Easy Sunday: Take the day off and laugh.

I feel entitled to laugh at the foolish incapacities of old folks.

I can take a joke.

I don't consider it ageist in a negative way, and I don't feel guilty about laughing at this Saturday Night Live bit. I see it as human, or humane even. I like it. It recognizes, in the exaggerated way that humor does, some characteristics of humans as we pass through phases of life.

I perceive it as essentially accepting and affirming the nature of the elderly. I don't think it is cruel or insulting any more than would be a comedy sketch or video that noted that toddlers stumble and fall. Yeah, we old people sometimes struggle with new technology, some of us don't hear well, some of us ramble in relating stories. That's life. That's real. It is OK to acknowledge it. 

I think that what is ageist -- and pointless -- is to deny some of the changes we go through.

Here it is on Youtube.

https://youtu.be/YvT_gqs5ETk?si=n8g5KlMM9spZjMCk

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Frost damage

Farming isn't for sissies.

The frost-control fans worked the way they were supposed to on the mornings of April 17 and 18. 

It wasn't good enough. 

The vineyard got to 29.3 degrees at dawn on both days.

I took this photo of my Pinot Noirs on April 20 and sent it to my brother and sister. I was showing off. See how beautiful the vineyard is? Our father would be happy to see the farm productive, the weeds under control, everything ship-shape. I was proud.

Looking good

In the photo the four-year-old vines are pruned up and in position for their first year for a marketable harvest. The vines look great. A barely-visible cane wire is 31 inches  off the ground. The vines are pruned back to bare wood in the winter, and are attached in a cross shape and tied with green plastic tape to that wire. About every four inches a shoot points up and those will have grapes that will grow over the summer and hang down from the wire.  

Farming brings problems. One of them is spring frosts. My electronic thermometer tracks the temperature every hour.

My vineyard is especially susceptible to frosts. Medford is at about 1,600 feet in elevation; my farm is at 1,200 feet. Cold air settles and creeps past my farm along the ground toward the Rogue River. The damage from the frost did not show on April 20, but it was evident yesterday in the photos below.

Malbec

Malbec

Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir

I have two acres of Cabernet Sauvignon, too. I neglected to take photos of them because Cabernets bud out about two weeks later than the Malbecs and Pinot Noirs, and I don't think there is any damage. Cabernets are the latest to bud, latest to ripen, and latest to harvest.

The frost will almost certainly reduce crop yields. Grapes put out second buds, so there will be grapes, but they are later and less productive than the first buds. 

The Malbecs last year had a huge crop -- too heavy -- and I needed to drop -- i.e., cut and leave on the ground -- about half the crop a month before scheduled harvest. It is possible that the frost just means a smaller, better harvest, and less work removing excess fruit. But probably not. In general, spring frosts are bad. 

The Pinot Noirs are more delicate than Malbecs. They are a few days behind the Malbecs, and so far seem to be less damaged. We will see. I may see more damage in the days ahead.

The fans came on about 3 a.m. those two nights and again last night. Each night they stayed on for five hours. So far this season I have spent about $4,000 on propane.

Morning fog at 7:03 a.m.

I read yesterday news of frosts into the low 20s from New York, down through Pennsylvania and into Virginia and Maryland.  News stories quote farmers using the word "catastrophic." In the low 20s, nothing works to minimize crop damage.

I don't wish problems for East Coast grape growers. I consider that to be mean-spirited and bad luck. I do recognize that crop problems elsewhere reduce the overall supply of wine grapes and therefore my chance of selling grapes at a good price. I am not in direct competition with East Coast grape growers; people who want my wine would probably be looking for branded wine from the Rogue Valley. But at some level wine is wine, and wine is shippable, and a shortage or oversupply in one place affects the overall market. 

So much is out of my control.

I will plant melons from seed about May 10. They will be in the ground and protected from frost for a few days, but once they emerge a frost is sudden death for a melon plant. No use trying to rush the season. 

