Nuclear Deterrence, Gun Contol, Hope (?) for Fox, a Task for Democrats, a New Leukemia Treatment and "Blind Guy"

News from the Bathroom

Heard the other day that people who take showers before they go to work used to vote Republican but now vote Democratic ... and that people who take showers after they come home from work, traditionally Democratic voters, now vote Republican.

Nuclear Deterrence and Gun Control

From the previous posting’s discussion of the problem posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapon and ICBM program, it appears than possession of nuclear weapons and the capability of delivering them has served over the past 65 years as a deterrent to those weapons being used. 

Of course, this kind of balance is a dangerous thing, requiring the mastery of the skill of “brinksmanship,” because it requires the positioning of the participants, and everyone else on the planet, on the brink of destruction.  Other than the ever-present fear of a “rogue” nation or group not playing by the rules, this has worked thus far.  It might even have prevented tragic and costly military conflicts over those years which would have occurred if nuclear weapons never had existed.  Look at the bloodshed which has occurred in Africa and the Middle East, where there is no nuclear deterrent present. 

Okay, let’s change the subject to guns.  Criminals and assorted bad guys have guns, usually illegally, to aid in their breaking the law.  They carry out robberies, murders, extortion and other crimes because they can threaten their victims by pointed a gun at them.   The National Rifle Association and those who hang their hats on the last fourteen words of the Second Amendment to the Constitution believe that the natural deterrent to such criminals with guns in their hands is to put guns in the hands of the potential victims of these criminals, both in and outside of their homes.  If it works with nuclear weapons, it should work with guns as well, right?
 

Originally in the lawless West, everyone carried a gun for exactly this purpose.  When the bad guys rode into town with their guns, the good guys could shoot back at them, or even form an armed posse to chase after them.  And this worked to some extent.  Finally, however, law did come to the West and “lawmen” such as sheriffs and and marshals took on this task, occasionally having to "deputize" those citizens who had hung on to their weapons to assist them by forming a posse.  Ultimately, as law enforcement agencies expanded, even this was no longer necessary.  

In those days, most folks lived close together in towns, and such law enforcement was successful.  But as America spread out, when the suburbs and ex-urbs grew, it took a while for law enforcement to respond to a call miles away.  So many felt it necessary to revert to the old days, and have a gun handy for self-protection.  Farmers, always “out of town,” never gave up their weapons for this reason.  And that, more or less, is where we are today. 

Bottom Line:  If the possession of nuclear weapons is a deterrent to international conflict, why is not gun possession similarly a deterrent to local crime?  No responsible gun owner wants to use their weapon in self-defense any more than any responsible nation wants to have to use their nuclear weapons. 

Present-day restrictions on nuclear weapons are aimed at reducing their number and keeping them out of the hands of irresponsible people.  Restrictions on gun ownership are aimed at reducing their number (an almost impossible task) but primarily are efforts to keep them out of the hands of irresponsible people. 

Some see clear parallels between the deterrence to conflict provided by nations possessing nuclear weapons and the deterrence provided to individuals who possess guns for self-defense.   Others feel that such thinking is not valid because it ignores the harm done by making guns readily available, many of which end up being used for purposes other than self-defense.  What do you think?

Jack Lippman

Blind Guy

 (One of my favorite short stories from my archives)

Jack  Lippman  

 “I’m going to disappoint you. But you knew that already.” 

“Was it really that bad?”

“No, No, it’s a great script,” but no one will ever produce it,” he replied.  “I love your idea of this blind guy who works in a bank and manages to stop a robbery because of the way his other senses have become sharpened to a level those with sight don’t possess.   But the way you’ve written it, it won’t work”

“I’m just telling it from the blind man’s perspective, what’s wrong with that?” I asked.

“That’s what wrong with it.  You can’t expect people to pay to see a movie where the screen is totally black for 85 minutes.”

“Actually, it’s not black. It’s blank.  There’s a difference.  But that’s the way the blind guy sees what is happening.  Or more correctly, doesn’t see what is happening.  But he does hear sounds that no one else in the bank picks up, and he smells things others don’t smell, and he picks up movements taking place there that don’t register with anyone else.  So it doesn’t mean a thing that he can’t see.  All of his other senses are working overtime to make up for that and that’s what the film it about.  The blank screen just accentuates that.”

