I took a break last week because my house was fairly messed up due to a crew of painters who descended upon my place to finish all the painting that needed to be done.  I really don’t like to paint and when you don’t like to do something, you generally don’t do a very good job.  And, the professionals get things done a lot faster than I would have.  That said, everything is painted, they are gone and my house is almost back to normal.

After not writing these blog posts for a week, I have decided to continue this break.  I started posting non-bicycle related posts last June 2^nd in response to the political situation in this country.  I have written a lot of blog posts since that time and I have enjoyed it.  However, I find myself in need of a break.  I’m tired and my brain is tired.  I think I have made my political views crystal clear and I’m not sure what value there is in continuing to beat that drum.  

It is time for me to take a step back and give some thought to ‘what’s next?’  I have started training for my bike ride up around Glacier Park/Waterton, Canada in July and I will certainly be posting about that.  Until then, I ‘m just not sure I have anything new to add to the conversation.

I would refer anyone who has read this to read the blog posted daily by Heather Cox Richardson.   As a history professor/scholar she is much more qualified than I to address the many issues facing our nation.  I just rant – she provides excellent context and commentary.

In any case, it’s been fun.  Thanks for reading.  I’ll be back sometime.  So, excuse me while I take some time to figure out, “What’s next?”

I am running a bit late today as I have a painting contractor at my house and things are in a bit of disarray.  (Kind of like in the whole country.)  There are many news stories bubbling around these days, but one caught my cynical eye yesterday.  The headline in the New York Times was: “Transgender Girls in Sports: G.O.P. Pushes New Front in Culture War”.   The thing that I found most interesting in this article was the assertion that this ‘issue’ seemingly came out of nowhere.  “ Lawmakers in a growing number of Republican-led states are advancing and passing bills to bar transgender athletes in girls’ sports, a culture clash that seems to have come out of nowhere”¹  It struck me that this looks like a perfect opening for a classic Russian disinformation campaign aimed at inflaming divisions and creating an ‘issue’ to drive a wedge between groups of American voters.

I know there are currently bills in the Montana state legislature that are addressing this transgender ‘issue.’  And the fact is there are similar bills in several other states including South Dakota, Arkansas, and Mississippi with more likely to join the parade.  So, I asked myself how could this become an ‘issue’ where there appears to be a coordinated effort across several Republican led states to enact similar bills? 

After all, these laws are not widely popular.  Remember the ‘bathroom bill’ in North Carolina which led to a sports boycott of the state and cost the state millions of dollars in revenue which led to conservatives to pull back on similar efforts across the country.  And yet, here we are again.  The fact is, there are relatively few transgender athletes and the NCAA already has policies in place to deal with this situation.  The N.C.A.A. requires athletes who are transitioning to female to be on testosterone suppression treatment for a year before they can compete on a women’s team.¹

“Limiting the rights of transgender people is an issue that has resonance with an increasingly small share of the overall population. A new study by the Public Religion Research Institute reported that only 7 percent of Americans were “completely against” pro-L.G.B.T.Q. policies. But it is a vocal group intent on showing that it can flex its power in the Republican Party.”¹

At about the same time I read this article, I downloaded and was reviewing a report put out by the Global Engagement Center of the U.S. State Department entitled, “Pillars of Russia’s Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem.”  This report states that the five basic pillars of the Russian system to interfere with politics around the world are:

1. Official Government Communications
2. State-Funded Global Messaging
3. Cultivation of Proxy Sources
4. Weaponization of Social Media
5. Cyber-Enabled Disinformation

If you look at ‘4’ and ‘5’ above, a typical scenario would be to either latch on to an existing relatively minor ‘issue’ and start fanning the flames through social media to make it a big issue and/or start propagating disinformation relative to this ‘issue’.  In the above case of transgender athletes, it is easy to envision how Russian trolls could latch on to something like this and start infiltrating conservative organizations (unknowingly) to help build some momentum behind this.  This is the danger when there is a small, but vocal and passionate, minority who become so myopic about a ‘cause celebre’ that the end justifies the means – even if that means is falling subject to unwitting assistance from Russian propaganda trolls. 

No one should be so naïve to think that the Russians are not right in the middle of all of the divisive issues facing America today – social justice, transgender and gay rights, immigration, climate change, COVID vaccine safety, etc.  All you have to do is read the report cited in this post put out by our own State Department to have an appreciation of the extent of Russian interference in America politics and the lengths they will go to create division with America and between America and its allies. 

Do I have conclusive proof that this whole transgender ‘issue’ that seemingly came out of nowhere is being amplified by Russian influencers?  The short answer is no.  However, after reading the State Department report, I would be very surprised if the little old Russian trolls aren’t having a heyday continuing to help fan the flames of division.   Putin is continuing to laugh his ass off.