I don't grow melons to sell. I grow them out of sentiment and inertia. They paid for my college education. It was the job listed in the Voters Pamphlet in my 1980 campaigns for county commissioner: melon grower. I have been growing melons for 60 years, so I will keep doing it. A perfect vine-ripe melon is at least as rare and hard to produce as is an excellent wine. Rarer, in fact. Melons are perishable. When everything is done right there is a moment -- one day, maybe two -- when it is perfect. Then the moment passes.

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Trump's Achilles heel

It's the corruption, stupid.

Iranian propaganda videos are onto something. 

Democrats should not count on a bad economy doing the political work for them. There is a better issue.

The economy might improve. Fuel prices might go down, the stock market might go up. It is unpatriotic and bad luck to hope the economy tanks and Trump gets the blame. 

Democrats learned that the "democracy" argument didn't work well. Issues involving Trump's flagrant abuse of U.S. law, international law, and the Constitution have less political effect than Democrats had hoped. Voters want stuff. Voters want government to work. They don't really care who imposes tariffs. They care whether the tariffs help or hurt. Remember yesterday's post: Congress has a 10 percent approval rating! Trust Congress? Get real. Congress looks like dysfunctional geriatrics hung up in a government shutdown. A president can act; Congress cannot.

Trump's popularity is the Achilles heel of American warfighting. We have overwhelming military strength, but we have minimal resilience. Higher gasoline prices and upticks in inflation make Trump unpopular, which diminishes his control of the GOP senators and members of Congress who protect him from impeachment and conviction. 

War is more likely to cause regime change in the U.S. than in Iran. Iran's government can take a licking and keep on ticking. Trump could lose the House and his legitimacy to fight a war.

Take three and a half minutes to watch the video. The YouTube video is better if you click on the little captions button marked CC at the bottom toward the right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7pOq-cjnOI

The focus of the message is that Donald Trump and his "fortunate sons" are corruptly using the office to get rich. 

The video makes the point of the corruption of the whole family, a timely message amid this week's news that Eric Trump announced on Fox Business that the family created a startup robotics business which immediately received a $24 million government contract. No apology. No embarrassment. No recognition that this looks like, and is, an extraordinary conflict of interest.

The video doesn't try to untangle or explain the big money for Trump family grift, the crypto business. Easier to understand is the Saudi sovereign funds bringing Jared Kushner two billion dollars. 

President Trump, Melania, and the Trump family have been aggressive in finding ways to extract money through this office. Iran is doing what Americans have been slow to do: identify it, condemn it as corrupt, and make it the center of the attack on Trump. There is plenty for Iran to work with: the $40 million payment to Melania for the rights to her story; the Omani luxury jet; the $10 billion lawsuit against his own government, which allows a "settlement" between himself and himself; the pardons for campaign donors, and the crypto scheme, the Trump library hotel. The hits keep on coming.

Will Republican voters tolerate it? They might. But Trump's wealth-seeking is very open, and there is no denying it. Republicans did not like Hunter Biden's Burisma nepotism. Trump and his family are not shy about making hay while the sun shines. 

Americans -- especially right-oriented populist voters -- are suspicious of politicians and good old boy corruption. Trump is risking his base.

Iran has a message: They are not on the ropes, and it is America that needs regime change.

I posted a short video on YouTube this morning on this subject: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7VIdUqYrmLo

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I posted a video.

 I am trying out an idea: posting a short video from time to time.

Congress is so very unpopular that possibly, maybe, this is one of those windows when great changes happen.  Landslide elections, like the one in 1964, when Barry Goldwater buried the GOP and LBJ got huge Democratic majorities.  Or 1974, when voters rebelled against Nixon's Watergate and Democrats won again. Or in 2008 amid the Great Financial Crisis.

Trump is accident prone.  GOP Members of Congress are giving Trump the rope to hang himself. 

And Congress is even less popular than Trump.

Click:  It is one minute:  https://youtube.com/shorts/Re83rNYiVV4?si=kHpsyGG1EXzscbpi

Win. Win big. Run up the score.

