The R.I. native says, "There's not a male act out there that sounds like me ... I honestly feel like there's a lane for me."
What's next for Billy Gilman?
The 28-year-old Rhode Island singer, a former child country star, is back in the state after his stint on the NBC singing competition "The Voice," where he came in second to country/soul singer Sundance Head.
Gilman sang before millions of viewers — about 12 million watched "The Voice" finale — and dazzled many listeners with the purity and power of his voice. Now it's a question of converting all that exposure into a career. Or, in Gilman's case, a second career.
"It's quite the crazy train, right this second, trying to figure all that out," Gilman said in a phone interview. He's battling a virus, so the voice that brought him this far wasn't functioning well. But Gilman's singing work is done, for the moment.
Gilman said his next objectives are to make a new album and go on tour. His long-range ambitions are lofty — he wants to be a male version of British pop sensation Adele.
"There's not a male act out there that sounds like me ... I honestly feel like there's a lane for me. On 'The Voice,' I felt like I was singing the songs I was meant to sing," he said.
Gilman said he's already heard from some record companies. A "huge" pop producer, whose name he can't reveal, wants to talk to him. And he said "The Voice" itself might be in the mix, because they still have an option to work with Gilman.
He said he was not disappointed to come in second to Sundance Head.
"Honestly, I'm glad I didn't win. Because if you win, 'The Voice' has a lot of control over your future," Gilman said. "I wanted to go as far as the winner, but then have the freedom the winner doesn't always have."
Although victory on "The Voice" comes with $100,000 and a record deal, in its past 10 seasons, the show has failed to propel any of its winners to stardom.
Gilman said one reason for that might be that the show moves on from its past winners very quickly; "The Voice" is already shooting the "blind audition" portion of its 2017 season.
In the meantime, Gilman has his first post-"Voice" gig lined up, a Jan. 28 concert at Veterans Memorial Auditorium that has already sold out the 1,933-seat Providence theater. Gilman said a second show may be added. He's also going to perform at the Washington County Fair this summer, returning to the venue he played as a child.
Gilman said that when he was approached by "The Voice," he was reluctant to appear. He had been dropped by his major record label, Sony Nashville Music, in 2003, and has mostly struggled to revive his career ever since.
"I was scared that America didn't want to see me again," he said.
Sarah Potenza, a North Smithfield native, appeared on "The Voice" in 2015, but she didn't make it as far as Gilman. She said the two met once at a conference in Nashville, where Gilman asked her if "The Voice" was worth doing. She said it was.
Now she has more advice: Take a long nap, spend time with loved ones, get yourself some good Italian food. Then it's time for some choices.
"You have to make hay while the sun shines," she said. "Some really great opportunities are going to come to [Gilman] ... you need to figure out what your ultimate goal is, and then work backwards from there. It's still a lot of hustle, because once you're off the TV, you're off the TV."
Gilman said "The Voice" is already a "gone moment" for him. He wants to live in the present.
But on the flight home from Los Angeles to Rhode Island, he took the time to listen to every song he sang on "The Voice." He liked what he heard.
"I've never been more proud of my consistency. It sounded like it could have been one record, like a single piece. I can rest knowing that the material was good," he said.


A little brown bat shows disease symptoms, which include lesions and a cotton-like fuzz covering the nose in this 2011 file photo.
Several people in the Bangor area handled a rabid bat with their bare hands last weekend, and public health authorities are seeking the public's help in identifying those who might have handled it. They likely need rabies post-exposure shots.
The live bat was found in the vicinity of the Shaw House, the youth shelter located at Union and First streets, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. It was passed among several individuals who handled it with their bare hands in several locations in the Bangor area March 16 and 17.
Ann Rivers, director of the Acadia Wildlife Foundation in Bar Harbor, has been involved in helping to find the 10 to 12 people who may have handled the bat without wearing gloves. The bat was taken to Rivers' rehabilitation center and the decision was made to test it.
After it was killed, the bat tested positive for rabies at Maine's Health and Environmental Testing Laboratory, the CDC said Friday. Those who had direct skin contact with the bat, and did not wear gloves or use a cloth or other barrier, are at risk of acquiring rabies.
Bats that exhibit unusual behavior — including being easily approached, active during the day or unable to fly — could be infected with rabies, according to the Maine CDC. Most bats do not have rabies.
Rivers said Friday that just one in 10,000 bats gets rabies. Bats contract the virus by being bitten by a rabid animal. Injured bats and bats found in homes often are dropped off at the foundation, she said.
Rivers said it has been difficult tracking down the people who handled the bat because they are believed to be part of Bangor's homeless community. In addition to spreading the word at the city shelters and soup kitchens, churches that offer free meals once a week were enlisted to try to find people who handled the animal.
Rabies is fatal but preventable if treated without delay after exposure. Individuals who had direct skin contact with the bat should start rabies prophylaxis as soon as possible, the Maine CDC said. The treatment includes two injections: one with human rabies immune globulin and the rabies vaccine.
Rivers said that people may receive treatment at no cost.
Rabies is spread when infected animals bite or scratch another animal or person. The virus can also be spread if saliva or tissue from the brain or spinal cord gets into broken skin or the mouth, nose or eyes.
To help prevent the spread of rabies, the CDC recommends that people never touch a wild animal or any unfamiliar animal.
The CDC is requesting that those who had direct skin contact with a bat in the Bangor area during the weekend of March 16 and 17 contact their health care provider to discuss the risks and determine if they need to be treated. They can also call the CDC at 800-821-5821.
People who find injured bats or other animals may call Rivers for advice at 207-288-4960.


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Premier league final day: Betting Info, Match Stats, TV Schedule and more
Jamie Styles
24 / 07 / 2020 • 5 min read
With the Champions League and relegation spots yet to be confirmed, there's bound to be drama when the 2019/20 Premier League season comes to a close on Sunday. Here's all you need to know ahead of the Premier League final day.
What still needs to be decided?
Two months later than scheduled and with no fans in the stands, Sunday will see the curtain finally come down on the 2019/20 Premier League season. Liverpool may have already been crowned champions but there is still plenty to be decided at both ends of the table on the final day.
Just one point separates Manchester United and Chelsea from Leicester in the battle for a top four spot. The Foxes face United on the final day in what is effectively a straight shoot-out for Champions League qualification. Chelsea will hope to pick up all three points at home to Wolves, although it will be no easy task, especially with Nuno Espírito Santo's side locked in a battle of their own to secure a Europa League spot.
Meanwhile, two from Aston Villa, Watford and Bournemouth will join Norwich in the Championship next season. Villa go to West Ham, who have already guaranteed their safety, while Watford and Bournemouth face tough trips to Arsenal and West Ham respectively.
Premier League final day TV schedule
All 10 matches on the final day of the Premier League season kick-off at the same time of 4pm, and you'll be spoilt for choice with every game to be shown live on TV.
Arsenal v Watford – Sky Sports
Burnley v Brighton – Sky Sports
Chelsea v Wolves – Sky Sports
Crystal Palace v Spurs – Sky Sports
Everton v Bournemouth – Sky Sports
Leicester v Man Utd – Sky Sports
Man City v Norwich – Pick
Newcastle v Liverpool – BT Sport
Southampton v Sheffield Utd – Sky Sports
West Ham v Aston Villa – BT Sport
With some teams already 'on the beach' and others with little reason to play defensively, the final day of the season traditionally produces significantly more goals than the average throughout the rest of the season. 36 goals were scored on the final day last term. That's an average of 3.60 goals per game, compared to the seasonal average of 2.82.
Expected Goals (xG) can give you an edge in football betting. Check out this article for more information.
Match Facts
Arsenal v Watford
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored twice in Arsenal's 2-2 draw at Vicarage Road earlier this season and has found the back of the net against the Hornets on a further two occasions.
Burnley v Brighton
Since their first Premier League campaign in 2017/18, no side has had more 0-0 draws in the competition than Brighton (11).
Chelsea v Wolves
Chelsea have won eight of their 11 Premier League fixtures against Wolves, losing twice and drawing once.
Crystal Palace v Spurs
Spurs' last four final day league fixtures have produced 27 goals – almost seven goals per game.
Everton v Bournemouth
Everton have won all four of their Premier League home games against Bournemouth, netting 12 goals in the process.
Leicester v Man Utd
United have won 18 of their 27 top-flight meetings with the Foxes, drawing seven and losing just twice.
Man City v Norwich
City's only defeat in their past 11 final day Premier League games came at home to Norwich in 2012/13.
Newcastle v Liverpool
Mohamed Salah has been involved in five goals in his last four Premier League games against Newcastle (4 goals, 1 assist).
Southampton v Sheffield Utd
Saints have lost just one of their eight matches since the restart, taking 15 points out of a possible 24.
West Ham v Aston Villa
Aston Villa haven't won their final league match in any of the past eight seasons, drawing two and losing six.
The race for the Golden Boot
Jamie Vardy goes into the final day in pole position to claim his first Golden Boot. Danny Ings is hot on his tail, however. The in-form Southampton striker needs a brace against Sheffield United to equal Vardy's tally, assuming he blanks against United.
How to bet on the Premier League final day action
If you fancy a bet on any of the final day action, then look no further! Simply log in to your BetConnect account on Sunday morning and we'll have you covered with best bookmaker odds on all of your usual markets. If you haven't already got an account, you can sign up here or for more information, check out our How it Works page.
Warning: Although the live prices, odds and other data provided on this site is sourced from "live" feeds provided by third parties, you should be aware that this data may be subject to a time delay and/or be inaccurate. Betconnect Ltd provides no warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or timeliness of such data and accepts no responsibility for any loss (direct or indirect) suffered by you as a result of your reliance on it. If you rely on this data to place bets, you do so entirely at your own risk. The Betconnect Rules for Bet Settlement apply for all bets.
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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — It has been 50 years since two scientists found landmark evidence for the Big Bang theory.
Robert Wilson and Arno Penzias were using a large horn antenna at Bell Labs in New Jersey to gaze into the Milky Way. What they found, however, let them peer back 378,000 years after the Big Bang. The two scientists eventually found a cosmic fog that permeates the universe in every direction. Called the cosmic microwave background, it is a signature of the Big Bang that formed just after the universe began 13.8 billion years ago.
When Wilson and Penzias started using the horn antenna, it registered higher-than-expected temperatures. At first, they thought pigeon droppings on the inside of the antenna caused the anomaly.
Wilson and Penzias cleaned out the antenna and sent the pigeons to a bird fancier, who released them. The pigeons then came back and started nesting inside the instrument again, and eventually, the birds were shot to keep them from continuing to nest in the antenna.
After ruling out pigeon poop as a possible cause for the higher-than-expected temperature, Wilson and Penzias landed on their landmark theory that the cosmic microwave background radiation, a remnant of the Big Bang, was actually causing the higher readings.
Wilson and Penzias never had the "Aha!" moment that many scientists experience when making a huge discovery, Wilson said. At first, they didn't take cosmology seriously because it hadn't produced any solid scientific results up to that point. But after meeting with other scientists, Penzias and Wilson were won over by the idea of the Big Bang.
"There was no 'aha' moment with this discovery. There was a long period of trying to get to the bottom of our problem," Wilson said here at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics on Feb. 20. "The importance of the discovery really only became clear over time. It became clear as theory was developed and as receivers got better so that one could look farther into the background and see something more than just a completely featureless picture."
"My expectation is that this would be primitive life," Loeb said.
The term "Big Bang" doesn't always refer to the same time in the history of the universe. Many scientists think that the Big Bang references the violent beginning of the universe and everything in it; however, the term is more complicated than that, said MIT theoretical physicist Alan Guth.
The term "Big Bang" "is a bit vague," Guth said. "People use it in all different ways," he added. "Some people use 'Big Bang' to mean the ultimate origin of the universe, whatever that was. That would have to come before inflation. I usually think of inflation as the precursor of the Big Bang, defining Big Bang as the period of enormous expansion that we study."
Because the universe seems to be expanding at an increasing rate, eventually, observers will not be able to see any other galaxies from Earth or any other spot in the Milky Way. Galaxies are moving away from one another, and the galaxies that are farther away look like they are moving more quickly than ones that are closer.
"We will see distant galaxies moving away from us, but their speed is increasing with time," Loeb said. "So, if you wait long enough, eventually, a distant galaxy will reach the speed of light. What that means is that even light won't be able to bridge the gap that's being opened between that galaxy and us. There's no way for extraterrestrials on that galaxy to communicate with us, to send any signals that will reach us, once their galaxy is moving faster than light relative to us."
At some point in the distant future, every galaxy will be farther than what observers can see from Earth. Each galaxy will pass the visible horizon, making it impossible for scientists to observe them.
"That's an outcome of the accelerated expansion of the universe," Loeb said. "All the galaxies that we currently see will eventually run away from us at a speed greater than the speed of light, and we won't be able to see their whereabouts after this time."


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Even A Broken Clock
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Thomas Beckett and Donald Trump
December 16, 2019 evenabrokenclock10Leave a comment
"Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" This statement, changed slightly over the centuries, was attributed to King Henry II of England in 1170 A.D. While not explicitly ordering someone to go out and murder the Archbishop of Canterbury, that indirect request caused four knights to travel to the cathedral where they murdered Thomas Beckett. It is perhaps the most famous example where actions were brought about due to the statements of a powerful man. Yet no one could hold the King as being directly responsible for the death. After all, he did not order anyone to commit the act. Still, the statement of this monarch was directly responsible for blood to be spilled.
Over the history of civilized man, the desires of the monarch have been put into action by those who wish to curry favor with those who hold power. It has been an implicit meme in our society, made resonant with all of the portrayals of the mafia kingpin whose utterances of a desire are carried out in deadly spays of lead. Yet the kingpin could claim clean hands, since his hand did not touch the gun that applied the fatal touch.
So now, with the current administration, we have a President who excels in indirect commands. You will not find his fingerprints on a decree requiring the Ukraine to publicly announce the commencement of investigations into allegations of malfeasance by those who wished the Don ill back in 2016. You will not find his voice recording explicitly stating that if the Don heard the dulcet magic phrases referring to the commencement of investigations, the Don could make life for Ukraine so much better. No, in the manner of those Mafia Dons of the past, this Donald made his wishes known by indirection. And since he did not explicitly state his must-haves, he could proclaim that his conversations were "perfect", and that he had done nothing wrong.
So thoroughly have his sycophants adjusted to life under the sway of this man, they race to face cameras where they chant the magic phrases of "no quid pro quo, conversation was perfect, nothing to see here, move along." The division of the country along party lines continues, and within the chamber that will serve as jurors, no one expects enough defections to result in the removal of the charlatan occupying the office of the Presidency. The sole question is whether enough Republicans will vote to convict to result in a bare majority of Senators agreeing that the egregious acts of this President deserve the ultimate constitutional rebuke. The entire nation will get to see the leader of the Supreme Court serve in a constitutionally-proscribed role as the Chief Justice. And we will get to see whether anyone even gives a crap about what is being discussed before them.
The one statement that Donald Trump made back in 2016, that he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any of his supporters, still rings true. Seeing all of his adoring throngs at yet another of his campaign rallies, watching interviews of these supporters either crying at the thought of the unfairness of Donald's persecution, or wax indignant about the unfairness of the process of impeachment, gives a glimpse into the mindset of those who still believe that this President is working on their behalf.
I never believed, as I grew up and learned about US history in school, that I would ever see an administration simultaneously so completely incompetent and corrupt. To those who believe that the unraveling of the decades of regulation is good, it is my sincere wish that you get to enjoy the fruits of environmental degradation in the years to come. I took part in the very first Earth Day. As I recall, we went around alleys in our city of Lincoln and helped to clean some stuff up. But that was back when Lake Erie was a dying, fetid pool of water. That was when a feeder stream to Lake Erie had enough hydrocarbons on its surface to burn. That was barely 20 years since deadly smog enveloped a town along the Monangahela river. My father-in-law was going to college only a few miles away from that environmental disaster. I was proud that through the combination of technology and regulation, we've been able to get to the point where the air and water in this nation are much cleaner than they were. But this President and this administration obviously views all environmental laws as an unjustified taking from the businesses which would flower once again if only they were freed from the dictates of Washington.
It has been said by those who apologize for this President's behavior, that we must judge this President by what he has done rather than by what he says. So, with that in mind, let me recite a few of the accomplishments of this administration.
Abandoned diplomacy by leaving many positions in the State Department unfilled, and denigrating many remaining employees as not being sufficiently faithful to the President.
Appointing many to Federal judgeships who were either designated as being unqualified, or appointing those whose positions lie at the extreme of the conservative spectrum.
Abandonment of scientific principles by pulling out of international agreements aimed at solving environmental problems.
Allowing meat processors to undergo self-inspection, with the role of Federal inspectors reduced to oversight, thus unleashing future disease outbreaks in the consuming public.
Implementing simplistic and incapable policies to control immigration and asylum on the southern border, resulting in the imprisonment of families and enforced separation of family members, with no plans to enable these families to reunite.
Undergoing naive diplomatic efforts (since we obviously don't need diplomats) thus worsening the situation in both Iran and North Korea.
Ensuring that those who were defrauded by for-profit educational institutions remain on the hook for the funds borrowed for their bogus education.
I could go on reciting the wonderful accomplishments of this administration, but at this time I do not see the point. For each of the points I list, there are some who say, yes, that is exactly what I wanted our Federal government to do. I wanted it to get out of the way of business and for us to reduce our involvement with international agencies. All I can say is that I hope those people enjoy their salmonella-enhanced diet, while former allies abandon us in future disputes, and while North Korea spreads its nuclear tentacles over the Pacific Ocean. And while the enhanced fires burn across our country, spreading smoke and dust into the lungs of hundreds of millions, those same people can dip their toes in the flooding along our eastern coastal cities that now occurs in synch with the lunar cycle. Maybe a little salt water intrusion will let them know that they indeed made the correct choice back in 2016.
Posted in Foreign policy, Government, PoliticsTagged Foreign policy, Government, Politics
Holding the Centre
October 17, 2019 evenabrokenclock10Leave a comment
W. B. Yeats wrote this in a poem 100 years ago today. His was the generation that fought, slogged, and bled through WWI. Yet the prescience of his words shine today like gems glittering on a crown crushed underneath the treads of some mechanized machine. Those who believe the world is not under the sway of evil forces and conspiracy theories are pushed aside in the public space by those who are convinced of the existence and omnipotent control of these malevolent actors. Those who are on the fringes of belief in this world are the most strident in proclaiming their thoughts, especially with the tools of the internet aiding and abetting their efforts.
Their efforts did succeed in the election of the current president of the US. He has since then worked to both confirm and fulfill the conspiracy theory beliefs. Most of the time this has caused significant damage to the world order. The one effort capable of causing the most permanent damage has been the unraveling of the international order. The institutions put in place by the US leadership in the post-war environment have undoubtedly cost much for the taxpayers of this nation. Yet the costs saved by not having destruction brought to our shores, were worth orders of magnitude more than what we had paid.
Today though, we face the hard truth that our position of privilege in the world order is at risk. Because of the misguided beliefs of the current President, his administration has systematically applied a sledgehammer to the institutions and relationships forming the foundation of the international order. Trade deficits with a country? They're cheating us. Tack on tariffs. Self-defense organization? Show me the money from the participants. They're cheating us, freeloading off of our hard-working taxpayers. A people fighting alongside of our troops, working to maintain a safe haven amidst a series of nations bent on eliminating their presence? They didn't fight with us at Normandy. Therefore it is perfectly fine to abandon them to the mercies of yet another despot found in Ankara.
As we climb out of the rubble-strewn remains of the international order after this President has completed his reign, we will have the difficult task of reconstructing the structures torn down as an act of vanity. One can only hope that the shards of the political system in this country will realize that there actually are things more important than party. There are truly existential crises we face, and if we keep punting them down the field, one day we will find that we've run out of room to kick. Reality will attack us, the laws of physics will strike, and we will find ourselves defenseless against the onslaught we've brought onto ourselves. One can only hope that the world can begin to rectify the problems we face without resorting to using our most destructive weaponry, because then we will really see what rubble looks like.
Like it or not, we have to act communally as a species. We do not have the luxury of being able to pretend we are an island unto ourselves, able to withdraw into our turtle shell and avoid uncomfortable interactions with those heathens living outside of our borders. Technology and population growth have conspired to ensure that we must face our problems together rather than as separate cells.
In the past 60 years, we've gained a perspective on our place in the universe. Photos from space have shown our planet is just a cosmic speck, and we are truly alone in our region of space. We've also gained the technology to show that though we can identify hundreds of exoplanets beyond our solar system, not one has shown itself to be capable of sustaining the type of life we take for granted. We should have gained the wisdom to realize we have to fix our problems by ourselves, since there will not be help provided from afar if we muck things up too badly on our planet. But rather than generating a movement to foster common action, we seem to be splintering into self-interested corners of our globe and putting up barriers against "others".
Damn it, we must look beyond the shallow appeal of ethno-nationalism and race-baiting. We must realize we are unique, and special, and humanity has much more in common than we differ. Let's throw off the shackles we keep trying to apply to ourselves, limiting our vision and reach. Let's work together to make this a truly wonderful planet, where all groups can work to achieve great things. Will it be easy? No, especially since the politics of opportunism seem to be replaying the events of the 1930's. But what we must all realize is that shared sacrifice is better than running headlong into a wall of warfare. The culture of Ayn Rand inspired greed has infected the US and the Republican party over the past few decades, and there is less appetite for communal action. It is now past time to reverse this trend.
A study of history (I know, that discredited tool of the elites) shows societies almost never fail by being taken over from without. Overthrow happens when there is a significant underclass that develops in a nation that does not share in the benefits of the society. The underclass eventually seizes control through normally bloody means. The recent elections showed the stirring under the surface that such an underclass is forming and will not put up with their continued neglect. Having elected one president who pandered to this underclass, but has not delivered on his economic promises despite his protestations about it being the best economy ever, they are likely to reach out for unreasonable hopes on the left side of the political spectrum. It is the center, where practical solutions to real problems exist, which will be pushed aside as ever more desperate hopes are expressed on both sides of the political spectrum. The energy on the right will reach out to engage the energy on the left, and those in the middle will be caught without their own hope of escape of the carnage unleashed upon society.
Posted in Government, PoliticsTagged Politics
The Silence of Sounds
September 30, 2019 evenabrokenclock10Leave a comment
Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
We've entered the darkness once again. The darkness of Mordor sprawls across the landscape, pouring out of its source in the now-fouled house of White.
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
The vision that has crept across this nation over the last few years is the stale vision of white superiority, the failed belief that European civilization is superior to any other version found across the globe. The seeds have found fertile ground and have sprouted.
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Within the sound of silence
The visions I have seen over the last few years can never be unseen. Children crying as they are separated from their family by a government that cared so little for them that they could not set up a system to eventually reunite parents with children. Humans crowded into chain-link cages. Lit tiki torches marching along Charlottesville streets, eliciting the famous "Good people on both sides" quote. And still the silence remains deafening from the Republican members of Congress.
In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
As in a trance, we march. No, not alone, but en masse, thousands and thousands in protest. The energy that we all had those first days. But as time passed, the momentum has slowed, while the acts of evil continue to spew from the powers wielded by this administration. It now seems that we do march alone, if at all, trying to stem the tide.
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by
The flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence
Every so often, something so egregious manages to break through the din of the mundane atrocities littering the landscape. It might be a joint meeting with Putin attended only by the principles and an interpreter. It might be a fawning show of sycophancy in the cabinet meeting where all pledged eternal devotion to this dour denizen of denial. It might be a report of an attempt to extort the leader of a nation into doing opponent research for his next campaign. Things so brazen, so outrageous, that I cannot but believe that this surely will break through the stone wall isolating his supporters from his true nature. But each time, I turn away disappointed as his spin control succeeds in removing the outrage from the nation's discourse.
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence
The cacophony emanates from the television shows. One side fawns, makes every excuse for the behavior, and claims the real villainy came from those who would deny his immense electoral victory. The other side squirms, is so eager to denounce the actions that they violate their journalistic ethics and report poorly sourced stories that are eagerly denounced by his supporters. Both sides talk over the other side, and no one is convinced or persuaded to change their opinion. Now the opposition is more interested in purity tests than it is in the nuts and bolts of selecting a candidate who can take down the tyranny spreading from its center.
"Fools", said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words, like silent raindrops, fell
And echoed in the wells of silence
I took up the mantle of a blog shortly after the election. I shared items of science, of daily life and the changing of the seasons, and politics. Lots and lots of politics. I enjoyed especially the pieces I put out that used satire to express a point. For a long time, I was part a forum where active discussion occurred on all types of posts. I enjoyed my "minor league forum" and was a respected poster and commenter. Then, the forum disintegrated, and I fell into a bit of a posting depression. It is difficult to continue to pour out your thoughts when you get little or no feedback. I have felt that my words were indeed, echoing in the well of silence.
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
The neon god that took over the office of the President represented all of the glitter and gloss that a celebrity could muster. Yet when all is said and done, there is no more substance there than a bunch of gas excited by an electrical current.
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said
"The words of the prophets are
Written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
Maybe Banksy has it right. All art is temporary, and the ephemeral nature of a painting on the side of a building is as good and as valid as any old Dutch masterwork from the Renaissance. Yet in this day of the 4-hour news cycle, where a provocation can be answered with a response and then superseded by the next outrageous announcement or act, maybe there is a place for things that have a little more substance, and stability. Maybe things like the Constitution have a place as guidelines for our body politic to do its job and not just either fawn in supplication, or wail and bemoan in protest. Maybe, just maybe, we should place duty to the nation ahead of party and take real action.
And whispered in the sound of silence"
Instead of Simon and Garfunkle, let's let William Shakespeare have the last word: It is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Words to the Sound of Silence copyrighted by Paul Simon.
Posted in Human Interest, PoliticsTagged Politics
The Making of Great America
July 15, 2019 evenabrokenclock102 Comments
Once upon a time, there was a great nation. This nation was great because it told itself it was great. It reckoned it had the divine right to push its boundaries from sea to shining sea, and if there happened to be a few inhabitants who already were living on the land, well, they just did not understand the divine right to be great, and they could be pushed aside. Cordoned off onto poor patches of land, stripped of their ancestral traditions of following the migratory herds, a defeated people found solace in the white man's whiskey, and still they suffer generations later.
Of course, it was agricultural might that first defined greatness. And in one portion of the continent, that agricultural might was lashed into existence upon the backs of the workers, descendants of those who were kidnapped and stacked in ships like cordwood, hopefully to survive the trip across the Atlantic. The fortunes of Southern gentlemen and ladies depended upon the forced labor of the original black gold. When a civil war was fought, it was only with the greatest reluctance that an appeal to morality was made to place the North on the side of the liberation of the slaves. Of course, once the war was over and slavery was outlawed, the nation's attention to the well-being of the former chattel was limited. Politics, you know. It was easier to withdraw from an occupation, and let the former slave states reenact their social order, only now under the charade of a free black population. Never mind that those free blacks were only free to rent a plot of land owned by the original aristocracy, and live in those hovels that were cobbled together. Some of these hovels I used to drive by as late as the 1970's, still occupied by those tied to the land by economic links as sturdy as the chains worn a century before.
Yes, we were a great nation. So great that we went a gross of years from the founding of the nation, until half of the population was allowed to vote. Even today we see remains of the sentiments against women's suffrage resurfacing. Online forums decry the liberalism represented by women's votes, as if white males held the absolute key to logic and reason. The attitudes that poisoned the nation's mind in the past still bubble in the nation's consciousness, now seasoned by those who troll the internet.
Yet, as a statement echoed by Dr. Martin Luther King shows, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." For even with the sins of the past still in living memory, this nation did do great things. It built an infrastructure linking every corner of the nation. It developed technologies that gave humanity freedom to travel across the globe. It created technologies that revolutionized how humanity communicated, and controlled the natural world. And once it became apparent that the new technologies had poisoned the air and land and water, it set about to reverse the poisoning and clean the environment. Long-standing evil was dealt with by legislation, and by applying Federal forces to oppose the remains of racism across this country. You may not be able to change the hearts of humans, but you can put in place a legal structure that limits the damage that human cruelty can cause.
This nation did mobilize and oppose the fascism that engulfed multiple continents in armed conflict in the mid 20th century. We truly became united and with the assistance of those damned Russian commies, made Europe whole again and eliminated the scourge of nationalism and ethnic purity. We also were generous in supporting western Europe in its reconstruction, developing structures that even today help to keep conflict at bay. But we found we needed an enemy in order to keep our military industries vibrant and profitable. We found it in communism, a variant of socialism deemed to be an existential threat. It was necessary to build immense inventories of incendiary devices which could rain down death and destruction on a scale unprecedented in human history. We had to build them to counter the ones that they built. Humanity's primal urge to provide security caused us to teeter upon the edge of extinction in order to satisfy all parties who worshipped at the trough of the war machine. Still, it was not enough. We had to engage our implacable adversaries in physical battles across the ocean, where the immediate stakes were unknown, but the mythology of the domino theory drove us to commit hundreds of thousands of soldiers to these front lines. And we found it useful (no, we said it was necessary) to support autocratic regimes in other sections of the world in order to prevent the spread of socialism.
We spread seeds across many different countries. The resulting crops have caused many of the problems we face today. From Iran, our support of the Shah grew a crop of religious fanatics who overthrew the existing order, and expressed their implacable enmity against us. Even today, forty years later, we cannot reconcile with the proud people of Iran due to the resentment we fomented by our support of a hated regime. In Central America, our support of those who opposed socialistic parties made it possible to counteract communism without spilling American blood. The crops that grew there though, have come to fruition in the weak regimes of the existing governments, and the growth of criminal gangs, directly resulting in a flood of migrants we struggle to contain. In Afghanistan, the band of religious fanatics we supported in the 1980's to oppose Russian invasion, still works against us as they strive to purify their country. Everywhere you look, this nation's acts of the past are brought back to us as the problems plaguing us in the present.
The veneer of civilization is thin. This nation is only about a week away from total chaos if our electric infrastructure is damaged. Yet our current administration believes we can and must abandon the interconnectedness of the world that offers the only hope of stitching together a global fabric of peace. It is long past the time when we could pretend that we could go it alone and maintain and yes, improve our standard of living. Yet the electorate fell for a bogus promise to return us to a state of supposed greatness in the past. And when that sentiment was released, we also released the barely buried racism and misogyny and ethnic nationalism that our veneer of civilization kept contained. Those who now call for a return to normality will be upset at how deep the damage the cult of Trump has inflicted.
There are signs of hope. Some politicians have called for sweeping change in order to address a host of interconnected problems. But since that change challenges the status quo, it is denounced and ridiculed. What is obvious is that we are in real danger of completing the bifurcation of this nation into warring camps, incapable of understanding each other, and not wanting to show any empathy for points of view other than their own. We will not become a great nation until we deal with the underlying flaws that we've buried over the decades. Seeing some of those flaws exposed in the past few years has been scary. This coming electoral cycle will show us which way this nation will go. May we choose the side offering hope for the future, instead of the side offering fear and division, just like we selected back in 2016.
Posted in History, PoliticsTagged Foreign policy, Politics
June 20, 2019 evenabrokenclock10Leave a comment
Now the evidence is in front of the world. The first response that came from the unhinged mouth of Donald Trump in response to the questioning of George Stephanopoulos reflected his true thoughts. Yes, he would accept information from a foreign source if he believed it would benefit him in his electoral quest. And his FBI director was wrong if he claimed that such activity was illegal. Even though his answer has been spun by others in his sycophantic circle as being not as bad as it appeared, and even though Donald Trump has qualified his answer with a claims that of course he would contact the FBI if approached by foreign actors, it is obvious that his first statement reflected his true belief. The laws concerning foreign interference in US elections are invalid, no one follows them, and everyone else is doing bad things. The belief system of Donald Trump was laid bare for all to see.
Except that a sizeable fraction of the US population refuses to see this. What seems to have happened is that amorality has taken hold of the American psyche, and enough people believe the ends justify the means to ensure that the abomination in office retains enough political influence to prevent his being removed from office. How is it that the party of the moral majority has become the party that accepts rampant corruption, moral depravity in its leader, and a foreign policy that is governed by how well a country is able to flatter this insatiable narcissist?
The problems that were supposed to be addressed by this President have instead grown worse and festered. Meanwhile, problems created by this President (pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal) or made worse by this administration (increased deficits in a time of relative economic strength), are sapping the strength of this nation and eliminating the willingness of the rest of the world to support our actions. Instead of increasing the respect for the US, the actions of this administration have caused our standing within the international community to be drastically weakened.
Still, a significant minority of this nation cling to the mantle of this toddler who holds the reins of power. They are still under the delusion that he is fighting for them, and cannot see the reality of his failed faux populism. Are there cracks in the façade? Perhaps. Even his stalwart broadcast partner Fox News has deigned to offer reality in their programming, providing polling results showing his trailing in the early race results. Of course, the Denier-In-Chief claims that he is leading in all of the polls in battleground states, but he doesn't use polling very much. Still, he'll fire his pollsters for good measure.
Well, it is far too early to place stock in the horse race aspect of the next election cycle. There will be ebbs and flows on the Democratic side, with prognosticators breathless in their analysis of whether the Democratic party is heading towards either socialist heaven, or staying smack dab in the centrist position, depending upon those all-important polling results. Unfortunately, no one seems to be addressing some of the major problems we do face as a nation. Instead of a credible plan for rebuilding our infrastructure, we will argue over the morality of college debt forgiveness. Instead of serious discussion about ways to reduce our ongoing deficits, we will only be talking about paying reparations for slavery and/or a basic income for all. Instead of discussing the crisis in the breakdown of ecological systems, we will argue over progressive ideals.
Look, I want someone to come out publicly and lay to bed the supposition that employer-provided health care is morally superior to that of government supported health insurance. I want someone to describe the existing subsidy that the tax codes provide already for employer-provided health care. The thousands of dollars already given to employees and their employers from the government due to the failure to consider insurance premiums as income, that is nearly as much of a government subsidy as are the subsidies given in the Affordable Care Act. Yet what do we have for this largess from the government? A system where the insurance middlemen serve in the role of death panels keeping recommended treatments away from the individuals who need them. A system where we pay almost twice what most other nations do in per capita expenditures and still suffer from horrendous deductibles that prevent usage of our morally superior insurance.
Yet so many of Trump's supporters still are invested in the myth of his working for them. They cannot see the chaos of his personality cult spilling out into inchoate international interactions, where unintended actions will sooner or later result in military action. The conspiracy theory believers refuse to accept the evidence of their eyes and ears, since they stopped listening when he told them to not believe what they see from anyone except the President. The personality cult has proven effective at closing the minds of so many of the President's followers. How can you effectively refute anything that goes against this administration when his follower's eyes and ears are closed? I saw an interview with someone who had finally heard someone enumerate the acts of obstruction laid out in the Mueller report. She admitted to having listened to only conservative media, and had never heard any word about the report other than it exonerated the President. You just cannot reason with people who are members of a cult.
It may just take military conflict with Iran to bring home the reality that this toddler is beyond his ability, and this incompetence will cost the lives of thousands or millions of lives. When the blood flows unnecessarily, the images of bodies mangled by ordinance – on both sides – just may convince Trump's diehard supporters that continuing their support could actually result in their dying hard.
Posted in Foreign policy, PoliticsTagged Politics
If You Can't Beat the Swamp, Join the Swamp
April 8, 2019 April 8, 2019 evenabrokenclock104 Comments
The spring sun warmed me as I sat on a park bench along the tidal basin. Too early for the cherry blossoms, when these environs would become overrun with thousands of rubberneckers admiring the gift of the Japanese in a simpler age. I wondered if my friend Slimey would make an appearance, but so far he had not showed himself, and I was about to leave myself.
Before I could get up, though, a tall gentleman in an expensive suit stood before me and stopped. It was obvious that the suit had to be extensively altered to allow the huge tail purchase to stick out through the back of the pants. "Slimey" I said, as I leapt to my feet to greet my friend.
"Well met," he said as he lurched over to sit on the end of the bench. "How do you like my new attire?" he asked.
Frankly, I was amazed. Having grown used to exchanging pleasantries with an 8-foot tall naked reptile did not make me immune from the surprise now at seeing him clothed, in a Saville Row suit. I managed to say, "You look ….. amazing. But why? And how?"
Slimey did not answer right away, but instead reached into his briefcase, where he extracted a fish filet wrapped in plastic. He shredded the plastic with a dainty swipe of his claw, then took in the tilapia whole. Licking his lips, he said "Those are so much better than the ones I used to find out there." He extended his claw towards the basin which was still and reflected the Jefferson Memorial across the water. Smiley continued. "I finally decided that this was my one chance to better myself. With this administration, if I couldn't fit in now, I never would. So I took a chance and submitted a resume, and, well, you can see the rest."
"But who? Who hired you? Where are you working?" I was still taken aback by the image of my friend who had invaded my above-water world.
"What was it they said in that old movie? Follow the money? Well, I did. I'm working for a lobbying firm."
I just had to let out a laugh. I felt comfortable enough around Smiley that I didn't fear his razor-sharp claws. Sure enough, he joined in rather than taking offense. "I just have to ask" I said. "What did you put in your resume to make them hire you?"
Slimey seemed to actually smile as he went into his briefcase again. He pulled out a single piece of paper that he handed over to me. I began to read:
"Single cold-blooded reptile accustomed to mucking about in the mud and mire of the Tidal Basin. Experienced in mud-slinging and dragging my opponents through the mud. Native born. Willing to get dirty as needed to get the job done." That was it. No educational references, no work experience. It was as close to a perfect resume as I had ever seen for the K Street crowd.
I said, "I can see why they would hire you based upon your credentials.
"True that," Slimey said as he picked at some morsel caught in his teeth with a sharpened claw. "But now that I'm on the inside, I must admit, I'm a bit disappointed."
"Why is that?" I asked.
"Well, I thought I was one cold-blooded monster. I found out they've got me beat six ways to Sunday. I have never seen such willingness to toss over a friend if someone else offers to pay more." Slimey stretched his arms in his grey suit. It was as if a field of flannel had taken flight as it moved past my field of view.
"What sort of jobs does your firm do?" I asked.
Slimey tossed back his head for a minute, then lowered it and answered. "Right now, I'm involved in trying to deregulate the entire meat industry. We believe it is only right for the meat producers to be the sole judge and jury as to whether their product is wholesome and fit for consumption."
Wow! Not only had he adopted the attire of K Street, he had internalized the arguments so that he now could recite the company line verbatim. I had to respond. "Don't you think there is any role for government oversight over such operations? I mean, isn't history replete with examples of meat packers who skirted the rules and caused all sorts of illnesses? And aren't the meat packers the biggest sources of worker injuries?"
Slimey was ready for me. "This is where I am so perfectly placed to serve my clients. You see, I can take the worst of their slop that comes out of their plants. It can have salmonella, it can have listeria, it does not matter. I can eat that stuff raw and clearly demonstrate that there is no adverse impact to consume their product. Actually, it tastes a lot better once it is sitting out in the hot sun for a few hours."
He paused for a moment. "It is true that there are a lot of worker injuries in the field. And you might have noticed that these plants seem to attract a lot of alien workers. Well, my clients are working on ways to reduce both of these problems."
Slimey reached into his briefcase for a heavily-laminated sheet. Before he showed it to me, he swore me to secrecy. "You must not reveal what I'm about to show you. You could take this information and make a bet on the stock market and make a fortune. It's that good."
"All right, I swear that I will not reveal this to anyone. I don't have enough money to even make a bet on Wall Street anyway." I used my finger to cross my heart.
Slimey turned the sheet over, and I saw the meat packing plant of the near future. At the front was a robot that killed the animal entering the facility by slicing off its head with a laser. The decapitated corpse tumbled onto the line, where another robot hoisted it up and hung it on a hook, dripping blood onto the floor. From that point on, pictures revealed a totally automated process, where what came in was a living being, and what left was packaged meat products, along with various offal offerings for non-human consumption. Plus a lot of skin ready to turn into leather. I was truly impressed.
Slimey was watching my reaction closely. Finally he asked, "What do you think? You get rid of the people, you get rid of the problems."
I realized where this discussion was heading, and even though I felt uncomfortable asking, I had to. "What's to prevent this type of facility to be used against people?"
Slimey paused for a moment, apparently intent on a piece of tilapia caught back in one of his molars. Then he turned his ponderous girth towards me, and smiled that reptilian grin that showed no true emotion. "You can't fight progress," he said.
I sat there, dumbfounded. My friend was now part of the deep state whose true purpose was to lead to the depopulation of the entire world. But, being the pragmatist I am, I said to Slimey, "If I were to make a wager on the future I've seen, how would I make that bet?"
Slimey slowly blinked one eye, slipped me a business card, and left.
Posted in Politics, SatireTagged lobbyists, Politics
The Dichotomy
March 13, 2019 evenabrokenclock10Leave a comment
There is a huge dichotomy in the US population. It has afflicted this nation for over 70 years, once it emerged onto the cultural stage. The birth pangs of the split were heard in the sounds of bebop jazz in the smoky clubs of the big cities after WWII. It was the antithesis to the charted arrangements of Big Band Jazz so beloved by true Americans. Bebop jazz begat Beat poetry and the Beatniks who emerged out of the some of the same underground urban cafes and bars in the 1950's. Both movements represented an expression of discontent against a stultifying culture crushing all non-conformity after the end of the great war.
Against the tiny fragment of the counterculture was the mass of American culture. Since the shared experience of WWII, a mythological vision of a sacred crusade was created, and was shared by the visual media. Movies reinforced this image, with the heroic sacrifices undertaken by American soldiers eventually overwhelming the powers of evil across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The new medium of television though, was the true glue of American culture, delivering the images evoking an era of American greatness. No societal problems emerged in the pristine suburban images of the white American family as they navigated through existential crises, such as how to recover from a burnt roast when the husband was about to bring home the boss for dinner. Teenage angst was a prime theme.
At the end of the 1950's, network television deigned to acknowledge the existence of the counterculture. The first beatnik character, Maynard G. Krebs, appeared with his bongos and love of bebop jazz. That he was portrayed as an object of ridicule was deliberate, since the majority of the audience couldn't identify with someone who didn't love Lawrence Welk as the epitome of popular music.
Simmering underneath the smooth surface of American culture, several trends ensured that America would never again be as homogenous. The huge bulge of demographics referred to as the baby boom took center stage. It brought overt licentiousness, made possible by the miracle of birth control. Finally youthful sexual energy could be exercised without the consequences of unintended pregnancy, and the shame that brought upon a respectable family. Meanwhile, an entire segment of society had reached their breaking point, and exerted their communal will in an attempt to escape from the cage of Jim Crow and its codes, both written and unwritten. And finally, there was the long trudge through the jungles of Viet Nam, where thousands died fighting against a shadowy enemy that never had the guts to take on our boys in a fair fight. The toll taken by this prolonged slaughter unleashed the children of the '50's to become the radicals of the '60's.
By the late 1960's, the split was spreading across society. On one side, there were those who were convinced that any dissent and protest against the social order was unpatriotic. They supported the government whole-heartedly, and jeered the long-haired hippies whenever they came into contact with them. The election of 1968 showed the split, where the Republican victor identified with the hard hat segment of the electorate. The Democrats were destined to wear the mantle of disorder sown in the streets of Chicago during their convention. The sides were now established, and the barriers between the sides became more rigid over the years.
Since the split emerged in the1960's, technology has aided and abetted its existence. The computer revolution enabled communication platforms to sprout prolifically. In particular, one segment of the political spectrum glommed onto the older technology of radio. With the decline in music listening on AM radio stations due to FM and new personal music devices, AM radio stations became the platforms for talk shows. A critical mass of listeners and participants found common ground, as they decried the immorality of society and the evil nature of government as it enforced its unpopular dictates. Soon the descendants of the hard hats of the 1960's found they were able to influence the Republican party, and formed a merger between the two groups. Since the traditional affiliation of Republicans with the capitalist class could not command a majority at the legislative level, the Republican party welcomed these cultural warriors into their ranks. They could not foresee the day when the cultural conservatives would seize control.
Traditional alliances among the parties splintered and shattered over the decades. With the identification of Democrats with civil rights, the southern electorate split away from that party. Instead of yellow dog Democrats, the solid Republican south emerged, forming the base from which electoral raids would be launched over the following decades. More and more, the Democratic party was identified as the party of the inner city, and it was content to let that association develop as long as they could maintain legislative control.
But thanks to the superior organizing capability of the Republicans, the solid ground of the Democratic majority in Congress and in state legislatures was turning swampy. The Republicans realized in the long game, it was organization at the state and local levels that would eventually result in transforming this nation into one where territory held mattered more than even votes did. When Republican legislatures emerged, they used the power of redistricting to ensure their ability to shape Congressional districts into fiefdoms of generational power. The long game paid off after the 2010 census, when the new district lines ensured that the emergent Tea Party could hold onto their seats and effect real change.
When an amoral pretender to the throne actually achieved electoral success in 2016, and was duly elected as President, the jacquerie was complete. Through his understanding of the resentments built up since the 1960's against the government, and those elitists running the economy and institutions, he was able to manipulate resentment into a winning strategy. That he had no intention of fulfilling many of his promises was not important to those who voted for him. They wished mainly to stick their thumb into the eye of the establishment.
Now we are heading swiftly into the next Presidential election cycle. On the Republican side, the takeover of the party by the adherents of Trump appears complete. He has been successful in demanding strict loyalty to this point. But, the elections of 2018, and the ill-fated shutdown, have seemed to slightly weaken the bonds binding legislators to Trump. Cracks are showing in the edifice. Whether facts presented in upcoming committee hearings, or in the long-anticipated Mueller report will pry more Republican legislators from the boa's embrace is yet to be seen.
Meanwhile, the Democrats are wandering in the electoral wilderness, with new prophets springing up on almost every street corner, each one believing they alone have the recipe and the baking skills to succeed. Succeed in standing first among their party, then succeed in the office they believed was stolen from them in 2016. Fond dreams are enunciated, and with each new declaration, the Republicans are using their focus group-derived counterpunches. Impeachment and socialism are decreed to be the only concerns that Democrats have. It is more important to discredit the messengers than it is to debate on the merits. Still, given the fragmented and transitory attention span of the American electorate, this strategy may well prove successful.
That a President whose approval has hovered between 35% and 45% for his entire term so far could even conceivably win reelection is difficult to believe. Even with his abundant failures of policy to date, and his lack of leadership at enacting legislation, and his moral deficiencies, if the Democrats allow themselves to be identified by the memes created by the Republicans, the Democrats may once more pull defeat from the jaws of victory.
Posted in PoliticsTagged Politics
A Tsunami of Justice
March 4, 2019 evenabrokenclock101 Comment
So we had the first wave of the tsunami overwhelming the Trump administration this past week. The waters are now receding, flowing back out over the wreckage of denials and those who sacrificed their reputations to try to tear down the reputation of Cohen. Soon will come the next set of waves, breaking over the damaged golf turf near the sea, then plowing further inland over previously undisturbed tales of innocence. Whether due to hubris, or due to ignorance of the effects of physical phenomena, it is now apparent that the Trump administration will be overwashed with ongoing disclosures of deceit, debt manipulations, and decay of institutional norms.
What did we learn last week? Not much in the way of new facts. We learned we had a person at the heart of the Trump organization who acknowledged much of what had become common knowledge about the Trump family, but this information was not explosive. What we did learn is what strategy the Republicans will use to discredit the testimony of those opposed to Trump. And that was revelatory. Apparently schoolyard taunts are considered to be the best form of criticism against a Trump opponent. Liar, liar, pants on fire. I'm rubber, you're glue. A fitting riposte for a morally and intellectually bankrupt party that sold its soul for the 40 pieces of silver received in the tax reduction act of 2017. Given that the Republicans were well aware of the scope of testimony coming from Cohen, they chose to attack the messenger rather than attack the message.
Unfortunately, the Trump cult has not understood that their time has passed, and they are now the hunted. What we saw this weekend with literal flag-hugging on the stage of the largest conglomeration of Trump sycophants was that there is no form of debasement that will not be met with cheers of acclamation in a mass forum. The Donald returned from his debacle in Hanoi, where the lack of preparation prior to a summit conference manifested itself in the Donald's disengagement from discussion with a horrendous individual from North Korea. At least he did not agree to concessions that would haunt the western alliance for years to come. Of course, it is possible his attention to the events in Hanoi were distracted due to his watching the testimony of his former chief confidant in the House Oversight Committee hearing. But neutral observers would bet that the lack of an agreement coming out of this ersatz summit was the best possible outcome, given the lack of preparation from an administration convinced that all obstacles can be overcome by DJT's force of personality.
So now we wait for the new waves forming offshore. The waves of investigations of the finances of a thoroughly corrupt business enterprise, uncovering the nastiness of accepting torrents of tainted Russian money in exchange for the commodity Trump had to give – real estate, and a new start for suspect monies. Tiny portions of towers enabling money to flow from the former Soviet empire to the new Trumpian empire, helping to tie the US real estate entity to those of Russia who wished to plunder the wealth of their collapsing empire. Even with a decaying empire, there is much wealth to be mined from the wreckage. And the Trumps positioned themselves to benefit from the flow of monies from the East to the West.
Those of us who watched the hearing of last week saw the mask being ripped off of the facade of the Trump towers. An organization which ran for decades unencumbered by morality or the niceties of the law, now sees its methods and tactics scrutinized by the law. We can, and should, bemoan the fact that the Trump organization escaped legal peril for so long. It was only because the practices of this family became so engrained, that it believed it could export its methods to the Federal government. Unfortunately for the Trumps, and for the nation, is that the basic modus operandi of this family lay outside of what is legal. It may be acceptable to strong arm suppliers into accepting a pittance for work performed in good faith, when the matter concerns only work done for a casino. But this practice skirts legality, and the fact that someone estimated he threatened individuals or organizations up to 500 times in 10 years reveals a business living on threats and intimidation.
And they wonder why these tactics are reviled when they were brought into the White House? The basic premise that DJT has continually stated that he did not collude with Russia is probably correct. All he had to do was say "Wouldn't that be great" when he was informed of the impending dump of e-mails from Wikileaks. Those who understood the code of the family knew he was giving his consent for the action, without ever once having to place his own fingerprints upon a piece of evidence proving his assent. It was those who understood the code that performed the actions.
We now are in the part of the story where there are two approaches to the demands of the family. Either those under investigation maintain their code of silence when confronted, and suffer the legal consequences of their silence, or they become rats and sing out. The question is whether anyone who still is convinced of the sanctity of the Trump crusade will ever accept the perfidy of the man and his associates. In order to Make America Great Again, we must first regain the ability to be revulsed by moral turpitude. Given the decline in moral standards reflected in the first family, and an electorate which narrowly selected this man, I'm afraid that this nation has lost its ability to be revulsed by evil. I hope I am wrong.
Posted in Government, PoliticsTagged Family, Politics
Termite In Chief
February 4, 2019 evenabrokenclock102 Comments
Why does Donald Trump stir such polarized feelings in this nation? I cannot speak for those who are still favorable towards the man, but I will share my own feelings and thoughts as to why I view him as an extremely poor president and an even worse human being. I am deliberately not commenting on issues of policy, though I do violently disagree with his political perspective and policies.
One of the key traits I value in a leader is intellectual curiosity. With it, you are always aware of how much you don't know, and you seek out those who have greater knowledge. That may be in a book, or through links with people who have expertise. Without it, you are prone to believe that you know everything, that you have all of the answers, that what you feel in your gut is exactly correct because you are feeling it. It breeds hubris. In Donald Trump, I see someone who is proud of his lack of intellectual curiosity. He is convinced that he alone can solve things. And he sees zero need for consulting others, either through reading, or through taking advice from experts. This is perhaps his greatest fault, since it has led to many of his most problematic decisions and policy paths. It is the fault that can trigger an existential crisis, since he is so prone to taking abrupt action based upon an impulse.
In order to serve as a leader of people, you must be capable of empathy. You must have the ability to envision the feelings of someone else, in order to evaluate a need for a policy or to envision the effects of your policies on others. Time and again, Donald Trump has shown his incapability to feel empathy for others. What's more, he has insulated himself by surrounding himself with others who also do not connect with their subjects. No clearer example of this was apparent than during the recent partial government shutdown, when Trump's henchmen spokesmen could not realize why the loss of a paycheck could cause such immediate financial concern among Federal government employees.
Through the decades, we have seen a tremendous change in how marital fidelity is viewed. There was a time when Ronald Reagan was seen as being damaged goods since he had been "DIVORCED". Obviously, that attitude did not exist during the 2016 election. But to learn that the successful candidate had multiple affairs, or one-night stands, even during the time when his third wife had just given birth, and the man boasted to a media acquaintance about the privileges and sexual liberties that celebrity status gave men like him, this revealed Donald Trump to be a person of low moral character. To me, that was yet another strike against him. It is true that we have had other Presidents who had problems with marital fidelity. The difference was, in this case, we were learning about the issue before he had even been elected.
Honesty is another trait that is valued in leaders. Yes, I am certainly aware that our leaders over the years have had significant difficulties in telling the truth, and in hiding damaging information through dissembling. But never have I seen anyone who would cause damage to suppliers by denying that services were provided, forcing them to seek redress in court hundreds and thousands of times. I have never seen anyone who flatly denies he said words that were broadcast the day before. I have never seen anyone try to say that what he meant to say was the opposite of what he said, and it was our fault for listening to the lying media when it broadcast his words. I have never seen anyone cling to his own interpretation of facts, even going so far as to create a class of alternative facts, when our own eyes and ears reveal the lies. It is now beyond credulity to see each new falsehood being bandied about as if we, the public, are incapable of distinguishing truth from lie. Yet still he persists, time and again. And it's wrong, and it's dangerous.
When you combine these traits, and others I find equally disgusting, into a single individual and then promote this individual to the single job with the most responsibility and power in the world, you have a combustible mixture. You have the ingredients for causing significant damage to structures and organizations that are responsible for maintaining order. Remember, it is the states of the US that has been free from foreign military conflict for so long. Only the military conflict on the territories of Alaska and Hawaii touched our territorial integrity. But with the advent of the Trump administration, all previous multi-lateral agreements are viewed as a surrender to the international world order, and thus are to be abandoned as not being in our favor. Well, it no longer takes the marching of foreign boots to constitute war between states. With the likelihood that the next war between nations will be a cyber war, what Donald Trump is doing by renouncing existing agreements is inviting other nations to attack our infrastructure from within, through its computer code.
To think that he is taking these steps to satisfy his own vanity and sense of worth is beyond belief. It is even worse to think that many in his base of supporters can see no wrong being done by this overgrown termite, who has been busy his entire term at undermining the support beams of the nation.
The Apprenticeship
January 13, 2019 evenabrokenclock10Leave a comment
I am almost feeling sorry for the man. Imagine that you have been trapped all of your life in a search for approval, yet never have been satisfied. First you tried to gain the approval of your father, and even though you were showered with wealth, you continually had to return to your real sugar daddy to bail you out of one bad investment, one bad deal after another. The father whose approval you never could truly take for granted cast a huge shadow on the psyche of the son.
Then you tried to gain the approval of the true elites, those exemplars of the highest of the high class in Manhattan. But even though you moved your real estate empire to that island, and built your gilded trophy, those who really counted in the world turned their back to you, and worse than that, actually laughed at you. Oh, the pain!
You couldn't even join the club of sports franchise owners. Oh, you did own one for a brief time, couldn't even claim a New York name but had to call it a New Jersey moniker. Yes, you did hire one of the greatest players coming out of college, and your upstart league had pretensions of horning in on the big boys of the NFL. But you yourself forced the league from its smaller but seemingly successful niche of spring football, into a head-to-head battle royale with the NFL. Challenging them in the fall with your schedule, and leading a challenge in court against the big boys on anti-trust grounds. If ever there was a case of winning the battle, and losing the war, it was your league's victory against the NFL – and then the court laughed at you by giving you damages of $1. No wonder you have not been a fan of the justice system for a long time.
We could go on. The disastrous bet on Atlantic City, doubled down when you took on the failed construction project you named the Taj Mahal, though it lacked any traces of the grandeur of the original structure of that name. Having to be bailed out once more by your father, who spent millions for casino chips one day, a day before your next loan payment due date. But even your father could not save you from your own hubris and you lost your entire casino stake as the overall market in this small gambling mecca declined and faded.
Eventually you found your niche. Marketing yourself, the dream of the glitz and glamour of one of the world's most egotistic billionaires. So much into yourself that you were prompted to make self-promoting calls to journalists, posing as someone other than yourself, in order to keep your name in the news and to extol your praises. You grabbed lightning in a bottle when the book that you "wrote" took off, and solidified your reputation as a canny and world-class dealmaker. You found that your name on a brand was a guaranteed money-maker, as those who are easily impressed by wealth and status try to grab a little of yours by buying a shirt, or a tie, or a steak, from one of your licensed vendors. You built your empire up despite the crashing down of portions of your portfolio through multiple bankruptcies. Ah, but you yourself never held the bag after these public humiliations. It was always someone else who took the loss, someone else who you could blame for the ultimate loss in the marketplace.
You never had to account for your actions to anyone else at all. Once your father died, there was no one mightier than you. You surrounded yourself with a crowd of sycophants, who were only too happy to let you know that they agreed with everything you said. You were told that your knowledge was vast, your command of the situation, whatever situation you wished to weigh in on, was superior to anyone else in the world. If only those who had power would listen to you, how much better this country and the world would be. These thoughts began to saturate your mind, began to whisper to you that you and you alone could fix these things that you see are wrong.
Then, in 2004, the opportunity of a lifetime came around for you. With your reputation as a world-class businessman secure, no matter how hollow that reputation was, you were tabbed to be the centerpiece of yet another reality TV series. The Apprentice became your trusted companion for 12 years, allowing you to express your wisdom and discernment to an audience that came to believe in you. They believed in your charisma, in your reputation as a canny businessman, they believed you were a strong leader who was more than capable of telling someone to his or her face that they were fired. You entered their homes year after year, and as your fame grew, so did your conviction that you really could grab the gilded brass ring.
You thought about 2012, but the conditions were not right, and you sensed you could not successfully challenge Obama. Ah, but you could cast aspersions against him. Imagine, someone who looked like him claiming to be a real American. It was easy to buy into the rumors on the internet that he had actually been born in Africa, and it was only through a plot extending back to 1961 that his birth was reported in a Hawaiian newspaper in real time. Why should we believe our eyes when it was so much more satisfying to stir up the pot, and the emotions of millions by claiming that the President was not eligible under the rules of the Constitution. This is where you learned how much your words resonated with a significant portion of the American public. So you kept your profile high, but your active political pursuit was placed on hold.
Now, in 2015, you pounced. You went all-in, and started to position yourself as the business outsider who would drain the swamp, who would bring back the greatness of America when the culture was white, and the recovery from the war unleashed the cornucopia of growth as far as the eye could see. You and you alone would redress the issues of the forgotten men and women of flyover country. You and you alone sensed the palpable disgust of this group as they saw their prosperity stolen from them, by hordes of illegals who stole their jobs, or subsisted on welfare taken from their paychecks. The disgust from the people who realized that it was the global economy and global elites that had taken their factory jobs, and moved them over to Mexico, or China, or somewhere else and stolen their chance to make a decent living. What was left were the dregs of the economy, and dregs are difficult to swallow if that's all you have to eat.
Like so many before you, you realized you had a talent for whipping crowds up into a frenzy. All it took was a few easily repeated single syllable words, that you could start and then let the crowd chant it ad infinitum, building the momentum for these barely defined ideas. "Build the wall!" "Lock her up!" It did not matter that there was no definition behind these catch phrases, they had captured a life of their own. And then, it was time to take down the challengers. These sissies who had grown up in the rarified world of politics, where it was expected that people would behave rationally and with at least a semblance of politeness, they were naive waifs when confronted by a real man, one who had been tested in the world of New York real estate. All it took was pairing up a candidate's name with a derogatory adjective, and the image formed then took hold in the public's mind. One by one, you knocked them out of the ring, until only you remained.
You never believed you would get this far. You had gotten into this chase as a vanity project, and to help your own brand, but now that you had the nomination, you had to at least pretend that you were serious. But that did not mean that you really wanted to dwell in the mundane minutia of building a transition team. No, let Chris Christie do that. You can always pull the rug out from under him later. All you needed was your family, and those advisors you've had for a while. But it was always you who was the most important one. It was your knowledge, it was your wisdom, it was your negotiating skills that would save the day.
So, it came to election day, and all of the things you had given tacit approval to – the links with the Russians to mine for emails, the coordination of campaign data with the social media teams in St. Petersburg, all of these things had kicked in and to your surprise, pushed you over the top. You found yourself a winner of the greatest prize in electoral politics.
Well, maybe you were right. You don't need all of those swamp creatures in all of these government offices. So you plan to leave many positions empty, just don't even nominate someone for them. For the courts? Outsource your selection to the Federalist Society. That way your supporters who may not like you, but have hungered for reversing the liberal bench legislation, and will sell their souls for Supreme Court seats. They will stay happy and overlook your other faults.
Except you have no faults. You know that you have been the most successful President EVAH! Even though you've only been in office for two years, you are already determining how to fit your visage onto Rushmore.
Ah, but those critics. Why do they keep yammering at me? Why do they insist that I've done something wrong? I've never done anything wrong, ever. I've always been honest, and humble, and trustworthy. If you think I've been inconsistent, you just didn't know what I meant. Mexico was never intended to write a check for that wall. That wall was never supposed to be 30 feet tall, and beautiful concrete. No one ever asked the Russians to do anything to help our campaign. We shouldn't ever apply sanctions to the Russians, they have done so much for me and my businesses over the years. They buy my apartments. Of course I like them.
Now it's that harridan, Nancy. She and that new uppity woman from Queens. Nobody good ever came from Queens. They are after me. I even gave them candy, which they took but wouldn't give me my wall. Well anyone can see now, they're taking Dodge Caravans, driving them right over the border and turning left. Only I can fix it.
We are nearing the point in the movie when Captain Queeg in the Caine Mutiny is on the stand in the court martial, where Captain Queeg breaks down discussing the theft of the strawberries, and pulls out his stainless steel ball bearings, running them back and forth in his hand for comfort. When will the breakdown come when Donald pulls out his stainless steel balls and mumbles about the theft of the country, and only he can fix it? Some of us are ready to see the end credits of this reality show. But by the end of the Caine Mutiny, you are left with some feelings of sorrow for Captain Queeg. Will we have similar feelings at the end of the current season of The Apprentice?
Posted in Government, PoliticsTagged Family, Government, Media, Nature, Politics
Evenabrokenclock.blog


text:
El análisis financiero (también conocido como análisis de estados financieros o análisis contable o análisis de finanzas) se refiere a una evaluación de la viabilidad, estabilidad y rentabilidad de un negocio, sub-negocio o proyecto.

Lo realizan profesionales que preparan informes utilizando índices que utilizan la información obtenida de los estados financieros y otros informes. Estos informes generalmente se presentan a la alta dirección como una de sus bases para tomar decisiones de negocios. El análisis financiero puede determinar si una empresa:

 Continuar o interrumpir su operación principal o parte de su negocio;
 Hacer o comprar ciertos materiales en la fabricación de su producto;
 Adquirir o alquilar/arrendar ciertas maquinarias y equipos en la producción de sus bienes;
 Emitir acciones o negociar un préstamo bancario para aumentar su capital de trabajo;
 Tomar decisiones con respecto a invertir o prestar capital;
 Tome otras decisiones que permitan a la gerencia realizar una selección informada sobre varias alternativas en la conducción de su negocio.

Metas
Los analistas financieros a menudo evalúan los siguientes elementos de una empresa:

 Rentabilidad: su capacidad para obtener ingresos y sostener el crecimiento tanto a corto como a largo plazo. El grado de rentabilidad de una empresa generalmente se basa en el estado de resultados, que informa sobre los resultados de las operaciones de la compañía;
 Solvencia: su capacidad de pagar su obligación a los acreedores y otros terceros a largo plazo;
 Liquidez: su capacidad para mantener un flujo de caja positivo, mientras cumple con las obligaciones inmediatas;

Tanto el 2 como el 3 se basan en el balance general de la compañía, que indica la condición financiera de un negocio en un momento dado.

 Estabilidad: la capacidad de la empresa para permanecer en el negocio a largo plazo, sin tener que soportar pérdidas significativas en la conducción de su negocio.  La evaluación de la estabilidad de una empresa requiere el uso tanto del estado de resultados como del balance, así como de otros indicadores financieros y no financieros. etc.

Método
Los analistas financieros a menudo comparan los ratios financieros (de solvencia, rentabilidad, crecimiento, etc.):

 Desempeño pasado : en períodos históricos para la misma empresa (los últimos 5 años, por ejemplo),
 Desempeño futuro : usando cifras históricas y ciertas técnicas matemáticas y estadísticas, incluidos los valores presentes y futuros, este método de extrapolación es la principal fuente de errores en el análisis financiero, ya que las estadísticas anteriores pueden ser malos predictores de las perspectivas futuras.
 Desempeño comparativo - Comparación entre empresas similares.

Estas relaciones se calculan dividiendo un (uno o varios) saldo (s) de la cuenta, tomados del balance general y/o del estado de resultados, por otro, por ejemplo   :

 Utilidad neta/patrimonio = retorno sobre el patrimonio (ROE)

 Utilidad antes de intereses e impuestos / activos totales = retorno sobre activos (ROA)

 Precio de la acción/ganancias por acción = relación P/E

La comparación de los ratios financieros es simplemente una forma de realizar un análisis financiero. Los ratios financieros enfrentan varios desafíos teóricos:

 Dicen poco sobre las perspectivas de la firma en un sentido absoluto. Sus conocimientos sobre el desempeño relativo requieren un punto de referencia de otros períodos de tiempo o empresas similares.
 Una relación tiene poco significado. Como indicadores, los ratios pueden interpretarse lógicamente de al menos dos formas.  Uno puede superar parcialmente este problema al combinar varias relaciones relacionadas para obtener una imagen más completa del desempeño de la empresa.
 Los factores estacionales pueden impedir que los valores de fin de año sean representativos. Los valores de una relación pueden distorsionarse a medida que los saldos de las cuentas cambian desde el principio hasta el final de un período contable. Use valores promedio para tales cuentas siempre que sea posible.
 Los ratios financieros no son más objetivos que los métodos contables empleados. Los cambios en las políticas u opciones contables pueden producir valores de relación drásticamente diferentes.
 Análisis fundamental.

Los analistas financieros también pueden usar el análisis de porcentaje, que implica reducir una serie de cifras como un porcentaje de algún monto base. Por ejemplo, un grupo de artículos se puede expresar como un porcentaje del ingreso neto. Cuando los cambios proporcionales en la misma figura en un período de tiempo determinado expresados como porcentaje se conocen como análisis horizontal. El análisis vertical o de tamaño común reduce todos los artículos en una declaración a un "tamaño común" como un porcentaje de algún valor base que ayuda en la comparabilidad con otras compañías de diferentes tamaños. Como resultado, todas las partidas del estado de resultados se dividen por ventas y todas las partidas del balance general se dividen por los activos totales.

Otro método es el análisis comparativo. Esto proporciona una mejor manera de determinar las tendencias. El análisis comparativo presenta la misma información durante dos o más periodos de tiempo y se presenta lado a lado para permitir un análisis fácil.

Véase también

 Valoración de negocios
 Análisis de la base económica
 Modelamiento financiero
 Contabilidad financiera
 Pronóstico financiero

Notas

Enlaces externos

 SFAF - the French Society of Financial Analysts
 ACIIA - Association of Certified International Investment Analysts
 EFFAS - European Federation of Financial Analysts Societies

Economía

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
package seedu.task.commons.events.storage;

import seedu.task.commons.events.BaseEvent;

//@@author A0163673Y
/**
 * Indicates that the task list storage path has changed
 */
public class TaskListStoragePathChangedEvent extends BaseEvent {

    public final String taskListStoragePath;

    public TaskListStoragePathChangedEvent(String taskListStoragePath) {
        this.taskListStoragePath = taskListStoragePath;
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return "task list storage path changed to " + taskListStoragePath;
    }

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub