respublica

A frustrating time

I'm worn down by all the things going on right now as well as the many contradictory interpretations of them. So much stuff on so many fronts: political, athletics, health, cities in chaos. Plus two major party conventions with non-stop approval or condemnation by the incessant cable news experts.

It's dizzying and I want it stop. All of it. Frankly in normal times I would have been overwhelmed by the continuing work needing to be done in and around our house since we moved back. But now I'm thankful for it.

The best advice I found these two weeks is don't watch the conventions broadcast by cable networks. Go to CSPAN and watch without the constant rebukes or praise. Think for yourself as you watch, not wait to hear what the cable people and their partial guests have to say before forming an opinion.

Add to all this, the hurricane roaring to Louisiana and Texas. It's just more 2020.

Too much cable interference at the conventions

We've been attempting to watch each political convention. Last week the democrats, this week the republicans. What has been frustrating is how the cable people have been inserting themselves into the proceedings as though we can't interpret what is happening for ourselves. They have been talking over whatever is being presented on the convention floors.

I about had it last night and found I wasn't the only one bothered by this, many on twitter were exasperated as well. Many began advising to just go to CSPAN where they showed just the convention speakers with no commentary. I'm not sure I even want to bother anymore, cable people believe they are the be all and end all of what is going on for each party.

It's all about the daily struggle

What times we're in right now. While most of us are still trying to get by day by day with a virus which will not go away, the political class is obsessing over the coming election. Frankly, while I normally rather enjoy most election years, this one just seems as crazy as the life we have to put up with.

News media of all types are fully engaged in reporting every darn thing that is said or done by candidates and their supporters. They're even analyzing each party's digital media group. All the political back and forth is just so much like the sounds and orchestra makes while warming up.

Some wag made a joke about '2020' being the new curse word. "What the 2020 are you talking about?" And so on. Substitute 2020 for your favorite swear word. Totally acceptable.

The history of White House Fourth of July celebrations

The Washingtonian Magazine has an interesting article they titled, "The History of White House July Fourth Celebrations Is Really Weird."

If you like history, you'll like this look back at what was done by the presidents who celebrated our Independence.  John Adams was the first occupant of the White House, but was gone by the time of the 4th of July which made Thomas Jefferson the first president in house on that date in 1801. According to the reports, "he went all out. He hosted a public reception at the White House where he greeted citizens and diplomats and even a group of Cherokee chiefs in the Blue Room.  And then on the north grounds of the White House they had horse racing, they had festivals, food, all that kind of stuff."

Next up was John Quincy Adams in 1826. His story is out of the ordinary because both his father and Thomas Jefferson died on that day. He, however did not learn of this until some days later since there was no tv news, telephone, or internet. Just someone on horseback carrying the news. Anyway, John Quincy Adams 4th of July was momentous because it was the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence as well as his son's birthday. He wrote in is diary about how he spent his day: "Reviewing military companies on the lawn of the White House, then joining a procession to the Capitol where the Declaration of Independence was read aloud."

One more before I let you go to the link and read the rest. James Polk had his 4th of July in 1945 and is believed to have introduced DC to its first fireworks display. This display was held at the White House in front of thousands of people. But the worst happened as "rogue fireworks"  ended up discharging and it injured dozens and ended up killing a man. This is what we are always warned about on our 4th of July celebrations. However, I have no idea what a "rogue firework" is. It sounds like the firework made its own decision to go rogue.  Polk also had temperance groups having a dinner on the White House lawn (not protests :). No beer was served that year.

Honestly, you just have to settle in and read the others.

 

Photo memories

Yesterday all the news talk was about Joe Biden and the woman who accused him of improper behavior. There was lots and lots of commentary on how differently he was being discussed as opposed to how media went after Justice Kavanaugh.  I will say we watched Morning Joe's interview of Biden with Mika   Brzezinski and she was pretty tough. But, back with Kavanaugh, we sat through weeks of media  and democratic frenzy which brought on the protesters. There were protests everywhere, many pretty scary.

This reminded me of the day loads of Kavanaugh protesters stormed into the Senate Office building where our daughter happens to work. As time went by that afternoon the mobs moved out of the lobby and got up to all floors where they hung out screaming. She called me as this was going on and said "this is the first time I've ever been nervous here."

