Those Bureaucrats!

 THOSE BUREAUCRATS!

Senator Ernst is once again belaboring bureaucrats; once again suggesting that bureaucrats are bad and we need to understand this once and for all and be rid of as many as possible.   Thank you Senator Ernst for pointing out the failures of our bureaucracy.  It has been some time since you last opined on the failures of bureaucrats and the necessity of keeping an eye on them, if not firing them en masse.

Some clarification is in order however.  I think the first thing we should do is to determine what a bureaucrat is - - come up with some sort of definition so we know what we are talking about with some specificity.    I expect that most of you, the reader, who reads this, works in an office.  This office is more than likely part of a business, corporate most likely, with many employees with jobs sitting at a desk and performing tasks that have been assigned.

If the situation in the above paragraph applies to you, you are a bureaucrat.  Now you may not be called a bureaucrat, but nevertheless you have the same role in the organization you work for as a person has in a government office - - doing the jobs that have been assigned, usually sitting at a desk in front of a computer or by a phone dealing with the public.  The difference is that you work at a private office and the bureaucrat, as Senator Ernst calls them, works in a government office.

Where you work determines what you are called and by whom.  It is most certain that Senator Ernst has a staff.  These people are bureaucrats.  The person writing her opinion pieces is a bureaucrat.  If you work in a private office performing the necessary functions for the company or organization you work for, you are a bureaucrat regardless of what you otherwise might call yourself.  If you work for Blue Shield or Wells Fargo in a large building with a large number of employees, you are a bureaucrat as surely as you are working for the Department of Labor  in Washington or the Transportation Department of the State of Iowa.  There is no difference: one works for a private company and one works for a government doing jobs that need to be done in order for the company or the agency in question to function as it is intended to function - - in one case to make money and in the other to serve the public.  

Senator Ernest digs through tons of files apparently to discover malfeasance in our bureaucracy.  She or her own personal bureaucrats, her staff, find some just as there is embezzlement from the local school, the dentist's office, or the  Moose Lodge.  It happens.  What is disturbing about Senator Ernest, her opinion piece's purpose appears to be in support of the idea that bureaucrats are bad, all bureaucrats for that matter; that they exist superficially and without much function and we should be rid of as many as possible as quickly as possible.

The principle behind Senator Ernst's opinion piece printed in the Newton Daily News, once again, must be the belief that the American public, her public, the people who voted for her or may vote for her in the future, are stupid.  It is difficult to find any other basis for her opinion piece to be presented to the public in the manner in which it is presented.   At the very least it is annoying and at worst, destructive.

Richard E H Phelps II

Mingo

It's Gotta Stop

  IT'S GOTTA STOP

There have been recently numerous instances of people being put on leave or fired for expressing their opinions.   One has to be very careful when expressing an opinion that may be somewhat different than a prevailing one or one held by those in power.  Now, I'm not here to express an opinion about anything other than expressing an opinion so you can relax on that point.

The problem as I see it, is not having an opinion, but of expressing it.  There certainly should be a limit to what opinions should be expressed and which ones should not be.  Clearly when one is cognizant of the prevailing opinion, one should conform to that opinion or be quiet.  There are excellent reasons for this.

One is simple sociability.  We all have had the experience of being excluded from a group discussion when expressing an opinion not consistent with the currently fashionable one.  None of us like to be excluded from a social event simply for saying something out of favor with the majority.  But there are other more important considerations:  It's anti-capitalism.  I'm not saying that it is communistic, but it is detrimental in several respects.

First, it is detrimental to the work environment.  You don't want a lot of animosity in the workplace.  Employees have a tendency to get distracted from their job for which they get paid to do when diverse opinions are expressed at work.  It is especially detrimental when it results in fisticuffs or other disorderly behavior.

Second, if opinions are expressed of any kind by the staff, there will be customers who will not avail themselves of your services or products if they have a differing opinion strongly held.  It's bad for business.  This is annoying to your boss and it could result in your termination. 

Third, the last place you want odd and different opinions floating around in the halls and such is school houses.  Our school children are taxed enough with learning how to make a living and fitting in; they don't need to deal with adverse opinions that simply cause confusion and alienation among the adults they have to deal with. 

I know you think the having of an opinion is a right we all have, but letting others know what it is?  Not good - - bad things often result.  Forget the first amendment, the freedom of speech one, that isn't going to be much of a benefit if you have irritated a whole bunch of people including your boss simply by expressing an opinion.  You may not be thrown in jail for expressing an opinion, but it may result in other serious consequences.

It's interesting that words alone can get such a reaction, but clearly words have an effect that can have seriously detrimental effects to the person expressing them.  Religion has to be the prime example.  There was a time when expressing the wrong opinion got you burnt at the stake.  Now that would really hurt.  There were dunking until drowned and other seriously uncomfortable results as well, all the result of expressing opinions not generally held or acceptable by those in charge.

