Taking Care of the Poor, San Francisco Style, 2021
There is something humanly disturbing and wrong about how we have decided to NOT handle poor homeless people in need. Here's what I saw on Castro Street last week.
Repeating Today’s Big Lie,
or Defending Sessions’ and Trump’s Policy Separating Families
This week's uproar on separating children from their asylum-seeking parents unpleasantly confirms how far apart on basic morality we are in this country. To me, my Trump-approving friends ignore the imperative of the urgent human needs of the asylum seekers and their young children. Instead, they cite instances where Democrats years ago may have broken up families of asylum seekers. They mention that the government imprisons criminals with young children, thereby breaking up those families, so Trump's policies aren't new. It's great misdirection. First, even if the statements were accurate, the comments simply make the argument that two (or three [...]
Rock Hudson Died of Alzheimer’s
In a wildly incorrect statement, Hillary Clinton yesterday praised Nancy Reagan and her husband, President Ronald Reagan, for helping America de-stigmatize AIDS and its victims. In an MSNBC interview, Clinton expressed appreciation to the Reagans: "It may be hard for your viewers to remember how difficult it was for people to talk about HIV/AIDS in the 1980s," Clinton said. "And because of both President and Mrs. Reagan -- in particular Mrs. Reagan --we started a national conversation." The fact is that the Reagans were not helpful in starting a national conversation. They were completely closed-mouth and unhelpful, even when their supposedly close friend from [...]
What Is the Motive of the Roseburg Shooter?
Seriously? A motive? The media demand to know why this murderer shot his arsenal in the classroom. They badger the police and interview professional television interviewees about what set off the shooting. Every mass shooting plays out with similar, pointless questions. The shooter is crazy. Do we need to "understand" his psychotic delusions? Can we possibly follow the logic he used as he plotted mass murder? We Normals crave the ability to understand the psychotic's mental process, presumably so we could argue with and save the next delusional man bent on exterminating random people around him. But, trying to translate crazy thought into [...]
How to Increase the Power of Special Interests
Simplistic, Feel-Good Stupidity as Posted on Facebook This Facebook sets me off. It's pathetically simplistic. And supremely stupid. How has the panacea of term limits worked for, say..., California? The state legislature is at least as partisan and divided as Congress. Special interest-written bills pass routinely, and long-term needs of the state would not even be mentioned if it wasn't for the long-lived, political hack and four-term governor, Jerry Brown. Term limits have destroyed the ability for legislators of both parties to get to know each other, to learn what really matters to people on the other side [...]
Don’t Make Me Go to the Mall
Damn it! The latest PR stunt by self-righteous terrorists is annoying. The threat by al-Shabaab to attack the Mall of America and the piling on by other groups suggesting that there could be attacks at other American malls makes me feel like I need to go shopping. Understand, I severely dislike going to Stonestown Mall and other local similarly crazed venues. I feel dirty wandering into the crammed-together stores that hawk mediocre-quality goods slicked up to mimic the high-end luxury items I am supposed to want. It's really not that I don't like clothes, electronic toys, and designer chocolates. Rather it's the mall [...]
Do You Want to Be Self-Righteous or Effective?
Honoring the humanity of police officers as well as the civilians who have been killed by police are not mutually exclusive actions. Cue the media! Or, rather, clue in the media. While the vast majority of protesters have been creative and non-violent, some have been chanting for police to be killed. And, a lunatic used the protests as an excuse to kill two cops. While the vast majority of police officers have treated the protesters with professionalism and respect, some police union officials are employing language which is hysterical and supremely unhelpful. Politicians are using sincere fear and frustration on [...]
Brendan Eich Had to Go
Mozilla's press release announcing Brendan Eich as its CEO is gone Mozilla did good today in obtaining the resignation of its newly appointed CEO, Brendan Eich. Eich gave financial support to the anti-equality Prop 8 five years ago. His belief that is okay to deny equal legal rights to gay and lesbian people makes him someone I would not want to work for or give my money to as a business. His continued blindness in 2014 to the issue of equal rights is what made his removal from Mozilla essential. In a March 26th blog post about "Inclusiveness [...]
Giving Protest a Bad Name
photo: Gawker.comYesterday's protest against the Google bus is a very odd thing. Providing transportation to your employees without even asking for public funding strikes me as a very Good Citizen thing to do. You're taking cars off the road and providing a benefit to your employees. What's not to like? What's not to applaud? Sure, the buses use MUNI bus stops. And, I have had words with a Google driver who sat texting in a bus zone after unloading passengers when a MUNI bus was approaching. I agree that Google should carefully share the bus stops with the public busses. [...]
The Dangers of Fighting the Last War
I remember when I was an idealistic teenager studying world history in high school. I recall how all of us kept demanding that the teacher tell us how could other countries, including the United States, did nothing to stop Adolph Hitler in the early days of his reign. He clearly stepped over internationally agreed-upon boundaries: he invaded weaker countries and he murdered his own civilians. We were told that Hitler was weak when he started, but the victors of WW-I and all other nations with the power to stop Hitler turned a blind eye. Wearing of endless European wars, they [...]