People Who Voted for Trump

 A recent news story--post-election analysis--said that many young Black and Latino men voted for Trump because they see him as improving jobs and other financial/economic matters.

As  to those Latino folks: After January 20 they are likely to see their friends, relatives, neighbors and co-workers being deported. Plus, no one  has said a word about the cost to the US--us taxpayers--for flying these immigrants back to their countries of origin. (Not even touching on the fact that today, the news showed Trump's about-to-be "immigration czar" replying to a question about families being separated by these deportations; his reply was, to paraphrase a bit, no, we won't need to separate families, just deport (US-born) children along with their parents.

And--to another group of voters who voted for Trump because they are unhappy with the rising prices the country has been experiencing: Again, wait until after January 20. Trump has pledged to raise tariffs on imported goods. Those voters who have been buying cheap Chinese goods at Walmart are going to see those items hugely increase in their prices to US consumers after Trump's tariffs are added.

If Trump makes good on his promise (threat) to impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico, U. S. car manufacturers are going to be unhappy, and car buyers are going to see car prices go up. This is because car makers are making engines and transmissions in Canada and Mexico, for the sake of--can you guess?--cheaper labor. This was facilitated--maybe encouraged--by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), signed by Bill Clinton in 1989 (and replaced and superseded by another agreement, of which I do not know the terms) during Trump's first term.

Update, Jan. 31, 2025

Today ABC Television News said that Trump's increased tariffs on goods imported from Canada, Mexico, and China will be put into effect tomorrow, and quoted experts saying that US consumers can expect numerous prices to go up as a result.

Trump said there may be some "disruptions," and that he believes the American people will understand. Well, I don't think they will. I think many people will say, "We elected him to lower prices, and now he's doing the exact opposite."

I think that people--if they do in fact expect a candidate to keep his campaign promises once in office--don't examine issues in enough depth as to say to themselves, "Well, if he does such-and-such, will x happen--or y?"

I think that, rather than looking into the issues at depth, people allow themselves to be swayed by sound bytes and catchy slogans--maybe slogans that will fit on the front of a cap--and are quick to believe that we need a change because nearly everything the previous administration did was wrong or bad.

So...when you're buying food and you're shocked by what's happened to the price of avocadoes, be sure to say a silent Thank You to Mr. Trump. 

Update, Feb. 7

As you may know by now, the threatened tariffs are off--for now.

I'm pretty sure Trump got pressure from many quarters. The Wall Street Journal --not exactly a liberal or leftist publication--called them "the dumbest trade war in history."

Trump is made to look much better by the fact that he got agreements--concessions?--from both Canada and Mexico. Were the tariffs merely a threat and a bluff to secure these concessions? Unless there's someone around who knows the answer and is willing to publicly disclose, we, the public, can't know.

 

 

Before You Contribute to That Good Cause. . .

If you watch TV at all, you've probably seen those commercials--the broadcasters call them PSA's, public service announcements, but they're commercials to me--for various charitable causes: wounded veterans, hungry children, rescued dogs and cats. Usually, for some reason I can't fathom, they ask you and me to commit to contributing $19 a month.

TV commercials are expensive to produce, not even counting the cost of air time to broadcast them. So you have to consider that a significant portion of the money you send them goes to fundraising expenses like that very commercial. (In many cases you can go to a site such as Charity Navigator to get a report on what percentage of a charity's revenue is spent on fundraising.)

As for me, before I con tribute, I am looking to see a little notice on the screen that says something like "All talent and other labor to produce this announcement was donated, and the air time to broadcast it was donated by this TV station."

Somehow, I don't really expect to see that.

 

The Very Sad Killing of Sonya Massey

Last month, a woman named Sonya Massey was fatally shot in her kitchen by a Sangamon County (IL) deputy sheriff.

The sheriff's defense, classically, was that he felt his life was threatened. This is the only possible defense a law-enforcement officer can offer for shooting a suspect (not that Ms. Massey was a suspect in any crime).

What had Ms. Massey done? She said, "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus Christ." Now, quite possibly that is not a truly reasonable thing to say under the circumstances. Quite possibly the officer did not understand that (I am not a Christian of the same stripe as Ms. Massey so I am not certain I fully grasp what that was supposed to mean, at that time and place).

But--what exactly was the officer--I believe his name is Grayson--being threatened with? A pot of hot water.

Now, I am not certain what the statistics, if there are in fact any, show as to what percentage of the time an attack by hot water is fatal. I suspect it seldom is.

Add into the recipe that Ms. Massey was black. Sadly--infuriatingly--the majority of cases of this sort seem to involve a victim who was black. The inescapable inference in these horrible cases is that the officer who killed the person bore some degree of racism in his heart. (Latest news on this story is that he may also bear hostility to women..)

