January 15, 2024 - Wildfires, Democracy, 'Abiding,' Insurance, Best 2024 Movies, and Sports

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California Wildfires Explained 27 Years Ago, Democracy, and ‘Abiding’ 

The Free Press (www.tfp.com) included the following revealing item on Monday, Jan. 13.

‘There’s a common misconception that beneath the asphalt, Los Angeles is a desert. It isn’t. It’s grassland. And part of the natural cycle of the grassland ecosystem is fire. Twenty-seven years ago, Mike Davis wrote 'Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster.'  One of its chapters is titled ‘The Case for Letting Malibu Burn.’ 

In it, he argued that the area between the beach and the Santa Monica Mountains simply never should have been developed. No matter what measures we take to prevent it, those hills are going to burn, and the houses we erect upon them are only so much kindling...’ 

Pacific Palisades burning as 'kindling,' as predicted by Mike Davis in his book.  Windborne embers continue to spread the wildfires there as you read this.  Historically, this is nothing new to the area as documented by its earlier Native American and Spanish populations. Only Americans, believing that money conquers everything, seem to have been blind to it. 

                                                     

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The idea of leveraging Federal aid to California in battling its wildfire crisis by pressuring States to adopt conservative, right-wing, political positions, voiced by some Congressional Republicans, is repulsive, disgusting, and un-American.   It is the result of the 2024 elections which revealed the extent of our democracy’s Achilles heel.  Jeffersonian democracy suggested a level of education and intelligence that too many American voters lack. November, 2024 confirmed that. 

Those who believe that our representative democracy is a ‘work in progress’ must recognize that such ‘work’ can be both overly constructive and overly destructive.  Historically, it seems to bounce back and forth between the two, with those 'temporarily' in charge demeaning their opposition. 

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And if one is unhappy with the results of the 2024 elections, as many are, they can still ‘abide,’ bearing those election results patiently and enduring them without yielding, which is the secular meaning of the word 'abide' included in dictionary definitions of it … 

Or they can turn to the common religious use of the word, finding solace in belief in a God despite circumstances, as did blind poet John Milton when he concluded that ‘They also serve who only stand and wait’ in his Sonnet 19: 

When I consider how my light is spent, 

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, 

And that one Talent which is death to hide 

Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent 

To serve therewith my Maker, and present 

My true account, lest he returning chide; 

“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?” I fondly ask. 

But patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies, 

“God doth not need Either man’s work or his own gifts; 

who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. 

His state Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed 

And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest: 

They also serve who only stand and wait.” 

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Either way, Abide!

JL 

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Ten Best Movies of 2024 

(USA Today critic's listing from Palm Beach Post of January 5 - in ascending order) *

10.   The Piano Lesson

9.     The Substance

8.     A Different Man

7.     Inside Out 2

6.     Civil War

5.     Dune: Part 2

4.     A Complete Unknown

3.    Sing Sing

2.    Conclave

1.    The Brutalist

* This section of the paper also ranked 2024's ten best books, TV shows, Broadway shows, Songs, and Concerts, according to their critics.  (I have a copy if you are curious.)

JL

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Continuing The Use of Fossil Fuels – Good or Bad? 

Most of us know that climate change is at least part of the source of some of the environmental (and possibly economic) problems we Earthlings face, and the use of fossil fuels contributes to them. That’s why electrically powered vehicles (EV), even though their manufacture also ultimately draws upon power enabled by fossil fuels, has been touted as one solution to the problem. They have a limitless future. Fossil fuels do not and eventually will be exhausted.

Elon Musk’s Tesla automobile is one such EV, and there are others. In fact, the United States government has offered financial incentives to those who purchase an EV rather than one using gasoline. That is the supposed ‘mandate’ mentioned in the advertisement reproduced below. President Trump is an enemy of EVs, despite his strange relationship with Musk. 

Here is a full-page advertisement which has been appearing in newspapers nationwide which makes that very clear. 

If the very bottom lines of the ad did not appear clearly in this posting, AFPM (which paid for these advertisements thanking Trump for his position) stands for ‘American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers’ and their website is www.dontbanourcars.com. 

While continuing the use of fossil fuels is in the interest of those who paid for this ad, and possibly gained some votes for the President, their continued use has been recognized by scientists as part of the climatological problem that jeopardizes the planet’s survival. 

If Trump’s enthusiastic ‘Drill, Baby, Drill,’ exclamation is to be carried out, the first offshore wells should be in the Atlantic Ocean, just east of Mar-a-Lago, as suggested by columnist Frank Cerabino.   But let's first see if he actually ends the 'mandate' on his Day 1 or was that just campaign malarky.  Doing so would antagonize Elon, who is far wealthier than Trump.

