Corporate innocence meets democracy

     Let me get this straight, Donald Trump who has access to perhaps the largest intelligence-gathering organization in the world, blames Fox news for his gaffe about a terrorist attack in Sweden? 

     Meanwhile down the street the new Secretary of State wants  his briefing statements limited to two pages. And over at Education the secretary there is whining about all the criticism.

     What's so sad is they think they can get away with that, like something unusual is going on.

There are calls for psychiatric evaluations of the president and questions raised about his sanity.           It's unlikely that they are necessary or highlight a serious problem. The problem is more obvious than that and easier to battle.

     Keep in mind these people have been heads of huge money-making corporations, organizations where what they say goes as long as they keep the bottom line growing and the stockholders happy. They have ultimate control and are used to having people carry out their orders without question and without outside interference.
     They are not used to being questioned, they are not used to being challenged, they are not used to being held up to public scrutiny, and most of all they are not used to being told "no." And most likely they think they don't have to deal with those things and resent the fact that they do. They thought they were going to walk into the office and tell everyone what to do and that would get it done. That bureaucracy we love to hate may thwart them and their agendas better than anything else we've come up with so far.

   If Tillerson says Exxon is going to drill in Central Park there's no question, his minions go about figuring out how they can drill in Central Park. There's an old joke about Exxon that says if they go to work and haven't been sued by quitting time, it's been a good business day. Tillerson is the guy who pushed fracking in areas threatening drinking water all over the country but when someone wanted to do it near his house he sued.

     Trump says build a hotel and his minions go about getting that done, not flooding him with disagreement or challenging him to make a reasonable case for such a project and the outside world knows nothing about it until ground has been broken and by then it's too late.

    Who knows what DeVos does but apparently it doesn't take an education to run her company either, just hand down edicts from on high;

   It's obvious these people have never had their statements or decisions challenged, at least not in public and now they are placed in a position where every move is exposed, analyzed and depending on what it is, lauded, criticized or outright ridiculed and they can't handle it. Remember one of Trump's appointments quit even before he had to face a world like that.

     For all the promises made about how a good businessman could set the government in order, it turns out the business model just doesn't work. Think how it would work if they didn't have a majority in Congress like President Obama faced at least in his last few years.

    The head of a large corporation is about half a high-rise office floor short of a dictator. But that model doesn't work in what is supposed to be a democracy. These people are not used to being questioned, let alone being criticized or even worse ridiculed, or gasp held accountable for their actions in public.

    Now they are in public leadership  positions and reality is smacking them right between the eyes and they can't handle it. Trump refuses to attend intelligence briefings, Tillerson wants the Twitter version of State Department analyses, DeVos says all teachers need is someone to tell them what to do.

    Well, Madame Secretary, maybe you and your colleagues need a good lesson on what you are supposed to do and what qualifications are needed to do it. If you don't have the qualifications find a group of advisors who do have the expertise. And, be prepared for opposition. Government is built on compromise not edicts and everything is subject to public exposure.
     It's obvious already the dictatorial corporate business model doesn't work in government and the people who come from it don't have a clear view of what they are supposed do, let alone to carry out what they intended to do and that is their failure, not the psychiatry of the situation even if correcting that sounds easier and flashier.

Frack this NIMBY – Rex Tillerson and Exxon on fracturing
A coterie of cartoon autocrats – Miami Herald

Before Columbine, and Newton, there was Bethel, Alaska

This is something I have never done before, a straight up linked post to a newspaper article. But this one, I think people should read and it doesn't need any comment from me. It is a very well written account of a school shooting in Alaska and the aftermath covering 20 years since it happened. Published February 18, 2017, by the Alaska Dispatch News.

Alaska Dispatch News photos.

Evan Ramsey's tattered life filled him with rage. Then he brought a shotgun to school.

Surviving the first 100 days

Anyone who checks on this blog occasionally might notice there hasn't been the usual number of posts in recent months. Frankly it's a question I have been asking myself lately. I've never had much of a problem finding subjects to write about, largely because I have a wide range of interests that at times even interrelate, but in the recent past nothing has seemed to pop out as noteworthy enough. Why would that be? Well, it has been slow evolving but I think I have found the answer, one that is simple yet complicated, easy to summarize more difficult to separate into parts and analyze.

