Mistaken obedience for patriotism and vanity for legacy

I hope your Christmas was happy. I spent a pleasant afternoon with Sister and Niece. My Sunday movie was Hamnet. It is newly released and I actually went to a movie theater to see it. At the start of the movie we are told that in the records of the time the spellings “Hamnet” and “Hamlet” are used interchangeably. We meet Agnes, sometimes called Annis (at least I think so) and a guy who becomes infatuated with her. They soon fall in love. Only after we see the guy writing and saying the line, “And Juliet is the sun,” do we get any confirmation that the guy is William Shakespeare. The movie isn’t very good at saying the names of characters. I don’t think they ever said the name of their first child. So this story is similar to Shakespeare in Love in that it is a story about how The Bard came to write one of his plays. There is a big difference: That was a comedy and this is a drama about the creation of a drama. At this point I’d be tempted to say there are spoilers ahead, but one can look up the life of Shakespeare (as I did afterward with Wikipedia) and get the same details I would be tempted to call spoilers. Shakespeare biographies give his wife’s name as Anne, though some also give Agnes. They seem to be another set of interchangeable names. After the first child come twins Judith and Hamnet. When Will is not in London he is shown to be deeply in love with Agnes and the children and involved in raising them. Then, at age 11, Hamnet dies at a time when Will is away. When he does appear Agnes is furious at him for not being there. He soon leaves again for London. That is where he begins to deal with his grief and channel it into the play Hamlet. When Agnes learns of it she and her brother go to London for the premier. The main floor is for standing with the crowd up against the front of the stage. Agnes and her brother push through the crowd to the stage. It seems the actor playing Hamlet is the grown up version of her lost son. This is a great movie and I highly recommend it, especially if you’re a Shakespeare fan. All the major roles were finely acted, including the boy who played Hamnet. He did an amazing job. In the credits I got a glimpse on why Agnes would see Hamlet as the reincarnated Hamnet and in IMDb when I got home I got the confirmation. The boy Hamnet was played by Jacobi Jupe and the character Hamlet was played by older brother Noah Jupe. Before this film both had acting credits. Well. A second movie this week. I saw it in a movie theater on the big screen because it would leave before Christmas day. The movie was Merrily We Roll Along. I arrived slightly after the stated start time because at the start time for Hamnet I sat through 30 minutes of commercials and previews (previews are good, commercials not). But as I got there some sort of recorded jazz combo ended and the show began without opening credits (such as show title). This seemed like a show beginning, so I don’t think I missed anything important. I’m still puzzled why there were no previews. This is a Stephen Sondheim musical. It appeared on Broadway originally in 1981 and didn’t last long. There were a few more productions, including in London’s West End, over the years. In 2023 it was revived on Broadway and was quite a success. What I saw was a filming of the stage production. We even hear audience laughing and applause. There are announcements that Richard Linklater is working on a film adaptation. Since the story takes place over 20 years he is partway through filming it over 20 years, like he did for his movie Boyhood. The story is about song composer Frank (played by Jonathan Groff) and his long-term friends lyricist Charley (Daniel Radcliffe) and author and critic Mary (Lindsay Mendez). The story opens in 1976 as Frank is being praised at a party on the success of his new film. But all is not well in Tinseltown as Frank is also denounced for pursuing fame and money over friends and family. From there each scene goes back a few more years and explains how we got to the scene we just saw. In 1973 in a live TV interview Charley explains how he and Frank work, but that work relationship isn’t going well. It’s a fun little song but it ends the friendship. Other scenes show the success of Frank’s and Charley’s first hit in 1965. Their nightclub act in 1960 with Frank’s wife Beth (much to Mary’s annoyance), which a Broadway producer sees. And on back to 1957, when they’re barely 20 and when their friendship and partnership begin in youthful idealism. Along the way we see Frank’s messy relationships. Though being limited to the stage seems a bit confining, overall it works well. All of the major actors do a fine job – Groff and Radcliffe won Tony awards and Mendez was nominated. Groff and Mendez sing quite well and Radcliffe sings well enough. I enjoyed it and recommend it, especially to fans of theater. NPR airs a conversation from StoryCorps every Friday morning. This past week the conversation came from siblings Terri Van Keuren, Rick Shoup, and Pam Farrel discussing the famous thing their father Col. Harry Shoup is known for. Back in 1955, during the Cold War, the Colonel worked at the Continental Air Defense Command, now known as NORAD, and had on his desk the secret red hotline phone. An advertisement by Sears told children they could call a number and speak to Santa. But the number they listed was a misprint – it was the number for the secret hotline. At first Shoup thought it was a prank, but then realized he was talking to a child and had better play along. Soon he assigned a couple more airmen to handle the calls and pretend to be Santa. A few days later on Christmas Eve some airmen, as a joke, put Santa and his sleigh on their big airplane tracking map. Shoup called the local radio station with the “sighting.” And that’s how NORAD’s annual Santa Tracker got started. It was the thing Shoup was proudest of. One can still call (but not to the secret line) or go to a website and get an update on where Santa is. In Sunday’s pundit roundup for Daily Kos Chitown Kev quoted Adam Downer of The Daily Beast. My summary: Reps. Ro Khanna (D) and Thomas Massie (R) were the ones who worked the Epstein Transparency Act through the House. All of the Epstein materials were supposed to be released by Saturday – some were and many more were not. So Khanna and Massie are considering drafting a charge of inherent contempt and maybe even articles of impeachment against AG Pam Bondi. They say Bondi might be surprised at how many Republicans vote for either. Mitch Jackson, writing for his Uncensored Objection. Cross-examining political BS Substack, gave some explanation.

