It’s On You, Bishop

As tens of millions of Americans prepare to face a bleak future with no health insurance, the nation's Catholic Bishops will speak out in opposition, bemoaning the pain and suffering to come.

Crocodile tears.

No group is more responsible for the unfolding moral disaster than these bishops.

America’s Catholic bishops have consistently valued the unborn over the living. And they’ve consistently ignored the deeply immoral character of the political party that supports their crusade against abortion.

The inevitability of moral priorities doesn’t mean that there can’t be multiple things out in front. The Church could say, strongly and firmly, that opposing abortion doesn’t provide a free pass to ignore basic morality. It could, but it doesn’t.

The bishops are wishy washy on basic human rights, vague on murder (capital punishment), and more. They only speak with ferocity when the issue is abortion.

They sanction Catholic politicians who support choice, but say nothing at all about Republican Catholics who speak out strongly in favor of the death penalty and actively seek to deprive the poor of health and dignity.

Every once in a while, a Bishop will get the courage to argue against one of those Republican budgets that savages the poor in order to provide tax cuts for the richest. When that happens, the Speaker of the House or some such leader will respond that this isn’t the Church’s business, this is politics not morality.

And every time the Republicans push back, the Bishop’s voice immediately disappears. The Republicans can do this, Bishop, because they own you.

Talking to Comcast Support

Now, I know that with a title like this you’d expect the author to be Steven King.

It wasn’t that bad. Sort of.

My problem occurred when I tried to add a second wireless router to my house to get better speed on the 4^th floor – a problem since the primary router and the cable modem are on the 2nd floor. I connected the two routers via an Ethernet cable (connecting them wirelessly is a bad idea) and configured the secondary router as required so it wouldn’t conflict with its primary sibling.

This all worked well for a day or so until the network speeds dropped to almost nothing. Even the Amazon Echo Dots were gasping for bandwidth. “Can’t…talk…can’t…”  Poor Alexa.

Anyway, I tried lots of things, including new equipment. But the same thing happened. Finally, I decided the problem must be with Comcast rather than in the house. But I actually had no idea why.

So I started an Xfinity chat. If you didn’t know already, Comcast likes to be called Xfinity. Not surprising since Comcast has won America’s most hated company award for the last  -- I don’t know how many years. Ever since they began giving the award, I guess.

Changing your name is a good way to make people forget who you really are, so I can’t blame them. I mean, it worked for Whitey Bulger.

Boom Times for Barbed Wire

Introduction:  Walls, Both Physical and Emotional, Are Proliferating

Keeping migrants out of your country is hard work.

In 2015, Hungary strung up some barbed wire and called it a wall. As a result, the migrant wave was pushed back, leaving people stranded in Serbia.

Serbia had no choice but to follow with its own wall, and therefore so did Bulgaria.

Greece would build a wall through the Aegean Sea if it knew how (perhaps Donald Trump will lend his engineering expertise).

There’s a crisis out there, and the wave of would-be migrants crossing from Turkey into Europe has left the EU’s leaders in panic mode. That’s perfectly reasonable, but the problem isn’t going to go away and some serious planning for the long term has to begin soon.

We Need to Rethink Why People Are Hostile to Migrants

Opposition to migration in the EU is obviously related to the volume of migrants as well as to fears that some in a predominantly Islamic group will support terrorism. But we’ll make a serious mistake if we think these factors alone explain popular hostility to immigration.

Bring Back the Ignition Key

Now, I know you’re thinking the guy who wrote the title above has to be a geezer. I mean, old guys are always whining about how things were better in “their day.”

Well, you’ve got me. I’m over 70. And I actually know what you’re talking about. In the early years of this century, my 80-ish uncle, a very smart and well educated man, regularly lamented the breakup of AT&T. Put him in charge and he’d have brought back the rotary dial phone in a heartbeat. And only in black.

Anyway, I’m different (I hope) and the reason I’m thinking about this ignition key thing is a news story reporting that thieves can steal the code from your key fob when you lock your car and then, when you’re gone, drive your car away by clicking a couple of times on a special device that’s captured and retained your code. Since vehicles are now keyless, getting in means getting going.

Democrats! Be Fair to Trump!