He’s probably building a new nuclear submarine base across from Alaska in the Bering Sea and we are so busy arguing about which bathroom someone can use that we don’t even notice.  Maybe that’s the idea!

1. Transgender Girls in Sports: G.O.P. Pushes New Front in Culture War – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
2. Pillars of Russia’s Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem (state.gov)

The actions of the Republican-controlled Montana legislature are now making national news.  One might think that its because of the laws being enacted making it harder for Montanans to vote (in spite of the fact that the state is overwhelmingly Republican), or because the state just passed a law allowing just about anyone to carry a concealed weapon without a permit, but you would be wrong.  All of the laws being pushed through the legislature regarding Montana’s treasure trove of wildlife is the subject of a column by Jim Robbins in the Sunday New York Times.  I have included the entire text.  It is a bit lengthy but I believe it is a perfect example of the typical anti-science, anti-majority, robber baron and screw you attitude that is being exhibited by so many Republican legislatures across the country.

HELENA, Mont. — In addition to its spectacular landscape of mountains, rivers and prairie, Montana, the third least populous state in the country, has long been known for something else — wildlife policies that have protected animals of all sorts, including ones like grizzly bears and gray wolves that are often seen as threats to humans and to farming and ranching.

The state’s abundance and variety of wildlife has been a selling point for tourism, a source of pride to many Montanans and something that has set it apart from its less ecologically minded neighbors in the Mountain West. Even as its neighboring states of Idaho and Wyoming have aggressively reduced their wolf population, for example, Montana has managed its numbers largely through hunting seasons and targeted lethal control actions by wildlife biologists.

Now, with its first Republican governor in 16 years, Greg Gianforte, and a solidly Republican legislature, the politics of predators seem poised to enter a new chapter. In the West these days, predators are very much part of the culture wars, and the state now seems intent on reviving some of the practices of a century ago that virtually exterminated wolves from Montana.

Several bills are headed to Mr. Gianforte’s desk that would allow for more killing of wolves in the state to drive down their numbers. Practices that are being proposed include the use of spotlights at night, which is considered unethical because it temporarily blinds the animal; hunting animals by luring them with bait like wild game or commercial scents; night vision scopes and widening use of neck snares that catch and choke animals to death. Other controversial predator proposals allow hunting black bears with hounds, a practice outlawed a century ago, and placing limits on where wandering grizzlies can be moved, which conservationists say could lead to more bear deaths.

Proponents of the changes say the state is overwhelmed by the presence of too many predators, and their numbers urgently need to be reduced. At a hearing, State Senator Bob Brown, a Republican who introduced one of the bills, said many of his constituents felt they had “no voice,” and that game, in particular elk and deer, that they depended on to fill their freezers was being eliminated by wolves instead.

The bills headed to Governor Greg Gianforte’s desk would allow for more killing of wolves to drive down their numbers in the state. “We can’t sit by and allow our game — the thing that feeds so many families — to be taken off the table,” he said.

Critics say the state is embarking on a wholesale war on wildlife that is based on little more than emotion and supposition, and rejecting decades worth of management lessons.

“It’s bar talk replacing biology,” said Ed Bangs, a wildlife biologist who is now retired and used to lead the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s wolf recovery project. He also led the effort in the mid-1990s to bring the first wolves to Yellowstone National Park after a half century’s absence. “People are saying it seems like there are fewer elk and deer, so it must be the wolves,” he said. “I believe in professionalism and vetting with science; this is based on bar talk.”

Dr. Bangs is one of more than 50 wildlife biologists who have signed a letter calling on Republican officials to reject the legislation. The bills have passed, or are near passing, both houses of the Legislature and are awaiting a decision by the governor.

Experts say these changes, if they occur, probably would not cause a crash in the number of wolves and grizzlies to the point where their existence is seriously threatened. Instead, in their letter, the wildlife scientists say the bills “are harmful to wildlife, harmful to the image of hunters, contrary to science and wrong for Montana.”

“This is an all-out war on wolves,” said Nick Gevock, the conservation director for the Montana Wildlife Federation. “We support ethical fair chase hunting of wolves. This is going way overboard. It’s a 19th-century approach.”

The result is a dispute over wildlife management suffused with contemporary politics with Mr. Gianforte at the center of it. In February, he was the subject of controversy when he trapped and shot a black, radio-collared wolf known as 1155 that had come north onto a private ranch from nearby Yellowstone National Park. The wolf wore a collar as part of a study of wolves at Yellowstone.

While trapping and even shooting a collared wolf outside the park is legal in Montana, the governor had neglected to take a required three hour wolf trapping certification course that teaches hunters to trap and hunt wolves “ethically, humanely and lawfully.”

Mr. Gianforte said at a news conference he had been trapping wolves since he was a “tot” and called his violation of the law an oversight. He said he was issued a warning letter and had since taken the course.