What do we do when the officials in charge of justice break the law? Do we throw up our hands and accept it? No. This is where we draw the line. I am a trial lawyer with more than three decades of litigation experience, and I have spent my career watching what happens when powerful people think rules do not apply to them. I have seen how accountability starts, how pressure builds, and how the legal system responds when the public refuses to move on. I know how to read a record, spot a stall, and map the next moves when someone tries to run out the clock. [...] Inherent Contempt: This is the most dramatic power Congress has, and it may be exactly what is needed. Inherent contempt means Congress has the ability to enforce its own orders by itself. Think of it as Congress acting as judge, jury, and enforcer when someone defies a lawful order (like a subpoena or, arguably, a statutory mandate). This power has been upheld by the Supreme Court and was used several times in the distant past. Here is how it works: Congress holds a vote to declare an official in contempt (separate from any court proceedings). After that vote, Congress’s Sergeant at Arms can literally go out and arrest the person. Yes, it sounds shocking. Under the Constitution, Congress has this authority. They could detain an official at the Capitol or another location until that official agrees to comply.

Drew DeSilver of Pew Research Center reported on how other democratic countries do redistricting, which affects gerrymandering. Some, like the US, have single-member districts where the candidate with the most votes wins all.

As a result, how single-member districts are drawn – whether they have reasonably equal populations, whether they include or exclude certain areas or discrete population groups, and so on – can dramatically affect election outcomes. Single-member districts also are especially vulnerable to gerrymandering, where boundaries are intentionally manipulated to favor one party or interest group over another. Multimember districts, by contrast, are typical of electoral systems that use proportional representation. In fact, of the 52 democracies that rely mainly on multimember districts, 42 elect all their lawmakers through some sort of proportional representation system.

Deep in the comments Karmadog posted a meme showing the nasty guy as a football coach saying, “Coach Biden lost this game!” The caption adds, “If you had just been hired as the new coach for a football team, and you blamed every loss on the previous coach, how long do you think you would last?” A meme posted by exlrrp shows how Obama decorated the Oval Office compared to how the nasty guy decorated it with gold. The captions say, “Obama: Here to serve the people. Trump: Here to serve the rich – including himself. Not complicated. Staring us right in the face.” Another meme posted by exlrrp:

I’m voting for the first Democratic presidential candidate who: 1. Promises to bulldoze Trump’s golden ballroom. 2. Vows to put Ghislaine Maxwell in a real prison. 3. Guarantees a criminal investigation into every member of the Trump cabinet.

A meme by Kerry Kennedy commenting on the nasty guy’s name on the side of the Kennedy Center.

Three years and one month from today, I’m going to grab a pickax and pull those letters off that building, but I’m going to need help holding the ladder. Are you in? Applying for my carpenter’s card today, so it’ll be a union job.

A cartoon by Dave Blazek shows Harry the halogen-nosed reindeer, blinding the elves. A cartoon posted by paulpro and I think created by Toruand Midon shows Santa at the window with two girls inside looking a bit afraid. The caption:

He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. He’s already cut the phone lines. There’s really is no escape. Merry Christmas.

In the comments of Monday’s roundup paulpro posted a cartoon by Barry Deutsch titled “A concise history of black-white relations in the USA.” It shows a white guy reaching a high ledge on the back of a black guy in chains. As the white guy is able to get on the ledge the black guy has had enough and casts the chains off. The dialog after that:

White guy: I’m real sorry about being racist before. I know better now. Black guy: Swell give me a hand up, willya? White Guy: Of course not! That would be reverse racism. Look, if I got up here by myself, why can’t you?

Another cartoon posted by paulpro is by Monsell. Similar to A Christmas Carol the nasty guy is haunted by Abraham Lincoln. Kyle Bravo posted a cartoon showing the barn where Joseph and Mary are allowed to stay, yet Joseph is at the back door of the inn saying, “I’d like to speak to your manger manager.” In Tuesday’s roundup Kev quoted Howard French of Foreign Policy magazine discussing national security.

Make no mistake: The White House’s new strategy document is a blueprint to engineer the demise of the West—or at least, what the world has understood by that term since World War II, starting with a closely knit set of shared interests between Europe and the United States. The Trump scenario for this involves dark fantasies about the creeping takeover of nominally white societies by peoples of color—the Black, brown, and yellow hordes that haunted a bygone era’s genre of fevered white panic writing.