The protesters had signs, masks, weird clothing in many cases. All were yelling constantly. So don't think now is being treated the same because it isn't. Here is a link to a blog post I put up at that time with a couple of pictures she sent me.

Dr. Tom Coburn as seen by our daughter

Senator Tom Coburn passed away today at age 72. Our daughter Katie was on his staff for some years and she wrote an article describing him for The Federalist. As a parent of a child working in Washington DC, it was such a relief to know the type of man who was her boss.

You can read her article here.

Presidential crowds

I've been reading Five Presidents,  a new book by Clint Hill, a secret service officer who served 5 presidents beginning with Eisenhower. It's a fascinating read and events this week mirrored what he described back in 1959 while on a presidential visit to India.

Here is a brief description of the welcome Eisenhower received in India:

"I could hardly believe what I saw when I stepped off the aircraft in New Delhi. People were stacked twenty deep behind rope lines, and still thousands more were seated in bleachers. There had to be seventy thousand people waiting on the tarmac". While driving from the airport to the residence of India's president, "the streets were lined with people as far as you could see and where there was a higher vantage point, be it a roof, a balcony or a tree limb, those spots were also jammed with people."

After having read this part last week I was interested in seeing how President Trump was greeted while on his trip to India earlier this week. In 2010 Obama traveled there and had similar greetings by huge crowds and the news covered that pretty much cover to cover. I found almost nothing much reported by our media this week during Trump's visit. One news outlet, ABC News had this to say on the first day:

"It was a massive gathering of the world's largest cricket stadium with tens of thousands cheering for the two leaders. Senior White House correspondent is traveling with the president and first lady and said, President Trump loves a big crowd and today India's president delivered his biggest one yet. Thousands lined the streets of Ahmedabad to watch the motorcade go by and more than 100,000, a sea of Trump fans packing into the world's largest cricket stadium."

After that nothing from the rest of Trump's visit on the news. Each of the evening newscasts allocated just a single news brief to Trump’s trip, all on February 24 (the first day of the visit). NBC and ABC spent a paltry 13 and 15 seconds respectively on the Presidential excursion. CBS gave 23 seconds with only one sentence.

And there are those who still wonder about media bias. In 2010 Obama went to India and all the networks reported all 3 days.

ABC and NBC found Obama’s time in India so compelling that both networks led off two consecutive evening broadcasts with the story. These reports included details such as the purpose of the visit and updates about what the President had accomplished — none of which was present in their coverage of Trump’s visit.

Unsurprisingly, the tone of the 2010 coverage was predominantly positive. For example, NBC correspondent Lee Cowan claimed on the November 6 NBC Nightly News that Obama’s negotiations “could create more than 50,000 US jobs.”

Oh, wait. Trump's visit was to encourage a trade agreement. Not worth mentioning. It seems India's people love American Presidents no matter who they are.

 

Debate

I found myself watching the democratic debate last night mainly because I wanted to decompress after a very full week and HGTV was nothing but Property Brothers who I am very tired of.

Anyway, my reaction was: I wouldn't be able to tolerate Elizabeth Warren's speaking voice more than a minute plus her frantic arm movements. Very annoying. Bernie Sanders is an old grumpy coot. Joe Biden seemed to believe he has done everything for everyone already. Bloomberg seemed a fish out of water, quite surprised by being criticized. The other two, Mayor Pete and Amy Klobuchar were the most likable, people who I may disagree with, but who would be nice to go out to dinner with.

The six really did not seem to like each other.

If we learned nothing else...

One part of the State of the Union speech last night was the introduction of a two year old child who was born at 21 weeks and, thanks to medical science, she is now a healthy girl.

If this tells of nothing else, it should give us pause when we hear of people and legislators accepting (and wanting) late term abortion legalization.

Oh Iowa

While watching the fiasco that was the Iowa caucuses last night, I found myself laughing at the frustration all the cable news people were exhibiting. No matter what channel or political bent these news experts represented, they were getting testy and downright angry over the delays. They'd said everything several times over and were tired, sick of sitting on those panel chairs and just wanted to get out of there. At around 10:30, I began to be less interested in results than watching to see which cable channel panel would break camp first and just leave.

And rightly so. Once again Iowa's way of putting on a caucus rather than a traditional ballot primary looks like what it is: a bad idea. And, to use some sort of app to record precinct votes made things worse. If this night doesn't provoke a change in making Iowa the first state to go during a primary season, something is very wrong.