Mr. Gianforte, a hard-line Republican first came to national prominence in 2017 when he body slammed a reporter for The Guardian after taking offense at answering questions about his race for Congress. He won the House seat and later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge. But indications seem to point to him possibly gaining politically from a firm stance against predators in a state where anger over the perceived overabundance of wolves and bears runs deep, and one that overwhelmingly supported Donald J. Trump in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections.

The return of the wolf and grizzly bear to the northern Rockies are two success stories that came out of the Endangered Species Act. In 1975, when grizzly bears were listed as endangered species, there were from 100 to 200 of them, mostly in Yellowstone and Glacier national parks. Their numbers are now estimated at about 1,800 in the Lower 48 states. The grizzlies were able to make that comeback largely because hunting was ended, trash was carefully managed and there was an effective crackdown on poachers.

Outside Yellowstone and Glacier national parks, grizzly bears roam mainly in wilderness areas of the state, though they are expanding into more populated areas where they are increasingly vulnerable to being hit by cars, shot by hunters, and killed or removed by biologists because of conflicts with humans. And bears and wolves pose a real threat to livestock and to humans. Every year, hikers or hunters are attacked by bears, and in many parts of the state anyone hiking is cautioned to be “bear aware” and carry a pepper-based spray for protection.

The debate over protecting endangered species, particularly predators, has long roiled Montana, pitting liberal urban areas in the state and across the country against rural ranchers who are increasingly concerned about their livestock being killed or hunters who think game animals are in decline. Until now, a measured approach — which includes some hunting of wolves and intervention by the state when grizzlies get into someone’s beehive or chicken coop — along with lots of protection have prevailed. But with wildlife management increasingly part of the culture wars, antagonism toward widening federal control and Republican control of the state, the balance has shifted, conservationists say.

The new bills approach management of bears and wolves in various ways. One of the new bills would pay wolf hunters their expenses — in effect, critics say, a bounty — to kill the animals. Another bill would allow for snaring animals with a metal aircraft cable fashioned into a noose that would hang over a trail. When the animal gets its head caught in one, it grows tighter as the animal tries to flee, until it is strangled to death. Snares can be used for coyotes and black bears in Montana but not wolves.

A major problem with snares is that they also kill species that are not the target, such as moose, elk, deer and even pet dogs. “Snares are cheap,” Dr. Bangs said. “It isn’t unusual for a trapper to set out 100. And you catch all kinds of stuff.” Snares that were set for coyotes, for example, inadvertently killed 28 mountain lions from 2015 to 2020, Mr. Gevock said.

Another bill would extend the wolf trapping and snaring season. Wildlife experts say the extended season would overlap with the period that grizzly bears and black bears are out of their dens and could be inadvertently trapped. Another would reinstate hunting black bears with dogs and prevent Montana wildlife officials from relocating any grizzly bears captured outside recovery zones. Most recovery zone habitat are occupied, which means many grizzlies would most likely have to be euthanized.

In their letter, the wildlife professionals wrote that the bill would reverse 40 years of policy “and result in the unnecessary death of many grizzly bears.” They also said that the bill would prevent grizzly bears from being removed from their endangered species status.

Supporters of the bills say bringing down the wolf population is essential. State Representative Paul Fielder, a Republican and a retired wildlife biologist and trapper who introduced two of the bills, said there were about 1,200 wolves in the state, according to the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Because of their recovery, wolves are no longer protected by the Endangered Species Act. Federal law requires that Montana has 15 breeding pairs, which, according to Mr. Fielder, is about 300 wolves.

“We have four times the number of wolves the Montana management plan requires,” he said when the bill was introduced.

The state already allows hunters to kill about 300 to 350 wolves a year.

Increasingly, the arguments are being couched in the language of national politics.

Steve Daines, the state’s senior U.S. senator and a Republican, this week became one of five senators who introduced legislation to take the grizzly bear off the endangered species list. “Wildlife management must be determined by science, not by activist judges,” he said. “Montana’s state leaders know what’s best for our communities, public safety, the ecosystem, wildlife and the bear itself.”

Mr. Gianforte has not yet said whether he will sign the bills. A spokeswoman for the governor would only say he “would carefully review any bill that the legislature sends to his desk.”

But Representative Tom France, a Democrat and retired regional executive director for the National Wildlife Federation, said whatever emerges in Montana would almost certainly echo the partisan split of national politics.

“The return of the grizzly bears and wolves were remarkable success stories in the state and federal partnerships — this is a rejection of that,” he said. “There’s a political sentiment here.”

The State Legislature is saying “We don’t live by federal laws and aren’t going to pay attention to them,” he added. “Montana is not excused from the polarization that typifies the nation.”