Donald Trump is teaching Americans about how to wield presidential power.

You do everything you can get away with.

I read the news from Virginia with both joy and sadness. Reasonable congressional districts are a good thing for democracy.  Heavily gerrymandered ones are not.

Democrats fought fire with fire. That is how one puts limits on Trump: by being like Trump.

Trump pushes the boundaries of presidential power. He doesn't govern with "reasonableness"; he does what he can get away with, daring people to stop him. He claims obvious pretexts to ignore congressional power and makes pretextual arguments to the courts. The engines of constitutional opposition are slow. Laws don't stop a president. He is immune. Presidential power is political, the Supreme Court says. Presidents are stopped when they face impeachment and conviction, the countervailing political power. Raw power is stopped by raw power. Congress has power when two-thirds of the Senate says so.

Trump invaded and installed a new government in Venezuela because he could. He bombed Iran because he could, but is currently stopped because Iran turns out to have a formidable countervailing power, the ability to close the Strait of Hormuz. 

Trump enforces party discipline. Republicans say yes, or he will destroy them. Liz Cheney stood on principle. So, too, at the very the end, did Mike Pence. Trump calls them traitors. I watched Pence's attempted comeback campaign in 2024 in New Hampshire. He was a pariah. Republican voters are OK with Trump. He wins dirty, but he wins.

Democrats in my congressional district are disgusted with U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz, a Republican. He consents to Trump hiding the Epstein files; he voted for the Big Beautiful Bill that removes insurance subsidies that makes it possible for Bentz's constituents to get affordable health insurance; and Bentz fails to defend the vote-by-mail system in Oregon that elected Bentz himself. Bentz is a toady; he must be one to survive. If Trump were to give his "complete and total endorsement" to a primary opponent, Bentz would lose. Bentz does as instructed.

The vote on Tuesday to change the Virginia Constitution to allow mid-cycle redistricting is an artifact of the Trump use of power. He demanded that Texas do mid-cycle redistricting to game the system and draw congressional districts to maximize partisan advantage. It isn't about good government. It is about power. He could and Texas could. So they did.  

Gresham's Law is in effect. Bad districting drives out good districting. Blue states that had nonpartisan commissions to draw maps are responding like-for-like. Our country is better off if there are a large number of highly-competitive districts. That maximizes good government, not partisan power. Good government is a mindset for "losers." Trump plays to win big and if there is no impeachment and conviction then America plays by Trump's rules. 

It may be that the oscillations of public disgust with politicians will mean that Trump will be replaced by a candidate who represents a different vibe. Nixon's 1972-74 Watergate crimes set the stage for ultra-clean Jimmy Carter. Republicans may not be ready for that. I saw little appetite among Republican voters for Mike Pence or even Nikki Haley in 2024.

Democrats face a fork in the road. They may demand a leader who will counter Trumpism blow-for-blow in a campaign, and then by governing Trump-style, with an expanded Supreme Court, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico as states, and the IRS and Justice Department suing and regulating Fox News out of business. The public has seen presidential power exercised at the boundaries of what is possible, and the public tolerates it. Democratic primary voters may demand it.

My own view is that a better outcome would be a period of national remorse. Perhaps GOP lawmakers will start saying that they never supported Trump, not really, and they always knew Trump was dangerous. Democrats, too, may want a change of tone, not a reversal of polarity. A Josh Shapiro or Pete Buttigieg may want to take the good-government Boy-Scout lane in a Democratic primary. There may be room for a reform movement founded on disgust with Trump's open grift, his crypto deals, his children's businesses selling drones to government contractors, the gifts, the pardons for pals, the Trump name on buildings, coins, currency, and arches.  A reform candidate would need to exemplify restraint and public virtue. The worse Trump is, the more likely that outcome.

Trump has no instinct for self-restraint. He says he will win and win and win and win until Americans are tired of so much "winning." He may be right, and that at some point we tire of his version of winning and of him.

