Just the first week...

Sure feels like the country is quite quickly going to hell in a handbasket.  The edicts from the White house are being implemented as efficiently as you would expect them to be given the speed at which they are being rolled out, the circus troupe running the show and any bit of intellectual honesty.  Let’s see, in the course of one week we have managed to go to such lengths to piss off our neighbors to the south that their President cancelled a state visit and driven the citizens to a point that they are calling for everything short of war.  We have shredded the moral standing of the country with this ban of refugees.  They have managed to target a single religious block with somewhere between limited and no entry to the country (except for those traveling from the country where the only outside “terrorists” to attack the US came from.) The only upside to that is that the courts have no particular agenda to be beholden to the chief of the circus and therefore will likely throw the whole thing, part and parcel, out as a gross breach of the Constitution.  And the fine party in charge, after feigning enough moral outrage when all these ideas where floated in the election, have either gone completely silent or have fallen in line for the clown brigade.  (I can’t begin to come up with a suitable political fate to wish on our noble Speaker of the House, the ideas man, the bridge between the establishment and the wackadoos.  He has done nothing short of selling his soul.  History seldom remembers the cowards which is unfortunate as Speaker Ryan will likely be a good cautionary tale of what happens when your positioning and brand vastly outstrip your abilities.)

I do honestly wish I had any guess as to how this is all going to turn out.  I have begun to worry however that at some point, with the near daily large scale protesting going on, that something is going to go very wrong.  A mistake will be made and it may be enough to set the whole powder keg off.  Let us not forget that the polls really were not wrong about the amount of support that this guy has.  (They were simply wrong on how that translated into electoral votes.)  The powerbase that he does have however is a volatile lot where they are not exceptionally old.  If things start to get worse, there is no telling what happens when one of his “constituent” groups decides to get overzealous.  Lord knows the bubble that is the WH will not do anything to stop them, even if they could.  And that is the scary part to me… the risk that protests and counter-protests meet up on the wrong street at the wrong time.  There are no inspirational leaders in Washington today, just those that will tell you that the country is going to hell and it is “their” fault and the only ones you can trust to tell you the “truth” is the group casting the message to begin with.  

The real risk we run is that the wrong people really start to believe them and then we will find out how slippery the slope really is.

Begin the end...

Today saw the beginning of the end… the start of a period that could be the most fundamental challenge to the American ideal since our nation’s founding.  I know that sounds like a hyperbole but, if anything, I believe it to be impossible to overstate.  Today President Trump began a two-day exercise to dismantle the American ideal.  Today’s act was the signing of two executive orders that target undocumented immigration to the US largely aimed at Mexico.  He starts with the building of a wall on the southern border, the building of detention centers to house immigrants awaiting deportation and then increases the forces to enforce his new grand vision.  In addition, he sets up a set of guidelines that will allow for the federal government to punish any state and local municipalities that are deemed to not be cooperating with the new administrative actions.  And if that was not enough, tomorrow he is widely expected to implement a complete halt to allowing refugees into the US and will implement a travel ban from “Muslim-majority” countries.  As much feigned outrage there was from even within his own party when he suggested this during the election, I’m sure it will be met with utter silence this time through as the GOP is too busy trying to create lists of legislation they will push through to notice the White House burning down any notion of the American Ideal.  This is what acquiesce looks like.

Ronald Reagan, for all his faults, knew how the American Ideal, American Exceptionalism worked.  It did not come from within.  It came from the perception of the outside world that America held the high ground.  That America, with all her internal flaws and challenges, would lead and those that followed would prosper.  America was the land of hope for those suffering through oppression albeit in Soviet Russia, underdeveloped Africa or in the oppressive tyrannical monarchies of the Middle East.  America was the light.  America was the rule of law and the moral compass.  America was, as Reagan put it, “The City on a Hill.” 

Our response to 9-11 began to chip away at that ideal, where we began crossing the very lines that we fought to establish.  Military led revenge became the policy of choice but without the commitment to rebuilding in the light of victory.  The results were, in our attempts to feel safer, we sowed chaos.  We took an area of the world that struggled to maintain any sense of stability let alone progress and pushed it into the abyss without even considering how to pull it out again.  Even how we conducted our ill-considered campaign was contrary to our own standards.  We adopted the very techniques that we often tried failed states and dictators for employing.  We created an infrastructure to hold people in such a way that we would not have to consider their rights.  And now, we are going to close our borders to those most in need from the destruction we have reaped.  Oh, it is a much easier narrative to accept if we frame it as Islamic fundamentalists charging after us and our way of life.  Much easier to say “we don’t know what is going on” or even to just blame them because they hate us.  No causality in sight (at least to do with us) and clearly no responsibility.