Mentioning historical events is not to cast dispersions on any particular set of people, either past or current; it is simply to illustrate the dangers of having an opinion, especially one not currently in favor.  You never know when the public may revert to previous behaviors when dealing with opinions expressed.

So, my unsolicited advice is, that if you have an opinion that is currently out of fashion, it may be to your benefit to withhold it from public expression.  Forget this first amendment thing that so many people rely on or your personal freedom or your whatnot, keep it to yourself for your own protection.  

Richard E H Phelps II

Mingo

 

White Culture

WHITE CULTURE

I'm reading a book by Ishmael Reed in which he discusses among other things American culture or as known by many, white  culture and that this is one of the many issues facing black, yellow, brown, and red people in this country because of the prevailing view, by white Americans, that we can not allow America to have a black, yellow, brown, or red culture - - that it is not American and every effort must be made to stop it from happening.

This has been and continues to be the underlying impetus for the current onslaught against DEI.  Now, I am not familiar with black, yellow, brown, or red culture for the very good reason that I am not black, yellow, brown, or red.  The only culture that I presume to know anything about is white culture.  Unfortunately, I don't appear to know much about that either.

The first issue would be that I'm not sure what they are talking about when they say white culture.  When I look around and take note of the people I see and converse with on a daily basis. white people mostly, it doesn't appear that our culture amounts to much.  What has occurred to me though is that without football we have no culture.  Football appears to be the extent of whatever culture we, as Americans, can claim.  

Clearly, other sports also play a part, but only secondarily.  Football appears to take up most of the time, thought, and emotion of the average citizen.  This would cause me to think that our culture is limited to that of a fan of some sport's team.  This would apply to all levels of sports from grade school to the pros with constant discussions of the abilities of various athletes, teams, and who is going to win.  Always who is going to win.  

I drive by movie theaters:  from what I can gather from the quick drive by is that the offerings are 95% movies made for children under ten; they have no content.  Then you have netflix, hulu, apple tv, Disney, youtube providing round the clock entertainment.  Being entertained is not culture.  Sitting in your living room watching a sporting event or netflix is not culture - - it is its antithesis.

So my question is what are we in fear of losing?  Will we be required to watch a show that has black, yellow, brown, or red actors in it.  They say baseball is losing fans.  Is that because they have baseball players that are black, yellow, brown and red?  Maybe so.  

But I am at a loss:  I can't see I would be losing much if I lost what purports to be white American culture.  Although many of us would have to find something to fill the time with activities other than football and that could be jolting.  With all the black people playing football, maybe football is black culture too.  Ever think of that?

But what can we do if we can't sit in front of the tv on an evening drinking beer and watching a game of some sort such as, let's say, pickle ball, sand volleyball, ax throwing, hot dog eating, cornhole, first grade golf, etc.?  After all, most of the people playing these games are white which must be examples of American or white culture; the culture we are terrified to lose.

Richard E H Phelps II

Mingo 

Just Another Extinction

 JUST ANOTHER EXTINCTION

Every species, with the possible exception of those of one cell on this planet, have gone extinct, and with the dying of the sun, they too will go extinct.  Every recognizable species that currently resides on this planet will go extinct.  The two important words in these sentences are "every" and "extinct".  Yes folks, humans will go extinct contrary to some billionaire's fantasy of our minds joining the cloud or of interstellar travel.  There is nothing permanent in our universe including us.  

We, us humans, our species (after all we are a species just like any other life form) will go extinct.  Our computers, our AI, our books, our houses, stores, and roads will all disappear.  Gone - - no more.  The human species has accomplished much but these accomplishments will all disappear along with us.  Species such as ours, with our presumed intelligence, will appear and disappear again and again as it always has in this infinite universe.

We, us humans, have fantasized since the inception of the irrational  of supernatural beings who are either infinite or forever hovering around the planet making decisions that affect us in our everyday lives.  In one manner or another, we, us humans again, have determined that our spirit, our soul, our mental capacities will continue to exist in the hereafter forever and ever.

A nice thought really and comforting, but nonsense all the same.  Simply because a particular belief gives us comfort does not make it true.  There is nothing more irrational than wishful thinking and our species has developed this method of dealing with the certainty of physical death to magnificent extremes.  To my knowledge most if not all human societies developed beliefs in some form of immortality or after-life.  We are no different than a rabbit being chased by a fox, we flee extinction, the expiration of life, at least until one has the chance to procreate.  Biology has certain fixed tendencies and procreation and  extinction are two of them. 

