Small Pond News
trying to find a unified theory and make sense about life, particles, the micro world, the quantum world and the cosmos ...
Thursday, July 14, 2022
Three Articles I Read Yesterday and How They are Connected
Sunday, July 11, 2021
Network of Mutuality
We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
Martin Luther King, Jr. from Letter from a Birmingham Jail, 4/16/63
Monday, July 5, 2021
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
There's battle lines bing drawn and nobody's right if everybody's wrong.
Paranoia strikes deep.
Into your life it will creep.
It starts when you're always afraid.
Step out of line, the man come and takes you away.
Stephen Stills From What It's Worth
Cover by Billy Porter with Stephen Stills
Look out for each other. You don't have to be right.
Thursday, January 14, 2021
Bill Maher was Right: Trump was never going to go of his own accord
If you recall my post on this blog from Oct 13, I referred to Bill Maher's often repeated statements over the course of the Trump presidency that he would never leave voluntarily. Bill was right. The ongoing drama of the past 3 months since the election proves this true. After the tragedy of last week's riot and deaths in the Capitol, the Constitution has worked though creaky and even Republicans congressmen and senators are starting to abandon him. His staff are vacating the west wing of the White House. No one tries to defend him not even his press secretary.
What did we learn from this?
- The people who work on actually administering elections at the local and state level do a great job. They are diligent, work very long tedious hours and persevere through harassment at a local level (examples in Detroit and Philadelphia) and even hold up at the state level as we saw in Georgia after the President pressured and threatened the governor and the secretary of state who are fellow Republicans.
- The courts work. In lawsuit after lawsuit challenging the election results, the state and federal courts did their duty. It didn't matter if they were Republican judges or even judges appointed by Trump himself. They followed the process and the law.
- The Congress did its duty as a whole. A majority of legislators followed the Constitution.
- Of course, we had some standouts who were craven opportunists, Cruz and Hawley stand out. But, they are just trying to appeal to the Trump base in hopes for running in 2024.
- We learned that there are a large amount of people who supported Trump. They are populists and believers in conspiracy theories. They don't know history and our laws and government. They are aggrieved and believe in a demagogue. We learned they can be violent and when in a mob, lose their minds
- Trump is a failed man and a disaster as President. Now that Twitter has abandoned him, he is the bully who has been defanged and is fading from the public consciousness.
Conspiracies
I've thought about conspiracies a great deal. I know people from my hometown who were friends, graduated from college, and hold responsible positions in their communities. I cannot explain the belief in lies. I think that regarding conspiracies, many people including me have considered their possibility. I first became aware when I was a teenager and read the novel Captains and the Kings by Taylor Caldwell. In the novel an Irish immigrant builds a fortune and becomes part of a group of wealthy industrialists and financiers who control affairs of the country. This particular story has the protagonist trying to make his son President of the US which was so similar to the story of the Kennedys and the plotting of Joseph Kennedy for his sons. Then there is the current television series the Blacklist on NBC featuring shadowy and powerful figures running the Cabal which controls the governments of the great powers.
Perhaps it comes from the realization we all have at some point that we don't understand what is going on in the world and how things come about. I think we realize there are people who are probably smarter that we are, people who have more money, and people who have better connections. All this is true. Yes, people who know each other and who have resources do have opportunities most people don't have. Yes, we are aware of the power of cliques starting in junior high school. Yes, monopolists like to keep their secrets, pricing arrangements and control intact. When you are disadvantaged or even manipulated by the system, you resent that system and justifiably so. You look for explanations but some stories are just that, stories.
This is why we need to stop bullying in junior high school, offer opportunities to the disadvantaged, bring minorities into the mainstream, and go for diversity. We need to have antitrust laws and regulators. We need fair taxes and tax enforcement. We need to stop cheaters. Truly, everyone needs a fair shake. We need to trust the government and I think we can trust that the government ran fair elections based on my first two points at the beginning of this post.
I don't believe the Democratic party with all its divisions and inability to craft a good marketing message is capable of election fraud. Those yahoos cannot conspire to save their political lives; what makes anyone think they could pull off massive voter fraud in a voting system that is totally decentralized and not leave any evidence. No conspiracy, period.
Tuesday, December 15, 2020
Electoral College Reality
Sunday, November 8, 2020
Whew! How's the Water?
I am grateful that the US Presidential election turned out the way it did. Nina and I were seriously disturbed by the Trump administration; we've been quite stressed, not sleeping well, and having fantasies of revolution and violence. I know we're not alone. I am relieved but wish the Biden victory would have been greater, more decisive, in order to show Trump and his minions how much they were disliked. However, over 71 million people, 47.7% of the voters, chose him. For the past four years I've attributed the 2016 election result of people voting for Trump to a significant group that didn't like Hillary and didn't understand how unqualified Trump was to be President. I assumed that many of those 2016 voters would now see the light. Joe Biden is likable by about everyone; he fits the stereotypical model of the older white male with a qualified resume; and Trump was now a known entity. I was wrong and I really don't know why I am wrong. Me and over 75 million other voters don't understand the 71 million Trump supporters and I bet they don't understand me.
David Foster Wallace gave a commencement speech at Kenyon College in 2005 that turned into a small book called This is Water. I'd read it a number of years ago and it came to mind when pondering these two bubbles of American citizens who don't understand each other at all. He uses some cryptic stories that illustrate our problem. He offers some explanations about individual's templates and beliefs. He posits that some of a person's world view comes because we're hardwired but that people are also "arrogant and certain of their own interpretations... Blind certainty, a close-mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn't even know he's locked up." You can find the speech on YouTube or the whole transcription at This is Water
David Foster Wallace goes on to say that we have control over how we think about things. "It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed." I think many of the people in both groups of voters in this election are caught up in their own world views, hardwiring based on how and where you were raised and the experiences we've had. And, indeed you should admit to yourself that arrogance is a factor in your choices of what you choose to think about and believe.
Dave Chappelle was on SNL last night and had a great monologue with some hard truths and advice. We have to recognize that both groups have had terrible feelings of anguish. Chappelle suggests we have to, "Find a way to live your life. Find a way to forgive each other. Find a way to find joy in your existence in spite of that feeling."
Amen
Tuesday, October 20, 2020
We Are All in This Together
Whether we want to be or not
Paraphrased from the letter Richard Rohr sent today.