So here we are.  We will just bar the doors, build a wall and turn our back to a world that once looked up to us.  We will no longer be the beacon of hope, will no longer hold the high ground.  If Trump is to be believed, we no long desire to be the City on the Hill.  You can’t lead when you only think of your own best interests.  You can’t win when you always demand surrender.  “Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled masses…” was as much of the American moto as anything else.  It is the ideal that brought us all here in the first place.  It is our collective history.  America can be great again but not until we remember who we are and be willing to pay the costs of being “on the hill.”  Unless we do that… we will lose, huge. 

And we can’t hope for a change in direction without the application of resistance.  

Freeze....

So, my whole family is sick and I am not feeling all that great myself.  Started with # 1 son getting strep and running a 103 temp with hives.  Moved on to the wife and is now progressing.  Have to love it.  Anyway…

One of the first acts of the newly elected President was to freeze federal hiring.  Now aside from the complete lack of a justifiable reason to do this (other than some deeply rooted dislike of federal bureaucrats) I also tend to think that this is an especially poor economic choice.  When you look at the monthly Non-Farm Payroll numbers the number of new jobs attributed the federal government is only about 2500 or so a month.  That in and of itself is not going to have a significant impact on the employment situation.  Add in the rates of retirement in an increasingly aging federal workforce and the impact becomes more noticeable.  A recent BAO study showed that recent retirement rates of federal employees ran at about 3.5%.  Based on federal employment of about 3,000,000 you get a negative impact to the jobs numbers of almost 10,000 per month assuming that the rate doesn’t accelerate (which given the love shown by the new administration in the early days is not a forgone conclusion.)  The same study estimated that by 2017, nearly 30% of the federal workforce could be eligible for retirement.  It is not a reach to think that the retirement rate could tick up significantly.

 

Where I think, this could begin to become an issue is in the execution of work on behalf of the government.  Federal projects require federal employees to manage the very complex requisition process that is required to engage private companies.  In addition, much of the planning and oversight of projects is dependent on having employees in the seats to take on those roles.  Given the potential downdraft in federal employees, this could have the real effect of slowing and even halting projects that otherwise would have been undertaken.  This would then create a multiplicative effect of the shrinking federal workforce into the private sector.  As the President, has already show an unwillingness to ever admit an error, it is reasonable to think that even as the effects begin to show themselves (which is likely into the second half of the year) the administration would be slow to course correct. 

Now the argument is going to be that the other things that the administration is doing will have so much more of a positive effect that any slowing caused by the federal hiring freeze would be overwhelmed.  That could be true but the fact is that the freeze is in effect today and nothing that will add stimulus to the economy is (if anything the higher interest rates, renewed uncertainty around ACA and other regulations and just the current tone is all adding unknowns to the markets which equals slowing (always.))  Everything told I think the downdraft will more than offset any token job adds that the President is currently getting.  Given the economy’s frail recovery despite exceptionally low interest rates and I think we could be in for a rocky ride.  

I think the President is going to learn that everything has an effect… even throw away executive orders that were meant to be more symbolic than anything.

First few days

It has been quite a start to the new administration.  I somewhat expected the surrealness to begin to ware off but honestly it just keeps getting odder and odder.  The most normal actions were the executive order around the ACA which is almost completely non-understandable in its scope and implications.  Pulling out of the TPP and renewal of anti-abortion “gag order” are symbolic at best.  All of this going on while the WH is sending out the press secretary to argue alternative facts which were neither an alternative nor, as it would be, facts of any sort.  He then went on to chide the press for not reporting them properly.  It did not take an expert at all to look at comparable pictures from the past two inaugurations to say that there were fewer people at this one than the last.  It was nothing short of complaining that the press was not reporting that the sky is, “in fact,” green.  And then there was the substance of the President’s speech itself which was… startling.  It provided such a bleak view of the country that seemed utterly contrived to simply support his view that Washington has been robbing the people blind.

Now here’s the thing… to a certain degree, I don’t think that his view is that far off from how many see the country today.  I think that there is a divide that a good portion of the population vastly under recognizes even after the election.  It is this group that Trump has been able to channel.  It is in some way the same group that supported Sanders.  They are the ones being left behind.  The ones that see the rise of the cities and the coast with skyrocketing wealth and don’t see how they are sharing in the benefits.  I don’t believe that they cling to a time when the opportunities were better necessarily as much as they reach back to a time when the differences weren’t so obvious.  They look for a time when it didn’t feel like they were falling farther behind.  They are looking for answers to a world that increasingly looks less like them and is increasingly difficult to understand.  While the elites speak in a language all their own about financial derivatives, international trade and the high finance of governmental financing the town, schools and states have never recovered from the financial crisis.  Schools are not keeping up with the pace of innovation, police are chronically underfunded and infrastructure seems to be crumbling under their feet (especially forgotten the father they are from a major city.)  These concerns are real and they are valid.  They also have zero chance of getting solved or even of being addressed by the new republican singularity in Washington.  This is largely due to the fact that the GOP is almost universally on the wrong side of the solutions to these issues.

