Curt Ankerberg followup.

Candidate for Medford mayor Curt Ankerberg requests "proper background and context" for his letter to the Medford City Council.

Here is the letter he sent me to provide that context.

Again: Parental Advisory. Rough language.

From Curt Ankerberg, candidate: 

If you want to publish that email [to the city council], then publish a little background with it.

I have written both the school board and the city council dozens of times in the past with nice, rosy, mild language, and they've never responded to my emails. They don't respond to anyone's emails. NEVER. They don't respond to anyone. The school board does not allow public comments during their meetings. The city council gives you two minutes to speak, and the one time that I did speak to the city council many years ago, they ignored me and looked in the air. The current city council does not respond to emails. This is not the first time I've written to them. They've ignore even the nice letters. They don't want to be held accountable to the residents. They ignore the wishes of the voters. They've all been bought and bribed. I am way past being nice with these guys because they ignore what the residents want, and they never listen to anybody. My letter was NOT intended to be nice to them or beg them. I'm way past that. The purpose of the letter was to insult them. I was nice to this city council years ago, but they ignored me and other residents. You have no clue what is going-on in Medford. I don't write these kind of insulting letters to someone on the first go-around. This is what happens when they jerk me and others around year after year. Then I get nasty. I don't respect these people at all. This has been a long time coming. I'm done with their corrupt bullshit. These people don't represent the residents. They've been bought by the Chamber, and two members of the city council are on the Chamber Board and the Builder's Association Board. That's who they represent. There was no public discussion about this fire station. They granted a no-bid contract to a good old boy builder without the public knowing about it. It's a dirty deal. It was rushed-through. This is just like the Rogue X deal that fucked the residents.

You are absolutely an asshole who is always looking for a way to fuck me under. I'm going to stop giving you any information. You have a problem. This is not a Democrat-Republican issue. This is about cleaning-up this fucking town. I'm fighting against the fucking Mafia, and you think that this is a joke. Your head is up your ass. I'm trying to make Medford better, and you're out to fuck me under because I'm a conservative. You're an asshole with a mental problem. My main opponent Mike Zarosinski filed for personal bankruptcy, his wife works for two developers in town who want huge taxpayer money from the city, and he's been bought, and he supports tax increases and road diets. Vote for him, and he's certain to keep the corrupt status quo in Medford.  You're the same clown who gets offended by Trump's Tweets, yet it's OK for Biden and Harris to destroy America. 

You're a fucked-up communist.

 

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Candidate for mayor of Medford: Curt Ankerberg

 "Dumbasses."  "Bumbling Idiots." "Bribed." "You're corrupt trash."

Parental Warning:

   1. This post contains rough language.

   2. This post is relevant primarily to Southern Oregon readers.

Curt Ankerberg is on the ballot for the nonpartisan position of mayor of Medford.

A prior campaign voters pamphlet

Earlier this year he was a candidate for Jackson County commissioner. In previous years he has been a candidate for Oregon State Senate, for the local school board, and for City Council. He is a Republican and a Trump supporter. He nearly won the Republican primary election for state senator in 2018. 

Those prior candidacies may make Ankerberg's name a familiar one, a significant asset for a candidate in local elections. Voter memories may have dimmed on why his name is familiar. Today's post is a reminder. My purpose is to give voters a feel for the kind of mayor Ankerberg would be if elected. 

I quote verbatim a letter Ankerberg sent to the Medford City Council in reference to an upcoming agenda item, the upgrade of a Medford fire station. 

From: Curt Ankerberg 
Date: Sun, Sep 29, 2024 at 1:31 PM
Subject: New Fire Station 15
To:  council@medfordoregon.gov  

City Council,

I am aware that you are going to vote on constructing a new Fire Station 15 on Roberts Road for $9 million, which will increase taxpayers' taxes, and I'm writing to oppose this deal. It stinks.

How many of you have actually toured this fire station? I live 1/4 mile from this station, and I see it all the time. I just toured it a few weeks ago, and I spoke with the firemen.

I was a CPA for 33 years, and I know more about costs than any of you. I can completely refurbish and update this fire station, and make it modern for approximately $2 million. None of you have any business experience, and you don't know what the hell you are doing. You're a bunch of dumbasses. You've all taken campaign contributions from the firemen's union, and you're beholden to them. They want a shiny, new fire station just like the other fire stations in town. It doesn't need to be done. 

Again, I could completely refurbish this fire station, and make it as functional as the other fire stations, for a fraction of the cost. 

You all on the city council and mayor have all proven to be bumbling idiots on the take, and beholden to the Chamber of Commerce and Builders' Association. Unfortunately, you don't give a damn about the residents, and you continue to raise our taxes on stupid projects. They are a reflection of you and your lack of talents. You think that throwing money at a problem will always solve it.

Further, I saw that you want to give a NO-BID contract to Outlier Construction for the construction of this fire station. Did Outlier bribe you to do a no-bid contract? The owner of Adroit Construction, Bob Mayers, is the father of the owner of Outlier, Rob Mayers. It's more than coincidental that Adroit Construction got no-bid contracts for the police station and three fire stations, and now you're giving his son a no-bid-contract for a fire station. Adroit also just got a no-bid contract to build the County's pandemic center. I'd say that all of you have been bribed. You're corrupt trash. You've destroyed Medford and downtown, and you've raised our taxes numerous times for good old boy projects.  

