Randi, Andy, Barney, Charles January 30, 2015January 30, 2015 RANDI At 86, the Amazing Randi is retiring, as he explains here. And as recently pictured here. For those who don’t know, he’s an American hero: immensely talented, with a lifelong mission not just to entertain (I mean: he’s amazing! he was once encased in a block of ice for 55 minutes!) but also, and more importantly, to expose those who would deceive (like the equally amazing spoon-bending Uri Geller, who, as I’m sure I’ve told you in years past, once drove me through Manhattan’s 79th Street transverse blindfolded — he was blindfolded, not me — to prove he had supernatural powers; which, as I ultimately concluded, with Randi’s help, and to my editor’s great relief, he did not). Hats off to Randi. ANDY No one has ever called him Andy, of course — he is an Andrew through and through — but Andrew Sullivan is hanging up his . . . what? Keys strokes? Pixels? As explained so nicely here. (“I am saturated in digital life and I want to return to the actual world again.”) BARNEY Want a signed limited edition reproduction of the original 1970s “Neatness Isn’t Everything” poster that helped launch Barney Frank’s career? Want some other crowdfunding perk? Click here to help launch the documentary “Compared To What: The Improbable Journey of Barney Frank.” (“Catnip to political junkies . . . endlessly refreshing.” — Hollywood Reporter.) CHARLES Lisa: “I still have the lovely program from the Fall ’06 Bryant Park fashion show that was printed on a diaphanous type of paper. A charming and witty salute to Charles and his creativity. Mr. Nolan and I grew up at the same time, in the same state, on the same island in the Atlantic. The 4:30 pm movie station he refers to was The Million Dollar Movie and I hurried home from school everyday to watch its films that would inspire my mind, my language, my aspirations. (Right after watching the soap opera series ‘Dark Shadows,’ of course.) As — on this fourth anniversary of his passing — I re-read the Q&A that was included, exchanged with warmth, familiarity and a wink, I still laugh out loud. The cherry on top is that I learned some things about the mind of a fashion architect that I carry to this day.” CHARLES NOLAN: The Interview By Andrew Tobias Andrew Tobias’s first New York Times best-seller was FIRE AND ICE, the biography of Revlon founder Charles Revson. Other than that, Charles Nolan is his only connection to the world of fashion. Q: You want me to interview you? A: You’re the writer. You’ve interviewed lots of people. Why not. Q: I don’t know anything about women’s clothes. A: That doesn’t matter. It will save us money to have you do it. Q: Ah. [The interviewer, an investor in CHARLES NOLAN, LLC, brightens.] A: The idea is you doing what you do, helping me explain and brand what I do. Q: You make people cry. A: I do not make people cry! Q: Charles. A: Okay, I can get very frustrated when things aren’t done right, but it passes quickly and we all love each other at the end of the day and get a better result for the customer. In eleven years, have I ever made you cry? Q: No. But I have cowered. A: All right. Start asking me questions. Q: Why are you a fashion designer? A: I don’t really know. I have always loved to make clothes. I love the whole process of choosing the cloth and then letting it tell you what it wants to be. I’ve always wanted to do this but I’m not sure I’ll ever quite know why. Q: The cloth tells you what it wants to be? A: You know what I mean. Q: Do you have a philosophy when it comes to your work? Do you come out of a particular “school”? Other than F.I.T. A: I love making clothes that work for the wearer. I’m a very practical guy, though I know you don’t think so. The basic idea is to make something as simple as possible while making the cut and construction as interesting as possible. Q: Tetrahedrons? A: I like simple, clean lines. The period that really impacted me was 1960 to 1965. It was such a time of change. All the fins came off the car. The simpler dress was always on the leading lady. It was all about neat and pretty and sleek. It was still fun and young in a very sophisticated way. You had this reaction to Fifties groupthink that led to the idea of self-exploration . . . and by the end of the Sixties it’s all about “do your own thing.” Q: You were three in 1960. How could this period have impacted you? A: [Interviewee rolls eyes, ignores question, continues.] “Darling,” the 1965 movie with Julie Christie, completely captures that moment. All the characters make completely selfish choices. The aesthetic is great. It is so fresh. Still romantic, but it’s easy. Q: Did the cloth tell you to say this? A: You really have no feel for this, do you? Q: None. A: It’s all about the fabric. And the fit. And finding that element of serendipity that adds a spark. I drive people crazy over the fit because that’s the absolutely most important thing. I want women to tell me they love wearing my clothes; that they feel comfortable. But I also want them to get compliments. So, for example, I’ve always enjoyed playing with volume and using it in ways that flatter most figures. Q: What about the serendipity? Is this why you were baking a dress in our oven? A: That was a pleated skirt from last Fall’s collection. It’s an old, old way of creating a pleat – you wet it, twist it really tight into a ball and knot it, and then slowly