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sonora2sonoma

Month: March 2020

  • Probing the Mysteries of What Drives Peoples’ Voting Decisions

    hoomalimali

    I had scant political awareness as a child. I remember being fascinated watching the roll call votes on the floor of the 1956 Democratic National Convention on my aunt and uncle’s television set. My parents hadn’t purchased a tv at that point, so the novelty of television had as much to do with my interest in the convention as did the convention itself.

    While Adlai Stevenson, who had been the Democratic Party candidate for president in 1952, was easily re-nominated on the first ballot, it took three separate ballots to decide on the vice-presidential nominee, Senator Estes Kefauver. This was, according to Wikipedia, “the last multi-balloted contest held at a quadrennial political convention of any major U.S. political party for the presidency or vice presidency.” In both elections, the Republican candidate, Dwight David Eisenhower, was the winner.

    That early, fascinating and, it turned out, historic exposure to the world of politics did not, however, translate into an abiding curiosity on my part about the subject until much later in my life, partly due to my limited reading skills growing up. Although testing never revealed a reading deficiency—I always scored high on such metrics—my attention span was so short my reading was mostly confined to comic books, where the information conveyed by the accompanying graphics largely obviated my need of the limited text.

    My attention-span-related reading difficulties prevented me from any in-depth exploration of political topics, as well as most books, well into adulthood. In those days, it would take me a month to read a book that friends could sweep through in a day or two. It wasn’t until the mid-90s, when I was engaged in graduate studies at CSC Stanislaus, that a speed-reading course freed me from the shackles of slow reading-ness.

    My father, although a registered Democrat, often voted for Republican candidates. A fan of President Eisenhower, he continued his practice of voting Republican when Ronald Reagan entered the political arena. In later years, my father and I would have loud and angry exchanges over his support of Reagan’s presidency, but in  the naivete that comes along with childhood, I favored the same candidates my father did, primarily because he thought well enough of them to give them his vote.

    Consequently, the first election in which I participated, once I became old enough, I cast my vote for Ronald Reagan (I can scarcely believe this now) for governor. When I later confided this piece of information to my friend, Phil, I was taken aback by his emphatic response: “You shouldn’t be allowed to vote!”

    There are times in a person’s life when something is heard, often from a trusted associate, that for whatever reason bypasses the normal filters we all unconsciously employ with which to evaluate, modify or reject incoming data. When that occurs, the message travels straight through into one’s psyche, where it takes immediate root and, once established, begins to exert its influence from that point forward. Phil’s remonstration over my electoral decision constituted, for me, just such a moment.

    As a result, I made a vow to myself that never again would I participate in elections until I felt sufficiently knowledgeable to make an informed decision about who I felt was the best candidate.

    A couple of election cycles passed before I felt it was safe for me to resume my participation in our great experiment in self-government. I’ve voted for Democratic Party candidates—or more accurately, against Republican ones—ever since. The inclusive and compassionate nature of Democratic policies in general, as compared to the fear-based and selfish approach most Republican politicians follow, has made voting the Democratic ticket, for me, a no-brainer. I’m not saying I agree with everything the Democratic Party stands for, in fact I changed my registration to Independent a few years ago. But, given the choices—and no, I don’t believe voting third party is a realistic or winning option in the current political environment—voting the Democratic ticket is the lesser of two evils.

    I can’t help but wonder, when I think about the inexplicable loyalty of trump’s supporters, how many of them continue to support him based on informed decision-making versus how many do so for reasons more akin to the one that motivated me to vote for Reagan those many years ago? Logic and reason would suggest the latter to be true; should it be the former, however, the reasons for it must lay beyond the reach of logic and most definitely fly in the face of reason.

    Tim Konrad

    2020.03.28

     

  • Who Are We to Believe?

    hoomalimali

    It is heartbreaking to watch the death toll rise across the nation as the Coronavirus continues its invasion of mankind. It is gut-wrenching to watch the president as he takes advantage of the tragedy in his daily griefings/distress rallies/campaign appearances to boast of his accomplishments while facts on the ground tell a vastly different story. And, confronted with this alarming and unsettling cognitive dissonance, who, and what, are we to believe?

    Are we to believe the president, with his daily re-writing of history and flaunting of the advice of medical experts whose knowledge on the subject far exceeds his comprehension? Are we to believe the statements of those health experts whose advice the president continually contradicts? Are we to believe the “news” anchors on Fox, who continue to spread misleading stories in defense of their leader’s performance? Or are we to believe the pundits on MSNBC, who tout a story almost the exact opposite of that being proffered on Fox?

    I continue to be troubled by a recent exchange I had with an old friend from grammar school who said, in all earnestness, when I shared my conviction that the president has failed us by not acting sooner when he first became aware of the epidemic, “I think he’s been doing a pretty good job.” This person, now a retired professional, was among the most gifted in our class, so his spoken approval of the president’s performance literally floored me when I heard it.

    Although we quickly agreed to disagree, the memory of that conversation haunts me daily as I continue to witness the many ways the president reveals how far out of his depth he is in his attempts to guide us safely through this emergency. Does he listen to Fox, I wonder?  Does he believe the president’s admonitions not to trust the news media? Does he even follow the daily onslaught of Coronavirus news? Or does he avoid it because it’s too depressing, or frightening, or both? Maybe he’s lost touch with the concept of questioning everything one reads, watches, or hears? Or perhaps, and I hate to even consider this option, he is simply too busy to be bothered with such matters.

    I suspect the latter condition may explain why much of the nation accepts the president’s utterances without question. After all, most schools don’t even teach classes in government anymore. But I find it hard to believe my friend falls into the latter category. He’s simply too smart for that!

    So, what on earth could cause otherwise intelligent people to accept the tragically flawed actions of this president, to approve of them without reservation or question and not feel, deep down, that there is something very wrong with this picture?

    What can we do to waken people like my friend from their complacency before it’s too late? What can we do to activate their internal skeptics and motivate them to view the words and actions of this president in a manner comporting more closely with reality?

    I confess I have many more questions than answers, but if we don’t find answers to some of these questions, not only will many more people die from this epidemic, but the very real possibility exists that trump may end up being president for another four years. And the thought of that possibility should be enough to make the dead run screaming from their graves in terror!

    Tim Konrad

  • Who Are the Bigger Fools?

    hoomalimali

    Who are the bigger fools, I wonder—trump, or those of us who continue to believe a breaking point will sooner or later occur at which time the country will magically wake up and realize, with thundering clarity, just what a fucked-up mess el estúpido has made of his Coronavirus response?

    The broader the naked emperor spins his web of misinformation and bullshit, the more his approval numbers rise. If “stupid is as stupid does,” there’s a Whole Lotta’ Stupid Going On right now across the land! Those followers of the trump cult who haven’t yet drunk the Kool aid would gladly do so without hesitation should the trumpster so direct them, so completely has he liberated them from the tyranny of having to think for themselves.

    It truly must be a comfort to be able to cheer at his rallies free of the onerous responsibility, thanks to one’s thought repellant MAGA hat, to question his statements & make judgments concerning his actions. For these folks, the saying “ignorance is bliss”— the new mantra of the post-factual—has become actual.

    When the English sent the Pilgrims packing to the New World, the prescient among those doing the sending had likely been plagued with visions of tiny future trump clones wearing MAGA hats and running around like locusts spreading havoc throughout the land. Ridding themselves of the ancestors of these toxic trump fanatics was the smartest thing they could have done under the circumstances, akin to blowing one’s leaves into the neighbor’s yard, but with much more dire consequences.

    Australia was populated through similar means, only in their case the ancestors thus transported were primarily criminals so their present-day society is more rational than ours, except when it comes to certain issues like climate change, illustrating beyond doubt that the English somehow manage to fuck up everything they touch.

    Tim Konrad

    2020.03.26

  • Easter Set As Date For Commerce To trump Reason

    hoomalimali

    trump’s amateurish and quixotic responses thus far to the Coronavirus disastrophe continue to contribute to the confusion in some quarters surrounding the efficacy and necessity of stay at home orders. The just-announced decision by the governor of Mississippi countermanding the stay at home orders imposed by certain jurisdictions within his state are most likely a result of the mixed messaging of our daft divider-in-chief, who just this morning called for the need for social distancing while modeling the opposite behavior once again at his latest distress conference.

    While his supporters remain inexplicably faithful, the rest of the country watching this comedy of horrors as it sickeningly unfolds sees the sad spectacle for what it is—a national disgrace of unprecedented proportions or, in the president’s words, “a disgrace bigger and more beautiful than . . . I mean people are saying it’s the most perfect, really, a perfectly beautiful disgrace . . A disgrace like no one has ever seen before. Nobody ever dreamed anything like . . This could be unprecedented . . but, we’ll see . . We’ll see what happens. People are saying . . .”

    Thanks for the encouraging words, mr. president, but don’t look to see me in church on Easter Sunday! I’ll be too busy ignoring your advice.

    Tim Konrad

     

  • We need a leader capable of leadership

    hoomalimali

    These days it’s feeling more and more like we’re all living in a 1950s B horror flick wondering if the good guys will figure out a way to save us all from the invisible menace before it’s too late. One can’t help but wonder how many people will have to die before responsible government leaders—if any indeed remain—send trump to his room and begin doing what’s necessary to best contain the growing epidemic.

