till minne av

 

People the world over will remember how they wept, when the awful news was relayed in Melbourne Florida Saturday, by Donald Trump, concerning the carnage that hit Sweden the night before. We will now only hear, "Bork, bork, bork" in our memories. We loved you Swedish chef.

sorry, Susan Lucci

This year the Emmy for best daytime drama performance goes to...Donald Trump.

"How about President Barack Obama's first prime time press conference last night? He was cogent, eloquent, and in complete command of the issues. I'm thinking to myself, what the hell am I supposed to do with that?”—David Letterman

The political performance of the Donald on Thursday was spellbinding. The level of unrestrained crazy was high indeed. The Trump press conference was very entertaining, it was the longest i ever listened/watched him. It was spell binding. He may have known, "I do get good ratings, you have to admit that".

Apparently Trump has "heard" all kinds of crazy. Trump says biggest enemy is the press, especially the  New York Times. A reporter, Peter Alexander, called Trump on his [repeated] electoral vote brag, "biggest electoral college win since Ronald Reagan". Then Trump said he meant by a Republican. Again he was corrected, "Why should Americans trust you when you accused the information they've received of being fake when you're providing information that's not accurate?"

    Electoral votes 2008 Barack Obama 365
    Electoral votes 2012 Barack Obama 332
    Electoral votes 2016 Donald Trump  304
    Electoral votes 1988 George Bush I  426

The Donald has been on a verbal spree about "fake news" and the "lying press", and many of his followers eagerly agree and applaud that marvelous he. This penchant to label and denigrate a free press has been done before. In 1930s Germany the term was 'Lügenpresse', first it was targeted at the domestic press, but after a while there was no domestic press that was allowed or bold enough to "lie", and the target was the foreign press, such as the New York Times and the BBC.

Plutarch wrote Parallel Lives, a group of biographies pairing a Greek and a Roman with common virtues and vices. Lives and times have similarities. Plutarch was born in the first generation after Jesus. His writing and examination techniques are still applicable. Fascism did not die with Mussolini, and Hitler, and their followers. It is alive. One fascist technique is to demand the destruction of their opponents, because they are opponents. We saw this in Cleveland last summer, where Lt. Gen Michael Flynn got the crowd chanting the demand "Lock her up", and it was repeated throughout the campaign. That was not the only instance. Read some of the life of Dr. Joseph Goebbels, and see how his method is still current.

Antebellum politics is considered as another age of US politics. Some historians argue that the presidents immediately before Lincoln were great failures because they did not hold the Union together, and the South then seceded, and war commenced. But after that cataclysm, it has already become a consensus that george bush jr, has been the worst president. Now, he is beginning to have competition. I almost hazard to guess what will happen. The Republican Party being what it is, has consistently, invariably, put party over country. Both houses of Congress are in their control. There are now eight Supreme Court justices, three are Democrats (the women). Republicans have no problem with a Republican being treasonous, or insane. Gerald Ford once said, "An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of  Representatives considers it to be". ....and President Pence will be no penny bargain either. The next election is 2018, could enough seats in Congress go to the Democracy?

no thanksgiving

"It's rigged", was a continual cry of Trump. He threatened not to accept the results if he lost. The election happened, Hillary Clinton received more votes, Trump won. Yes, it was rigged by the electoral college, a non-democratic constitutional creation. Russian computer vandals aided Trump's campaign. The coup de grâce was FBI director James Comey creating a scandal out of nothing directed at Hillary Clinton. There has been no great cry that the Russians were involved. It is reported, that, Trump believed on election night he was to lose.

Trump is a fascist buffoon, a man of malignant narcissism. He must win every point, or becomes unhinged. He wants to be fêted. His people begged for top flight entertainers for his inauguration; they could not even get deep into the country-western types that overlap with his voter base. All they could get was Toby Keith, Lee Greenwood, and a one hit wonder rock band from Mississippi. Then Trump, realising he lost the popular vote by nearly three million, invented a voter fraud scheme which no one has even shown invented evidence.

But he did become president. His cabinet picks are deplorables. Some individuals, such as Pruitt for Environmental Protection are enemies to their assigned realms; Puzder is the anti-thesis of a friend to the working man. Trump's choice for Labor, Puzder, shows an extreme class hatred. Trump's White House advisors are extreme liars, and Bannon is a prominent fascist.

As soon as Trump was ensconced in office, the memory hole became active. Websites were made to hold the new party line. Science was going to be nullified. Resistance did come, and from who? From park rangers. They began alternative government twitter accounts where accurate and truthful statements would be posted, and with this followed parody sites. Parody, and sarcasm were the vehicles to present truth to the public. Trump made twitter a conduit to directly subvert the press, so as to get his version unblocked by probing questions of reality. Twitter (a social electronic media similar to telegraphy) was also available to the public to tweet back.

Part of Trump's anger at the National Parks was that they did not provide propaganda for his inaugural crowd numbers. Trump's crowd was a small fraction of Obama's; and the next day the Washington Women's March exceeded his inaugural, and there were such marches across the US and elsewhere.

I was deeply depressed the day [November 9th] after the election. I had watched the returns the night before. I fully expected a Democratic victory. I had champagne, i would need it anyway. I saw Florida fall, and got worse. It was if i was hit full on in the chest. I was going to post my thoughts then, but couldn't; and then, as the title suggests, a few weeks later, and still could not. I was right when i thought the Republican Party would be split with the teabaggers, but it was not a break. The teabaggers got Trump, and Trump absorbed the rest of the party. Now, i am chastened, the future is not mine to predict.