But unfortunately, our solar system, the environment which allowed life here on earth to begin and flourish will also disappear.  This too is a certainty.  And when our earth disappears so will our remnants.  They will be gone just like us.  There will be no memory of us or our deities or our computers, or our skyscrapers,  or our successes and failures; it will be as if we never existed.  So, my suggestion is to enjoy your life and make the most of it while you have it: it ain't going to last forever.

Richard E H Phelps II

Mingo

It's a Felony

 IT'S A FELONY

And you are darn right!  It should be!  Throwing a sandwich at an ICE officer and hitting him in the chest with it certainly should be a felony.  It shows total disrespect for an officer of the United States employed in capturing, detaining, and removing undesirables from mainland America.  Being disrespectful should be a felony, don't you think?  What are we coming to throwing sandwiches at a uniformed employee of the federal government?

Now you may think I'm over reacting.  Not at all.  Living in a country where this sort of behavior is thought proper or necessary is untenable.  ICE has an important function as do all law enforcement branches of the government.  Our legislatures have made sure of this with practically uncountable new crimes and punishments for those who don't show the proper respect for people in uniform of one kind or another.  We have  consequences here in the USA.

The question is, of course, how do we discourage this sort of behavior in particular.  We have learned through years of experience that by simply putting someone in jail doesn't really have the consequences that we had hoped for.  Many of those thrown in jail feel they shouldn't be there and have been done wrong and consequently there is a substantial recidivism and we need to avoid that if possible.  New suggestions need to be made.

How about requiring an offender to salute someone in uniform whenever they come in contact with one.  Saluting is and always has been a sign of respect.   After all you are saluting the uniform not necessarily the person in it and it is appropriate to do so since the people in that uniform are present for our protection after all.  Sometimes you may wonder what exactly they are protecting us from but that is another issue altogether.

I am putting forth  but one suggestion.  You, the reader, may have others.  Bowing is always a possibility although this form of salutation has long been unused here in  America.  Or, we could simply have a simple misdemeanor introduced and passed by congress or the state legislatures making it a ticketable offence that if one were within a certain distance of a person in uniform that one must show some sort of outward respect toward that person which obviously would not include throwing a sandwich at the chest of that person in uniform with which you have come in contact.

The new crime would have to be clearly enunciated and defined as to what specific behavior the person in the presence of a uniformed must show and this might not be easy but necessary all the same if it is to be enforced uniformly.  So, in conclusion, we must all give this some thought and especially conduct ourselves in an appropriate manner when in the vicinity of a person in uniform; and, if we do so, maybe legislation would be unnecessary.

Richard E H Phelps II

Mingo

Reckless Eyeballing

 RECKLESS EYEBALLING

Ishmael Reed

In our latest episode of books for bigots, Mr. Reed gives us some interesting things to think about, all of which are directly aimed at bigots.  In that the novel is directed directly at bigots, bigots would find little in it to applaud. Ishmael has much to say and uses a novel to say it which, I might add, can be an effective way of saying something.  Sometimes it is more effective to have a character say it than the author directly although in RECKLESS EYEBALLING it is clearly the author giving us his opinion on various things through the mouth of Mr. Ball, the protagonist. 

The comment that the movies are about monsters of one kind or another that have only one thing on their mind - - white women, is a rather unique intro to the issue of whiteness.  One certainly can't dispute this fact about superheroness.  When it comes to King Kong or superheroes like Superman, Batman, The Green Hornet, etc., black, brown, red, or yellow doesn't cut it - - white women for the large gorilla and those saving human kind from themselves.  The same goes for aliens from outer space.  There must be some idea out there in the universe that white women taste better when roasted or flayed or eaten in some other manner than black, brown, red, or yellow women.

Then you have those who maintain the earth is flat and believe flying too high jeopardizes punching a hole in the sky.  There are such people you know and one simply has to accept the ludicrous when dealing with them.  This, too, is often bigotry in bizarre mode.  Where one can adopt the ridiculous as fact, one usually finds incipient bigotry.  Always keep an eye on the irrational; it can often get out of hand and be dangerous.

By the way, eyeballing is the act of looking too long at one object and reckless eyeballing is a black man looking too long at a white woman.  In the past this has led to unfortunate circumstances for the eyeballer.  We must protect our white women folk at all cost, apparently for superheroes and aliens. In

There also appears to be an underlying irritation of Mr. Reed's in the form of white feminists.  He spends a considerable time in other publications discussing the effects of feminism on the black male with several remarks to the same effect in the novel under discussion.  He doesn't seem to believe that feminism has been very helpful to the black cause and wants this view known.