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If only "The West Wing" were back on the air.

I would have been very open to voting for Martin Sheen for president, had he been running in 2016.

Or Allison Janney.

Martin Sheen as Jed Bartlet

Allison Janney as CJ Craig

Martin Sheen played President Jeb Bartlett in the TV show The West Wing.  Allison Janney played the fast talking, whip-smart press secretary and then chief of staff. I would not have to imagine that they could be a wise and effective Oval Office team. I had seen them in action. 

Guest Post authors Sandford Borins and wife Beth Herst wrote Public Representations: Screen Stories, Narrative, and the Public Sphere, which examines how narratives shape our understanding of current politics and government. It is timely. Volodymyr Zelenskyy played an accidental good-guy uncorrupted Ukrainian president in a popular Ukrainian TV show. 

"Servant of the People"

He got elected to that job in real life. 

Donald Trump played a decisive, confident, competent real estate tycoon in the TV show The Apprentice. Americans could visualize the real Donald Trump making decisive, confident, competent decisions. He saw he could fire people who didn't measure up in some way. It was plausible that he could drain the swamp of cronies and lobbyists.

How might history have been different had the Netflix show The Diplomat, staring Keri Russell as a very competent diplomat in a troubled marriage with a high-powered husband been available and popular in the years prior to the 2016 presidential election?

The Borins-Herst book is for sale. It is also offered "open source." It is free to download, either as a book or chapter-by-chapter. Borins explains that this is the fair way to price the book. The research and analysis that made the book possible took place while he was a professor and professor emeritus at Canada's top public university. The public therefore underwrote the book and invested in its authors. In return, the authors work is available free to the public.  They consider their work to be a public good, like clean air, safe streets, or an insight that people are free to use or not use.

Borins is Professor of Public Management Emeritus at the University of Toronto. Originally an economist, he began to study and teach political narrative. Herst has a doctorate in English literature from the University of London, and a published thesis about Charles Dickens. Public Representations is the ultimate product of two decades of their intellectual collaboration.

Here is a link to the publication:  https://utppublishing.com/doi/book/10.3138/9781487503871

Guest Post by Beth Herst and Sandford Borins

It's not "Just a Movie"

When young children are frightened by a story they’re watching on screen, we comfort them by reminding “It’s just a movie.” An expanding body of research is telling us that’s not actually true.

Like our kids, we know that screen stories affect our emotions. Scholars are demonstrating that they work powerfully on our public memories and private belief systems too. Laboratory studies show that viewing a screen story produces physiological changes that cue our emotional reactions. It also triggers forms of cognition. The narrative “facts” we unconsciously absorb as we watch take up residence in our minds as information, particularly vivid and therefore easily recalled. And the more distant we are from the viewing experience, the more likely we are to forget the source of that knowledge. It isn’t a question of temporarily suspending disbelief to enjoy the on-screen story. The challenge is to resist the belief that the story embeds.

The past two decades have seen a boom in large and small screen productions exploring political leadership, electoral politics, and government past and present. Many of them have drawn wide viewership and generated significant cultural conversation. As shared knowledge of civics and history declines, and skepticism regarding accredited sources grows, more of us appear to be defining who we were and who we are as citizens and as nations through screen media depictions. And that means we need to look carefully at what these screen stories are telling us.

Our new book Public Representations: Screen Stories, Narrative, and the Public Sphere, set out to do just that for a selection of recent American, British, and Canadian cinematic, broadcast, cable, and streaming productions. It is now available by open access on the website of University of Toronto Press, the publisher. You can download the book in its entirety as a pdf or ePub, or chapter by chapter.

We discovered that many of these productions quickly crossed over from the domain of entertainment to that of politics. In some cases, politicians co-opted them for talking points, for cultural credibility, and/or for political branding. In others, they served as substitutes for, or direct occasions of, cultural conversations around urgent current issues, regardless of their period or setting.