To-day, General Flynn resigned as National Security Advisor since the evidence is overwhelming he is the third Trumpster (Paul Manafort, Carter Page) compromised by the Russians. Hillary Clinton was right again, Trump is Putin's puppet. Gerald Ford once said, "An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be". Dan Rather, to-day, likened the current news having similarity to Watergate. 

photographs of abandoned places #14

 Cleveland Lake Shore Power Plant

 

 most of what remains of the original building is the wall facing Erie

  fly ash silo

One hundred years is an age, in America, where a building is way olde. What used to be Cleveland Electrical Illuminating Co., had built a coal burning power plant on the (then) edge of town on the lake shore in 1911. Since then a freeway has been built between. These fotos were taken to-day. The boilers were shut down in April 2015. It had been announced years earlier, that this plant in Cleveland, the ones in Ashtabula, and Eastlake were not going to be upgraded.  This property is 57 acres, and may be valuable.

6800 South Marginal Rd., Cleveland, OH 44103
256 MW (Megawatts)
active 1911-2015
demolition near completion

Bishop sliced

On a Saturday afternoon last month, driving about i went to see if St. Peter Lakewood Episcopal was open, they have interesting stained glass there. I caught the sextant before he left, and he was very talkative and gave me an anniversary book of the parish.

Supra, is a window of William Laud who was archbishop of Canterbury under Charles I, both whom Oliver Cromwell's party thought best to separate their heads from their bodies; such were the Separatists and Puritans in the Church of England. Laud supported scholarship (and suspected of having Catholic leanings in the pre-high church age), the glass shows him holding a parchment scroll and a quill pen; although it looks like he is preparing to slice a sausage.

There are still interesting windows hiding near me. It is always interesting to see new windows, and especially new subjects.

Astronomy versus Astrology

 

star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud.[ESA/Hubble]

Let us consider the stars. There is two ways of understanding their actions: one is astronomy, another is astrology. Some people believe in the one and some in the other. Astronomy enjoys the scientific method, facts are observed, and ideas are tested. People who believe in astrology are not convinced about this. They defend their beliefs (and although it is possible for them to finally follow the light, and see that astrology is superstitious nonsense, and a fraud; it will be a drawn out process). So, when some people say there are two ways to see something, well yeah, but one is true, and one is bullshit. I am a d/Democrat, and i believe in astronomy.

Twitter is Samizdat

In living memory, half of Europe was under totalitarian communist regimes. Russia was the largest. Writers had to be very careful. Underground information networks were established, 'samizdat' means self-published; well it was distributed by typed copies, carbon copies. Technology has changed. To-day in America, a special 'advisor' to the current president, Steve Bannon has attacked and threatened the press. Orders have been given to certain government agencies not to speak. Another 'advisor' to the current president, Kellyanne Conway, has insisted that 'alternative facts' are necessary for the regime to get its message out. Bannon, Conway, and Trump are all vindictive. So we have government employees creating twitter accounts, that act as shadow government agencies to speak the truth. Trump does not believe in news conferences, he tweets his messages to the public, and the press relays them. So, twitter has become the new samizdat, Trump tweets ukazes (edicts), but it may be the case:  that, you live by the tweet, you die by the tweet.

Saturday in January, not this Saturday

Lakewood Park 21 January 2017 63°F

Last Saturday was a record breaking day for high temperature.  To-day is an average January Saturday. The last one was better.

What Is Truth?

 

Nikolaj Nikolajevič Ge. Что есть Истина, Христос и Пилат. 1890. Moscow.

  What Is Truth, Christ and Pilate

"Quid est veritas (What is truth)?", Pilate dismissively mocks Jesus. Pilate is the Procurator of Judea, a political governor. Pilate has no concern, nor respect for the concept of truth. It is only words. Some speculate Pilate expressed a philosophical curiosity in this query. No, i have found when one brings up an ethical point to someone whom has no moral qualms (goal oriented) they dismiss (either derisively or nonchalantly) the silly thought, and treat the person a fool, or a joker.

John xviii.—37 Pilate therefore said to him: Art thou a king then? Jesus answered: Thou sayest that I am a king. For this was I born, and for this came I into the world; that I should give testimony to the truth. Every one that is of the truth, heareth my voice. 38 Pilate saith to him: What is truth? And when he said this, he went out again to the Jews, and saith to them: I find no cause in him.

Alternate attendances

I have seen a few real news pieces to-day concerning the chief mouthpiece for the Donald, She-Goebbels Conway, a hatchet faced crone that will always attempt to manipulate reality to make the Donald look good. Well, Trumpy's Whiter House press secretary, Propaganda Spice lied about attendance at the inauguration. The lies were so egregious, so obvious, and so vehement that Chuck Todd [NBC] challenged Kellyanne Conway's defense of Sean Spicer. Conway said he offered 'alternative facts'. There is no such thing. There is only alternative realities in fiction. It is already fully evident that this presidency is thoroughly founded on lies. As Solzhenitsyn taught us in his Nobel speech, lies are violent: "Let us not forget that violence does not and cannot flourish by itself; it is inevitably intertwined with LYING. ...Whoever has once announced violence as his METHOD must inexorably choose lying as his PRINCIPLE. ...usually it demands of its victims only allegiance to the lie, only complicity in the lie."

The Republicans have long followed the principle enunciated by Göbbels: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” — Dr. Joseph Göbbels

But many people know this, one Star Trek episode filmed a version of an episode in Orwell's 1984 [see and click]