     The simple answer? Donald Trump. The complications? It's like a crack in a windshield that starts as a chip and spreads like a spider web until it blocks all vision forward.

     Not that there isn't lots to write about, but so many people are doing it, very little original gets said anymore. Anything I might write about has already been analyzed to death. I don't need to add to the confusion and redundancy. Plus from this distance even given the accessibility the internet provides I don't feel like I am close enough to the subject to say anything meaningful. Of course, that never stopped me before.

     Yet the issue and its immensity along with the emotions it engenders fills the mind to the elimination of any other distraction. It has taken hold of my mind and even ideas that come up seem inconsequential in the face of the immensity of the crime that is being perpetrated against our country. What do the birds at my feeders matter when day by day safeguards in regulations that have improved our lives are whittled away allowing the robber barons to pollute, violate and destroy at the expense of the majority of American citizens.

    What does a reverie at the wood pile or a playlist of old rock and roll on facebook matter when we learn Russian intelligence played a part in electing the most unqualified president this nation has ever had. It calls to mind something painted on a fence surrounding the construction site of a controversial classroom at Syracuse University in 1960. "What does it mean in the infinite scheme?"

     Who cares about a clever turn of phrase in a headline or a grammatical gaff by a sports announcer when arch conservatives, racists, ignoramuses and other totally unqualified  people take over every department in the administration of our government.

     Moreover what does it matter if I add my two cents to the maelstrom?  The maelstrom is huge and it's full. I realized that during my last two ventures to the East Pole. I only get one radio station there, a function of geology, and it is a public radio station broadcasting from the nearest town. I keep it on for the noise, but I often catch interesting programs. However since this election it at least seems like every program is some pundit or other analyzing something that is going on with this president and his cohorts. Most of them don't say anything of any value, just struggle for different ways to put out the same old statements that I could have made myself without their input. Then one day, I had too much of it. I actually screamed across the cabin "shut the fuck up."  You can do that sort of thing in the woods; it's that old saw about if no one's around is there a sound.

     After that as soon as another program like that came on I hustled across the room and turned the radio off, and lived in the peaceful silence for a while.

    But even in silence, the feeling persisted that nothing seemed worth writing about given the situation in our country. I couldn't and still can't escape the thoughts churning in my mind.

   They range from the ridiculous to the sublime. For instance I have nothing against Milania, I see her as an innocent in this drama, dragged into it through no fault of her own. But I do not want her living in our White House, the household led in grace by the likes of Jacqueline Kennedy, Michelle Obama, Eleanor Roosevelt, Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton, She just doesn't belong. Of course paying obscene  amounts of taxpayer money so she can live away from the White House in New York is unacceptable as well.

    Then there's the man whose company will profit greatly by one of the biggest oil deals ever, and with Russia no less, and is now the secretary of State.  Both of Alaska's senators voted for him too, despite what his company's ship the Exxon Valdez did to Alaska. An avowed racist is the Attorney General. A woman who never set foot in a public school or had any other experience with education outside being a student in an expensive private school is now the secretary of Education. That doesn't even begin to address the outrage now that a dangerous foe of the Environmental Protection Agency is now the head of it.

     And those are the things that have happened. What's coming is even worse. As a senior citizen almost entirely dependent on Medicare and Social Security (which I have paid into for more than 50 years) I am deathly afraid of losing those as are several million of my contemporaries. Twenty million others who now have health insurance due to the Affordable Care Act face losing it as well. National Parks are threatened. The oceans, climate change and its deniers, the general attack on intelligence and knowledge, on science, even attempting to wipe out records gained through extensive research. Employees expecting to be terminated actually attempted to save precious scientific research as if an invading army were approaching. And then there's the outrage of denying people entry because of their religion at the same time rounding up residents and tearing families apart through deportations. When will they start coming for each one of us?

    It has been overwhelming at least to my small mind. I have been so consumed with the politics of our country and yet feeling insufficient in any way I might be able to do something about it or at least write about it. It's frustrating. In one moment of lucidity I donated $100 to the ACLU to at least help someone who is actually performing. I had another one today. My facebook feed is filled with news sites and political sites and I realized they are blocking out some of the other sites I like and that have often stimulated ideas. I might do some clearing out tomorrow.