bake it just enough to set the pleat. But the serendipity, or the spark, or whatever you want to call it, can come from anywhere. It’s what draws the customer’s eye to buy the garment – I hope – and then gets her the compliments when she wears it. Lately, we’ve been having fun with glazing all kinds of constructions and crumpling and pleating and overdying. Q: What’s overdying? A: Taking an already finished fabric, like a classic plaid, and then dying it again – purple, say – which gives it a little bit of an old, distressed look and creates interesting surface textures. Q: What about big feathers? I’ve never seen you use big feathers. Wouldn’t that be great? A: I used feathers last Fall and you don’t even remember? I made a turkey feather skirt last Fall. You’re really just trying to annoy me, aren’t you? Q: [Cowers, slightly.] A: I’ve always shied away from pieces with too much fuss and excess decoration. I like to keep decoration very simple – but if you’re going to do it, it should be strong. And all this while never losing sight of the fit, which is what I did at Ellen Tracy and Anne Klein, too. No matter what the fashion or the season or who I’m designing for, one thing never changes: the clothes have to be comfortable. Q: Is being a designer a choice, or were you born this way? A: [Interviewee rolls eyes.] Have a great weekend. If you can, chip in for Barney’s film.
Frank Kameny January 29, 2015 I’ve never been brave. My general rule? If it’s not paved, it’s not safe. I’m keen to help save the rain forest — but from the safety of the donation page. Frank Kameny was brave. Nearly a decade before I wrote about being gay — under a pen name — astronomer Frank Kameny was picketing the White House, demanding First Class Citizenship For Homosexuals. In 1965! That took less physical courage than traveling to Mississippi in 1963 and 1964 to do voter registration, as these gravestones attest. There wasn’t much risk Frank Kameny would be killed outside the White House. But the picketing, arguably, took even more psychological courage because, where much of the country and certainly most of their peers were admiring of those brave black and white students in Mississippi, the stigma of homosexuality was all but universal. No black kid was ever kicked out of the house once it was “discovered” he or she was black, but it happened to gay kids all the time. (Still too often does.) No black kid ever committed suicide upon coming to “the realization” that she or he was black, but LGBT kids took their lives with alarming frequency. (Some still do.) The Brooklyn Dodgers put Jackie Robinson at first base in 1947, 18 years before the bloody march in Selma. It was not until last month — 2014 — 49 years after Frank Kameny and his crew picketed the White House, that Major League Baseball could boast its first openly gay man. (An umpire.) None of which is by any means to try to compare the injustices suffered by gay Americans with the injustices suffered by black — it’s not a competition! (and few would dispute black Americans had it much worse) — but all of which came to mind when my copy of GAY IS GOOD: The Life and Letters of Gay Rights Pioneer Franklin Kameny arrived today. In a letter to his mother in 1972, he wrote: Some 32 years ago [1940, aged 15 or so] I told you that if society and I differ on anything, I will give society a second chance to convince me. If it fails, then I am right and society is wrong, and if society gets in my way, it will be society which will change, not I. That was so alien to your entire approach to life that you responded with disdain. It has been a guiding principle of my life. Society was wrong. I am making society change. And change it has. Here is Frank in the Oval Office a year or two before he died, being handed a ceremonial pen by the President of the United States. And changing it still is. Even in Alabama. Is this a great country, or what?
Uh, Oh January 28, 2015January 27, 2015 Disaster: More people have health insurance; none of us can be turned down for affordable care if we develop a pre-existing condition; and now, Bloomberg reports, Obamacare will cost 20% less than projected. We’re clearly on the wrong track and should repeal rather than improve this law — as Republican leaders have been saying all along. Doing so would get rid of the 3.8% surtax on investment income above $250,000 that helps to pay for it. If we want greater inequality and a tougher life for those already struggling, we must repeal Obamacare. But that’s not all. We should abandon the failed economic strategy of the last six years. The Republicans were right all along in predicting disaster, just as they were when they predicted disaster from Bill Clinton’s first budget and voted unanimously against it. If Republicans can be trusted with one thing, it’s good honest judgment about economic policy. (Also: good judgment on science and in their choice of men and women to lead the world in the event of presidential incapacitation.) This is, after all, serious stuff. They are the grown-ups. They don’t sugar coat. “By any standard,” they tell us, “Barack Obama has been a disaster for our country.” They will repeal Obamacare, build a pipeline for Canadian oil to flow out into the world market, and all will be right with America, as inequality continues to widen, our infrastructure continues to crumble, and the climate continues to change.
Schopenhauer January 27, 2015January 26, 2015 THE INSPIROGRAPH John Seiffer: “You haven’t posted a time-waster in a while – here’s a great one. Use the arrow keys to get it to move.” SCHOPENHAUER My newest “book on tape” is The Year of Reading Dangerously read to me — delightfully — by the author himself in the Audible edition. (The little “ding!” he employs to signify a footnote may itself be worth that format’s higher price.) And it was there my ears stumbled on this quote . . . “It would be a good thing to buy books if one could also buy the time to read them. But one usually confuses the purchase of books with the acquisition of their contents.” . . . from Schopenhauer — Schopenhauer! — who was way too famous (or just too German?) for anyone to use his first name (Arthur) . . . written in — and this is the part that floored me — 1851. More than 150 years ago! Long before the effortless one-clicking on Amazon, yet his essay addressed — at least glancingly — the same problem I have: I buy too many books / can’t help myself / bursting at the seams with them / may someday soon be murdered by a tower of them toppling onto my head / even sometimes buy the physical book after “reading” the Audible version, to have it tangibly in my home (they should offer a discount for that)* — yet, and this is the punch line you surely knew was coming: can’t begin to find time to read most of them. Maybe one in 20. My intentions are always good. I generally mean to read them. But I am a horribly slow reader and have so little time in the first place given my extensive responsibilities to Words With Friends. (“Damn you, Zynga!” [right fist and eyes upraised to the heavens, ala Jon Stewart].) But now, at least, I’ve “read” one sentence of Schopenhauer. I may tackle Nietzsche next. *Ding! I put quotes around “reading” because it always made Charles crazy when I said I had “read” something I had actually listened to. A voracious eyeball reader, he would have none of my protest that, yes, I had read it, just through a different portal.
Deficit Thinking January 26, 2015January 26, 2015 COSMIC THINKING: THE NEXT 15 YEARS As you know, I love this kind of stuff. I think you will too. Under two minutes. (Thanks, Tom Stolze!) MISINFORMATION Marc B.: “Last week’s post on ‘two pernicious misconceptions’ (you wrote, ‘there is a lot of misinformation out there’) brought up a couple points that struck me as ‘misinformation’ on your part. First, you implied that Bush was the cause of the global economy on the brink of catastrophe. (‘Bush handed Obama a $1.5 trillion deficit and a global economy on the brink of catastrophe.’) The blame for the global economy, and even the US recession, cannot be solely placed on one political party…both political parties had a hand in the US downturn, but on a global scale, the blame is very widespread, including governments, central banks, banks, bank regulators, bank regulations, individual best interest, and the list goes on and on.” ☞ No question, the world is too complex to suggest that Bush alone could all its problems. But he chose to invade Iraq; he chose to slash taxes on the rich. In combination, that greatly weakened our national balance sheet. He and his administration were at the helm as the real estate bubble inflated and inflated and inflated — and if someone like you or me could see it (and I was hardly alone in writing about it over and over and over), surely the Bush folks could have spotted it, too, and worked to avoid or at least minimize the worst damage. In any event, my point was that where Clinton handed Bush a surplus (and might have had something to do with the success of his eight ears in office), Bush handed Obama a $1.5 trillion deficit that should not be blamed on Obama (who hadn’t yet even been elected when the fiscal year began), even if you think it’s unfair to blame it on Bush. Still, you raise a fair point. Just because a president may get a daily briefing report titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US” or reports of a massive economy-threatening real estate bubble doesn’t necessarily mean he or she can be blamed for ignoring them. Only with hindsight, perhaps, can we really know which of the thousands of reports and briefings a president gets should have been given special focus, and presidents do not operate (or vacation) with the benefit of hindsight. One last piece of this is the Republican misinformation that (essentially) “it was all Barney Frank’s fault.” In the back of Barney Frank’s forthcoming memoir — praised by Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Elizabeth Warren alike — there’s an appendix that just totally blows all that out of the water. Back to Mark B. — whose comments, I want to be clear, are thoughtful and appreciated, even if my response to them is . . . energetic. “The second part of potential ‘misinformation’ is your discussion of the $1.5T deficit in 2009 under Bush — regardless of the cause (some/much due to his prior policies), the US was in recession at the time (NBER dates the recession start in December 2007). You state, when explaining the high debt that Obama has racked up, ‘there’s at least a reason: pulling out of a nose-dive toward depression requires massive deficit spending.’ If you find it OK for Obama to have the high deficit because the US was heading toward depression, then Bush’s 2009 deficit must be given the same free pass—admittedly it may have been much his fault, but once the country is in that position, based on your own argument, Bush is allowed the same free pass that you are giving Obama.” ☞ Ummm . . . no. I think no president who serves for eight years is absolved of some responsibility for how he’s attempted to manage the economy and national balance sheet. But again, let’s say Bush did the best anyone could. He had to slash tax revenues from the wealthy. He had to spend trillions on those wars. He had to starve the regulatory agencies and the IRS. My main point in all this, however much or little you may blame Bush, is that it’s nuts to blame Obama for the debt it took to pull out of the nose-dive. Yet Republicans unfailingly do. It was under Reagan, Bush, and Bush — Republicans! — that the gradual decline in our National Debt, from 122% of GDP in 1946 down to 30% when Reagan took office, was reversed and sent soaring back upward. And it was under Democrats that the upward trend was reversed — first Clinton and now Obama. Both of whom saw massive job creation on their watches despite the Republican insistence that taxing the best off kills jobs. Joel Grow: “Another way to look at it . . . in just 20 years of Supply-Side under Reagan/Bush/Bush, they ran up 75% of the debt for our entire 233-year history. George W. ran up over 50% of our 233-year debt all on his own — and with a GOP Congress for 6 of his 8 years. Where were the deficit hawks then?” ☞ Where indeed? We need moderate, sensible folks willing to compromise and make smart decisions that invest in the future. Deficits to fight unnecessary wars or fund ineffective programs or make unnecessary tax cuts are bad. Deficits to fund investments in our kids’ health, education, and civic development, or to fund R&D or to fund infrastructure for the next 100 years are in our best interest, so long as in most years the overall Debt grows slower than the economy as a whole, as it did from 1946-1980, did under Bill Clinton, and now finally has begun to do again under Barack Obama.
What’s That On Your FACE?! January 23, 2015 Yesterday I argued two things: > We don’t have to pay down the National Debt. > Taxing the wealthy will not cost jobs. These are fundamental misunderstandings the right has used to great political advantage, benefiting the very best off to the detriment of everyone else. DEBT: Unless we’re planning to close up shop as a nation, it’s fine to carry debt. The goal should not be to pay down — let alone pay off — our National Debt; merely to have it grow slower than the economy in most years, as it did from 1946 to 1980. (If only Reagan/Bush had understood this! Instead, by slashing taxes on the wealthy, they quadrupled the Debt. If only the second Bush had understood this! By slashing those taxes still further, he nearly doubled it — and handed Obama an economy in such nose-dive it required tremendous deficits to set right. By contrast, Clinton succeeded — and now Obama has succeeded — in cutting the deficit such that the Debt is again shrinking relative to the economy as a whole. Which except in recession years is exactly what you want it to do.) TAXES: Redistributing life’s financial burdens back a bit toward the wealthy — after decades of shifting the other way — will not hurt the economy. I love the wealthy! In a modest way, I’m one of the wealthy! But the economy will grow better with less inequality and a more robust middle class. See yesterday’s post if you’re not already sold on this. > To help move the President’s agenda with your activism, click here. > To persuade a friend or loved one to get affordable health coverage, take 56 seconds to watch this — what’s that on your face?! — and then forward it to said friend or loved one. # NEXT ISSUE The last thing I need is more stuff to read; and at $14.95/month for the full slate, Next Issue ain’t cheap. But consider the upside: unlimited access to current and back issues of 140 magazines, including, I’d guess, most of the ones you already subscribe to . . . whenever you want, wherever you are . . . on your phone, iPad, and computer. At no cost to the planet. No paper, no ink, no chemicals, no delivery trucks. Try it FREE for 60 days and make a note in your calendar to cancel at any time thereafter if it turns out not to be your thing. [Full disclosure: If you sign up and don’t cancel, and if I’ve not botched the referral link, I will allegedly get a $25 gift certificate. Oh, boy!]
Nick Hanauer – Updated And Unpacked January 22, 2015 STATE OF THE UNION Vince DeHart: “Is this a GREAT president, or what? Barack Obama makes me PROUD to be an American!” Guess what: I agree. If you missed it, read it here. Better still, watch the whole thing. TWO PERNICIOUS MISCONCEPTIONS The Mitch McConnell crowd believe that “by any standard” the President “has been a disaster for our country.” And that global warming is a hoax; Darwin’s theory of evolution is hokum (the planet is only a few thousand years old) — and on and on. Donald Trump seems pretty sure the President was born in Kenya. Seventy percent of those who voted to reelect George W. Bush believed Iraq had played a role in attacking us on 9/11. There is a lot of misinformation out there. Two particularly widespread — pernicious — misconceptions are that we should pay down or pay off our national debt and that raising taxes on the wealthy would hurt the economy. Not true! THE DEBT It’s fine to run deficits so long as we expand our debt more slowly, in most years, than we expand our economy. This is what we did from 1946, when the National Debt peaked at 122% of GDP, to 1980, when it bottomed out at 30% — before Ronald Reagan arrested that healthy trend. He — and then George W. Bush — so slashed taxes for the wealthy and ramped up military spending that they sent that 30% debt ratio soaring back up to 100% by the time Bush handed Obama a $1.5 trillion deficit and a global economy on the brink of catastrophe. (Bill Clinton, in the interim, managed to lower the debt ratio; as Barack Obama has now again begun to do.) By way of illustration, if we were to run $500 billion deficits for each of the next 50 years but grow GDP at 2.5% plus 2% inflation annually, by 2065 the debt would have ballooned to more than $40 trillion (!!!) . . . yet that seemingly horrifying number would represent less than 30% of GDP — lower than the ratio Reagan inherited from Jimmy Carter. To try literally to “pay it down” — let alone “pay it off” — by raising taxes sharply and/or slashing spending, would be insanity: it would plunge the economy back into recession and the same nose-diving vicious cycle of unemployment and lower tax receipts and higher safety-net payments — with even higher deficits, not lower — that President Obama managed to pull us out of. (For those who still insist Obama is responsible for more debt than his predecessors, note, first, that “his” $1.5 trillion 2009 deficit was for the fiscal year that began October 1, weeks before he was even elected and months before he took office — this was clearly Bush’s deficit, not Obama’s. He was handed such a disaster that the next few years’ deficits were pretty well dictated by Bush’s gross mismanagement. Never before had we attempted to “finance” wars by cutting taxes, let alone slashing them, as Bush did.) (Note, also, that while the “Obama” deficits are huge in absolute dollars, relatively speaking they are less so. Ronald Reagan inherited a National Debt under one trillion dollars — and tripled it. George W. Bush inherited a National Debt that, because of the Clinton surplus, had actually begun to shrink modestly — and doubled it. Like Clinton, Obama is once again lowering the debt relative to the size of the economy as a whole. It’s unlikely to have doubled by the time he leaves office. But if it does, there’s at least a reason: pulling out of a nose-dive toward depression requires massive deficit spending. Ronald Reagan and the Bushes had no such reason.) TAXES Yes: If President Obama were proposing to raise $320 billion in added taxes over the next 10 years — and nothing more — that would suck $320 billion of demand out of the economy and might indeed hurt growth and employment, as the Republicans assert with one voice it will. “It’s a nonstarter!” Totally unthinkable! A fantasy! But here’s what they’re missing (or pretending to miss): the President doesn’t propose to have that money disappear (i.e., reduce the deficit). Most of it would stay in the economy . . . to pay for community college tuition and books and lodging; to lower taxes (and increase the earned income tax credit) for the middle class and lower income workers. So money would not be sucked out of the economy — it would simply be redistributed and spent by others. Which is an appalling concept when the redistribution flows from the wealthy to everyone else . . . but was just fine for the decades when more and more of the nation’s wealth was being redistributed to the wealthy (and especially the 1% of the 1%, who fund so many Republican candidates and dark money groups). If this unthinkable redistribution is permitted to occur, we will become a society that builds modestly smaller mega-yachts and supports the purchase of modestly fewer $50 million condominiums (this nice one just went for $100 million). But also a society that has fewer children living in poverty and that invests more in their health and education and — as a result — our future prosperity. (A healthy, educated workforce is more productive.) It’s a matter of priorities: Is your first priority helping the already best off, like Jeb Bush and most other Republicans? Or is it addressing the problem of our growing inequality and shrinking middle class, like Barack Obama and most other Democrats? JOB CREATORS The last little piece of this is the canard that raising taxes on the wealthy kills jobs. Nick Hanauer decimates that notion in this must-watch short video I keep linking to. For those who want the newer, longer version, it’s now available here:
Jet On A Stool January 21, 2015January 20, 2015 What really impresses me about this three-minute video (thanks, Mel), where a young pilot in an emergency situation lands his harrier jet on a “stool,” is not the landing itself but that someone had the foresight to design and deploy such stools in the first place. Because, when you think about it, was this emergency any more foreseeable — or potentially devastating — than, say, the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster that spewed tens of millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf? Could a consortium of the giant off-shore oil drillers not have pre-deployed one or two containment domes as a sort of cheap insurance policy against just such a disaster? One day’s transport time from any rig in the Gulf instead of the 87 days it took to cap the BP spill? Have any such been made and pre-deployed even now? Indeed, isn’t it generally smarter and cheaper to deal with foreseeable catastrophes in advance — like repairing or replacing decrepit bridges before they collapse? Or mitigating climate change before most of the world’s major cities have to be moved? How do we persuade the Republicans in Congress to stop blocking the American Jobs Act that would put so many people back to work repairing our crumbling infrastructure? How do we persuade them to replace the climate deniers who chair the Senate* and House** science committees with people who actually “believe in” science? The President’s State of the Union proposals make so much common sense. For the common good. But for the party that rejects them, priority #1 — as this Tom Toles cartoon reminds us — is enriching the already best off. *” . . . ‘God’s still up there [says James Inhofe]. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.'” (Click here for more Inhofe quotes juxtaposed with science-based rebuttals.) **”Smith . . . has worked to undermine climate science in his position as chairman of the committee. He’s investigated National Science Foundation grants to researchers working on climate change on the premise that those grants aren’t in the ‘national interest.’ Nor does he seem particularly interested in finding out more about climate science. His committee has held more hearings on aliens than they have on climate science . . . “
All Good Children Go To Heaven . . . * January 20, 2015January 20, 2015 KIDS AND MALARKEY So get this: It now turns out that 6-year-old Alex Malarkey didn’t go to heaven! KIDS AND MEDICAID Republican governors spurn federal funds for Medicaid expansion — they care deeply for you until you’re born; thereafter, not so much — yet it turns out, as the Times reports, “Giving [children] health coverage may boost their future earnings for decades. And the taxes they pay on those higher incomes may help pay the government back for some of its investment. The study used newly available tax records measured over decades to examine the effects of providing Medicaid insurance to children. . . . People who had been eligible for Medicaid as children, as a group, earned higher wages and paid higher federal taxes than their peers . . . ” KIDS AND CLIMATE CHANGE Oh, by the way? This clip from Friday’s NBC Nightly News makes it clear Republican climate deniers are making life way more difficult for our kids and theirs. *WATCH THE STATE OF THE UNION TONIGHT AT 9PM EST* *The Beatles’ You Never Give Me Your Money, quoting a nursery rhyme.
Animal Pictures! January 19, 2015January 18, 2015 Today’s a holiday so, technically, you deserve respite. But I did threaten you with “animal pictures Monday” and who am I not to follow through on a threat? Have you seen Selma? I keep thinking, as we celebrate Reverend King’s birthday, that the monumental struggle it recounts — with all the hatred and beatings and murders — culminated in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 . . . and that a 5-4 majority of the Bush Supreme Court recently gutted that Act.* Shameful, really. But with power and wealth generally come the desire for more. Making it harder for black people to vote (because they vote overwhelmingly against the party focused on aiding the wealthy while cutting things like drug treatment programs, as Jeb did) is just one more means to that end. And now: ANIMALS! Each of us Earthlings just doing what it takes to get by. Five minutes. I love this. *I call it the Bush Supreme Court because three of the five votes to gut the Voting Rights Act came from Bush appointees and the other two, from Reagan/Bush appointees. If Jeb should win the Presidency, he might well have a chance to replace liberal Justices Ginsberg and Breyer with two more Bush conservatives. (And Scalia and Kennedy, who will be 80, with two 50-year-olds.) Which is one of the reasons I keep badgering my affluent friends for support.