#147 / Thanks For The Stress Test, Mr. President!

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Writing in the May 25, 2026, edition of The New York Times - which was published on our Memorial Day Holiday - Adam Liptak thanked our current president for helping to make visible (and thus potentially susceptible of a cure) a "blind spot" in the United States Constitution. Actually, Liptak's article did not directly speak out any "thanks" to our current president, but a full reading of what Liptak wrote allows me thus to characterize Liptak's excellent column. 

In the hardcopy version, which I encourage you to read in full, Liptak's analysis was titled, "Founders Had A Blind Spot, And Trump Is Exposing It." Online, which is where you will go if you click the next link, the title is slightly different: "Were The Constitution’s Authors A Little Too Optimistic?" 

I believe that no paywall will prevent you from reading what Liptak is telling us. In short, what Liptak is telling us is that our Constitutional system basically assumed that only persons of good character would be chosen to lead the nation (with our first president, George Washington, providing the model). You will remember, I am sure, that Washington is associated with a boyhood promise that "I cannot tell a lie." Even if that story isn't truly accurate, as it probably isn't, the fact that the story is still told, and celebrated, demonstrates what we would like to think would be the character of anyone who is chosen to serve the nation as its president. With respect to the current incumbent, of course, the opposite is what is most likely to be the case, when we consider our current president's reputation for honesty. It is not too far from the mark to say that our current president "cannot tell the truth." 

Here is an abbreviated presentation of Liptak's analysis (emphasis added):

In a parliamentary system, the executive and the legislature are in dialogue rather than structural opposition. Prime ministers generally do not serve fixed terms and may be removed by a vote of no confidence.

The framers rejected that model for something new. They were looking for a sweet spot. They wanted a president less powerful than the king they had rebelled against but more effective than the state governors of the time, who were all but powerless, or prime ministers, who were creatures of the legislature.

Defining the scope of the new office had an improvised quality. James Madison, writing to Washington just before he left for the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in April 1787, said he had not given the matter much thought. In those same papers, Madison acknowledged that “the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judiciary, in the same hands” may “justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

The framers believed that the threat of impeachment and removal would be a decisive check on the president. They envisioned a Congress that would be jealous of its institutional power and would muster, when appropriate, not only a simple majority vote in the House of Representatives to accuse presidents of misconduct but also a two-thirds vote in the Senate to convict and remove them. 

To the extent that they [were] worried about a demagogue, they ... expected that impeachment would deal with scoundrels.

[However], they failed to anticipate a development that would make impeachment improbable: the rise of political parties.

To this day, the idea of self-sustaining political competition built into the structure of government is frequently portrayed as the unique genius of the U.S. Constitution, the very basis for the success of American democracy ... yet the truth is closer to the opposite. As competition between the legislative and executive branches was displaced by competition between two major parties ... the machine that was supposed to go of itself stopped running.

The rise of political parties, to say nothing of the current extreme polarization between them, has made other forms of congressional supervision of the president vanishingly rare. There have been four presidential impeachments in the history of the United States, of Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and, twice, Donald J. Trump. In none of the four cases did the Senate muster the required two-thirds vote to convict. 

These days, those circuit breakers are gone: Voters elect senators, and the Electoral College is a formality. A structure designed by elites wary of direct democracy has moved toward one far more responsive to the popular will. 

That has made the government more vulnerable to the sort of populism that the framers feared. But it may also — whether expressed in public opinion, on the streets and at the ballot box — supply a counterweight to the executive overreach that some of the men who drafted and ratified the Constitution feared.

To repeat myself, Liptak is not really "thanking" our current president for putting our Constitution to a "stress" test, but the fact that our system of democratic self-government is being "stressed," and "tested," is quite clear - and has some real benefits, in instructing us on how things have to change. In the end, Liptak is telling each one of us, as citizens, that it is up to us to prevent "executive overreach." 

Liptak, in other words, hasn't given up. Neither have I. 

You shouldn't, either!

 EXTRA READING: 

Ben Rhodes' opinion piece, also in the May 25, 2026, edition of The Times: "Whatever Happened To America's Great Orators" [Hardcopy Title]; "This is How A Party Ends Up Looking Like A Clown Car" [Online Title].

Jon Meacham, The Soul Of America: The Battle For Our Better Angels.

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#146 / A Catholic Moment?

 

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I have been prompted to write, today, by Christine Emba's Guest Essay, published in The New York Times on April 28, 2026. The title of Emba's essay - you can take your pick - is either, "A Catholic Church's Defiance Of Trump" [from the hardcopy version of the paper] or, "What A Catholic Church Unafraid Of Donald Trump Means To The World" [which is the online version of the title]. I am assured by The Times that even non-subscribers will be able to read the entire column, just by clicking that link I have provided. 

I was struck by Emba's suggestion, in the next-to-last paragraph of her essay, that we are experiencing a "Catholic Moment." Maybe we are, and I have to say that I certainly was experiencing such a "Catholic Moment," myself, as I read The Times on April 28th, since I turned to The Times, and to Emba's column, immediately after having read the 93rd Anniversary Issue of The Catholic Worker, the first issue of this newspaper having been published on May 1, 1933. Given the radical politics of The Catholic Worker, right from the very beginning, the May 1st date of its initial publication was undoubtedly intentional. 

The Catholic Worker does not publish online, so my suggestion (if you'd like to have a "Catholic Moment," yourself - and I do recommend that) is to subscribe to the newspaper. The price is listed on the first page as "One Cent" per issue, but I'd send them something more, along with your request for a subscription. Here's the address: The Catholic Worker, 36 East First Street, New York, N.Y. 10003.

In that 93rd Anniversary Issue, on Page One, The Catholic Worker published two graphically striking essays by Peter Maurin, who was the co-founder, along with Dorothy Day, of The Catholic Worker Movement. One of those essays was titled, "The Age Of Reason." The other one was titled, "The Age Of Treason." 

Since The Catholic Worker isn't reliably found online, I couldn't capture either of these graphically striking essays, as printed in the May, 2026 issue of the newspaper. What follows will have to do, this from an online collection of some of Peter Maurin's "Easy Essays." 

The Age Of Treason 

1. Pope Pius IX and Cardinal Newman consider liberalism, whether it be religious, philosophical, or economic, the greatest error of the nineteenth century. 

2. Modern liberalism is the logical sequence of the so-called age of Enlightenment- the age of Voltaire, Rousseau, Thomas Paine- sometimes called the Age of Reason in opposition to the Age of Faith. 

3. By sponsoring nationalism and capitalism modern liberals have given up the search for truth and have become paid propagandists. 

4. Modern liberals have ceased to appeal to reason, and have chosen to appeal to prejudice. 

5. So the Age of Reason has become the age of Treason, as Julien Benda points out in his book entitled: "The Treason Of The Intellectuals."

When you get more deeply into The Catholic Worker Movement, maybe you'll agree with me that we absolutely do need to have a "Catholic Worker" kind of "Catholic Moment," should we wish for any good things in our future. 

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#145 / What Was College For?

  

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Theo Baker - click that link. If you do, you'll be taken to Baker's "Author Website." Baker is a young person who has not yet graduated from college, but he is slated to do so soon (or maybe he will have already done so by the time you read this). Also coming soon (or probably already here, by the time you read this) is Baker's book, published by Penguin Random House. Baker has titled his book, How To Rule The World.

How To Rule The World is subtitled as follows: "An Education In Power At Stanford University." If you have already read, Palo Alto: A History Of California, Capitalism, And The World, you will be well-prepared, I think, for what Theo Baker has to say about Stanford. 

You can also prepare yourself for Baker's book by reading his opinion column, published in the Sunday, May 17, 2026, edition of The New York Times. To make that easy for you, I am providing a link to Baker's opinion piece, which is an engaging exploration of the following topic: "What A.I. Did To My College Class." Among other things, A.I. turned 49% of Baker's fellow students at Stanford into persons who have self-confessed their willingness to engage in whatever academic cheating might be necessary to make sure that they don't ever fail a test. Baker reports that Stanford University has essentially tossed out its long term, and much-admired, "Honor Code," indicating that the University is, quite clearly, nothing if not realistic about who they're now dealing with.

Since I am a graduate of Stanford University myself (B.A. in History, 1965, with Honors In Social Thought and Institutions), I am particularly interested in the latest news about Stanford. It's not heartening, particularly the reports from Baker on the university's current focus on making money as the main reason to show up and attend (until you get a better offer, that is). 

My out-of-county relatives have been contacting me, recently, telling me that they hear that I'm "depressed." They want to cheer me up!

Well, I like to think that I'm not really "depressed," but news like the news I am reporting here isn't exactly encouraging or uplifting. Do I have some prescription that could cure the disease that Baker is reporting on, with reference to my old alma mater? 

I keep thinking that I might. Maybe I should write a book, I keep thinking. Maybe, "How To Rule The World"? Well, probably not - and that's been done, anyway, as now you know. What about this for a title: "How To Change The World"? I have some ideas about that, and cheating will not be required!

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https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/17/opinion/chatgpt-ai-college-school-graduation.html

#144 / Look On The Rising Sun

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One of William Blake's most wonderful poems has a title that I think probably rings quite strangely to modern ears, "The Little Black Boy." 

The poem is from Blake's Songs of Innocence And Experience, published in 1789. Click that link to the title of the poem to read Blake's poem in its entirety. 

The following lines from the poem came to me on a recent Sunday, as I participated by way of Zoom in an online Quaker Meeting held in Patagonia, Arizona on Sunday, May 3, 2026: 

Look on the rising sun: there God does live

And gives his light, and gives his heat away..... 

And we are put on earth a little space, 

That we may learn to bear the beams of love.

These lines of the poem moved me to understand that final phrase, "the beams of love," to be true in the two different meanings of the word "beams." 

We are here, indeed, "a little space," to feel and absorb, and to learn how to bring into ourselves those "beams" of love that irradiate our persons and our lives, and do so for everyone, and the world entire. 

But we are also called to learn, in this life, how to utilize and carry those "beams," like the sometimes heavy timbers with which we build any kind of edifice, and from those beams of love, given to us so freely, to construct a home, a society, a world that is created, and fashioned, from "Love" itself. 

Those words from Blake's poem came to me, quite unanticipatedly, in that Zoom Friends' Meeting, as I sat with my wife, and a friend, in Santa Cruz County, Arizona, and those words from the poem were not unfamiliar. Those very words, as I have presented them above, were written on the invitation to our wedding, held in September 1969 at the Palo Alto Friends Meetinghouse. 

How I hope I have done something, in my life, that would qualify me as having accomplished what the mother told her son was ours to do - to learn to "bear the beams of love," to receive in gratitude and joy the love that is the essence of the gift of life, and to meet the challenge of those words, in their other sense, and to bear and carry those "beams of Love" and to use them to build a better home, and a better society, and a world that can shelter, protect, and be a joyous place of residence for every one us.

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https://poemanalysis.com/william-blake/the-little-black-boy/

#143 / Funded By "The Government"

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I read The New York Times every morning - in a hardcopy edition tossed onto my lawn sometime between 5:00 and 6:00 a.m.. Quite often, I am struck by some little turn of phrase in one or another story, and that was the case with respect to a story published on April 28, 2026, documenting how the "Ballroom Builder" Got A "No-Bid Deal" for a nearby job. Click the link, and you can read that article, too - but you will be reading it in the online version, which does come with a headline slightly different from the headline from which I have just quoted.

As I presume that anyone reading this blog posting knows, our current president has destroyed the East Wing of the White House (without any prior approval or authorization by anyone, including the Congress), and is attempting to build a huge new "Ballroom." The initial good news for America was that this would, allegedly at least, not cost the taxpayers anything. Munificent "donors" (not expecting anything in return, we are supposed to believe) were supposed to have made free-will donations to take care of the costs of the current president's "Ballroom" demolition and rebuilding project. 

The Times' article I have linked above notes that the same contractor who is undertaking the "Ballroom" project is now, in addition, refurbishing the fountains in Lafayette Square, just a block or so from the White House. In the photo at the top of this blog posting, you can see Lafayette Square in the foreground, with the White House in the background. The main point of The Times' article is that the contract to refurbish the two fountains located in Lafayette Square was awarded to the "Ballroom" contractor by our current president without being put out to bid, as it should have been: 

In January, government documents show, the Trump administration secretly gave the company a no-bid contract to do another job at a sharply inflated price.

The National Park Service wanted to repair two ornamental fountains in Lafayette Park, across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House. The Biden administration in 2022 had estimated the work would cost $3.3 million. But Mr. Trump’s government agreed to pay Clark $11.9 million to do it, and later added tasks that increased the contract to $17.4 million, the documents show (emphasis added).

Funding for the fountain rehab project is NOT going to be provided by those "Ballroom" donors. The Times informs us in the article that the inflated costs involved will be funded by "the government." 

I just want to highlight how that "the government" phrase fails, at least so I believe, fully to convey what has happened. As I believe we all understand, when we talk about "the government," we are really talking about you, and me, and everyone living in these United States. "Donors" and "the government" sound pretty much the same, unless you think about it. Whoever they are, "donors" and "the government" seem to be someone other than you and me. 

But that's not true. Instead of describing how the "inflated" costs of the fountain project will be paid for by "the government," a better description would have said something like this: 

The highly-inflated costs of the work on the fountains, which was assigned to a contractor admired by our current president without any competitive bidding having taken place, will be paid for by every person residing in the United States. The current cost estimate is $17.4 million dollars, up from an estimate by the Bidden Administration, four years ago, that the work should cost $3.3 million.

 

My point? It's the same point I make so frequently in my postings to "We Live In A Political World." WE are "the government." When "the government" takes action (starting a war or awarding a contract) that means that the project is being done in OUR name, and it almost certainly guarantees that we will each be personally affected, in one way or another.

Because we are, all of us, affected by what "the government" does, and because we truly do want a system of "self-government," our elected representatives are supposed to be making the decisions that will affect our pocketbooks, or perhaps cost us our lives. 

While the president is, of course, one of our "elected representatives," the job to which he has been elected in the job of "executing" the decisions made by our elected representatives in Congress - hundreds of them, who come from all over the United States and who because of this, are thought to be more directly in touch with the people (all of us) whom they represent.

If we don't keep remembering this, and if we don't take action to be sure that our governmental system operates the way it is supposed to, we are, essentially, standing by and watching the demolition of our system of self-government (in much the same way we have been compelled to observe the demolition of a significant part of the White House by a person who doesn't want to play by the rules that the Constitution has established). 

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https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/25/us/politics/lafayette-park-fountains-trump-contract.html

#142 / The Rich Get Five Times Their Share

 

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Pictured is Mike Hsu, the Chief Executive of Kimberly-Clark. Hsu was mentioned in an article in the Saturday-Sunday, March 21-22, 2026, edition of The Wall Street Journal. That article was largely focused on Huggies, a very popular brand of diapers, which are manufactured by Kimberly-Clark. Probably, that article is blocked by a "paywall," meaning that only subscribers will be able to make use of the link.

No matter! In fact, I am not really wanting to talk about either Huggies or Hsu. My purpose in this blog posting is to comment on the following statement contained in the article I just linked:

The wealthiest 10% of Americans account for almost half of consumer spending.

Normally, given what I am pretty sure is a resident "paywall," clicking that "acount for" link in the quoted paragraph (that link furnished by The Wall Street Journal, not me) is unlikely actually to take you to the article referenced. However, I am told that the following "gift link" should get you there. If it does, you will be able to read an article headlined as follows: "The U.S. Economy Depends More Than Ever On Rich People."

The point of my blog posting is to make note of the fact that "rich people" are getting more than what might be called their "fair share" of the economic benefits provided by the American economy. Our economy is supported, and made prosperous, by everyone. Thus, I suggest, the overall benefits should be flowing to everyone. Instead, the benefits of our economy are increasingly sequestered by and made available only to the rich - and as The Journal notes, this is increasingly true. 

Various laws have had this result. As we all pay our taxes (hopefully, you made the April 15th deadline), let's think about how we could change those laws and solve that "affordability" and "abundance" crisis that has become such big news. 

Just producing "more" won't do it. Other policies will! 

We do need to change the laws, however, to change what's happening. In case you might have missed this, that is what "politics" is actually all about. 

When I say that we "Live In A Political World," I am trying to suggest that we should be developing and using our political power to make sure that our world is actually a world we want to live in! 

A world in which economic "abundance" is fairly shared, not sequestered by the wealthy, should be a top priority. 

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https://businesschief.com/news/kimberly-clark-ceo-mike-hsu-bets-on-growth-with-kenvue-deal

#141 / Manda El Pueblo

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I am a real fan of Rebecca Solnit, pictured above. Because I am, please let me recommend one of her recent columns in The Guardian (full text at the bottom). The article is headlined this way: "We live among statues of lone heroes. But change comes through collective action." If you read my blog posting yesterday, you know that I most definitely agree!

Getting us to picture one of those statues of a "lone hero," of which we have so many, is a great way to get us to think about the fact - the reality - that Solnit so accurately describes. We have lots of statues of "lone heroes," but the reason for the success of the heroes we immortalize, when their stories are truly told, is almost always the result of "collective action." 

Here is a quote, in Spanish, that Solnit included in her column. I love this quote: 

“Aquí manda el pueblo y el Gobierno obedece.” This translates as “here the people rule and the government obeys.”

Solnit tells us that this was a key motto of the Zapatistas, the Indigenous revolutionaries who rose up in 1994 in southern Mexico and who, says Solnit, "continue to hang on to some autonomy and vision in their villages."

WE are "the government." That is what "self-government" means. That is what I was writing about in this past posting. Self-government is more than a right to vote for one's rulers. 

As always, it's good to be reminded about that! Here, in the United States of America, the people are in charge, and the government obeys! At least - and don't we all know it - that's the way it's supposed to be!

oooOOOooo

We live among statues of lone heroes. But change comes through collective action

Rebecca Solnit

As Cesar Chavez Day becomes Farmworkers Day, we must remember that the hero is the movement.

The way we commemorate history is often – too often – by celebrating an individual with a statue, a place name, a holiday. While some have been torn down – statues of Gen Robert E Lee have given way in some parts of the US to statues of Harriet Tubman – Republicans are trying to reverse the shift in statuary. To that end, the Trump administration recently plunked down a Columbus statue on the White House grounds, a replica of one thrown into the harbor in Baltimore in 2020 as the Black Lives Matter protests addressed racism and colonialism.

Still, maybe the age of individual heroes is fading. This year, Jon Wiener, a retired history professor and current Nation magazine editor, nominated Minneapolis for the Nobel peace prize for its residents’ valor and solidarity in opposing ICE and defending their neighbors. The magazine’s editors wrote: “Through countless acts of courage and solidarity, the people of Minneapolis have challenged the culture of fear, hate, and brutality that has gripped the United States and too many other countries. Their nonviolent resistance has captured the imagination of the nation and the world.” The Nobel is a longshot, but the Twin Cities – both Minneapolis and St Paul – got the John F Kennedy Profile in Courage award “for risking their lives to protect their neighbors and immigrant community members ... with extraordinary courage and resolve.”

This Tuesday, California will for the first time celebrate Farmworkers Day – a holiday declared by the state legislature in a quick pivot after revelations about the farm worker organizer Cesar Chavez’s history of sexual abuse. Maybe we’re beginning to recognize that the hero is often the collective, the movement, the community, and that plucking one person out of the crowd to anoint and celebrate often doesn’t work out for a lot of reasons. Cesar Chavez is only too useful an example: too many people made over into heroes did things that should have disqualified them. But even when the individual in question is irreproachable, most of the time, the world doesn’t get changed by solitary individuals. Sometimes one person as a writer, a preacher, a visionary inspires the many to do the work of changing the world. Sometimes one individual works directly with a group to do that work. Such people often get called leaders, but I think of them as catalysts.

To call someone a leader is at least implicitly to call everyone else a follower, and followers obey, are shepherded and managed, while in so many uprisings and movements, each person chose to be there, and contributed to deciding what exactly would happen. (I grew up in an age of cults, when followers followed their leaders into catastrophe.) The term leader may come from an era when military higher-ups literally led their troops into battle. But most of the best changes of the past several decades didn’t come at the point of a gun. Beyond that, at the heart of most democratic movements are many people taking on responsibilities and participating in making decisions. In this moment when we’re trying to defend democracy, democracy within movements is a must. And maybe democracies are antithetical to heroes, at least heroes as people put on a pedestal and presumed better than the rest of us.

“Aquí manda el pueblo y el Gobierno obedece,” which translates as “here the people rule and the government obeys,” was a key motto of the Zapatistas, the Indigenous revolutionaries who rose up in 1994 in southern Mexico and continue to hang on to some autonomy and vision in their villages. A catalyst is someone with a gift for motivating people and holding the group together, for finding common ground, but you’re not a catalyst unless there’s a population to catalyze into a community or movement. A lot of the heroes we celebrate are part of movements, and it’s a mistake in my eyes to give prizes to individuals who didn’t do it alone (and when they’re environmental or democracy activists in dangerous places, it can put a target on their back). The Nobel peace prize has often in recent decades gone to collectives, including Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties, the World Food Programme and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (with Al Gore).

In the wake of the report on Chavez’s assaults, the United Farm Workers and people who were part of the struggle were quick to say that the hero was the movement, was all the people who marched, picketed, risked, struggled. Chavez’s name was picked in part as a kind of shorthand, as if he was supposed to represent the whole, but when you put up statues and murals and name things after one person, the real history gets lost.

I’ve always thought that lone heroes of the Hollywood action-movie variety give people a mistaken sense of what change looks like and how to do it; they’re mostly musclebound or heavily armed guys whose special talent is face-to-face violence.

You can see that the men in the Trump administration have watched too many of these movies or played too many of these video games: both the Department of Defense’s Pete Hegseth and the FBI’s Kash Patel seemconvinced the people under their command should focus on push-ups and hand-to-hand combat. Patel even got UFC fighters to “train” FBI employees, apparently in the delusion that FBI work consists of macho slugfests, rather than, mostly, the cerebral business of information gathering, while the military requires everything from pilots to data scientists to doctors.

The heroes of Minneapolis engaged in no violence: they faced down heavily armed, faceless invaders in brutally cold conditions, day after day, week after week; they are still delivering groceries to those who can’t leave their homes, ferrying children to school and organizing neighborhood watches. They were hugely impactful in defending their neighbors and their city, and like the people of Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte, Memphis and other cities, they inspired those who watched from afar.

While Farmworkers Day has come about through something ugly, it is itself a lovely and timely thing, here in California where most of our farm workers are immigrants of exactly the kind ICE has been persecuting. Perhaps a monument to the unknown farm worker, or rather to the millions of them over the years, would be apt. At least giving them their due and their day is a beginning.

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https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/aug/26/rebecca-solnit-if-i-were-a-man

#140 / Orion

  

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The image above was published along with an article about the Orion Constellation, which is visible around the world. Click the link to read about the constellation. 

My blog posting, here, is not about the constellation. I am reacting, instead, to a social media posting by a young man named Orion, a resident of Santa Cruz County, California, which is where I live - and where I have lived since 1961. 

Orion's posting, on a Facebook page maintained by "Santa Cruz Against Runaway Development," discussed our local politics. Here is a slightly truncated version of his commentary (emphasis added): 

My family has been in Santa Cruz since the 30s. I’m 19 and under the ideology that without action there is no progress and without communication there is no action. 

One of the main ways that politicians get around public opinion and remove the ability for pushback is the slow erosion of public spaces and the division of people in general. I wanted to like Ryan Coonerty and Renee Golder [Coonerty is currently running for Mayor in the City of Santa Cruz and Golder is running for reelection to the Santa Cruz City Council], but after doing my own research they are completely influenced by the major development companies working with workbench who are actively destroying the identity of this beautiful town. 

That said. Building housing in high rises is not a bad thing. The way it’s happening is bad. The removal of public voice, opinion, and input while simultaneously ignoring pleas to listen is going to strip Santa Cruz of the very thing that made it special. 

We need infrastructure. It’s a basic support that holds up a city. It sounds backwards if I were to suggest fixing the utilities after building your house so why would that be different here? Well it’s simple, the city and county have failed at their task as public servants in providing basic services to the people of Santa Cruz and I don’t believe electing Ryan Coonerty will solve any problems. 

A local government on a fiscal sense is similar to a non-profit where the money that comes in goes out. That’s a simple way to put it and there much more nuance to it but the city spends and spends on things that it can’t afford. Every time there’s a new tax it puts a burden on the people who run the foundation of this town, the fast food workers, downtown workers, and the owners of those businesses. 

The basic local economy is at stake. These housing projects aren’t affordable for the people working in Santa Cruz and attract remote workers who can afford them which makes the problem worse. 

THE SALES TAX WILL KEEP INCREASING 

They will get less and less money coming into the city, worsening the budget deficit to the point of total collapse of our local economy. 

We need leaders NOT politicians. 

You can’t build a pyramid from the top down. You need a foundation to build from. 

Right now the city is pushing the foundation away. We are only in the beginning of the end and we can stop the end from coming.

I am always happy to see people who want to "make progress," and to do so by way of "action." And "action," of course, almost always does require some kind of effective "communication" before the action is taken, with that action then making the change that brings on "progress." When I talk about "action," of course, writing in a daily blog titled, "We Live In A Political World," I am most usually thinking of "political" action. 

The posting I have copied out, above, got a lot of positive reactions, with many people agreeing with Orion - and a number of those who commented hoping that he would run for political office. In a response to one of those comments, Orion said, in essence, "maybe next time." 

When I first ran for public office, in 1974, I did so after various people asked me to do so. I didn't think up the idea on my own. It's a very good sign when people are asking you to run for office, which is exactly what seems to be happening with Orion. I do want to make a cautionary comment, though. While it's definitely true that we need "leaders," as Orion says, genuine leaders are, by definition, part of a "group." Nowadays, our politics tends to be driven by individuals, who step forward, individually, to run for public office. This is true at every level of our government, and that's really not the best way.

I think it's important to start with the "group," first, not with the "leader." What makes the right kind of politics work is the engagement of various "groups," who are meeting regularly, and in person, and who are working for something that those in the group believe is in the public interest. The paucity of such small "groups" of interested citizens is what concerns me most about our current politics. Self-government isn't advanced by individuals, who individually decide to be "leaders." It is almost always advanced by small groups of those who come together to accomplish some particular public policy objective. 

That's my experience, at least, and I think that's still true!

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#139 / We Want To Get Along Well

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Pictured above is Milly Zhu, a 34-year-old who recently met up with Ana Swanson, who was covering our current president's visit to China for the New York Times. It seems that their meeting was mostly by chance. Zhu works in China in film and TV promotion, and was walking around in a shopping mall in Beijing when she stopped to talk with the New York Times reporter. Here's what Zhu said: 

We don’t want war, we want peace. We want to get along well with the United States, and we want to develop our economy. Only peace can create a better economy.

Another person interviewed by Swanson was Peng Shuiming. When he was asked about our current president's visit, his comment was this: "My impression of him isn't very good; he's quite brutal." Pictures from our current president's recent visit to China can be seen below. Also, as I mentioned in my blog posting yesterday, our current president has also recently issued a so-called "Counterterrorism Strategy" that promises to kill those whom the president believes threaten the United States. Click here to read that statement. 

Now, take a look at the pictures. How could Peng Shuiming have ever gotten such a bad impression of our country?

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https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/14/world/asia/trump-china-people-street.html

 

#138 / We Will Kill You

 

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Here is a quote from an article in The Intercept:

The Trump administration’s new official counterterrorism strategy outlines in broad terms who it views as terrorist threats and priority targets, ranging from anti-fascist activists to ISIS and so-called narco-terrorists. The line "We will find you, and we will kill you" appears in the memo. 

Please do click that link just provided, if you'd like to verify the claim. The "we will kill you" promise appears in an official document, immediately above the distinctive signature of our current president. 

If you'd like to read the article in The Intercept, try clicking here.

According to The Intercept, this official promise, made on behalf of all of the citizens of the United States, actually puts U.S. citizens "at risk." I, personally, think that's probably true. When told by someone that he or she is planning to kill you, the temptation is to kill the person who said that first. Note that the statement by our current president does use the word "we," thus promising, on behalf of all of us, that "we" will kill the persons identified.

I do agree that this statement puts U.S. citizens "at risk," but I want to raise a related but slightly different objection to the statement made by our current president. Since the statement, potentially, affects every U.S. citizen, many of whom travel widely in the world, and who are thus exposed to those who might like to kill them, I believe that any such statement (or promise) should have been made, officially, by the United States Congress, and signed by the president only then. 

The president's role in our government, of course, is to serve as our "Chief Executive," which means that our president is assigned the job of carrying out and "executing" the directives enacted by the elected representatives who must first debate what makes sense, before issuing the orders that the "Chief Executive" is then supposed to put into actual effect. 

The failure of our current president to understand this basic principle (and the apparent failure of a majority of members of the U.S. Congress to understand it,) not only puts U.S. citizens "at risk," it threatens what most like to call our "democracy." 

Everybody is aware of this, I think, but it never hurts to reiterate the point, especially when what our current chief executive is doing puts all of us "at risk" of being murdered by those who believe that American citizens, in general, have sworn to hunt them down and kill them first.

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https://theintercept.com/2026/05/15/podcast-trump-counterterrorism-strategy/

#137 / When Cruel Death Surrenders

 

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When the first number comprising the entire number that states your age starts rhyming with the word, "great," you had better start contemplating that "Memento Mori" topic I have advertised from time to time, here in this daily blog of mine. As I do my personal "Memento Mori" contemplation - and I do, and particularly as I go out for one of my walks around town, listening to Bob Dylan, and to those "Memorial Songs" of his that I have amalgamated into a personal playlist - the topic of "death" most certainly comes to mind. 

I, personally, have gotten quite fond of the last verse of Dylan's song, "Changing Of The Guards," which goes as follows: 

Peace will come
With tranquillity and splendor on the wheels of fire
But will bring us no reward when her false idols fall
And cruel death surrenders with its pale ghost retreating
Between the King and the Queen of Swords

As I trust we are all aware, there is no doubt that we, each one of us, are going to have to surrender to death. As for the possibility that death itself will surrender, as false idols fall - a possibility that Dylan advertises in his song - I think that we get access to that place of peace, and tranquility, and splendor only by "faith," not "works," to allude to a common theme of religious discussion. 

May peace come to us all (as promised here, in Dylan's song)! 

And may we also, all of us (my wish for anyone who chances upon this blog posting) come, ourselves, to a personal peace! 

oooOOOooo

Changing of the Guards
Written By Bob Dylan

Sixteen years
Sixteen banners united over the field
Where the good shepherd grieves
Desperate men, desperate women divided
Spreading their wings ’neath the falling leaves

Fortune calls
I stepped forth from the shadows, to the marketplace
Merchants and thieves, hungry for power, my last deal gone down
She’s smelling sweet like the meadows where she was born
On midsummer’s eve, near the tower

The cold-blooded moon
The captain waits above the celebration
Sending his thoughts to a beloved maid
Whose ebony face is beyond communication
The captain is down but still believing that his love will be repaid

They shaved her head
She was torn between Jupiter and Apollo
A messenger arrived with a black nightingale
I seen her on the stairs and I couldn’t help but follow
Follow her down past the fountain where they lifted her veil

I stumbled to my feet
I rode past destruction in the ditches
With the stitches still mending ’neath a heart-shaped tattoo
Renegade priests and treacherous young witches
Were handing out the flowers that I’d given to you

The palace of mirrors
Where dog soldiers are reflected
The endless road and the wailing of chimes
The empty rooms where her memory is protected
Where the angels’ voices whisper to the souls of previous times

She wakes him up
Forty-eight hours later, the sun is breaking
Near broken chains, mountain laurel and rolling rocks
She’s begging to know what measures he now will be taking
He’s pulling her down and she’s clutching on to his long golden locks

Gentlemen, he said
I don’t need your organization, I’ve shined your shoes
I’ve moved your mountains and marked your cards
But Eden is burning, either brace yourself for elimination
Or else your hearts must have the courage for the changing of the guards

Peace will come
With tranquillity and splendor on the wheels of fire
But will bring us no reward when her false idols fall
And cruel death surrenders with its pale ghost retreating
Between the King and the Queen of Swords

Copyright © 1978 by Special Rider Music

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_Swords

#136 / Party Off!

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The photo above, from the Daytona Beach News Journal, accompanied a story about how the community of Smyrna Beach, Florida, was seeking to discourage Spring party-goers, way back in 2023. My own focus, in today's blog posting, is on political parties, not on the kind of parties that are held in various seaside locations (including Santa Cruz, California) as good weather draws crowds of young and old beach lovers to gather in large numbers, usually armed with alcohol, and to behave themselves badly.

In fact, my ruminations here stem from the fact that I recently ran across one of my past blog postings, from July, 2024, which was titled "Party On!" In that past blog entry, which was written after the disastrous demonstration, in a televised debate, that our then-president Biden was almost certainly not going to prevail against the challenge facing him from then past-president Trump, I suggested to the grandees of the Democratic Party that they should "use some of their money to assist working class voters, Latinos and others, to build an organization that can deliver for the working class this November." 

Let's eliminate "Top-Down" party politics; that was the essence of my message. That is still good advice, in my opinion. That's still what I think! 

This current blog posting is titled, as you can see, "Party Off!" I am once again suggesting (as I also did yesterday) that our political involvements should not, ideally, be initiated and solely mediated by our political parties. This is a suggestion that I have made rather frequently, going back quite a long time, as I found when I reviewed my past thinking:

#284 / The Crisis Of American Democracy - October 10, 2020

#335 / Unity, Unity, Unity - December 1, 2021

#244 / "Typical (Put Political Party Here) Bullshit" - August 31, 2022

#211 / Common Enemy - Common Cause - July 30, 2023

#343 / "Both Parties" (And What We Do Next) - December 8, 2024

#160 / An American Party - June 9, 2025

Many believe that our political choices are two: "Red" or "Blue," "Conservative" or "Liberal," "Republican" or "Democratic." That perspective, I think, which promotes party polarization, is the main cause of the kind of political constipation that is so horribly evident in the United States Congress, and that blocks effective action by our elected representatives. Effective representation of the diversity of this nation demands discussion, debate, and compromise. The kind of polarized politics presented to us by both political parties is effectively preventing our system of democratic self-government from operating in the way it is supposed to. 

Policy debate, not party-line power struggles, is what we need to promote - at least that's what we need to promote if we want to be able effectively to confront our challenges, and to realize our opportunities. So, "Party Off" is my suggestion!

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#135 / Read My T-Shirt!

 

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That's Rob Sand, pictured. He is currently serving as Iowa's State Auditor, but he is running for Governor. According to The New York Times, Sand has Iowa's Republicans both "nervous" and "worried." The "worried" description comes from the hardcopy version of the headline to the article I've linked. The "nervous" description is what you'll find when you go online to read that article.

Personally, what caught my attention as I paged through The Times on Saturday, May 8th, was the T-Shirt that Sand is wearing, as he is depicted in the picture above. I especially liked the first part:

 BLUER. 

REDDER.

I am REALLY tired of people thinking that "politics" is all about making a binary choice between "Red" and "Blue," and "Blue" and "Red." There are usually very real differences between those who run for office as "Republicans" and those who run as "Democrats," but when you want to "talk politics," and decide which candidate to vote for, talk about the differences, not about those party "colors," or those party titles. I was very fortunate that my personal involvement in politics, as an elected official in Santa Cruz County, California, for twenty years, was always as a "non-partisan" candidate and as a "non-partisan" local official. I was involved in LOTS of debates about "differences," but on the policy merits not on some "party" basis.

Real self-government, emphatically, is not about whether a candidate is "Redder," and more "Republican," or "Bluer," and more "Democratic," than the other choices that might be available. Partisan polarization, which has helped lead us into our current political situation, is absolutely the wrong way to go about the task of self-government. 

I am not sure that trying to differentiate on the basis of "Truer" and "Better" is exactly the best way to do it, either, but as I think about that "Redder" / "Bluer" dichotomy, the warnings provided in that long-ago Bob Dylan song come to mind: "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)." 

Click that link just provided to read the lyrics. Click this link to listen to Bob Dylan sing the song. There are lots of "warnings" provided in Dylan's lyrics, and here's one of them: 

While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him

Is that clear? Maybe not, really! Dylan is nothing if not "poetic" in his way of making a point, but those who pursue the "Red" or the "Blue," as a way to achieve their political goals, are never going to get there. Like Dylan says, "God bless them!"

 

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Image Credit:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/08/us/rob-sand-iowa-governor-democrat.html