Category: Saturday Soother

Saturday Soother – October 8, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Fall at Lake Gloriette, Dixville Notch, VT – October 2022 photo by Adam Silverman Photography

(There will not be a Sunday Cartoon column this week. Wrongo and Ms. Right are off on their annual visit to Cape Cod, MA to see family and friends. It’s Oysterfest, people! Columns will be light and variable for the next 10 days.)

The midterms are just around the corner and if you’re planning to open your wallets to support Senate candidates, Wrongo suggests that you include Ralph Warnock (D-GA), John Fetterman (D-PA) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ) in your budgeting. If you are particularly flush, you can add to this list.

But today, Wrongo is venting his frustration with the tsunami of emails and texts he receives from Democratic candidates and organizations. Small dollar fundraising, that is the art of getting money from ordinary folks, has apparently been perfected by Democrats. Sadly that seems to entail creating a constant state of panic via email and text. From Wrongo’s inbox:

…”we have bad news. NO ONE is donating to help us re‑elect Raphael Warnock. Our MAJOR fundraising deadline is at 11:59 PM, and you IGNORED our first email!”

From Mark Kelly:

“This is your last chance to donate before the debate ends and we need your help, we can’t fall short. We’re closing in on this crucial goal. So, before time runs out, we need you to add one more donation to help push us over the top.”

From Val Demings:

“WE TOLD YOU: If we can’t hit our fundraising goal, we can kiss Florida GOODBYE. We can’t launch an outreach campaign with no funds in our bank!”

Democrats are correct. These days, there’s plenty to panic about, but isn’t that part of the problem? We’d be frazzled enough just by the news. Do we have to be reminded on a daily basis by Democratic candidates that we should be frazzled?

After Citizens United created a crisis in how to fund our politics, Democrats were able to deal with the problem by growing online small dollar fundraising for candidates. It started out as a decentralized effort by individual candidates, and it brought in tons of money. It also helped individuals feel that they were invested in the political process.

Now it’s institutionalized. All Democrats have the same lists. That’s efficient in some ways, but in other ways, it’s a problem. It leads to terrible uses of the money, such as dumping endless dollars into hopeless campaigns like the 2020 Senate races in Kentucky (Amy McGrath) and in Maine (Sara Gideon).

McGrath was a terrible candidate and of course, Mitch McConnell won. Sara Gideon was so overloaded with money that she couldn’t spend it all. These retail donations made no meaningful difference in her race against Susan Collins, which she lost by a wide margin.

Tim Miller in the NYT:

“…hundreds of millions of dollars are being pumped into hopeless…candidates. At a minimum, that money could be used more efficiently by the Democratic Party….Aren’t there myriad better uses for all that altruism than pumping out…attack ads?”

Imagine if all of that money was poured into state house races where it could be used more effectively.

Our best funds raising tool has now been turned against us. What we thought would lead to great things could now threaten the Democratic Party. This season, as in the past, Wrongo has donated to Democrats, but it leads to receiving 6-8 ever more desperate emails/texts daily. Fortunately Wrongo believes in their cause. Otherwise, reading them might soon lead to death due to David P.’s “politics fatigue”.

Enough! It’s time for our Saturday Soother, a time to let go of another week of bad news while we reflect on where to place our limited political funding over the next 30 days.

Here on the fields of Wrong, our indoor plants that spend spring and summer outdoors are back inside. And our short sleeve shirts have been put away.

To help you contemplate your seasonal wardrobe, start by brewing up a mug of Colombia Cerro Azul Enano, ($26/12 oz.) by Marin, CA’s Equator Coffee.

Now grab a seat by a south facing window and listen to the Finale of Saint-Saens “Symphony No. 3 with Organ” performed in 2012 by the Auckland Symphony Orchestra conducted by Peter Thomas, with Timothy Noon on the Organ. Saint-Saens who wrote this in 1886, was an accomplished pianist and organist, but this is his only symphony for organ. Also note the spectacular organ at the Auckland Town Hall. Play this LOUD to hear the deep register of the organ:

Wrongo and Ms. Right heard this piece played by the Waterbury Symphony on October 1st at Waterbury, CT’s St. John’s Episcopal Church, founded in 1732. It’s a beautiful old church with a very impressive organ that dates from 1956. Today the church reflects the changing demographics of Connecticut, having added a Hispanic ministry In 2003. Now the main Sunday service is in Spanish.

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Saturday Soother, Nordstream Clues Edition – October 1, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Kalalau Valley Lookout, Waimea Canyon, Kauai, HI – September 2022 photo by Alex Skoz

Who sabotaged the Nordstream pipelines? We’re forced to speculate, but it’s a near certainty that the US Navy knows who did it. In perusing Stratfor’s publication this week of where in the world US Navy fleets are located, Wrongo saw this map:

The map breaks the Navy’s fleets into Carrier groups (four in orange) and LHA and LHD Amphibious Assault groups (two in blue). The map shows the location of these groups over the last four weeks. The one of interest is LHD3. It spent most of the past four weeks in the Baltic Sea, including a great deal of time very near the Nordstream pipelines.