I have given only a very sketchy outline of this story; and far more has come to light via different media Any reader should feel free to add, via a comment, anything they consider worth including.

 

Bit of Nonsensical (i.e. Fictional) Natural History

The Tennessee water cricket is not found in Tennessee but rather in a few spots along the Calabash River in Sardinia, N.S.W.

The correct name of the horse is hortsh, and they are all named Horace--at least in Lower Slobovia.

The fitchin is a fish--at least in Japan, where everything is a fish, except rice and a few vegetables that grow around Shinto shrines.

Sorry, folks, just being silly. I have always believed the world needs more silliness.

The Pharmaceutical Industry Discovers the Letter "Q"

The pharmaceutical industry uses computers to generate possible or suggested names for new drugs, and has been doing so for a long time.

The computers are programmed with algorithms so as to respect some of the laws or constraints of English--for example, permitted sequences of letters.

For a long time, it seems, the computers were not allowed to use the letter q in any proposed drug names. In English, the letter q is almost always followed by u (the exceptions are merely a couple of words which come from other languages).

Now, however, that seems to have changed, and we are seeing drug names with q in them:

Rinvoq. Here that final q evidently could be a k or ck.

Cibinqo. Here, although no u follows the q, evidently the pronunciation is just as if the word in fact ended in quo.

Kisqali. Same comment as above.

Qulipta. Evidently this is to be pronounced with the initial syllable being "kew".

Qutenza, Same as above.

Uqora. Here, as with the previous two drug names, we evidently need to pretend that there's a qu rather than just q. Virtually no English words are spelled with a q without a u following. Plus, this seems to be another example of using a vowel for its name rather than its phonetic value (as in ibuprofen, Xfinity).     

It's anybody's guess why the pharmaceutical industry has started using such weird names. Maybe all the good ones have been used already.

Copyright © 2023.

Some Thoughts (Humorous) on American Sports: Team Names, etc.

I was thinking about the names of sports teams. You know, they usually are connected in some way to the city where the team is resident, e.g., Detroit Pistons (referring to the auto industry, with its cars which have--or at least always had--piston engines), the Houston Oilers (there is a lot of oil around Houston). Here are a few new ones that I'm suggesting.

Flushing (Queens, NY) Toilets

Barking (Surrey, U.K.) Dogs

Alaska Glaciers

Maine Lobsters 

Los Vegas Roulette Wheels 

Charleston Chews 

Boston Baked Beans

Seattle Airliners

Wisconsin Dairymen (There is a Wisconsin team known as the Green Bay Packers. I have no idea--and my excuse is that I am not a native of this part of the world--whether there is or ever was any packing going on in Green Bay.)

Some other thoughts related to sports:

I like to say--jokingly, of course--that (Chicago) Cubs grow up to be (Chicago) Bears.

If the (Chicago) White Sox got mixed up in the laundry with the (Boston) Red Sox, you'd get the Pink Sox.

Polo is played on horseback, right? Then I guess sea horses are used for water polo.

There was a basketball player called Meadowlark Lemon. There is a baseball player named Darryl Strawberry. So--although they were on different teams and even different sports--we've had a strawberry and a lemon. Makes me wonder what other fruits[*] there might be…….

___________

* I strongly want it understood that the use of the word "fruit," though acknowledged as a slang term for a gay person, is in no way meant here to imply any derogatory comment on LGBTQ people.

Copyright (c) 2023

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[*]

SUVs Are Killing Pedestrians

 SUVs keep growing in popularity in America. Also, accidents in which pedestrians are struck by vehicles have been increasing. Now, connect the dots.

What connects the dots is a study that shows that SUVs—and pickup trucks, which are also gaining in popularity—have a significant zone immediately in front of them where something in the road would not be visible to the driver. This is because their hoods are higher.

So, owning and driving an SUV puts pedestrians at greater peril; not to mention the fact that SUVs have a greater impact on the environment. They burn more fuel, on average, than cars and thus emit a greater quantity of greenhouse gases.

The American road is on track to become nearly all SUVs as the major American car makers are dropping their sedan models. There is sort of a push-pull operating here: The car makers claim that buyers demand SUVs, but SUVs are more profitable to build, so auto makers are more than happy to switch their product lines, more and more, to SUVs. You cannot any longer buy a sedan from Ford or Chevrolet, both of which built several good small sedan models.

SUVs are not as popular in Europe. I frankly don't understand why they are so appealing to drivers, but one theory I have is that, as American cars grew smaller (look at, for example, the length of '60s cars and compare that with more recent models), people reacted against that by finding large vehicles in the form of SUVs.

 Here is a good article on this subject: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24139147/suvs-trucks-popularity-federal-policy-pollution

 

Copyright (c) 2023