JL 

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Some Thoughts on Insurance 

A problem for the insurance industry is a problem for all of us. Thinking that insurance will cover the damage done by the California wildfires is like living in a ‘fool’s paradise.’ 

We must recognize that the unbelievable, warlike, damage wildfires are presently causing in California as well as the massive damage, if not destruction, to properties in Florida and North Carolina caused by 2024’s storms, specifically Milton and Helene, are not just the problems of those immediately affected. They are ours as well, State borders notwithstanding.

In such situations, many look to the insurance companies from which they have purchased protection for relief. So let’s look at those companies. Bear in mind that many of them have subsidiaries in the States where they operate, limiting their risk exposure to those states only, but in the final analysis, their ‘parent companies’ are also affected, particularly in the area of ‘reinsurance,’ to which we’ll get shortly. 

Besides providing protection to individuals and businesses in the event of a loss, insurance companies exist to provide a predictable source of funding for the investments they make and from which they profit. By selling insurance, they acquire the money they are holding from premium payments to ultimately use to pay claims. 

But in the meantime, in the financial world, they use this money they hold as a source of lending within regulated limits, along with banks, to businesses and local governments. They employ skilled mathematicians, called actuaries, to make sure this structure works. 

Insurance companies must be able to accurately predict how much money they will need on hand to pay out to policyholders who submit claims. That’s pretty easy in the case of life insurance which can be paid out when there is a death, or a policy is cashed in. Health insurance premiums can be similarly structured but not with the near certainty that life insurance premiums can be. In short, mortality (frequency of deaths) and morbidity (frequency of sicknesses) usually can be measured and serve as a basis for premiums. 

The real trick is for an insurer to price the coverage it sells so that it works when most of its policyholders do not submit major claims, where the premiums paid by the many go to pay the claims of the very few. Unlike life and health insurance, that is the case with homeowners’ insurance and to a lesser extent with automobile insurance. 

Most purchasers of such insurance protection never anticipate submitting a major claim and never do.  For every major fire in a house or an automobile ‘totaled’ or stolen, thousands of others who also have paid premiums for protection never have such a claim to submit.  Submitting claims to insurance companies are usually ‘singular’ events, and that is that frequency on which companies base their pricing. 

The occurrence, however, of massive disasters such as those caused by hurricanes and wildfires, where entire communities are ravaged, produces an unpredictable situation involving thousands of claims. Insurance companies, even the giant ones, purchase reinsurance beforehand, available through both domestic and foreign marketplaces, to enable them to cope with such situations when the claims submitted to them stretch beyond their own considerable resources. Even these reinsurance companies have ‘treaties’ among themselves where they agree to share the support of one another, especially when such unpredictable disasters occur. 

But legitimate claims caused by massive and usually unpredictable disasters such as wildfires, hurricanes, earthquakes, or rising seas, can even extend beyond the capabilities of the reinsurance marketplace, for both ‘parent’ companies and their ‘subsidiaries’ in States where they do business. Chickens do come home to roost. 

I suspect that is where we are heading today. It may be something beyond the capacity of the private sector to solve, even with reinsurance. This can mean that only government intervention can meet this challenge. There already are many State laws where the inability of an insurer to pay its claims is remedied by ‘guarantee corporations’ financed by increases in the premiums paid by the policyholders of the other insurers operating in that State. Yet untapped, however, are taxes to be paid by all, even those without insurance, for this purpose. This also would seriously diminish the financial role of insurance companies as a major source of lending to businesses and local governments through its investment of the premium dollars they hold. 

Try to keep some of this in mind when you next pay the premiums due for your life, health, homeowners, renters, or automobile insurance. This problem for the insurance industry is a problem for all of us. 

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(Of course, insurance cannot solve the enormous ongoing personal problems events such as those the California wildfires have caused or magnified in the areas of employment, education, housing, infrastructure, those that have died, existing medical problems, social and community 'fabric,' finances, etc.  Even if every insurance claim were paid, these problems would still exist for those recovering among the ashes.  This is an enormous problem with which the entire nation must live.) 

JL 

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Sports Section 

Those who watch Baltimore Oriole baseball games in person or on TV know that the Orioles are sometimes simply referred to as the ‘O’s. In fact, when the fans in the ballpark there rise to sing the National Anthem before each game, they always scream out the first word of its final stanza thusly: ‘OHHHHHH, Say does that star spangled banner yet wave, o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.’ 

Apparently, Baltimore Raven football fans can’t break that habit and do the same thing when the National Anthem is sung before National Football League games played there, even though there is no ‘O’ in Ravens. 

