I would argue that the United States is more vulnerable now than at almost any time in my life time due in no small part to a Republican party that has become a ‘party of resistance’ and wedded to old, often discredited and widely unpopular, policies.  I read what is going on in other places around the world and, although all governments have their problems, there are many places in the world where the governments are investing in their infrastructures and solving ‘real-world’ problems for their citizens using science, data and facts as their guide.

Anyone who has ever lived in or visited virtually any major metropolitan area of the United States would agree that there are major problems with the transportation infrastructure in this country.  Just try driving from Santa Monica to ‘the valley’ on the 405 freeway at rush hour in Los Angeles.  Los Angeles has made progress over the last few years in building out their subway system but the city is so spread out that the car is still the most preferred method of transport.

The subway system in New York City is remarkable but it is very old and in dire need of upgrades.  [Try taking the subway into Grand Central Station at rush hour if want a little adventure!]  The subway systems in most American cities, if they exist, are generally far inferior to the systems in many other major metropolitan areas around the world, Seoul, London, Paris, etc.  High speed rail systems are widely used around the world.  When I was working, my colleagues and I were in Madrid on business and had to go to Sevilla which is about 331 miles away, about the same distance from Los Angeles to San Jose, CA, for a meeting.  We hopped on a high-speed train right in Madrid, two hours later we arrived in Sevilla after a very comfortable ride, had our meeting, ate a leisurely lunch with our hosts, reboarded the train at 4 p.m. and were back in Madrid by 6.  That would be almost impossible in the US.  Why are all of these other countries able to invest in their infrastructures and we continue to squabble about nonsense?

In China, they have developed and are operating a ‘trackless tram’ in Yibin, China.  These are self-driving electric busses that simply follow a white line painted on the pavement.  No rails need to be installed.  There is no doubt that this kind of solution will be expanded and refined.  Efforts to implement these types of mass transport are already underway in Zimbabwe, Qatar and Perth, Australia.  And where is the US while the rest of the world is investing in their infrastructures?  Still squabbling.

A US panel is urging the US government to increase investments in artificial intelligence to counter China’s increasing expertise in this area.  The 15-member National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, led by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, recently released a report stating that, “To win in AI we need more money, more talent and stronger leadership.”¹ 

The recent debacle with the Texas power grid is yet another example of a failure of foresight and willingness to make the requisite investments in infrastructure to deal with a changing world.  Climate change is real and virtually all credible scientists agree that weather extremes will become the new norm.  As such, it is incumbent upon all states and the US to make the necessary investments to make the entire electrical infrastructure in this country more robust. 

When the failure happened in Texas, rather than step back and take an objective look at why it occurred, it immediately turned into a case of partisan politics and the ‘blame game.’  Those who don’t’ believe in climate change, immediately pointed the finger at wind turbines and solar arrays as the main source of the problem.  The fact is, the deregulation of the Texas energy industry, its unwillingness to connect to the national power grid, and an unwillingness to invest in the power infrastructure over the past years was the primary reason for this massive failure. [ If this sounds familiar, just remember the Enron debacle]  The rest of the country should take this as a warning and start planning now to make the necessary investments to make sure the entire national power grid is more robust.  But, we won’t.  We’ll continue to squabble.

The US remains the only industrialized country in the world that does not have some type of universal health care system.  Why don’t we?  Because we continue to squabble.  The transportation infrastructure in many places is far superior to that of the US.  Why?  Because we continue to squabble.   The education systems in many countries are superior that those in the US? Why?  Because they invest in their education systems and we continue to squabble. 

We may have a very strong military and lots of nuclear weapons which might delude some people into thinking we are invincible.  History is strewn with examples of empires who had strong militaries and thought they were invincible.  They were all wrong.  Until such time as we can collectively understand that in order to make this country strong and robust, investing in the infrastructure and solving real problems that make the lives better for real people (not just the wealthy), is far more important than an arsenal of nuclear weapons.

The ongoing Republican strategy of opposing everything, cutting taxes, and thinking that anti-abortion legislation and unabashed support for everyone’s right to own any and all guns almost with restriction, are the most important problems facing this country, will continue to weaken the United States.  The world is moving forward.   The US can choose to move forward or we can continue to squabble about issues that are truly irrelevant to the long-term well-being of the country and the world.  Given the track record of the Republican party over the past few years, I am not at all optimistic.

1. Page A8 | E-Edition | bozemandailychronicle.com

Today is the first day of Women’s History Month.  Given that I am the very proud father of a strong young woman who will be graduating from NYU in May, I wanted to use this post to pay tribute to all women and their ongoing fight for true equality.  Over the weekend I finished a book entitled, The Daughters of Kobani,¹ which is a book about the YPJ (Kurdish Women’s Protective Unit) which is an all-female fighting force that played a key role in the defeat of ISIS in Syria.  If anyone ever doubted the ability of female soldiers, I suggest they read this book.  I, for one, would hate to be on the opposite side of a battlefield facing this formidable force.  Hundreds of ISIS soldiers paid the price with their lives for underestimating these women.

This book is not just about women at war, but is also an account of women striving for women’s rights and to be treated as equals in a land where women’s equality was a radical concept.  Women’s equality was an even more radical concept in Middle Eastern countries than in the US and many ‘Western’ cultures.  (Even though women are still fighting for equality in the US today, but more on that later.)

