Whitcomb: Our Sweet Cesspool; Stock up on Canned Vegetables; Health-Care Crooks

Whitcomb: Our Sweet Cesspool; Stock up on Canned Vegetables; Health-Care Crooks

“What we didn’t see was this day, in

our pajamas if we want to,

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wrinkled hands strong, wine

in juice glasses, toasting

whatever’s next….’’

-- From “Thanksgiving for Two,’’ by Marjorie  Saiser (born 1943), American poet

Here’s the whole poem:

 

 

“The first duty of a good inquisitor is to suspect especially those who seem sincere to him.’’

—Umberto Eco (1932-2016), Italian writer

 

 

“A monument is money wasted. My memory will live on if my life has deserved it.’’

—Pliny the Younger (circa  61-113 A.D.),  lawyer, author and magistrate of Ancient Rome.

 

 

How weird it has seemed to watch planes drop water and other fire retardants on big brush and woods fires in New England the past few weeks, recalling California.

 

We’ll be seeing more dramatic cycles of floods, droughts, and fires.

 

Scientists see man-caused global warming as behind the extreme shifts between wet and dry periods we’ve been experiencing. This means bursts of rapidly growing thick vegetation, which then dries out in droughts, providing fuel for fires of the sort that the Northeast has experienced during the past few months.

 

Even climate-change deniers might decide soon not to live in fire-prone areas around here.

 

You might find this interesting:

 

 

But this fall’s weather has been so golden!

I wish you the best for Thanksgiving, including that you don’t have to travel.

 

xxx

 

I used to chuckle at Jimmy Carter’s idiotic line in 1976 that he wanted “A government as good as its people.’’

 

What, in general, is so good about the American people compared to other nationalities? And a large portion, larger than in 1976, now wallow in lies, wishful thinking and astounding ignorance in an increasingly civically and historically illiterate “post-fact’’ nation. And wait till AI really gets going.

 

And now keys to the White House have been handed to a gangster whose depravity has been clear for decades. He’s been trying to fill his lawless Banana Republic-style autocracy/kleptocracy with fellow grifters as well as with a  Russian asset, crazies, ignoramuses,  sexual abusers (though one of them bailed out), a Russian-style oligarch (Deputy President-elect  Elon Musk) etc., etc. – all swimming in sycophancy and lies.  Well, the Americans who have made this seamy bed (by a 1.5-point popular-vote margin) will now be compelled to lie on it. Unfortunately, so will the rest of us.

 

This is the model for personal and public behavior that voters have bequeathed to their children, thus ensuring even broader corruption as the years roll by.

 

Meanwhile, folks might note that countries as corrupt as America are becoming usually have bad economies over the long run.  That’s because trust is important for the health of capitalism; corruption kills trust. When interpersonal and inter-institutional integrity evaporates, so do many of the honest transactions that give vitality to an economy.

 

The strongest economies over the long term are those with the most honest public and private sectors, most notably the Scandinavian countries.

 

I mention this because the biggest single reason MAGA won was complaints about the economy, though the U.S. came out of the COVID crisis with the strongest economy of any major advanced industrialized nation, albeit with the high, but then declining, inflation that was also seen in peer economies. Of course, few voters did any research into this, though it would have been easy even for those “low-education’’ voters that Trump, as a con man for half a century, wisely appeals to.

Hit this link:

I stick to my guess that the initial effect of Trump’s new big tax cuts for the rich and jettisoning of rules to curb financial fraud and extreme speculation and monopolies will be a speculative orgy, followed by implosion. Trump and his minions will try to obscure the damage by driving out federal agency statisticians and other nonpartisan experts and replacing them with political appointees who will cook up fake data.

 

Crypto, which is very volatile and unregulated and which MAGA now loves, will add a lot of fuel to the flames.

Hit this link:

 

 

None of all this is to minimize the role of declining public education. Consider that by some estimates more than half of American adults read below the equivalent of sixth-grade level. And it’s getting worse.  But hey, just show us some videos!

 

 

xxx

 

 

Assuming that the new regime carries out its plan to deport millions of illegal aliens, how long will it take for prices of fruit and vegetables to soar and supplies to plummet?  Who do you think is picking a lot of this stuff? And how about many healthcare workers, etc.? On a brighter (?) note? ---  neighborhoods may be quieter and with less polluted air as the hard-working leaf-blowing illegals of “landscaping” companies are rounded up and concentrated in camps on their way back to South of the Border. Except those at Mar-a-Lago and assorted Trump golf courses.

 

The Biden/Harris crowd is cursing itself for the president’s failure to act earlier – in 2021-2022--  to more vigorously stem the flow of desperate migrants. Still, reminder: Trump ordered congressional Republicans to kill a tough bipartisan border-control plan touted by Biden earlier this year for fear it would help Democrats in the election.

 

Of course, pundits have found several reasons for Harris’s failure, including the Democrats’ tendency to take positions on too many controversial and peripheral issues, which diluted efforts to push their central socio-economic message  – that they’d help the nonrich --  and gave MAGA more ways to successfully demagogue, say in such things as trans athletes at schools;  trans people are a minuscule percentage of the population, but seeming to reject the laws of biology ain’t politically smart. As I have written, racial, sexual, and other identity politics, however well-intentioned it might often be, have been a disaster for the Democrats.

 

In any case, it seems to me that more than anything else COVID elected Biden in  2020, and inflation in response to COVID probably re-elected Trump on Nov. 5.

 

Movie star George Sanders’s (1906-1972) suicide note seems particularly appropriate now.

 

“Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck.’’

 

 

xxx

 

Even a broken clock is right twice a day!

Linda McMahon, the professional-wrestling billionaire and Trump cultist who is The Great Leader’s choice for education secretary, supports extending Pell Grant eligibility to students in vocational programs, such as for the trades, from just college students. A fine idea!

 

 

Whatever the Market Will Bear….

The looters at Steward Health Care, the bankrupt hospital chain, and the frequent stories of bad care at nursing-home chains that have made owners very, very rich -- a  status that these capitalists like to show off in the form of yachts, private jets and mansions -- keep raising the question of whether health-care organizations should be for-profit.

 

As the number of elderly people keeps rising, the problem of private-sector healthcare corruption can only worsen.

 

The for-profit focus has helped make America’s healthcare indices the worst in the Developed World and its “system’’ far and away the most expensive.

Consider this Rhode Island fat cat:

 

 

Transport Tales

According to some accounts, as much as a quarter of MBTA fares on the Rhode Island to Boston commuter train routes are not being collected. That’s many millions of dollars a year needed for the two-state system to make long-overdue repairs and expansions. Perhaps over the next few years, some sort of a computerized turnstile system could help reduce the difficulty that conductors face in checking that travelers have valid tickets and in collecting fares on crowded trains. For now, hiring more conductors could more than pay for itself.

 

xxx

 

I noticed again the other day how perilously low Amtrak’s trains along Long Island Sound are to the water.

 

xxx

 

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, with the election over, has brought back the congestion-pricing plan for drivers into New York after delaying it for months. The idea is to reduce air pollution and the frequency of street gridlock while providing desperately needed money to improve the city’s troubled public-transit system, which is essential for its economic and social health.

 

The new system would charge a $9 toll for most drivers  to enter Midtown Manhattan, down from the original $15. Low-income people and some other groups would get discounts. There is the usual bellyaching but I predict that if the plan is adopted people will ask why congestion pricing, which has been successful in cities around the world, wasn’t done years before. Obviously, other famously congested U.S. cities, such as Boston, will be watching.

 

It's no surprise that Trump, who doesn’t really believe in the federal system, has threatened to block the plan. Has this native New Yorker spoiled limo-driven rich boy ever even ridden in the subway?

 

xxx

 

Read about how a dense community with public transit may be the safest jurisdiction in America. And it’s right across the river from Washington, D.C., parts of which are high crime.

 

xxx

 

Biden’s authorization for Ukraine to use longer-range missiles to attack Russia as that nation, assisted by drafted North Korean troops, steps up its attacks, is too little and too late.  Putin suck-up Trump will soon take office.

 

What a Boar!

I was recently in France, where I used to live and work. I hadn’t been there in about a decade. The social services and physical infrastructure remain much better than in America. There’s more graffiti though. The papers and TV shows were inevitably filled with horror about the return of Trump to power.

 

Of course, the countryside and many old cities remain beautiful, even on damp, cold November days.

 

A few incidents come to mind:

 

One of our group fell asleep near the airline gate and missed her connecting flight. Nobody from the airline bothered to wake her up.

 

We were supposed to meet a couple (the husband of which is a friend and former colleague of mine) who live near Avignon for lunch in that ancient city. But when we arrived, the maître d’ told us (translating here from the French) that a wild boar had “entered” (meaning attacked) our friends’ car and so they couldn’t make it. My ex-colleague’s wife is a famed restaurant reviewer and all-around food expert and so I asked him if they’d consider eating the boar. He said they had no appetite for it.

 

Then there were the flocks of wetsuit-clad windsurfers in the stormy Mediterranean as the snow-topped Maritime Alpes loomed to the north. A very dramatic scene indeed.

Finally, there’s the impressive marriage of security and commerce at the Marseilles airport, where to pass through security, you’re compelled to walk twice through a glittery store to be cleared. I guess the airport authorities desperately need the revenue.

 

Even the biggest airports, which are also giant shopping malls, arouse a kind of claustrophobia. That’s in  part because more layers keep getting added to security. England’s Heathrow is especially rigorous. “Remove all Kleenex from pockets!”

 

You could usually tell which groups were American – the ones with the fattest people.

 

Trying to Survive the Slump

Our Spoons Came From Woolworths, by Barbara Comyns (1907-1992) is a charming, sometimes funny and often sad story of a young and impoverished couple in England during the Great Depression (called The Slump there). The self-deprecating and rather fatalistic heroine of this weird semi-autobiographical novel has a voice I’d never come across before. There’s grim social realism about the class system, etc., mixed with a sweetly spaced-out and often deadpan attitude.