LHD3 is the designation of the USS Kearsarge, what the Navy calls a Multiple Purpose Amphibious Assault Ship, shorthand for a small aircraft carrier. The Kearsarge left the Baltic Sea a few days ago. Part of the reason the Kearsarge was in the Baltic was to participate in Baltops 22:

“This year, more than 45 ships, over 75 aircraft, and 7,000 personnel are tasked to execute a series of complex events throughout the two-week exercise.”

Seapower Magazine reported that one element of the Kearsarge operations in the Baltic was to test special sub-sea mine destruction technologies: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“A significant focus of BALTOPS every year is the demonstration of NATO mine hunting capabilities, and this year the US Navy continues to use the exercise as an opportunity to test emerging technology….Experimentation was conducted off the coast of Bornholm, Denmark….”

Bornholm is where the first breaches of Nordstream Two were discovered. Stratfor reports that:

“On Sept. 26, the Norwegian Petroleum Safety Administration warned of potential ”deliberate attacks” after energy companies reported multiple cases of unidentified drones flying near offshore oil and gas installations. Just a few hours later, officials in Denmark warned they had found a gas leak along a section of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline off the coast of the Danish island of Bornholm.”

The following day, the Swedish Maritime Administration announced it also detected two gas leaks on the Nordstream One pipeline in a nearby area. A fourth leak was discovered subsequently. While the Baltops 22 operation finished in July, the US Sixth Fleet didn’t begin leaving the Baltic Sea until September 22.

So it’s highly likely the Navy knows what happened and maybe who did it.

A head-scratching question is why would anyone do this? Damaging Nordstream is a direct terror attack on both Russia, and the EU, Germany, and the western European nations indirectly connected to the pipelines.

It is impossible to believe that it was done undetected. This type of clandestine operation requires deep water explosives, submersibles, divers and digging through the sea mud to attach explosives to the concrete shell that surrounds the steel pipeline.

Let’s take a brief look at the leading characters. Western governments say Russia did it, but why would it? One benefit to the Russians is that it forced the price of natural gas even higher (it went up 7%). It might have propaganda value; Russia can blame the US and thereby further turn Russian civilians against the West.

One old myth may apply: According to legend, Spanish conquistador HernĂĄn CortĂ©s ordered his men to “Burn the boats” as they began their conquest of the Aztec empire in 1519. The idea was that there would be no opportunity to retreat, and winning the battle was all that mattered. For Putin, could it be he purposefully destroyed billions of dollars of Russian energy infrastructure and their “cash cow”, believing that Europe will never again want Russian gas? If so, that means Putin intends to win WWIII.

Could it be China? Closing Nordstream means China would get all the gas it needs, and possibly at even cheaper prices. Rendering Nordstream useless forces the Russians to tie their currency more tightly to the Chinese Yuan. And the newest Chinese submarines might be able to do the deed.

Could it be the US? We have the technology and were in the area. But what goal of our foreign policy would be served by drastically hurting our NATO allies? If we did it, we’ve gone from a passive participant arming Ukraine to an active participant, possibly engaging in an Act of War.

Could it be a smaller state in the rabid anti-Russian west such as Poland?  The US Navy knows. Will they tell anyone?

On to the weekend, where we ignore what Gini Thomas told the Jan. 6 Committee or, whatever Judge Aileen Cannon is thinking about Trump’s documents. It’s time for our Saturday Soother! Start by brewing up a hot steaming mug of Kahiko ($47.95 for 8oz: expensive, no? Thanks Biden) from Hawaii’s Hula Daddy Kona Coffee. It is said to be richly chocolaty, harmoniously juicy, and bright.

Now, grab a seat by a south-facing window and listen to George Gershwin’s “Lullaby for Strings”, written in 1919, although it was first performed as an orchestral piece in 1967. It’s played here by the New York Philharmonic String Quartet in 2016:

BTW: Stop watching cable news.

 

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Saturday Soother – September 24, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Joshua Tree NP, CA – September 2022 photo by Bart Aldrich

This week, Wrongo and Ms. Right watched the Ken Burns program on the Holocaust on PBS. The three-part series is about how America responded to the Holocaust. An overriding theme in the film is that America’s aversion to immigrants framed much of our response to what Germany was inflicting on Jews throughout Europe.

You will not find a better or clearer narrative about the unfolding of the ideas and events that led ultimately to the Holocaust. Learning about America’s response in the run up to WWII is something we all should confront. It’s part of the ongoing conversation of what sort of country we believe the US to be, versus the kind of country it actually is.

From Tom Teicholz in Forbes:

“There are many revelations in the film. Burns, Novick and Botstein explore at length the connections between the American Eugenics movement, American genocidal policies towards Native Americans, and Jim Crow laws and Hitler’s policies and Nazi laws.”