How many more shitty projects are you going to jam down the taxpayers' throats before you leave office in January? You all had better hope that I don't get elected mayor, because I'm going to clean house of all the corruption in Medford, and you'll get thrown-out with the trash. You all stink, and you've been bought.

Curt Ankerberg

Medford, OR

 

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Easy Sunday: Sentiment for a baseball park

I remember Fenway Park in Boston.

A baseball stadium is part of the baseball experience.

I was 10 years old in 1960. My father brought my brother and me to a Red Sox game in Boston. We had bleacher tickets, but for some reason Dad brought us in the entrance for box seats. There were empty seats everywhere amid the box seats above the first base dugout. Dad shook hands with an usher, who took us to seats in the third or fourth row. The usher wiped the seats with a cloth and said he might need to move us, but probably not. 

We watched Ted Williams play. What I remember most is Dad's later explanation about the seats. Dad said we didn't deserve to sit in those box seats. He said it wasn't fair to the Red Sox owners, who wouldn't want to give away great seats to people who paid for bleacher seats. But, he said, the seats were in fact paid for, but by people who didn't bother to show up, mostly businesses who bought season tickets to give to clients, but neglected to use them. He said the ushers made little or nothing from their ushering jobs, but that their real income came from tips, the $10 bill Dad gave the usher in the handshake. Dad said everyone, including the Red Sox owners, knew that was how it worked, but that it was done quietly, thus the handshake. It was wrong, Dad said, but a wrong thing that people didn't really care about enough to stop. The seats would have gone to waste, yet it was a kind of theft to sit there. Then again, we did buy tickets, just not those tickets. It was complicated, Dad said.  

I have never heard reference to Fenway Park without thinking about my father's troubled and uneasy explanation about the morality of our sitting in those seats. We sat in box seats three or four times that summer.

Jack Mullen, a friend from my youth, has his own set of memories about a baseball stadium, the Oakland Coliseum. He lived most of his adult life in the Bay Area. He is a fan of the Oakland A's and the Oregon Ducks. In retirement, he lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife, Jennifer Angelo. 

Guest Post by Jack Mullen

For a half century, baseball was the national pastime.

Then, on a cold, gray December day in New York in 1958 the Baltimore Colts upset the New York Giants football team in a nationally televised game that became known as the “Greatest Game Ever Played.” Once the Colts' Allan Ameche scored in overtime, baseball was no longer the national pastime. King Football has ruled the air waves ever since.

Americans have decided baseball is dull and slow. As recent year’s World Series and All-Star Game ratings show, baseball is losing viewers, not just to football, but to professional basketball as well, including the new women’s pro basketball (WNBA) league.

Baseball just lost its last vestige of panache Thursday afternoon. The Oakland A’s played their last baseball game in Oakland. The A’s offered an alternative to baseball’s “button down” corporate style, epitomized by the New York Yankees. Like my Oregon Ducks, the Oakland A’s wore flashy uniforms. Owner Charles O. Finley moved his flailing franchise from Kansas City to Oakland in 1968, and playing in a cool Oakland breeze, won three straight World Series.

Traffic backed up on I-880 as crowds came to see the final game.

The Oakland A’s have always offered what the sport of baseball needs, a team composed of cool dudes. You may have heard of Ricky Henderson stealing 118 bases in a season, or the Bash Brothers (Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire) belting the A’s to a world championship in 1989. How about the movie "Moneyball" in which Brad Pitt played Billy Beane, the GM for the scrappy 2001 A’s team that set an American League record by winning 20 games in a row.

I loved watching an A’s baseball game in that historic stadium. Sometimes good things come to an end.

The A’s owner since 2005 is John Fisher, the inheritor of the Gap fortune. Like so many other owners of professional sports, Fisher wanted a new stadium and decided to pit the city of Oakland against Las Vegas. Major League Baseball owners have always wanted to place a team in Las Vegas, and the owners of the San Francisco Giants have always wanted the Bay Area to rid itself of a local competitor.

The City of Oakland was negotiating for a new stadium with John Fisher as he simultaneously negotiated with Las Vegas until, with the backing of baseball commissioner Robert Manfred Jr., Fisher pulled the plug. Baseball owners, including the Giants’ owner Charles B. Johnson, voted unanimously to relocate the Oakland A’s to Las Vegas.

Mind you, the complex financing is incomplete. It involves Clark County bonds, state transferable tax credits, and City of Las Vegas-supplied local infrastructure. The $3.5 billion price tag still awaits the Nevada State Legislature forking over $380 million to Fisher. The new state-of-the-art indoor stadium will not be ready for four years. Meanwhile, Fisher has pulled the A’s out of Oakland. The A’s, no longer called the Oakland A’s, will play the next four seasons in Sacramento, at a 14,000-seat minor league stadium.

To me, as a partial season-ticket holder for the A’s, nothing was better than a hot dog on a warm 72-degree afternoon at the Oakland Coliseum. I didn’t need the carefully curated food choices that new ballparks offer. Artisan beers don't do it for me.

Baseball is a game that should be played on grass. The A’s games in Sacramento’s stadium will be played on artificial turf. Baseball should be played outdoors. Las Vegas plans an indoor stadium with a roof in the style of the Sydney Opera House.

