If America wanted a King we would dig up Elvis

I finished the book The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. This is nominally a mystery – in the beginning of the story, set in 1972, a skeleton is found in a well, but before it can be identified Hurricane Agnes floods the area and the skeleton is washed out to sea. That’s about 1% of the book. Towards the end we find out whose skeleton it is. That’s another 1%. It’s also a strange mystery in that while the reader learns who died none of the characters do (that’s in spite of the teaser on the back cover). So I’ll talk about the other 98% of the story. It takes place leading up to and in 1936. Most of the action is in the Chicken Hill neighborhood of Pottstown, Pennsylvania. Normally, a hill is claimed by the richer families of a city – because of the view and all – but here the hill is the home of Eastern European Jews and Negroes (and in 1936 that is what they were called). Moshe runs a theater and books both Jewish and black entertainers. He does quite well. His wife is Chona, an independent spirit. She runs the grocery store of the title. It loses money because a lot of her customers can’t pay and accumulate a bill for which she never demands payment. Moshe’s assistant is Nate, a black man who has secrets in his past. Nate is married to Addie. They have become caretaker’s of their nephew. He was recently orphaned and a few years before his hearing was damaged when a stove blew up. Because the boy can’t hear, though can lip read just fine, he doesn’t go to school and people call him Dodo. The community knows how smart, helpful, and kind the boy is. But the authorities want to send him to a “special school,” better known as the insane asylum where he would be easily tagged as “imbecile.” To keep him safe Nate and Addie ask Chona to take him in, which she is delighted to do. Much of the story is about these people getting along and trying to deal with the white people who live down in town. The worst of these is Doc Roberts, who marches in the Klan parade every year. He was smitten by Chona’s beauty and she quite thoroughly spurned his advances. I enjoyed the story and recommend it, though don’t read it for the mystery. It portrays a community that does its best to take care of everyone, in spite of being marginalized by white people. This is a book that has sold well and deserves its popularity. Today was the third No Kings rally day across America and around the world. Organizers say there were 3,000 events. I attended one in Livonia, MI and later heard attendance was about 3,000. The weather was sunny yet cold – the temperature probably didn’t get above 45F. I didn’t see much of it because I was at a table collecting signatures to put a proposal on the ballot to limit how much corporations can donate to political campaigns, yeah, the same thing I was doing at the October No Kings rally. So I didn’t get any photos and only saw the signs that passed in front of me. I remember only a couple of them and probably not accurately.

For the Epsteinth time... Why are more people afraid of diversity than dictatorship?

A lot of signs had an anti-war theme. AKALib of the Daily Kos community posted videos of a few rallies, added links to various other Kos community posts, and invited commenters to post photos of other events. At the top of the post is a video of what was declared the Flagship Rally at the Minnesota State Capitol. This one had ten major speakers, including Gov. Tim Walz, Jane Fonda, Bernie Sanders, Bruce Springsteen, and Joan Baez. More than a dozen other speakers and entertainers were listed. My little suburban protest didn’t have any speakers at all. The contributions in the comments include: A photo of Atlanta that shows a huge crowd. A video of Ocean Beach in San Francisco in which the crowd of thousands of people forms the letters, “Trump Must Go Now.” A sign in Medford, OR, “We are the granddaughters of the witches you weren’t able to burn.” From Anaconda, MT, “If America wanted a King we would dig up Elvis.” From Austin, TX, “Are we great yet? ‘Cause I just feel embarrassed.” “I think therefore I resist.” A guy handed out what looked like checks made out to “Paid Protester” and signed by “Antifa CEO Eve Ryone.” Community member Samdiener started a post to allow the community to share their favorite signs. My favorites: A sign that calls on Barron Trump to join the military to do his part in his father’s war. I had seen one that also called on Eric and Don Jr. to join up. “Cholesterol: Do your job.” “The only war Trump had an exit plan for was Vietnam.” LilBoyBlu of the Kos community reminds us that we know the nasty guy and his minions are going to try something. The No Kings rallies prove we know how to fill streets, coordinate nationally, and protest without violence. So let’s be ready when they do that something. And when they do we’re not surprised and still processing, we’re executing our plan. Today was a dress rehearsal. The likely day for their something is election day. So have a plan. Some of the ideas: Request time off. Have babysitter and dog sitter confirmed. Have a list of people you will notify to protest with you. Plan where to meet with a backup spot. Have a lawyer’s number in your pocket – not on your phone, which might be taken from you. There is a National Lawyers Guild. Know your rights. Go with a buddy, even to your voting place. Have your apps ready – Kos is working on a phone tool so you can document and share what you see. Have cash. If the internet goes down there are no card readers, ATMs, or online maps. Have phone numbers written on paper. Have press contacts that will accept drone footage, phone video, and eyewitness accounts. To be useful documentation must get out. Long poll lines are a suppression tactic so take water and snacks. Write contact phone numbers on your body in case you are knocked out. The author then discussed the General Motors sit down strike in Flint in 1936. It was successful because it was well planned – including family members passing food through the windows. And we have advantages they didn’t in 1936. From the comments: Don’t take your dog. They can be freaked out by noisy crowds and what happens to the dog if you’re arrested? If you can vote before election day, do so. Take your ballot to a dropbox instead of relying on the mail (unless you know the dropboxes are not secure). NPR host A Martínez talked to Paul Krugman, an economist at the City University of New York, on the insider trading by the nasty guy administration. Just 15 minutes before the nasty guy announced he’s not going to bomb Iranian power plants there is a spike of $580 million worth of transactions in the crude oil market. There really isn’t evidence to support the assertion (at least not without an FBI investigation and this FBI wouldn’t do such a thing). But there is nothing else that would prompt such large transactions at that specific time. Second, another investor making that big of an investment at that particular time is highly unlikely. Third, while the nasty guy’s security is way too lax (the Situation Room at Mar-a-Lago is a curtained off corner of the ballroom) someone overhearing a conversation and saying something to someone else wouldn’t act 15 minutes before. Krugman wrote about this in his Substack and called it treason. He explained the reason for the term. Using sensitive national security info for personal gain is treason. Foreign adversaries are tracking our markets, so sudden large transactions mean insider knowledge is being acted on is like foreign espionage. Acting on insider knowledge is way too similar to being bribed to reveal national security decisions. This should be a massive national scandal. AKALib discussed another of Krugman’s Substack articles. This one is about why the nasty guy and Republicans are so hostile to clean energy. Krugman included one reason I had already figured out – a great deal of support of Republicans and the nasty guy comes from oil barons. At the top of that bunch are the Koch brothers, who have promoted their hostility to clean energy for decades. Republicans are supporting the hand that feeds them. Krugman proposed a second reason. He wrote:

Bear in mind that on the political right, wind and solar power are routinely condemned as “woke.” Real men burn stuff. What this reflects, I believe, is a common factor underlying many right-wing obsessions. Why cling to fossil fuels in the face of a technological revolution in energy? Why valorize “warrior ethos” and bulging biceps in an age of drone warfare? Why build economic policy around a doomed attempt to bring back “manly” jobs? At a deep level, I’d argue, it’s about nostalgia for an imagined past in which brawn mattered more than brains, combined with, yes, a hefty dose of insecure masculinity.

But the world isn’t cooperating with those macho dreams. Tarrifs are blunting blue-collar jobs. The war with Iran isn’t going well. And the rest of the world is rapidly developing clean energy sources, leaving the US behind – China is way ahead in installing solar and wind power.