For those interested, I predict the Ravens will win the Super Bowl in a few weeks, led by Boynton Beach High School graduate, Lamar Jackson. 

JL 

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it (Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.) If you want to send someone the blog, you can just tell them to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or you can provide a link to that address in your email to them. 

There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though! Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible. If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a brief comment from you. Each will receive a link to click on that will directly connect them to the blog. Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting. 

Email Alerts: If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do. And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com. 

Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it.

JL

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January 10, 2025 - Jimmy Carter's Funeral, a Felon's Sentencing, Talking to Your Doctor, 'Dumb or Stupid,' and More Cartography

 

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TV Coverage of Jimmy Carter’s Funeral … and More 

Full TV coverage of this historic event was provided on Thursday by PBS, CNN, MSNBC, and the local outlets of ABC, CBS, and NBC. It was disgraceful that Fox, on their news channel and on their local outlets, did not. This says a lot not only about Fox, but about the millions of Americans who choose, for all the wrong reasons, to get their news coverage from them. Not only was it disrespectful, but it also was unpatriotic. 

At the funeral service, President Joe Biden (for the next ten days anyway) eulogized Carter with these words: “Carter was “a white Southern Baptist who led on civil rights. A decorated Navy veteran who brokered peace. A brilliant nuclear engineer who led on nuclear nonproliferation. A hard-working farmer who championed conservation and clean energy… and who also established a model post-presidency by making a powerful difference as a private citizen in America, showing us how character and faith start with ourselves and then flow to others.” 

“At our best, we share the better parts of ourselves: joy, solidarity, love, commitment. Not for reward, but in reverence for the incredible gift of life we’ve all been granted. To make every minute of our time here on Earth count. That’s the definition of a good life. It was the life Jimmy Carter lived for 100 years: a ‘good life of purpose and meaning, of character driven by destiny and filled with the power of faith, hope, and love.” 

Twenty-four Hours Later in a Courtroom

And as a contrast to Jimmy Carter’s funeral, on the following morning, Biden’s successor in office’s sentence for the 34 felonious criminal counts of which he had been convicted by a New York jury amounted to having his case ‘unconditionally discharged,’ by the judge. 

That means he faces no punishment other than being labeled a felon for the rest of his life, which can prevent him from participating in many civil and political activities, an easily circumvented status in most jurisdictions where the felon might have political connections. (Florida law says that felons lose their right to vote if the State in which they were sentenced takes away that privilege ... and New York does not take away that privilege unless the felon is incarcerated.)

 JL 

                                                        

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Checking With Your Doctor 

Anyone who watches TV cannot avoid the numerous commercials for pharmaceutical products that urge the viewer to ‘talk with their doctors’ (or prescribers) about the product advertised. Because such medications almost always require a prescription, that’s unnecessary advice. Doctors do not need patients to dictate what medication to prescribe, and wasting time being told about what a patient saw in a TV ad. 

Apparently, the advertising copywriters who produce these commercals’ texts have never tried to do that. It is very difficult to just speak to a doctor without an appointment, and they are usually not immediately available, even for those who talk their way past the receptionist who answers the phone. Specialists are even more difficult to reach. 

A ’Google’ search aimed at the ‘doctor shortage in the United States’ will produce many articles confirming the decrease in the number of physicians presently practicing in this country, especially in the area of primary care. Some have retired and many have given up private practices to become employees of corporate medical providers and have to follow their employers' ‘bottom line’ oriented procedures (example: number of patients seen in a day). Just try to reach one of those to ask about a medication you saw in a TV commercial. Good Luck. 

With the expansion of heath care enabled by the Affforable Care Act and of course, Medicare and Medicaid, there are increasing demands being put on the our decreasing number of doctors in private practices. I believe it is up to the pharmaceutical manufacturers, all of which seem to be doing well financially, to address this problem by (1) supporting expansion of our medical schools, (2) establishing scholarships to them, and (3) aiding in the low-cost financing of tuition which leaves most medical school graduates deeply in debt for years. Some are already starting to do that, but more effort is necessary, particularly in the area of primary care physicians.  Very simply, ‘Big Pharma’ should put its money where its mouth is. 

And while we’re on the subject, be sure to note all the caveats that appear toward the bottoms of such commercials, always in small print and displayed only for a few seconds, occasionally with a hasty ‘voice over,’ the interpretation of which is usually beyond a lay person’s ability. (Sometimes even 'death' is listed as a possible side effect.) That’s another reason why we need more physicians in this country. 

JL

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Dumb or Stupid? 

You might have missed ex-news anchor Don Lemon’s recent profanity-laden tirade in which he accused some Trump supporters, especially those of the MAGA variety, of being dumb or stupid. 

It took place in connection with an interview with Elon Musk on ‘X’ that centered on the availability of visas enabling foreign engineers and scientists to work in the United States. (Musk and Trump are for such visas; their MAGA supporters are against them.) If you are interested in the details of this burgeoning conflict on the right, copy and paste https://www.yahoo.com/news/don-lemon-unleashes-expletive-filled-004555196.html  on your browser line or just CLICK HERE.  

I believe Lemon was ‘off target.’ The ‘dumb or stupid’ are uncorrectable and will always remain ‘dumb or stupid.’ They can’t do much about it. What can be changed is the gullibility and ignorance of the supposedly smarter folks who vote and behave as if they were dumb or stupid. And that, my friends, is the problem I believe Lemon was addressing. 

 

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This incident reminds me of Donald Trump’s bragging back in 2016 when he won the Nevada G.O.P. primary, that he ‘won with the vote of the highly educated and with the vote of the poorly educated.’  He went on to say that he ‘loves the poorly educated,’ a strange thing of which to be proud, particularly since he didn’t offer the same love to the ‘highly educated’ who voted for him. He knows on which side his bread is buttered.   And Don Lemon ‘sort of’ recognizes that. 

JL 

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 More Cartography 

The last posting of Jackspotpourri discussed the difficulty of representing our globe in a flat dimension on a piece of paper. There have been many, many attempts to do this, most of which you can check out at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_map_projections or by JUST CLICKING HERE.  You might find these efforts interesting. 

Unless you live in Antarctica, or perhaps Southern Australia, New Zealand, or Southern South America, the Winkel Tripel projection seems better than the misleading Mercator projection or the confusing azimuthal equidistant projection.   It still significantly exaggerates the size of Greenland and other places in the far northern latitudes but seems to be a fair compromise and is the projection currently used by the National Geographic Society. (There is nothing to stop those in the far southern latitudes, like New Zealand, from choosing map projections showing their areas more accurately.) 

Winkel Tripel Projection

 JL 

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We Need Fact Checking

Because of the reduction in ‘fact checking’ currently being carried out by major internet sites, (a way of kissing the President’s ring (?) and currying his favor), I strongly urge everyone to read Boston College professor Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American’ EVERY DAY. 

Copy and paste https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ on your browser line or CLICK HERE.  I repeat, visit there daily! (You can subscribe to a ‘free’ subscription so that it automatically appears in your email every day.) 

There are going to be many unchecked right-wing lies contaminating our media, electronic or otherwise, and Heather does a great job of ‘fact checking,’ providing documented citations for whatever she writes. every day.

There’s no charge to subscribe to follow ‘Letters from an American’ every day. (There is, however, a small subscription fee but only if you want to be able to add your comments to the hundreds made every day and see some of her additional postings.) 

JL 

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it (Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.) If you want to send someone the blog, you can just tell them to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or you can provide a link to that address in your email to them. 

There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though! Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible. If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a brief comment from you. Each will receive a link to click on that will directly connect them to the blog. Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting. 

Email Alerts: If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do. And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com. 

Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it. 

JL 

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January 6, 2025 - Thoughts on Jan. 6 Four Years Later, Previews, Letters, Laughs, Greenland and Football Farewell

Thoughts asTrump Begins Second Term as President

Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, still reads as follows (underlining is mine): 

‘No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.’ 

Originally intended to apply to those who violated their oaths to support the Constitution by engaging in the Civil War, it is applicable to any who engage in such activities today. Some of its critics characterize it as undemocratic because it is conceivable that voters might want to, for a variety of reasons, support insurrectionists, as they did in 1776 at the time of the Revolutionary War, but its repeal has never been considered and should not be. It serves to protect the Constitution, the entity to which office holders take an oath, and not to the presidency. 

Someday, in a reborn and better America, this will result in a Supreme Court being nominated by a president and confirmed by a Senate, that will simply recognize that Amendment’s words that ‘no person shall hold any office who having previously taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof,’ still apply to us all. That’s how Sec. 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment reads. That should not be too difficult, although too many lawyers make simple things into difficult ones. 

That day will finally come when the SCOTUS, rather than posing obstacles to enforcing Sec. 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, will support the Constitution. (In Trump vs Anderson a few months ago, a politicized SCOTUS majority ruled that Congressional legislation was needed to enforce action based on this Amendment when Colorado attempted to keep Trump off of their ballot based upon it.)  Until then, the law will ignore the events of January 6, 2021, depicted below.

He spoke and they acted. 

                             

  

 

                                                                                         

But ultimately, history will not ignore them. I am reminded of the famous 1805 quote from poet Sir Walter Scott where he assigns one who does not truly love their own country ‘to the vile dust, from whence he sprung, unwept, unhonored, and unsung.’ 

Who is your guess as to who ‘history’ will so describe? 

JL 

                                              

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Previews of Coming Attractions 

For a preview of what the next four years might look like, check out Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s January 2 posting at https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ . Then mark your calendar to come back to it for a second look one year from today! 

JL 

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Gee Whiz, Two Letters Published in the Post in One Week 

The Palm Beach Post published the following letter from me on January 5, the second one from me this week! See the prior Jackspotpourri for the earlier one. Here’s what they published. 

‘Fortunately, no one was killed when a Delray Beach fire engine was struck by a Brightline train. We might not be so lucky the next time and there will be a ‘next time.’ Despite the availability of Federal aid to improve existing grade crossings, their number must be significantly reduced in the urban setting that South Florida has become.’ 

(The Post did not include the portion of my letter where I mentioned that they had published about four letters from me over the years on this subject. In those letters I had made it clear that grade crossings must not only be reduced but be replaced by either elevated or depressed trackage in urban areas as they have been in other parts of the country.) 

JL 

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Time for a Laugh - We Might Need One

Here’s a recent piece from the ‘Quora’ website:  Lawyers should never ask a Georgia grandma a question if they aren't prepared for the answer.

‘In a trial, a Southern small-town prosecuting attorney called his first witness, a grandmotherly, elderly woman to the stand. He approached her and asked, 'Mrs. Jones, do you know me?' She responded, 'Why, yes, I do know you, Mr. Williams. I've known you since you were a boy, and frankly, you've been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, and you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you're a big shot when you haven't the brains to realize you'll never amount to anything more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you.'

The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do, he pointed across the room and asked, 'Mrs. Jones, do you know the defense attorney?' She again replied, 'Why yes, I do. I've known Mr. Bradley since he was a youngster, too. He's lazy, bigoted, and he has a drinking problem. He can't build a normal relationship with anyone, and his law practice is one of the worst in the entire state. Not to mention he cheated on his wife with three different women. One of them was your wife. Yes, I know him.' The defense attorney nearly died.

The judge asked both counselors to approach the bench and, in a very quiet voice, said, 'If either of you idiots asks her if she knows me, I'll send you both to the electric chair...!!’ 

JL 

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I seem to recall reading somewhere that when women’s hair is short and men’s hair is long, radical change is in the air. Can any of you identify the source of this quote? 

JL 

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Really, How Big is Greenland? 

Donald Trump has suggested that we try to entice Denmark into selling or giving us Greenland, which they own. Few people live there due to its inhospitable climate but we do lease space from the Danes for an Air Force installation there. But he seems to think we should own it. 

I bring this up because many people, probably including Trump, believe that Greenland is an enormous place. It certainly looks big on some maps. But many of them give the wrong impression as to its size. 

It’s large, alright, but for years, we have seen its size exaggerated on maps using the projection developed by Gerardus Mercator (it carries his name) in 1569. It flattens out the world, vastly exaggerating everything in the extreme north or south of the equator and was commonly used by navigators in the Eighteenth century. Look at the size of Greenland on such a map! Wow!

Mercator Projection

To get some idea of the true size of Greenland, look for it on a globe. You may have to go to a library or a school to find one. 

Greenland on a globe

There are some ‘projections’ that take this into consideration such as the ‘azimuthal equidistant projection,’ where all points on the map are at proportionally correct distances from the center point, and that all points on the map are at the correct direction from that center point. (The flag of the United Nations contains an example of a polar azimuthal equidistant projection.) All such projections are efforts to represent a globe on a flat piece of paper, a difficult task. 

United Nations Emblem

Azimuthal Equidistant projection with North Pole as center point.
 (Fairly accurate in northern hemisphere, but inaccurate below equator.)

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Greenland is a big place, but not that big, as the Mercator projection leads some to believe. I suspect that Donald Trump sees it as displayed on a Mercator projection, as his tastes seem to be directed, where possible, to the grandiose, even if it is fallacious. 

 JL

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Giving up on Solving the College Football Problem 

Those who have been following Jackspotpourri know that I have been bitching and moaning about the college football’s (and other college sport’s as well) NIL programs and the transfer portal, which I won’t bother to explain again. 

I did have some suggestions, but I find that a ‘student-athlete’s’ ability to frequently switch schools, outside money flowing into NIL funding for them (sometimes in the six figures), and their colleges’ welcome of TV revenues have so corrupted college football that no remedies will save it from being any more than a ‘minor league’ from which the professional National Football League recruits talent. 

I enjoy watching the games, recognizing these limitations, so I will leave it at that, except by saying that it need not be so violent as it is, with injured players being helped off the field repeatedly and some players’ tempers frequently flaring into schoolyard brawling. 

 JL 

                                                    * * * 

Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it (Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.) If you want to send someone the blog, you can just tell them to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or you can provide a link to that address in your email to them. 

There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though! Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible. If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a brief comment from you. Each will receive a link to click on that will directly connect them to the blog. Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting. 

 Email Alerts: If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do. And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com.

Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it. JL * * *

 

January 2, 2025 - Another Letter Published, Wrestling With Truth, More Shakespeare, A David Brooks Column, MAGA's Internal Squabble, and More

 

Another Letter of Mine Published! 

Of interest to ‘local’ followers of Jackspotpourri, here’s a letter from me published in the Palm Beach Post on January 2.  It pertains to the city of Boynton Beach which has been talking about annexing the unincorporated areas to its west. They edited it, tightening it up a bit, but it is pretty much what I wrote: 

‘The Post’s editorial of December 18 pointed out that the city (Boynton Beach) lacked ‘the luxury of swatches of oceanfront property, a big generator of tax revenues and tourist dollars for any community with beachfront access.’ 

Things were not always that way. In 1931, over a tax dispute regarding the rising debt load of the Town of Boynton, then on the verge of bankruptcy, Boynton sold off almost all of its oceanfront, giving birth to communities like Ocean Ridge and Briny Breezes, and hypocritically changed its name to Boynton Beach, although it was left with no more than a small beach reserved for a park. 

Apparently, their present efforts at annexation of the areas to its west are just another attempt to solve the financial problems for which a quick fix, giving up its oceanfront property, left it practically beachless 93 years ago. There is no reason to believe the problems of 1931 have gone away or that the present government is capable of permanently solving them, either within the city’s present or hoped-for expanded boundaries.’ 

(I reside in ‘unincorporated’ Boynton Beach.) 

JL 

                                                * * * 

 Wrestling with the Truth 

Professor Heather Cox Richardson (in her ‘Letters from an American’ posting of December 26) in discussing the president-elect’s treating politics like ‘professional’ wrestling, quoted German-American historian and philosopher Hannah Arendt. 

In her 1951 ‘The Origins of Totalitarianism,’ Arendt wrote that “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction…and the distinction between true and false no longer exist.” 

The absence of those two distinctions well describes ‘professional’ wrestling, to which Donald Trump often refers. I am awaiting to see what ambassadorship ‘Hulk Hogan,’ whom you may recall tore off his shirt, a trademark stunt of his, at the Republican Convention, gets. (I hear he may end up in Copenhagen where his musculature might be useful in Trump’s desire to annex Greenland.) 

                                               

Hulk Hogan at the G.O.P convention wrestling exhibition

Meanwhile, Trump has already named Linda MacMahon, former CEO of WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) and a former wrestling performer herself to be Secretary of Education, a post he plans on abolishing anyhow. Not without government experience, MacMahon did serve in Trump’s earlier administration as an administrator in the Small Business Administration. 

With her background in ‘professional’ wrestling, she is already familiar with the challenges presented by this most ignorant, gullible, if not stupid, portions of our population, those who take that species of entertainment seriously, and are sorely in need of ‘education.’ 

MacMahon’s experience is not in the kind of wrestling which is a true ‘sport’ and takes place internationally in the Olympics, in colleges, high schools, and serious amateur groups. These true athletic activities should not be confused with the ‘burlesque’ of them in which she, Hogan, and apparently the president-elect are involved. ‘Grotesque exaggeration or comic imitation’ are the parts of the following ‘burlesque’ definition that describes what they call ‘wrestling.’ Really, it has no place in Washington where there already are too many clowns. 

(Here is the Merriam-Webster definition of ‘burlesque.’ 1 - literature : a literary or dramatic work that seeks to ridicule by means of grotesque exaggeration or comic imitation, 2 - mockery usually by caricature, 3 - theatrical entertainment of a broadly humorous, often earthy, character consisting of short turns, and sometimes striptease acts.) 

JL 

                                                 * * * 

The Seven Ages of Man 

(From ‘As You Like It,’ spoken by Jacques, the Duke’s house philosopher)

Back in the Jackspotpourri posting of December 17, William Shakespeare’s comedy, ‘As You Like It,’ was discussed. These famous words of advice given to the exiled Duke were mentioned, but here they are in their entirety, with several footnotes to clarify a few points.  