I knew I wasn’t getting anywhere with him and gathered my papers up and made it clear I was about to get up and leave.

“Joe, stick around a little longer. If I approved pumping out a few million to start funding this property, the studio would have my head.  But if you rewrote it so that at least some of the story is told by people with sight, so it would look like a real movie with scenes and everything, we might give it a shot.  But we can’t live with a black screen.”

“Blank, not black, but anyway, I won’t compromise,” I answered. “We’ve tested it out over at the film school and when we hooked up the spray nozzles misting out what the blind guy smells, juiced up the sound track so it’s like the way he hears things, and got the air moving across the screening room, the kids went wild.”

 

“Okay, okay, Joe.” I understand where you’re coming from, and the studio just can’t go there.  But something just hit me.  Listen for a minute.”

With nowhere to go, I sat back and listened.

“Joe, there’s this screwball billionaire lives down in the Baja.  Made his money in software up in Palo Alto.  I hear he has thrown money at ideas a lot wackier than yours.  He just might like the idea of a full length movie with a blank screen. Here’s his private email address.  Just mention my name if you contact him.   He’s had some dealings with the studio and he knows me.”

I thanked him and left.  The next day, I got to the billionaire who was intrigued with my idea and told me to fly down to Cabo so we could talk.  He wouldn’t fund the whole thing himself, but he thought he might get some of his friends from Dubai and San Paulo to join with him.

 

“You know, Joe,” he said. “The idea of a theatre full of people paying to look at a blank screen for 85 minutes fascinates me.  Probably a lot better than most of the crap they pay to watch every day.”

“Hold on, it’s not just a blank screen, there’s voices, sounds, smells and air moving around.”

“Yeah, I know, but all that stuff doesn’t really matter.  It’s the idea of getting customers to shell out twelve bucks to look at a blank screen for over an hour. That’s what will bring them into the theaters.  I swear, all of the late night hosts will be fighting over getting you first.”

Well, you know the story.  “Blind Guy” was one of the nominees for Best Picture at this year’s Academy Awards.  What really gets me is it actually won Oscars for Best Film Editing and for Best Achievement by a Cinematographer, quite an accomplishment for 85 minutes of a blank screen.
JL

Reaching the Plain Folks

Mencken

Most followers of this blog are familiar with H.J. Mencken’s famous quote: 

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

Okay, many of us believe that we have reached that day.  But let’s not ignore how we did it!  The Republican Party managed to entice “the plain folks of the land” with the candidacy of Donald tRump. That is the challenge facing the Democratic Party today. In 2018 and in 2020, how does it reach those “plain folks of the land” of which Mencken wrote? 

They don’t watch MSNBC, CNN, PBS nor read the Washington Post nor the New York Times. They do watch Fox News, however, where many of the anchors (the two laughing gentlemen and the girl poured into a different dress each morning on Fox & Friends … and of course, everybody’s buddy, Sean Hannity) come across as “plain folks” just like them.  No college professors or experts using big words, just plain guys and gals like the ones down at the bar or coffee shop.  And the ones who don’t watch Fox News just get their take on what’s going on from their buddies who do or what they see on the internet.  That’s why the next article is devoted to what we can do about Fox News.

Meanwhile the Democrats must quickly find themselves someone to lead their party who will appeal to those “plain folks” and perhaps be in the running for the presidency in 2020.  Here’s the short list as of today:  Bernie Sanders, Andrew Cuomo, Elizabeth Warren and Al Franken.  

All but Warren will be able to talk effectively to those “plain folks” who are beginning to wonder where those jobs in the factories and mines which were supposed to come back are, what happened to that wall to keep out the immigrants (whose low priced labor keeps our food prices down) and finally, where that better and less costly health care which was promised is.  

Right now, I would say that Sanders or Franken are the ones to step up and take charge of the party, although they are unlikely to be the nominee in three years, Sanders because of age and Franken because he is Jewish. in 2020, look for the Democrats to select either Cuomo or Warren, provided that they develop a strong nationwide public persona by then.  If they do, that might be the ticket.  Watch for Republican attacks on all four of them, the occurrance of which will validate what I have written..   And please read the following article on Fox News.