As you may recall, ISIS was particularly brutal toward women.  When they swept in and conquered towns and villages, the women who weren’t killed, were taken prisoner and used as sex slaves, often passed around from soldier to soldier.  They were brutalized.  There is no other word for it.  When ISIS began advancing on the Syrian town of Kobani, which was essentially controlled by the Kurds, many Kurdish women decided to join the fight.  These women had been told by their families that they could not pursue higher education.  They were told who they were going to marry.  They had little control over their own lives and their own destinies.  But in Kobani, many of them decided to take a stand not only against ISIS but as a way to prove themselves equal to their male counterparts and to gain control of their lives.  They initially had to plead for training and many joined the YPJ against the wishes of their families.  But it gave them a purpose and a modicum of control over their lives.   In the end, they became a formidable fighting force showing every bit as much courage and grit and lethality as their male counterparts. 

The defense and defeat of ISIS in the town of Kobani was one of the first defeats suffered by ISIS and it could not have been possible without the YPJ and I suspect there are few, if any, male members of the Kurdish military (later morphed into the Syrian Defense Force) who would argue with that statement.  These women fought valiantly and many of the young women died, but they were key to defending Kobani from an ISIS assault.

After the YPJ helped to defeat ISIS in Kobani, the force continued to grow and become more battle hardened.  In a subsequent key battle, the YPJ would lead the Syrian Defense Forces in a nighttime crossing of the Euphrates river in an assault on the ISIS stronghold of Manbij, which ISIS had held for 2 ½ years.  The assault and ensuing battles were grueling and costly but ultimately successful, in no small part due to the YPJ.   The YPG (People’s Protection Unit) was the all-male counter-part of the YPJ but there is no doubt that the men in the YPG had great respect for the members of the YPJ and viewed them as true equals on the battlefield.  And, in fact, as the war dragged on year after year, some of the top commanders were female and they commanded thousands of soldiers, both men and women.

As the war dragged on, the women of the YPJ were focused on the day-to-day task of surviving and defeating ISIS but when it was clear that ISIS was facing defeat and the ouster from their ‘capital’ Raqqa was at hand, the leaders of the YPJ began to turn their attention more towards ensuring the equality they had gained in the war, would not be lost when civilian rule returned.  Given the respect they had earned in the war, they were given a ‘seat at the table’ as the new self-rule government was being formulated.  They pushed for and insisted that equality for women be enshrined in those documents and they were.  They fought a war against ISIS and they fought a war to establish equality for women – they won them both, but at a huge cost.   Unfortunately, the fight continues.  Not against ISIS but against newer adversaries.

Reading this book was even more gut wrenching when you look at the sacrifices all of these Kurdish soldiers made, male and female, to help the US defeat ISIS only to have the United States pull the rug out from under them when ISIS was defeated in deference to Turkey who views the Kurds as enemies.  In my opinion, it was one of the worst and most shameful foreign policy decisions to come out of the Trump administration.  It is hard to imagine how you could abandon people that sacrificed so much on your behalf.  Politics is an ugly business.

It is hard to know what the future of the Kurdish people is but I hope that they will eventually find peace and are able to establish an area of self-rule where the equality that the members of the YPJ fought so hard and so valiantly for can serve as a model for, not only other Middle Eastern countries, but countries around the world.   Sadly, even here in the US, the Equal Rights Amendment to enshrine women’s equality in the US Constitution, that was originally passed in 1972, has still not been ratified.  Maybe some day the world will mature enough to recognize that women are the true equals of men.  And if anyone has any doubts, I suggest they read this book.

1. The Daughters of Kobani, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, Penguin Press, 2021

I normally don’t write or post anything on Sunday, not for any religious reason, but I just try to give myself a day off from the chaos.  However, I have already started writing the post for tomorrow and I just feel the need to get something off my chest concerning all of the goings on with Republicans across the country, in Congress and at CPAC. (Conservative Political Action Conference).

The House of Representatives passed the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill yesterday with the vote going pretty much along party lines.  Polls have shown that this relief package is widely supported in a bi-partisan way by about two thirds of Americans.  Ironically, as pointed out in Paul Krugman’s column that I posted previously, even some Republicans who don’t believe that Biden was legitimately elected, are supportive of the relief package.  (Go figure!).  So, the question is, “Why are the Republicans in Congress uniting against passage of this bill?”  The answer is actually quite simple.  Elections in 2022 and 2024.

The argument from the Republicans that it is ‘too expensive’ given their willingness to look the other way as the national debt skyrocketed under Trump is just hollow with hypocrisy.  The Republicans are acutely aware that if, as most economists predict, the COVID relief bill will goose the economy into a faster recovery, then the prospects of the Republicans regaining control of the House and Senate are considerably dimmed in 2022.  It is well understood that people, in general, vote with their pocketbooks.  If the economy is doing well and unemployment is low, it becomes much more difficult to argue that the incumbent administration is not doing its job.  Trump was betting on the economy to get re-elected and then the coronavirus hit.  His huge mishandling of the pandemic coupled with a tanking economy led to his defeat.

The worst possible scenario for the Republicans is if the COVID relief package really does get the economy going again and drives unemployment substantially down.  It would be great for America but bad for the Republican party which is exactly why they are against passing the bill.  Another classic example of putting party before country. 