    This past Sunday’s press conference by the baldness-concealing bloviator began with the usual treacle. Those surrounding him on the dais, still too close in proximity to one another for safety and continuing to send  mixed messages concerning the importance of social distancing, appeared, by the looks on their faces, to be more concerned than they looked a couple of days ago. Pence, for the first time abandoning his customary semi-comatose expression, appeared as if it took all the self-control he could muster to prevent him from throttling the verbally perambulating president and assuming control of the situation himself.

    trump is that most dangerous of fools—too Ill-equipped to realize just how ill-equipped he is to perform the duties every president before him regarded as part of their job. Harry Truman is remembered for stating this commitment succinctly when he famously said “the buck stops here.” trump’s approach, on the other hand, is to disavow responsibility for anything that happens on his watch.

    The feelings of revulsion president unicorn elicits with each succeeding self-praise-session-disguised-as-a-press-briefing are reaching epic proportions. When told at Sunday’s largely inaccurate press briefing about Senator Romney’s having chosen to go into self-quarantine, trump responded sarcastically “Romney’s in isolation? Gee, that’s too bad.” This man’s inability to feel others’ pain knows no bounds. The president’s actions a day or two later more closely resembled those of the wizard of Oz than they did the president of the United States when he pronounced, despite concerns of health officials saying it’s too premature, his inclination to end restrictions on public gatherings by Easter Sunday, based on nothing more concrete than his belief that the holiday is a “nice day.”

    If wishes were fishes, mr. president, we’d all cast nets.

    We are now well beyond the point at which the need for a capable leader—someone who can guide us through the confusing and frightening time in which we find ourselves—is urgent if we are to prevent the novel coronavirus epidemic from reaching proportions unprecedented in modern times. The current situation calls for a leader capable of setting aside his own needs to focus on those of the public, someone who knows how to lead, someone who possesses the ability to appear presidential and someone capable of inspiring the kind of confidence das Blödführer sorely lacks.

    At present, we have no such leader. What we have instead is a self-possessed narcissist preternaturally unprepared to separate his personal needs from those of the people he has pledged to protect.

    A leader who knows nothing about caring for the needs of others is like a pilot lacking the skills necessary to fly an airplane; it’s the last thing we need right now to guide us through this challenging time.

    If Senate republicans persist in their determination to support trump’s presidency through their refusal to support any meaningful measures to sideline him over his continued, tragically flawed leadership, allowing him to continue to risk peoples’ lives through his mismanagement of the coronavirus epidemic, trump will, before he is finished, bring our nation to its knees!

    Tim Konrad

    2020.03.25

     

  • Why We Have Paperweights

    hoomalimali

    Ever wonder why we have paperweights? I’ve been aware of the existence of paperweights since childhood; I even own a couple of them. The very term ‘paperweight’ explains itself quite handily, when you think about it. Except, if you think about it, why would we have need of paperweights today?

    Never before this morning have I questioned the need for paperweights, until now, while I was listening to my wife tell me about a cool-sounding glass paperweight she has at her office featuring a miniature scene of the city of St Louis, complete with hot-air balloons engraved inside, I found myself blurting out “why do we need paperweights, anyway?” She shot back, “maybe to keep things from blowing away?”

    Reasoning that office desks are customarily located inside buildings, and noting aloud that wind is not often encountered in such places, my response was,” well, it’s not likely to be windy inside.”

    Michelle proposed, while opening a web browser page on her computer, “let’s look it up.”

    The answer she found didn’t surprise us, yet it caused us both to laugh. The read-out, likely an artifact from a former time when people were less insulated from the elements and had to depend on unique responses to solve specific problems, read:

    “A paperweight is a small solid object heavy enough (usually a glass marble), when placed on top of papers, to keep them from blowing away in a breeze or from moving under the strokes of a painting brush (as with Japanese calligraphy).”

    Now you know!

    Tim Konrad

  • Something to Think About in this Era of Social Distancing

    hoomalimali

    The air upon which we, along with all other living beings, depend for our survival unites us all in our common oneness with all the earth’s creatures and serves as a reminder to those aware that with each breath we take in, we demonstrate that we’re all brothers and sisters joined in a common web of biodiversity of which each one of us is but a piece. As John Donne, the 17th Century metaphysical poet, reminds us, “no man is an island, entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”

    The next line of Donne’s poem goes “if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less.”

    The belief that we are each separate beings, in possession of our own agency to act, is illusion, nothing more. Despite what we’ve been taught to the contrary, that which befalls the least among us, be it good fortune or bad, befalls the whole of us.

    That is the true meaning behind the idea of shared humanity: Mother Theresa knew this, Mahatma Gandhi knew it and Jesus Christ knew it too, as have all the mystics, sages and spiritual leaders down through the ages.

    And, somewhere, hidden deep within everyone’s ‘heart of hearts,’ each of us knows it too. The principal task of every person alive, with the short time we’re allotted on this troubled sphere, is to part back the veils of forgetfulness to once again reveal that which we’ve always known—that no point exists, physical or otherwise, where “I” end and “you” begin, and that, in our shared destiny, the actions of one affect the destinies of all.

    Tim Konrad

     

     

     

  • When ‘Normal’ No Longer Describes the Situation, It’s Time to Stop Pretending it Still Does

    hoomalimali

    I find it absolutely incredible how people—government officials, the press and the pubic, with relatively few exceptions—are pretending the government’s response to the coronavirus is normal, reasonable, adequate, sufficient, acceptable, you name it, when there is nothing acceptable, reasonable, adequate, sufficient or normal about it whatsoever. The surrealness of the entire scene, the absurdity of it all, is now approaching Fellini-like proportions. What in the world will it take for people to wake up and realize the utter ridiculousness of the spectacle unfolding before us?

    Watching the reporters at the daily presidential “press conferences” ask their questions with childlike naivete, as if they actually expect to receive answers that aren’t stained with trump’s characteristic fog of toxic bullshit and stupid, self-aggrandizing, superlative-ridden drivel is at once astonishing, enraging and sad beyond belief. Don’t these people realize that, by blindly playing along with this deadly game, they are lending a false sense of legitimacy to the fictional narrative being spun by this Rasputin-like master of deceit?

    The cognitive dissonance between trump’s useless utterances and reports on the ground that wholly contradict every fake reassurance, boast and promise he makes is staggeringly mind-numbing. It’s as if everyone’s brains have been consumed by zombies while they were sleeping.  The best science fiction writers could not have conceived of the dystopian world toward which we are all fast hurtling.

    The reporters in the White House Press Corps and their colleagues across the nation need to stop playing along with the circus in the capital and quit acting as if it’s just another day on the job. It isn’t!

    In a world where normal rules are no longer applicable, normal responses aren’t either!

    Tim Konrad

  • A Fake president & his Dark Comedy of Errors

    hoomalimali

    In his daily press conference just now, trump said he doesn’t think anyone has done as much in 3 1/2 years as he has done. True, if you insert the word “damage” just following the word “much.”

    Although the members of the press corps were seated today with a noticeable, if not six-foot distance between them, trump and the officials standing beside him were clustered just as close to one another as they were yesterday. So much for modeling social distancing, mr. president.

    Why this man refuses to treat the epidemic with the seriousness it warrants is deeply troubling and profoundly irresponsible.

    His attacks on the press, calling the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post dishonest in their reportage will only serve to encourage his supporters, as well as those on the fence about whom they should believe, to dismiss life-saving advice from authentic sources that, were they to follow it, would save lives and help blunt the rapid rise in reported cases.

    If the president’s actions weren’t considered beyond the reach of law enforcement, thanks to the attorney general, the damage being wrought by his woefully inadequate leadership in response to the epidemic and his campaign of minimization, misinformation and denial would warrant investigation by the justice department for possible charges of negligent homicide.

    Tim Konrad

     

  • trump now claims he ‘s known the virus was serious for some time

    hoomalimali

    trump is now claiming he’s known about the seriousness of the Covid-19 epidemic for a long time. This bit of cheeky, bald-faced mendacity begs the question why reporters even bother to engage in question and answer sessions with this man when it’s clear beyond all doubt that his words mean absolutely nothing. Perhaps if reporters were to present their questions to him as rhetorical in nature, the entire exercise would comport more consistently with reality.

    Below, for what it’s worth, which isn’t much, frankly, except for the irony and dark humor it contains, is a portion of today’s exchange on MSNBC between Kristin Welker and das Blödführer:

    Welker: “Some people did note that your tone seemed more somber yesterday, you talked about that August timeline . . did you see a projection some people thought perhaps that two million potentially that could die maybe prompted part of that. Was there a shift in tone?”

    trump: “I didn’t think, I mean I’ve seen that where people actually liked it but I didn’t feel different.  I’ve always known this is a real, this is a pandemic. I’ve felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic. All you had to do was look at other countries. I think now it’s almost 120 countries, all over the world. No, I’ve always viewed it as very serious yesterday. It was no different yesterday from days before. I feel the tone is similar but some people said it wasn’t.”

    Clear, as usual, from the president. Clear that he’s an utter fool monumentally ill-equipped for the role he’s bumbled himself into as “leader of the free world.”

    Tim Konrad