Blue Sky Kingdom

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The Book of the Week is “Blue Sky Kingdom” by Bruce Kirkby, published in 2020.

The Canadian author recounted how he, his wife and two sons– seven and four– went on a radical sabbatical for half a year. The parents had always enjoyed adventurous nature trips on various continents– whitewater rafting, hiking, kayaking, canoeing, and bicycling; not to mention camping. In the mid-2010’s, they began their journey to the Himalayas– Ladakh in northern India, near the Tibet border.

The family got sponsorship from Travel Channel, but had to shop around for a tour manager whose liability insurance allowed children under twelve on the trip. They had to hire local people (who knew the territory and languages) to help them: carry their equipment, cook their food, and know what to do in case of emergency (given the life-threatening terrain and weather), etc. The trip required months and months of planning. Well, the impossible took longer.

The family took various forms of transportation to get from their home in rural British Columbia, to Asia; car, canoe, train, ship. They then backpacked through various parts of Asia. In India, they stayed at a guest house where the air conditioning was broken. As the temperature was over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit, they crowded into the cold-water shower stall, which had mildewed tiles. “A group of monkeys watched curiously from outside a window perched in a strangler fig [tree].” To try to cool off, they also ate mango ice cream.

Both parents wanted their family to experience the precepts of Tibetan Buddhism, including but far from limited to: minimalism, tranquility, non-attachment, non-materialism, and transcendental wisdom. So they lived in a monastery, partook of prayer sessions and ceremonies, and taught English to the monks-in-training. The older son, especially, who was on the autism spectrum, took to his surroundings. The author described, through a series of anecdotes, their unique adventures. The takeaway is that the author realized that he became stressed when he was able to check his email in the remotest corner of the world.

Read the book to learn about every last aspect of a simple lifestyle that is quickly disappearing– due to the globalization of capitalism (Hint: “But here [at a luxury hotel] in modern Delhi, such attributes [shorn skull, maroon robe indicating a Buddhist monk– a powerful figure in Tibet] were meaningless [for getting a visa to travel to Canada]. I, on the other hand, possessed light skin and a credit card, which could open almost any door.” The United States– whose economic model is emulated by the rest of the world– is becoming more and more a nation full of athletes, gamblers and public-relations mouthpieces.

ENDNOTE: In Tibetan Buddhism, wisdom and compassion go together– the antithesis of the current Republican presidential candidate in America. Like a dictator, he sneakily sows doubt about the effectiveness or validity of:

  • all manner of international conferences and summits (except for Davos);
  • citizenship of his enemies;
  • the American election process;
  • the American justice system;
  • the American tax system;
  • immigrants’ positive impacts on the U.S. economy; and
  • America’s international trading relationships; etc., etc., etc.

for the purpose of amassing power.

An intellectual sows doubt for the purpose of furthering the knowledge-base that will improve humanity (and winning a Nobel Prize). Of course, NO presidential candidate has ever been ideal. But the best one would have the:

  • influence of JFK;
  • charisma of Reagan;
  • life-experience of Eisenhower;
  • intellect of Bill Clinton; and
  • temperament of Obama.

Here’s a little ditty describing Trump’s modus operandi.

CYNICAL

sung to the tune of “Physical” with apologies to the estate of Olivia Newton John and whomever else the rights may concern.

TRUMP’S sowing doubt with all-things ON your mind,
clouding the conversation.
He’s gotta smear eveRYone Left.
He goes low and MEAN.
He questions your citizenship incessantly.
Then he’s SUDdenly moody.
All his cronies rally round him
about going tax free!

He wants you to get cynical, cynical.
He wants you to get cynical.
Because if you’re cynical,
the IRS and courts will let him walk,
let him walk.
The IRS and courts will let him walk.

He wants you to get cynical, cynical.
He wants you to get cynical.
Because if you’re cynical,
the IRS and courts will let him walk,
let him walk.
The IRS and courts will let him walk.

He’ll incite more violence.
We’ve been too nice,
tried to keep the dialogue civil.
It’s getting hard to tolerate this hack.
He goes low and MEAN.
His victims understand his point of view.
He owns his base mentally.
They should know, he’s destroying us, institutionally.