When Obama inherited the Great Recession in 2008 most economists, including Janet Yellen, Biden’s new Treasury Secretary, agree that the stimulus package that the government used to rescue the economy was too small which led to a much slower recovery than was desired.  Both Joe Biden and Janey Yellen were part of that effort and have learned from that mistake.  Both agree, and many economists join them, that going too small on the relief package will be much worse than going too big.  Going too small could lead to a repeat of the slow recovery from the Great Recession and it is important the country recover quickly.  It is extremely sad that the Republican party is willing to try to torpedo this stimulus package and put millions of Americans livelihoods at risk so they can improve their chances for political victories in future elections.   Make no mistake.  That is exactly what this is about.

In addition to the Republican attempts to block this COVID relief package, they are engaged in a massive country-wide effort to enact laws to restrict voting rights and, even in some states, strip powers from election officials.  These actions, in spite of all of the rhetoric, have nothing to do with ‘voter security’.  They are simply designed to restrict voting and skew the electorate in their favor.  These efforts are no different than the excessive gerrymandering that has taken place in predominantly Republican states.  If you can’t win fairly, change the rules!  I think we all experienced that as kids playing games, but its distressing to see elected officials playing these same games.

To cap it all off, there is the CPAC love fest for Trump taking place in Florida.  There has been very little discussion of policy but a lot of examples of fealty to Trump.  I particularly like the large golden statue of Trump they rolled in and which people seem to be idolizing.   As I recall, there was a story in Exodus about people worshipping a golden calf while Moses was up on the mount receiving the ten commandments from God.  I don’t think it ended very well for them.  I find great irony in the fact that the religious right are some of Trump’s most ardent supporters and there it is – a golden likeness of Trump.  I wonder what Moses would say?  I’m not religious at all but I suspect he would be thoroughly disgusted.

The bottom line is that all of the actions being taken by the Republican party today have one thing in common.  They are all geared with an eye toward the 2022 and 2024 elections first and foremost.  Party before country – whatever the cost.

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) started yesterday and after reading summaries of the speeches that were given, I can say fairly confidently that I have never been so concerned for the future of this country.  The big difference between what is going on now at the CPAC and many of the other crises this country has faced in my lifetime, is the fact that there are now so many political leaders who are working so hard to undermine American democracy and spread baseless lies about election fraud. 

I grew up during the Cold War when every American knew who the ‘enemy’ was.  The Soviet Union was ‘the enemy’ and there were times when nuclear war seemed a real possibility.  That was the era of fallout shelters and drills at school when we would climb under our desks.   The Cuban missile crisis in 1963 was truly frightening as the United States and the Soviet Union came perilously close to an armed conflict that could have escalated to something beyond imagination.   Fortunately, the Soviets blinked, their ships turned around and they pulled their missiles out of Cuba.  At least then, we knew who the enemy was, and the political leaders in this country were fairly unified against Soviet aggression.

Right on the tail of the show down with the Soviet Union the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted.  As parts of the country refused to implement desegregation, civil rights activists like Dr. Martin Luther King led marches and acts of civil disobedience.  In 1965, this culminated with the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.  The march was met with violence and came to be known as Bloody Sunday, but that triggered more than 80 supportive demonstrations around the country.  It also led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  It was a tumultuous time.  And, although there were some politicians who did not embrace the Civil Rights Act wholeheartedly, there was no real effort to undermine American democracy.

The Vietnam war was dragging on and becoming increasing unpopular in the late sixties.  There were anti-war demonstrations around the country and some of these turned violent.   Some politicians vocally opposed the war but most elected officials condemned the violence and used the forums afforded them in Congress to make their case against the war.  Opinions were quite varied, but again, there was no real effort to undermine the institutions upon which this country was founded.

In the next decades the country endured recessions, natural disasters, social problems, and even the occasional threat or small attack from one of our adversaries.  Throughout it all, there was always a peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next and a shared respect for the institutions of American government.  Not only that, but there was a true desire and ability to develop bipartisan solutions in Congress.   However, several things happened over the next decades that marked the beginning of the end.  The Fairness Doctrine, which required media outlets to present balanced reporting on issues, was repealed in 1987.  This gave rise to talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, who was able to build an empire on saying outrageous things over the air – whether they were true or not.  Fox News became the television version of Limbaugh on steroids and made Rupert Murdoch a very wealthy man in the process.  Selling lies for dollars.

Newt Gingrich, a Republican representative from Georgia from 1979 to 1999, began using a ‘take no prisoners’ approach to his stay in Congress.  This led to his ascension to be Speaker of the House from 1995 to 1999.  He really had no interest in bipartisan legislation and was all about winning, keeping and exerting control for the Republican party.  Political scientists have credited Gingrich with playing a key role in undermining democratic norms in the United States and hastening political polarization and partisanship.

And finally, along comes Trump who worked tirelessly to throw gas on the flames of division and mistrust of the media.  At times, it seemed as if his sole goal was to completely undermine the democratic institutions upon which this country was built.  And now, there is a whole three-day conference filled with senior Republican politicians who have joined the movement.  There are over 100 laws trying to make their way through various Republican controlled state legislatures aimed at restricting voting.  The Arizona state legislature is even going so far as to try to give the legislature the power to override the election officials and select their own slate of electors.  This is not democracy!

Today, the biggest threat to America is not from any foreign adversary.  The biggest threat to America today is that it will rot from the inside out.  It is from the fact that so many politicians are unwilling to put country and principles before party and, even worse, a single person.  Even the strongest foundation will crack under ongoing and unrelenting attacks.   America has weathered a lot of assaults of various kinds over the years.  I am not so confident it will survive this one.  

1. Trump Loyalists Spurn ‘Failed Republican Establishment of Yesteryear’ – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

I read this column in the New York Times yesterday and I thought it best just to include it in its entirety.  It seemed particularly appropriate given that today is the start of the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) which is stacking up to be a series of speeches by Trump-ites who will continue to propagate ‘The Big Lie’ about how the election was stolen.   Paul Krugman is a Nobel winning economist who has written a column for the Times for many years.

The Paradox of Pandemic Partisanship

Many Republicans consider Biden illegitimate — and support his plans.

By Paul Krugman

Opinion Columnist

President Biden’s Covid-19 relief proposal remains incredibly popular; if anything, it’s getting more popular as it barrels through Congress. Multiple polls show that something like 70 percent of Americans approve of the $1.9 trillion plan. It’s almost twice as popular as the Republican tax cut of 2017; it’s more popular than the Obama stimulus of 2009; it’s hard to believe now, but the Biden plan is more popular than Medicare was in the months before it passed in 1965.

Big business has also come on board: More than 150 senior executives at major companies have written congressional leaders urging enactment of Biden’s plan.

It’s not too hard to see why Democrats and independents like the plan. What I’m trying to understand is something that seems like a political paradox. Namely, how is it possible that so many Republicans approve of the plan?

Why is Republican support for Biden’s economic plans a puzzle? Because most of the Republican rank and file believe (based on nothing but lies) that the election was stolen. So we’re in a peculiar position where a substantial number of voters don’t believe Biden has the right to be running the country, but effectively approve of the way he’s running it, at least in terms of economic policy.

A recent Economist/YouGov poll makes the point. According to that poll, only 16 percent of self-identified Republicans believe that Biden won the election fairly, while 71 percent believe that it was stolen from Donald Trump. Yet 39 percent of Republicans favor Biden’s $1.9 trillion spending proposal. A Morning Consult poll puts Republican support for the plan at 60 percent!

OK, believing that the presidency was stolen and supporting the policies of the man on whose behalf you think it was stolen isn’t literally a contradiction. But it’s still very strange.

It’s also in stark contrast to what went down under President Obama. What those of us who participated in economic debates during the early Obama years remember was the constant drumbeat of warnings that the new president’s policies would produce disaster. The Obama stimulus was considerably smaller than the Biden plan (indeed, much too small, but that’s another story). Yet not a week went by without loud claims that hyperinflation and a debt crisis were just around the corner.

And Republicans also spent years denouncing Obamacare as a tyrannical job-killer, while they’ve barely mentioned the significant expansion in Obamacare that is contained within the Biden proposal.

So what’s different this time?

There are probably several reasons Republicans are having a hard time making the case against Biden’s policies. I’ve written before that pandemic relief may simply be an easier, more intuitive sell than Keynesian economic stimulus. And Republicans may be paying a price for their past hypocrisy, moving from calling debt an existential threat under Obama to ignoring it under Trump.

I also suspect, although I don’t have solid evidence, that the Republican Party is finally paying a price for its wonk gap — its disdain for expertise on, well, everything, which has effectively driven experts out of the party.

The truth is that Republicans haven’t listened to experts for a long time. Just ask Dr. Fauci. But the party used to have people who could at least act the part.

Remember Paul Ryan, former speaker of the House? He wasn’t actually a fiscal policy wonk — he was, in fact, an obvious flimflam man if you looked closely — but he was pretty good at playing a policy wonk on TV. It’s hard to think of anyone in the contemporary Republican Party who can even do that.

In fact, it’s even hard to think of anyone, aside from some Democratic policy wonks (!), who’s really hammering the case against Bidenomics. Who’s the face of Republican opposition to the American Rescue Plan? Nobody comes to mind.

Put it this way: Republicans appear to be losing the economic argument in part because they aren’t even bothering to show up.

One further thought: An unintended consequence of the Big Lie about the election may be that it undercuts Republican opposition to Democratic policy priorities. The right-wing media complex, vast as it is, has to deal with its viewers’ and listeners’ limited attention spans. Every hour spent promulgating conspiracy theories about election fraud and false-flag Antifa operations is an hour not spent frightening audiences about the imminent death of the dollar at the hands of Democratic big spenders.

So I guess the spectacle of widespread Republican support for the policies of a man they consider an usurper makes a weird kind of sense. But it has to involve a lot of cognitive dissonance; surely it can’t be sustainable over the years ahead.

What nobody knows is which way the dissonance collapses. Most private-sector economists now expect rapid economic recovery over the next year, probably combined with a vast sense of relief as the pandemic fades away. Will positive developments bring Republicans over to Biden’s side? Or will Republicans decide that all the good things happening are fake news?

The political future of America hinges on the answer.