I remember the story of that little boy with a tear in his eye in the midst of the 1919 game-fixing scandal, who said,“Say it ain’t so, Joe” to Shoeless Joe Jackson. I say to John Fisher and all the Major League owners who are fascinated with all the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas, “Say it ain’t so.”

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Expatriates. Downsizing by leaving the USA

If things completely go off the rails in the USA, you can leave.

In fact, you can leave even if things are OK here.

Erich Almasy and Cynthia Blanton

Today's guest post is from two college classmates who have lived much of their adult lives outside the U.S. They weren't protesting anything. They liked living in Toronto, where Erich Almasy had a job, and they chose to live in retirement in the Mexican city of San Miguel de Allende, a favorite place for U.S. expatriates. Erich and his wife Cynthia Blanton have settled into their new home and feel so comfortable there that they act as cultural ambassadors. They have written a guide to foods of Mexico and Cynthia maintains a blog site where she describes their lives in Mexico: https://cynthiablanton.blogspot.com

Amazon

Guest Post by Erich Almasy

Earlier this month, Cynthia and I celebrated twenty-five years of living outside the United States. We remain American citizens, file taxes, and just submitted our absentee ballots. We simply don’t want to live in the USA. There are four to five million American expatriates like us, with nearly 500,000 living in México. Why did we decide to abandon the place of our birth, upbringing, education, and work experience? It’s not simple.

When we met, long before JD Vance was born, we quickly determined we didn’t want children. For fifty-three years, we have enjoyed a very independent lifestyle. We had our own business so we could live where we wanted and travel extensively. We visited over 70 countries and saw cultures and perspectives different from our native land. In 1999, my company in New York City moved us to Canada; we were ready for a foreign adventure.

Canada is very similar yet very different from the U.S. Language (except for Quebec); entertainment and work experience are almost identical. Social attitudes, personality, and history are very different. When we got dual Canadian citizenship, the immigration judge cautioned the roomful of candidates who resembled a United Nations convention. He warned that, unlike the United States, Canada had never had a revolution, so we had to challenge our new government at every turn. I used to brag to native Canadians that they depended upon a benevolent government since their executive (prime minister) also ran the legislative branch and appointed the judiciary. I smugly asserted the superiority of the American system of checks and balances. It goes to show just how wrong you can be.

Canadians are notorious for being “nice.” They aren’t nicer, but they did build a social welfare state that retains a strong sense of capitalism and self-determination. Canadians overwhelmingly support a social safety net, universal health care, and low-cost education, even with higher taxes. I smiled when I first presented a health card, not a credit card, for my doctor’s visit.

Where to go after retiring? Health care was a major consideration. We tried Medicare and got two shocks. First, Medicare hit us with a penalty for our five years abroad when we had saved the United States government more than $30,000 (NOTE: Two-and-a-half years later, they apologized and refunded the penalty.) Second, we discovered our Medicare Advantage plan was a scam that would still cost us significant out-of-pocket amounts. We now self-fund our medical care and have excellent doctors here.

Location, housing, and social environment were also important. We avoided Trump while in Canada, but the divisiveness and anger we saw on our visits to the United States were disheartening. Nobody smiled! In 2020, we walked out of a Pennsylvania Walmart. Inside, we and the employees were the only people masked against COVID-19. Outside, the driver of a pickup truck yelled, “Fucking Democrats!” And, yes, I did check for an AR-15 in his gun rack. We had no “home” to return to in the U.S., and no place appealed. And then, we visited San Miguel de Allende.

I annoy people when I crow about the place we landed. It’s in the Mexican highlands near the country’s center. The climate is mild, with a year-round average temperature of 70°-80°. Many of the 180,000 people in the municipality live in countryside villages, but most of them are concentrated in the 500-year-old colonial center. We are the wedding capital of México, with couples coming from around México to marry in our 150-year-old parish church modeled after the Gothic cathedral in Köln, Germany. In fact, despite a large number of ex-pats (or “gringos”), we remain primarily a Mexican population, and 90% of the tourists who visit are Mexican.

Our excellent Spanish teacher is Warren Hardy, who also offers online programs. Warren’s initial class discussed the differences between Americans and Mexicans. He said Americans are primarily concerned with succeeding materially for themselves and their families. Many classify themselves as patriots who believe in American exceptionalism and America First! The model citizens are rugged individuals who pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Many Americans seem desperate, living on the edge financially and afraid of losing their health care if they lose their jobs. There is so much anger and fear about racial minorities, immigrants, and political opponents.



Mexicans are focused on family above all. Mexican children are doted upon until the age of twelve. Old people are revered, and the Day of the Dead, our November 2nd remembrance of family members who have passed, is our national holiday. Above all, people are happy with much less. Walking down our cobblestone streets is an adventure in smiles, as everyone says Buenos días, meaning “May you have good days.” We frequently ride the town bus, where the children are clean, immaculately dressed, and beribboned. Being 6’6” tall, I attract much attention, and the children’s smiles and giggles make my day.

When we came here five years ago, we stopped watching the American nightly news, and our stress levels plummeted. Most of all, we began to make friends, some Mexican, mostly ex-pats. Cynthia calls this “summer camp for seniors” because there are endless cultural and volunteer activities. On our first visits to local restaurants, we were struck that people at nearby tables would unilaterally start conversations with us. Everyone carries calling cards so they can exchange numbers and addresses. We had never experienced anything like this, even in “nice” Canada.