 

I honestly wish the new President would address these concerns but I have little hope that he will.  Just look at the first few days almost completely consumed by their performance in the theater of the inauguration.  A couple of swipes of the pen to make the far right happy but nothing for the angry that they seem to channel.  I suspect the ACA will get gutted in the coming days with no hope of a grand replacement that forgoes the countless people that will lose coverage and will, because of it, die sooner than need be.  That is the unavoidable facts of it.  In addition, the administration froze government hiring because of the inherent evil of the bureaucracy apparently.  No mention that the federal government is the largest single employer in the country and the effect of a hiring freeze will have on the economy.  No mention of the contracts and projects employing countless other Americans that will not happen because the federal resources needed to define and manage those projects are not in place.  Ah but political points were scored and if not reported to be of the benefit of all Americans, then the press is corrupt.

There is a great need for help in this country.  A great cry that helped usher in the current administration. A constituency that can already begin to see has been duped and will be discarded… until the next election that is.

XXX Xander Cage a review

So, couple big things to write about today.  Obviously the first one was the inauguration… Don’t even know where to start.  Honestly, I need a day or so to process it all.  Leave it to say that I still find it all so surreal, like it couldn’t really be happening.  Anyway, more on that tomorrow perhaps.

So, let’s go with the other big event today… the release of “XXX The Return of Xander Cage.”  Needed a good, fun movie to blow away the day so I figured this was worth a shot.  Let’s set some ground rules first, one does not go to see this movie expecting Academy award winning performances.  The bar for the story and writing is set at two notches above completely ridiculous.  If you go into this with that mindset, XXX sort of delivers.

The story revolves around Xander Cage (Vin Diesel) returning to the service of the American spy industry to help recover a piece of hardware that can break into encrypted things including satellites (which it can force to fall out of orbit, survive reentry and cause big explosions when they hit (remember our viewing ground rules.)  Cage assembles his team to steal back the devise from a likeminded group who stole it in the first place.  Without giving any details that you wouldn’t already expect from a movie of this genre, gun battles, chase scenes and hand to hand combat ensue.  In the fight scenes, it become clear that Vin Diesel is not the star of this movie other than in name.  The real star power on the screen come from Donnie Yen in the character of Xiang and from Deepika Padukone as Serena Unger.  Yen shows off some of the same martial arts moves that we saw in his other mainstream film this year (a little indie film called “Roque One.”)  While he isn’t going to light you up with his acting (again the rules) his fight scenes will remind you a lot of a young Jackie Chan.  Padukone on the other hand shows that there is some depth behind her super model bio.  Again, this isn’t exactly Shakespeare but she was asked to handle the most “complex” character in this and she did it well along with providing her own action scenes as well.

Now I am a big fan of Diesel.  For his genre of film, I think he is as big as it gets.  I would even go out on a limb to say, at times, he is even under rated as an actor.  That said, this was not one of the times.  This felt, for lack of a better term, mailed in.  His lines were flat, his action scenes were ok but nothing spectacular (easily being overshadowed by his fellow cast.)  There was little of the sly humor that he brings to any of his roles nor any of the edginess.  This was a franchise that Diesel left a while back and hasn’t helped it in its return.  This is the biggest disappointment in XXX as this could have been another, different vehicle for us to see more of Diesel.  In the end, I actually wished there was less of him.

I would be remiss if I didn’t give a shout out to Rory McCann as Tennyson Torch who provides a good deal of the comic relief throughout.  A fun role from someone most will recognize as “The Hound” from HBO’s “Game of Thrones.”  His few seconds caught singing “What a Wonderful World are almost worth the price of admission by themselves.

So, all it told, “XXX” is not a great movie (and never had a chance to be) but isn’t completely terrible either.  If you are a fan of Vin Diesel you will likely be disappointed as this is far from his best work.  Yen and Padukone are the real stars of this one (which perhaps shouldn’t be surprising given the prominence of the East Asia funding for the movie) and they really are good.  So, a good mindless action movie to escape with for a couple hours but little more but Diesel’s best part of it was in the previews for the latest F&F before the actual movie began.

Soggy burger...

At the half hour point it had already felt like an entire day of waiting.   

The constant comings and goings of individuals, groups, families and who knows who else in various stages of frantically weaving their way thought the other portions of the crown who tended to wander aimlessly along.  For a location that is entirely built around the idea and practical implementation of schedules, there is always an inordinate number of people who seem completely oblivious to the passage of time.  Perhaps their wait is so long as to render the mundane, minute to minute schedule that most travelers are on to be insignificant. 

There are always those people who are the “seasoned travelers.”  They stride through the airport with a sense of purpose and determination that is impossible to miss.  While most travelers spend half their time looking down at their tickets to somehow reassure themselves that they are at the right gate or that they have the correct departure time.  Like it would change somehow.  Not the seasoned traveler.  They often never need to even look at their boarding pass after clearing security as they have an innate feel for where all the planes are organized throughout the terminal.  More often than not they have already been on the particular flight several times, know a crew member or two, figured just the right way to talk to the gate clerk to secure the exit row window seat. They are to be envied in a way and pitied in another.  They are much like someone who is very good in a pie eating contest striving for the first prize which is… more pie.

Most airports are remarkably uncomfortable places, likely by design.  Most, not all, offer a splendid array of mediocre food served by cranky people with nothing but plastic silverware.  But at least it is overpriced as well.  You never see seasoned traveler at any of the main eating establishments.  Every once in a while, you will find them at the trendy wine bar that has only 12 seats (they of course knew how to secure one immediately upon arriving (and it already had their favorite chardonnay waiting for them.)  Meanwhile if you must eat, the only available seats will be at the scaled back version of the Chili’s and then it will be a center seat next to the family of 7 sitting at a table for 4.  Don’t worry because the $20 burger and fries will manage to be cold, dry and soggy all at the same time.  Your Coke refill will be brought out right after you get up to finally see that your flight has been delayed yet again (of course to check that you needed to relinquish your oh so cozy seat at the Chili’s with the now fresh Coke at it and there is no possible way it will ever be available again on this trip.  That’s ok because the middle seat, with no armrests, awaits for yet another hour until the next delay in your flight (preceded by two gate changes (one of which they bothered announcing.)

At an hour, it must have been half a week…

This I believe

This I believe…

I believe that we are truly all created equal in that we all have the capacity to lead a good and fruitful life.  I believe that (to paraphrase Rawls) the roll of the dice that is the position in which we are born should not determine our lives.  The guarantee of this should be the primary goal of government.  This is likely best addressed through access to quality education for all, to health care for all and for a commitment to support the ambitions of our children to be better than their parents and their grandparents before them.

I believe those that have benefited the most in society have the most to give back to society.  This is not about redistribution of wealth, it is about supporting the system that has allowed for their individual success.  No man is an island and nothing is accomplished in a vacuum.  The idea that someone can succeed without the support of the society they live in is nothing less than a delusion.  At a minimum, the safety and security required to succeed in life is a debt that cannot be overvalued.  That says nothing of the rule of law and civil society that are requirements for even considering pursuing anything above simple self-sustenance.  Without the support of the society life would be simple, cruel and short (channeling Hobbes.)

I believe that the great questions address by the various religions of the world are, in fact, more important than the answers they try to provide.  Religious freedom requires not just the acceptance of those that believe differently from you but a deep acceptance that they may, in fact, be right.  Too often we give lip service to the acceptance of others while still harboring the notion that they are somehow less than us because their beliefs are inherently wrong.  True religious acceptance requires a very high bill be paid.  One that can only be satisfied by the relinquishing of any claim to predominance and the power that goes with it.  That is a high hurtle that few can clear but one that we must strive to.

I believe the world would be a considerably better place if people could accept living by the creed of “Do onto others as you wish them to do onto you.”  This simple, elegant notion will seldom lead us astray of the best path.  If one is looking for true religion, something to believe in above everything else, it can be found in that simple mantra.  While a simple call to arms, it is not always a battle easily won.  It requires you to simultaneously to be able to empathize with your fellow man and be truly introspective for what is right.  Do onto others, requires that we view ourselves as not just individuals but rather part of a community.  A community with no boarders or arbitrary separations.  There is no qualification in the “others.”  It stands for all people of all beliefs and backgrounds.  There is no geography embedded in “others.”  “Others” makes no distinction for sex, appearance or affections.  “Others” is unequivocally everyone.  Do on to everyone as you would have them do on to you… what a wonderful world it would be.

This I believe…

Reflection

The suggested topic for yesterday was reflection on reaching the halfway point in the challenge.  It does seem a worthy topic to spend a bit of time on.  To this point I have written 15 days of 500 words or more (except for one day where I fell a hundred or so short.)  One average I have been coming in just short of 600 which doesn’t seem to bad given that prior to this I had not written for more than a couple consecutive days since college (at least.)  I don’t think any of my essays are going to set the world on fire but that really was not the point this go around.  This, as I have said was help build the habit (and to prove to myself that I could do it.)  Additionally, I had hoped to develop a “voice” that I could use in, perhaps, a more serious attempt at putting my thoughts out into the ether for all to see.  On this note I seem to be progressing.  The writing is becoming easier and the thoughts and topics are flowing freer. 

I am particularly happy with my product from yesterday.  I can honestly say that was the first piece of pure fiction that I have written since… I couldn’t even recall when (aside from an occasional haiku when I was trying to give that a shot.)  Again, I don’t think it is going to win any awards but at the same time I was able to translate a picture I had into words on the page with some level of intricacy and description.  Pardon my few moments of pride in my baby step into a whole different world.  Not sure I will ever follow my cousin into creating entire works of fiction but, then again, every book started with a page.

I also enjoyed writing my movie review.  I may, in fact, try to research doing a little more of that.  I remember writing a review of a movie we were assigned in my freshman year of college.  This predated modern, useful word-processing so I was left to look words up as a went (which always seemed a ridiculous proposition… here’s a book of how to do it sorted by the correct answers, how we did anything else other than prove when we were spelling wrong is proof of man as a higher being.)  I remember never getting very good grades on the writing assignments up to that point mainly due to spelling and, occasionally, grammatical errors.  Then came the movie review which, despite my usual smattering of errors, I received an A+ with a note from the professor that I should consider writing reviews from the school paper.  Funny that, more than a number of years later, I still remember that movie and the criticisms I laid out.  I was a story of a man who was born in China and moved to the US, returning as an adult with his family to the city where he grew up.  (Truth be told, I can’t really recall if it was China or Japan.  The context clues I recall leads me to China but…)  The movie wasn’t too terrible but it wasn’t Citizen Caine either (which was likely the professors intend as it had just enough rope…)  Anyway, I remember really enjoying writing it… as well as the grade.

Well another day in the books… 570 or so (in 20 minutes.)  Not too bad for day 16.

The Entrance..

As he entered the great hall the room fell in to an eerie quiet.  If the events of the last two months had taught them anything it was reverence for the 14-year-old boy who would now become King, emperor or whatever title he decided to adorn his new office with.  They had learned reverence… and fear.  For his part the boy king seem seemed at peace as he entered the far end of the long ancient space.  He paused to survey the attendees in such a way that he seemed to make eye contact with every individual in the room.  It was a skill that the Order had been training him with since he was considerably younger that he was today.  And it was a skill that, along with his other abilities, he had sharpened to the point they he may have well have shouted his arrival at the door.  The moment he stepped into the ingress was the moment that everyone was keenly aware of his presence and his power.  The effect was not unlike when children get caught playing by the clergy walking into church.  No words need to be spoken as the message is perfectly clear.

The hush nervousness of the gathered assemblage was only broke by the sound of his footsteps against the ornate thousand-year-old floors.  A slow methodical gate that itself gave off the air of control and mastery while at the same time showing no rush to get anywhere.  It, like everything he did, was calculated to provide exactly the impression he wanted to project.  No signs of weakness. No signs of fear.  Now it could be argued that after the outcomes that had led to this moment that he really did have little to fear from this room on this day.  While that was likely true for the day, nothing could be left to chance.  Nothing to give discord, or even the hope for discord to latch on to.  No, today was about laying a future.  A future where all those gathered could look past the conflicts of the past and accept the rule of the one who was equal part savior and conqueror. 

But while there was no doubting the legitimacy of his position today, it would take some time for this, the noble class, to accept that they would now be ruled by someone from outside their ranks.  Even the simple brown and green that he wore today was not aligned to the colors of his family or guild but rather were chosen to represent the green hills of the land of his birth.  Again, nothing left to chance and every opportunity to send a message was taken.  The Lords and Ladies gathered knew that he was supreme and they knew that their time was over.  What was left to be decided was just how much of the old order would be swept away.  Already, many of the trappings of the old system were being cast aside.  The very fact that this reception was taking place here in the Grant Hall of the Mariner’s Guild rather than the King’s keep was already trying to be understood by those looking to predict his next moves.  Unknown to the gathered however was that this location was chosen by him more because he had always liked the space, even since coming here as a boy, than it was to send a message.  Although the lack of a specific meaning in the location was also a useful tool to keep the “analysts” on their heels.  He took a certain pleasure in knowing that the location choice would, in the words of his trusted advisor; “Give them fits for better part of a month alone.”