He wants you to get cynical, cynical.
He wants you to get cynical.
Because if you’re cynical,
the IRS and courts will let him walk,
let him walk.
The IRS and courts will let him walk.

He wants you to get cynical, cynical.
He wants you to get cynical.
Because if you’re cynical,
the IRS and courts will let him walk,
let him walk.
The IRS and courts will let him walk.

He wants you to get cynical, cynical.
He wants you to get cynical.
Because if you’re cynical,
the IRS and courts will let him walk,
let him walk.
The IRS and courts will let him walk.

Let’s be American, American, by voting AGainst him.
Let’s be American.
Or the IRS and courts will let him walk.
Or the IRS and courts will let him walk.

Nightline

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The Book of the Week is “Nightline, History in the Making and the Making of Television” by Ted Koppel and Kyle Gibson, published in 1996. The TV show Nightline, and this book were aired and published during the Reagan Era and president Bill Clinton’s first term, prior to the historical revisionism and 20 / 20 hindsight of even more modern times– during which politics is even more sophisticated. And when political awareness is higher than ever, due to social media’s pervasiveness.

In November 1979, Koppel began to host on ABC News at 11:30pm, what he thought was slated to be a temporary show, on the Iran hostage crisis. Thanks to videotape and satellites, he was able to feature a few different people who could talk to one another live, simultaneously, halfway around the world. By March 1980, this format had evolved into a news-analyzing talk-show called Nightline.

One of many moments in which viewers got to see major historical events happening right before their eyes, was the April 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens in the state of Washington. In 1985, Koppel and his crew televised a week of episodes in South Africa on apartheid, in color, and black and white. Actually. Also in 1985, in simulcasting another set of shows in a violence-prone area, they commemorated the 10th anniversary of the U.S. pullout from Vietnam. “Le Du Tho and Henry Kissinger, co-winners of the 1971 Nobel Prize, together again for the first time.” In 1988, they went to Israel to cover the never-ending dispute between the Israelis and Palestinians.

Al Campanis had played baseball with Jackie Robinson in 1946. In April 1987, the former became a victim of cancel culture after he made some unpopular comments on Nightline. “The bigger problem for baseball was that Campanis had inadvertently revealed an ugly truth about racial attitudes in the front office, and firing him wasn’t going to end what was now a national debate.”

Read the book to learn of numerous other episodes of an educational late-night TV show that was obsolesced by the changing times in America.

Bill Moyers Journal

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The Book of the Week is “Bill Moyers Journal, The Conversation Continues” by Bill Moyers, published in 2011. This compilation of interviews was done in the middle of the Obama Era–prior to the historical revisionism and 20 / 20 hindsight of the Trump Era and thereafter.

One subject Moyers touched on was campaign finance. Due to the merging of the American political, media and business worlds, and court rulings, money has corrupted the election process. Two cliches apply: The fox is guarding the henhouse (it’s really hard to clean up “Tammany Hall” because many of the enforcers themselves have conflicts of interest), and the fish rots from the head down (unethical behavior is contagious).

One way to take unfair advantages away from wealthy candidates is to legally require publicly financed campaigns. Obviously, even legally required disclosure means nothing to shameless, greedy officeholders who refuse to act ethically in connection with their conflicts of interest, once they’re elected.

Higher-quality (better behaved, less hypocritical!) Americans would be more inclined to run for office at all levels. Leaders need to be tax-paying, law-abiding citizens– people for whom honesty is a habit, a lifestyle (or at least have a reputation for it, such as Bernie Sanders). Otherwise, this nation will become a Third World country.

The latest big U.S. Supreme Court ruling is yet another indication that the nation needs campaign finance reform. That ruling was likely a choice between the lesser of two evils, in which the worse evil would be even more expensive (not just financially) for American taxpayers.

It was comparative to the 2008 financial-crisis bailout program. The alternative to the bailout would have been, that alpha males with hubris syndrome who possessed almost as much hegemony as George W. Bush, would have launched an extremely long, traumatic, complex set of lawsuits (whose goal of some would have been to get their bonuses), that would have bankrupted ordinary, tax-paying, law-abiding citizens. Ironically.