   Over the years of fighting over one social issue or another I learned that you cannot fight them all; you pick the one most important to you and hope somebody else is going after the other ones. But this one is different. Like the crack in the windshield it has so many tendrils branching in so many directions you have to wonder if anybody can visualize the whole scenario. At that point when you feel alone in your fight, well, I always think of something Sam Huff said once. He was a linebacker for the New York Giants during the age of the greatest running back of all time Jim Brown. Brown was known as a punishing runner, the kind where when you tackle him you get hurt, not him. Asked how he tackles Jim Brown, Sam Huff, who was known as a brutalizing tackler, said, "I aim at his belt buckle and hope three other guys are doing the same thing."
     So, the upshot is I think I have figured out what has me slowing down in the writing department. A psychiatrist might say now that we know the problem we can build from there. By the looks of it I have a better chance of surviving this administration's first 100 days than at least a few people who are part of it. One down already. Watch this space.

How can anyone keep track?

In case ICE comes calling

In light of the nationwide roundup, here is how the ACLU advises how to handle it when they knock on your door.

Here it is in some more languages: Click on the +2 to see more

Re-entry

Enthusiasm for unloading on the return is not nearly
as compelling as loading is on the way out.

Anyone who has spent a pleasurable amount of time somewhere away from home, has probably experienced re-entry to some extent, the feeling that comes with the realization of all the details involved in day to day living that had been ignored for however long the time away has been.  It may not compare with an astronaut's blast into the atmosphere returning from space, but it counts.

     I first recognized it one day returning from a week-long boat trip in Alaska's Prince William Sound. I had pulled up at a stop light and looked at the vehicle next to me, a pickup truck driven by an African-American fellow, not a usual sight if you will forgive the stereotype.  My first thought was, "we still have a civil rights problem," and with that the flood of real life came back.

     With so many trips back and forth to the East Pole, a routine has evolved and it goes pretty much the same each time but one new element joined the agenda this time.

     The day before leaving involves cleaning, organizing, early packing, making lists of food and other things to bring out the next time.

   The morning of, a reluctant crawl out of bed to finish up and head out. Get the snowmachine and sled connected and heading in the right direction, then pack everything onto the sled and the cargo carrier on the machine. Clean out the wood stove and lay a fire for next time that can be started with one match. Disconnect the propane that fuels the cook range and gas lights and bring the hose indoors. Hide everything that would be a big loss if stolen. Make sure the windows are locked and the bear boards are covering the four that a bear can reach. Search once more for the little things that could have escaped your initial search and with more reluctance, close the door and lock it and head down the hill. A stop at the bottom offers one last look before heading out.

     Taking the trail in, is focused, I just want to get there as quickly as possible, but going out if the trail and weather allow, goes slower, the woods scanned more thoroughly for the odd moose or anything else standing nearby. No hurry to leave and making it last as long as possible.

     But slowly along the trail the mindset changes. From all the thoughts that occupy life in the woods, they slowly evolve into what's ahead. First comes the condition of the Jeep and trailer that have been sitting at the trail head for almost two weeks, probably buried in snow or plowed in by the guy who does that after a storm. That's if it's there at all; thinking through if I know the license numbers in case they have been stolen. or who would I call if it's been vandalized. So far that's never happened.

     All things considered Friday everything appeared to be in good shape, except for me and that will be explained in a minute. There wasn't nearly as much snow on the vehicle as I expected but the trailer took a while to shovel off with the little avalanche emergency shovel I carry. Overall clearing off and warming the car, packing everything into the Jeep, and loading the machine and sled onto the trailer took almost an hour

     Once moving the next thought is for the condition of the road, but that proved to be clear and dry so I could go in two-wheel drive all the way home (a gas saver if nothing else).

Slowly the thought evolved into what I need to do along the way. There’s always a stop at the Post Office. I don't think I left much food at the house so maybe stop and pick up a Subway sandwich. Just not up for a huge shopping venture into a store. And there's that one other stop that I am hoping doesn't become a regular part of the routine.

     Thinking I could skip it but, then maybe not.

     Once the road items have been worked out I start thinking about the condition of this house; there was a snowfall and I hope I can get into the driveway; am I going to have to walk up and get the snowblower just to get into the yard?  Is there any food in the house? Will the birds come back when I refill the feeders? I know I left water running, have the pipes frozen anyway? Has anybody broken in?

     Then, there is this new stop. If nobody has guessed by now, it's the Emergency Room. Two days