Paul Krugman has been an Opinion columnist since 2000 and is also a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He won the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on international trade and economic geography. @PaulKrugman

1. Opinion | The Paradox of Pandemic Partisanship – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

At the beginning of this week, I wrote about the importance of asking the right questions.  The other critical part of solving complex problems is to use the data and science to guide policy decisions.  These are two of the biggest frustrations I experience on almost a daily basis.  You can pick up almost any newspaper or visit almost any news website and there will be an example of some legislator somewhere trying to implement some law or policy based, not on facts and data, but on personal prejudices and misinformation.

Two days ago in the Bozeman paper I read an article about one of our newly empowered Republican legislators pushing a bill to allow parents to ‘opt out’ of sex education classes.  This bill would require schools to “inform parents or guardians what will be taught in sex education classes.  Supporters of the bill have expressed concern over a so-called “progressive” agenda being taught in sex education curriculum.”¹  

These are the facts.  The United States has the highest per capita rate of teenage pregnancies of any industrialized country, by far.  “The teenage birth rate of the United States is about four times that of the European Union (EU) average.  Within the European Union, the highest teenage birth rates are found for UK and the new European Union members Bulgaria, Romania, and the Baltic States.  Extraordinary high levels are also reported for Ukraine, Macedonia, Russia, and Belarus.  By contrast, extremely low rates of teenage births are reported for Japan and Korea, for Switzerland, Netherlands, and Sweden. [ Low rates] were reported for Italy, Spain, Denmark, Finland, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Greece, Norway, Germany, and Austria.”² I looked at several studies and they all say essentially the same thing – the United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate of any industrialized nation. 

Parents are notoriously poor at talking to their kids about sex and sexual issues.  There is a myth out there that providing kids with robust sex education will result in every high school kid wanting to run out and have promiscuous sex all the time.   It’s completely and provably false.  The countries that have the lowest teenage birth rates are those countries that tend to have robust, accurate, informative sex education programs that are mandatory for students.   It has been demonstrated over and over again that students armed with accurate information are more likely to make responsible decisions.   This proposed legislation is just another example of misguided legislation that will not solve a problem but will make a bad situation even worse.

While I was researching this post, I came across a study³ showing teenage pregnancy rates broken down by states.  As you might expect, after a moment of reflection, the fact is that those states that are generally considered ‘red’ states (Republican) have the highest teenage pregnancy rates whereas those states generally considered to be ‘blue’ (Democratic) states tend to have lower teenage pregnancy rates.  There could not be a clearer example of how public policy which is not based upon facts and data, not only doesn’t solve the problem it purports to solve but it makes it worse.

The red states tend to be those states that are anti-abortion, want to put restrictions on sex education classes, and want to limit access to birth control and family planning services to people, especially teens.  The blue states tend to be for a woman’s right to make her own choice about abortion, encourage robust sex education programs in the schools and support wide access to birth control and family planning services.  The US has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the industrialized world and the red states are the worst offenders within the US.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to look at the data to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

So, I have news for all of the legislators who are using our tax payer dollars to push all of these ridiculous laws.  You can pass as many laws as you like to restrict abortions.  Women will still find a way to have abortions.  The only question is how many women will die in the process.  You can pass as many laws as you like to restrict access to robust sex education classes.  Teenagers will still have sex and the less information they have, the higher the probability an unwanted pregnancy will result.  You can pass all the laws you want to restrict access to birth control and family planning services for teenagers and they will still have sex, although with a much higher probability of having unsafe sex resulting in either an STI or an unwanted pregnancy.  

You can either start living in the real world and make laws and policies that reflect reality or you can continue to live in a fantasy world and make laws based upon wishful thinking.  Unfortunately, wishful thinking doesn’t generally solve real world problems.   The Republican party is hell bent on dragging the US back into the 1950’s while the rest of the world marches forward.  I think the new party slogan for the Republicans should be, “Don’t confuse me with the facts!”

1. Page A3 | E-Edition | bozemandailychronicle.com
2. Teenage Pregnancies: A Worldwide Social and Medical Problem | IntechOpen
3. Teen Pregnancy Rates by State 2021 (worldpopulationreview.com)

I wrote a whole article that I was going to post today and I decided not to post it.  It wasn’t that controversial (at least in my way of thinking) but I just decided to write something different and, I hope, more positive.  I think we could all use a little more positivity and inspiration these days.  I’ve been kicking around some ideas about one or more extended trips overseas and I keep coming back to the same question, “Why not?”  I then read something that made it seem like that question was even more important.  “Life begins at the edge of your comfort zone.”  I love that.  We all seem to get trapped in our comfort zones.  We have some grand idea about something and when we get to the edge of our comfort zone, we often fail to take the next step.  Why not?

There was an article on one of the news sites yesterday about a young woman who will be a passenger on a civilian space flight on the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule potentially late this year.  The young woman, Hayley Arceneaux, is 29 which will make her the youngest American to fly in space.  What is even more remarkable is that she had bone cancer when she was 10 years old and was a patient at St. Jude’s hospital.  While there, they implanted metal rods in the bones of her left leg as part of the treatment.  She is now cancer free and actually works at St. Judes as a physician’s assistant.

The whole mission is being funded by billionaire, Jared Isaacson.  He is the founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments.  Hayley will be one of four people on board.  The crew will consist of Isaacson, Hayley Arceneaux, and two others who have yet to be named.  He said he wants to assemble a crew of people whose stories inspire people.  Isaacson is also committed to giving $100 million to St. Judes, which treats pediatric cancer patients free of charge.  The mission will be called “Inspiration 4”.

When Hayley was approached about the opportunity she answered ‘yes’ in very short order, even after being encouraged to ‘sleep on it.’  One can only imagine what was going through her head as she stood on the edge of her comfort zone but, ultimately, she asked, “Why not?” and took the next step.  In my mind, she exemplifies the difference between living and staying warm and cozy in her comfort zone.  What an opportunity.

I know in my own life, almost every time I have forced myself to step outside of my comfort zone, the experience has been extremely rewarding and memorable.  Even the ‘bad’ adventures are things you can look back on at some point and laugh about.  But more often than not, the adventures have been well worth whatever discomfort and fear had to be overcome initially. 

Many years ago, an opportunity presented itself to me that took me way outside of my comfort zone and it turned out to be one of the best and most rewarding experiences of my life.  I had been doing quite a few 10K runs and smaller triathlons when I saw some information about how you could enter a lottery to earn a place in the Ironman race in Hawaii (2.4-mile ocean swim; 112-mile bike ride; 26.2 mile run).  Most people got into the race by qualifying in the various age groups but, at that time, they still had a few places that were available by lottery.  On a whim I entered.  I didn’t even tell my wife at the time.  I just did it and then pretty much forgot about it.

About three months later, in early May, I received a very thin letter from the Ironman Race.  I was sure it was a one-page rejection letter.  I opened it and saw the words, “Congratulations, you have been selected as a participant in this years Ironman Race.”  I was stunned.  I had never, ever done anything as grueling as an Ironman race.  The race was in October so I had about 5 months to train for the race.  I told me wife and things just started snowballing.  I was both excited and terrified.

Arriving in Kailua-Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii was extremely intimidating.  I was surrounded by world class athletes and age group athletes who had actually qualified for this race.  I was just there via some fluke of luck.  I was so far out of my comfort zone that I could have been on another planet.   To make a long story short, I finished the race well ahead of the cutoff time.  I was exhausted, sore and my feet were trashed but I survived and that was my only real goal.  It was one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had. 

So, now when I read about people like Hayley Arceneaux who jumped at the chance to take a ride on a rocket, or the American woman I just read about who, at the age of 70 up and moved to Greece to live full time, and I reflect back on some of the times I have pushed my own comfort zone or some of the things I am contemplating doing in the future, I realize even more that ‘life begins at the edge of your comfort zone’.    

Looking back over my life I realize that most of the regrets I have are not from the times I went beyond my comfort zone.  They are, by far, those times when I was too afraid to push that door open and walk on through.  I’m not saying everyone needs to ride a rocket, move overseas or do an Ironman.  But it’s far too easy for all of us to get trapped in our comfort zones and fail to fully experience this buffet know as life.  So, the next time you’re thinking about doing something and it takes you right up to the edge of your comfort zone, think about people like 29-year old cancer survivor, Hayley Arceneaux, soaring through space, then kick the door open and walk on through.  Why not? 

1. 29-year-old cancer survivor to launch on SpaceX flight promoting St. Jude hospital – CBS News

The ‘Big Lie’ won’t die!  You have to ask yourself why this widely debunked myth of ‘widespread voter fraud’ won’t die.   Multiple courts, both Republican and Democratic election officials in all 50 states and even the DOJ have stated that there is no evidence of wide spread voter fraud.   So why won’t this big lie fade away?  The sad fact is, it’s useful for those that continue to propagate it, although some will find out that it does have a cost.

Trump continues to push this big conspiracy theory for two main reasons.  There is, of course, his fragile ego that won’t allow him to admit any kind of defeat – ever! However, and probably more importantly, he has found that it is a very useful fundraising mechanism.  Trump will be speaking at the CPAC (Conservative Action Political Convention) this weekend and he will certainly continue to propagate this lie.  He will even tease about a potential run for the 2024 election, even though I think he has no intention of actually doing it.  The fact is, he needs the money and, as long as he can perpetuate ‘the big lie’ and a new lie about a potential presidential run in 2024, people will continue to fill his piggy bank.    It was P.T. Barnum who is alleged to have said, “Many people are gullible and we can expect that to continue.”  Trump has proven he is one of Barnum’s biggest disciples.

What I was having a really hard time understanding for a while was why a lot of other Republicans continue to push ‘the big lie,’ as well.  And then it dawned on me. As long as the Republicans can get people to believe the big lie, i.e., that there was wide spread voter fraud, the easier it will be to pass laws to restrict voter access in the name of ‘voter security.’   There are currently multiple efforts in multiple states to pass laws to ‘enhance voter security’ which are really designed to restrict voter access.   And these laws will, in many instances, disproportionately affect people of color.  This is not a coincidence.  This is by design.

If the Republicans admitted that the election was conducted legitimately and there was virtually no evidence of widespread voter fraud, then it would make zero sense for them to be passing the laws they are passing.  However, as long as they keep ‘the big lie’ alive, they can justify what they are doing in the name of ‘election security’, even though, it really has nothing whatsoever to do with election security.  It is, quite frankly, a fraud being perpetrated on the American voting public.

And speaking of fraud, it seems like the emperor might soon be looking for something to wear.  Yesterday the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s last bid to keep his tax returns and associated documents from being turned over to the Manhattan District Attorney in his ongoing probe of Trump and the Trump organization.  If Trump has nothing to hide, one has to wonder why he has spent the last four years desperately trying to keep these documents hidden.  I doubt we will have to wonder for much longer.  I suspect several things will ultimately be revealed.  I think it is a near certainty that Trump is not nearly as wealthy as he has claimed to be.  I think that he could very well be the first ex-president indicted for financial crimes such as – tax evasion, bank fraud, and potentially even money laundering.  He has already been named as an ‘unindicted co-conspirator’ in the crimes for which his former attorney, Michael Cohen, went to prison.  He will probably be named now.  He is going to be paying a lot of money in legal fees to defend himself against the numerous legal actions headed his way.  These include:

1. The New York attorney general’s office is looking into how the Trump organization valued its assets.

2. Defamation lawsuits from E. Jean Carroll and Summer Zervos.

3. A fraud lawsuit filed by Trump niece Mary Trump.

4. A possible charge of incitement by the DC attorney general for Trump’s role in the January 6 riot at the US Capitol.

5. Two investigations into Trump’s attempts to pressure Georgia elected officials to overturn the state’s election results.¹

Since Trump can not longer use the presidency as a legal shield, I believe that his retirement is going to get very complicated very quickly and which is why I think another run for political office is not in the cards for Trump.

Not only will Trump be busy fighting a lot of legal ‘alligators’ but some of his most ardent and dedicated supporters will also be donating large sums of money to their legal counsels.  Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and now, Mike Lindell (My Pillow guy) have all been slapped with $1.3 billion lawsuits by Dominion, the company that manufacturers voting machines.   Giuliani, Powell and Lindell were among the most vocal propagators of ‘the big lie,’ and now they will be paying a price.   Do you think that Trump will use some of the millions of dollars he has received via his leadership PAC to be used to help these supporters with their own legal bills?  Fat chance.  They will join the long list of former Trump supporters who have either been cut loose and disavowed or are viewing the world from under the bus.  In Trump world, loyalty is a one-way street.

While the Trump presidency wasn’t very good for America in general, when you look at all of the people around Trump and Trump himself, it has been a huge boon to the legal profession.  I wonder how much money has been spent by Trump and all of his corrupt cohorts on legal fees during the last five years?  I’m sure the number would be mindboggling.   What a legacy and what a waste. 

1. Trump tax returns: Yes, the former president is in very real legal jeopardy – CNNPolitics

“Does this make me look fat?”  How many of us have heard someone say this or perhaps we’ve uttered it ourselves?  The real hard question that should be asked when looking in the mirror is, “Am I overweight?”  If so, “why?”  “What am I going to do about it?”  I know that I have certainly been guilty of falling into the trap of not being willing to ask the hard questions about myself and my life from time to time.  But the fact is, in general, the most important part of solving a problem is to ask the right questions and deal with reality rather than a fantasy world conjured up in our minds.

I read something in the paper yesterday morning that reinforced my belief that it’s going to be very difficult to solve some of the biggest problems facing this country because we, as a society, often refuse to ask the right questions.  I will be the first to admit that asking the hard questions is often uncomfortable because many times the answers either don’t agree with our preconceived notions or just plain force us to look at ourselves in a way that we don’t like.   But failing to ask those questions will not allow us to solve the problems, either personally or as a society.

Republican legislators in Oklahoma and in other areas of the country are pushing legislation to stop protestors from blocking roads and proposing increased penalties for demonstrators who run onto highways and LEGAL IMMUNITY FOR DRIVERS WHO HIT THEM.   This stems from the Black Lives Matter protests that occurred las year.  Think about that a minute.  If protestors are on a road and a car plows into them, the driver will have immunity.  One can only imagine the carnage that could ensue.  Of course, there will be those that agree that if protestors are in the way, they deserve whatever is coming to them, including getting run over by a car because the driver can do so with impunity.

The reason that this type of legislation will create way more problems than it solves is simply because the people behind it refuse to ask the right questions.  The question is not, “How can we stop people from protesting and blocking roads?”.  The question is, “Why are the people protesting to begin with?  Passing a law to increase penalties for protestors and make it essentially ‘open season’ for drivers will only exacerbate the underlying problem.   

The Black Lives Matter protests were in response to the continued, and seemingly unending, brutality and senseless deaths of people of color at the hands of police across the country.   That is the problem that needs to be addressed.  The problem is one of systemic racism and passing laws allowing drivers to run over protestors with impunity will not only not solve the problem, it will make it worse.  Just what do you think will happen if there are some BLM protestors peacefully blocking a road somewhere and some overzealous white person runs over and kills or injures some of those protestors?  Talk about pouring gas on a fire.  The thinking behind these proposed laws is just mind-boggling. 

Another prime example in the news these days is the debacle in Texas.  The blame game started almost immediately and, given the public statements from the governor on down it doesn’t seem likely that the public officials in Texas will be very interested in asking the hard questions as to why this infrastructure meltdown really occurred and what actions need to be taken to ensure it doesn’t happen again. 

Rather than asking the hard self-reflecting questions like, “Was it smart to not tie the energy system in Texas into the national grid?”  “Given that there are wind turbines operating in much harsher environments than Texas (Montana for example), did we do enough to winterize our turbines?”  “Since wind turbines only account for a fraction of Texas’ energy output, what happened to the rest of the infrastructure based on fossil fuel?”  “Given that climate scientists have been predicting things like this for years, did we take adequate steps to be prepared?”  “What realistic steps do we need to take now to be prepared for a recurrence?”¹

Of course, the best recent example is the whole presidential election fiasco.  Rather than Republicans sitting back and asking, “Why didn’t more people vote for our candidate?”, they went down the rabbit hole of voter fraud and rigged elections.   And now, in many of the states they lost, the ‘solution’ is to implement laws restricting voter access for the next election.  Restricting voter access will not increase the number of people who will vote for their candidate.   The demographics of the country will continue to work against this strategy.  If the Republicans (and the Democrats as well) really want to increase the long-term viability of the party, they need to ask the right questions and develop strategies to solve those problems. 

The only way that hard problems are going to get solved is for all of us, but most of all, our political leaders to be able to ask the hard questions.  Failure to do that is just continuing to more lipstick on the pig.  And sooner or later we’re going to run out of lipstick!

1.  How Texas’ Drive for Energy Independence Set It Up for Disaster – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Today as I was adjusting to my new sight, I was still under ‘take it easy’ orders so I was doing exactly that.  I decided to watch the landing of Perseverance, the latest Mars probe.  It was streaming live (as live can be when the action is really 127 million miles away and there is an 11-minute delay in communications) on the NASA site with all of the ‘play by play’ you’d expect from an NFL game.  When you watch all of this on TV, it’s sometimes difficult to really comprehend what you’re watching until you stop and think about it.    

The probe, Perseverance, was originally launched July 30^th of last year.  Even though this is the fifth Martian probe that the US has successfully landed on the Red Planet, it is still a bit mind-boggling to think about just getting a probe there, let alone getting it to land softly on the Martian surface.  The earth is hurtling through space at about 67,000 mile/hour.  Mars is moving through its orbit at about 54,000 miles/hour.  Both Mars and Earth are also rotating about their axes.  And we were able to launch a rocket 6 ½ months ago to not only intersect Mars’ orbit but to land a probe at a specific place on the surface of the planet.  The technology to do this is just mind bending.

Perseverance is the most technologically advanced probe yet to land on Mars.  It even has a small helicopter named, Ingenuity, that it will use for scouting terrain.  It will be extracting coring samples that will eventually be returned to earth for analysis to see if there are any signs of previous microbial life on Mars.  There will be numerous cameras and there are even a couple of microphones on this rover.  The whole thing is just amazing.  What is even more amazing is that the team that did this had to do so while working remotely at JPL because of the Covid pandemic. 

This was a really, really hard problem to solve and it took the combined resources of NASA, JPL, the European Space Agency, and hundreds of people working together toward a common goal through very adverse conditions to make this a success.  It begs the question, why do we find it so difficult to solve some of the more mundane yet challenging problems that are facing our country?  The clear answer is politics.

Having spent most of my career working on complex defense programs, sometimes in very challenging environments, I am sure, based upon that experience, that during the course of developing the latest Mars probe and landing it safely on the planet, there were many, many opinions expressed along the way about how to solve a specific problem.  I suspect that some of the team meetings that took place along the way got fairly heated with people championing different approaches to solving a problem.  But in the end, once the team had hammered their way through the various approaches and settled on an approach, everyone got on board and they were all focused on the success of the mission.  There is just no room for politics when you are trying to land a rover on a planet that is 130 million miles away.  It has to work.

There are those, of course, who would argue that the entire space program is a waste of government funds and we shouldn’t spend these billions of dollars on putting rovers on Mars.  These are probably the same people who would have told Magellan to stay home or insisted the Lewis and Clarke not leave St. Louis.  But, beyond that, I would argue that you could take the entire NASA budget and give it back to the government and none of the problems that you’d like to see solved would actually be solved. 

The point is that we, the richest country in the world (at least for the time being) have the brain power, the technology and the financial resources to solve some of the huge problems facing this country but we are stuck in a quagmire of divisive politics, corporate greed, and just plain ignorance. 

The development of the Covid vaccine was a perfect example of what can be accomplished when resources are mobilized, people are focused and politics get out of the way.   The debacle of how the virus was initially handled in this country and the subsequent polarization around CDC guidelines regarding masks, social distancing, and gatherings is the exact opposite of how to solve complex problems because politics got in the way. 

Until such time that our politicians and our citizens start acting more like the teams that put Perseverance on Mars and less like enemies, we are doomed to continue to fail in solving some of the existential problems facing our children and grandchildren.  It is OK to disagree and for people to offer differing approaches to solving problems.  Sometimes it is possible and/or preferable to find a compromise solution.  However, it is not OK to sabotage a mission if your particular solution is not the one chosen. 

Perseverance landed successfully on Mars because of teamwork, adequate resources, listening to multiple points of view followed by compromise during the design and testing phases, and an unwavering focus on mission success.  The Congress and the American public could learn a lot – but we won’t.