1. In Montana, Bears and Wolves Become Part of the Culture Wars – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

I don’t know about everyone else but I have certainly been having some issues with the post office.  I suspect we’ve all noticed that the mail has slowed down considerably since Louis DeJoy, Trump’s pick for Postmaster General, took over last year.  First, there was the whole controversy about him ordering the removal of sorting machines and removing post offices drop boxes just prior to the election when the use of mail-in ballots was at an all time high.  Fortunately, there was such an uproar by the public and scrutiny by Congress that a major disaster was avoided.  However, the assault on the post office continues.

In case you are unaware, Louis DeJoy is a major Republican fund raiser and supporter of Donald Trump, which is how he got the job.  He has no background at all with the postal service.  And, in fact, there were serious concerns about conflicts of interest given DeJoy’s business connections in the logistics business.  He was the CEO of New Breed Logistics from 1983 to 2014 and retired when that company was acquired by XPO Logistics.  He served in a couple of different roles at XPO Logistics until 2018 and still retains about a $30 million stake in the company.  Interestingly, both New Breed Logistics and its successor XPO Logistics were contractors to the United States Postal Service.

Now DeJoy has put out his 10-year plan for the postal service.  “Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is calling for longer delivery times for some first-class mail, shorter hours for some post offices and more expensive postal rates — all part of a 10-year reorganization plan for the U.S. Postal Service he unveiled Tuesday.”¹ However, the part of the plan that I personally find most interesting is the plan to switch from moving mail by airplanes to trucks.  Among the cost-saving measures he announced is a plan to “modify” first class delivery services by shifting transportation “from unreliable air transportation to more reliable ground transportation.”²

If one looks at the XPO Logistics website, it is very clear that a major part of their business is trucking.  You can even apply to be a driver for them on their website and they tout how fast they are growing.³ No doubt it is my cynicism that causes me to question the fact that our current Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, has a huge financial stake in a company that already has contracts with the USPS and he is now pushing a plan to push even more mail transportation to XPO Logistics and companies like it.  The only thing this will do is slow mail delivery, enrich trucking companies like XPO Logistics and frustrate the hell out of the American public.

This is what happens when you put political cronies in positions for which they are unqualified and have a blatant conflict of interest. This is just another classic example of how Trump and his cronies view the US Government as road to line their own pockets as opposed to serving ‘we the people.’

Unfortunately, President Biden, cannot fire Louis DeJoy, as much as he would like to.  The Postmaster General falls under the direction and authority of the USPS Board of Governors so they are the ones that have the power to fire DeJoy.  Biden has nominated three people to that board and if they are confirmed by the Senate, they could, if they choose, fire DeJoy if he refuses to resign.

The deterioration in service is one thing that DeJoy should be held accountable for.  However, in my mind, the more egregious part of this whole mess is this massive conflict of interest that continues unchecked.  If DeJoy worked for a private company he would have been fired long ago.  His continued presence in his position as Postmaster General is nothing short of a huge affront to every American taxpayer.

In addition to the blatant conflict of interests, if DeJoy is allowed to remain in this position and implement his 10-year plan, it will have an impact on the elections in years to come due to the slow down in moving first class mail such as mail-in ballots.  This, coupled with the more than 250 laws percolating through Republican state legislatures to restrict future voting will change the political landscape of this country forever.  It just boggles my mind how so many people in this country seem to either 1) not understand what is really going on with these blatant attacks on democracy or 2) just don’t care. 

“The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.”

— Thomas Jefferson

1. DeJoy’s Plan For Postal Service Includes Delivery And Rate Changes : NPR
2. Slower service, higher prices: Postmaster General Louis DeJoy unveils 10-year plan (nbcnews.com)
3. Driver Jobs, Truck Driving jobs | XPO Logistics

I’ve been thinking a lot about these latest mass shootings the last couple of days and yesterday I read a piece in the New York Times that tried to address the same question that I had been asking myself – “Why can’t we solve this problem?”

In March of 2019, a gunman armed with an assault rifle attacked two mosques in New Zealand and murdered 51 people. “Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had announced a temporary ban just days after a terror attack on two mosques in Christchurch in March that left 51 people dead and was streamed live on Facebook. Weeks later, all but one of Parliament’s 120 lawmakers voted to make the ban permanent. It outlaws military-style semiautomatic weapons and assault rifles, and some gun parts, and violators face five years in prison.”²  

They embarked on a gun buy back program which resulted in 56,000 weapons being turned in by 32,000 people.  This cost the New Zealand government about $100 million NZ.  Was there controversy?  Of course.  Was it universally popular?  Of course not.  That said, they did something!  The massacre happened in March and by the end of the year they had enacted laws and taken thousands of weapons off the street.  Compare that to this country.  There has been a constant increase in mass shootings over the last decade and this country has done nothing!

Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, took her clue from Australia.  “In making her case for the ban, Ms. Ardern had pointed to Australia’s success implementing gun-control measures after a mass shooting there in 1996. The country implemented strict new laws and carried out a gun buyback that removed more than 20 percent of firearms from circulation. Since then, rates of gun violence and gun suicides have tumbled.”²

The fact is, the United States just has too many guns, and the almost unlimited access to assault style weapons is not making America safe, in fact, just the contrary.  America has more guns than people.  In a 2018 survey, the number of guns in American was estimated to be 393 million.  The population of the United States is about 330 million.  This figure of 393 million firearms represents 46 percent of all civilian owned firearms IN THE WORLD!  There is a growing body of research that suggests this is the only variable that explains the excessive number of mass shootings in America compared to the rest of the world.¹

“The same can be said for gun deaths in general, of which mass shootings account for only a tiny fraction. As German Lopez has explained in Vox, “When researchers control for other confounding variables, they have found time and time again that America’s high levels of gun ownership are a major reason the U.S. is so much worse in terms of gun violence than its developed peers.”¹

On average, every single day in the United States, 100 people are killed by guns.  Think about that – 100 people each and every day die because of firearms.  That’s like a small regional jet crashing every day.  One would think that would get people’s attention and there would be a huge outcry for something to be done.  The fact is, there is a huge outcry after every single incident of a mass shooting – and then the cries for reform die away or are beat into submission by gun rights advocates and conservative politicians.

“If the United States were to hold a national referendum tomorrow, a number of gun control measures would probably pass: universal background checks and bans on high-capacity magazines and even on assault-style weapons — all of these proposals have the support of at least 50 percent of the electorate. So why don’t we have stricter gun control? According to The Washington Post’s Robert Gebelhoff, Americans simply don’t care about it enough.”¹

Sadly, not only don’t Americans view gun control legislation as a priority, but after these types of incidents, guns sales usual spike.³ In addition, the gun rights organizations such as the NRA immediately start lobbying against any type of such legislation.  And now, it appears as if the Supreme Court will hear a case that actually might expand the Second Amendment, given the conservative majority currently on the court.⁴ Even if the current Second Amendment case gets tossed out on a technicality, there will be more such cases in the future that are designed to broaden the rights under the Second Amendment rather than abridge them in any way.

The rest of the industrialized world seems to have figured how to move forward without having their citizens have almost unlimited access to firearms including assault rifles.   Frankly, I can’t think of one real problem facing this country that more guns is going to solve.  In spite of all of the rhetoric surrounding the latest mass shootings and how people are outraged, don’t expect anything to change – except the number of guns on the streets – there will be more of them.  I guess in addition to wearing masks when we go to the grocery store now, we should all wear body armor as well!  So, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go update my Christmas list for this year.

 “Dear Santa, I’d like an AK-47, AR-15, grenade launcher, and a bazooka (not the bubble gum!), and about 10,000 rounds of ammunition.  Oh, and you can throw in a new Glock for a stocking stuffer.  Thanks, Mike”

The insanity is staggering.

1. Opinion | Why America Can’t Fix Its Gun Violence Crisis – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
2. New Zealand Ban on Most Semiautomatic Weapons Takes Effect – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
3. Gun industry prepares for a surge in demand after back-to-back mass shootings – CNN
4. Gun rights: Supreme Court hears biggest Second Amendment case in a decade – CNN Politics

In several of these posts I have discusses how I believe that China is playing a masterful game of global ‘Go.’  I read an OpEd in the New York Times yesterday that had a similar view but from a little different perspective which made me think that China is really playing a three dimensional game of ‘Go’ – the third dimension being intellectual innovation.

Apparently in a recent appearance, Bill Maher was on a rant about the current state of U.S. -China relations and made the observation that one of the most troubling differences between our two countries is the fact that China can actually get big things done; America, no so much.  We are all way to familiar with the gridlock that has become the hallmark of Congress for more than a decade.

“For many of our political leaders, governing has become sports, entertainment or just mindless tribal warfare. No wonder China’s leaders see us as a nation in imperial decline, living off the leftover fumes of American “exceptionalism.” I wish I could say they were all wrong.”¹

There is no doubt that China engages in bad behavior.  They have been ruthlessly suppressing efforts for self-rule in Hong Kong and there are the ongoing accusations of genocide involving the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.  They are notorious for stealing intellectual property and there is the ongoing military buildup in the South China Sea.  These are all issues that need to be dealt with but the US has ceded much of its authority to criticize as the US delegation, led by the newly installed Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, found out recently when they met with members of the Chinese government in Alaska.  Yang Jiechi, China’s top foreign affairs policymaker, baldly told his U.S. counterparts: “The United States does not have the qualification … to speak to China from a position of strength.”¹

The Chinese are very, very aware of the insurrection attempt that took place on January 6^th.   They are very aware of all of the Black Lives Matter protests that have occurred in this country.  They are aware of all of the conspiracy theories that are being propagated by the media and political leaders.  And they are certainly aware of the abysmally poor US response to the pandemic.  Make no mistake, they are very aware of all of the goings on in this country.  China views all of these as ‘chinks in the armor’ that has protected America since its founding.  And as all of these ‘termites’ eat away at the foundation of this country, what do you think the Chinese are doing?