We are not deluded about the violence and criminal corruption in México. So far, we have been immune to it; in an equal amount of time in San Francisco in the 70s, we had our house and two cars broken into. Health care is excellent and inexpensive, with some of the best practitioners we have ever seen. Canada and México are, to a large extent,dependent on the U.S. If America sneezes (i.e., has a recession), both countries will get sick. However, I am convinced that Americans, including myself, are not better than people I have met in other countries, many of whom seem much happier. Perhaps our values changed, so we no longer felt included in the United States. Did we abandon America, or did America abandon us?

Erich Almasy and Cynthia Blanton

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Mike Pence doesn't get it

"But what a fool believes he sees
No wise man has the power to reason away
What seems to be
Is always better than nothing
And nothing at all keeps sending him...

Somewhere back in her long ago
Where he can still believe there's a place in her life
Someday, somewhere, she will return"

Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins, "What a Fool Believes," 1978

The GOP doesn't want Pence. It wants Trump.

Pence is a straight-arrow conservative.  He hasn't figured out yet that the GOP has changed. 

I spoke words of consolation to Mike Pence last October in New Hampshire, when he was one of many Republican candidates challenging Trump. I congratulated him for rejecting Trump's demand that he discard Democratic votes under the pretense that fake electors were equally valid. It wasn't difficult to get up close to talk with him. Republican voters at the convention kept their distance from him.

Theoretically, Pence should have been the perfect post-Trump president. He did every single thing except openly, publicly, and defiantly commit an illegal, unconstitutional act to overthrow an election. 

So, wasn't Pence a cleaned-up version of Trump? Trump without the tweets? Trump without Stormy Daniels, E. Jean Carroll, the Epstein vacations, and the "Access Hollywood" video?  Trump without the former cabinet officials and White House aides who say Trump is dangerously unfit?

No. Pence thinks the GOP is a conservative party, a pro-immigration party, a party of international engagement, a party of fiscal responsibility, a party that is the heir to Reagan and the Bush presidents. It is not. Trump changed the GOP. Republicans who liked Reagan, Dole, the two Bush presidents, McCain, and Romney are without a party.

Pence published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal describing the potential future for the GOP.  Unlocked article.  He describes a GOP that doesn't exist. 

He wrote, "We embraced America’s role as the leader of the free world, and avoid "isolationism and the abandonment of American leadership."  No. Trump says that alliances are unnecessary, unnatural, unappreciated, and expensive.

Pence wrote, "Republicans should pledge to deliver better trade deals that increase prosperity, not protectionist tariffs that make products more expensive." No. Trump says we need more and higher tariffs, which will mean that foreign manufacturers will pay our taxes.

Pence wrote, "Republicans should unashamedly recommit to the pro-life cause, which remains the great moral calling of our era." No.Republicans, led by Trump, are retreating from that long tradition. The position is political suicide. 

Pence concludes with, "Republicans will win by embracing traditional conservative priorities."

No. The strategy that may well bring Trump to a general election victory is the one that has been overwhelmingly adopted by Republican voters. It is nativist, isolationist populism. Trump began with Obama birtherism, kicked off his campaign saying Mexican immigrants are criminals, added Muslims, added Chinese, added Central Americans, and now in the final weeks of this campaign is vilifying Haitians who are here legally. He has "otherized" non-White Americans and linked their presence to inflation, high housing costs, crime, and job loss. Trump has a consistent, coherent, story about what is wrong with America and how to fix it. Get rid of that criminal vermin and everything will be better. It may well be a winning story.

Pence imagines a Republican party as a party of principle and policy. That is gone. The party is a tribe. It is a mix of ethnicity, religion, tradition, manliness, and patriotism. We -- we normal good Americans -- are under siege, he says. Trump creates liberal tears because he fights Democrats who would poison our tribe with outsiders. Trump's crimes are irrelevant. What matters is that he leads the tribe.

Pence defended the Constitution. He was defending a law. He wasn't defending the important thing, the tribe. That makes him a traitor.

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Political home party events 101

The Tobias Read event went well.

The purpose of a political event is to widen the network of support for a candidate. 

The event demonstrates a positive connection with a community of interest. The event demonstrates to attendees that the candidate is well liked. The event is a catalyst for raising money. Events give attendees a chance to have casual conversation with the candidate. A news organization can turn it into a story. (In this case, KOBI, an NBC affiliate with a substantial local news operation, sent a reporter who taped a few minutes of Tobias Read's comments. The reporter is in the background, to the left of the photo.)

Political events are sometimes primarily "meet-and-greets" and sometimes are primarily fundraisers, in which the attendees are fully told that they are expected to donate money. The Read event was a meet-and-greet. The goal was to get people to the event. In my experience high-dollar fundraisers work only for top offices, i.e. incumbent U.S. representatives and senators and the state governor.

The candidate's campaign authorizes and schedules the event. Typically, they prepare the invitation. They decide whether this is a meet-and-greet or a fundraiser. But most of the details of the event are handled by the host, not the campaign.

The primary benefit of the event is the invitation to the event, not the event itself. There is no such thing as too many people at an event. "Too big" or "too crowded" is the goal.

Here again is the Read invitation.