 

  "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players,

They have their exits and entrances and in one man's time he plays many parts,

his acts being seven ages.

  At first the infant, mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. Then, the whining schoolboy with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school. And then the lover, sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad made to his mistress' eyebrow. 

 Then a soldier, full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, (1) jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannon's mouth.  

 And then the justice in fair round belly, with good capon lin'd, (2) With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut, full of wise saws (3), and modern instances, and so he plays his part. 

 The sixth age shifts into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon, (4) with spectacles on nose, and pouch on side, his youthful hose (5) well sav'd, a world too wide for his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice, turning again towards childish treble, pipes and whistles in his sound. 

 Last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. (6)” 

Footnotes: (1) I think Shakespeare was confusing leopards with lions, which have manes or beards. (2) Capons, then ‘luxury food,’ were often gifted to justices as bribes. (3) Sayings. (4) From a character in the Venetian theatre, an ‘old geezer,’ already ‘losing it.’ (5) Full length tights, not just footwear. (6) Even though the play was set in England, written in English, Shakespeare concludes in French, which he and most theatregoers understood. 

Agree with ‘Jaques’ or not, this contains some thoughts to carry into 2025, regardless of one’s station in life. 

JL 

                                                      * * * 

Some think David Brooks, New York Times columnist is a liberal. Others think him to be a conservative. I see him as trying to be on all sides simultaneously, speaking his mind. Here is his Dec. 27 piece from the Times in which he explored the growing conflict within the Republicans, and specifically, among its MAGA devotees. 

Why the New Fight Inside MAGA Matters So Much    (Dynamists versus Stasists)  By David Brooks - Opinion Columnist

“Americans used to be enthusiastic about the idea of progress. If you had attended any of the World’s Fairs that were put on over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries in cities like Philadelphia, St. Louis, Chicago and New York, you would have seen great festivals celebrating the wonders of the future.  If you went to Disneyworld, you could have visited Tomorrowland and the Carousel of Progress. 

But gradually intellectuals and then lots of other people lost faith in progress, in the idea that growth, technology and innovation would make the future better than the past. In 2011 Virginia Postrel published a book called “The Future and Its Enemies,” arguing that the true division in politics is not left vs. right but dynamists vs. stasists. Dynamists believe in open-ended change. Stasists are in protective mode. We don’t need to rush pell-mell into the future, they say; we need to take care of our own. 

This conflict is now roiling the Republican Party. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are dynamists. They want to welcome talented immigrants to the American economy for the same reason the New York Mets are spending over $700 million to sign Juan Soto. You could field a team with all native-born players, but you couldn’t hope to compete with the best in the world. This has elicited howls of outrage from those who want to restrict immigration, including supporters of canceling the H-1B visa program for skilled immigrants. We should be employing Americans in these jobs, those on MAGA’s rightward edge respond. 

The vaunted technological progress the dynamists worship has ripped American communities to shreds. This is not a discrete one-off dispute. This is the kind of core tension you get in your party when you do as Trump has done: taken a dynamic, free-market capitalist party and infused it with protective, backward-looking, reactionary philosophy. 

We’re going to see this kind of dispute also when it comes to economic regulation, trade, technology policy, labor policy, housing policy and so on. It’s normal for people like me to have contempt for the reactionaries. We’re in an epic race with China over the future, over who will master A.I. and other technologies. Of course we need to attract the world’s best talent. But the reactionaries have a point. One of my favorite sayings from psychology is that all of life is a series of daring explorations from a secure base. 

The reactionaries are right to point out that the past few decades of go-go change have eviscerated many people’s secure bases — stable families, vibrant hometowns, plausible career paths for those who didn’t want to go to college, the stable values that hold communities together. I don’t know if Trumpism will ever evolve into a serious governing force, but if it does, then resolving the tension between its dynamists and its stasists will be its chief mission — that is, giving regular people a sense that they are being taken care of and seen, so that they feel secure enough to welcome all the bounty that skilled immigrants and technological change bring to our lives. In its own cranky way, MAGA is now having an interesting internal debate.” 

                                                           * * 

(In her Dec. 27 “Letters from an American.” Professor Heather Cox Richardson also wrote about this internal debate within the G.O.P. citing many specific examples. By now, you should know how to find her site. That both of these pundits have chosen to address this issue emphasizes its importance.)