Granted, the Germans didn’t need to learn racism or xenophobia from Americans. They did quite well on their own. They had already figured out how to export that to their African colonies. But, it’s true that here in America, we had the genocide of the Native Americans: Round them up, confine them, eliminate a major food source, and kill as many as you can. Genocide against Black people: Forced servitude, rape, and murder.

One thing that was beyond the scope of the film is why there was so much ambivalence by Americans to Hitler, and why we didn’t take in more European refugees. They show that until the late 19th century, America was a nation that welcomed immigrants. Then as the country grew and rates of immigration increased, by the turn of the 20th century, nativist sentiment was at an all-time high. Even Progressives, who prided themselves on helping the less fortunate, generally favored anti-immigration policies.

Ultimately, the US government’s anti-immigrant legislation normalized xenophobia in America. Nationalism and fear of immigrants has apparently been with us ever since. The film says that Hitler copied our tactics (!) and took them to a new extreme while the world watched.

On the last night (of 3), the film reminds us of the irony that Russia benefited from Roosevelt’s “Lend-Lease” arms program to help defeat the German invasion in WWII. A supreme irony now is that Russia’s complaining about our 2022 version of “Lend Lease” where the US is sending weapons to Ukraine to use against Russia.

We’re often inconsistent in our policies, but here we are in 2022 with a similar interest: The continued existence of an attacked sovereign nation. Only this time Russia is the aggressor, not Germany.

The last five minutes of the film provides a montage of the rising white supremacism and antisemitism in the US (including a clip of the marchers at Charlottesville in 2017) that, regrettably makes “The US and The Holocaust” all too relevant to today. It’s a very difficult history, but it’s also important that it is not forgotten.

Despite what’s going on in Ukraine and Russia, or with Trump’s many legal quagmires, let’s shut down the politics and posturing for this week. It’s time for our Saturday Soother.

Here on the fields of Wrong, the lawn has greened up from several decent rainstorms over the past few weeks. The bluebird houses are coming down for the winter. As we bid farewell to summer, leaves are beginning to turn color and fall. The summer classical music venues that we love have ended their seasonal programs. Wrongo wore a down vest this morning.

Time to grab a mug of Ethiopia Nano Genji Bergamot coffee ($25.50/12 oz.) from Sacramento, CA’s Temple Coffee. The roaster says it has flavors of tangerine and ginger with a long finish.

Now grab a seat by a south-facing window, put on your wireless headphones and listen to Van Morrison perform “When the Leaves come Falling Down” from his 1999 album “Back on Top”. We usually feature classical music on Saturdays, but this effort by Van the Man is very mellow and features wonderful fall photos:

The string section in the tune is by the Irish Film Orchestra.

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Saturday Soother – September 17, 2022

The Daily Escape:

View from Schnebly Hill Road, Sedona, AZ – August 2022 photo by Cathy Franklin

As we discussed yesterday, DeSantis is one of many Republican politicians who are working overtime to convince MAGA-land that they are yuuge Christians. Here’s DeSantis in February, talking to students at the very Christian Hillsdale College:

“Put on the full armor of God. Stand firm against the left’s schemes. You will face flaming arrows, but if you have the shield of faith, you will overcome them, and in Florida we walk the line here. And I can tell you this, I have only begun to fight.”

The Tampa Bay Times takes issue with their governor: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“The biblical reference DeSantis is using is from Ephesians 6, and calls on Christians to spiritually arm themselves against the “devil’s schemes.” In DeSantis’ speeches, he has replaced the ”devil” with “the left” as he tries to mobilize supporters ahead of his reelection in November and possibly a run for the White House in 2024.”

It’s dangerous that Republicans on the ballot in November are openly saying that the only true Americans are Christians. They’re portraying the battle against their political opponents as between good and evil.

The Tampa Bay Times (TBT) says that it has some religious leaders worrying that such rhetoric could mobilize fringe groups who may be prone to violence. From the TBT: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Christian nationalism for many Conservatives has become a political identity, and unlike Conservative politicians in the past who used their faith to inform their arguments, DeSantis is more aggressive, using war imagery to describe the political debates as a battle over who will be the better American.”

The TBT quotes Philip Gorski, a comparative-history sociologist at Yale University who co-wrote the book “The Flag and the Cross: White Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy”:

“The full armor of God passage is a favorite amongst certain types of Pentecostals who really do see the world in terms of spiritual warfare,”

They also quote Allyson Shortle, a political science professor at the University of Oklahoma who has co-written the book “The Everyday Crusade: Christian Nationalism in American Politics”:

“I think DeSantis has really stood out as someone who has effectively used this type of God talk and used these types of Christian nationalist talking points to curry favor…”

For Republicans, talking about the importance of faith is nothing new, and debates about how visible Christianity should be in our society — whether it be prayer in schools or religious symbols outside American courthouses — have been ongoing for decades.

