That line at the airport is security theater

Oliver Willis of Daily Kos reported that the nasty guy has been losing elections all over the world. I’ve already written that the nasty guy’s portrayal of Canada boosted the chances of the liberal party, giving a win to Mark Carney. The latest example is the Labor Party in Australia getting a comfortable win over the Liberal Party (which is center-right, not really liberal). The next Australian Prime Minister is Anthony Albanese and not Peter Dutton, who had been portrayed as a cheap knock-off of the nasty guy. And in Singapore the People’s Action Party and Prime Minister Lawrence Wong won in a landslide. They portrayed themselves as a force for stability in a world made turbulent because of the nasty guy’s tariffs. Steve Inskeep of NPR talked to author Walter Isaacson about the end of World War II in Europe, which happened 80 years ago. At the time America helped build global institutions. How are those institutions being changed now? The Marshall Plan sent billions of dollars to help rebuild Europe. The plan created a market for US goods. It stopped the spread of Soviet communism. It was also “one of the most generous, least selfish acts in history because it took a war-battered Europe and got it back on its feet.” Then came the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and agreements on tariffs and trade that became the World Trade Organization. All were designed to protect free markets and democracy from the threat of communism. Dean Acheson had developed the Marshall Plan with George Kennen. They saw that after WWI the Treaty of Versailles punished Germany so harshly that it fueled the rise of Hitler, resulting in WWII. They wanted to not do that again. Rebuilding Germany and Japan would make the world safer. We now have tight alliances with both. These institutions that promoted free markets also meant free trade and free immigration. A lot of wealth was built. And a lot of people got left behind. That produced a nationalist backlash. See Brexit, Orban in Hungary, and the nasty guy here. Some of those who created and believed in the global institutions didn’t understand the number of people left behind was so huge, how resentful they would feel, and how strong nationalism would become. After WWII politicians put the national interests and values before party. That isn’t true now. Also, no one is proposing the next set of global institutions we need now to make sure everybody shares in the prosperity they help build, to balance trade with domestic manufacturing that promotes democracy, to address climate change, to lessen terrorism, and to find meaning in living. A week ago Kos of Kos discussed the resource-sharing agreement between the US and Ukraine. This is the successor to the deal that didn’t happen in February when the nasty guy and vice nasty verbally attacked Zelenskyy. And, from the way Kos tells it, this time the nasty guy caved. The deal creates the United States–Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund. The deal does not include reimbursement for the aid the US gave to Ukraine. The deal covers only new leases, not existing ones. While the minerals, oil, and gas may be exported, the money stays in Ukraine for at least ten years to fund new projects and reconstruction. The US commits to long-term peace. This is a joint project, not one directed by the US. By those terms one can see what the nasty guy wanted and didn’t get. There is a big reason why the deal covers only new leases.

Most of Ukraine’s mineral wealth is in Russian-occupied territory. That is literally the reason Russia invaded. If Trump really wants it, he’s gonna have to fight the Russians (via Ukraine) for it.

One thing Ukraine didn’t get – American security guarantees. The resource deal is separate from a peace deal. About that Mike Luckovich posted a cartoon on Kos. It shows the nasty guy dictating terms to a skeptical Zelenskyy, saying, “Here’s the deal, let the guy who broke in and attacked your family, remain inside and be gifted the kitchen, guest bedroom and den.” In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Paul Krugman, writing in his own Substack about the defunding of scientific research.

Why should those who aren’t scientists care? In the 21st century, science isn’t some esoteric intellectual affair. It’s the foundation of social and economic progress. And no, we can’t expect the private sector to fill the gap left by loss of government support. Basic research is a public good: it generates real benefits, but those benefits can’t be monetized because everyone can make use of the knowledge gained. So government support is the only way to sustain science. And that support is being rapidly ended. But why do our new rulers want to destroy science in America? Sadly, the answer is obvious: Science has a tendency to tell you things you may not want to hear. Medical research may tell you that vaccines work and don’t cause autism. Energy research may tell wind power works and doesn’t massacre birds. And one thing we know about MAGA types is that they are determined to hold on to their prejudices. If science conflicts with those prejudices, they don’t want to know, and they don’t want anyone else to know either. So they really want to destroy science.

Kev quoted Rebecca Gordon of TomDispatch:

It’s tempting to think of Donald Trump’s second term as a sui generis reign of lawlessness. But sadly, the federal government’s willingness to violate federal and international law with impunity didn’t begin with Trump. If anything, the present incumbent is harvesting a crop of autocratic powers from seeds planted by President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney in those war on terror years following the attacks of September 11, 2001. In their wake, the hastily-passed Patriot Act granted the federal government vast new detention and surveillance powers. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 established a new cabinet-level department, one whose existence we now take for granted. [...] The constant thrill of what some have called security theater has kept us primed for new enemies and so set the stage for the second set of Trump years that we now find ourselves in. We still encounter this theater of the absurd every time we stand in line at an airport, unpacking our computers, removing our shoes, sorting our liquids into quart-sized baggies — all to reinforce the idea that we are in terrible danger and that the government will indeed protect us.

