4615 Deep State v Shallow State

Typical residents of the Shallow State prepare for a shoreline picnic.

We hear all this ranting about the deep state.  What about the shallow state -- the one where you can see bottom, or at least hope to? Deep state is what Shallowers call the people who make government work, such as it occasionally does.  

Career this-es and thats abound. Career diplomats, prosecutors, teachers, sanitation workers, cops, reporters, soldiers, etc. are common in most cultures.  Grunts. Peasants. Regulars. Without these people, nothing gets done.  You can swim in the deep state and it’s deep enough to drown.  But now you can also drown in the shallow state.

The shallow state was ready to send every kid back to physical school.  The deep state opposed and won.  The shallow state wanted to cancel visas for foreign college students. The deep state opposed, along with a gaggle of college and university presidents.  A vocal minority, of course. But an influential one when they stop dithering.

Meantime, the shallow state says the deep state, and some governors are doing an about-face and moving to re-close some businesses. 

Some people in Texas, Arizona and Florida would rather drink in crowded saloons than save the lives of their friends, neighbors and children. So even officials in the low IQ states (Thank you, Jimmy Breslin) are getting the message. 

All elected politicians are fear driven.  Now, Republican governors and federal and state legislators have to decide what they fear most, trump or the voters.  It’s not a hard decision for someone whose life goal is getting either reelected or elected to the next vacant higher office.

The shallow end of this pool is where the danger lurks. Swim for your lives.

NOTES FROM ALL OVER:

(NEW YORK) -- NBC says Jimmy Fallon will soon return to the studio but there’ll be no audience.  That’s kind of the way it was when he was doing the show from home.  The audience didn’t watch then, either.

(SACRAMENTO) -- The troubled McClatchy newspaper company, one of the largest in the US, has sold itself to a hedge fund. If it passes muster with their bankruptcy judge, people who create zombies out of living news outlets will soon own papers in 30 cities, large and small. 

What is the opposite of a transfusion?

Questions:

-Anyone feeling sorry for Jeff Sessions today?

-Anyone feeling sorry for Ghislaine Maxwell?

-Anyone want a ticket to Hong Kong?

-Or Miami?

-Or Brasilia?

-Anyone still using no fee broker Robinhood?

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ® 

Any Questions?  As wesrichards@gmail.com or use the comment box below.

© WJR 2020

4614 The Test He Aced

--Who is buried in Grant’s Tomb?

--Which way is up?
--Which is heavier, a pound of steel or a pound of feathers?
--What is the difference between poetry and prose? A:  no one reads poetry. B:  More people write poems than read them. C: Most poems have a rhythm. D:  Many poems rhyme. E: All of the above. F: None of the above.
--What is 783,456 x 0?
--If all Poodles are dogs, are all dogs Poodles?
--You come down from the trump tower and you realize you forgot your watch. Would you A: go back upstairs and retrieve it? B: ask someone on the street for the time? C: use the position of the sun to approximate the time? D: Send some peasant upstairs to fetch it E: Any of the above. F: none of the above.
--Par at Mar a Largo golf course is 72. You play the course and get 112 strokes.  What would you do?  A: That’s why scorecards are written in pencil. B: It’s my damn golf course and I always score below 72, no matter my actual number of strokes? C: Say the sun was in your eyes. D: Any of the above. E: None of the above.
--Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti _____?

So, how did you do?  Are more or are you less impaired than the President of the United States? If more, get help. If not, run against him in November.

We never learned whether he “passed” the test even though he said he “aced it.” In most schools, 65 or 75% is passing.  In most psychological tests of this kind, passing is 85. Eighty five percent of 12 is 10.2.

NOTES FROM ALL OVER:

(St. LOUIS, MO) The makers of Budweiser beer have lowered prices because of the Midwest heatwave.

(PASADENA) -- Scientists at Cal Tech have determined that drinking beer can reduce your body temperature in a heatwave. But they also say drinking beer makes you thirstier.  Vodka rocks does neither, Russian Scientists say.  “Who cares?” reply American Vodka drinkers.

(NEW ROSES, PA.) -- This college town saw a sharp rise in returning students this weekend. They lined up at bars and clubs, had parties on the porches of rental houses and in general behaved like there was no virus -- or no tomorrow.

