Make resistance the safer bet

I finished the book Whistle-Stop Politics; Campaign Trains and the Reporters Who Covered Them by Edward Segal. The book is small scenes of when a politician climbs onto a train to take his message to the small towns across the country. Segal was the press secretary for an Oklahoman Congressman in 1984 and thought to use a campaign train to introduce his candidate to more of the state. He wanted to find a book or other resource about campaign trains and came up empty. So he started collecting stories, then did serious research, and 40 years later produced this book. Overall, it’s a lightweight book. He covers the campaigns from the late 1800s to Biden’s train in 2020, though the first train campaign was in 1836. Th coverage isn’t of the type of saying in 1896 this candidate was on the rails for this number of days, covered so many miles, gave this number of speeches, had these incidents along the way, and the trip had this consequence for the candidate or the future of campaign trains. Instead, the book is organized by topic. These campaigns had this type of incident. These had that type of incident. Each incident is described in a few paragraphs, up to a page or two. Campaigns can appear under several topics, but there isn’t a complete campaign narrative. Some of the topics: A description of the campaign train (the candidate’s car was always the last one and out its back door was the campaign platform). Who was on it (candidate, staff, reporters, regular train staff). Whether the candidate gave the same speech at every stop or how he pulled in local details. What local politicians were introduced. How the logistics of the trip were set up. What the Secret Service did to make the route safe. What happened when a doctor was needed. How the candidate dealt with hecklers or protesters. How the press managed enroute (no showers, no laundry, no direct communication while on the train). As to the last topic, occasionally the train stopped and everyone stayed at a hotel. Sometimes they stopped only during the day, so the hotel would get a request for six rooms and 150 towels. Segal also described some campaign imitators. In 1940 Gracie Allen of the comedy team Burns and Allen did a train tour as the candidate for the Surprise Party. Winnie the Pooh did one in 1972 with advisors Tigger and Eeyore. Mickey Mouse did one in 1978 to celebrate his 50th birthday. The top candidates that logged the most miles on a train were Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, far more than any of the others. There is a description of the rail car built for Roosevelt to keep him comfortable and safe. The reason for campaigning by train was simple: There was a train depots downtown in practically every small city. Everyone knew where it was. The airport, if there was one, was a ways outside of town and few people knew about it. A train allowed the candidate get close to the people. I enjoyed the book, but glad it was just over 200 pages (plus 778 endnotes to list the sources that I could skip) and I could finish it in just a few days. As I said, these were short amusing stories without a comprehensive narrative. Oliver Willis of Daily Kos reported on Monday the nasty guy’s invasion of Chicago has begun. It’s over the objection of Gov. JB Pritzker and the city’s mayor. The justification for sending in the troops is, of course, lies. Also on Monday Lisa Needham of Kos reported on the state of the invasion of Portland. U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut ruled on Saturday that the nasty guy could not federalize the Oregon National Guard to protect federal agents in Portland. On Sunday the judge ruled that the nasty guy could not use California’s national guard protect federal agents in Portland. That ruling was at the request of both California and Oregon because neither wanted one state to invade the other. While she was at it the judge ruled the nasty guy couldn’t use the national guard from any other state either, even if Texas was offering. The case was appealed and I’m still behind in my reading. A week ago Needham reported that the nasty guy has a new effort to get colleges and universities to bend to his will. He came up with a ten point plan titled “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” Schools that agree to it will get preferential access to federal funds. Needham wrote about the points in the plan. Here’s some of them.

So a vibrant marketplace of ideas, but one where schools put their thumb on the scale for conservatives, who basically can’t compete in the marketplace of ideas in higher education. ...And, of course, there are demands that there be no race-or sex-based preferences in hiring and that transgender women be barred from women’s locker rooms and sports.

And they need to hire an independent auditor to ensure compliance.

So all that schools need to do to get “multiple positive benefits,” including “substantial and meaningful federal grants,” is to totally alter their curriculum, departments, admissions, hiring, and sports teams to conform to whatever racist, transphobic, or xenophobic thought that skitters across Trump’s gray matter at any given time. Just some minor tweaks, really.

Nine schools have received the “invitation.” One, the University of Texas at Austin, appears all in. On Monday Dalbert of the Kos community reported that Gov. Gavin Newsom of California has a response. Refuse the nasty guy’s offer a school could lose federal funding. But if a state school accepts the nasty guy’s offer they lose state funding, including grants to California students.

People cave to bullies when there’s no cost to giving in. Newsom’s changing that dynamic. The article urges other blue-state governors to follow suit: cut off state resources to institutions and officials who comply with Trump’s demands. Make resistance the safer bet.