Michigan Public, my NPR outlet, has a spot that runs frequently that says public media is under threat. It then directs me to a website. I haven’t gone there yet. That’s not because I think the threat isn’t real. Wednesday of last week Willis reported that the nasty guy fired three of the five directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In response the CPB said it is not a government entity and is not subject to the president’s authority. It filed a lawsuit to block the firings. Willis then gave some of the history of the CPB. Willis reported last Friday that the nasty guy issued an executive order instructing the CPB to “cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS.” The order says NPR and PBS don’t provide unbiased, fair, and nonpartisan news. Patricia Harrison, president and CEO of CPB repeated the CPB is not subject to the president’s authority. It is authorized and funded by Congress to be independent of the federal government. His executive order is meaningless. The nasty guy claims the media landscape has changed since CPB was created. There are now “abundant, diverse, and innovative news options.” Willis responds that most mainstream media are owned by private corporations that are willing to bow to him. He’s already shown he doesn’t like media that doesn’t do his bidding. I’ve heard the Nasty Guy’s proposed budget calls on Congress to defund the CPB. At the end of March Willis, in one of his posts explaining the right, sets out to explain why Republicans want to murder Big Bird. This is a long Republican tradition going all the way back to Nixon in the 1970s, shortly after the CPB was created. One reason why Republicans hate is it because PBS and NPR content is trusted by a large number of Americans because they provide info without corporate or political influence. For 22 years PBS has ranked as the most trusted institution in the US, beating out commercial television, print media, courts of law, Congress, and the federal government. Sesame Street and related companies are trusted by 88% of parents and 90% of parents say the programs help prepare children, including black and brown children, for schooling. It also tackles important topics like racism.

In short, public broadcasting represents the opposite of many conservative beliefs. The networks support accessible information, prioritize education, and strive to produce content opposing bigotry. Conservatives see more utility in divisive, bigoted figures—like Greene and Trump—than in Big Bird, who promotes kindness and friendship. That’s why the networks are under attack from one Republican leader to the next.

In the comments of another pundit roundup is a cartoon by Garth German:

Man: ...But the Founding Fathers didn’t intend... Woman: I’mma stop you right there. The Founding Fathers didn’t intend for black slaves to go free. Nor for me to vote. Nor for you to vote since you don’t own land. I’m kinda over the Founding Father’s intent.

Trilemma posted a cartoon of the white supremacist future.

You dreamed of a whites-only paradise. Big checks, cheap gas, everything finally “right.” But your heroes were flying over your potholes, on their way to brunch with billionaires. A man says: “We were never one of them. Just the background noise for their victory lap.” You thought expelling non-whites & immigrants would elevate you. But it fed no one. Built nothing. And the messes still needed cleaned. The blame still needed a name. You used to cheer as your leader crushed dissent. Now it’s your turn, hogtied, silenced & robbed blind by the man you worshipped.

Those who hate need a social hierarchy. The hierarchy is how they define themselves. They assume their position is high in that hierarchy. But if the lowest levels of a hierarchy are swept away those higher in the hierarchy still need the hierarchy and will oppress those now at the bottom. They don’t care you supported their previous efforts. In the comments of a third roundup is a meme posted by exlrrp showing a man and two women drinking Champagne on a yacht. The caption:

Billionaires Imagine having more money than you can spend in 1,000 lifetimes and still being mad that people get Social Security. It is time to end this!

For those toward the top of the hierarchy having lots more money than other people isn’t enough. They also need to take money away from the poor to emphasize the gap between themselves and those at the bottom. Another example of that is a cartoon by Toonerman. It shows a man sitting on a large mound of bags of money talking to a red hat family below. “There’s been a change in plans. Things are gonna suck for awhile ... for you that is. MAGA’s working for me.” Another meme posted by exlrrp shows a man in a bathing suit and wearing a MAGA hat next to a (real?) woman whose bikini top is strained by her assets. The caption, “I voted for him, and now I only get to have a couple of dolls?” Just below that is a tweet by Dare Obasanjo, “At this rate MAGA will only be able to afford to rent the libs.”

