Nonfiction – education and deconstruction.com

Hacks and Todd Blanche – BONUS POST

[Please note: The word “Featured” on the left side above was NOT inserted by this blogger, but apparently was inserted by WordPress, and it cannot be removed. NO post in this blog is sponsored.]

Here’s a song about the sorry state of affairs at the Justice Department.

HACKS AND TODD BLANCHE

sung to the tune of “Jack and Diane” with apologies to John Cougar Mellencamp and to whomever else the rights may concern.

Little ditty ’bout hacks and Todd Blanche.

They’re DOJ busybodies in Never-Never Land.

Jeanine Pirro thinks she’s a reality show star.

Blanche does witch hunts similar to Bill Barr’s.

Suckin’ at prosecuting, the accused who walk free.

Blanche pushes Trump’s crap. Lawyers quit. There’s mutiny.

Why haven’t Blanche and his gang been impeached?

Congress and their-donors are crooks, and they do what they please.

Sigh. Oh yeah, the Right keeps on, long after the thrill of bitching is gone.

Oh yeah, the Right keeps on, long after the thrill of bitching is gone. With Fox on.

Jeanine set us back on the “reflecting pool” of the moment.

Her dispatches were as disgusting as VP JD’s.

Well then there Todd Blanche is Trump’s chump without pity.

Todd Blanche says “Slaves, you ain’t SEEing nothing.”

Fox is playing. Oh yeah, the Right keeps on, long after the thrill of bitching is gone. Oh yeah, the Right keeps on, long after the thrill of bitching is gone.

No rule-of-law for them. Others they probe. Ain’t a man alive who could can save their souls. They boost Fox’s ratings as long as they can. Next charade is coming around real soon. A few’ll get country-club pris-ON.

Oh yeah, the Right keeps on, long after the thrill of bitching is gone. Oh yeah, the Right keeps on, long after the thrill of bitching is gone.

Little ditty ’bout hacks and Todd Blanche. They get their kicks criminalizing our land.

The Snowball

The Book of the Week is “The Snowball, Warren Buffett and the Business of Life” by Alice Schroeder, published in 2008. This authorized biography described how one of the world’s richest men, accumulated his wealth.

Born at the end of August 1930 in Omaha, Nebraska, Buffett was obsessed with making money. He became the general partner of the eventual conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, an initially money-losing textile company.

In August 1991, a financial scandal broke at the bond brokerage, Salomon Brothers. One representative, on various occasions, had broken the law to corner a specific government-securities market in auctions. His indiscretions, about which his bosses knew and took no disciplinary action for months, cost Salomon’s competition $100 million.

Buffett was tasked with restoring Salomon’s reputation and his own, as he was a major investor in the firm. “Everything at Salomon was turned topsy-turvy as the new culture of openness went into effect.”

BUT, the late college basketball coach John Wooden always said– one should worry about one’s character, not one’s reputation. One’s character is indicated by the following cliche: “When you lie down with dogs, you get fleas.” In other words, if you associate with people of bad character– stooping to their level, your own bad character will be exhibited.

Buffett helped punish the former executives at fault, by refusing to pay their legal fees and severance pay. The main perpetrator went to arbitration to restore his severance pay. The arbitrators ruled against him; he didn’t get a penny. The book’s author commented it was unclear why he was perceived to have been punished so severely.

As securities-industry insiders, those arbitrators were wisely trying to hold up the perpetrator as an example– to deter future bad behavior. Clearly, unmitigated hubris and unconscionable greed was “in the air” and was not going to stop anytime soon.

Numerous monster-sized financial scandals caused havoc in markets worldwide from the late 1980’s onward. Countless innocent people were fired– who had nothing to do with the scandals! The author omitted the inconvenient fact that in 1993, an unsupervised, rogue bond-department trader at Kidder Peabody caused that firm to go belly-up.

Buffett was a strong believer in pay-for performance. He drastically slashed Salomon’s employee bonuses because they didn’t perform– make money for Salomon’s shareholders, who were the real owners of the firm. Unsurprisingly, the employees were mad as hell, and thought the billionaire Buffett was a hypocrite. By the mid-1990’s, prosecutors would act aggressively to indict financial law-breakers unless they showed “extreme contrition and cooperation” when caught. How times have changed.

The leadership of the United States has been reduced to a small group of alpha males with hubris syndrome and their lawyers, running the country like a corrupt Wall Street brokerage. Economic decline is inevitable, unless the next president behaves the way Buffett did– legally requiring transparency and competence rather than loyalty. He or she must bring adult supervision to the major drains on the nation’s treasury: war / military spending, tax cuts, space exploration, and in the most recent twelve years– litigation.

Anyway, read the book to learn much, much more about Buffett, his family, and his times.

Let’s Rant – BONUS POST

This is what Trump’s handlers are singing to the GOP and Fox on his behalf.

LET’S RANT

sung to the tune of “Let’s Dance” with apologies to the Estate of David Bowie and to whomever else the rights may concern.

ah ah ah ah

Let’s rant. I oversee voting results, and we can’t lose.

Let’s rant, to my song I’m playing in the media.

Let’s rename, everywhere that shall BE my place.

Let’s rename, through my crowd, we’ll have outer space.

If you say no, I’ll fire you.

If I say AI, it’s AI, AI, AI, AI.

Because I rule over you, you must obey my crew.

We can’t let Iran, have nuclear arms, and others have any power.

Let’s rant. Let’s rant.

It’s clear I’m having a ball.

Let’s rant. It’s clear I’ll never fall.

Let’s rename. It’s all my enterprise.

Let’s rename, under my spotlight. It’s my spotlight.

If you say no, I’ll fire you.

If I say AI, it’s AI, AI, AI, AI.

Because I rule over you, you must obey my crew.

We can’t let Iran, have nuclear arms, and others have any power.

Let’s rant. I oversee voting results, and we can’t lose.

Let’s rename, under my spotlight. It’s my spotlight.

Let’s rename…

The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen

The Book of the Week is “The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen, True Nature” by Lance Richardson, published in 2025.

Born in May 1927, Matthiessen was a son of white male privilege. He came of age in Connecticut, and on the eastern end of Long Island, New York State.

Matthiessen was the black sheep of the family, becoming a “bad boy” from adolescence onward; making mischief by throwing rocks at and shooting BB’s at cars. At his boarding school, he interrupted a violin quartet recital with a case of the giggles (later loosely duplicated in that episode of Seinfeld when Elaine does so at a piano recital) that became contagious. When the headmaster tried to see who started it, Matthiessen pretended to be horrified by his fellow students’ rudeness.

After his midlife crisis, in his forties, Matthiessen began to write about causes he cared about, especially environmentalism and Native Americans. In 1970, he published a nonfiction book, Sal Si Puedes. It was about environmentalism, and then-current events in America. He felt that the way people thought about nature, ran parallel to the way they thought about economic, social and political issues. “In damaged human habitat, all problems merge.”

Not everyone is intelligent enough to see how one thing leads to another; there are currently numerous Americans who– out of greed, power-hunger, jealousy of successful alpha males with hubris syndrome, or selfishness– can tolerate their own cognitive dissonance. They hold contradictory attitudes toward the different issues. The political Right constantly smears those who agree that all issues are connected– ignorantly labeling those people who believe in ethics– Liberals, Communists, and Socialists.

Mathiessen claimed he felt bad about going to live among peoples of different cultures in order to sell information about them in the books he wrote. Such exploitation has been going on for centuries among journalists and social scientists. But in some instances, the native peoples benefit when the writers publicize how the “white man” is swindling them. Pursuant to those rare political times favorable for them, the victims acquire a little bit of power and compensation for the damage done to them.

Matthiessen practiced “New Journalism” by writing a personal account of his interviews with Cesar Chavez, who advocated for the union, United Farm Workers. Chavez began a grassroots movement that tried to get Americans to value dignity and justice, amid the “worrisome national trends of materialism, poverty and ecological decline.” Good luck with that, all. That still has yet to be accomplished for the past century.