In 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping suggested that there would be an ‘Olympics’ in 2025 and that there would only be two competitors – China and the United States.  The initiative was called ‘Made in China 2025’.  This was basically a 10-year plan to modernize China’s manufacturing base by making huge investments.  The idea was to dominate 10 key areas of technology. “The industries include artificial intelligence; electric cars and other new energy vehicles; 5G telecommunications; robotics; new agricultural technologies; aerospace and maritime engineering; synthetic materials; and biomedicine.”¹

China is no only investing huge financial resources into these areas of technological innovation; they are investing huge amounts of human capital into these efforts. “STEM graduates have become a vital cog in the wheel of global prosperity and unsurprisingly, China is leading the way. The World Economic Forum reported that China had 4.7 million recent STEM graduates in 2016. India, another academic powerhouse, had 2.6 million new STEM graduates last year while the U.S. had 568,000.”²

As I have stated before in these posts, the politicians in this country are wasting tons of resources solving problems that aren’t problems, e.g., ‘wide spread voter fraud’, solving the wrong problems or blocking others from solving real problems.  The current political tribal warfare is doing absolutely nothing to counter the two most existential threats to the long-term wellbeing of the United States – the undeniable threat from China and the undeniable threat from climate change.  The continued political gridlock and polarization is just weakening this nation. And in the words of the famous warrior, Sun Tzu, “So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong, and strike at what is weak.”

China is getting much stronger while the United States is getting weaker, which is exactly the situation Sun Tzu was talking about.  He also said, “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”  And viewed through that lens, we are losing.

1. Opinion | China Doesn’t Respect Us Anymore — for Good Reason – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
2. The Countries With The Most STEM Graduates [Infographic] (forbes.com)

Oh, well, another mass shooting in Boulder, Colorado!  Yawn!  Frankly, it’s pretty damned pathetic that we have gotten so used to these mass shootings in this country that unless you happen to be the one in the line of fire, they hardly get any attention at all.  They will grab headlines for a few days and then what will happen to help prevent the next mass shooting – nothing!  Heaven forbid anyone tries to pass any type of gun control legislation.  We do exactly the opposite in this country.  I have discussed in previous posts the ridiculous law that will go in effect June 1^st of this year here in Montana allowing almost ANYONE who is over 18 to carry a concealed weapon WITHOUT a permit almost anywhere in the state including on college campuses.  The only place you need a permit to carry a concealed weapon is in state and local government offices.

Some segments of the population in this country are just becoming more and more obsessed with killing things – killing people, killing democracy, killing the environment and killing wildlife.  It seems like sometimes we are becoming just a more modern version of the 1984 award winning film, The Killing Fields, which detailed the mass killings under the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia immediately following the Cambodian Civil War (1970 – 1975).  In the Global Peace Index from 2020, the United States was listed at position 121 right between Azerbaijan and Burkina Faso – and two slots lower than Honduras!!¹ The top three slots went to Iceland, New Zealand and Portugal (which is one reason why it is on my short list of places to check out). 

And in keeping with the ‘killing theme’ of this post, I thought I’d share an OpEd that was in the Sunday paper here.  The Republican-controlled legislature here in Montana has mounted an all-out assault on wildlife here in Montana – ‘the last best place,’ which, if all of these laws pass which is quite likely, will become known as ‘the last best killing place.’   This is just symptomatic of the mindset that seems to have taken hold in this country.  Conversation, cooperation and compromise all require work – I guess it’s just easier to chamber that round, pull the trigger and solve whatever problem there is by killing something! 

If I sound disgusted – it’s because I am!

1. Global indexes – Vision of Humanity

Something struck me over the weekend as I was reading about the increase in violence towards Asian-Americans.  There has always been some level of bigotry and discrimination against Asian-Americans going all the way back to when they worked on the railroads and in the mines as ‘cheap labor.’  However, the level of discrimination has certainly escalated over the past year since the pandemic started and the COVID virus was traced back to China.

We were all witnesses to the unrelenting verbal attacks by our former president and the use of such terms as ‘Kung Flu’, ‘China virus’, etc.   When the pandemic hit the US with a vengeance (as all of the experts said it would) after the administration initially downplayed its severity, the administration needed someone to blame for its own incompetence and China was an easy target.  All of a sudden, attacks against Asian-Americans increased dramatically.