Notice it says right up front that the event is at my home. In the last five years or so, a pernicious and self-destructive element has become standard practice in political invitations. The invitations often say something like: "RSVP here. Location address will be sent within three days."  I consider this insulting and counter-productive. The invitation reaches out to a wider community but simultaneously telling recipients that they cannot be trusted to know where the event is. That is the opposite of open hospitality and mutual trust and respect. I told the campaign to include our names and address.

If I were doing the invitation myself, for purposes of legibility, I would drop the photo image of the lake and mountain, but keep the smiling image of Tobias Read. But the Read campaign uses this format and it isn't important enough to fuss over. Note that the RSVP phone or email goes to the campaign, not the host. It would be a nuisance to get scores of phone calls, texts, and emails a day. However, the campaign and host stay in touch about headcount.

Campaigns should pick their hosts and the event site with care. The web of associations is the message. Candidate, hosts, and hospitality all combine in a genial outreach. The Read campaign was apparently OK with having our names associated with his. 

What about security? Was I afraid to have my address listed? No. My name, address, and phone number are published in whatever phone books still exist, and they are available on line for a click. My home is visible on Google maps, Zillow has its supposed value, and county records with its supposed quality are public and available. I have had demonstrators picket an event. They were young climate activists with banners saying that Senator Jeff Merkley should be even stronger in support of climate action than he is. He is probably already one of the most committed environmentalists in the U.S. Senate, but they wanted more. The demonstrators were on the street, and they improved the event up at the house by highlighting the issues and stakes involved in his election.

What about food and drink?  Answer: It doesn't really matter. The host should provide something, but people aren't there for the food and drink. Wine and water are traditional. There is typically food placed out for people to sample. Hosts can spend money on a caterer -- we tend to do so -- but it doesn't really matter.

What about music or other background entertainment? It is totally unnecessary, but if the host has a friend who will play a little music during the meet-and-greet chit-chat portion of the event, that is a nice touch.

More important is the space. The host must be psychologically and practically ready to have a great many people be invited, most of whom will not come. Campaigns typically act with diffidence about the invitation list. They want to be cautious and don't want to overwhelm a host. Can we invite previous donors? Yes. Can we invite donors to other campaigns? Yes. What about precinct committee people? Yes. Yes. Yes. Since the invitation is the most important thing, I urge campaigns to invite as many people as possible. The invitation is the place to spend energy and money, not on food and flowers for the event. Most people who get the invitation will be interested enough to read it, but not interested enough to attend. But what if too many people attend? I say great. People will see that a great many people are interested in the candidate.

Wineries are now event spaces. If a campaign cannot find a host willing to have a thousand or more invitations sent, then do the event at a winery or some other event space. They have the essential elements: physical space, bathrooms, parking, a microphone and sound amplification. The invitation can and should list the names of "hosts," i.e. people who underwrite the cost of the venue. The host are part of the message.

What about "the ask." Every event I have ever hosted or attended has a two or three minute "ask" when someone other than the candidate urges people to donate. People will donate according to their interest and capacity. The "ask" simply reminds attendees of the stakes of the election and that their donation is part of a good cause. There is one piece of magic in the "ask." It need not be heavy-handed, and indeed must not be. But the "ask" must ask for the order. It is not sufficient to say, "I hope you will consider donating." That is asking people to consider something and considering isn't giving. A proper "ask" requests people give a donation today, and indeed now. "Please write a check and put it in the envelope at your table."

I like holding events because I consider them the cleanest, best example of democracy in action. Amid all the transactional donations by special interests, and amid all the second-hand methods of influencing government in advertising and social media, there is nothing more wholesome than a candidate meeting and greeting voters and getting voluntary campaign help from people.

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Four corners of an intersection. Plus a fundraiser this afternoon.

The intersection again.

People who come to a meet-and-greet event I am hosting this afternoon for Tobias Read will see signs on all four corners.

Harris. Harris. Harris. Trump.

Last Thursday I described the intersection that faces my home.  I said I had put up this sign:

The next day the neighbor across the street put up this one:

The day after that a neighbor at the third corner put up this:

The three signs were up for two days but on Saturday the Trump-liar-felon sign disappeared. I learned it was stolen. It was replaced by these:

And now the fourth corner has a sign:

When I ran for Jackson County commissioner 44 years ago, this upscale neighborhood was overwhelmingly Republican. Most prosperous people voted Republican and working people, across town, voted Democratic. (I lived across town.) Things have changed. This precinct is now purple, voting Republican 53-45. College-educated people, those "suburban voters" we read about, now include a lot of Democrats. 

It is a good neighborhood for holding political events for either political party. There is plenty of parking along the neighborhood streets. I am holding a meet-and-greet event this afternoon for Tobias Read. He is the incumbent state treasurer, the office responsible for overseeing the state's money, including the $120 billion-plus pension fund. Read is a Democrat who has received a lot of bipartisan support

Read is now running for the office of Oregon's secretary of state. That office oversees elections. I am doubly motivated to support Read's campaign because his opponent, State Senator Dennis Linthicum, is a 2020-election denier. Linthicum actively supported Trump's effort to overthrow the 2020 election, joining lawsuits and speaking out claiming the election was stolen from Trump. He is still doing so. I heard him speak at a Trump rally this summer headlined by "the pillow guy," Mike Lindell, a nationally-known election denier. 