But there is something different emerging: A strain of Conservative thought that sees the country’s politics as an open battle between good and evil. TBT quotes Marilyn Mayo, senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism:

“There’s always been candidates who espouse Christian values, but what I think is very different is you have many people on the right and the far right seeing the current situation in the US as a battle, an absolute battle, between good and evil….And the good are the mostly white, Christian conservatives. And on the other side are the liberals, progressives, left-wingers, and certainly the LGBTQ community…. They really see this as a battle and paint the other side as…an evil force that needs to be defeated.”

Shortle says that Christian nationalism is the belief that a “true” American should be Christian. Some Christian national extremists say that the US is no longer a Christian nation, that it’s been taken over by secular forces.

Over the summer, Florida social studies teachers were alarmed that a civics training session led by DeSantis’ administration had a “Christian nationalism philosophy that was baked into everything” that was taught.

The initiative emphasized that the Founding Fathers did not desire a strict separation of state and church. State trainers also told teachers that the 1962 US Supreme Court case that found school-sponsored prayer violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment was unjustly decided.

In July, DeSantis was endorsed by Moms for Liberty, a group that focuses on adding Christian nationals to school boards across America. It has more than 200 chapters and 95,000 members in 38 states. At the group’s first national summit, DeSantis said that he intended to “leave Florida to God and to our children better than I found it.”

And what is “better” is in the eye of the beholder.

On to our Saturday Soother. We had our first sub 50° night on Thursday. Soon the indoor plants will return to the sunroom.

Take a few moments of your Saturday and listen and watch “Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5” by Heitor Villa-Lobos. He wrote a series of nine suites between 1930 and 1945. Here the 5th is played by Hauser on cello and Petrit Çeku on guitar in 2017 at the Lisinski Concert Hall in Zagreb:

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Saturday Soother, QE II Edition ̶- September 10, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Wrongo isn’t a monarchist. Despite having lived in the UK in the 1970s, most of what he knows about the British royal family comes from watching “The Crown”. Wrongo remembers watching Queen Elizabeth’s 1953 coronation in his parents’ living room on a 10” black & white Dumont TV, one of the first in our neighborhood. We were all impressed with the pomp and circumstance but truly had little frame of reference for the event.

Royalty hasn’t ever been an American tradition. But here in the most exceptional USA, we maintain a love of nepotism and low taxes, so our American betters are easily able to perpetuate their wealth and power, just like the royals.

As we should have expected, in the hours following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, a tsunami of little known royal factoids emerged. Some of them rank as too much information. Wrongo’s favorite so far is that the Queen hired an Orthodox Jewish mohel to circumcise baby Prince Charles. Apparently, the mohel was Rabbi Jacob Snowman (1871-1959).  [hat tip to blog reader Monty B.]

Looking forward, Wrongo isn’t a fan of the new UK prime minister Liz Truss. But she’s getting more than she bargained for, since the first two months of her prime ministership will be dominated by the Queen’s funeral and the media’s interest in parsing the new King’s every word and deed.

Truss now has the added challenge of being the prime minister who ushers out the second Elizabethan era and begins a new Caroline era (so named after Charles I). She will be doing it in the midst of an economic recession, a major energy crisis, and galloping inflation.

According to a poll taken by YouGov, only 12% of UK respondents think she will make a “good” or a “great” prime minister. And 34% of respondents think she will be worse than Theresa May.

Fortunately for Truss, the nation will be focusing instead on Charles III, the man who has been preparing to be King for all of his life. According to YouGov, Charles has a 42% popularity rating with his subjects, while his son William is more popular at 66%.

For years, many believed that Charles would actually predecease his mother. That led some wag on twitter to come up with the gag headline: “Queen Elizabeth Beats Prince Charles To Death.”

Charles’ wife Camilla is now what’s called the Queen Consort. The title Queen Consort means she’s a non-sovereign queen. It’s the title then-prince Charles agreed Camilla would not receive when Elizabeth II gave them permission to marry. But he eventually received her agreement to it a few years ago.

All along, Wrongo thought that a Queen Consort is where you go to hear: Bohemian Rhapsody, We will rock you, Another one bites the dust, We are the champions, Fat bottomed girls, etc.

But if they have Moet & Chandon in a pretty cabinet? Count me in!

That’s enough royal gazing. It’s time for our Saturday Soother, where we try to escape from the news and gather ourselves for the week to come. Here on the Fields of Wrong, we had a much-needed heavy rainstorm to help our plants and grass survive the current drought. Unfortunately with the weather, we lost a very large limb from a Bradford Pear tree. Nothing would do but to chainsaw it into manageable pieces and take them into the deep woods to rest.

This morning, let’s remember that Queen Elizabeth II created the UK’s modern national myth of a beloved monarch, helped by her longevity and dedication to service. She died in a remote corner of Scotland, a place she loved.

So, grab a mug of hot Bengal Spice tea and your wireless ear buds. Now take a seat in the sun and listen to “The Banks of Green Willow” by the little-known George Butterworth. It is a fine example of the English pastoral idiom, appropriate for a Queen who loved the English countryside.