Alix Breeden of Kos wrote that a few top level comedians have gotten themselves into a mess. The royal family of Saudi Arabia funded the Riyadh Comedy Festival. The royal money means they paid big bucks to the comedians, like $375K and upwards. They are working hard to burnish their image. With this royal family we know there is a catch – the entertainers signed contracts specifying they would say nothing bad about the country, the royals, the legal system, or the religion. But giving up free speech for a paycheck, especially a big one, means they are losing credibility in America, especially after Jimmy Kimmel was pulled off the air because of free speech. Fellow comedians are saying their hypocrisy is showing. In the comments of Monday’s pundit roundup for Kos paulpro posted a cartoon by Angel Boligan showing the nasty guy beating furiously at a huge drum set while the two speakers are aimed at earth. John Sipher posted a cartoon by Kal showing a big beefy American army man ready to fight foreign foes while a small Pete Hegseth tugs at his ankle and points to a cat named “Wokeness” and saying “You’re under attack!” In Tuesday’s roundup Chitown Kev quoted Paul Krugman writing for his Substack on why the nasty guy’s second term seems to have gotten so extreme so fast.

One reason things have gotten so extreme, so fast may be that Trump, Miller and company are in a race against time. Foreign autocrats like Orban or Vladimir Putin could afford to chip away gradually at the foundations of democracy because they were, at least initially, quite popular. Trump — although he won’t admit it — has very low approval, and the public opposes him on every major issue. Yet he and his minions control much of the machinery of government, and are trying to use it to intimidate — you might say terrorize — their opponents before public anger catches up with them.

In the comments exlrrp posted a meme showing, I think, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. Whoever it is the text is fun. It says, “She’s going through the normal 5 stages of grief: pyrotechnics, merch, podcasting, grifting, and acceptance.” In the comments of Wednesday’s roundup is a cartoon posted by LJ Slater and created by Smit. It shows ICE agents standing around and one says, “I gotta leave early today, guys. We deported my kid’s babysitter.” A comment posted by paulpro shows a calm Chicago scene and two ICE agents are talking:

First: You see any Chicago Antifa rioters yet? Second: No, but there was a dress sale at the Water Tower my wife would kill for.

LJ Slater posted a cartoon by David Cohen. It shows a peace prize on the floor and the nasty guy reaching for it. To the side one guy tells another. “It’s an old bar trick. I glued it to the floor. Let’s see how long it takes him to get it.” In the comments of today’s roundup Fiona Webster posted a cartoon by Jesse Duquette showing a policeman cuffing a young black child (I’ve seen mentions that this is a thing). The policeman says, “Stop crying. America’s great now.” Webster also posted a cartoon by Lalo Alcaraz that has a caption, “Meanwhile, at the border... The president ordered that the border wall be painted black because it makes the wall hotter when migrants climb it. Also, it’s lunchtime.” The image shows the bottom of three beams of the wall bent up and being used as a grill attended by a Mexican man. Beside him is a sign, “Hot border tacos.” While checking one set of stats for this blog – the excitement of setting big viewing records in September – I forgot to keep track of other stats. I’ve passed mentioning the nasty guy in 700 posts, this one is 701. There are only two topics with more posts. One is “GOP” which is now at 1114 posts. The other is “Gay Marriage” and “Marriage Equality” (I switched tags) at 711.