The implication is that Europe is being overrun by nonwhite people and because of that the nasty guy can no longer be an ally of Europe. Back to French:

Another way of saying this is that remaining committed to whiteness is a condition, in Trump’s eyes, of continuing to be worthy of that long ubiquitous and unquestioned sobriquet, “the West.” As disturbing as the U.S. government’s obsession with whiteness is, it would be wrong to imagine that the Trump administration’s policy is even remotely coherent. Trump’s warning that Europe risks losing its identity, principally due to the in-migration of nonwhite peoples, contains a logical flaw so glaring that it suggests that what is at stake isn’t entirely about race but, at bottom, something else that is arguably even more threatening.

Alas, that’s where the quote ends. In the comments a cartoon by Toonerman commenting on the many redactions in the Epstein files.

What the Hell! I don’t care whose names are under all the black in on the Epstein Files. I don’t care if it’s Democrats or a celebrity I like or even one of my sons. No one should be above the law. Not for POTUS’s, not current POTUS’s, Prince’s or Movie Moguls or Billionaires... Stop protecting pedophiles Republicons!

Mikemomo posted a cartoon by Bill Bramhall. Because of rising heating costs a family is delighted all the stockings are filled with coal. Kyle Bravo posted a cartoon by Harriet Burbeck showing an astronaut outside the Space Station, saying, “The problem with space is that no one here is impressed that I am an astronaut.” In Wednesday’s roundup Greg Dworkin quoted David Schuster of Blue Amp. He first lists the sycophants who make up the Kennedy Center board who approved adding his name to the building, then he wrote:

This is a lunatic Trump group that has long mistaken obedience for patriotism and vanity for legacy. Their logic is clear: if something exists, is admired, and does not already bear Trump’s name, then clearly an injustice has occurred. Correct it at once.

Liberal Jane posted a cartoon of two adults, one male (the shirt says “#1 Dad!”) and the other of indeterminate gender. That one is holding a child. Together they say, “Parenting has no gender.” Michael Potter posted a cartoon by Lalo Alcaraz showing two old men on a bench:

First: What are you getting for Christmas? Second: Older. First: Me too. I get the same thing every year. Second: I can tell. I hate the no-returns policy.

In the comments of today’s roundup Potter posted another cartoon by Alcaraz. It shows Mary and Jesus as Joseph accosts an approaching ICE agent, “Do you have a signed warrant??!!” The agent replies, “Come on. Let me in. I bring exotic spices like pepper spray and treasures like zip ties.” Alt National Park Service posted a cartoon by Stines. It shows Santa and Mrs. Clause at a very small North Pole ice floe and just across the water is a power plant belching smoke. Santa says, “Maybe I should’ve been giving all the naughty kids solar panels instead of coal.” Chris Williams posted a cartoon showing Mary and Joseph stopped by protesters with signs “No hotels for migrants. Stop the donkeys. We’re full.” Mary says, “What do they expect us to do? ... Sleep in a barn or something?”

Why is cruelty not a disadvantage, but an allure?

In the 7 stories to know post from last week Mark Sumner of Daily Kos included a video by a historian (I didn’t catch the name). The video posed and answered a question: If the Romans in Britain had such sophisticated culture, why was Britain after Rome departed so unsophisticated? Why did this Britain have huts and not villas, chamber pots instead of good sanitation? The time period of this discussion is about 410 CE to about 1066 CE. Before then many residents did live in huts. Only the rich lived in villas. Huts tend not to last a thousand years. Consider what happened when the Romans withdrew. Lots of groups then competed to be the ruling class, so the locals experienced almost constant war. That meant most effort in the society went towards basics like farming and pottery. There was little need for poets. Most documents were in Latin and those who could read and teach Latin were either only in the church or were gone. Trade links were severed. Craftsmen who relied on exports now only had local sales, so they became scarce and their knowledge lost. With such a large need for farming London was mostly deserted for a few hundred years. There was no need to build big monumental buildings. I finished episodes 5 and 6, which is the last of Absolute Beginners. This is the story of Lena and Niko and their parents at a resort on the Polish coast. Lena and Niko are making a movie to get into film school. The rest of my discussion should be seen as spoilers of earlier episodes. So if you haven’t and want to see them, jump to the next section of this post. The end of episode 4 was filming the sex scene Lena thought was vital to their movie. It got rather steamy between Igor and Niko. Now Igor doesn’t want the scene to be used. So Lena and Niko have to figure out how to convince him to let them use it or figure out how to recut the film without it. In the meantime Igor, who was there for a basketball camp, is preparing for the big game. His coach takes him to meet a scout – who starts by saying the many ways life on even a low level pro team will be hard. No sleeping in, up every day at 5! As Niko’s parents’ marriage continues to fall apart Niko realizes this is the end of their time in the cottage jointly owned by them and by Lena’s parents. Niko is saying goodbye to childhood. Episode 6 includes Igor’s big game and whether Lena gets into film school. Alas, there is little room to explore the new relationship between Igor and Niko. There isn’t much beyond big smiles. Overall, I enjoyed the six episodes. It is more unusual than the typical coming of age, first love, and discovering your orientation movie. I finished the book Tyrant, Shakespeare on Politics by Stephen Greenblatt. Several years ago I read his book The Swerve, How the World Became Modern about the shift in thinking that brought about the Enlightenment. I wrote about it back in 2012. This book looks at several of Shakespeare’s plays to understand the nature of a tyrant. He finished writing it in 2018 while the nasty guy was in the Oval Office. Back then I wrote about hearing the book described on NPR. It took a while to buy the book and a few years to get around to reading it. Greenblatt begins his discussion with:

“A king rules over willing subjects,” wrote the influential sixteenth-century Scottish scholar George Buchanan, “a tyrant over the unwilling.” The institutions of a free society are designed to ward off those who would govern, as Buchanan put it, “not for their country but for themselves, who take account not of the public interest but of their own pleasure.” Under what circumstances, Shakespeare asked himself, do such cherished institutions, seemingly deep-rooted and impregnable, suddenly prove fragile? Why do large numbers of people knowingly accept being lied to? How does a figure like Richard III or Macbeth ascend to the throne? Such a disaster, Shakespeare suggested, could not happen without widespread complicity. His plays probe the psychological mechanisms that lead a nation to abandon its ideals and even its self-interest. Why would anyone, he asked himself, be drawn to a leader manifestly unsuited to govern, someone dangerously impulsive or viciously conniving or indifferent to the truth? Why, in some circumstances, does evidence of mendacity, crudeness, or cruelty serve not as a fatal disadvantage but as an allure, attracting ardent followers? Why do otherwise proud and self-respecting people submit to the sheer effrontery of the tyrant, his sense that he can get away with saying anything he likes, his spectacular indecency? Shakespeare repeatedly depicted the tragic cost of this submission – the moral corruption, the massive waste of treasure, the loss of life – and the desperate, painful, heroic measures required to return a damaged nation to some modicum of health. Is there, the plays ask, any way to stop the slide towards lawless and arbitrary rule before it is too late, any effective means to prevent the civil catastrophe that tyranny invariably provokes?

Shakespeare could not answer these questions through discussing his current monarch, Elizabeth I, though there were troubling aspects of her reign. So he had to look at tyrants from a few to many hundred years before: Henry VI (a trilogy), Richard III, Macbeth, Leontes of The Winter’s Tale, daughters Goneril and Regan of King Lear, Saturninus of Titus Andronicus, Julius Cesar, and Coriolanus. I’m not going to discuss all of these plays – the book is worth reading and the plays themselves are worth watching or reading. Instead, I’ll mention a few things that caught my attention. The Henry VI plays are about the Duke of Somerset and the Duke of York and the struggle that became the War of the Roses. Henry is a youth who doesn’t know how to rule and the dukes step into the vacuum. These dukes are wrangling over a point of law – which law is not mentioned and doesn’t matter. The dispute needlessly escalates into war. Three plays later many are dead, much has been ruined, and another tyrant – Richard – is waiting. Greenblatt notes a few conclusions about this series of plays: + Rising chaos makes the struggle for power unpredictable. York appears to fan the chaos, yet he and his heirs die because of it. + The dream of absolute rule isn’t one person’s goal. The dream is of a dynasty. + When wanting to seize power at any cost enemies can become friends. + A legitimate, moderate leader cannot count on popular gratitude or support. The people are no longer outraged by treachery, nor do they praise virtue. + At the end of the struggle the restoration of order may be an illusion as another tyrant watches a monarch whose power has been reduced. That Richard is Richard III. He has contempt for the law, because it implies public good, and he delights in breaking it. In discussing this tyrant Greenblatt lists those who respond to him: + Those who believe Richard at face value, yet have too little power to do anything. They are merely victims. + Those who feel frightened or impotent by the bullying and violence. + Those who forget how awful the tyrant is and try to normalize his actions. + Those who believe the tyrant can’t get too out of control, that there will be enough adults in the room to keep the tyrant confined to the way things normally work. + Those who believe they can take advantage of the tyrant’s rise to power, that they can profit from his evil. They’re likely to be among the first to die. + Those who help the tyrant. Some help so that spoils come their way. Some help because they enjoy the downfall of those high in the social hierarchy. The genius of Shakespeare is these ideas are embodied into real characters. This play shows that many times a tyrant who knows how to connive to reach the top of power doesn’t know how to actually make the country run. The tragedy of Macbeth is that Macbeth is content to be loyal to the king until his wife prods him into wanting to be king. She does it by insulting his manhood. Soon he can trust no one and the outcome is madness and death. In The Winter’s Tale Leontes appears to be a legitimate and good ruler of Sicilia. He then gets into his head that the child his wife is carrying is not his. The more this notion is challenged, the more he descends into paranoia. With the powers of a king, and with no one to check him, he easily turns into a tyrant. The plot of Julius Caesar is about preventing a tyrant, Caesar, from arising. Yet the act of preventing one brings another, Antony, to power. And he is worse. Coriolanus was raised by his mother to be a warrior. Against the Volsces he does quite well. That’s enough to recommend him for a position of power, but what makes him a good warrior does not make him a good ruler. He doesn’t know how to be a politician and his attempt is a disaster. He is banished. He tries to lead the Volscians against Rome and is rebuffed. Then Volscians accuse him of treason. In this story the leaders of Rome are able to rouse the people into action and prevent a tyrant from taking over. A couple quotes from the Coda:

It was Sir Thomas More, from whom Shakespeare borrowed so much of his portrait of Richard III, who put the matter most clearly almost a hundred years earlier, “When I consider any social system that prevails in the modern world,” More wrote in Utopia, “I can’t, so help me God, see it as anything but a conspiracy of the rich.”