The other nemesis of black culture and life in the United States, according to Mr. Reed, have been the Jews apparently. One of his comments I find interesting and which will cause further thought is the idea the Jewish community uses the blacks as a buffer between them and the goyim.  After all the Jews are who killed Christ; black people weren't in the picture.  Western civilization has insisted on Jesus being white:  all the pictures I've seen of Jesus throughout my life indicate he is strictly Caucasian. Now that the Jews have someone they can shove in front of the white public, black people,  that gets the attention of the bigots and they are thankful for that or so says Mr. Reed.

  Upon finishing the book, I really didn’t have the impression that this was satire; although there is some reference somewhere that the novel was meant to be a satire and we should consider all or parts of it as such.  Whether the book or parts thereof are meant to be satirical or an accurate picture of American society is an interesting question and one that deserves some thought even if it were to be hotly contested by the Jewish community and bigots in general.  There is discussion by Mr. Reed in another publication that RECKLESS EYEBALLING was indeed intended to be satirical, however it did not impress me as being particularly satirical.

There is one digression early on which is pertinent to this discussion: the person who was to direct the play RECKLESS EYEBALLING,  Jim Minsk, a Jewish guy,  was lured to a fake southern college and murdered in some sort of bizarre Christian ritual. I'm not quite sure how this episode fits into the novel or adds to it other than an example emphasizing the view that Jews need blacks as a buffer between themselves and whites still.

Another totally unrelated topic raised in some random conversation on page 84 of the St. Martin's Press version is the idea that the most frequent object in European art (not recent) is a weapon.  Reed is correct in his view that European art is full of "murder and mayhem".  Between portraits of the aristocracy or the bucolic are the full scale battles or of people being tortured by one method or another.  European art does tend to reflect a serious defect in human nature.  However, it is not clear how these random reflections contribute to the novel other than to reflect poorly on our ancestors.

Reckless Eyeballing is actually about writing and getting staged a play - - a play of the same name as the title of the book.  It doesn't appear to be an easy task and one requiring the assistance of very unpleasant people.  So we do have a plot.  The center of the novel and our playwright is Ian Ball who overcomes all obstacles which consist mostly in the unpleasant people he must deal with to get his play on stage. But in the end all is well as the play is a huge success and we are led to believe that success enables Mr. Ball to accrue large sums of cash allowing him to return to his home island.

But as a last thought, the following:  At page 143 of the edition I read, the author makes an interesting comment through Ian Ball:  "Good grief, Ball thought.  Not only did the black and brown ones hate the white ones, but the yellow ones and each other as well".  Everyone must hate everybody.  Not a situation that holds much promise.

Richard E H Phelps II

Mingo

Tariffs There Are

 TARIFFS THERE ARE

Some may not know what a tariff is.  I can't think this is true of many.  Tariffs are making the news everyday.  Trump declares a tariff one day on some trading partner of the United States and the next day says he may wait awhile to negotiate.

There are duties and tariffs.  Duties are what the importer pays and tariffs are what those here in the United States pay to purchase products from another country.  As an example, Walmart which imports much of its inventory from China, imports an item at a cost of $1.00.  A 30% tariff would raise the cost of that item from $1.00 to $1.30.  Now Walmart is not going to eat that $.30; Walmart will pass that extra $.30 on to the customer.

The persons buying things from Walmart will now pay 30% more for the items they purchase.  This is a significant increase in cost to the average household.  Where did that $.30 go?  It went to the government.  The government now has an extra $.30 for every dollar of imports coming from that particular country.  In the case of China that could be billions of additional money flowing into the treasury which is coming from us.  

Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" gets the headlines.  You and I will be getting a tax break here and there and this will make us feel good - - presumably.  After all, we will pay fewer taxes and be able to use the extra cash for needed items.  WRONG.

Tariffs are taxes.  By increasing tariffs, the government is increasing our taxes and siphoning off billions of dollars. This tax will be paid by you and me, not Walmart.  By imposing tariffs, Trump is imposing taxes and he is doing it by himself in a method that is most likely unconstitutional.

Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution says:

"The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States."

"To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes."

The president of the United States does not have the power to impose taxes.  It is my understanding that Congress has given the executive branch some power in regard to tariffs in certain circumstances but I am uncertain of those.  The matter is now being litigated in the courts.  

But imposing taxes he is doing - - by himself and changing them almost daily making it almost impossible for a company like Walmart to implement any particular policy or take any particular action when their costs change daily.   It is a real mess and probably not constitutional.  And if it is not constitutional, it is not legal.  If Congress doesn't decide to act and regain some of the governmental power that the constitution says it has, we will be ruled by one person which is something that has never been contemplated in this country.  We should not allow it now.  When forming this country we rejected monarchy and have fought dictatorships most of our history.  It does not work out well for the citizens when one person has no check on his authority.

Richard E H Phelps II

Mingo