Democrats should be held responsible for offering Trump the same respect and support the GOP provided to Clinton and Obama. Republicans may think this excessively harsh, but so be it. Fair is fair.

-->

Dear "Conservative Christian" Family Member

Here’s where I stand on the election.

If you were talking honestly and sincerely to a grandson about what Christian virtues of Donald Trump you would like him to emulate, I’m confident you couldn’t find any. Not one.* But you could find a dozen strongly un-Christian behaviors and traits you’d want an impressionable young man to reject. Of course, if you were talking to a granddaughter, it would be simpler. You’d simply advise her to stay as far away as possible from Trump and men like him.

The stories you and others cited about Hillary Clinton as serial murderer or tool of Iran have been thoroughly debunked as fabrications. These mostly came from a small town in Macedonia where people creating Facebook web ads discovered that American conservatives would click on anything anti-Clinton (and would further prove their gullibility by lingering on the site to buy fake Viagra, magic health pills, etc.). There's also strong evidence that Russia helped in this effort. 

If there was any substance to these phony news stories, Republican legislators would have investigated and Republican prosecutors would have indicted. But that hasn’t and won’t happen. Just like Trump’s unqualified statements that he had “absolute proof” that Obama wasn’t born in the US, the lies have served their purpose and will quickly fade back into the darkness they came from.

Hypocrisy is the common thread connecting conservative Republicans’ past and future.

A Year Without News?

Now seems like a good time to give up on the news. The wackos have won Washington and frankly, I don’t want to read about their campaign to trash American values, not to mention our economy.

I'm not saying the country is going to the dogs, because that would be unfair to dogs. Most canines I’ve encountered are smarter than the people taking over the federal government. More honest, too.

The bottom line is that the experience of continuing to read news wouldn’t be good for either my physical or mental health. So, I’m out. The plan is a year. We’ll see how it goes.

Who’s Afraid of the Cayman Islands?

“If Cameron thinks he can intimidate us, he better think again. If the UK tries to make us report the real names of foreign account holders, we’ll cut off Britain’s air travel and Internet service, and of course terminate all banking relations. And that’s just a start. There’s more we can do. Be afraid, David.”

My Trump Post

To all you Republicans who liked the Southern Strategy and were comfortable with the Tea Party:  you reap what you sow.

Corruption is the EU’s Achilles Heel

Thanks to the Panama Papers, corruption is finally on the front pages.   

The “Panama Papers” leak reveals widespread use of offshore accounts, especially in Europe. Experts believe that that most of the exposed accounts have been used for tax evasion and also note that the firm from which the information was taken is only one of many that create such accounts.  

Will the leak matter? There’s certainly evidence that it should. Among other things, strong EU action on corruption could greatly increase the viability of the union and make the difference in preventing Brexit.

Corruption is a core issue.

Government Corruption and the Rise of Europe’s Right

Pundits of all kinds are busy examining the rise of right wing parties in Europe:  the National Front in France, Law and Justice in Poland, UKIP in the UK, Fidesz in Hungary, and others. The parallels to the 1930s are certainly worrisome. Indeed, when you look at the rhetoric that these parties have pumped out in the last few years, you’d conclude that Donald Trump’s campaign in the US is the echo, not the bang.

The political experts’ consensus is that ordinary people are voting for the right because they’re angry that EU-focused elites have proven unable to effectively manage either the economy or immigration.

The economy and immigration are undoubtedly key drivers of protest, but analysts are making a serious mistake in ignoring another huge problem:  ordinary people throughout the EU are outraged by what they see as pervasive corruption.

The corruption that is feeding Europe’s anger has two dimensions:  outright bribery of politicians and government’s consistent failure to prevent the wealthy from evading taxes.

Greece is, of course, Exhibit A.  A few years back, the French gave Greek officials a CD with the names of people holding undeclared Swiss accounts. The Greek officials did nothing. When the story finally came out, the involved officials’ explanations were of the kind that would embarrass Inspector Clouseau:  I lost the CD! It wasn’t my responsibility and I forgot to give it to someone else! It was digital information and I didn’t know how to use it!

