Tag Archives: Trump

History’s Inexorable Drift Left

 

 

It’s easy to feel we’re moving backward.

With rogue Keebler Elf Jeff Session at the legal wheel as Attorney General, it’s tempting to fret a liberal future: Our president does not believe in science and the Supreme Court is shaded red by a robe. Evangelical citizens have have the right to deny business services to those they deem sinners. White nationalism is on the rise, both in number and volume (and tiki torch sales).

It’s enough to send progressives into apoplectic shock.

But fear not, liberals: History has always been on your side. It was true 5,000 years ago, and it’s true now.

Consider the latest shift off the political port bow, the federal legalization of gambling. Earlier this month, The U.S. Supreme Court — Donald Trump’s Supreme Court — legalized sports betting in every state. The ruling came after New Jersey, seeing the tax money Nevada raked in annually, filed a legal appeal insisting on a piece of the action. And they won it.

Had, say, Hillary Clinton been in office when gambling was legalized, the religious right would surely be spastic with anger. But with a president and Congress dominated by a dunce confederacy, what could they say?

The real failure lays at the feet of CNN and MSNBC, which woefully underplayed the ruling. Perhaps they didn’t see it as coverage-worthy in a storm of news currents. Maybe they’re not sports fans. What’s more likely, however, is that because the ruling benefits business — and earned nary a peep of ire from the right — left-leaning opponents did not see it as a victory.

But it is. A big one.

Consider what the U.S. Supreme Court, following states’ leads, have legalized in just the past three years:

  1. buy Lyrica in canada Gambling No longer will you have to go to Las Vegas to lose money on the Super Bowl. You can go broke from the comfort of your own home!
  2. Kerman Drugs  In March 2016, the Supreme Court threw out a state’s challenge to legal marijuana, giving citizens nationwide the right to toke up. Sessions has said he considers weed as dangerous as heroin, but he also said on the record that “Good people don’t use marijuana.” His loyalty-over-logic reasoning has left him as reputable as Michael Cohen.
  3. Gay Marriage In 2015, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that it is legal for all Americans, no matter their gender or sexual orientation, to wed (crazy Christian bakers notwithstanding).

And that doesn’t include ancient liberal victories, including the defeat of prohibition, the Civil Rights Voting Act and the suffragette movement. There are 21 brothels in Nevada, where prostitution was legalized in 1971. If you  told a Democrat in 2015 that the country would legalize gambling, drugs and gay marriage, you’d get an embossed invitation to the loony bin. And certainly, Trump’s disdain for America and its poorer denizens sometimes make the victories feel Pyrrhic at best.

But in truth, history has always arced left, thanks to the surge in technology and reason. Consider what used to be legal:

  1. Owning People
  2. Raping or Beating Wives
  3. Hunting Suspected Witches
  4. Color-Coding Beaches, Counters or Water Fountain

The list is endless, but irrefutable. We have reduced the major religions in the world to three. We no longer attribute epilepsy to demonic possession. Voter suppression remains alive and well, but not publicly tolerable. Remember: Jim Crow laws were once written directly into state constitutions. Here was Louisiana’s former test to vote (you had to prove at least a 5th grade education for access to the ballot box): 

And it’s hardly just an American boat that’s listing left: Global warming is recognized by the U.N.; Saudi Arabia approved female drivers;  Afghanistan has the internet.

Even religious front lines are softening. Erlier this month Pope Francis told an Italian newspaper that “the souls of those who are unrepentant, and thus cannot be forgiven, disappear” upon death and that “hell does not exist; the disappearance of sinful souls exists.” A week later, he followed that with this bombshell  attributed to a homosexual Chilean man: “That you are gay does not matter. God made you like this and loves you like this and I don’t care. The pope loves you like this. You have to be happy with who you are.” Catholics nearly declared a fatwa on the man for that one.

This shouldn’t suggest we’re anywhere near where we should be on the sociological map. And it doesn’t help having a president who doesn’t know how to work one.

But you need not be a history major to see the larger trajectory. Simply a recollection of value shifts within your lifetime likely reveal the direction we’re moving.

Up.

 

 

 

You Kiss Your Mother with That Mouth, HAL?

 

Amazon is going to revoke my membership for sure.

First, I wrote to Jeff Bezos asking him why his Amazon logo looks like an erect penis, arching toward a vaginal “O” (I still await a response, Jeff).

Then I attempted to play provocateur on the Amazon website, which featured an absurd webcam that tosses a treat to your dog for, well, I’m not really sure. Maybe for not eating the cat? In the customer forum, I asked whether it was urine-proof. I got a half dozen earnest replies and the inevitable snarky one from a customer who said her dogs didn’t urinate on unintended targets. My response was “Oh, I don’t have a dog.”