Rainbow roundabout

Yesterday I watched the movie Giant Little Ones. Franky and Ballas are best friends and on the school swim team. Franky’s 17th birthday party has quite a bit of underage drinking. Why Franky’s mom chooses to not be home that evening is a puzzle. Franky is drunk enough that he doesn’t end up in bed with his girlfriend as intended, but instead with Ballas. The next morning Ballas wants nothing to do with Franky. Part of the reason is homophobia. Was this a sign of sexual orientation or just some teenage experimentation? Another part of the story is Franky’s father, who, after several years of marriage and two kids, fell in love with a man, came out as gay, and left the marriage. Yeah, there’s some friction there. As the parents are trying to get the boys to renew their friendship it is only the gay man who wants to talk about the reasons behind the estrangement. But the other parents don’t want to complicate the discussion. During the opening credits there were the list of funding sources, which included this arts agency in Canada and that film agency in Ontario. During one of the scenes in a classroom I saw two maps on the wall, one of Canada, one that included southwest Ontario (the part across the Detroit River). I wondered where it was filmed. At one point Franky visit’s his father’s apartment and we get a view out the window of bridges crossing a sizable river. That view wasn’t held very long. However, it was enough for me to conclude we were in either Sault Ste. Marie or Sarnia. The closing credits said filmed in Sault Ste. Marie, Canada. Spoiler alert: The movie does not end with Franky and Ballas busting out of the closet and into each other’s arms. Several characters have already shown that whether Franky or Ballas are gay is not a big deal – though there is still homophobia in the school. The message is more sometimes it takes a while to figure out one’s orientation. One of Franky’s friends is a transgender boy. He is wearing a strap-on manhood and wants Franky to help him figure out if he’s got a good product, and part of doing that is seeing what Franky has. It is good the movie explores the issue. On Sunday while going out to pick up my lunch I’ve been listening to the NPR show Freakenomics. The show yesterday was all about the advantages of traffic roundabouts over signaled intersections. I’ll let you find the episode and listen (or read the transcript). During the program they spoke to the president of the Roundabout Appreciation Society of the UK. He said the center of the roundabout can contain anything people want to put there. His group gives out awards for best roundabouts and features a calendar of them. One of the international awards went to the Braddon roundabout in Canberra, Australia. The prominent feature is the circle has been painted with rainbow colors. In the center is a flagpole with a rainbow flag. It was done to celebrate Canberra citizens approving marriage equality. More photos here. The ship stuck in the Suez Canal is free! Though this ship appears to be moving slowly through the canal other ships – a full parade of them – are now making their way through the canal. It could be a week or more to get through the backlog. The website vesselfinder will show you where this ship – and all the others – are.

A sweet story of gay love

In going through my book closet a while back I saw I had one more book from a gay bookstore in Sydney, Australia, which I had bought two years ago. I just finished it.

The book is Holding the Man by Timothy Conigrave. I will read the back of a paperback book when deciding to buy it, but I don’t read it just before reading it. And, over two years, I had forgotten what it was about. I had an idea when I read the About the Author paragraph at the beginning, which said that Conigrave had died in 1994 shortly after finishing the book. Ah, yes, this is a story about AIDS.

It took me a while to realize this wasn’t a fictional novel, but a memoir. Tim started the story in Melbourne in the early 1970s at age 12 when he first became fascinated with men. At 14 he went to an all-boys Catholic high school where he fell in love with John. I was rather surprised how little condemnation he got from the Jesuit brothers and didn’t get much from the other boys.

After high school they went to different universities and Tim wanted to explore what it’s like to be gay. He discovered sex is a poor substitute for love. He returned to John. John’s father forbade Tim from visiting. John solved that by choosing Tim over his father. They settled in Sydney, John as a chiropractor, Tim as an actor.

They took an HIV test and learned both were positive. Tim channeled some of his fears into creating a couple AIDS-themed plays, but soon dropped acting for AIDS work.

The last quarter of the book is about John’s illness and death. As Tim was coping with that he also had a few medical episodes. When one doesn’t have much of an immune system there are a huge variety of ways to become seriously ill. When John was ill and his father visited Tim felt invisible.

It’s a sweet story and reminded me that gay men my age and a bit older went through horribly painful times (and that was just the medical) before their pandemic was brought under control.

No tangible results

The guy who started Daily Kos signs his posts as Kos. I’ve seen the full name though I don’t have it in front of me. Kos wrote about the strange candidacy of Pete Buttigieg for president. He’s unqualified and untested (haven’t we seen that before?). He’s never had to win more than 11,000 votes. And his support from the black community, a constituency any Democrat needs to win, is zero – because Mayor Pete has a race problem.



Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions gave US Attorney John Huber a free hand to find something – anything – on Hillary Clinton. The nasty guy rallies still resound with chants of “Lock her up!” So there should be a reason to actually do that.

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reports Huber has turned in his report after two years of investigating. Short answer: “No tangible results.” He found nothing. The Clintons did not profit from the Uranium One deal. The Clinton Foundation really is a charity doing wonderful work around the world (in stark contrast to, say, the Trump Foundation). And as for her emails, the FBI investigation into that (which found no breach of security) was shown to have been conducted properly.

Alas, this report won’t stop the chanting.



Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she will send the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate next week. This comes after Moscow Mitch claimed he had enough votes to start the Senate trial before he got the Articles.

This prompted news pundits to say Moscow Mitch won the round and Pelosi lost. Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos tweeted that she disagrees. Her reasons:

* The impeachment trial (and we know how it will end – see cartoon here) is only one battle in the long political war of 2020. Moscow Mitch has more risk in losing his majority than Pelosi does. Her withholding of the Articles over the last few weeks has put vulnerable Republicans in a worse place. She has increased their pain while giving up little.

* Moscow Mitch had said delaying the Articles was “fine by me.” Now he’s railing at Pelosi from the Senate floor. The nasty guy is also getting more antsy by the day.

* John Bolton refused a House subpoena but said he would respond to a Senate subpoena. Pelosi now has a big reason to take him to court – which might reveal damaging info just before the fall campaign.