Butterworth and Ralph Vaughan Williams were close friends, and you may hear similarities in their music. Butterworth was killed in 1916 in WWI during the Battle of the Somme; he was just 31.

Here it is played by the  Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Grant Llewellyn. It’s the second time we’ve featured this piece. This is music that leads to private thoughts, something we all need right now:

And the pastoral images are nice!

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Saturday Soother – August 27, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Super moon over Lake Champlain, Burlington, VT – August 2022 photo by Adam Silverman Photography

Republicans are outraged this week about Biden’s cancellation of student loan debt! Americans now owe a total of more than $1.6 trillion for higher education. From the WaPo: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“The result is one of the most significant changes to American higher education policy in decades — and a new cornerstone of the president’s economic legacy. Biden’s decision will dramatically change the financial circumstances of tens of millions of Americans, fully erasing the student loans of roughly 20 million people.”

Student debt played a minor role in American life through the 1960s when Wrongo accrued his $5k of college debt while attending Georgetown. But it increased during the Reagan administration. It then shot up after the 2007-2009 Great Recession as states made huge cuts to funding for their college systems.

But the argument that “tuition has gone up because public support for higher education has declined” isn’t the only one. While it’s valid for some institutions, it doesn’t explain the “arms race” among colleges and universities to add student amenities and layers of administrative staff over the past 10 years.

Over the last decade, revenue at independent (non-religious) private colleges and universities in the US has increased by 148% on an inflation-adjusted (real) per student basis. At religiously affiliated private colleges and universities revenue has increased by 87% in real per-student terms over the last 10 years.

Meanwhile, at public institutions, revenue has increased by just 23.4% on the same basis. However, this is still 36% greater than per capita GDP growth over the same 10 years.

The headline is that our elite educational institutions have gotten obscenely wealthy. And many of our second tier institutions chased after them, causing education budgets everywhere to explode.

It’s become another example of America’s new gilded age.

Opinions differ about the ethics of loan forgiveness for student debt, and that’s understandable. The general thrust of the Republican railing about the educational loan forgiveness is about how unfair it is when one group of Americans is getting a benefit at the cost of other Americans.

This tweet from former Trump White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is on point for most of the GOP:

“Joe Biden wants those who didn’t go to school, didn’t take out loans, or already paid off their loans to pay off $300 billion of other people’s debts…..It’s socialism, it’s un-American, and only makes his record-setting inflation worse.”

But it isn’t socialism when our government bails out one group at the expense of another; it happens all the time. No Republican complained about the Trump tax cuts which were directed at America’s wealthy and its corporations. No Republican complained about the bank bailout in 2008. No Republican objected when Trump gave $16 billion to farmers hurt by the Trump tariffs.

Second, despite what the GOP is saying, the $300 billion in loan forgiveness isn’t inflationary. It’s true that it’s money that student borrowers won’t be paying back. But because of the student debt moratorium, they had already stopped payments in 2020, so there’s no change going forward. They simply won’t have to restart making payments on that $10,000 of debt.

It isn’t clear that there will be much impact to inflation or the Consumer Price Index. Since they weren’t making payments, it’s likely they were already spending those funds that might have gone to loan repayments. So no new spending.

We can have a debate about how much higher education should cost per student. We live in a society that is a whole lot wealthier than it was 40 years ago, but many of our students do not come from those few wealthy families.

The political calculus of Biden’s decision will be seen in November. The WaPo reported that a majority of Americans support limited debt forgiveness. Biden’s pollster, John Anzalone said:

“This is a motivator for young people….It’s a huge issue for young people — the support levels for them are in the high 60s.”

Let’s hope they turn out to vote on November 8.

Now, it’s time for our Saturday Soother, where we decompress from another week of body blows to America and find a few moments to gather ourselves for the week to come.

Here on the Fields of Wrong, we had a day of very satisfying brush clearing although we’re still waiting for rain.

Go get a big mug of decaf cold brew coffee and grab a chair in the shade. Now listen to Schubert’s “Impromptu in G flat Op. 90 No. 3”, written in 1827, and played here in 2012 by Olga Jegunova at the Bishopsgate Institute in London:

Schubert really understood how to capture emotion in his music.

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Saturday Soother – August 13, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Arches NP, Moab, UT after rainstorm- August 2022 photo by Ian Coulter

A few words today about cars. Oil Price has an article about car quality:

“J.D. Power published its latest report this past weekend. The 2022 U.S. Initial Quality Study (IQS) took the time to highlight the issues currently afflicting the industry. However, they also called out “premium” car companies for their extensive quality issues.”

According to Forbes, Kia, Buick and Hyundai topped this year’s dependability rankings. Volvo, Ram, and Land Rover ranked at the bottom. J.D. Power’s research showed that many European brands struggled with technology at the 90-day mark of a new vehicle’s ownership.

Apparently, J.D. Power saw the highest number of vehicle problems reported in their 36-year history, with an 11% increase in problems per 100 vehicles, compared with 2021. The report also stated that while vehicle quality has declined across the board since the pandemic, pricier models had more quality issues than more affordable cars.