And the attacks were not just against Chinese Asian-Americans but against all types of Asian-Americans.  I would venture a guess that the large majority of Americans cannot distinguish the difference between different types of Asian-Americans so it was basically a shotgun approach.  Anyone who looked the least bit Asian was suddenly a target whether they were Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Filipino or Chinese.  All of those cultures and people are different.  It makes about as much sense as saying that Americans, Scots, Australians, Irishmen, and Germans are all exactly the same. 

Of course, this is just exacerbated by Americans’ abysmal lack of knowledge about world geography.  “Why have Americans become so geographically ignorant about the world around them? Myriad polls and surveys leave no doubt that Americans are among the most geographically illiterate of all developed societies. The ranks of Americans who have ever taken a geography class in high school or university are small. Indeed, an entire generation of business executives, politicians, policy makers, captains of industry, and movers and shakers has grown up with nary a hint of geographic literacy on their résumés.”²

If you think that bigotry and racism aren’t alive and well in this country, think about this.  There is now a variant of the COVID virus that is making huge inroads across the United States.  This is the B.1.1.7 variant originally identified in the United Kingdom.  And this variant is more contagious and potentially more lethal than the original virus coming out of China.  Have there been any attacks on English people in the United States because of this?  So, why aren’t people all up in arms and attacking anyone with a British accent?  Based upon the anti-Asian logic that seems to be the root behind the current wave of attacks, anyone who is from Australia, New Zealand, Canada or the UK would be subject to verbal abuses and attacks.  They are all part of the Commonwealth so they must all be responsible for this insidious UK variant.

Why don’t we hear terms like ‘CO-Brit’ virus or hear the Republican party talking about the ‘English virus’?  The answer is very simple.  People tend to associate the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand with being white – they look like us.  They don’t look so ‘foreign.’   If Trump were still in office, I would bet huge sums of money that you would never hear disparaging names for the variant identified first in the UK, which is now predicted to possibly become the most prevalent strain in the US in a few weeks.  There is no other explanation other than wide spread bigotry and xenophobia.  It’s just easier to target people who look different and, in this case, that means anyone who is non-white.

There are three other variants that are currently worrying the health experts.  One from Brazil, one from South Africa and now, a home-grown version from New York.  So, what will become of these variants?  It’s hard to imagine that if the New York variant were to begin spreading widely that Americans would start beating up New Yorkers!  And most Americans tend to think of South Africans as white (even though the country is populated with a majority of Black Africans), so it is unlikely that there will be a huge backlash against South Africans within the United States.

However, since Brazilians are Latin American, perhaps they would suffer a different fate if the Brazilian variant were to begin spreading widely in the US.  Can you imagine what would happen if a variant were to emerge in Mexico??  If you think there has been an escalation in violence against Asian-Americans, given the four years of hostile and inflammatory rhetoric from the former president about Hispanics, one can only imagine how ugly things would get if a “Mexican virus” or “Mexican variant” were identified. 

Make no mistake about it – hypocrisy, xenophobia and bigotry are very much alive in this country.  If only there was a vaccine for ignorance!

1. The coronavirus variants experts are most concerned about – 60 Minutes – CBS News
2. The World: Americans lack geographic knowledge (bakersfield.com)

There has been a total of about 30 million cases of COVID reported in the United States so far and about 540,000 deaths.  For a country with a population of 330 million people, those are pretty staggering numbers.  However, as devastating as this virus has been in our country, there are two other ‘viruses’ that are infecting large segments of the population that are far more insidious and likely a much bigger threat to this country.  Those viruses are bigotry and disinformation.

This past year saw the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of the George Floyd murder and all of the other instances involving the deaths of black Americans at the hands of police.  And now, in the wake of the pandemic and all of the racist and divisive rhetoric from the former president, we are seeing a large increase in hate crimes against Asian-Americans.  The killing of 8 people in Atlanta yesterday was just the latest in a long string of such attacks. 

Bigotry is certainly nothing new in this country but it certainly seems like it has gotten much worse.  As I have stated before in these posts, my ex-wife is Hispanic and Filipina, which makes my daughter a mixture of white, Hispanic and Filipina.  I know from the many conversations that I have had with them over the years, they have both been the targets of racist remarks.  Do I need to now worry about their safety when they are just walking down the street because of this insidious ‘hate’ virus that seems to have infected so much of the country?

I have been fortunate in my life and career to have worked with a wide spectrum of people of all races, faiths, backgrounds and sexual orientations.  In addition, I have been fortunate to have traveled to and spent extended periods of time in many countries around the world.  When I lived in Kuwait, we lived in an apartment building in a regular neighborhood that just happened to be right next to a mosque.  We shopped in local stores, went to local restaurants, and safely walked around the neighborhood.  We certainly didn’t blend in or look like locals.  We were never assaulted, verbally or physically, because we looked different.  The people were friendly and inviting.

I have spent time in Asia.  I remember walking through a marketplace in Sri Lanka with a colleague of mine.  We were a head taller than anyone around and we certainly didn’t blend in.  Of course, people looked at us, but, again, everyone was friendly and welcoming.  That has been the case of pretty much everywhere I have been.  In all of my experience, I have pretty much concluded that people are pretty much the same everywhere – regardless of race, religion, or nationality.  People just want to have a job, be able to take care of their families, worship however they choose, and be left alone to live their lives. 

I have a theory as to why it is so difficult for so many people to understand and accept this which brings me to the second ‘virus’ infecting this country – disinformation.   I don’t think its any accident that the parts of the country that seem so virulently anti-immigrant and anti-white are those states that are either holdovers from the days of slavery, i.e. The South, or those states that have the least diverse populations, e.g., Montana.   There are a number of people in The South that are still fighting the Civil War and just cannot accept that all men, including black men (and women) are created equal.  And when you boil this down to its essence, it really is a battle to preserve a white oligarchy. 

The battle in those states (or neighborhoods) with less diverse populations is, in my opinion, fueled by a constant diet of disinformation focused on finding minority segments of the population to blame for whatever ills are prevalent at any given time.  Think about it.  If you have no real exposure to or daily interaction with Hispanics or Asians or Blacks and you get all of your news from media sources (or political leaders) that spew a constant stream of disinformation and lies, it is no small wonder that these feelings of bigotry surface.  And now, this constant stream of disinformation is being propagated coast to coast so if someone has some kind of a problem and they are looking for someone to blame – they just have to select from the menu of ‘people to hate’ offered up by various media or local politicians.

It is a fact that this coronavirus originated in China.  However, none of the Asian-Americans who have been attacked has had a damned thing to do with it.  And the fact is, that this country was woefully unprepared to face a pandemic originating from anywhere despite warnings for years that it was a possibility.  And when it did hit this country, the response was tragically inadequate.  None of that is the fault of China nor of any Asian American living in this country.  However, it’s a lot easier to find someone to blame as opposed to just look in the mirror and admit that we royally screwed up.

Unfortunately, hate and disinformation will linger long after this COVID virus is brought to heel with the wide-spread vaccination campaign.  And the only ‘vaccine’ against hate and disinformation is knowledge (as opposed to propaganda) and experience.  As long as people are unwilling to leave their safe little ‘white bubbles’ and suckle off the teat of racist propaganda, the COVID pandemic will be among the lesser long-term threats to this country.

I was intending to write about something else today.  I was going to write about the recently released intelligence report reiterating the fact that Russia interfered in both the 2016 and 2020 elections with the intent of supporting Donald Trump and denigrating first, Hillary Clinton, and then Joe Biden.  However, I read Heather Cox Richardson’s blog and she tackled the same issue so I will just defer to her.  The link to her blog is below.¹

And then I read something in today’s paper in Bozeman that really struck me, and I thought was an extremely cogent argument against the Montana legislature’s continued effort to push laws that are based upon nothing more than personal prejudices and biases and are, in fact, solutions in search of problems. [If this were isolated to Montana it would be one thing, but this type of thing is going on across the country in many Republican controlled state legislatures]  

The real problem is more than the fact that these types of laws are based simply upon personal prejudices.  It represents a much bigger problem that shows many areas of this country are wasting resources solving problems that aren’t really problems while ignoring some major existential problems that threaten the very survival of this nation.  If the United States of America were viewed as a single-family residence, the Russian interference in our elections and ongoing dissemination of divisive information represents a termite infestation that is slowly eating away at the very structure of this house.  It’s hidden in the walls and easily ignored – but nonetheless no less devastating in the long term.

As I have pointed out repeatedly in these blogs, the threat from China is of a different kind.  It’s like the Chinese are buying up and making alliances with all of the neighbors surrounding the United States ‘house’ in their masterful game of ‘neighborhood Go’ so that they will eventually become the dominant resident in the neighborhood.  And rather than developing a long-term strategy to deal with either of these issues, it seems like many of these state legislatures want to argue about and spend their resources on deciding what color to paint the living room.  The fact is, it won’t matter a damned bit what color the living room is if the house eventually falls down due to the termite infestation and China just buys up the lot.  It is way past time for the politicians in this country to start solving real problems and stop wasting time and resources on all of this meaningless bullshit.

The column below written by an elite female athlete here in Bozeman just shows the waste of resources that is going in to solving problems that aren’t problems and have absolutely no bearing on the long-term survival of this nation and contribute zero to the betterment of this country.

1. Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson