicine has been sharply curtailed. But that is enough “proof” to allow Speaker Johnson to condemn Wray’s testimony. Joan McCarter of Kos noted the hospital released very little about the ear. It’s mighty strange there is no official information. The state of the ear should be public knowledge. Whether the ear was hit by a bullet or shrapnel shouldn’t matter – the nasty guy definitely survived an assassination attempt. Even so, he insists it was a bullet.

Trump needs to bolster the mythology that he, in his words, “took a bullet for democracy.” It wasn’t enough to have survived a horrendous assassination attempt. The MAGA hagiography demands more drama, that he be “shot”—a whole convention was centered on that.

Which leads me to believe that while the ear bled a lot there isn’t much of a wound. Kos of Kos wrote that the nasty guy has withdrawn from debating Harris. He could have said he would debate whoever was the official Democratic nominee. But he didn’t. So, wrote Kos, he’s too afraid to debate her. On Friday Sumner wrote about another cringy thing JD Vance said. He proposed that Americans without children should pay higher taxes. I’ll work hard to ignore some of the other strange and ugly things he’s said (though if you insist Sumner documented many). Conclusion: Vance is weird and not in a good way. He’s also a big gift for Democrats. On Monday Sumner documented more Vance weirdness and more responses to it. Some Republicans are now calling for Vance to be removed. But will the nasty guy ever admit he’s made a bad choice? Which, in this case, is good. For Democrats. oscarsmom of the Kos community reminds us that the nasty guy used a good long time to vet Vance and chose him for a reason. That reason appears to be that much of Vance’s thinking matches that of the nasty guy. The prime example is how completely they both disrespect women. Einenkel reported on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz talking about Vance to Jen Psaki of MSNBC. Here’s some of what Walz said.

The golden rule that makes small towns work, so we're not at each other's throats all the time, is mind your own damn business. I don't need him to tell me about my family. I don't need him telling me about my wife's health care and her reproductive rights. I don't need him telling my children what books they can read. I think rural America is, they are angry. They were gutted. But Joe Biden's policies, and now soon-to-be President Harris, bringing back manufacturing jobs, bringing back dignity. Investing in infrastructure. How are you going to build a water treatment plant in a town of 400, if you don't have a collective effort at it? So I have to tell you, they scream socialism. We just build roads, and we build schools, and we build prosperity into this. ... You're not on your own. Neighbors help neighbors.

Walz also contrasted that with the goals of the nasty guy, Vance, and Republicans. With Walz having such a straightforward way of explaining things many Democrats are now saying, “Hey, Kamala, Tim would be a dandy VP pick.” Even if he isn’t from a swing state. Not bad to go from national obscurity to being pushed for VP based on one TV appearance. In the comments of a pundit roundup on Kos are a few good memes and cartoons. From memes posted by exlrrp:

Kamala has raised so much money that Clarence Thomas wants to go on vacation with her. Nasty guy: Lyin’ Kamala Harris destroys everything she touches. Harris: Which is exactly why you’re too intimidated to debate me!!! Why did the chicken cross the road? So he wouldn’t have to debate Kamala!

Tjeerd Royaards put up a cartoon showing a crowd watching Democracy Demolition at the Olympics: The ranking show: Russia, China, United States, Hungary, Turkey, Israel... Shotgun Rider played off Vance’s comments on Cat Ladies and said we haven’t yet heard from the Cat Daddies, who will have a lot to say. Jeff Danzinger posted a cartoon to Kos showing two woman at the grocery checkout with full carts and bawling kids. One says, “Was I happier being a childless cat lady?” The other replies, “I remember cats were cheaper.” Today McCarter reported Biden has called for Supreme Court reforms. He did so in an op-ed in the Washington Post. Biden called for term limits for justices and an enforceable ethics code. He also called for a constitutional amendment saying presidents don’t have immunity from being charged with crimes, an attempt to reverse the Court’s ruling for the nasty guy. Harris quickly released a statement with her agreement. On Thursday Justice Kagan, speaking at a judicial conference, had endorsed an enforceable code of conduct.

“I think that the thing that can be criticized is, you know, rules usually have enforcement mechanisms attached to them. And this one, this set of rules does not,” Kagan told the federal judges and lawyers. “Courts shouldn’t use individual cases as vehicles to advance some broader agenda or some broader project to change our governance structure or our society,” she said. “Hopefully, it doesn’t happen much, but there have been cases in the last few years in which it has happened to my lights, at least.”

Leonard Leo, the architect of today’s Court and saying something so Alito and Thomas don’t have to, blasted the idea of enforceable ethics. And Johnson called the proposals “dead on arrival” in the House – as we well know. But Biden put it out there to show the difference between Republicans and Democrats. And Republicans definitely played their part. Strange that Biden issued these reforms to restore people’s faith in the Court while Johnson says the reforms would “erode” that same thing. McCarter reported that recently the Supremes ruled that courts, not government agencies, should have the final say in federal policy. A group of eleven Democratic senators, led by Elizabeth Warren are now proposing legislation to undo that ruling. It would say that scientist, not courts and corporate interests, should write the rules. Already, red state Attorneys General have asked for a Supreme Court emergency ruling to block EPA rules intended to limit greenhouse gas emissions. And they’re well into preparing to challenge as many other government protections as they can, which would flood the courts. Again, nothing will happen until Democrats control the House, Senate, and presidency.

In four years, you won’t have to vote again

Yesterday evening I watched all four hours of NBC’s presentation of the Olympic opening ceremony in Paris. I was wowed and delighted about how innovative it was. Instead of athletes entering a stadium we have athletes on boats cruising down the river (in the rain). Instead of orderly running the torch through the streets there is a masked character running across the rooftops and taking a zipline (I wondered how much of that was filmed ahead of time). Instead of the cultural display happening after the athletes enter they happen during and done from various buildings, rooftops, and bridges along the route. And the Olympic flame keeps a hot air balloon aloft (I wonder how they keep it fueled). I am pleased athletes represent 205 countries and pleased there is a refugee team of 37 athletes from 11 countries. This is a time and place for the world to come together. As for the actual sporting events... I don’t plan to watch. Sports aren’t my thing. I do plan to check out the break dancing competition. And then I’ll watch the closing ceremony. I hope it is just as innovative. When the torch came to where the dignitaries sat and then left again – and while there was a light show on the Eiffel Tower – I thought the ideal place for the flame would be atop that tower. I’m a little disappointed it wasn’t, but the hot air balloon is pretty cool. On Wednesday Mark Sumner of Daily Kos wrote about how much having Kamala Harris as the prez candidate has energized youth. High voter registrations and high donations. Both are helped by important social media voices. Errin Haines and Jennifer Gerson of The 19th, in an article posted on Kos, described the start of the Win With Black Women organization and their Zoom call that eventually included 44,000 women and raised $1.6 million for Harris. It’s quite a story. Kos of Kos takes a look at the likely choices for who Harris might pick for her VP. As part of that he discusses the role the VP nominee has in the campaign. The person can appeal to core groups in a way the prez. nominee can’t (see Dick Cheney as attack dog while Bush II played jovial frat boy). Or they can fill a gap in the resume, such as geographic balance or the vice nasty interfacing to the religious right. But mostly the VP choice makes little difference, unless it is evidence the prez. candidate made a bad choice. See Sarah Palin. Then add JD Vance to that category. So, naturally, pundits are suggesting white men from battleground states for the VP pick to “balance” the ticket for race and gender. This includes Sen. Mark Kelly from Arizona (he was an astronaut!), and Gov. Josh Shapiro from Pennsylvania. Also mentioned are Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina. Kos shared his opinions. A report today on NPR discussed VP pick betting pools (which are illegal in the US but people find ways to take part in the ones overseas). They’re usually more accurate than polls. (Alas, a link wasn’t available by the time I posted.) Sara McCammon of NPR reported that the latest insult Republicans are hurling at Harris is that she’s a DEI hire as a way to claim she’s not qualified. That’s only a tiny bit better than trying to label her as “weird” or has a strange laugh (at least she laughs!). In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a few interesting tweets. First one from Katie Rogers:

Kerstin Emhoff, Doug Emhoff's ex-wife, on Republican attacks on @KamalaHarris for not having children of her own. “These are baseless attacks. For over 10 years, since Cole and Ella were teenagers, Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and I.”

To which Ashley Parker added:

I’ll just say: Endorsement as a stepmom from your partner’s ex is possibly… the hardest endorsement in the whole damn world.

Yeah, Harris is being criticized for not having children of her own. Sheesh. She’s being considered for the nation’s chief executive, not the nation’s mother. Chris Geidner, “Law Dork,” tweeted:

The best sign for the Harris campaign: The internet has been fun again for the first time in since, like, before the pandemic?

Charlotte Alter tweeted:

I covered the Clinton campaign, the Women's March, the anti-Trump resistance, the wave of women in the 2018 midterms... and the momentum for Harris over the last 5 days is basically like all of that rolled together. These organizers built muscle memory and it never went away.

Cartoons in the comments, posted by Denise Oliver Velez. One by Ann Telnaes shows two women walking. One of them, looking at her phone, says, “So, now the choice is between an old convicted felon who packed the Supreme Court and overturned Roe v. Wade... and a former prosecutor who supports a woman’s right to choose.” The other woman replies, “Is this a trick question?” David Michigan posted a meme of Biden dressed as Obi Wan Kenobi and holding a light saber with the words, “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.” Commenters quickly came up with “Joe B. Wan Kenobi.” Scroll down for a photo of Harris and her husband and stepchildren. That was followed by a reminder that George Washington also was childless and raised Martha’s children as his own. Then a meme posted by David Clay Johnson:

Imagine the media treatment of Kamala if she had five children by three different men. Then add in having sex with a porn star.

More tweets in another pundit roundup by Dworkin. From Acyn:

Trump: You have to get out and vote. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four years, it will be fixed, it will be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore.. In four years, you won’t have to vote again.

Rith Ben-Ghiat added:

Media: this should be *the* A1 story. I have studied dictatorship for decades and this is it-"you won't have to vote anymore." Trump will never leave office if he wins in November.

Heather Cox Richardson, tweeting yesterday:

About to post tonight's letter and it has just hit me how much we are trying to absorb. The rally shooting was just 12 days ago. Then the RNC. Vance. Biden refused the nomination just 4 days ago. Harris clinched the nomination 32 hours later. Now EVERYTHING has changed. Stunning.

Jonathan Weiler:

In its current parlance, DEI - as in "DEI hire" or blaming things like airplane crashes on DEI - is the new N-word. Everyone should understand it as such.

JD Vance made a comment, then doubled down, about childless cat ladies being the cause of various ills. That prompted Clay Jones to post a cartoon of Simone Biles doing her extraordinary thing at the Olympics as an elephant points to her and says, “Childless cat lady DEI-hire!” Pastor David Hayward, one of the good guys, posted a cartoon of one guy saying to another, “Welcome to the faith! Now, here’s our complimentary box, outside of which you should never ever think again.”

Poison pills for every bill

I finished the book The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer. It is both gay and science fiction, a great combination! The story starts about 400 years from now. The narrator is Ambrose Cusk of the rich Cusk family and the Fédération, one of the last two countries on earth. He even graduated from Cusk Academy with top honors. He wakes up to see he’s on a spaceship. The problem isn’t that he’s on the spaceship, it’s that he doesn’t remember the launch. The mission is to rescue his sister Minerva who went to Saturn’s moon Titan to establish a colony and she set off a distress beacon. Already, I’m thinking what’s with these missions of just one person? That doesn’t sound wise. There are other weird things about the mission. What Ambrose thought was his entire spaceship he discovers is only half and in the other half is for Kodiak Celius of Dimokratía, the other remaining country. The culture of Fédération feels very American and Dimokratía feels very Russian, so yeah, they’re supposed to be enemies. More weird things: They have lost contact with Mission Control on earth and it can’t be restored. There are rooms the AI (which uses Ambrose’ Mother’s voice) running the ship won’t let them into. They find a damaged panel with dried blood that matches Ambrose but is a couple thousand years old. When Ambrose does meet the aloof Kodiak he feels the attraction immediately. Since Ambrose is narrating we don’t know for quite a while if Kodiak has reciprocal feelings. They are lovers, but they’re more partners, partly because there is no one else. The weirdness increases, then turns to violence and cruelty. I’m wondering: What is going on? I won’t explain because the mystery is a good part of the book’s experience. The reader needs to feel the confusion as Ambrose and Kodiak do. The cruelty and weirdness are soon partially explained. Only much later is the true mission of the journey explained. That mission is one used in a large number of science fiction stories. And that leaves the big question: Why did the author choose a mission profile that is based on so much cruelty? Is this the only scenario he could come up with in which two enemies could fall into love? Overall, I did enjoy the book. Ambrose and Kodiak are pretty sweet characters and handle their predicament well. Last week Joan McCarter of Daily Kos reported on the nasty guy’s campaign’s plan for mayhem after the election. Senior campaign advisor Chris LaCivita told Politico’s Jonathon Martin: “It’s not over until he puts his hand on the Bible and takes the oath.” Add to that a statement by Mike Howell, executive director of the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, according to The Washington Post: “As things stand right now, there’s a zero percent chance of a free and fair election.” Also, LaCivita wonders why we’re obsessed over the “stolen” election even as the nasty guy keeps talking about it and saying we soon won’t have to bother with elections anymore. Back in June, before my travels, Mark Sumner of Kos discussed that Republicans know how to win even without the votes. Over the past four years Republicans have worked to consolidate their control over low-level election officers – the people who oversee and certify elections.

As The Washington Post reports, Trump-aligned county officials have refused to certify results following elections in five swing states since 2020: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania—exactly the states Trump disputed in the last election. So far, none of these attempts has successfully blocked certification. Most efforts have run into state rules governing the counting of results, or succeeded only in delaying results until another authority could enforce certification. But don’t think of these attempts as failures. Think of them as experiments. Think of them as a tiger prowling its cage, testing each bar, and looking for a weakness. Republicans are investigating how these roles can be used to interfere with the quick and accurate generation of election results. They are looking for ways that, by refusing to certify the vote at the district or county level, they can prevent the vote from being certified at the state level. And they’re not even trying to keep these actions secret.

Even if these actions are overturned, they will take time. They increase the doubt that the election was fair and accurate, and they might prevent a state from certifying its results by the deadline to select electors.

If Project 2025 is the autocratic agenda for what happens if Trump wins, this is the flip side—what happens if he loses. And the biggest goal is simply to make it impossible for Trump to lose.

The team trying to overturn the 2020 election didn’t know what they were doing. They’ve had four years to prepare for 2024. On Monday Walter Einenkel of Kos wrote:

On Monday, Ohio state Sen. George Lang introduced Donald Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, at a rally by saying, “I believe wholeheartedly Donald Trump and Butler County's J.D. Vance are the last chance to save our country politically.” Fair enough. “I'm afraid if we lose this one,” Lang continued, “it's going to take a civil war to save the country.” ... This isn’t the first time a Trump ally has threatened violence if the majority of Americans don’t comply with the MAGA agenda. Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts recently said, “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

The old trick of saying: The problem isn’t me taking over the country and oppressing you, the problem is you trying to stop me. I’m keeping in mind the America they want to “save” is the one where the straight white Christian males claiming to be at the top of the social hierarchy have permission to oppress anyone lower in the hierarchy that they want to. McCarter reported now that Biden has dropped out of the race for President the House Republican investigations into Biden, in hopes of uncovering an impeachable offense, have been abandoned. Which is proof that the effort has always been political. In the meantime the House efforts to pass spending bills has been so caught up in Republican v. Freedom Caucus battles the House might take their August break two weeks early – and still remain out until Labor Day. The Freedom Caucus wants poison pills for every bill. Sumner wrote:

Trump and Republicans are trying to put forward a mock unity that mostly consists of mouthing platitudes while reducing calls for retribution. But as the hall of yawning Republican delegates showed at the Republican National Convention this week, without their calls for violence, they have nothing else. They were forced to put on a circus act, just to kill time and try to stir the listless crowd.

Also, the nasty guy can’t keep his mouth shut and his vocabulary is limited to whining and making threats. The nasty guy has fed his white male base through that whining and making threats. So how to keep them happy without keeping up the calls for vengeance? Don’t worry. Now that the convention is over the calls for violence will return. Kos of Kos reminds us there is now only one guy in the presidential race who is old.

Don’t worry, Republicans will soon levy their sexist, racist attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris. That is absolutely ahead of us. But for years now, they have built a narrative that being old is a bad thing. Heck, they just wasted a whole week at their convention railing against Biden’s age. Now, for the last three or so months of this campaign, they’ll get to wear that albatross around their neck.

Nick Anderson posted a cartoon on Kos it shows a big sign on the side of the RNC headquarters that says “Don’t vote for the Old Guy.” A worker is starting to paint over it as a guy at the door yells, “Hurry up.” Now is probably a good time to pull out some stuff that has been languishing in my browser tabs. The old family farm, built around 1900, has a way to get from the basement (I think Grandma called it the “cellar”) directly to the yard. The doors were not vertical but diagonal over the stairway. Grandma used the doors to take the laundry from the washing machine to the clothesline for drying. I mention all that because most younger people probably are not familiar with such doors. And if you are unfamiliar, just look at this cartoon. It is from February and is by David Horsley and is captioned “The rats in America’s cellar.” It shows emerging from that cellar a guy with a white power shirt, another with a Klan hat, a bit of a Confederate flag in the back, and all with guns. Willie Ross Jr tweeted:

We know that Trump didn't create racism. But, do you think he gave his followers permission to be and practice racism?

Pastor David Hayward posted a cartoon of the nasty guy dressed as a shepherd. One sheep tells the others, “He says the art of the deal is we pray for him and he preys on us.” Jen Sorensen of Kos posted a cartoon with the title “Many white Americans fail to assimilate.” It shows them in self-segregated neighborhoods, such as “Caucasion Pointe.” They fly the flag of a foreign country, such as the Confederacy. And they refuse to speak contemporary English, clinging to old offensive terms. McCarter reported that yesterday marks the 15th anniversary of the last time the minimum wage was raised. It has been at $7.25 all this time. Yes, many states have created higher minimum wages, but many states, mostly Republican led, have not. And Republicans are good at using cultural war issues to distract from not raising it. In that time the cost of many items, such as rent and groceries, have gone up about 50%. Those earning minimum wage take home only $14,500 a year, far below the federal poverty level. Yet, CEO pay went up 13% just last year. When the last attempt to raise the minimum wage happened Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, Democrats, made sure it failed. They’ll be gone next year. But will the government be in Democratic hands? Sumner wrote that Elon Musk bragged about how much he was donating to PACs to help the nasty guy’s campaign. And it was quite a bit. But now he is pretending he isn’t giving that support. What changed? Tesla’s profits. They dropped 45%. Republicans don’t buy electric cars because the nasty guy told them not to, because the nasty guy gets big donations from Big Oil. Democrats do buy electric cars, but when Must became so loud in his support of the nasty guy Democrats stopped buying Teslas. They can bypass that brand with so many other electric vehicles now available.

LOTUS for POTUS

I did a lot of ignoring the news while I was traveling. I rather enjoyed that. Even so I did hear about a few things. The assassination attempt and a bit of pundits declaring this and that about how it affects the race. How the Republican Convention was a bore, especially the nasty guy’s speech that set records in length and boredom, and how duplicitous JD Vance is. That Biden kept saying he would not step down and then did (after I got home). The global tech crash, which happened my last night away from home. My phone buzzed at 4 am and I later heard the message that the New Hampshire 911 system is down, call this number instead (I was a long way from New Hampshire). When checking out of the hotel the desk person could not print a receipt. I saw a tweet by Morgan Freeman (sorry, the link was on my tablet) saying during the convention dozens of Milwaukee bars and nightclubs hosted drag shows each night so Republicans had nowhere to party. Another source added a reason for that is Republicans rarely leave a tip. Some thoughts on Biden. Over the last four years I’ve thought of him as a wonderfully decent human and a pretty good president (though not great – he didn’t get the Voting Rights Act and a few other democracy protecting bills passed and only now is presenting ideas on Supreme Court reform). See more below. I felt Biden was the one to beat the nasty guy. I have doubts Harris can do it. And there’s this: wwallace of the Daily Kos community wrote – before Biden dropped out of the race – that the calls for Biden to step aside was not about the debate. Yes, I’m aware this is an opinion piece from a person of unknown credentials. What it was about is rich people wanting Biden out because if his calls to raise taxes on themselves. All the talk about the rich wanting Biden out to protect democracy doesn’t pass the smell test. The author provides plenty of quotes to support his view. Since writing it the author added an update about Biden dropping out and Harris is now the likely nominee. She deserves our full support. But the author doesn’t answer the question of whether Harris supports and will push for tax increases for the rich. Before I leave discussing the rich... Pat Byrnes posted a cartoon showing the income gains of the top 1% rising high from 1980 on, then down to the line for the lower 20% not rising at all. A man looking at the lines says “One more tax cut for the rich should do it. Then something is sure to trickle down at last.” On to what has happened since Biden’s announcement. There was fear that going into the convention the delegates Biden released would become so fragmented there would be a fight over the nominee, which in the past has usually meant that party lost in the General. Mark Sumner of Kos reported that won’t happen. Potential challengers – Josh Shapiro of PA, Gavin Newsom of CA, Wes Moore of MD, Gretchen Whitmer of MI, Andy Beshear of KY, JB Pritzker of IL, Pete Buttigieg of Transportation – instead united behind Harris. Sumner then wrote about the huge amount of money that was donated to the Harris campaign in the first day. Also ten governors, twenty senators, one hundred thirty representatives, and others (including the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund) had endorsed Harris by 10 am Monday, less than 24 hours since Biden withdrew. Later on Monday Sumner reported the Harris campaign collected $81 million in the first 24 hours, the largest 24-hour haul in the 2024 race, beating the $52.8 million the nasty guy campaign pulled in when he was convicted on 34 felony counts. More money also came in for Democratic candidates in other races. A massive Zoom call organized Win With Black Women required the COO of Zoom to raise the participation limits. That also raised cash. On Monday evening an Associated Press article posted on Kos reported that Harris had the support of 2,471 convention delegates. She needs 1,976 to receive the nomination. At 2:00 pm Tuesday Joan McCarter of Kos reported the Harris campaign had received more than $100 million and had 1.1 million donors, 62% were first-time, in 48 hours. Also, all 23 Democratic governors had endorsed her, plus 43 senators, 191 representative, 10 unions, and 2,887 delegates. Number of criminal convictions (or even charges): 0. Another AP article reports that Harris is polling quite well among Democrats. On to how this changes the campaigns. McCarter reported that Harris is much better at articulating why abortion rights are necessary (Biden seemed afraid of the word) and what the nasty guy did to get us into the current abortion rights mess.

Republicans and anti-abortion groups think they can paint her as extreme, though. As soon as Biden announced he was ending his presidential campaign, the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America group issued a statement. “While Joe Biden has trouble saying the word abortion, Kamala Harris shouts it,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, the group’s president. What they don’t get is that that’s what women want to hear. Even 53% of Republican female voters in the critical 18-49 age group want a law that guarantees a federal right to abortion. And this is what those women will hear from Harris: “We trust women to know what is in their own best interest. And women trust all of us to fight to protect their most fundamental freedom.”

Sumner discussed that another theme of the campaign will be Prosecutor vs. Felon. She had been a prosecutor, then California attorney general, then a senator grilling judicial and Supreme Court nominees (a clip of her going after Brett Kavanaugh is getting airtime). The party of Law and Order will be shown as nothing of the kind. A campaign ad that Harris made for her 2019 campaign will be hitting the airwaves soon. She reintroduced it with a tweet:

I prosecuted sex predators. Trump is one. I shut down for-profit scam colleges. He ran one. I held big banks accountable. He's owned by them. I'm not just prepared to take on Trump, I'm prepared to beat him.

Sumner wrote:

Now Trump is off balance, facing someone who is everything that makes him uncomfortable all rolled into one: a Black woman prosecutor.

He won’t handle it well. On Monday Sumner reported the nasty seems to not accept he’s no longer running against Biden. Some of his tweets suggest he’s begging Biden to reconsider. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev included several good quotes. First, from Michele Norris of the Washington Post commenting that over the last few weeks Harris has been both resolutely supporting Biden and quietly auditioning for his job. “Let’s just concede that walking that tightrope was not easy.” Haili Blassingame of The New Republic says the idea of a Kamala Harris – Gretchen Whitmer ticket was proposed quite quickly.

Elections aren’t endings; they’re beginnings. A two-woman ticket would demonstrate that Democrats believe there is an after-election world that they will be relevant in shaping. The slogan practically writes itself: a historic team in a time when history is being made in all the wrong ways.