Perhaps the conservative Supreme Court justices rationalized that their ruling would be the lesser of two evils. Yes, they would give absolute power to a future president who acts like a dictator who loots his country. However, the law could be modified in the future. And the current American money-driven electoral system allows a candidate to purchase his way to office, anyway.

But the alternative would be: Trump could take the title, “president.” As is well known, Biden has some skeletons in the closet, and he’s been the target of witch hunts for, forever. So the ruling was also a deterrent to Trump’s allies and other Biden-haters who would stop at nothing to kick Biden out of office, and distract Americans from the 2024 presidential election process.

The bottom line is, TAXPAYERS ARE ALWAYS FOOTING THE BILL FOR THE MESSES AND SHENANIGANS OF THEIR GOVERNMENT. Decisions made by the authorities in massive financial scandals clearly aim to lessen the (still outrageous) tax burden on innocent Americans, lest there be revolution.

The United States needs CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM NOW. Abortion, gun control and healthcare can wait.

On a different issue, Moyers interviewed James Cone, a professor in New York City and a person of color. Cone thought white Americans omitted inconvenient facts when discussing their history, such as: Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were slaveholders. He said, “Because America likes to be innocent… that’s why it’s hard for Barack Obama or Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to talk about blackness; if they talked about blackness in the real, true sense, it would be uncomfortable.”

Read the book to learn about a wealth of other issues on which America needs to work.

Cable News Confidential

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Foreword

Hannah Arendt, in an essay on Socrates, wrote that a statesman of high caliber listens— meaning, attempts to understand another speaker’s views. Charles Lindbergh and Joseph P. Kennedy obviously failed to listen to signals from their own countrymen; for, they hitched their star to Hitler. They figured if he won the war, they’d reap the spoils. Strangely, in 1968, even Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. was fooled by the “new Nixon” who was actually the same old vicious, wily, power-hungry criminal. It pays to listen to the other side to see historical behavioral patterns that aren’t going to change.

Post

The Book of the Week is “Cable News Confidential, My Misadventures in Corporate Media” by Jeff Cohen published in 2006. The author was born in the 1950’s in the Detroit area. He detailed the now-expected, and standard: hypocrisy, shenanigans, unfairness and imbalance he encountered while appearing as a political commentator at three different cable channels into 2004.

Beginning in 1997, the author appeared as a Left-wing panelist on the TV show, Fox News Watch. Also present were a Right-winger and a Centrist. On Fox, Cohen was allowed to bite the hand that fed him– criticizing the media for its biases, profiteering, smears and lies, etc. during his five-minute appearances on political shows. He believed that the commentary was actually politically balanced for about a year. Thereafter, Right-wingers became the majority.

In the summer of 1999, George W. Bush’s cousin John Ellis wrote in a Boston Globe column that his covering the 2000 presidential-voting results on election night in November would be a conflict of interest. Nevertheless, Ellis was doing exactly that, on Fox News, wrongly announcing, at 2:16am Wednesday, the day after election day, that Bush was the winner in Florida and therefore, Bush had won the presidency. Unsurprisingly, Cohen personally witnessed Ellis’ kind of unethical behavior over and over again.

From January to August 1998, MSNBC covered Bill Clinton’s sex life with Monica Lewinsky. Too bad, Lewinsky missed a valuable opportunity to become a political activist. Instead of allowing the media to shame her, she could have engaged in a public relations coup with the right messaging.

Anyway, in May 2001, Chandra Levy– a female intern– went missing, at which time the major cable “news” stations put her boss Democrat Congressman Gary Condit under the microscope nonstop until September 10, 2001. Other “news” stories the idiot box could have covered instead included:

  • On September 9, 2001, secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld was demanding billions of dollars to fund the creation of weaponry to defend against America’s enemies’ ballistic missiles. But, contrarily, he was saying that the president was opposing the U.S. Senate’s proposal that would shift the funding of said weaponry to fund counter-terror measures.
  • On September 10, 2001, U.S. intelligence agents heard al-Qaeda members utter the phrases, “the match begins now” and “tomorrow is zero hour.” But, contrarily, head of the Justice Department, John Ashcroft opposed the FBI’s request to add tens of millions of dollars to its budget to hire additional personnel to counter terror threats.

Cohen was constantly backing up his arguments with facts, such as when Chris Matthews basically denied that the United States did not send its military into other countries willy-nilly– that Iraq in 2003 was an exception. Cohen countered with occasions after 1945 during which America was an aggressor, that included 21 different territories into the single-digit 2000’s.

Read the book to learn much more about the author’s dismay with his employers’ practices that included much, much more Right-wing commentary than Left, and lack of fact-checking.

Endnote

By agreeing to debate and softening his rhetoric, Donald Trump is showing he has reached the bargaining stage of grief, in the death of his political career. DO NOT BE FOOLED BY HIS “NEW NIXON” ACT.

Bounds of Silence – BONUS POST

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Interesting factoid: Donald Trump paid hush money to most everyone who worked for him when he was president. For, as a hiring-condition, they signed non-disclosure agreements that legally barred them from speaking publicly about their employment experiences. These workers were forced to choose between whistle-blowing and loyalty to their boss, but the boss hogged all the free speech for himself. Here’s what happened.

BOUNDS OF SILENCE

sung to the tune of “Sounds of Silence” with apologies to Simon and Garfunkel.

Hypocrisy is Trump’s known trend.
He’s been confronted yet again.
Because legal-cases continuously
leave their seeds and are proliferating.
And the secrets, that were buried by his PR team
gathered steam, within the bounds of silence.

In gag-agreements signed by all,
through his own scandals and stonewalls,
under the spotlight of the tabloid camp,
sued by his-transition-team, employees and tramps.
His sins were outed, by-a-clash with the betrayed Right.
To his enemies’ delight.
And breached the bounds of silence.

And in attorneys’ offices one saw
one hundred people, maybe more.
People talking and people speaking.
People hearing and people listening.
People writing books.
Their thoughts were finally shared.
People dared. Breaking the bounds of silence.

Fools bound by Trump.
Free speech with a dreck-show dump.
Read their words and they might teach you.
Trump would slam them, with his crew.
But their words, through social networks spread.
Volumes out of the bounds of silence.

And this made Trump’s gang afraid, of the free-speech mess they made.
And democracy rang out in ITS glory, in a civil-rights success story.
And the courts say the words Americans-express are always free except-for-threats

or epithets.

We’re out of the bounds of silence.

[Heads exploding.]


Dumb Ranting – BONUS POST

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All the time, Trump continues his dumb ranting about a “bloodbath” and about promising to “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”

There needs to be a cautionary riches-to-rags sitcom starring Trump, called “Fallen Towers.” This could be its theme song.

Dumb Ranting

sung to the tune of “Come Dancing” with apologies to the Kinks.

Trump inherited a company that owned land,
where hospitality properties used to stand.
Before that, his father built an empire slowly,
on sites now notoriously lonely.
That’s where Trump’s cronies used to come and play.
His groupies follow HIS lead every day.

Dumb ranting.

All his girlfriends used to come and call.
Why not dumb ranting? It’s only natural.

Another ruling, another court date.
He delays, appeals and whines to make them wait.
Viewers drool IN anticipation.
His victims know the cases will end up in frustration.

He wasted all his money on legal fees.
A life of litigation, and crime sprees.

Dumb ranting.

Dysfunction started when he was just a kid.
And who listened to his ranting? His worshippers always did.

His ranting doesn’t bother the FAR Right. They will ignore it and wait.
To most, it’s gotten tiresome, big-time.
And Fox News helps him bloviate.

spoken:
[Out in the cold, think of the leaders who have made comebacks:
Grover Cleveland, Jerry Brown, Juan Peron, Netanyahu…]

The DAY judges knock down his fallacies,
Trump will continue to whine, “This hoax is outrageous!”
His childhood will never die. My, my.

Now the grownups will take over the land.
Voices of rule of law will take a stand.
Trump was married and he lived on an estate.
He might be out. Now it’s his turn to wait.
Will he get away with things YOU never could?
He keeps repeating that he alone, should.

Dumb ranting.

C’mon Trump, have yourself a ball.
NOW, do all of your dumb ranting,
before the jailer comes to call.

Dumb ranting.

Just like Truth Social every single day.
Trump keeps on dumb ranting,
so for him, it’s Groundhog Day.