Laura Clawson of Daily Kos reports on the 29th paragraph of a story in the Wall Street Journal about the nasty guy’s decision to assassinate Iranian General Soleimani. The article said, with no elaboration or indication of its importance:

Mr. Trump, after the strike, told associates he was under pressure to deal with Gen. Soleimani from GOP senators he views as important supporters in his coming impeachment trial in the Senate, associates said.

Clawson responds:

So Donald Trump assassinated a high-ranking foreign official, risking massive war, in part because it would help him in an impeachment trial that’s happening because he tried to use U.S. military aid to extort a foreign country into helping him win re-election.

Actually, that scans.

And then the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal reported it buried deep in a long article, as if it was no big. Actually, that also scans.

I’ve heard that this assassination is much more worthy of being an article of impeachment than the articles already passed.



Joan McCarter of Daily Kos talks about threats to our election system coming up to America’s big day in 2020. After listing yet another threat and the chaos around it she wrote:

And chaos, says Laura Rosenberger, director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy, "is the point." She says that "You don't actually have to breach an election system in order to create the public impression that you have. […] You can imagine many different scenarios." Making populations distrust their elections systems is probably the most effective means of undermining a democracy, which in the case of Russia and the U.S. has been the underlying objective. That puts officials trying to combat the incursions in a difficult position; they’re damned if they warn the citizenry of the hacking and increase people's perceptions that the system is rigged and damned if they don't warn the populace to be aware of attempts to manipulate them.

By now you need a dose of cute.

The first time I visited Australia back in 1994 the tour I was with stayed at a resort lodge north of Melbourne. That evening a friend of the lodge owner brought over a joey, a baby kangaroo. She did it by bringing in a basket filled with small blankets that did a decent job of mimicking a kangaroo pouch.

Joshua Potash tweeted a brief video from Siobhan McKenna of nine cloth pouches each with a joey rescued from the fires.

Who loved you into existence?

I finished the July/August 2013 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact. One of the science fact articles was *Galactic Cannibalism: Who’s On the Menu* by H.G. Stratmann. It talks about what happens when galaxies collide. In particular, he says the Andromeda Galaxy will collide with our own Milky Way Galaxy in about … 3¾ billion years.

But don’t fret. Galaxies, in spite of their size and having billions of stars, have a huge amount of open space. Our nearest stellar neighbor is about 4 light-years away, which is about 24 trillion miles. So the chance of a star from the other galaxy crashing into our sun is quite tiny. Even so, as the to galaxies interact it is possible the orbit of our sun within the Milky Way may be perturbed, sending our sun (and solar system) either closer to the galactic center or away into the depths of space.

NASA and its Hubble Telescope site and some talented artists created a series of images showing what the collision, um, “merger” will look like from earth over the next 7 billion years. The link is to the first image. Click next for the rest of the series.



This afternoon I went to see the film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Lloyd Vogel (played by Matthew Rhys) is a writer for Esquire magazine. After he gets into a fight with his father at his sister’s (third) wedding his editor sends him out to interview Fred Rogers – yes, that Fred Rogers (played by Tom Hanks, who did a wonderful job capturing Rogers). The editor knows Vogel demonizes his subjects and Rogers is the only one who returned calls. Throughout the story I was repeatedly amazed at the kindness that Rogers showed to everyone around him, especially Vogel. At one point Rogers asks Vogel to think about the people who loved him into existence. I highly recommend it.

The editor asked Vogel to write 400 words. The final article was 10,000 words. It was the cover story for that issue.

The movie is based on real life events. Journalist Tom Junod really did write an Esquire article on Rogers and as a result the two men became lifelong friends. Though Junod is clear he did not punch his father at his sister’s wedding – his sister didn’t have a wedding.



Bodie Ashton tweeted a thread about the bush fires in Australia. He talks about how clueless the government is. One measure of the magnitude of the fires: Summer started there about ten days ago. Fire season usually starts two weeks from now. But fires have already been raging for three months. And temperatures have already been consistently well above 40C (104F).

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos adds a few more details. As well as the hottest year, this has also been the driest. Fires have pushed people to beaches or even into the ocean to avoid the heat and flames. The Navy is being rather slow in rescuing those who have been trapped. The gov’t says it is “mostly” meeting goals for carbon reduction. But that statement ignores that a third of the world’s coal comes from Australia. A lot of the locals have moved away from cash but downed telecommunications lines means credit/debit cards can’t be used for gas or lodging.



David Rothkopf tweeted a thread. Here’s part of it:

I just don't believe the only goal is to beat Trump. I believe it is to find a president who can help defeat Trumpism, inequality, and rise to the challenges ahead. I believe any Dem can beat Trump.

If we settle for someone who wins but has no new ideas, does not address the underlying problems, can't rise to the new challenges, can't be re-elected, is unrealistic about the nature of the opposition, then we can win the battle and (continue to) lose the war.

Though Rothkopf doesn’t say which of the Dem candidates best fits this ideal, this is why Elizabeth Warren is my favorite candidate.



Lauren Floyd of Daily Kos suggests four companies to boycott in 2020. I already boycott all four, though only two by conscious decision.

Amazon treats employees “like the gum stuck on the bottom of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ shoes.” He also doesn’t seem to mind extra pollution in neighborhoods of black and brown people. I began boycotting Amazon when I realized how much money he had and that it means he is exploiting his suppliers (he demands special deals that mean authors are underpaid) and workers. When Amazon bought Whole Foods I stopped going there too.

NFL got on the list for its treatment of Colin Kaepernick and because it pays its athletes (mostly black) less money than any other major sport. This one wasn’t a conscious decision for me. I’m just not into football or any other competitive sport.

Walmart has a long reputation for paying its workers so little they qualify for poverty assistance while the owners earn billions a year. This was a decision I made several years ago.

Wells Fargo repeatedly settles lawsuits because of its discriminatory lending policies. This one wasn’t a conscious decision. I’m happy banking with my credit union so never considered being a Wells Fargo customer.



Quote of the day:

“Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else.”
~~Theodore Roosevelt, Metropolitan Magazine (1918)

Aboriginal science fiction

Books I read during my travels…

I was almost done with this first book and didn’t want it to sit for three weeks. So I finished it on the plane to Germany. The book is Roast Beef, Medium, by Edna Ferber. I’m pretty sure it was written before WWI, though I don’t have a date. The book is about Emma McChesney, a traveling salesperson. So, yeah, she travels by train for several months a year visiting stores in cities and towns across the Midwest convincing the owners to stock her wares. She’s pretty good at it too. She’s also pretty good at demanding that she be treated with dignity. It was a short and delightful read.

First the title. A traveling salesperson must deal with hotel and restaurant food. All those various dishes may look delicious, but they won’t agree with one’s digestion. Better stick to something safe, the roast beef, cooked medium.

And an excerpt. She has just checked into a hotel and the clerk has given instructions to the bellhop to take her to room nineteen. She follows, then…

“Wait a minute, boy,” she said, pleasantly enough, and walked back to the desk. She eyed the clerk, a half-smile on her lips, one arm, in it neat tailored sleeve, resting on the marble, while her right forefinger, trimly gloved, tapped an imperative little tattoo. …

“You’ve made a mistake, haven’t you?” she inquired.

“Mistake?” repeated the clerk, removing his eyes from their loving contemplation of his right thumb-nail. “Guess not.”

“Oh, think it over,” drawled Emma McChesney. “I’ve never seen nineteen, but I can describe it with both eyes shut, and one hand behind me. It’s an inside room, isn’t it, over the kitchen, and just next to the water butt, where maids come to draw water for their scrubbing at 5 A.M.? And the boiler room gets in the best bumps for nineteen, and the patent ventilators work just next door, and there’s a pet rat that makes his headquarters in the wall between eighteen and nineteen, and the housekeeper whose room is across the hall is afflicted with a bronchial cough, nights. I’m wise to the brand of welcome you fellows hand out to us women on the road. This is new territory for me – my first trip West. Think it over. Don’t – er – say, sixty-five strike you as being nearer my size?”

The clerk stared at Emma McChesney, and Emma McChesney coolly stared back at the clerk.

“Our aim,” began he, loftily, “is to make our guests as comfortable as possible on all occasions. But the last lady drummer who –“

“That’s all right,” interrupted Emma McChesney, “but I’m not the kinds that steals the towels, and I don’t carry an electric iron with me, either. Also, I don’t get chummy with the housekeeper and the dining-room girls half an hour after I move in. Most women drummers live up to their reputations, but some of us are living ‘em down. I’m for revision downward. You haven’t got my number, that’s all.”

A slow gleam of unwilling admiration illuminated the clerk’s chill eye. He turned and extracted another key with its jangling metal tag, from one of the many pigeonholes behind him.

“You win,” he said. He leaned over the desk and lowered his voice discreetly. “Say, girlie, go on into the cafe and have a drink on me.”

“Wrong again,” answered Emma McChesney. “Never use it. Bad for the complexion. Thanks just the same. Nice little hotel you’ve got here.”

She sees that room sixty-five isn’t in very good shape and hates to think what nineteen must look like.



Next in my reading was An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield. He got into the Canadian Space Agency, which assigned him to NASA. He had at least one shuttle flight, then spent six months on the International Space Station. There he became famous for his videos of what life in zero gravity is like. I saw the one about what happens when one squeezes a sponge full of water.

It was an enjoyable book, though perhaps I read it too soon after reading Scott Kelly’s book about a year on ISS and the book about the Apollo 8 mission.

As for his advice for life on earth… Many of us are familiar with the Power of Positive Thinking. Hadfield espouses the Power of Negative Thinking. It isn’t about being a pessimist. It is about thinking about the bad things that might happen and training so much that if those bad things ever did happen the response would be straightforward and without panic.



When I was in Australia a year ago I bought The Swan Book by Alexis Wright because the bookstore clerk said it was “Aboriginal science fiction.” Yeah, that alone was intriguing enough to buy it.

It has a science fiction setting – global warming has progressed enough that the world is awash in refugees. But the story seems more about fantasy or Aboriginal Dreamtime (not that I really know what that is). What it’s really about is white control of Aboriginal lives and how bizarre and silly that looks to Aboriginals.