Here is the invitation the Read campaign sent out. It was mailed to a wide net of people and sent out by email to an even wider net. Local readers interested in meeting Tobias Read are welcome to stop by this afternoon at 5 p.m. Say hello. Eat some food. Drink some wine. Hear what Tobias Read has to say.

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A bomb in your pocket.

     "On 17 and 18 September 2024, thousands of handheld pagers and hundreds of walkie-talkies intended for use by Hezbollah exploded simultaneously across Lebanon and Syria in an Israeli attack."

        Wikipedia's summary of the event

We just learned a whole new way to kill people.

This isn't over.

The Economist

I hadn't thought to be afraid that some object I or fellow Americans carry could be sabotaged and made to explode. Now I do.

Israel did more than fire a weapon to injure and kill people, although it did that. It also sent a powerful message: "You thought you were safe, but you weren't. We can get you in this extraordinarily clever way." 

The attack on September 11, 2001 was not an attempt to kill a few thousand people, although it did that. It was primarily a message to tell the U.S. to get out of Saudi Arabia or pay a price at home. The message was a complaint that U.S. businesses and troops were unwelcome in and around Saudi people and holy places. You don't belong. Your culture and behavior disgust us. The message may have a hint of familiarity, especially this week. Americans don't eat cats and dogs but we eat pork, which is unclean and disgusting to traditional values in much of the Middle East. Americans drink alcohol, which God forbids. American women are grossly immodest by Saudi standards. Americans disrupt Saudi traditions and way of life. It is a message political and spiritual leaders employ to rally support: defend "our kind" against an invasion of the "other." If some people are hurt, it is okay. Sudden death sends a message. 

The Israeli attack was so successful and shocking that I expect it to inspire copycats. Israel disrupted future attacks by eliminating Hezbollah leadership and destroying their communications network. But most important is the psychological effect on Hezbollah through the powerful message of "you are not safe." The explosions will sow suspicion and division. They will increase cost and friction of their operations. They will need to expend resources defending against an attack that could come from anywhere.

The pager explosions cause me to rethink the risks Americans face. Consumer products can be sabotaged and set off with a signal, i.e. a phone call. Bombs can be placed inconspicuously nearly anywhere, either inside a connected device or connected to one via Bluetooth. Nearly every adult American carries a phone. They are part of our lives. Our cars are tracking devices. So are "smart" appliances in our homes. So are doorbells and alarm systems. So are our electric meters. Alexa is listening and she knows where we are and where we plan to go. So does Siri. 

We need to rethink the vulnerabilities in modern American life. Targeted explosions on high-profile people -- people who represent a cause or institution -- send a message. Regular Americans, living with no thought whatever that they might be a target, will get on airplanes or attend crowded public events where an explosion sends a message. 

 

The 9/11 attack sent a wave of changes in American laws and behavior. Flying became more complicated and expensive. Mail slowed, as it got inspected for anthrax. The Patriot Act made financial transactions slower and less private. I expect TSA screening to adjust to a higher, more cumbersome, more expensive level of security. Supply chains of hundreds of connected devices will need to be hardened. That will be expensive and it will be incomplete. These will be factories making toasters or suitcases, not nuclear weapons. Bombs need not be inside the connected device. Devices connect. A bomb can be secreted inside something larger and presumably innocuous, set off by a signal. One does not need thousands of targets to send a message. Five executives at JPMorgan being killed on an otherwise-quiet workday would send shockwaves. Was it the loan they announced to an Israeli tech firm? A new round of security would emerge if a  U.S. senator were killed. Or employees at the Pentagon. Or bombs going off in school lunchboxes.

Israel did not create Pandora's box. It has been here all along. But this week we saw a demonstration run, a proof of concept. But I don't expect this to be a one-off and I don't expect the U.S. to remain a bystander. The opportunities for disruption are too great to ignore. The 9/11 plot required finding 19 people willing to die for their cause. Secreting bombs into objects owned by targeted people only requires burglars who can sneak into a space, insert a device, and disappear. There are more burglars than suicide bombers.

This happened to Hezbollah, but there is no reason to think it stops there. Life in America is going to get more dangerous and expensive.

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KA-ma-la.

 Think "Comma" and then "La."  

Trump mispronounces Kamala Harris' name. 

It isn't a sign of Trump dementia. It is intentional. He is messing with her brand. It is diabolical, nasty, and effective.

Trump acts like he doesn't know, or has a hard time pronouncing, her name.

He's called her Camilla.

Or he slows down his speech, as if sounding out an unfamiliar word, saying "ka-MILL-ah" with the hint of a question mark in his tone. He has then added, as if explaining, "sometimes referred to as KAM-a-la."

At a rally he said, "They were explaining to me you can say KA-ma-la, you can say ka-MA-la, I said, 'Don't worry about it, doesn't matter what I say.' I couldn't care less if I mispronounce it or not. I couldn't care less."

It is a sign of disrespect and casual contempt. 

Of course he cares. It is a tactic. He is emphasizing her "other-ness" by presenting her as having a a name so weird or unfamiliar that Americans cannot pronounce or remember it. This is an election about "we" and "they." Harris is associated with cat-eating weird scary other. Kamala Harris is "they."