I’m not sure it’s good or bad that Whitmer isn’t interested. I’d like her to stay in charge of Michigan. Jon Meacham of the New York Times and friend of Biden wrote:

Here is the story I believe history will tell of Joe Biden. With American democracy in an hour of maximum danger in Donald Trump’s presidency, Mr. Biden stepped in the breach. He staved off an authoritarian threat at home, rallied the world against autocrats abroad, laid the foundations for decades of prosperity, managed the end of a once-in-a-century pandemic, successfully legislated on vital issues of climate and infrastructure and has conducted a presidency worthy of the greatest of his predecessors. History and fate brought him to the pinnacle in a late season in his life, and in the end, he respected fate — and he respected the American people.

In the comments Denise Oliver Velez posted cartoons celebrating Harris. Charles Jay of the Kos community reported that Indian-Americans, in rallying around Harris, have created a few memes. Her ancestry is half Indian. Jay wrote:

It turns out that in Sanskrit, the name “Kamala” means “lotus.” So Indian-Americans have created this meme: “LOTUS for POTUS.”

Kamala is also an alternate name for Lakshmi the Hindu goddess of prosperity, good luck, and beauty, often portrayed as holding a lotus flower. C. Vuksinich tweeted:

The lotus flower can be a metaphor for human life, as its emergence from murky waters can represent overcoming difficult times with dedication and resilience.

In another pundit roundup for Kos, this one by Greg Dworkin, quoted Frank Bruni of the NYT discussing Bidens decision to withdraw.

In the hours and days to come, many political observers will say that President Biden was backed into a corner and had no choice but to end his re-election campaign. His limitations had been laid painfully bare. He’d lost the confidence of the Democratic Party. And he was staggering toward an increasingly ugly revolt within it or a potentially harrowing defeat by Donald Trump. Bowing out wasn’t an act of grace. It was a saving of face. All correct. But that’s not the whole truth. Not the full story. It misses the bigness of what Biden just did — its historical rarity, its emotional agony, its fundamental humility.

In the comments are several more cartoons celebrating Harris and imagining her facing the nasty guy. There’s also a meme: “‘Let’s Go Brandon’ merch now 90% off” And a tweet by Catherine Rampell showing the iconic image (borrowed from Norman Rockwell?) of a black girl walking to school in the time of desegregation. In this updated image we see the little girl is a shadow cast by Harris. DeathMetalViking tweeted: “God wanted Donald Trump to live so he can lose to a black woman.” Now the other half of the story. Another AP article describes the process of Biden deciding to drop out of the race. I’ll let you read it. Sumner discussed the amount of time and money Republicans, headed up by Reps. James Comer and Jim Jordan, wasted in trying to find something for which to impeach Biden. They didn’t even give the nasty guy something to campaign against. At least they showed they were under the nasty guy’s control. Not at all surprising (but still highly annoying) B sides of the Kos community posted that Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee has introduced a resolution calling to impeach Harris because she “has demonstrated extraordinary incompetence in the execution of her duties and responsibilities.” That’s all related to her failures at upholding immigration laws at the southern border. Hey guys, the vice president doesn’t actually have any power, at the border or anywhere else. Finally, Sumner discussed all the good things Biden did as president, who Sumner called, “simply the greatest progressive president of our lifetimes. Full stop.” Of course, Sumner didn’t stop, but went on to list several areas where Biden made great improvements: Pulling us out of the pandemic and the nasty guy’s mismanagement. Built up manufacturing and business creation and avoided a recession everyone kept predicting. Restored international faith in America, expanding NATO and leading help against Ukraine. Took big steps towards fighting the climate crisis. He guided a time of declining crime, declining gun sales, and rising opportunity. He showed compassion. He start improving national infrastructure. “For the first time in 23 years, our nation is not at war.” He did more in one term than other presidents did in two.

It's easy to diminish Biden. It’s easy to brush him aside as someone who isn't a great orator, a visionary leader, or an object of veneration. He doesn’t stride across the stage like a giant. He doesn’t deliver speeches that will be the subject of analysis for decades to come. Biden is an everyman. And he'd be nothing but flattered by that term.

I’m feeling better about Kamala Harris for president. My vote for her won’t be just to keep the nasty guy out of the Oval Office. It will be a vote to put her in it. Four years ago I though she wasn’t ready. But in those for years she has had an excellent mentor.

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.