Three examples from many we analyze: In 2002, during an expensive promotional campaign for the CBC’s docudrama miniseries Trudeau, members of the cast and creative team were introduced in the House of Commons after Question Period. They were loudly booed and heckled by Bloc Québecois MPs. The action, likely concerted, operated as an expression of their political brand. Québecois actor Raymond Cloutier, who played Gérard Pelletier in the series, took it as such. He was quoted in an interview furiously demanding “This is what the sovereigntist movement is about now?” Trudeau attracted one of the largest audiences ever for a CBC drama production. It also reopened debate regarding Pierre Trudeau’s legend and legacy and his relation to Québec’s past and present political culture and aspirations. It was a debate which lasted well beyond the two-part series’ airing.

Hillary Clinton’s bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, her tenure as Secretary of State (2009-2013), and her failed 2016 presidential campaign coincided with a suite of long-running and very popular American broadcast and premium cable productions featuring female presidents or presidential aspirants. These included Fox’s 24 Hours, CBS’s Madam Secretary/President, NBC’s Scandal and Parks and Recreation, HBO’s Veep, and Netflix’s House of Cards. On the eve of Clinton’s 2016 presidential announcement, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the star of Veep, commented to a reporter that should Hillary choose to run, it would be good for the show. But, she added, “I’m not sure we’re good for her.” Louis-Dreyfus wasn’t alone. Professional critics, political columnists, bloggers, and online communities all debated how this sorority of “alt-Hillaries” and “Hillary avatars” would affect public perceptions of Clinton. All were convinced they would influence her electoral fortunes. These fictional female presidents also became a feature of the larger cultural conversation regarding women, political leadership, and political ambition that Clinton galvanized.

Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster IMAX epic Dunkirk was released in Britain during the protracted domestic political stalemate over the terms of Britain’s exit from the EU (“Brexit”). The leading anti-EU politician Nigel Farage, a vocal advocate of a “hard Brexit,” posed beside a poster for the film and tweeted his encouragement for all “Leave” supporters to see it and take its message of British exceptionalism to heart. The film’s usefulness for Farage’s brand of nostalgia politics was clear. But, as numerous critics noted, Dunkirk erased the presence of the non-White colonial soldiers, who were central to the story, providing essential support for the British on the beaches of Occupied France. More than one commentator analyzed the film as “superb Brexit propaganda” and used its reception, including by Farage and other public figures, as a lens to examine the differing visions of England and Englishness informing both sides of the bitter Brexit divide.

As these examples indicate, the lines between popular culture, screen entertainment, and politics are becoming increasingly blurred. Screen stories have long influenced our collective, public memory. They increasingly appear to be filling a void in our civic education too. They even seem to be shaping the way political figures understand, and play, their public roles. For all these reasons, it’s more important than ever to realize that the screen entertainment we’re consuming is never “just a movie” and to look more closely at what our movies are telling us about ourselves.

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What's a California Democat to do?

Eric Swalwell is out.

In Swalwell's absence, the California gubernatorial contest has no clear Democratic frontrunner.  

California has a "jungle" primary, not partisan primaries.  Everyone from any party enters the race. The top two finishers face off in a general election. Two Republicans and seven Democrats are in the race. This sets the stage for a vote split so evenly among Democrats that the two Republicans win the California primary election. The clock is ticking. Some Democrats need to drop out. Somebody needs to push ahead. 

Tony Farrell was a classmate at college, then spent four years in the Navy before getting an MBA at the Harvard Business School. He had a successful career as a brand strategist at The Gap, The Nature Company, and The Sharper Image. Tony lives among the comfortable people in the San Francisco Bay Area who play an outsize role in funding the campaigns of candidates. The future of California depends on Tony and people like him. But which candidate?

Tony is photographed with his wife Kathy in San Francisco's Chinatown. He asked that we notice the clean streets.

Guest Post by Tony Farrell

Letter from a Californian

Good grief. The fall of East Bay Congressman Eric Swalwell has awakened interest in a boring, chaotic and confusing contest among virtual unknowns, each wanting to be the governor who replaces Gavin Newsom.

Until this scandal, it was hard to follow this race, or care. People favored Swalwell from afar, especially as foil to Trump. He did a good job for Pelosi on the January 6th committee; performed well for her in both of Trump’s impeachments. Swalwell once served in the Alameda County DA’s office, cradle of stars like Earl Warren and Ed Meese (covering all bases). Leading significantly, this was Eric’s race to lose. Then, for shameful behavior that would barely nick Trump’s ear (so to speak), Swalwell takes a headshot. 

Notably, California’s savviest politico (Pelosi) did not endorse Swalwell (nor anyone else). Kamala passed on a winning opportunity, saving herself for a losing chance at the White House, again. California voters are left with Democrats Katie Porter, Tom Steyer, Matt Mahan, Betty Yee, Xavier Becerra, Antonio Villaraigosa and Tony Thurmond. (Yeah, exactly. Who?) Only nerds can keep up with California politics; I’m nerdy but typically bail out of endless voter surveys that relentlessly probe for my thoughts on people I know nothing about, on issues I’m ignorant of. To an embarrassing extent, I rely on endorsements. A local politician-friend recommends the moderate San Jose mayor Matt Mahan, so I’ll go with him.

The race is now so scrambled there’s concern among pundits that the two Republicans running could emerge from the nonpartisan top-two June primary to run against each other in November. One is Chad Bianco, the sheriff who seized, as fraudulent, 650,000 Riverside County ballots from last year’s Prop 50 vote on redistricting; and Steve Hilton of Fox News, endorsed by Trump. That is bad.

I still believe everything I wrote here (March 23, 2023) in support of Newsom for president. Widely mocked as “a guy you’d like to have a glass of Chardonnay with,” some opine Gavin is unelectable. But if both Obama and Trump can get elected twice, everyone should exit the prediction game. 

Seen as a centrist in California, Newsom projects leadership as a world statesman, in effect representing the U.S. at climate conferences in Brazil and economic gatherings in Europe. In just four months from start to an astounding 60-percent victory, he was masterful at initiating and funding Prop 50 last year, permitting California to redistrict if Texas does. He drove the 2025 laws that override local zoning and environmental hurdles, forcing every community to build housing to help make living more affordable. He strongly opposes the so-called billionaire “wealth tax” initiated by a service-workers’ union (and endorsed by Bernie Sanders).

 

$6.69 gas in a station near Tony's home

California is easy to bash. The Republican presidential campaign message against Newsom would write itself: Do you want to live in a West Coast hellhole? If Newsom’s so great, how come his cities are dirty and crime-ridden? Housing unaffordable? Population shrinking? Corporations leaving? Taxes too high? Gas over $7 a gallon?

I drive my late mother-in-law’s 2004 Acura, which requires hi-test gas, now costing $6.99 and 9/10ths cents (not quite $7.00, but close). Our gas is costly for many reasons, including a formulation that reduces the smog that once choked Los Angeles.

California is not perfect, but it has so many singular achievements: a spectacular thousand-mile coastline, open to the public and protected from development by the powerful Coastal Commission (1972) after the Santa Barbara oil spill (1969); the world’s greatest public university system (1882); practically inventing community colleges (1907); leading the way for democratic citizen initiatives (1911); pioneering environmental protections and the first national park. (The state boasts, separately, the tallest trees and the biggest trees and the oldest trees in the world.) California is the world’s fourth-largest economy (after the U.S., China, and Germany), leading with Silicon Valley technology; Central Valley agriculture; aerospace; entertainment. Food is great; weather’s great. It’s unbelievably beautiful; and the streets are clean enough.

Arguably, California takes bold, thoughtful action to address major concerns, and to seize big opportunities (e.g., electric vehicles), earlier and with greater positive impact any other state. In many ways, the U.S. is already led by California.

Biggest questions now are, who fills Newsom’s shoes? And who fills Trump’s? Might be related.

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