There is no such thing as “just kidding” in humor

My Sunday viewing was Outstanding: a Comedy Revolution, a documentary about LGBTQ standup comedians. It is framed by a record gathering of 22 LGBTQ performers on one stage on May 7, 2022 at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles. It’s not really about that show. We do see bits and some behind the scenes shots, but not the whole thing. This documentary is about LGBTQ comics through history (well, since the 60s) who helped us get where we are now. The video of that 2022 performance is also on Netflix as Stand Out: An LGBTQ+ Celebration. I haven’t watched it yet, though it is now on the top of my list. Some of the comics I recognized (and there were many more I didn’t): Rosie O’Donnell, Wanda Sykes, Bruce Vilanch, Lily Tomlin, Sandra Bernhard, Joel Kim Booster, Margaret Cho, Ellen DeGeneres, and Eddie Izzard. At a comedy show for human rights in 1977 Richard Pryor was included (I think at the suggestion of Tomlin). His jokes implied that he was gay (his Wikipedia page says bisexual). Then he noted that there were maybe four black people in this otherwise all white audience. He told the crowd: You’re here because of human rights? Black people want that too. One can be gay and racist. The crowd didn’t appreciate him. There was a fun moment when Ellen DeGeneres appeared on the Rosie O’Donnell Show and said she came out as Lebanese. O’Donnell followed her guest’s lead and said she might also be Lebanese. In this documentary O’Donnell said that her network knew she was a lesbian, but she didn’t think she could come out on-air. But when DeGeneres started this discussion O’Donnell knew she had to support her friend. So many of them said that if they said anything about being queer they would lose their job. Many felt they had to do it anyway. If they were out, there was a long time they couldn’t get jobs or could only get jobs at LGBTQ venues. A few of what was said about the nature of comedy: Comedy is resistance. Every word is a bullet. People will listen when they laugh. Comedy is a critic and disruptor of the social dynamic. There is no such thing as “just kidding” in humor. If we tell you your joke is transphobic you can’t say, “no, it’s not.” And a few comments about the decades: 70s variety shows portrayed a fabulous world gay people wanted to be in. These shows had implicit and explicit queerness, though no one called it that. In the late 70s there were characters coded as queer, and people loved them. Then AIDS hit and acceptance vanished. AIDS jokes aren’t funny, and LGBTQ comics weren’t the people telling them, but they got a laughs. The 80s with Reagan and the rise of the religious right brought the question: Why do we want to oppress each other? The news today had segments about how Harris will reveal her VP pick in just hours. Of course, there was yet another discussion of who is in the running. Econhistorian of the Daily Kos community says there is a sudden emergence of a new dark horse candidate. Or maybe this is the dark dog candidate. Since JD Vance has alienated cat lovers, perhaps this pick will firm up dog lovers for Democrats. In an article for ProPublica posted on Kos Alec MacGillis discussed the guy who was the director a Project 2025 for the Heritage Foundation. The guy is Paul Dans and he stepped down a few days ago, as others said it would be “shut down.” Dans was going to step down soon anyway because Project 2025 planning is essentially done. It can sit on the shelf and not do anything until a Republican administration opens it up and starts implementing it. The other part of the plan is the database of eager minions ready to implement it. And Dans was very much instrumental in creating it. That part is still very much active.

The most important pillar of Project 2025 has always been about personnel, not policy. Or rather, the whole effort is animated by the Reagan-era maxim that personnel is policy, that power flows from having the right people in the right jobs. To that end, the plan’s most pertinent proposal is reinstating Schedule F—a provision unveiled near the very end of Trump’s term, then repealed by the Biden administration—which would shift as many as 50,000 career employees in policy-shaping positions into a new job category that would make them much easier to fire. ... Propelling the project has been a worldview that can be easily overlooked amid Trump’s talk about restoring the halcyon days of his first term. The people preparing for his return to the White House emphatically do not view his first term as a success. Rather, they view it as a missed opportunity to implement the MAGA vision. For Dans, Trump’s first term was an object lesson in how difficult it could be to reach Trump’s goals without a captive bureaucracy.

Dans is the son of a liberal college professor, but as he matured he went much more conservative than his parents or twin brother Tom. In law school he joined the campus branch of the Federalist Society. When the nasty guy got to the Oval Office Dans wanted to work for him. At first he was rejected as “too MAGA.” Those doing the hiring wanted someone more bland. In 2018 he did get into HUD. He saw HUD as this avalanche of money to be directed to various agencies. How to get it flowing in the way conservatives want? The problem he saw was the career employees who followed the law (as in the budget approved by Congress) and weren’t going to bend to an elected administration. Another problem was his fellow appointees who didn’t know what the agency actually did and just wanted the cocktail parties and international junkets. In February 2020 Dans was installed at the Office of Personnel Management as “senior advisor to the director.” He soon became de facto director. One goal was to hire as many conservatives into career employee positions. Another was to recategorize positions so they would be filled by presidential appointees. And he ran out of time. So when Project 2025 came along he knew exactly what to do about the personnel side. While there are about 10,000 names in that database and about 50,000 positions that would be affected by the Schedule F changes (more, depending on how it was implemented), a new Republican administration would need to fire only 1,000 and make a big example of them. That would scare the other 49,000 into falling in line. That way one gets compliance and still retains institutional memory of how to get things done. Tracy Hunte of NPR reported on a new interpretation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical "Cats." Yeah, this is the musical that appeared in 1982 and hung around Broadway for a long time. When it opened it was radical. But, since there isn’t much of a plot, it has become a bit of a punchline. I saw “Cats” with Sister perhaps a year or two after it debuted. We visited the Chicago production. Sister complained (and I agreed) that the sound system made the words of the songs hard to understand. And there isn’t much to the show beyond the words. She was disappointed. Back to the NPR report. This new interpretation is playing at the Perelman Performing Arts Center in New York City. The cat costumes are gone. The Jellicle Ball now looks like queer House Ball and all the performers are queer or trans. And it makes sense! A lot more sense when it was supposedly about actual cats. Said Hunte:

Ballroom culture was developed in nightclubs in the late '70s and early '80s, primarily by Black and Latinx trans women and gay men. During these events, performers representing different houses compete in categories like face, body, runway, and vogue for cash prizes and trophies. It's like a fashion show, beauty pageant, dance contest and party, all in one. In this new production, the stage is a 50 foot runway. The cast is decked out in purple satin suits, sequined tops, tight mini dresses, and long, silky wigs and neon-colored afros. The dancing blends the ballet and modern from the original with voguing, a dance technique born in the ballroom. The one thing that remains unchanged is Andrew Lloyd Webber's score, with songs like "The Rum Tum Tugger."

And...

JOSEPHINE KEARNS: The two pieces of feedback I get most often are this made more sense of "Cats," and wasn't "Cats" already gay? HUNTE: That's dramaturg and gender consultant Josephine Kearns. She says with its themes of rebirth and transformation, much of "Cats" does speak to the queer experience. In the show, cats are said to have three names - the names their owners give them, their nicknames, and a third name known only to themselves. KEARNS: And I think probably every queer person can resonate with that on some level, right? And especially, like, as a trans person myself, who very actively changed my name.

A big reason why the gay version is better is it became more real. It went from “camp and artifice to authenticity.” It now is about the struggles of actual gay and trans people when interacting with mainstream society. In the comments of a pundit roundup exlrrp posted a meme related to all the pushback against JD Vance’s verbal attack on childless cat ladies. This one has a bright yellow background and shows a black cat holding a snake in its mouth. The caption says, “I’ll tread wherever I want.” I leave Wednesday morning to spend a couple days in Stratford, Ontario with it’s Stratford Festival. I’ve got tickets for four plays. So I might not post tomorrow evening (depends on how packing goes). I’ll post again on Friday or Saturday to share my theatrical adventures.

Until we greatly reduce the power of the oligarchs

I have a Martin Luther King Day cartoon that didn’t get posted promptly. It is by MacLeod and shows an elephant saying, “Spare a thought for us Republicans on this difficult day when we have to dredge through everything MLK ever said to find something we can post that’s half acceptable to our racist supporters.” Brother recommended a post on Daily Kos that I would have found eventually. He also recommended a couple comments in the post that I would not have seen. So, thanks Brother! The post is by Dartagnan of the Kos community. His central point is that the nasty guy and his followers want one thing: revenge. Yes, a lot comes from the nasty guy’s use of revenge as his major campaign theme. It is more than that.

As Tom Nichols, writing for The Atlantic, observes, the Republican electorate has, for the most part, swallowed Trump’s fiction and internalized it. Republicans have transformed Trump’s embarrassments into an insult against their own personal identities and belief systems. It’s an offense that demands and necessitates revenge against those fellow Americans who dared to insult them.

Admitting one’s choices are wrong can be difficult to impossible. Those who can’t admit do a lot to save face. And to do that they have to ignore the nasty guy’s criminal charges. They have to invent and believe preposterous stories of the Biden family, and conjure up fake horrors, threats, and enemies. It’s a coping mechanism. They are now convinced that millions of Americans, including their neighbors, look down on them. They hear it through the attacks and critiques of the nasty guy. And revenge doesn’t respond to discourse or reason. In the comments is a meme by DoctorH showing Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka saying, “What could be more noble cause for a Second Civil War than a litany of IMAGINARY grievances?” Now on to the comments that Brother recommended. These confirm a lot of what I’ve concluded over the last few years that what is going on is these people are highly invested in the social hierarchy, in which they consider themselves rather high up. What they are doing is protecting their social position. A comment by Bring the Lions:

The Big Lie is there to cover the Big Truth: the MAGA/GOP base can’t accept losing elections and power to the Democratic coalition. They can’t accept that they are out-numbered by the rest of us (hence the fixation on the size of rallies and flags). They refuse to see members of the Democratic coalition as legitimate Americans, having equal standing to them. That’s the Big Truth that keeps being alluded to in so many ways. Better to have the Big Lie about “election fraud” to masquerade the blatant racism and bigotry behind the whole denial. Because if they didn’t have the Big Lie, the conversation would have to be about how one segment of America simply refuses to accept that they can lose elections to the other, and refuses to accept that the other side has the legitimacy to govern over them. Once the conversation moves there - and that’s exactly where it should be - you can’t “both sides” it. You’re effectively having the conversation that needs to be held: how do you run a democracy when one side has given up on….democracy?

Confirmation bias on my part? I see it as: I’ve come to this conclusion of how the world works and here is someone who has come to the same conclusion. Brother pointed to the response to Bring the Lions by theghostofjohndewey:

great comment, but I will posit that it goes deeper even than what you say—the MAGA crowd is simply NOT ABLE to accept what America has become and is turning into; specifically, a country where being a white Christian male does not automatically put you on top of the social hierarchy; a country where gays are free to walk around “flaunting” their “unnaturalness”; a country where women-folk are not kept barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen; a country where Blacks are free to vote and live outside “approved” neighborhoods and marry into “the white race”; a country that is increasingly diverse, increasingly non-white, increasingly non-Christian, and possibly worst of all, a country where people are increasingly tolerant of anything or anybody that is “different.” “Make America Great Again” is all about “restoring” that (mythological) utopian America where none of the above existed, where even the poorest white man living in a shack with no power or running water still knew that they were somehow better than an educated, well-to-do black man (to use the most obvious example).

Yep, it’s all about the social hierarchy and their (rather high up) place in it. Brother also recommended the comment by jsteve7:

I think the biggest reason for the size of Trump support is what they see as a defense against their biggest fear of all — being voted into irrelevance from a DEMOCRACY. Being voted into irrelevance by people that don’t look like them, pray like them, sexually orient like them, and intend to create a racial, gender, sexual, and economic level playing field in this country. Trump supporters see themselves as bunkering up in a mindless and existential fight against anything perceived as “left.” The biggest right wing enemy in this fight is federal government as it is now seen by Trump supporters as THE instrument of the left to implement their vision of equality and justice for ALL — the last thing the right wing wants. So, what better way to fight this enemy than a gigantic wrecking ball? And even if Trump fails to completely wreck our democratic institutions, as he did in his first term, he can be a block against the perceived inevitability of government by and for the people.

I also noted the comment by doncoolodge:

There’s no way to defuse that deep an animus. That it exists makes it imperative that we utterly defeat them at the polls; the only alternative is surrender, and that’s unthinkable. But when we eliminate that possibility of elective revenge, that is most likely to only increase their rage. And they’ll still take their revenge, in the only way that’s left. Sigh. I keep flip-flopping from hope to despair, with the events that might bring me hope also leading me to picture the horrors that are also likely to evolve from them.

Peter Olandt of the Kos community wrote about something I and others have recognized for a long time but others still get it wrong. Olandt rejects the common idea that if we just defeat the nasty guy the problem is over. The article above says no to that – the nasty guy’s followers won’t disappear quietly. Olandt says no in a different way.

Both Trump and corporate media are tools of American oligarchs. The Murdochs, Kochs, and Crows of the world are the real power, menace, and conspirators out to destroy America.

The current effort began as a response to Roosevelt’s New Deal when taxes on the wealthy were 70% and higher. Reagan tackled the discontent of the rich with the mantra “Government is the problem.”

The elected Republicans needn’t have solutions to make government better, they could just muck things up worse and use that as justification that even more government needed to be eliminated. Republicans are anarchists and nihilists. So over the years we have privatized some parts of government, downsized much of it, and in Red States essentially removed much of it all while oligarchs got richer on it. When the initial results came in and most of us saw no benefit to the downsizing of government, the oligarchs needed to up their game to keep the momentum in their favor. The oligarchs tied themselves to racism, guns, and abortion as the polarizing topics to keep getting their servants elected while weakening anti-trust statutes allowing for media consolidation to push their message. With Citizens United, they legalized bribery making the process more streamlined for themselves. ... We haven’t come close to defeating the Fascism arrayed against us right now. We’ve barely kept the first attempt from succeeding while addressing NONE of the conditions which led us here. Until we greatly reduce the power of the oligarchs and keep them in check, we will simply face a Trumpian threat again and again.

In the comments JaketheRake says the article missed an important piece.

The oligarchs have turned from trump because they don’t control his cult. They have been wanting a different candidate for a while now. Desantis has failed to shine for them, now Haley will probably fail as well. They are done with trump, but can’t control his mob.

For a while now I’ve had the wish the nasty guy would save the nation a great deal of trouble if he just died. Lots of commentary say he’s ripe for a heart attack. But ... His base won’t believe he died in the same way they don’t believe a lot of other obviously true and well documented things. Also, the oligarchs are still there, making yachts full of cash. Peter Schickele has died at the age of 88. He is famous for his classical musical comedy. The biggest part of that was his invention of P.D.Q. Bach who he claimed was “the youngest and oddest of Johann Sebastian’s 20-odd children.” He would claim he had found another work by P.D.Q. which would be a parody of some aspect of classical music. An example is the “1712 Overture,” a parody of Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture.” I became acquainted to Schickele in high school. Brother had bought a double vinyl album “The Wurst of P.D.Q. Bach” and I very much enjoyed it. A few more albums appeared after that. I saw Schickele live three times. The first was in the 1970s at a concert in Kalamazoo. I greeted him after the concert as was amazed at the number of food stains on his tux shirt. The second was in the 1980s when he did a concert with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. During that concert he wanted to point out an error in the program – at the end of the previous week’s concert description the period was missing from the last sentence. The third was a few years ago when Schickele was guest composer at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival. I likely attended more than one concert. By then he was walking with a cane and didn’t do any playing. But he definitely made his presence known – a pianist was playing one of his pieces and between movements Schickele came on stage. The laughter of the pianist showed he did not know that would happen. Schickele made some appropriately funny comment, then left to let the pianist continue. I also remember an appearance or two on Prairie Home Companion when it took up brief residencies in New York. Schickele would come up with compositions featuring quite unusual combinations of instruments. This article on ClassicFM has an obituary of Schickele and also a video of one of his biggest jokes – narrating the first movement of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony as a sporting event. In doing so he taught a lot about how that piece is laid out. When I taught music theory at a small college in Detroit (now out of business) I played an audio version of that joke. My Detroit student’s didn’t get it. Classical music wasn’t their thing. Of course, there are a lot of his fun stuff on YouTube. I wouldn’t be able to find or link to them all. I’ll end with a link to Al Hirschfeld’s caricature of Schickele.

Your tax season could be a lot simpler

My people are from Wisconsin. We used to be from New York. We had a little real estate problem. – Native American comic Charlie Hill

That joke provided the title for We Had a Little Real Estate Problem, The Unheralded Story of Native Americans & Comedy by Kliph Nesteroff. I’ve now finished reading it. Nesteroff is white and has written another book on American comics and did a good job with this one. In telling the story of comics the book also tells the story of Natives in entertainment, which includes the story of Native history since the late 19th century. Natives were first in entertainment during Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Shows where Indian participation was a choice between jail and being humiliated for the gratification of white people. Graduates of the horrible residential school system, in which the government tried to “civilize” Native children, knew enough of white people ways to effectively call out the inhumanity of these shows. The next important person in Native comedy was Will Rogers, who I didn’t know was Native. His reputation has been whitewashed. His down home humor allowed him to be critical of the American government. He was a voice for the little guy. He had reason to be critical – the government stole his family’s Oklahoma ranch. Along the way the book highlights the way Natives were depicted in television, especially cartoons. Examples of bad live shows are Davy Crockett and F-Troop. Stereotypes of Natives in TV and movies were usually portrayed by white people in heavy makeup even though there were plenty of Native actors available for the roles. And Natives in those roles would have toned down the worst of the stereotypes. The book focuses on Charlie Hill, who was the first Native to get on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. There are lots of other Native comics who served as emcees in Native events (so whites never heard of them), who traveled the Silver Circuit of lounges in Nevada before Vegas became big, and had reasonable success in comedy clubs while clubs were at their height in popularity. Also featured in the book are the 1491s, a Native act that was invited by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival to create a full length show. They figured out a way to get white people laughing about the various Native massacres. Cloaking a lesson in laughter is one way to get people to listen to what you say. I recommend this one. It is good to be reminded the stereotype of the strong silent Native is wrong. Amongst themselves they are quite funny. Michigan now updates its COVID data only on Wednesdays rather than three times a week. I downloaded yesterday’s data. For the number of new cases per day the peaks in the last three weeks are 790, 930, and 1239. Yes, cases are rising, though I don’t know yet if it is a minor variation or the start of another surge. The number of deaths per day last week was 8 and fewer. A couple of the Ukraine Update reports on Daily Kos yesterday were about which types of military equipment were arriving or about to be shipped from the West into Ukraine. Since I can’t tell one tank from another I’ll let you search out the details, if that’s your thing. However, Kos of Kos reported on something I’ve heard on NPR news shows. The ship Moskva, flag ship of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, was attacked and sunk. Photos of the ship show some big guns from which it sent shells into Ukraine. So taking it out is a big deal, and also a big deal for raising Ukrainian morale and lowering Russian morale. Kos explained how the hit was pulled off. A flying drone grabbed all the ship’s electronic attention as poor weather and rough seas hid the two low flying missiles that struck the ship. Kos included a couple internet memes of the hit. One of them says, “Heroic cruiser Moskva promoted to submarine.” Tax preparation companies, both in-store and on my computer, have annoyed me over the years. They usually don’t know how to handle the small amount of royalties I get for my published music and try to classify it as real estate royalties. Then last year I used a different in-store company. They were annoyed that I wanted to verify my return. I found errors. They gave me a refund rather than correct them (and, yes, that sounds shady). So armed with returns for previous years, the knowledge my tax situation doesn’t change much, and my skills with spreadsheets (adequate skills, there are lots of things spreadsheets can do I know nothing about) I did it all myself. This year I improved my spreadsheets and have already sent in my return (you have until Monday to send in yours). I feel better about my choice after reading a report by Joan McCarter of Kos about lawsuits brought against tax preparation companies. The federal government has a Free File program and the major companies participate in it. Many taxpayers with income less than $73K are allowed to file for free. But these companies advertise their free file programs, then make it quite difficult for customers to actually use them. When I did use programs on my computer I saw filling out my state taxes was frequently include in the software purchase price, but electronically filing state forms required an extra fee. So, even though the state promoted their lower cost of processing returns filed electrically I always mailed in paper – then complained to a state legislator that while it save the state money it cost me more. They would tell me about free filing programs. I would tell them I don’t qualify for any of them. Now electronic filing isn’t an option. Marissa Higgins of Kos reported Senator Elizabeth Warren has created a video saying your tax season could be a lot simpler. All those W-2 and 1099 forms you get and must enter on to tax forms? The IRS has already gotten a copy. They could fill out the forms and mail them to you for your signature. For a large number of people that’s it (well, also writing the check for the amount owed...). In most other countries in the world this is how it is done. So why isn’t it done that way in America? Because the tax preparation companies lobbied Congress to prevent that from happening and Republicans agreed. They’re protecting a multi-billion dollar industry. Mike Gibbons is an Ohio millionaire investment banker running to fill a US Senate seat that is becoming vacant. Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported that because of Sen. Rick Scott’s 11 point plan that includes Republicans raising taxes on working families, a statement Gibbons made last September in a campaign video is getting more scrutiny. Gibbons said:

The top 20% of earners in the United States pay 82% of federal income tax—and, if you do the math, and 45% to 50% don’t pay any income tax, you can see the middle class is not really paying any kind of a fair share, depending on how you want to define it.

I certainly want to define is differently than Gibbons does. Anyone want to guess what little detail Gibbons left out, allowing him to twist the rest? Yep, it’s that the top 20% of earners pull in a great deal more money than everyone else. His math is an admission of income inequality. I don’t have figures in front of me but I would guess the top 20% richest (given their tendency to not pay taxes) pull in a great deal more than 82% of the national income. There is also an unsuspecting weasel word in there. The rich “earn” very little of their income as in wages paid for doing a job. Their income comes from investments and stock options and other kinds of wealth generators that the middle class doesn’t have access to, such as funding their living through loans with stock as collateral. Since the stock isn’t sold (and the loan not paid back) until the rich person dies, there is no capital gains and no tax. Which makes one wonder which voters Gibbons is trying to woo. A message of “Vote for me and I’ll raise your taxes while protecting low taxes on the rich,” isn’t going to play well. As for Scott’s 11 point plan Eleveld reported that a new poll from the progressive polling consortium Navigator Research shows that Americans don’t like what Scott is selling. Only 27% of registered voters support the plan and 59% oppose. Of Republican voters only 32% support it. Since Scott is the only Republican who has produced a plan it is essentially the GOP platform. One would think a party platform that unpopular would lead to strong defeat in the next election. But there is something stronger among Republican voters – their need to keep white people at the top of the social hierarchy is more important than the taxes they pay. Brian Tyler Cohen, who does a political podcast, tweeted:

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) just shut down Mitch McConnell at a press conference: “There was $7 trillion in new debt and 2.6 million jobs lost during Trump. But when McConnell comes to this podium, all he does is complain that we’re not cleaning up their mess fast enough.”

Higgins reported a new Air Force policy. If the service member or a member of their family is LGBTQ the Air Force will offer counseling to those who need to understand the various anti LGBTQ laws at the state level. They also provide mental health services to those affected by these laws. The service member could even be assigned to a different state based on the safety needs of a family member. Hopefully, other branches of the American military will do the same. And will withstand the complaints from Republicans. Higgins reported that Will Larkin, a non-binary high school junior in Florida, did their history presentation on the 1969 Stonewall uprising. The history teacher certainly didn’t know anything of the event. Larkin has been active in criticizing the Don’t Say Gay bill. And now they have been switched to a new classroom for the last five weeks of the school year. A feature of this room is a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, now a symbol of the far-right. Larkin wrote an op-ed for the Times that ran a month ago. A bit of it:

When I look back to elementary school, I wonder how different my childhood would have been had my classmates and I known that I wasn’t some tragic anomaly, a strange fluke that needed to be fixed. People in support of the bill always ask, “Why do these subjects need to be taught in schools?” To them I would say that if we understand ourselves, and those around us understand us, so many lives will be saved.

Well said. Tech Burrito tweeted a minute long video of several ancient books that show an image when the edges of the pages are bent a little bit. Cool!

Musical as social commentary

This was the last weekend for the theater programs at Wayne State University, with both the Hilberry (graduate level) and Bonstelle (undergraduate) Theatres putting on worthwhile productions.

On Thursday evening I saw the Hilberry production of The 39 Steps, a comic farce based on the Hitchcock thriller of the same name. One actor played the main character Richard Hannay. An actress played three major female roles. Two men were listed in the program as "Clown" and took on a wide collection of roles, sometimes switching with the change of a hat, other times with complete costume changes in an amazing short amount of time. Three more actors were listed as "Stage Hand." The stage held only four large steamer trunks, which these stage hands moved about as needed, they then supplied, or became, the various props. They served as doors, overstuffed chairs, fireplace and mantle, automobile, and lots of other things. Along the way the actors worked the titles of many Hitchcock films into the dialogue and included many British literary references. All in great fun.

I saw the Bonstelle production of Urinetown, the Musical on Saturday. The basic premise is that a prolonged drought meant water must be severely rationed. Water rates have climbed so high that the poor can no longer afford their own facilities yet must pay high rates to pee in public facilities. In the next scene we see the head of the corporation that owns all those public facilities bribing his senator to get the Senate to raise rates once again. So, yeah, we're dealing with issues of privatization of public utilities, corporate greed, widening income inequality, and political corruption. All wrapped up in song and dance. That is complicated by the daughter of the corporate head, freshly graduated from the most expensive university in the world, falling in love with the guy who encourages the poor to revolt over the raised rates. Along the way Officer Lockstock (sidekick: Officer Barrel), who is itching for an excuse to crack a few heads, occasionally explains things to Little Sally, such things as: We don't want to drag down the opening scene of a musical with too much exposition. Save some of it for the next scene. The ending is more realistic than happy (which Lockstock warns us about) in which the solution to corporate terror is not well thought out and causes more problems. Even though the subject may be grim, the jokes, the exuberant dancing, and the sly references to other musicals make the evening a lot of fun.

I do have one small complaint with the plot. The rebel leader works mighty hard to prevent the rebels from committing a particular act of violence. However, he does not quite say that the only way to defeat corporate greed is non-violent resistance and urging corporate leaders into community. The rebels resolve the conflict with an act of violence of their own.



I just checked stats for this blog. During one hour yesterday the blog got 398 page views. I normally see rates of 3-5 views an hour. I'm not sure whether to believe this because the page views by county adds up to only 255.

More short notes

I'm way behind on my reading, so here are a few things that came across my radar today. Perhaps I'll comment on the news of the last 3 weeks as I catch up.

Obama decided to forego the $80M of public financing for the fall campaign. He says it isn't because he doesn't believe in clean financing (he does) or because he can raise more than that on his own (likely he can), but because the public financing system is broken, rigged to help lobbyists and special interest groups give unlimited funds to McCain.

The debate of the cause of homosexuality is shifting away from saying it is caused by genetics to exploring how the hormones of the womb interact with the fetus. And that implies that it may be possible to "correct" those hormones so that no baby is born gay. Offended? Sorry, you won't be in the room when the decision is made. Parents already screen for and abort the "wrong" gender. You think parents won't screen for the "wrong" orientation?

Why is it some Fundies are so rigid about the definition of marriage and God's supposed view of gays, yet they find all kinds of wiggle room when discussion torture? That puts them somewhere between hypocrite and heathen.

A laugh: Jon Stewart and the start of gay marriages in California. It is all in about the first 10 minutes.

Advertising with a twist: Mayonnaise so good it is like having a deli in your kitchen. And this is a New York deli.

Watch your irony meter on this one: Why I'm voting Republican.