Oil Price says that the increase in problems is caused by cars having more “bells and whistles” than in the past. And, these high-end features require increasingly rare components. As an example, Wrongo didn’t know that BMW now offers its heated seat function on a subscription basis.

Another thing that can go wrong when your ass is cold.

Oil Price quotes J.D. Power’s Director of Global Automotive, David Amodeo:

“…automakers continue to launch vehicles that are more and more technologically complex in an era in which there have been many shortages of critical components to support them.”

Big picture, the question is whether there is a market for simpler, more reliable cars. The success of Dacia in Europe seems to indicate that the answer is yes. Dacia is owned by Renault; their cars are a mix of well proven hand-me-down components mated to modern compact gas engines. Their simplicity and toughness is appreciated in France and their residual value stays high.

But this is an unlikely market in the US.

Without being a Luddite, is anyone capable of backing up a car using only the rear view mirror? Did the high-definition backup camera become necessary because American drivers became incompetent?

And what about: Automatic headlights? Power windows? Power locks? Remote (vs. mechanical) keys? LCD touch screen dashboards? Automatic climate control? Cell phone integration? All of these improvements mean that your new car contains about 1,400 microchips.

Some microprocessors have been added to meet US regulations, like engine control to reduce emissions. Then there are things that make assembling the cars easier. For example, electric windows are now controlled by a circuit board, so that the manufacturer doesn’t have to run 10+ wires to the driver side door.

Still, Wrongo thinks that most car electronics are a true value-add. Think air bags, or blind-spot mirror warning, and radar-assisted cruise control. These things add to the cost of the car and as we’re discovering, add to the risk of parts shortages.

The chip shortage isn’t going away. The auto manufacturers have contracted for their chips and sub-components on a long-term basis. They aren’t interested in taking a financial hit by changing their engineering designs for cars that are currently being sold. Their Asian suppliers are under long-term contracts, a cancellation could poison those relationships, and the suppliers would be very difficult to replace.

OTOH, some suppliers are pushing the auto manufacturers to move to more modern chips. But the current chip shortage is mainly of more basic units used in power windows and seat heaters, not the high-end microprocessors used in the most expensive cars.

So let your inner Luddite fly. Get an old, analog, manual transmission car. If you can find one.

But now it’s time for our Saturday Soother, where we unplug from the latest Trumpfest (or is it Trumpest?). Let’s shed our anxiety about too many IRS agents and too many anti-Trump FBI agents. Here on the Fields of Wrong, the heat wave has broken. We’re able to be outside again doing yardwork.

But before starting the yardwork, grab a cold brew coffee and a seat in the shade.

Now, take a few minutes to watch and listen to the StanisƂaw Moniuszko School of Music Orchestra play Vivaldi’s “Summer” from his “The Four Seasons”.

It’s performed here in 2016 at the Polish National Opera House in Warsaw, with violin soloist Agnieszka UƛciƄska, who now makes her home in Cleveland:

It appears to Wrongo that the entire orchestra is female.

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Saturday Soother – July 30, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Chatham, MA – July 2022 photo by Bob Amaral Photography

We are 100 days away from the midterms. That’s usually a blink of an eye in political time. But it can also be an eternity in politics under the right circumstances. And in this year of all years, nothing can be assumed. The Jan. 6 drip of negative information about Trump and his Republican henchmen, and the looming revolution that the judicial overturning of Roe has caused, might mean that anything is possible.

For more than a year, the news media have snowed us with their conventional wisdom about the mid-terms, insisting that the president’s Party will lose seats in Congress. But, Josh Marshall has thoughts about this (paywalled):

“New Georgia Senate poll out this morning from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Warnock 46%, Walker 43%….Meanwhile, three new congressional generic polls have come out over the last 24 hours, two of which give the Democrats a six point advantage and one of which gives a 4 point margin. One of those 6 point margins is actually a Republican Party poll.”

Given the Republican advantage in Red states, six points may not insure that the Dems hold Congress. But we clearly shouldn’t give up, because right now, the House isn’t a lost cause.

Positive polling momentum brings with it both the energy and hope that a political turnaround is possible, even in 3+ months. Momentum is a thing in sports. Players and coaches usually cite momentum as a reason for victory in close contests. Maybe we’re seeing Biden and the Democrats building some political momentum.

It’s also true that Republicans aren’t reading the national mood as well as they think they are.

Just hours after the Republicans worked with Dems to pass the Chips and Science Act (CHIPS) which includes $52 billion in subsidies for chipmakers building new foundries in the US, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced a deal to revive big portions of the Build Back Better (BBB) bill.

Sen. Manchin (D-WVA) had walked away from negotiations with Schumer on a scaled-down BBB tax bill that could only pass via Reconciliation two weeks ago. Then Senate Minority Leader McConnell let his guard down, and allowed Republicans to vote for CHIPS, which was popular with Senate Republicans.