Trump's mispronouncing her name is also a form of diminishment and insult. Her name -- her individuality and history -- isn't recognized, and in this case is openly disrespected. Black slaves lost their African names and were given simple American ones -- remember, it was "Uncle Tom's" cabin. Slaves and Blacks in the Jim Crow South were called "boy."

 Trump is attempting to give Harris a new appellation: "Commie." Make "Commie" her name, not Kamala. 

Republicans are nearly uniform in having picked up the pattern of using the word "Democrat" as the adjective describing the Democratic Party. It was a recommendation of Newt Gingrich 30 years ago as a way to put the subliminal "rat" into the name. It was a bold calculation. Gingrich used it, and party leaders picked it up. It stuck. It is a tribal marker now; one can identify a Democrat or Republican by which adjective they use. 

Democrats have been slow -- perhaps negligent -- in redefining the Trump brand. Trump himself said that his chief asset is his brand and ability to license his name. It is why he says his net worth is far greater than his real estate or financial assets. He has equity in his brand. Harris successfully baited him in the debate by saying his rally performances are boring. Trump leapt to defend against that sneer. 

Democrats never began a turn-about by referring to the "Repub Party" or the "Republick Party." They didn't have a Gingrich. They had nine years to tie words like "scam," "schlock," "bankrupt," "con man," "cult leader," or something similar to Trump. They didn't do it. In recent months some Democrats have taken to calling Trump a felon. Trump reversed the polarity of that, making it a sign of defiant strength. I see signs and tee shirts reading "I'm voting for the felon." 

Stormy Daniels gave Democrats a way to humiliate Trump in an area of special sensitivity for Trump when she described his penis as small and weirdly mushroom-shaped. She would know, and there is not good way for Trump to prove the opposite.The power of that attack on the Trump brand was demonstrated in Barack Obama's Democratic Convention speech. Obama gave a knowing smile and made the briefest gesture of holding his hands a small distance apart, as if measuring. Americans immediately got the reference. Trump as a Playboy Magazine-era Lothario is a big part of the Trump brand. A sexually incompetent claim, indeed a sexually laughable one, undermines that brand. The Lothario/Hugh Hefner image gives Trump some rapport with men who resent #MeToo norms and the presumed feminization of American culture. 

There is some Huck in every American. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn concludes:

“I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can't stand it. I been there before.”

Trump is well defined. Love him or disgusted by him, Americans understand what they get with Trump. He has a brand. He defends it. To paraphrase Gertrude Stein, he is who he is who he is. 

He understands a brand's power, so he is busy at work trying to muddle Kamala Harris' brand, starting with trying to take away her name. 

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Easy Sunday: Pennies

I don't bother picking up a penny when I see one on a sidewalk. 

I wouldn't bother picking them up even if I saw a lot of them.

I've done the math.

If I spent five seconds picking up a penny, I could do 12 in a minute. Theoretically I could pick up 120 pennies in 10 minutes of relentless bending-over exercise. That's a good workout. If I could keep that up for a full hour -- down, up, down, up -- and I most certainly could not -- I would have $7.20.

It isn't worth it. 

Worse, I would have 7,200 pennies taken off the ground -- surely a mass of germs -- so I would want to wash them and my hands thoroughly.  And personal history shows that I would not make an errand out of taking them to a bank to deposit. Instead, I would put them in the large jar in my closet where I put small change when I empty my pockets. And they would collect there, taking up space.

Ben Beach writes today about the penny problem. He is a college classmate. He is a mostly-retired writer and editor, now living in Alexandria, Virginia. He set a record for the most consecutive finishes in the Boston Marathon: 54. 

Guest Post by Ben Beach

Have you counted your pennies lately? Apparently there are quite a few in circulation: 728 for every American. And that number’s growing. I found only 115, most in an old beer stein where I put loose change.

The nation’s first one-cent piece was born in 1793. In 1909, President Lincoln appeared on a one-cent coin and became the first real person—as well as the first president—to have his face appear on a regular-issue American coin. It was President Theodore Roosevelt’s idea, as part of a campaign to celebrate the centennial of Honest Abe’s birth.

With all due respect to our 16th president, some people think that we should stop making pennies. That was the recommendation in a recent New York Times Magazine article (“America Must Free Itself from the Tyranny of the Penny”) by Caity Weaver.

Would you support that? There are some good reasons to retire them. It costs almost three cents to make each one and, because so many pennies drop out of sight, the U.S. Mint churns out more than six billion a year. That’s twice as many as the runner-up (the dime). And based on the median American wage of $20.17 (2020 figure), it takes less than two seconds to earn a penny. Yet another reason: We are paying with cash less and less often. Canada, New Zealand, and Australia have stopped making one-cent pieces.

And yet,,,

For Baby Boomers like me, the little coin has nostalgic value. Remember those Bass Weejuns penny loafers? When I was in elementary school, Santa came down the chimney with cardboard penny folders for my brother Randy and me so that we could build a penny collection in an orderly fashion. Our parents taught us that “a penny saved in a penny earned.” Still true.

They add up. When my friend Jean’s father died last year (at age 100), his kids found 3,400 pennies in various places. Think what you could buy with that $34!

You never know where they might turn up. Lee, a retired Connecticut judge, told me he and his wife recently cleared out the filter of their clothes washer and discovered 35 pennies, along with about $4 worth of other coins.