Read the book to learn everything you ever wanted to know about Matthiessen– his writings, love affairs, travels, trials and tribulations.

Vance’s Star is Rising – BONUS POST

VANCE’S STAR IS RISING

sung to the tune of “Bad Moon Rising” with apologies to Creedence Clearwater Revival and to whomever else the rights may concern.

I see, Vance’s star a-rising.

I see, a frat boy on the way.

I see, hypocrisy and fighting.

I see, a Trump Mini-Me today.

Forget the evil Right, or you’re bound to waste your life.

Vance’s star is on the rise.

I hear, hot air a-blowing.

I know, Trump’s end is coming soon.

I feel, the swamp is overflowing.

I see, the metaphor of-the-reflecting pool.

Forget the evil Right, or you’re bound to waste your life.

Vance’s star is on the rise.

Let’s all, go vote together.

Keep calm. Two years will fly by.

We’ll have to endure more nasty-endeavors. Our taxes are stolen by-the-by.

Well, forget the evil Right, or you’re bound to waste your life.

Vance’s star is on the rise.

How to Save the Amazon

The Book of the Week is “How to Save the Amazon, A Journalist’s Quest for Answers” by Dom Phillips and various authors, published in 2025. This hodgepodge of a volume listed various issues related to the destruction of the Amazon rain forest, which spans eight different countries. Nevertheless, the title was misleading in that all the articles except for one about Cost Rica– were about the Amazon region in Brazil.

Over the decades, there has been a tug of war between monetizing of, and attempting to enforce laws to protect the Amazon region, involving:

changing politics
supply and demand for real estate
supply and demand for products such as fossil fuels, fish, fruits and nuts.

Anyway, simply enacting laws, and then underfunding and understaffing the laws’ enforcement NEVER works in such an environmentally delicate, resource-rich region where the people born there have a simple lifestyle, and aren’t sufficiently powerful to defend their way of life against exploitation of their land.

For decades, business people have worked around the Amazon river in gold mining, commercial fishing, logging, rubber tapping, farming, oil wildcatting, and cattle ranching (beef production).

On and off, Brazil’s government agencies, and the Pastoral Land Commission (a Catholic organization) have assisted the Indigenous people who have small farms in the region. There had been programs similar to those implemented in the western United States in the 1800’s, of homesteading and sharecropping. BUT, more than half of the population of Brazil consists of Amazon-region residents (Indigenous peoples) whose dark skin makes them subject to discrimination.

There are tens of different Indigenous peoples who choose to live in the region, isolating themselves from the rest of the world. Their mentality is described in the song, “Colors of the Wind” from the Disney movie soundtrack Pocahontas. One Indigenous individual interviewed by one of the authors wrote, “That land could be owned by a single person is unthinkable to us because everyone’s survival depends on it.”

The Indigenous peoples and NGOs are the only people who should be stewards of the land, because they live and work there, on the ground. Outsiders are mostly bureaucrats and exploiters.

One can get a bank to finance cattle-ranching, as beef production is a major way to make the land productive. So the government encourages homesteaders to go into cattle-ranching. However, it deforests the land.

The entrepreneurs behave like organized crime syndicates– ruthlessly killing people who obstruct their illegal profiteering, and donating big bucks to political candidates to perpetuate their lawlessness.

In addition, ironically, the Indigenous people aid and abet the entrepreneurs! They serve as slave labor in the entrepreneurs’ businesses because their education and skills are insufficient to make a living otherwise.

Bottom line: the Amazon rain forest is one of the few remaining resource-rich regions on earth that has yet to be completely looted– that could still be used for more good than evil.

Read the book to learn about: the annual Davos-like conference called COP where the (mostly greedy, power-hungry) attendees pretend to wring their hands over the destruction of the Amazon rain forest; the entrepreneurs who do agroforestry; the dreamers who want to turn their land into environmentally friendly utopias; and the one small cause for optimism that can improve the situation (hint: high-technology satellite images can measure deforestation).

Here I Win Again -BONUS POST

This is what Trump’s handlers are singing on his behalf.

HERE I WIN AGAIN

sung to the tune of “Here You Come Again” with apologies to the Estate of Dolly Parton, and to whomever else the rights may concern.

Here I win again, just when I’ve made MAGA even better. I cut prices even more, and won the Iran war. And flash the Dumbocrats my middle finger.

Here I win again. Just when Graham’s base is gathering a-BOUT me, the stock market’s on the rise. I deliver the prize. With my people and redistricting, they couldn’t live without me.

All I gotta do is sign an executive order, and my enemies have no power. Everything’s up to me, and IN grand style, I’m messing up their minds, and firing my women by-the-hour.

Here I win again. My SCOTUS and Post Office, I have a right to, and greatening us so, my monuments are a go. Here I win again. I run the show.

All I gotta do is sign an executive order, and my enemies have no power. Everything’s up to me, and IN grand style, I’m messing up their minds, and firing my women by-the-hour.

Here I win again. My SCOTUS and Post Office, I have a right to, and greatening us so, my monuments are a go. Here I win again. I run the show.

I run the show, I run the show, I run the show. Here. I win again. I run the show…

Dreaming in Russian

The Book of the Week is “Dreaming in Russian, a memoir [sic]” by Anya Gillinson, published in 2024. In this wordy, redundant volume, the author recounted the story of her exceptional life. She was born in Russia in the mid 1970’s.

Fortune smiled on the author due to various highly unlikely circumstances. As is well known, after the Russian Revolution in 1918, the USSR’s government discriminated against Jews in higher education and employment.

Nevertheless, the author’s Jewish father became a medical doctor in Russia. His charisma and extreme dedication to his patients in a specialty in high demand– pulmonary cardiology– allowed him to run a very busy medical practice. He made valuable business-contacts with all walks of life, so that his family was able to have a luxurious lifestyle enjoyed by only Communist Party elites.

Ironically, there was gender equality (!). Women got pay equal to the men’s pay for equal work. The women got paid maternity leave, and daycare was freely available. And abortion was legal because many men were mean drunks, so many women didn’t want children.

Before the late 1980’s, ordinary Soviet people: had extremely cramped housing, had to wait in line for hours for basic foodstuffs, and could ill-afford to pay bribes to acquire fancy items. There were always shortages of clothing, toiletries and other basic necessities. There was intense societal pressure to conform– wear the same clothing as everyone else, and live frugally for the collective good of the Soviet people.

Loyalty to one’s friends and family was taken very seriously. Russian teachers would condone what would be considered cheating in the United States– if a student told a friend the answer to a question during an exam– that represented loyalty.

Read the book to learn: 1) of the numerous other instances of great good luck had by the author that led her to finally find a truly happy life; a life she would never have lived had she been a common Soviet citizen; and 2) more about how the numerous similarities between the United States and former USSR are increasing due to the following: Party Elites are loyal to one another, their wealth is increasing, their criminality is increasing, and they are imposing policies that make the poor, poorer!

Corruption Mode – BONUS POST

Even Sweden (!) in recent times (November 2023) has convened a Truth Commission that generated a report regarding that nation’s persecution of three different minority groups.

The U.S. Congress’ committees have held hearings, video clips of which are posted on social media (with a vast quantity of commentary, of course). The hearings feature questioning of Trump administration officials who have profiteered, ordered or condoned the committing of atrocities and / or covered up the records of the perpetrators. This is the current American style of acknowledgement of wrongs for posterity.

Since the president has amassed sufficient power to control the entire U.S. legal and law enforcement systems, he has been able to duck the punishments of fining, jail time and job loss for his own numerous crimes. Here’s a song describing the video clips.

CORRUPTION MODE

sung to the tune of “Kokomo” with apologies to The Beach Boys and to whomever else the rights may concern.