People who wonder why Germany was so harsh on refinancing Greek debt should look first to this story, which was widely distributed and commented on in throughout Europe. When ordinary German workers are aware that bribe-taking is standard practice in Athens’ ministries and that the wealthy in Greece evade nearly all of their taxes, why would they want to lend money on easy terms? Again?

German workers don’t object to their Greek peers; rather, they are repelled by corrupt Greek politicians and the country’s kleptocratic business and professional elite.

There has been similar evidence of high level corruption and tax evasion in Italy, Spain, and Portugal.

Of course, corruption is by no means a southern European disease.

The bribes that Greek officials took were from German firms. And the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia has shown that tax evasion is widely practiced in the land of moral superiority.

Across the Rhine in France, the scandals affecting the leadership of the mainstream conservative party are so deep and complex it’s hard to sort them out. Consider that former President Sarkozy’s long time right hand man was just convicted of stealing from the government payroll, and that the courts have shown that government officials improperly interfered in a decision that caused a huge amount of money to go to a political ally. And more. Lots more, actually -- including plenty of Swiss account tax evasion by wealthy and powerful individuals on the left as well as the right.

Across the Channel in the UK, it seems that any time a newspaper wants a good story, it just has to dangle thinly veiled bribes in front of a few MPs. The pols go for the cash like hounds after the hare. And Prime Minister Cameron, while talking a good game, hasn’t yet cracked down on the various crown dependencies that hold a large proportion of the world’s tax-evaded wealth.

It’s Time to Change History

The new movie, Steve Jobs, contains scenes describing events that didn’t happen, such as a meeting Jobs had with John Sculley, the man who fired him from Apple. This imagined encounter occurs years after the firing, and allows Jobs, who has now made it big with his new company, to achieve what every audience insists on:  closure.  

The film’s writer, Aaron Sorkin, defends this and other purely imagined scenes by saying the movie is “a painting instead of a photograph.”

Unapologetic tinkering with history is something of a recent trend in film. For example, Selma director Ava Duvernay and Zero Dark Thirty director Kathryn Bigelow recast the past in order to create more emotionally satisfying cinema.  

The folks in Hollywood know what they’re doing. The fact that Jobs never got to personally thumb his nose at Sculley is frustrating, a circle left unclosed. Audiences hate that.

By inventing a meeting, Sorkin certainly makes a better story. And he asserts it’s actually a good thing if a film about the past isn’t accurate.

This is the difference between...journalism and art," Sorkin said. Journalists "have an obligation to be objective. I have an obligation to be subjective. There are stories there that should be written about.

In passing, I’ll observe that one event Mr. Sorkin will want to creatively reimagine is how Jobs would have reacted to his film.

Why I’ve Taken the BBC Off My Reading List

by Garrison Walters

Somewhere back in the spring, along about March I think, I was doing my regular cycle of web pages when I saw something ominous:  the BBC was inviting me to “preview their new look.”

I didn’t click because I knew what it would be:  lots more white space and way more use of videos.

Sure enough, a few days later that’s what I saw.

Russia’s Ukrainian Disaster

Nearly everyone believes the best way to solve problems is careful discussion among reasonable, rational people. Unfortunately, political conflicts often produce emotional dimensions that have the ability to sweep away exchanges of this kind, and the long-term crisis in Ukraine is a case in point.

What if reasonable, rational people on each side were able to bypass the politicians and sit down to develop a solution?

Get Your History from Books

Angered by criticism that her movie, Selma, had misrepresented President Lyndon Johnson’s role in the civil rights struggle, director Ava Duvernay responded that she didn’t want to make a “white savior” movie and that the film was history through her own lens.

Jameis Winston

Mr. Winston’s bomb-throwing attorney may have done a good job of steering his client through the university’s disciplinary shoals, but the PR strategy is more problematic.

The Military Plan for Peace

By Garrison Walters and Patrick Marotta

One hundred years ago this month, people in Europe were starting to realize that the new war ravaging the sub-continent was going to be exceptionally violent and destructive.  

The nature of the unfolding struggle shocked many, but the fact of its appearance surprised few. The war had been widely expected for at least a decade.

Ferguson

Anti-government conservatives, the “stand up to fight the system” people, are standing up to support the system when it comes to the events of 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri.