A Hard Day

 We didn't have a great day here yesterday.

Laz fell 12' off the deck rolling over inattentively.

I tried to move a tall wheeled plant stand and the wheels stuck so it fell apart.  Took an hour to get it reassembled.  It holds together by friction of poles in holes.  I improved on that in the re-assembly and I have one more idea drilling 2 holes and attaching a bungee cord, but not today.

I tried to pay a hospital bill online.  What idiot developed that website?  There were options for identifying yourself for paying.  Account number on bill, last 4 digits of Social Security Number, date of birth, date of visit.  Yes, I could establish a user name and password, but I doubt I will need one soon again (they expire) and I have way too many one-shot sign-ups as it is.

Everything I tried used a Captcha test.  I got through that, but it didn't matter.  No method of identification worked.  They just wanted a new Captcha test every step.  And the steps led nowhere.

It was circular.  Add whatever identifier info they wanted, get a Capcha Test, succeed, and repeat.  Back to Square One.    Why is it that non-commercial websites never seem to work?  

I went through the same nonsense with getting a new sticker for my trailer license plate.  The website said I didn't own the trailer.  I received a renewal form in the mail and replied to that.  It worked in 5 days!

Speaking of the trailer, I noticed the supporting pipe fell off the cinder block I use to keep it off the ground.  So it was in the ground.  In fact, it is stuck in the ground.  I can't lift things like I used to.  I'll have to drag out the car's jack.

Lately, all my neighbors have decided it is great to mow their lawns at 9 am.  Im trying to sleep then.  Not their problem, but the noise is "sleeplessness".  And 2 neighbors have bought motorcycles they drive up and down the street at the same general time.  What is it with loving "noise"?

Just ranting mildly...

Political Stuff

It's a week before the US Presidential et al elections and I'm losing my mind.  I don't mind saying that I voted for Biden.  If Trump wins I think my head will explode.  I have disliked the candidate I didn't support before, but never felt complete utter disgust.

I mailed my ballot Friday.  I hope it gets there on time.  I mean, it only has to travel to the next town and 11 days should be way more than safe.  I could probably mail a letter to someone in China in 11 days.  I have a tracking number, so I will check in a couple days.

My State (Maryland) is so Democratic it probably wouldn't matter if it didn't.  Even my County (which was very Republican when I moved here 34 years ago) is now thoroughly Democratic.  Maryland is so completely Democratic that neither Trump nor Biden bothered to visit here (that I know of).  I don't even get political telephone calls or emails.

Still, you never know until it is over.  I went into some shock when Clinton lost in 2016 and even waited 2 days for everyone to announce they reported it wrong.

I was watching some TV interviews with people doing early voting in person today.  It was about how long they had been waiting to vote.  Most said "several hours".  But when the interviewer asked one lady, I just KNEW the answer.  "4 years".  And that is exactly what she said a few seconds later.  I often do that with movies, new commercials, and political speeches.  

I'm waiting with bated breath for Trump to do or say something dramatic to try a last-ditch effort to win.  Announcing  a Covid-19 vaccine, a major tax break for the non-wealthy, firing Mitch McConnell, a war with North Korea, something, who knows?  

He's desperate.  If he loses the election, a half dozen States are just waiting to charge him with a boatload of tax crimes, loan fraud, and who knows what else?  If the Department of Justice is free of his control, they might have things to investigate even he can't pardon himself for.

So nothing Trump does between now and the election will surprise me.  But watch me get surprised.  "Aliens are arriving November 2nd, NASA says so"...

If Biden was up 20 points in every State, I would still be worried.

And I ponder the consequences of Trump still being in office until January 20 even if he loses.  He could do a lot of damage in rage and revenge.  And that would be in his pattern of past behavior.  Let's just say politely that "he does not respond well to rejection".

If Trump loses, I will credit Biden for staying calm and rational in the face of insults and attacks.  I will credit Harris for energy and support and fundraising.  I will credit Obama for getting on the campaign trail at the end (not too early, not too late) and being himself at his best.  His campaign speeches were great.

But mostly, I will credit the Democratic voters who turned out in 2020 who didn't turn out out for Clinton (though if they had, we wouldn't be in this hot mess),  the Republican voters of 2016 who realized that they made a mistake (everyone makes a mistake sometimes) and changed their minds about Trump,  all the Republican strategists and columnists who turned away from Trump in the past couple years (that must have been hard to do).  

And I also will credit the resiliency of American Democracy.  Not that other Nations don't have some strong traditions and history of their own, but the Trump Presidency has been a particular challenge. The US is often said to be a "Nation Of Laws".  Sometimes that means we pay more attention to "laws" than we do to "justice".  My personal opinion is that we depend on law and limit justice in hopes of fairness and consistency.

But, as we have discovered in the Trump Presidency, we are more a Nation of "norms" than we realized.  It wasn't until Trump and Senate Leader McConnell started ignoring the informal rules that this legal loophole became clear.  Decades and even a century of informal rules have been broken or ignored for short-term political gain.

Past political leaders have always played "hardball".  They bullied their own party members to get things done and threatened the other party with consequences.  Political leaders have a lot of control over campaign funds to recalcitrant party members, funds to States, and laws which benefit some industry or not.  Politics at the top level are not for sissies.

But some rules have been agreed upon by both sides.  You don't kick the opponent party TOO hard when they are down, because the boot will be on the other foot soon enough and revenge is certain.  If you want something, you give a little bit to get what you really want.  You talk to each other to understand what they care about the most.  If you need a bridge built in your State, you look for someone on the other side who needs a highway in theirs.  Give and take.

In a democracy, "politics is the art of the possible".  In an authoritarian government, politics means "stomping on the opposition and grinding them into the dirt".  It means destroying the Civil Service.  It means ridding the government of any and all of the people who are experts in their fields who disagree with you.

Trump has been working toward "authoritarianism" for 4 years.  It's time to call a halt to the whole damaging process and get back to the usual "fight like hell but obey the norms" again.

Angry Voters

I have been hard on Donald Trump (and rightly so).  But I haven't discussed his supporters much.

I sort of understand them.  They are angry.  They are desperate.  They aren't living the life their parents enjoyed.

In a general sense, we all know that some people succeed in life better than others. And the others don't.  The reasons are not my point here.  My point is that they know the world is somehow passing them by, they are not succeeding,  and they are angry.  There are few emotions stronger than anger.

Hate is usually directed, anger is diffuse.

Trump has activated the angry people.  He wouldn't have gotten the Republican nomination for President if anger and fear wasn't a real thing in significant part of the population.

I do not fear Trump.  He will go down into crushing defeat on Election Day.  It is the angry people who concern me.  Their anger is justified.  They used to have decent-paying jobs putting headlights on cars, collecting coins from parking meters, loading luggage on airplanes, etc.  There used to be jobs you could just learn to DO without having to work on a computer, make decisions, or attend meetings and argue with people.  Some people are just not good at those things.  And they have fewer places to do work now.

And I understand because in the 1st 10 years of my adult life, I had cruddy jobs too.  I pushed a lawn mower in the hot sun for 2 Summers on an Army Base.  I spent 2 Summers pumping gas at a full service station where the owner dipped his sticky fingers into the till and charged us workers for the "losses". 

I worked at minimum wage in several department stores while the rent went up faster than my wages.  I even got to where I was in charge of a 1/4 of the department store and my hourly pay was 25 cents above minimum wage.  And the store managers cheated us every chance they could get because every dime they took out of our pocket went into theirs!

But I took a competitive exam for Government work and scored 100% in 5 categories of jobs.  That was because *I* spent my time in high school studying while "other" kids were goofing off.  I learned "stuff".  I practiced general skills.  I did well.  I was promoted regularly.  I retired well.

But not much better than the middle class in the US did in the 50s and 60s.  The high point of the US economy was when unions were strong (but not overly strong), when the percentage of the total wealth held by the top 1% was low, and when a college education for children was withing reach of most middle class families. 

There was a chart in Scientific American magazine a month ago that showed the percentage of national wealth held by the top 1% of Americans. 

In the 1920s, it rose to 20%.  At the end of The Great Depression, it was down to 15%, and the end of WWII, it was down to 10%.

In 1970, it was down to 8%.  After the Republican Tax Reform act of 1986, it rose rather suddenly to 16%, and after the 2000 Bush Administration, it went back up to 18%.  That is wrong.  The trickle down theory of wealth only means every one below the top 1% gets peed on.

The Republicans are doing it very very wrong, in pay to their super-rich supporters.  But the Democrats are doing things a whole lot better.

What we need is a Centrist-Union party dedicated to recreating the middle class.  No industrialized nation can survive without a strong middle class.  That is what makes democracy work.

Democracy works best when the poor have a path up, the middle class has some basic stability in life, and the rich are accepting a lower level than "outrageously fabulous".

I'll give a sports example...

Say you are a farmkid in Kansas and you have a choice between driving a tractor around cornfields for $20K a year vs earning $100K a year catching balls in the outfield.  Of course you would take the $100K.  But is it worth $50M.  No, you would do it for $100K. It is idiodically super-rich people playing their own game, competing with each other.

If they weren't, the seats would cost $10 and they would all still make a fine profit.  THat's what a generally middle-class world would look like...

Miscellaneous

1.  I read a cat joke today that I wanted to post on the cat blog, but I was worried too many people wouldn't understand and I avoid insulting people.  One never knows sometimes.  But I'll take a chance here (because this is MY blog): 

Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar, and doesn't.

OK, I'm a bit odd sometimes.  Science humor isn't always the easiest to follow.  I suppose English majors find puns in Dante's Inferno and Music majors in Mozart.

2.  Just had an interesting idea of a way for cats to open doors, but it might be patentable, so I can't tell you about it.

3.  The President's State Of The Union speech is on now, but I'm not listening to it.  I like President Obama, but I don't pay any attention to speeches.  It's what politicians DO that counts, not what they say.  And if he says anything really interesting, it will be on the TV tomorrow ALL day.

4.  I need some new science/nature/history DVDs.  I'm beginning to memorize the narrative on all the ones I have.

5.  I spent an hour today trying to make the various remotes all work the various TV devices.  Moderate success, but will post in detail some other day.

6.  You know those thin magnetic ads (designed to be stuck on the refrigerator) that come on phone books and some few other sources?  Did you know that if you stick them on your car they don't blow off?  I'm going to use them to make removable "bumper" stickers by glue-sticking messages on a group of them.  LOL!

7.  I bought new calenders several weeks ago.  One was a Wizard Of Oz calendar.  It is about 2' high by 14" wide.  The actual monthly calendar part is only 5"by 7".  That's a calendar?  I need my reading glasses to see the dates! 

8.  I have learned with the new smart HDTV that I am far behind the tech curve.  I am debating whether to TRY to catch up or just let it go.  I don't even have a smart phone...  How old do I have to be before it's aceptable to not even try anymore?

Too Few Facts

I was watching MSNBC tonight.  It is my preferred political talk source.  They generally provide backup to their claims, with videotape with dates and locations, etc.  They are generally thoughtful and complete in their presentations.  But sometimes even they go thin on the analysis and it irks me.

Chris Hayes did a piece on rip-off hospital charges.  And while it is generally true that US medical professionals and hospitals seem to get a lot more than in other countries (so that the costs can be legitimately questioned) the example he used was abysmal. 

He was talking about IV saline solution.  He said they use Morton salt and inexpensive bottled water.  I expect that its true because MSNBC doesn't slip on basic checkable information like that.  His big point was that some hospital charged a patient $91 for 88 cents worth of salt and water.  OUTRAGEOUS!

But wait-a-minute...  Aren't there other costs in providing that saline solution?

I'm no doctor and not even related to the least grade of medical assistant, but I can immediately think of a lot of costs involved beyond the saline solution.

1.  Someone has to mix the salt and water precisely.
2.  The saline solution has to be put in (I assume) a sterile plastic bag.
3.  A sterile tube has to be attached to the bag.
4.  The saline bag has to be delivered to the patient's location.
5.  A needle has to be inserted into the patient.
6.  The saline bag has to be attached to the needle.
7.  I assume there is a drip-rate control that needs to be set.
8.  The saline drip has to be monitored at some times.
9.  The use of the saline drip has to be recorded for billing purposes.
10. The use has to be billed.
11. The billing usually has to go through several cycles (the whole bill to medicare, then the uncovered amount to the insurance company, and finally some small bill to the actual patient.
12.  Some percentage of patient bills will never be paid, so those get distributed into other hospital overhead costs.  I'm a little uncertain on this last one, as those costs may be included in the above costs.  But even then, some of those costs will be distributed into hospital services that were not involved in the provision of the saline solution, so they aren't in the cost of the saline (meaning they got added to overhead for ER, cancer ward, meals, etc).

I'm not mentioning this to complain about medical costs (though that is worthy of attention and challenge).  I'm not qualified to accurately set the cost of an appendectomy (an operation I had once) or a heart transplant (which I haven't).

But if I can easily see a dozen more costly parts of a procedure, couldn't MSNBC's fact-checkers and editors see the same? 

I have to accuse MSNBC and Chris Hayes of pulling a sleight-of-hand with the facts on this issue.  Rather FOX-like, in "convenient factlessness"...