Apparently Schumer and Manchin waited until the CHIPS bill cleared the Senate before announcing agreement for an even more scaled-down BBB program now called the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which has both significant funding for climate and a minimum corporate tax. It too will need to be passed by reconciliation, since it will have zero Republican support.

Schumer’s move caused a McConnell meltdown. Under orders from Mitch, Republicans got revenge by voting against a procedural vote to advance a bill that would expand health care access for military veterans who became ill after being exposed to toxic burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It was a near-legendary playing of McConnell by Schumer and Manchin. And it infuriated McConnell so much he took the bill to give medical care to dying veterans exposed to toxic burn pits hostage. It was a bill that Republicans had helped to pass overwhelmingly just a few weeks ago (it needed a technical fix). Blind sided veteran groups erupted in anger and indignation.

The GOP revealed itself to be, at least for now, incapable of making decisions that promote the common good. Their decision to turn against veterans was a grave miscalculation that will hopefully rouse a few million of the recalcitrant, alienated, apolitical 100 million Americans who typically decide not to vote in elections, to get straight to the polls.

This family-sized combo of a revival of the Biden agenda and angry Republicans making terrible choices on popular legislation may help the Dems in November.

Maybe a cosmic ray beam hit Washington and gave Schumer the Machiavellian cunning of a Republican and McConnell the guileless ways of a Democrat.

Had enough for this week? Wrongo certainly has. Let’s try to grab a few minutes and not think about the state of the world, or why Republicans insist on speaking like neo-Nazis. It’s time for our Saturday Soother.

The drought in New England still has the upper hand. We have little need to cut our grass every week. We’re watering a few specimen plants, but since our water source is a well, we must be careful.

Time to grab a mug of cold brew (or iced tea) and find a seat under a tree. Now watch and listen to Yo-Yo Ma perform “In the Gale”, which was shot outdoors in late spring. It is from The Birdsong Project, a community dedicated to the protection of bird life.

This performance includes many wild birds accompanying the cello:

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Saturday Soother – July 23, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Mount Teneriffe, WA, with Penstemon flowers in foreground – July 2022 photo by Edwin Buske Photography

Wrongo and Ms. Right watched the House Select Committee hearing on Thursday night. It was supposed to be the final hearing, but it turned out to be only the “season finale”. The Committee members made it clear that additional witnesses are giving up their reluctance to testify on the record, so there’s more coming in September.

Thursday night laid out that Trump and his enablers had a plan to subvert our democracy even after their legal effort to change votes in swing states had failed. And it’s frightening how close they came to pulling it off.

The 18-month focus of the media about how Trump did nothing while the rioters took over the Capitol was absolutely the wrong way to look at the White House’s inaction. Charlie Sykes has it right: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Trump didn’t call off the mob because it was doing precisely what he wanted; and he was using the delay caused by the attack to lobby his allies to help execute his coup. Only when it was apparent that the assault on the Capitol had failed, did he bother to call off his Insurrection.”

The Committee charged that Trump was derelict in performing his duties as president. He was aware in real time of the violence at the Capitol. He could have given orders to his followers to end the attack, or counter it with troops, but he did nothing.

Given every American president’s Constitutional obligation to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” Trump was derelict. Liz Cheney said it best:

“Can a president who was willing to make the choices Donald Trump made during the violence of Jan. 6 ever be trusted with any position of authority in our great nation again?”

You already know the answer.

And if you think that it might be acceptable for Trump to return to the office of president, check out what Axios reported on Friday: (brackets by Wrongo)

“Former President Trump’s top allies are preparing to radically reshape the federal government if he is re-elected….Trump allies are working on plans that would potentially strip layers [of staff] at the Justice Department — including the FBI, and reaching into national security, intelligence, the State Department and the Pentagon, sources close to the former president say.”

They’re building the breeding grounds for a new wave of right-wing personnel to infiltrate and run the US government should Trump be elected president:

“The heart of the plan is derived from an executive order known as “Schedule F,” developed and refined in secret over most of the second half of Trump’s term and launched 13 days before the 2020 election.”

That’s when Trump started selectively placing his toadies in key positions in various agencies in case he needed to get shit done. More from Axios:

“Well-funded groups are already developing lists of candidates selected often for their animus against the system….The preparations are far more advanced and ambitious than previously reported…..These groups are…curating an alternative labor force of unprecedented scale and preparing for legal challenges and defenses that might go before Trump-friendly judges, all the way to a 6-3 Supreme Court.”

Scary, or what?

Trump signed the executive order, “Creating Schedule F in the Excepted Service,” in October 2020, which established a new employment category for federal employees. It was rescinded by Biden after he took office.

Axios says that an initial estimate by the Trump official who came up with Schedule F found it could apply to as many as 50,000 federal workers, enough to make a profound difference in shaping and interpreting US policy, or to help Trump succeed in establishing an autocracy.

Schedule F could make many civil service managers political hires, meaning nearly 100% turnover when a new Party takes the White House. That would take us back to how the civil service operated in 1883, prior to the Pendleton Act.

Both Parties are lining up. Democrats have attached an amendment to this year’s defense bill to prevent a future president from resurrecting Schedule F. The House passed Connolly’s amendment but Republicans plan to block it in the Senate.

If democracy survives only because America gets lucky, or because pro-democracy forces play an almost perfect game, then we’re in big trouble.

This should give you the jitters. But it’s Saturday, and time for us to chill out in a hot country. Here on the Fields of Wrong, the grass is brown and crunchy. There will be no fixing that until the heat wave breaks and the rains return.

To help you chill, grab a mug of iced coffee, and sit by a window with an air conditioner. Now, listen to the most melodic of the 37 concertos for solo bassoon composed by Vivaldi. Here’s his “Concerto in E minor for Bassoon“, played in 2015 by the Karol Szymanowski School of Music Orchestra in Warsaw, Poland with Klaudia Abramczuk, bassoon soloist. These are school kids:

Bach never wrote a bassoon concerto.

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Saturday Soother – July 16, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Pamet Harbor, Truro, MA – June 2022 photo by Andrew Mckniff

The chaos caused by Trump never ends. The WaPo reported that the US Secret Service (USSS) deleted text messages from the phones of most of its employees in January 2021. Many of those messages related to Jan. 5 and 6:

“A government watchdog accused the US Secret Service of erasing texts from Jan. 5 and 6, 2021, after his office requested them as part of an inquiry into the US Capitol attack, according to a letter sent to lawmakers this week. Joseph V. Cuffari, head of the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, wrote to the leaders of the House and Senate Homeland Security committees indicating that the text messages have vanished and that efforts to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, attack were being hindered.”

Anyone see something suspicious about this?

It was simply a routine procedure, says the USSS spokesperson. The Secret Service by policy requires employees to back up and store government communications when they retire old electronic or telephonic devices. But the WaPo says that in practice, staff do not consistently back up texts.

By the time of the IGs request, as many as a third of Secret Service personnel had been given new cellphones.

Joseph Cuffari was nominated by Trump in 2019 to be the USSS Inspector General. He has faced significant criticism since he took the office. First-year audits plummeted to historic lows under his administration. He also blocked investigations into the Secret Service’s handling of protests in Lafayette Square, and the spread of Coronavirus in the agency’s ranks. The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) has called on President Biden to remove Cuffari.

Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi pushed back about the missing texts:

“…the Secret Service has been fully cooperating with the OIG in every respect – whether it be interviews, documents, emails, or texts….in January 2021, before any inspection was opened by OIG on this subject, USSS began to reset its mobile phones to factory settings as part of a pre-planned, three-month system migration. In that process, data resident on some phones was lost…DHS OIG requested electronic communications…on Feb. 26, 2021, after the migration was well under way. The Secret Service notified DHS OIG of the loss of certain phones’ data, but confirmed to OIG that none of the texts it was seeking had been lost in the migration.”

Despite what the USSS spokesperson says, it’s a certainty that some texts are missing. OTOH, it would be surprising if the telephone carrier for the Secret Service didn’t retain a record of all the texts. That means that the DOJ could have them already or can easily retrieve them.

It’s interesting that the Trump-appointed director of the Secret Service, James Murray, announced his retirement last week. Most likely, he knew this was coming. It’s probable that he was given a choice to retire before getting canned.

Since leaving the Treasury Department and going under the DHS umbrella, the USSS has become a shitshow. Just last week in Israel, one of Biden’s SS agents was detained and deported after allegedly assaulting a woman outside of a Jerusalem bar.

Murray may have fallen on his sword, but the missing texts for such a significant event in US history implies that the USSS has been infiltrated by Trumpists. Remember that the Secret Service wanted to take Pence away from the Capitol during the attempted coup, but Pence refused. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) as president protempore of the Senate was in line to take Pence’s place. He could have nullified the Electoral College vote and seemed to know something, since he tweeted that Pence wouldn’t be at the Capitol so Grassley would preside over the vote.

Did Grassley have prior knowledge of what the SS planned for Pence?

Have you had enough for this week? Wrongo certainly has, so it’s time for our Saturday Soother, when we take a break from reading about the latest outrage and reconnect with nature for a few minutes. Weeding and watering are high on our to-do list for this weekend on the Fields of Wrong.

Let’s start by grabbing a mug of cold brew coffee and a chair in the shade. Now, listen to Alan Hovhaness’s “Meditation on Orpheus op. 155”, written in 1958 for Leopold Stokowski and the Houston Symphony. Hovhaness was an Armenian-American 20th-century composer who died in 2000.

His “Meditation” is a musical reflection on one of Greek mythology’s most memorable stories: Orpheus’ loss of his wife, Eurydice, and his attempt to find her by descending into the underworld, where he meets his tragic fate. It’s performed here in 2012 by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gerard Schwarz:

Hovhaness is well worth your time.

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