My coffee partner Dave reported, “I encounter them in various locations in our house. For instance, a few years ago I noticed a lacquered box sitting on a seldom-visited shelf in my desk. I opened the top, and the box was full of pennies. I don’t recall how they got there. Another time I was rifling through a cabinet of fishing gear and found an old plastic bag full of pennies. Again, who put them there, and why? Then there’s the drawer in Cary’s desk that has a box full of pennies shoved to the rear, ignored, neglected. I guess in our household orphaned pennies are simply an issue we do not wish to face.”

My college friend Len reported, “I am sometimes tempted to throw away one that I find in my fanny pack or in a desk drawer, but I can't. I put it somewhere out of sight until the next time I decide not to throw it away.”

In 1989 a Stanford University student named Jens Molbak was sitting in his dorm room staring at a jar of coins on his desk, trying to think of the easiest way he could turn all that loose change into some much-needed cash. Two years later, he founded Coinstar, and today there are 18,000 machines where Americans can deposit their coins, about half of which are pennies. You have to pay 12.5 percent of your deposit for this service.

I imagine we’re not far away from the day when one of my grandchildren—all quite young now—will see a penny and ask, “Baba, what’s that little brown coin?” Or perhaps: “Baba, how do you think that dime got so dirty?”

Would you bend down to pick a penny off the sidewalk? For those of us whose knees have done seven decades of duty, that’s not always easy. But my college roommate Dan reminded me of this old saying:

“Find a penny,

Pick it up.

For all day,

You’ll have good luck.”

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""That was a coup." No.

"If you're gonna play the game, boy
You gotta learn to play it right
You've got to know when to hold 'em
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away."
         Don Schlitz, "The Gambler," a Kenny Rogers hit in 1978

The Democratic Party did its job. They folded a weak hand.

Proof of that pudding was the objection of Donald Trump: 

   "I bet inside [Kamala Harris] was laughing last night when she saw the way Joe Biden left because that was a coup. That was a coup. And I'm no fan of his at all. And it started with the debate, and from that point on it just got worse and worse. But that was a coup, it was a vicious, violent overthrow of the president of the United States."

It wasn't a coup. The Democratic nomination is the party's to assign. Biden withdrew because he realized he had lost the support of his party after the debate.

Mark Robinson

Democrats have a new reason to feel optimistic. North Carolina is now a battleground state. The GOP did not do what Democrats did with Biden, or what experienced poker players do when they hold weak cards, or what baseball managers do when they replace a tired starting pitcher with a fresh reliever. Life is full of examples of this error. North Carolina Republicans didn't know when to fold and walk away.

Republicans have a disaster in their candidate for governor in North Carolina. Mark Robinson, an all-in MAGA candidate with a record of wholehearted public support from Trump, has just blown up his campaign. He won the gubernatorial nomination and Trump's endorsement as an outspoken culture warrior troll. Robinson had said he wanted to outlaw all abortions. He promotes conspiracy theories about the moon landing, 9/11, George Soros, and the holocaust. He mocked Michelle Obama, the survivors of the Parkland shooting, women voting, the Me Too movement, and the LGBTQ community. That sounds extreme to Democrats, but not to MAGA Republicans nor to Trump. There is ample video of Trump praising him Robinson.

This week new information emerged. Robinson reportedly had a rich history visiting porn sites and video booths. Adultery sites. He made lusty chatroom comments on transexual videos. He called himself a Black Nazi. He trolled about liking slavery and wanting to own a few slaves himself. Robinson demolished his cultural conservative credibility. He redefined himself from righteous scourge of woke liberals, and became instead a sleazy hypocrite. He is currently down some 14 points in polls.

The GOP could have acted. They had a brief time window to  force him to withdraw so they could nominate a replacement. It would have defined the North Carolina GOP as not-sleaze, not- Mike-Robinson, as genuine cultural conservatives. They could have made a clean break. They did not. They stuck with Robinson as their gubernatorial candidate. 

Marginal voters are concerned about Trump's character and temperament. On policy issues, Trump probably has a slight edge in North Carolina; that's why Republicans win statewide. But Trump has a special vulnerability within his popularity. Trump rants. Trump keeps looking back. There is January 6. Trump is a crude lawbreaking thug. Still, for Republicans, he is their crude thug, and he makes liberals cry. Republicans can ignore the crudity, all for a good cause of the GOP team. Robinson moves the dial on what the North Carolina GOP represent. They aren't just Trump; they are Robinson, too.  

 Possibly a 180-degree turnaround for Trump could erase his "Mark Robinson problem," with Trump criticizing Robinson, but that is most certainly not Trump's style. Trump's method is to double down. Besides, the North Carolina GOP stayed with Robinson, so Trump has a tribe to defend. Robinson is hard to defend and impossible to ignore. 

The party's leaders did the job of a political party. The party represented the interest groups that make up the Democratic coalition and picked a candidate who could win election. They understood the situation and persuaded Biden to fold.

Now North Carolina voters will spend the next weeks hearing about how sleazy Robinson is. They will hear about Black nazis and how he is sorry women have the right to vote. They will be inundated with video of Trump praising his best pal Mark Robinson. 

Trump may still win. Being a Republican in North Carolina means Trump starts with a strong poker hand. Trump could have insisted the state GOP replace Robinson with a stronger card. But he didn't, and they didn't.

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