(MASSAPEQUA, NY) -- Many Long Island shopping malls have reopened.  In some there were more shoplifters than customers.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com or use the newly reopened comment box below.
© WJR 2020

4613Taxes in the Dark.

Reminder:  you have to return your returns by next Wednesday. No more virus based universal exceptions.  And just in the nick of time the Supreme Court handed trump a hollow victory.  They did this by voting on two cases.

In the first -- from the House of Representatives -- would have forced disclosure of his tax returns which he keeps under his bed in New York, evidently believing that using them as a home-based mushroom farm is better than showing them to congress.

The second case was where the hollow part comes in.  It ruled that the president is not above the law and has to send those returns to the District Attorney of New York County -- that’s Manhattan.

The DA will show them to a grand jury, and seems convinced he’ll get the indictment of the president.  But there’s a catch: grand jury testimony is secret.  So unless someone leaks the data, the mushroom farm moves down the street from Fifth Avenue to Hogan Plaza.  Hmmm. Unless someone leaks -- not entirely out of the question -- the rest of the peons like us won’t see them before election day.

Not that most of us need to at this point. Plus, there are a lot of other items in the Fifth Avenue Under-the-bed mushroom farm. Payoffs, the stiffing of contractors, and more.  Decades of growth to be harvested by the Manhattan DA.

NOTES FROM ALL OVER:

(Ft Lee NJ) -- Former Fox news anchor Shepard Smith will join CNBC, NBC’s business news channel as anchor of a 7 PM (eastern) newscast in September.

(MOUNTAIN VIEW CA) -- Google is starting what it calls a “news initiative.” It doesn’t specify an exact answer to the question “What will it do?” But supposedly it is an effort to work with journalists from all over to tell the truth.  Somehow that has a hollow ring.

(SUNNYVALE CA) -- Verizon’s Yahoo News is a legit news operation with real reporters, not just aggregators. They do live on-line TV and cover plenty else on their own. 

(SEATTLE) -- Amazon has removed Washington Redskins merchandise from its enormous inventory.  So have Wal-mart and Target.

(NEW YORK) -- Brooks Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection and will close about ten percent of its stores worldwide. The company is 202 years old, has dressed 40 or so US Presidents and made its unique “sack suit” almost universally recognizable. Thus, men could make a fashion statement by buying something already out of date when it left the factory.  But everyone who saw it knew what it was and where it came from.

Today’s Quote:

“In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.” -- Eric Hoffer, Bronx-born Longshoreman of Northern California, Presidential Medal of Freedom winner and best-selling author (1898-1983).

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2020

4612 Just Lie Back and Enjoy it

Stop watching the pot. It’ll boil. But not until you look away.

 Just Lie Back and Enjoy it.

That’s the latest from trump about the COVID thing.  To be a little more precise, the White House is telling us to “learn to live with it.” But that smacks of a sexual assault viewpoint that predates “MeToo” by decades.

You won’t read it here. But the ideas of “lying there and taking…” and “learn to live with” are giant middle fingers toward the entire country.  If trump is trying to lose the election, he’s not done yet. But this is a giant step on that path.   What’s the matter with many of the rest of us?

What trump was looking for was a way to boost the economy at the expense of lives. That might help keep his core supporters in check and enthused.  It doesn’t look like it’s going to work.

When your answer to something is akin to telling a woman to let the rapist have his way, even the worst male chauvinist will eventually get the message. 

The “president” has no friends in the halls of power, just fear-crazed cuckoos. They will turn on him at the moment he seems too weak to win. That moment is already on the front burner, though a watched pot never boils. While his robotic supporters still feast on his ravings, the people who actually make things happen are starting to turn their backs. That’s part sensible and part survivalist.

And if there’s anything more important to a politician than winning the next election, it has yet to be discovered.

NOTES FROM ALL OVER:

(SEATTLE) -- Amazon reports a “difficulty” in delivering Mary trump’s book.  Is the difficulty someone’s putting a figurative gun to some head at the publisher or at Amazon?  Is it headed for yet another court/cat fight?

(SACRAMENTO) -- The McClatchy newspaper company is nearing its Come to Jesus moment and will soon announce which shyster will own what’s been a family business since the California Gold Rush. This space puts much of the blame on formerly absentee chairman, Kevin McClatchy who recently awoke from his Rip Van Winkle slumber and moved from Sleepy Hollow to Sacramento to help decide which version of Hannibal Lecter gets to eat his company.

(ARMONKISTAN, NY) -- Our Northern Westchester correspondent reports a flock of new COVID cases following an in-person graduation ceremony at a regional high school. County officials say the infection has flattened.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Any Questions? Wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2020

4611 American Sunset

 America has shrunk more than it’s grown.  Oh, yes, our population has steadily risen, as has our landmass. Our form of government probably is the best ever, at least on paper. The question today is can we take the splinters and the mistrust and the current tribalism and turn it into something we can all live with?

Everyone looks askance at everyone else.  It’s not just whites and anyone with brown or olive skin.  It’s other whites.  And most anyone else.  That askance-itude works both ways.

Sven Olaffsen looks at Fritz Schlimmer. One of them is wearing a MAGA hat, the other a Black Lives Matter T-shirt.  No brotherhood there.

A black teenager looks at a black cop.  No brotherhood there.

Meantime in Washington, chaos.  A petrified Senate.  Petrified as in fearful.  Petrified as in unable to move.  

The Supreme Court is more interested in little laws than big ones. It’s a tool of outdated ideology held only modestly in check by four hard working progressives and when Notorious RBG retires or dies, it’s going to get worse.

And then there’s the White House.  It’s an evil version of the Keystone Kops combined with lunatic asylum escapees, headed by a man even Satan can’t abide and wrapped in a Rube Goldberg cartoon.

Then there’s the Coronavirus.  Handled ineptly, perhaps by design but more likely by blindness, ignorance and stupidity and a boxcar full of misanthropy and misogyny.  The infection toll keeps rising. The death toll keeps rising and we argue about testing, mask wearing and social distancing when the logical answers are in plain sight.

We replace science with religion. We replace reason with wish and whim. 

This is the America that celebrated July 4th, it’s 244th birthday anniversary. Can we redeem ourselves before the ability evaporates? There’s no way of telling.  We still have the means, but we may not have the will.

We were imperfect from the start. Our founding documents resulted from  compromises That’s an idea left unwritten because the framers thought it self evident.  We have lost the self evidence.

NOTES FROM ALL OVER:

(EVERYWHERE) -- Fireworks displays, however tedious and repetitive, were minimized this year. The reasons were reasonable. But they led to an increase in DIY versions which are far more dangerous to far more people than the professional versions.

(NEW YORK) -- The Macy’s fireworks show went on as planned minus most of the onlookers. This year’s was -- for a change -- neither tedious nor boring. In fact, it may have been the most elaborate show of its kind ever.

(NEW YORK) -- There usually are four days a year smart New Yorkers stay home. They are July 4th, Thanksgiving Day, the Rockefeller Center tree lighting day and New Year’s Eve.  Now, only three remain.  This is the first Independence Day in a generation when they gave the Big Show on the East and Hudson Rivers and nobody came. 

QUESTIONS:

-Who invented the question?

-What is the gender neutral word for “middleman?”

-When you switch to contact lenses, where does the gunk that always collects on your glasses go?

-Where is Abraham Lincoln when you need him?

-Why is Long Island Sound called that when most of it’s in Connecticut?

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ® 

Any Questions? Wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2020

4610 Meet Ms. Nguyen

4610 Phuc Buin Diem Nguyen

Try saying her name out loud. Yeah, sounds… um… like one of the words you can’t say on radio or in church.  Are you offended? Well, you shouldn’t be. It’s a perfectly proper Vietnamese name.

That didn’t occur to her math professor at Laney Community College in Oakland, California. He told her to “anglicize” her name, is what Matthew Hubbard did. It’s offensive to American ears, says he. Again and again.

Ms. Nguyen stood her teenage ground.  Professor Hubbard is on “administrative leave,” something that’s called the “rubber room” in some academic circles.

I ask again, are you are offended?

Many immigrant families change their names when they get here.  My father’s name was Max Rotholz. We all got changed in 1952.  Mark Richards didn’t fit him. But that was the drill. Too German? Too Jewish? 

Showbiz is filled with name changes. John Wayne was Marion Morrison.  Not much wild west swagger there.

Snoop Dog once was Calvin Broadus. A rapper named Calvin? Nah.

Mayor Bill de Blasio started life as Warren Wilhelm.

Fred Drumpf became Fred trump.

Many people with difficult to pronounce names took nicknames.  Wang Yingchi became “Angela.” And Phuc Buin Diem Nguyen took the nickname “May.”

In Vietnamese, the given name means “Happiness Blessing.” (The name Rotholz means redwood, and there are some who believe Max was as immovable as a 700-year-old Sequoia. But that’s another story for another day.)

Meantime, Ms. Nguyen tired of being called a name that means “could” or is the year’s fifth month and intimated her professor was racist.

If you’re a professor in a northern California college with a student population that’s 16% Asian, and you discriminated against Asians, it would be well known far earlier in Hubbard’s 15 year career.  He just didn’t want to have to say “Phuc” every time he called on her.’’  His request to her was and is rude and insensitive.

So, barring incident, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt on the racism thing.  But more important than that, let’s give Ms. Nguyen the right to be called by her name.

Earlier name changers or assumers of nicknames wanted to fit into their new countries.  They wanted other people to pronounce their names more easily.  

We’re less into that kind of change these days.

NOTES FROM ALL OVER

(MOSCOW) -- Vladimir Putin has weaseled himself a constitutional change that will leave him in power until 2036 when he’ll turn 84. Voter turnout was 87%. Stalin scored higher.

(MARICOPA COUNTY AZ) -- Rep. Andy Biggs wants the White House to disband its COVID 19 task force. Biggs chairman of the Republican “Freedom” Caucus. His home district, the 5th CD has one of the highest COVID counts in the country.

(ACROSS THE US) -- Tomorrow, July 4th is America’s 244th birthday. We’ll have some observations Monday 7/6 after we see how the country celebrates.  Maybe “observes” would be a better word.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2020

4609 Do We Really Need Another trump Book?

 

Is this where they gathered and contracted to keep each other silent?

It’s called “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.”  It’s by the daughter of the president’s elder brother, Fred, Jr. who died in 1981 of an alcohol-related heart attack.

What would the rest of your family think if you asked them for a non-disclosure agreement? In the trump family, evidently it’s normal. The president’s brother Robert says it’s so. Or at least we can infer it.

The president’s niece Mary has written a tell all book.  The family went to court to block distribution.  Robert trump says there are things in it that would “violate a pact among family members.”

The State Supreme Court judge Hal Greenwald, sitting the thriving upstate metropolis Poughkeepsie rules that he needs until after a hearing about “the validity of the claims” on July 10th. 

Mary’s been pretty public about all this. She gave an interview to the New York Daily News 20 years ago in which she berated donald’s treatment of her father -- his brother.

When the 2016 election results came in, she tweeted “This is one of the worst nights of my life. I fear the American dream has failed.” She doesn’t tweet much these days.  But she re-tweets plenty, mostly stuff that would make most Democrats proud.

The book is to be published by Simon & Schuster, not exactly small timers.  They plan an immediate appeal.  Freedom of expression… while we still have that.

Amazon accepted a pre-order, figuring the court decision will duplicate the publication of Johnboy Bolt-on’s book, now available.

Mary trump has a Ph.D. in psychology.  That’s probably a handy degree in anyone with the name trump and also is a member of the family.

According to brother Robert the no-tell clause in a settlement of some family civil war says no member will publish anything about it unless all agree. 

So, to answer the question “Do we need another trump book?” 

Yeah.

NOTES FROM ALL OVER:

(WASHINGTON) -- For you Supreme Court watchers thinking about signing up for the John Roberts Fan Club, think again. Roberts was part of the 5-4 decision allowing states to contribute to religious schools.  The case was called Espinoza v. Montana.  Look it up. And weep.  This opens the door for further similar rules by the Supreme Open Cesspool.

(WASHINGTON) -- Dr. Fauci says under present conditions, C virus cases could top 100-thousand cases a day.  And those would be only the ones reported.

(WASHINGTON) -- Your friends at the IRS remind you that income tax returns are due July 15th.

-- Chickengate Update: the Pennsylvania town that banned a little girl’s pet chickens for no good reason and threatened $500 daily fines starting today, has backed down. Sort of. It now has suspended all the nonsense and the price of filing an appeal for four months.

Caution: Adult Content.

Today’s Quote: “College Township can go cluck themselves.” --local resident who requested anonymity because he or she could.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Any Questions?  wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2020