There are a lot of references to swans, enough so that I figured they provided some symbolism. Alas, I didn’t figure out what that symbolism was. I really had to pay attention while reading this one.



On the flight home I started reading Work Song by Ivan Doig. I think this is the fourth book by Doig that I’ve read and I’ve enjoyed all of them.

I had met Morrie Morgan in a previous book, The Whistling Season. In that book Morgan was a teacher in a one-room school in rural Montana. I bought this book simply because it was about Morgan. The story is set ten years later in the mining town of Butte, Montana. Morgan gets a job in the local library and from there can watch the big Anaconda Mining Corporation try to squeeze its workers and the workers fight back.

Two different ways of knowing

One of the books I bought in Australia and finished (maybe three weeks ago) is Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia, edited by Anita Heiss. Fifty people, teenage to elderly, wrote essays of two to eight pages describing their lives while young. A few are what one might expect from a modern youth – I went to this school and got my dream job or joined a professional sports team.

Most, however, speak of of discrimination. The worst were the older ones who were part of the Stolen Generations. For a while Australia had a policy of trying to Westernize Aboriginal youth. They were taken from their homes and put in boarding schools. They were forbidden to speak their tribal language. Some lighter skinned children, those thought might be able to pass as white, were forbidden from seeing darker skinned siblings. This was a policy similar to those in the United States and in Canada.

Many of the writers had one white parent and one Aboriginal. They talk of one family in the city and one in the bush. There was a frequent list of questions and comments: How much Aboriginal are you? When did you realize you were Aboriginal? You don’t look like an Aborigine. You’ve really done well for an Aboriginal. Do you get the benefits? And some are told they’re too dark to be white and too light to be Aboriginal. One was wisely told by an elder you are not part Aboriginal. You are Aboriginal. You are also Irish.

Don Bemrose is an opera singer. He wrote a letter to his country. Excerpts:

I’m sorry I identify as Gungarri and Aboriginal. I know you would prefer I added ‘part’, ‘quarter’ or some other quantifier to to signify that I’m less than full; to reinforce my lesser status, and as a reminder that my people are to be bred out.

I’m sorry I am neither white, nor black enough for you to easily label or identify me as ‘other.’ I understand how hard it can be for you to be openly funny or casually racist when people like me are around.

I’m sorry I’m not a ‘real Aboriginal’ living in a remote part of Australia, surviving off the land.

Please forgive me for identifying as gay, because I know you hate double and triple minorities, which are such a threat to your monocultural, patriarchal, 1950s utopia.

Please forgive me for not being lazy: I know how you prefer your natives to want nothing but a free handout, but somehow I have become a ‘want-for-nothing’ Aboriginal who lives the best life I can.

Todd Phillips talks of two different ways of knowing. From his Aboriginal family he hears stories of ancestors as he sits to fish with his uncles. Phillips and others talk of fishing at the same spot along the river as their ancestors have done for thousands of years. Quite a connection to the land! He also went to public schools and university. In his mob (Australian word for tribe) the elders were intentional in passing along the ways and knowledge of their people to the youth. These elders told them to think outside the box – beyond professional sports – to consider being doctors, lawyers, teachers, and other professionals. We need our own to be in these professions. Phillips added that his public school teachers had only talked of a life of manual labor. They had never talked of professions and of being role models for the community. Phillips got a PhD in education.

Legends and secrets

I wrote about one of the books I read during my trip to Australia, a history of an Irish family that emigrated to Australia and settled in western Queensland and later in the Kimberley. I had also mentioned a boring book for the return flight.

There were a couple more books I read during the trip. I began the first on the outbound flights, so hadn’t had a chance to buy any Australian books. This was the novel The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay. The book was appropriate for the trip anyway – though the story is set in South Africa, where Courtenay grew up, he later moved to Australia.

South Africa was colonized by two groups, one group was the Dutch and Germans, known as Boer or Afrikaans, and the other was the English. Both groups treated the natives in the ways colonizers have always treated natives. But the two white groups also battled each other (such as during the Boer War), with the English ending up ahead. At the time of the story South Africa isn’t a colony, but is controlled by white people.

The story begins with our narrator, Peekay, who is English, going to a boarding school at age 5. He is sent because his mother is ill. At the school he is mercilessly abused by the German students. In 1939 they claim that Hitler will soon come to South Africa and liberate the Germans and march the English into the sea.

Family situations change and Peekay, still quite young, is reunited with his family. On the two-day train trip he meets a boxing champion and watches a match. He sees a way to deal with future bullies. At the new house he befriended a German professor. This town is predominantly English, so Doc, as the professor is called, is imprisoned (America did the same to the Japanese). Peekay visits Doc in prison every day and begins boxing lessons that the prison staff holds for area boys.

Because Doc and Peekay treat the black prisoners as real people (and Peekay becomes adept at smuggling stuff into and out of the prison) the black people begin to see the two as deliverers of sorts. This intensifies when Peekay begins winning his fights. He gets a strong black following and is called their Tadpole Angel.

Peekay goes off to an English boarding school for what we consider the high school years. He keeps the Tadpole Angel legend going. Since he doesn’t get into Oxford on scholarship he takes a year to work in a mine in a very dangerous job. At the end of his time there he encounters his chief tormentor from when he was 5. The book ends with that encounter.

Towards the end of the book, Peekay began to annoy me. During that original abuse he way too perceptive for a five-year-old. And after that he excelled at everything he did. He seems to magically escape disaster at the mine. I also thought the book ended too soon. I wondered what Peekay would do with the legend of the Tadpole Angel. How would he help the black people who held him in such high regard? Other than that it was a pretty decent read and offered insight into South Africa before Apartheid became official law.

The other book was the novel In My Father’s House by Jane Mundy. The story is about Beth, who moved into her father’s house in Sydney to care for him during his final illness. Now that he is gone she has to deal with all his stuff as well as her own stuff she brought when she moved in. One guess why this story appealed to me. So Beth hires a clutter buster to help her cope.

As various items are uncovered we get the history of Beth, her brother, and her parents. We also get the history of Martha, the clutter buster, and her son Tom. For several years Beth dated Jake, who was quite active in the Australian peace movement, protesting Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam war. Jake and Beth’s father don’t get along because her father was prevented from serving in WWII. He thinks Jake is a coward. Beth concludes Jake is the bravest man she has ever met.

Of course, various secrets are revealed as Beth reaches the end of her decluttering work (and does it in a much shorter span of time than I would have thought). Overall, an enjoyable story.

Australia confirmed!

The Australian House of Representatives passed a same-sex marriage law on Thursday. Marriages may begin in January. The vote was almost unanimous. From a picture I wonder if for some votes the members indicate their position by which side of the hall they sit or stand. In this picture one half looks mighty empty.

A commenter to another blog noted how the Australian government mismanaged the process at every step, making it much harder than it needed to be. A summary:

1. Back in 2004 a lesbian couple, married in Canada, asked is our marriage legal? The law didn’t specify gender. Instead of saying it does, another law was hastily passed to say marriage was between a man and a woman.

2. A same-sex marriage law was repeatedly introduced, but the major parties were too skittish to touch it.

3. So they did this non-binding postal survey on the question.

4. It could have been a referendum with formally written language and a legally binding outcome.

5. Marriage equality advocates didn’t want the survey because they knew the “no” side would be vicious, inflaming extremists.

6. Because the postal survey didn’t have formal language our opponents gleefully campaigned on the scariest version of the law they could think up.

7. Even so nearly 62% of the responses were yes.

8. But even with that affirmation members of Parliament are still trying to appease the religious right. I don’t know how much of those efforts made it into the final bill.

Australia!

Members of Parliament in Australia tried weaseling their way out of approving same-sex marriage by throwing the question to the public in a mail-in survey. The results are now in: With almost 80% participation, 62% yes, 38% no! This 24 point spread is being called a landslide.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has vowed to get a marriage bill through Parliament by Christmas. He is also denouncing conservative plans to load up the bill with “religious liberty” amendments. Such amendments, he says, are “non-starters.”

Greenland!

Marriage equality will come to Greenland on October 1st!

I mentioned a couple days ago that Tony Abbott, Prime Minister of Australia, won't let a vote on marriage equality happen on his watch, even though the country is very much (perhaps 70%) in favor of it. The Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has responded by submitting a bill to establish marriage equality. Whether that bill passes (if a vote is allowed) depends a lot on whether the various party leaders demand a party-line vote of their members or let members vote their conscience.

Here is a map of where we have marriage equality. In some countries the light green means there are civil unions, in other countries it means some locations have equality and other locations don't. It is easy to see there is no equality in Asia, Middle East, and Africa – with the exception of South Africa.

Angela Merkel of Germany said same-sex marriages "are not a goal of this government." It's not on the agenda. It appears that in Germany when parties form a governing coalition they work out an agenda to which all parties can agree. But if something new comes up that isn't on the agenda it is difficult to make it happen. I'll be kind – Germany was one of the first to enact civil unions.

And it Texas, which is reaching the end of its legislative season, their bill to defy the Supremes on marriage equality has died. A few wise voices said, hey guys, there are other things of higher priority. Another 20 some bills that would have made life rough for sexual minorities have also died.

Frank Bruni, in a New York Times opinion, has noted two things in common with what appears to be a diverse list of countries. Those countries are: Belgium, Canada, Spain, Argentina, Portugal, Brazil, France, Uruguay, Luxembourg and Ireland. Those common things are: (1) More people go to Roman Catholic Churches than any other religious denomination. (2) All of them have made same-sex marriage legal. Yes, over the Vatican's protests.

Even in America Catholics are defying their leadership. That means prez. candidates Jeb Bush, Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, and Marco Rubio, who have cited their Catholicism as a reason for opposing same-sex marriage, are in the minority of Catholics on this issue. But they take that stance for their Evangelical Protestant supporters.

No place to live

During all the celebration over same-sex marriage in Ireland, Tony Abbott, Prime Minister of Australia, was asked so what about a referendum there? Short answer: Nope. Longer answer: Marriage equality isn't a constitutional question (and others agree). The Parliament is the place to act on the issue. But Abbott will not allow a vote while he is Prime Minister. Never mind that a referendum would probably pass (though a constitutional amendment probably wouldn't).



Anti-gay politicians in Alabama have been working hard to thwart the ruling of Federal Judge Ginny Granade that struck down the state's same-sex marriage ban. Advocates went back to Judge Granade and she has now ruled. Yes, the ruling applies state-wide. Though, she wrote, at this point we might as well wait for the Supremes to speak.



A new Gallup poll shows support for marriage equality is now at 60%. It is significant for a reason – the amount above 50% is greater than the margin of error. The number of Americans who support marriage equality is definitely a majority.



Researchers at Trulia have compared median annual income for new college graduates to the median rent in the top 25 rental markets in America. Their finding: new grads can't afford to rent anywhere. In most markets their income would need to double or triple to find a place to rent. Put another way a new grad in Portland, OR could afford 0.1% of rental properties. A big reason for this is because of the Great Recession, which scared and prevented people from buying houses, the rental market has zoomed upward.



McDonald's recently had a shareholders meeting at its headquarters in Oak Brook, IL. Thousands of employees – cashiers and cooks, the people paid minimum wage – also showed up with a few labor leaders. The complaint: the company spent nearly $30 billion over the last decade to boost the stock price through dividends and share buybacks. That's a discredited strategy that gives a short-term payout to a handful of rich investors. The protesters say the money should have gone into living wages. McDonald's is so skimpy with its pay its workers cost taxpayers $1.2 billion a year in public assistance, meaning taxpayers are subsidizing the company's profits. Many protesters carried an enlarged version of their paycheck to show how little they're paid.

And in the voting booth

I gave my second and last exam today. Grading should be rather swift tomorrow. I’m pretty sure my student passed both classes. My first day back is January 14, which means the break is a week longer than what I usually get.

I had an appointment with the physiologist of the weight-loss program of my traditional medical center. I'm down three pounds since I saw her five weeks ago. Since I'm having a lot more success with the diet from my Ann Arbor nutritionist we agreed my work with the physiologist is concluded. That may change a couple months from now if my insurance company mandated weigh-in still shows me as borderline obese rather than merely overweight.

While with the nutritionist I asked her about the success rate of those on her program (the one that didn't work for me). She said they don't have hard numbers, though that is changing. Those who are successful (there are some) are the ones who put in the effort. To me that sounded like saying if you don't lose weight in our program it's your own fault, not the fault of our diet. She went on to say not all diets work for all people and she's pleased I found one that works for me.



Time has designated Pope Francis as their Person of the Year. In just a few months he has started to change the conversation from doctrine to love.

I'm pleased to see that Edie Windsor ended up #3 on the list. She's the one behind the case that prompted the Supremes to overturn part of the Defense of Marriage Act.



Last week I had written that the Australia Capital Territory had claimed that their "same sex marriage" was not "marriage" as the federal gov't defined it, so was legal. The High Court didn't buy that argument and ruled only the Federal Parliament can expand marriage law to include same-sex couples. As part of their ruling the High Court said that in the constitution "marriage" means "any two natural people." So when the Parliament does get around to marriage equality (sigh), it can't be challenged as being unconstitutional.

There were five days between the time the ACT same-sex marriage law went into effect and the High Court struck it down. Yup, about 30 couples took advantage of the time. And this ruling dissolved those marriages.



Marriage equality will be on the ballot in Oregon next November! They collected over 116,000 signatures in 4 months. The enacted their constitutional ban in 2004 (the same time Michigan did, and they were the only state with a lower percentage of yes votes than Michigan). They're likely to be the first state to repeal a ban by citizen vote.

The prospect of a vote is not greeted by everyone on our side, as I see from the comments. The largest objection is that rights should not be put up for a vote. Another is that the stream of nasty campaign ads will damage the psyches of gay youth. There are also those who say it is a waste of time and money. We should wait for one of the many lawsuits heading to the Supremes that will bring marriage equality nationwide.

Others respond by saying the only way to get equality in Oregon, other than waiting for the Supremes, is by this vote. And if Oregon votes it in, our chances with the Supremes are that much better. We can show the Supremes "we've had wins in the state legislatures, in the state courts, in the Federal courts, by Federal proclamation, AND in the voting booths."

We'll just do it ourselves

Now that we've seen about as many senators declare for marriage equality who are going to, representatives (at least Democratic ones) are now doing the same. The link is to the second one today. And, as with the senators, watchers are keeping a list of which Dem representatives haven't declared. Only seven on that list.



Back during Mardi Gras, a rainbow colored crosswalk was created in the Sydney, Australia gay neighborhood. It appears (though the details seem muddled) the city council and the gay community wanted to keep it, but the mayor did not. A couple nights ago a road crew appeared and removed it. Some say the night action was treachery, other say that's simply when road work is done. The reason given is that the rainbow crossing was unsafe (I think I heard tourists were lying down in the road to get their picture taken). Whatever the reason and level of secrecy, the gay community is furious.

So gays have been busy installing their own rainbow crossings, done with paint or chalk, all over town.