And...

The playwright repeatedly depicted the chaos that ensues when tyrants, who generally have no administrative competence and no vision for constructive change, actually get possession of power. Even relatively healthy and stable societies, he thought, have few resources that enable them to ward off damage from someone sufficiently ruthless and unscrupulous; nor are they well-equipped to deal effectively with legitimate rulers who begin to show signs of unstable and irrational behavior.

This is a good book. The author explains his ideas quite well. The nasty guy isn’t mentioned, but is always in the background. I don’t think I’ve ever discussed two books in the same post. I’m doing it now because I happened to finish the book I keep in my car (above) about the same time I finished the book I read in the house. This book is Alabama Grandson, A Black, Gay Minister’s Passage Out of Hiding by Cedrick Bridgeforth. I had heard Bishop Bridgeforth speak at the Reconciling Ministries Convo last October and was impressed by his message. That prompted me to buy the book. I was a bit confused towards the end because he is offered a chance to be bishop in 2016 and turned it down. Some online looking showed he was offered it again in 2022 and accepted. This was less than a year after the book was published. Yes, he’s a United Methodist bishop. And he’s gay and married. Which, until this year, was something that could result in a trial and removal from being a pastor. But by 2022 much of the American denomination was ignoring the prohibitions against gay clergy and there was already a married lesbian bishop. One reason why he turned down the offer of being bishop in 2016 is a complaint was filed against him, accusing him of being in a same-sex marriage, which was against denomination rules. He felt he couldn’t both fight the charge and be elevated to bishop. He also felt the time was not right. The book begins with the first part of what happened in 2016. Then it goes back to his childhood to tell his life story. The title is because he starts and ends the book with letters to his deceased grandmother. He tells her how much he loved her and that he knew how much she loved him. But he never trusted her enough to show her all of himself, to say he is gay. When young he describes some of the risky and legally dubious things he got into. He later realizes he did them because he was so conflicted about being gay and about who his father is – he had long noted he looked distinctly different than his siblings. He served in the Air Force while Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was still in effect. He didn’t fly planes, but did help monitor the nuclear arsenal near Cheyenne. It was his supervisor who guided him to the local gay hangouts. He had a long relationship with another airman, then another with the pastor of the church he attended, which stopped when the pastor announced he would soon marry a woman. Before and after the Air Force he mentions some of his boyfriends, though by first name only. He does not mention the guy he eventually married, which I thought odd, though he likely wants to protect his privacy. He mentions the various jobs he had, from high school onward, to show how he got involved in church work and eventually into being a pastor. His story is a good one and I enjoyed reading it. However, I felt he left important things out. His marriage is one of those. Another is whether he grew up in the United Methodist Church and if not, what prompted him to join it. Also, I sometimes got lost in his timeline. He sometimes jumps ahead to show the consequence of an event and doesn’t always say that’s what he’s doing. An Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos includes:

The median pay package for CEOs rose to $16.3 million, up 12.6%, according to data analyzed for The Associated Press by Equilar. Meanwhile, wages and benefits netted by private-sector workers rose 4.1% through 2023. At half the companies in this year’s pay survey, it would take the worker at the middle of the company’s pay scale almost 200 years to make what their CEO did. ... The gap between the person in the corner office and everyone else keeps getting wider. Half the CEOs in this year’s pay survey made at least 196 times what their median employee earned. That’s up from 185 times in last year’s survey. ... The disparity between what the chief executive makes and the workers earn wasn't always so wide. After World War II and up until the 1980s, CEOs of large publicly traded companies made about 40 to 50 times the average worker’s pay, said Brandon Rees, deputy director of corporations and capital markets for the AFL-CIO, which runs an Executive Paywatch website that tracks CEO pay. “The (current) pay ratio signals a sort of a winner-take-all culture, that companies are treating their CEOs as, you know, as superstars as opposed to, team players,” Rees said.

What happened in the 1980s that prompted the big rise is CEO pay? The Reagan tax cuts for the rich. Mark Sumner of Kos wrote that this year Republicans are tending to run congressional candidates with immense personal wealth. In one sense that’s good because the Republican National Committee won’t be giving them much money because so much is funneled to the nasty guy. In contrast Democrats believe self-funded candidates aren’t good because it prevents them from raising money, also known as actually meeting constituents. Self-funded Republican candidates can meet the real Republican base just fine – the billionaires are hanging out with Elon Musk or at Mar-a-Lago. These are people who don’t like democracy. They also don’t like Biden’s proposed wealth tax and want a continuation of the nasty guy’s tax cuts and efforts to cut consumer protections. So this will be an election between the billionaires and everyone else. Marcus Baram, in a post for Capital & Main posted on Kos, reported the Kansas legislature is considering a bill to give rich people a tax cut. This is after the “Brownback experiment” of 2012-2013 in which Gov. Sam Brownback cut taxes for the rich, decimating the state budget and leading to massive cuts in education and vital services, such as road repair and Medicaid. It also hurt the economy. The same people, led by Charles Koch, who pushed for the tax cut in 2012 are behind this effort. Trickle-down economics is back. Thankfully, Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly has said she would veto the effort. In response Republicans said she is “being a bit of a dictator.” They’re also describing the tax bill as tax relief for 3 million people, when it is a tax cut only for those at the top. I checked – the population of Kansas is about 3 million. In Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves has already pushed two big income tax cuts. He’s now pushing to eliminate the personal income tax and replace it with a regressive consumption tax. Alas, residents aren’t good at connecting tax cuts that benefit them a bit but mostly benefit the rich with the decline of public education. Also in Kansas... Another AP article reported the Kansas Supreme Court found that voting is not a fundamental right in the state Constitution’s Bill of Rights. The lawsuit was over a ballot signature verification measure in the 2021 election law. The decision could embolden state lawmakers to enact more restrictions on such things as advance voting, mail-in ballots, and drop boxes. Voters are already confused because of the rules around elections keep changing. Southern Sister Resister posted a photo of what looks like a church sign. It says:

The Church of the Latter-Day Dude Evangelicals, God here. The voice calling DJT ‘The Chosen one’ isn’t Me. Take your meds.

We have 3 choices: adaptation, mitigation, and suffering

I finished the book Brave Face, How I Survived Growing Up, Coming Out, and Depression, a memoir by Shaun David Hutchinson. The most important word in that title is the last one. The title doesn’t say it, neither does the blurb on the back, but before one gets to the story there is a content warning that the story includes self harm and attempted suicide with contact info for lifeline services. The book came out before the national 988 crisis line was created. If you are in crisis or have thoughts of suicide call or text those three digits. The story begins in 1992 when Shaun is entering high school. The main story ends in 1998. This was the time of AIDS, the Defense of Marriage Act, and the military Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. As Shaun comes to realize he is gay he sees nothing good in the way society treats gay people. He figures by the time he’s an adult he’ll be lonely, sick, addicted, or dead. Behind that sour view of the world is undiagnosed chronic depression. That’s what leads to the self harm and the suicide attempt. It’s also the voice in his head that insists he’s not good enough for the good lovers and that he deserves the ones using him. That attempt is what gets him the help he needs, though in the care facility he’s in for recovery he’s very good at telling doctors what they want to hear. Later on the help guides him to understand a few things. He’s not depressed because he’s gay – he’s depressed and needed treatment for that. He learns the voice in his head is a liar. He knows that it’s OK to ask for help. He doesn’t have to do life alone. At times I wondered why his mother didn’t recognize his depression and self harm and get him in for treatment. Did she not see his mood and his injuries? Was he quite good at hiding both? Did they not have that good of a relationship? From the story I don’t get a sense of which it is, though when he’s in the hospital his mother is by his side almost instantaneously. Laura Clawson of Daily Kos wrote about the Republican reaction to their loss in Ohio over their attempt to limit state constitutional amendments. They say they didn’t have enough time – but they knew it would be on the ballot before their opponents did. They say the opposition had lots of out of state donations – so did they. They say not enough Republican voters supported it – sheesh, we’re talking about taking rights away and even many Republicans object to that. This attempt to restrict amendments won’t block the abortion rights amendment on the ballot this fall (nor affect marijuana legalization). But next year there will likely be ballot proposals to stop gerrymandering and to raise the minimum wage. So Republicans are saying this attempt to overturn democracy will be back. An Associated Press column posted on Kos begins:

Waves of severe thunderstorms in the U.S. during the first half of this year led to $34 billion in insured losses, an unprecedented level of financial damage in such a short time, according to Swiss Re Group, as climate change contributes to the frequency and severity of violent meteorological events.

Swiss Re Group is a reinsurer, or an insurance company for insurance companies. Another thread by Climate Scientist Prof. Katherine Hayhoe. The thread begins with a cartoon of a scientist at an IPCC giving reports through the years, each one more dire. In the last one he taps the mic and asks, “Is this thing on?” The center of this thread is a chart from Climate Action Tracker. In 2022 we were at 1.2C of warming. The Paris Agreement goal is to limit warming to 1.5C. Also in the chart is that the optimistic scenario – the full implementation of all announced targets – will limit warming to 1.8C. If the targets for 2030 are hit we’ll limit warming to 2.4C. If we follow current policies we’ll limit warming to 2.7C, which is well in the orange danger zone. She included:

As John Holdren said, we have 3 choices: adaptation, mitigation, and suffering. We are already seeing so much of the latter: record-breaking temperatures, heatwaves, and fatal flooding across the globe. It's not just statistics; human lives are at stake.

Charles Jay of the Kos community reported that the Hillsborough County Public School district near Tampa Bay, Florida has decided to censor Shakespeare. Instead of the full plays the school will only teach excerpts. It is part of Florida’s crackdown of banning the teaching of anything icky. And, yes, the school district is getting a great deal of ridicule. In addition to the bans there are now videos by PragerU that show historical figures spouting racist talking points, usually not at all what that real person would have said. As for the whole effort:

Hillsborough County School Board Member Jessica Vaughn, who has been targeted by DeSantis for defeat in the 2024 election, posted a warning about efforts by the DOE and state legislature to destroy public education. “Honestly, it feels that much of this is intentional, in order to cause as much chaos in public education as possible, so that the collapse of public education is swift and the agenda of education privatization can move forward with less obstacles,” Vaughn wrote on Facebook, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

Jay then reminded us that DeathSantis is not Shakespeare’s first foe. That would have gone to the Puritans, who shut down all theaters in England in 1642. And Thomas Bowdler, from whom we get the term “bowdlerize” tried to create family friendly versions. Why? Because Shakespeare can be raunchy, all that innuendo and sexual language. A story on Finch Park noted seven of Shakespeare’s 38 plays include female characters disguising themselves as men. Two plays feature male characters disguised as women. In Shakespeare’s time adolescent boys played the female roles.

So just try to sort out the pastoral comedy “As You Like It”: A young male actor plays the role of a young woman, Rosalind, who disguises herself as a young man, Ganymede, for protection upon venturing into the forest. Ganymede runs into the man she loves, Orlando, and then poses as Rosalind so that the couple can act out their relationship. Meanwhile, a female shepherdess, Phoebe, has become smitten with Ganymede.

Hillsborough deserves all the ridicule. Shakespeare can teach us all a lot. But don’t worry about Shakespeare’s plays. They’ve been through worse and have overcome all that many times. SemDem of the Kos community wrote about another part of history that won’t be taught in Florida. It’s the history of drowned towns. SemDem gave several examples. One of them was Oscarville Georgia. In 1912 two black men were accused of rape. A white supremacist group ran every black resident, more than a thousand, out of town. The terror group then essentially stole the land and sold it to the government. The government wanted the land to create a reservoir to supply water to the growing towns nearby. We now know the area as Lake Lanier, named after a Confederate soldier. Another was Kowaliga, Alabama. John Benson, a former slave, managed to acquire a great deal of land. He added a brickyard, a sawmill, and cotton gin. A town sprang up to house the workers. His children went to college. In 1926, a hear after Benson died, the Alabama Power company completed the Martin Dam on the Tallapoosa River. It flooded the town and a nearby black township. SemDem found no record of compensation. SemDem also discussed the Central Park Reservoir in New York City, which is where Seneca Village ha d been. There’s Delta Lake, formerly Vanport, Oregon, near Portland, though the flooding was not intentional. SemDem then lists another 17 out of a total of a hundred drowned towns. When black towns were submerged the residents who became homeless were rarely adequately compensated.

The rationale behind DID [development induced displacement] has been that short-term disadvantages were outweighed by the long-term benefits. However, the long-term advantages have predominantly favored white individuals. This is a hidden but integral part of the United States' complex and unsettling history, which cannot be disregarded. Hiding our history doesn’t ease racial strife, but learning about it can start to fix the problems of the past and the present. I only wish Florida lawmakers had the ability to learn from history instead of always trying to hide it.

In the town where I grew up there is a community swimming pool. We went a few times each summer. I and my siblings had swimming lessons there. I’m sure I dove (jumped?) off the low diving board. I don’t remember if I was ever brave enough to jump off the high one – probably not. When my oldest brother was in high school he worked for a while as a lifeguard there. But there is a decline in investment in public pools, reported Clawson. Some conservative pundits see progressive calls for public pools and blather against the “next entitlement program.” Clawson first discussed the racist history of public pools. In the mid 20th century when cities tried to integrate pools there was frequently violence by white people. Or the white clientele stayed away, leading to economic troubles for the pool. Or cities closed the pools to avoid integration. And swimming became private. “When rich people have access to something privately, public investment in it plummets.” Public pools matter because drowning is a leading cause of death of children. Black youth are three times more likely to drown than white kids. 80% of drowning victims are male. The disparities are because they had nowhere safe to learn to swim. And when the weather is hot people go to the water, even if they don’t know how to swim. There is no place to learn when public pools close and private pools are not affordable.

Prince Hal

My Sunday movie yesterday was My Own Private Idaho, a 1991 movie starring River Phoenix as Mike and Keanu Reeves as Scott and directed by Gus Van Sant. Mike and Scott are part of a group of young men who work as hustlers – sex for money. Some of them talk about getting caught in bad situations. Their clients are mostly men. Mike has narcolepsy, meaning he passes out in stressful situations. Scott is the son of the city’s mayor, one that is highly connected. Dad is annoyed that Son appears to be squandering his life. For now, Son is rejecting all that Dad offers. Mike and Scott have been friends for a few years when the story opens. Though Scott frequently quoted Shakespeare, it was only towards the end that I realized Scott’s character is modeled on Prince Hal of Henry IV and V. There is even a Falstaff character. Reading about the movie later confirmed my guess. For part of the movie Mike and Scott head out together trying to find Mike’s mother. Part of that trip is to Idaho. Another part is to Italy, which made me wonder: How did Mike get a passport so fast? I though this one was a bit eccentric. I enjoyed it. I checked Michigan’s COVID data from Friday: The peaks in cases per day for the last three weeks were 2283, 2903, and 3296. This is a steady rise, not one that jumps up quickly. Deaths per day during the last three weeks hit 31 once, 29 twice, and 27 once. This isn’t over. Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Daily Kos included a couple quotes of interest. In response to a tweet saying that Idaho has issued a universal DNR order, Dr. Noor Bari wrote:

Every adult diagnosed with COVID-19 in Idaho is on a universal do not resuscitate order. Every adult. Don’t try to live with the virus. Get vaccinated if you can. Wear a respirator or well fitted mask, good seal, and ventilate your workspaces/schools.

The second quote is one Dr. Bari added to the one above.

It’s also important to note that the state plan is a framework. It is meant to help hospitals make an impossible choice: decide who gets life-saving care when they don’t have enough for everyone. It is not an order for hospitals or medical workers to withhold medical care when they can adequately provide it.

A tempest in an opera house

Last night’s opera was The Tempest, story by Shakespeare, music by Thomas Adés. There is a librettist (don’t remember the name) involved because (1) to turn a play into an opera one must throw out about 2/3 of the words, (2) the words have to be singable, and (3) in this case they decided to make the love between Ferdinand and Miranda directly stated rather than implied.

Prospero was supposed to be Duke of Milan, but scheming by his brother and the King of Naples exiled Prospero to an island, where he developed some magical powers. On the island with him is Ariel, a spirit of the air, Caliban, who I think is the island’s original owner, and Prospero’s daughter Miranda. Caliban has his eyes on Miranda.

Prospero causes a tempest, a storm at sea, so that a party ship with the King of Naples, his family including son Ferdinand, Prospero’s brother, and lots of nobility is sunk. Ariel makes sure everyone gets to shore safely. Prospero does this so that he can get his revenge. His revenge, not what he expected, is … his daughter will become Queen of Naples.

As spirit of the air, Ariel was rarely on the stage, she’s usually hanging from something. Her singing was also high. Most sopranos have a few high notes at key emotional moments. Ariel’s part was all high notes through the first two acts.

The set was unusual – it portrayed the inside of a grand old opera house. In one act the backdrop is the auditorium with the footlights and prompter’s box facing the audience. In the next we see the backstage scaffolding. In the last we see a side cutaway – rows of seating rising to the right facing a stage on the left with the machinery and half a prompter’s box and with the boxes behind. I don’t remember what the director said about this being just the thing, though the composer said, oh yeah, that makes perfect sense.

I’ve mentioned the prompter’s box. It’s a small raised area in the center of the foot of the stage in opera houses. There really is a person inside ready to remind singers of what they’re supposed to be singing. As I said, in this case the box was at the back of the stage facing the audience or in a cutaway side view. And that allowed a few entrances and exits be done through the prompter’s box.

Adés is a modern composer. The opera was premiered in 2004 – this Met production was from 2012 and I saw it when it was broadcast to area movie theaters. The composer used the language of modern music. Which means there was rarely a tune and some would call the harmony “thorny.” Even so, I enjoyed it both times.

Why embrace them? Why enable?

On the NPR show Weekend Edition Saturday this morning host Scott Simon had a discussion with Stephen Greenblatt, whose book Tyrant, Shakespeare on Politics has just been published. Greenblatt worked through Shakespeare’s history and tragedy plays and studied the tyrants. He concluded a few things that carry over into today’s world. He thinks Shakespeare wrote these plays as a way to ponder some important questions. Why do people, who know the aspiring rulers are liars, impulsive, dangerous demagogues, embrace them anyway? These people are concerned with their own interests, so why are they enablers?

Once the tyrant is in power how might the people get out of the situation? Shakespeare knew it wasn’t easy, but did portray ways that might lead out. The worst way is assassination. Shakespeare also proposes speaking truth to power (usually done by women in his plays), using the vote, and insistence by ordinary politicians of observing the procedures of democracy.

This looks like a book worth reading.



Jasmin Mujanović is a political scientist with a specialty in Southeast Europe. In a Twitter thread he wrote:

The point being: enforcing the rule of law, enforcing norms, and institutional and democratic integrity is fundamentally premised on a shared social and political commitment to those principles — one that is currently absent in the US. Don’t hold your breath for Deus Ex Mueller. Or still more clearly: countries turn authoritarian and/or illiberal when a significant portion of the elite and/or public decide they are, for whatever reason, OK w non-democratic governance. It’s not a complex process. It is, actually, quite terrifying in its simplicity. And if you don’t believe folks like myself, or @SashaHemon, or @sarahkendzior, who have drawn linkages w the present moment in the US & the history of E. Europe, C. Asia etc. then please just recall the *decades* of authoritarian rule in the American South well into the 20th Cnt.