Paid protesters refuse to report for early shift

 

 

45 second run time.

I guess all of the quality people already have jobs. 

King-makers

This essay will be a quick look at what I see as the leverage-mechanism that allows a small number of people to have outsized influence on "who will be our kings".

One proposal (not mine) to address the issue is presented at the end of the essay.

*** 

It costs about $3.0 million to run a viable campaign for US House of Representatives. That is an average of $3.0 million for both sides. In "safe" districts, it will be substantially less. The losing side will establish a presence but aren't going to invest huge amounts on a sinking ship. The dominant party in the "safe" district doesn't need to spend $3.0 million to win.

Contested districts might see twice the average invested.

That money does not come from within the district. It come, mostly, through fund-raising mechanisms that are party specific. That means that if you, as a candidate, want money from WinRed or ActBlue you MUST dance to the tune they call. You must vote straight party lines and not what you perceive is the desire of your constituents nor what your conscience tells you to vote for.

It is just one more example of J.P. Morgan's Golden Rule, "The man with the gold makes the rules."

That leads to the capture of the party platforms/planks by the fanatical, one-issue voters: "I will eat nothing but BarS hotdogs, canned beans and instant rice for the next six months so I can send another $1000 to fund ProLife (or save the whales or advance LGBT rights or...) candidates.

The incredible price of the elections is primarily driven by the cost of media advertising. I suspect that many mainstream media outlets would go bankrupt without the huge influx of advertising dollars from political campaigns.

Viable solutions are tough to come by 

One proposal that was offered by people interested in campaign reform is to have the media outlets NOT CHARGE for political advertising. Let's say they have to sacrifice the minutes-per-day that are purchased by the industry that currently buys the largest share of advertising...say Pharma...and they have to give the same number of minutes/day to political candidates in October and early November.

That proposal died before it was born. The media corporations puked all over it. Financially, legacy media is furiously dog-paddling to keep their financial nose above the water due to competition from the internet. Pulling revenue from political advertising would be the equivalent of thumping the dog in the head with an oar.

Another issue involved the constitutionality of not funding minor parties. Would you force every station to host every whacka-doodle party equally?

If you only fund the advertising for some minor parties then you create some very strange dynamics. Suppose you ran a "primary" election for the minor parties at the same time you ran the Big-Two primary and the top one or two minor parties gets free advertising.

Furthermore, let's pretend that the top-two minor parties in Eaton County are the Green-Eggs-and-Ham party and the Whackum-and-Stackum party.

If you gave free advertising to the Green-Eggs-and-Ham party then the Republicans will win because the GE&H party drained the fringe voters who would have normally voted for the Democratic candidate. Similarly, if you funded the W&S party, the Democrats will win because the traditional Republican base was split. That is the opposite of what should have happened if we expect the representatives to be a "representative sample" of their constituency.

You might say "fund both of them", but what if the top two minor parties are Green-Eggs-and-Ham and Juan-for-the-Money parties and both robbed voters from the Democratic party. That would result in the "wrong" major party winning.

Cap spending?

Maybe the answer is to cap spending the way major sports leagues cap payroll. It would force the parties to become much more focused on their messaging and potentially give locals much more leverage since most volunteers for door-to-door work are local.

Flu Report: Day Four

"G' morning, Kubota. What's up?" I answered the phone call.

 "Is a temperature of 101.9 considered a fever?" Kubota asked me.

"Yes, Kubota. Yes it is" I replied. I was impressed that he had a thermometer.

At noon, I sallied forth with a stupid face mask* on and purchased blue-gatorade (I don't think anybody knows the actual flavor), two gallons of spring water, ramen noodle soup, minestrone soup, mucus-thinner and elderberry syrup.

Upon re-entering the minivan I goobered all over my hands with hand sanitizer and waited ten seconds before touching any of the interior. 

He was at the doctor's office when I dropped them off at his bachelor-pad.

Trimming trees

I installed a fresh battery into my electric pole saw and carried a 1/4 mile to the back of  the property. My goal was to trim a grafted chestnut tree back to the branch that was grafted.

It took me about two seconds to realize that somebody had installed the chain on the bar backwards.

I trudged back to the house. Used the Allen wrench and flipped it around.

Then I tried again. It cut much better when the sharp end of the teeth were hitting the wood.

I whittled the chestnut tree down to the grafted branch. Then I trimmed another chestnut tree. Then I limbed two oak trees up as high as I could reach.

God told me it was time to stop by putting some sawdust in my left eye. 

Quicksilver detail

I am recovering more quickly than Mrs ERJ.