                                                           * * 

And guess who blamed a series of 1990s TV sitcoms for what he saw as a decline in U.S. dynamism in science and technology, leading tech companies to hire more qualified foreign-born and first-generation workers over their mentally lazy American counterparts! Vivek Ramaswarmy, that’s who, a loyal Trumpster also involved in seeking government efficiency along with Elon Musk in their proposed DOGE program, recently wrote that ‘a culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,’ and that ‘a culture that venerates Cory from Boy Meets World or Zach & Slater over Screech in Saved by the Bell, or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in Family Matters will not produce the best engineers.’ 

Obviously in favor of the H-1B visas and similar ‘doorways’ for foreign engineers and scientists, along with Elon Musk, this angered the hypocritical MAGA supporters who oppose all immigrants as job stealers from Americans, but who are quite willing to hire them to mow their lawns, pick their fruit, and do the construction industry’s dirtier and most dangerous jobs. 

JL 

                                                          * * * 

Looking in the Mirror 

Few people (at least down here in semi-literate Floriduh) read newspapers any longer. Even their ‘online’ circulation is dropping.  But I still do, and I will, until they go the way of outdoor pay telephone booths, continue to pass on important items from the papers, like the David Brooks New York Times piece included above. 

Another one worthy of your interest, is a ‘Your Turn’ column from the December 28 Palm Beach Post, and is here reproduced: 

Your Turn - T. Robinson Ahlstrom - Guest columnist 

“I’m starting with the man in the mirror, Take a look at look at yourself and then make a change.' … Michael Jackson “

America’s recent election handed us a mirror in which we can see ourselves as we really are. The votes of 155,992,024 citizens present a faithful image, 'warts and all.' It was a close election in which the winner received 49.9 percent of the vote while the runner-up received 48.3 percent. While neither candidate received a majority, the disturbing visage in the mirror demands a close look. 

We see a nation in which deceit, debauchery, corruption, and outright criminal behavior have become entirely acceptable. After a decade of excusing the inexcusable and accepting the unacceptable, we have become thoroughly demoralized. Eighty percent of those fine, church-going folk who fashion themselves as 'the moral majority' led the charge to make an infamously immoral man our chief magistrate. 

For a plurality of Americans, character no longer counts. But race does. This election reminded the whole world that racism is not merely America’s original sin, but our besetting sin. The winner, who launched his first campaign by calling Mexican immigrants 'rapists,' kicked off his second with the oft-repeated claim that 'undocumented immigrants are poisoning the blood of our nation.' Racism was not a footnote to his campaign. It was his campaign. Carefully crafted racial slurs, thinly veiled as concern over immigration, public safety, or employment security, formed the heart of his message. The man we chose to become our 47th president ran the most consistent, cynical, and cleverly racist campaign in American history.

Democrats, always talking about the future and 'the arc of history,' can’t face this reality, and Republicans, who always varnish and venerate the past, won’t admit it but racism still sells in America. This narrow election was not decided by the price of eggs. Like it or not, the man in the mirror is not only amoral and bigoted. He is also proudly anti-intellectual — a characteristic as American as apple pie. 

Since the nation’s founding, a key component of our national character has been what Isaac Asimov dubbed 'a cult of ignorance' — a perverse notion that, in a democracy, one person’s ignorance is just as good as another person’s knowledge. In the 2024 election, this quintessential feature of American culture manifested itself as a virulent popular distain of the educated by the less educated, a suspicion of science and science-based facts, and a distrust bordering on disdain for all expertise and institutional authority. The man we just elected is no Thomas Jefferson. He boasted that he 'loves poorly educated people' and promises to close the Department of Education. He gives face and voice to their contempt for those of intellect, virtue or expertise. Sadly, the man in the mirror — Time Magazine’s 'Man of the Year' — is who we have become. 

The election of 2024 featured the world’s richest man, who had recently purchased and poisoned one of the world’s premier information platforms, contributing $277 million to the corrupt and corruptible candidate of his choice. From Monterey to Montauk, races were bought and sold as openly as a used Toyota on Craigslist. Before you protest that 'the man in the mirror is not me,' remember that elections produce a family photo and we are all in it. 

Religion without morality. Racism without apology. Ignorance compounded by arrogance. Corruption and greed without shame. That is who 'we the people' have become.”

(T. Robinson Ahlstrom is a university administrator and Chair of The George Washington Scholars Endowment. He is an independent who has consulted with and written for office holders in both political parties.) 

                                                       * * 

Sad indeed. 

JL

                                                        * * * 

Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri 

Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it (Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.) If you want to send someone the blog, you can just tell them to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or you can provide a link to that address in your email to them. 

There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though! Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible. If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a brief comment from you. Each will receive a link to click on that will directly connect them to the blog. Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting. 

Email Alerts: If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do. And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com. 

Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it. 

JL 

                                                        * * *