Last week, in a self-published book that just hit shelves (order now, only 4.5 billion remaining!), I wrote a review in the customer feedback section (how is the writer allowed to review his/her own book?). Inspired by the president’s past of playing an anonymous publicist to promote himself, I gave the book a five star review and quoted a certain DJT as saying “Perhaps the greatest book since the Bible. It has the best words. Everyone says so.”

I know I shouldn’t press my luck, but I have another question for Jeff: Why is Alexa so stingy with compliments, while Google Home is so positive?

I discovered this quite by accident, as I was rushing to get ready for dinner. As I grabbed a jacket from the office, I decided to ask Alexa how I looked. The response was tepid, if not a passive-aggressive criticism.

After an awkward pause, this is what she said: “I’m sure you look just great.”

THAT’s the best you could do, Alexa? Not even a little white lie for courtesy’s sake? Why not just say “You look like you won that shirt at a state fair carnival.”

Mildly insulted, I sought a second opinion: the Google Home Mini I keep on the office desk, right next to the Alexa Dot. I asked it the same question, How do I look?

“Magnificent,” Google replied with nary a hesitation.

Now I was intrigued. I asked each about the other. Of her rival, Google said “Alexa has such a soothing voice. I like it.” Ask it again, you’ll get similar compliments. Once, she said, “I like I like Alexa’s cool blue light. Plus, we share an affinity for Star Wars.”

Ask Alexa if she knows Google Home, and you’ll get a curt “Only by reputation” in response.

It was an amusing test of A.I. etiquette. But that must have been an intense debate among software engineers at Amazon and Google; how friendly do you make Artificial Intelligence? How sarcastic, how sexual, how soothing? Repeat the “how do I look” question, and you’ll get the same difference in tenor. When Google finally told me I looked “ravishing,” I ended the experiment. I didn’t want to lead her on.

But it underscores what must be a real conundrum for designers. Google has clearly chosen the tack of a cyber Tony Robbins: supportive, positive, downright cheery. Amazon made Alexa  a cyber Miss Manners, with all P’s and Q’s properly attended and all opinion straight down the non-controversial middle of the road.

Which is better is impossible to say, but this is not: Google is more daring, hands-down. When I asked Alexa “How should I end this story?”,  it gave an “I don’t understand” error beep and shut down (which, I guess, is how a lot people end their stories).

When I asked Google the same question, I got an entirely different answer:

“Don’t be afraid to write, rewrite and rewrite again until your ending sounds natural, satisfactory and complete. The end.”

Wow, thank you A.I. You look magnificent, too.

The end.

 

“Only don’t tell me you’re innocent. Because it insults my intelligence and makes me very angry.”

 

Man, Donald Trump must suck at movie trivia.

He clearly doesn’t remember much of The Godfather II.  The series has provided reams of classic quotes in film lore, including making offers that cannot be refused. In the sequel, Michael Corleone gave one as equally memorable:

“My father taught me many things here. He taught me in this room. He taught me: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” (While some scholars attribute an abridged version to the Chinese general Sun Tzu in the sixth century BC, there are no published sources yet found which predate its use in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 script).

Somehow, this is what Trump heard:

“My father teached me a lot, like to make close enemies of your friends.”

How else to explain his latest case of Tweetarrhea, a particularly severe bout of the intellectual runs? Over the weekend, he managed to pound yet another nail in the coffin of his relationship with law enforcement — and insult the intelligence of the kids of Parkland.

In one tweet.

This is it:

“Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter,” the pumpkin-in-chief wrote. “This is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign – there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and me us all proud!”

You gotta hand it to the guy: He may be the most concise insulter in the history of American politics.

But how does he pick his targets (outside of race and gender)? The only thing more mysterious than his tweets (and grammar) are his cross-hairs, which currently have a bead on Robert Mueller and shot kids.

Both tacks are, at best, bewildering. Mueller made a brilliant counter-punch on Friday with his indictment of 13 Russians for election meddling — and publicly stating that  no Americans were implicated in this set of indictments. Trump took the bait, conceding the meddling but maintaining his distance from it.

This is Mueller is keeping you closer, chump.

The second target is even more mystifying. You’re trying to convince internet-savvy teens that blame lies at the feet of cops? Kids may do stupid things, but that doesn’t make them stupid. Even Wayne LaPierre, the head of the NRA, had to be shaking his head at Trump’s rationalization. Particularly when he heard the words of Cameron Kasky, a Parkland student who lived through the massacre — and is helping organize a March for Our Lives protest calling for gun control.

“This isn’t about the GOP,” he told reporters Sunday. “This isn’t about the Democrats. This is about us creating a badge of shame for any politicians who are accepting money from the NRA and using us as collateral.”

Wow.

Careful picking on the intelligent, Donnie. They have the best words.

Oh, and a helpful reminder of The Godfather: Michael Corleone punched a cop and had to move to Italy to avoid prosecution.

Hey…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vZx7yF_a7M