The tentative plan is to have me go over to Southern Belle's house on Thursday to watch Quicksilver so Mrs ERJ can continue to recover.

Handsome Hombre still has the crud, so he will be watching Quicksliver tomorrow. Or at least that is the plan. 

NCAA Football National Championship

I like it that at the start of the season that the National Champion could be almost any Division I team. Who would have picked Indiana in mid-August?

While the years of "Will it be Georgia, Alabama or Clemson" were great for those programs, it did little to excite nation-wide interest through the entire season.

The fact that Indiana was able to transform from Big-10 boat-anchor to National Champion in two-years is because of the portal and transfer rules.

Let's be real. Sports-ball is entertainment. It is an escape from sometimes crappy lives. If Name-and-Likeness and portals increase the chances of Eastern South Dakota University  playing against Cal-State, Needles...then I think those are good ideas.

*Yes, I know that virus are very, very small. I believe that most virus are distributed in droplets of mucus and saliva. I KNOW the mask stops them. Masks, wearing or not-wearing is not a hill I will die on....unless I am working in a factory 50 feet away from other people and the temperature of the air is 104 F.

The case AGAINST term-limits

I assume that most of my readers lean toward the conservative end of the political spectrum so I will write this post with that with that in mind.

Take a minute and think of two or three nominally-conservative politicians who you feel have betrayed the cause in the last thirty years or so.  

***

Fine Art Tuesday

 

Emil Zschimmer (1842-1917)

"I wouldn't dream of hiding the sympathy I feel for trees, nor the admiration I've long held for them. Some time ago, I was on a plane. An industrialist sat next to me, [...] this man said something I've never forgotten:

"Whatever your profession, at some point you'll wonder if you're wasting your time, even if your work isn't harmful. You can be a merchant, an archbishop, a fisherman, a musician, or a doctor; sooner or later you'll feel like you're wasting your time. There's only one exception: if you plant trees, you can be sure that what you're doing is good." I really liked what he said."

~Francis Hallé , 'Trees', "Les petites conférences" (2011)

Benjamin Williams Leader (British, 1831-1923)

 

Bernhard Mühlig (German, 1829-1910)

Martín Rico (Spanish, 1833-1908

James Thomas Linnell (British, 1820-1905)

Michael Reilly

Alan B Hayman

And a thousand thanks to the tireless Lucas Machias

 

Presented without comment

 

47 new Ronin every fifteen minutes

Medieval Japan was a feudal country. While a small amount of money changed hands, most of the economy was sustained by an elaborate system of "obligations" with "Loyalty" flowing up from the bottom and "Responsibilities" flowing down from the top.

This web of obligations was so comprehensive that it was virtually impossible for somebody who fell outside of the web to survive. That outsider had no legal right to collect firewood for cooking or to gather shellfish. They had no legal right to till and plant a field. They had no right to sleep under a roof. 

It worked in Japan for a long time. Japan had (and has) a homogeneous population with a shared history. Japan had little mobility, either in society or in terms of geography. Japan did not have an abundance of natural resources and could not afford to run experiments that would likely fail.

Samurai were warriors who had pledge their allegiance to the local Shogun or Warlord. The pledge was not lightly given and Samurai typically only gave it once in their lifetime.

47 Ronin

47 Ronin is a movie based on a fictionalized rewrite of a Japanese folk-story that is based on actual, historical events.

Plot: An honorable Shogun who had 47 Samurai was forced to take his own life through the manipulations of a dishonorable Shogun. The Samurai refused to switch their allegiance to the new, slimy Shogun and thus became Samurai who were not pledged to a Shogun, known as Ronin in the Japanese language, a virtual death sentence in medieval Japan. 

With honor gone and nothing else left to lose, the Ronin decide to avenge the honorable Shogun's death. 

Divorces

There are approximately 1,800,000 divorces in the United States. If you divide that by the number of seconds in a year (including nights, weekends and holidays) we average one divorce every 17.5 seconds.

If you do the math, that means that there are 47 newly divorced men every fifteen minutes. 

Every one of those divorced men have something in common with the Japanese Ronin. Typically, the courts kick them to the curb. They are turned into objects. They are piggy-banks to be drained. Much of society bought into "Always believe the woman". 

If 47 Ronin in feudal Japan were seen as an existential threat to the Empire, then why do so many people cheer on the women who file for divorce*? "You go, girl. Kick his ass!!!"  

47 new Ronin every fifteen minutes!!

It is something to ponder as the shredding of our society accelerates.

*4 out of every 5 divorces are initiated by the woman.