JL

About Fox News

Anyone who watches CNN, PBS, MSNBC or even the local news on their ABC, CBS and NBC outlets has some idea of what kind of President we elected in 2016: in my opinion the least qualified for the job in the nation’s history.  Each day more and more comes out about what happens when questionable ethics, perhaps acceptable in the business world, are allowed to be applied to government.  Undoubtedly, the investigations directed by Special Prosecutor Mueller will ultimately bring this to a head and lead the Congress into taking action.

But in the meanwhile, millions of Americans still watch Fox News bending over backwards to defend the administration’s lies and constantly devoting their resources to criticizing Obama, Hillary, Comey and Democrats whom they claim are attempting to sabotage the Presidency.  No longer a news source, Fox News is primarily a propaganda outlet for the administration and the Republican Party, both directly and through acts of misdirection and omission.  That would be fine, but only if they labelled themselves as such.  Which they do not.

So, just as the President devotes much of his time to attacking MSM (main stream media) for seeking out and reporting the truth, it’s time for us to take arms against Fox News, the President’s chief enabler.  If you watch Fox News, and it is imperative that those who disagree with its programming spend significant time watching it, you will see some cracks developing in its facade. Change is beginning.  Management saw fit to get rid of O'Reilly.  Megan Kelly left.  Chris Wallace's objectivity is asserting itself.  It is important to exploit any weaknesses at Fox News because many millions of Americans get their news exclusively from that source.  That is why I am sending copies of this to some of the Fox journalists mentioned below.

I heard a “pundit” say the other day that Sean Hannity has more influence on the mass of Republican voters who put Donald Trump in the White House than does House Speaker Paul Ryan, and if the media is to convince the American public of the evil dominating the Presidency and infecting the Republican Party today, Fox News will ultimately have to join with the rest of our news media and start telling the truth.  

(Fox News"roaming correspondent" Geraldo Rivera has claimed that Hannity is the second most powerful person in the country, after the president!  Of interest is that some advertisers, offended by his partisanship, have pulled their ads from his program, a good sign!  Hopefully, Fox management will take notice.) 

Of course, Hannity and others like him (Ann Coulter, Jeanine Pirro, Tucker Carlson) are hopeless cases.  But there are others at Fox who purport to be professional journalists who sooner or later will put what they know to be the truth (and believe me, they know it) ahead of the party line their employer demands. 

The other evening, Fox anchor Martha MacCallum had a very puzzled look on her face when columnist Charles Krauthammer, a Fox regular, would not agree with her that the Russia investigations were witch hunts, and that it looked to him like there actually was something there to investigate.  She thanked him curtly and quickly cut to a commercial.

It is only a matter of time before professional journalists like Chris Wallace, Bret Baier, Howard Kurtz, Brit Hume, Juan Williams, Neil Cavuto and Shepard Smith begin to realize that honesty, truth and the survival of the nation are more important than being mouthpieces for the incompetence and dishonesty which is overtaking the Executive branch of our government. (They are the ones to whom I am sending a copy of this posting.)

If they have consciences, some may leave Fox.  Some may stay but inject more honesty into their words whenever they can.  Anything which improves the news source that far more Americans watch than either CNN and MSNBC would be good, for those are the folks who need to be better informed.  Hopefully, the ownership of Fox News will finally recognize this as well and decide that truth and honesty are more important than Sean Hannity, who can always find employment at Breitbart or working for some foundation funded by the Koch brothers.

Bradlee

Back in 1995, Ben Bradlee, the great editor of the Washington Post, wrote about what newspapers do.  I substitute the words “news media” for “newspapers” in quoting from his autobiography, “A Good Life.” “That’s what news media do: they learn, they report, they verify, they write, and they publish.”  Fox News has to do this.  They owe it to their viewers.  They owe it to America.  They have to stop emulating Josef Goebbels.

JL

New Leukemia Treatment
Over the past week there have been newspaper articles talking about a new treatment for leukemia which will give hope to many with that disease.   Read about it, if you have not done so already, by checking out a recent New York Times article about it. Just click here to read it.

Some of the funding for the research which developed this new treatment came from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Foundation, one of the charities which receives the money Google Ads pays this blog for carrying their advertisements. Every time you click on one of these ads, the blog is credited with a few cents, but it all adds up!
JL

             

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Jack Lippman