Author: A.T.

The Key To Happiness . . .

Purpose.

As per this article on Ukraine:

. . . Amazingly, in polling conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) last September, 68 percent of Ukrainians answered yes to the question “Do you consider yourself a happy person?” compared with just 53 percent in 2017. When I asked the sociologist Nataliya Zaitseva-Chipak to help me understand — how on earth could people be happier during a war of terror directed against the civilian population? — she replied, “Yes, I’m happier!” It wasn’t just the overwhelming sense of common purpose, she explained. It was also appreciating everything you still have when your compatriots are suffering so much worse in the trenches or the pulverized city of Mariupol. . . .

SELF-HELP INTERLUDE

If you know someone looking for a sense of purpose, suggest they start by Googling volunteer opportunities and their zip code.

Not only does helping someone or some group provide purpose (just, please, try not to help a cult: look for a fact-based cause), it reminds us how fortunate we are not to be in their shoes.

As my late mother once wrote (apologies to long-time readers who’ve heard this before):

My Christmas message is quite short:
Give to OTHERS your support.
Count your blessings, help the needy . . .
It makes you happy, yes indeedy!
Self-involvement makes you sad;
Espouse a cause and you’ll be glad.
Extend some roots and find a goal
And peace and joy will fill your soul.

It’s not John Masefield or Ernest Lawrence Thayer . . . but helpful words to someone adrift?

And now back to that same article in the New York Review.

Putin Is losing:

. . . From every Ukrainian you now hear this utter rejection and even hatred, not just of the Russian president, not just of the Russian Federation, but of everything Russian, including the culture and language of what Putin likes to call the “Russian world.” “I was a Russian speaker until February 24,” said Adeline, a refugee from the town of Nova Kakhovka, just across the River Dnipro from Kherson. Several students I spoke to echoed the argument of the Ukrainian writer Oksana Zabuzhko that the horrors of Bucha and Irpin are somehow prefigured in Russian literature—not just in Dostoevsky but even, they say, in Tolstoy and Chekhov.

In Ukrainian literature they find “the spirit of freedom”; in Russian, only that of oppression and mental servitude. According to KIIS, in May 2013 some 80 percent of Ukrainians still had a positive attitude toward Russia; by May 2022 that figure was down to 2 percent.

Hail to Putin, destroyer of the Russian world.

Have a great week!

 

Now, I Am A Man

I hope soon to tell you how I reconnected with Uri Geller after fifty years and met the 18-year-old mentalist of the Israeli Air Force . . .

. . . or how, atop Masada, on my first-ever visit to Israel, I was surprise-Bar Mitzvah-ed.

If I never get around to it, remind me when next we have dinner.

Today, though, I return to one of what are perhaps the three overarching themes of our time (along with “climate change” and “the coming AI revolution”): the struggle to preserve democracy.

Hungary is leading the charge into darkness — Putin, Kim, and others got there ages ago — but the U.S. and Israel are flirting with the same slippery slope.

Watch.

Oh, how I long for the competent, principled Republicans of old.

Nikki Haley is not one of them.

Have a great weekend.

 

It’s Not Just George Santos

In Arizona, a crackpot gets promoted and underscores the danger to democracy.

(Thanks, Tony.)

Steven S.: “I just want to second your plug for Noa Tishby’s startlingly important book, Israel: The Most Misunderstood Country on Earth.   Even my most heartfelt, liberal and wise friends have almost no clue.  This book has opened many minds — although I’m saddened by the recent turn of political leadership there.  May sanity prevail again, and soon!”

 

Think Big, Not Small

By Paul London, in The Hill.

Important — inspirational — and worth reading in full:

Becoming the Arsenal of Democracy Again

. . . Twice in the 20th century the U.S. put its enormous resources to work and rapidly surmounted challenges from aggressive foreign powers. If the U.S. gets its growth-rate up again, it also could reduce domestic divisions and mitigate potentially destabilizing changes in the nature and location of work, climate change, rural-urban tensions, race and gender issues that are roiling American politics. . . .

Recent history underlines America’s immense capabilities. It already is sending transition fuels like liquified natural gas to friends in Europe and Asia being squeezed by Russia. It also is supporting Ukraine with large quantities of military and non-military aid. Here at home, there are frequent announcements of new finds of rare earths, lithium and similar assets needed to grow and modernize the economy to compete with China. Supply chains will take time and investment to develop, but President Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and private sector efforts are starting to kick in.

This kind of investment and transformation is what the U.S. does best. The country rapidly surmounted threats from autocratic regimes twice in the 20th century, making itself into what President Franklin Roosevelt called “the arsenal of democracy.” In 1917 and 1940 there also were domestic forces fighting against “preparedness” as there are today. These had to be overcome to preserve freedom, and overcome they were. The key to these successes was the country’s long-recognized “commercial” culture that encourages innovation, and private and government investment to finance needed projects.

U.S. army-navy spending jumped from slightly less than half a billion dollars in 1916 to $3.4 billion in 1917 and $8.6 billion 1918, huge sums in those days. The surge led to a roughly 40 percent increase in industrial production. New industrial facilities were created on the Tennessee River in Alabama to make nitrate-based munitions. This government investment became the core of TVA that helped modernize a dozen Appalachian and Southern states. There also was a surge in food production. The number of Americans under arms went from less than 200,000 in 1916 to 2,000,000, and far from impoverishing us, these efforts led to higher wages, agricultural prosperity, and improved living standards. Faster growth is always good for ordinary Americans. . . .

The U.S. in 2023 is facing foreign and domestic challenges greater than any it has faced since the Cuban Missile Crisis and World War II. Patriotism today is to invest enough in military and civilian modernization to convince the world that democracies can stand up to autocracies and win the future. Pretending that the country cannot afford to do so because of exaggerated fears of inflation and debt is to learn nothing from 20th century history.

If you disagree, read the whole piece.  It’s persuasive.

 

How Democracy SHOULD Work

“Democracies turn into dictatorships,” the mayor of Tel Aviv told a TV interviewer just now during the demonstration here, “using democracy.  Dictatorships turn into democracies only using blood.”

The parallels between Trump and Netanyahu, both determined to avoid prison, are real.

Tom Friedman explains what’s going on:  In 46 Words, Biden Sends a Clear Message to Israel.

. . . This is the first time I can recall a U.S. president has ever weighed in on an internal Israeli debate about the very character of the country’s democracy. And although it’s only 46 words, Biden’s statement comes at a crucial time in this wrenching Israeli internal discussion and could well energize and expand the already significant opposition to what Netanyahu’s opponents are calling a legal coup that would move Israel into the camp of countries that have been drifting away from democracy, like Turkey, Hungary and Poland. . . .

→ Worth reading in full.

The biggest threat to our democracy, argues Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations,, comes not from Russia or China but from within.  Our liberties are protected by The Bill of Rights — we have rights! — but protecting those rights requires something from us as well.  He offers The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens.  Starting with Be Informed.  So obvious — but how many young friends do we have who just aren’t?  Or contemporaries do we know who listen only to FOX — or, for that matter, only to MSNBC?

You will almost surely agree with all ten — Remain Civil . . . Reject Violence . . . Stay Open To Compromise . . . Put Country First — so in that sense, we learn nothing new.  But in fact, in reading Haass, who worked for three Republican presidents, we learn a great deal.

Here’s how democracy should work — New Jersey’s Democratic governor Phil Murphy and Utah’s Republican governor Spencer Cox working together.

Hurray to them both.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

 

The Birth Of Monotheism (But First: Seinfeld)

A clip you’ve surely seen (40 seconds).

And now this (not much longer) that I saw only yesterday.

Some game last night!  (I assume.  It was 3AM.)

The game here kicks off around noon local time:

Thousands of workers gear up for mass strike Monday in protest of judicial shakeup

About 300 tech companies, venture capital funds and law firms are expected to gather for civil protest at the Knesset, as well as doctors and mental health professionals.

Hundreds of tech startups, law firms and other private sector companies have allowed tens of thousands of their employees to join a nationwide civil worker strike on Monday against the government’s contentious plans for a judicial overhaul. . . .

“We wish to send a message, loud and clear, that Israel’s fragile democratic fabric must be protected,” leaders of the tech protest wrote. . . .

It’s a sort of inverse January 6 — a NON-violent rally (one hopes) to SAVE democracy, not overturn it.

Stay tuned.

Have a great week.

 

Of SOTU, Eggs, Wisconsin, And Jerusalem

I thought the President was great Tuesday.

Friendly, decent, agile, reassuring, optimistic, empathetic, visionary, energetic.

And — writes Josh Barro — effective:

Biden’s State of the Union Was a Feisty Return to ’90s Politics. Republicans Should Be Afraid.

I’m 10 months late posting this, but — even as inflation is on its way back down (wholesale egg prices have collapsed!) — I think it’s worth amplifying:

Corporate profits are half the inflation problem.

. . . The price of just about everything in the U.S. economy can be broken down into the three main components of cost. These include labor costs, nonlabor inputs, and the “mark-up” of profits over the first two components. Good data on these separate cost components exist for the nonfinancial corporate (NFC) sector—those companies that produce goods and services—of the economy, which makes up roughly 75% of the entire private sector.

Since the trough of the COVID-19 recession in the second quarter of 2020, overall prices in the NFC sector have risen at an annualized rate of 6.1%—a pronounced acceleration over the 1.8% price growth that characterized the pre-pandemic business cycle of 2007–2019. Strikingly, over half of this increase (53.9%) can be attributed to fatter profit margins, with labor costs contributing less than 8% of this increase. This is not normal. From 1979 to 2019, profits only contributed about 11% to price growth and labor costs over 60%, as shown in Figure A below.

WISCONSIN

From: Ben Wikler, WisDems Chair
To: Interested Parties

On April 4, 2023, Wisconsinites will vote to fill an open seat on the state Supreme Court—in an election that will determine whether that body will have a conservative or a progressive majority until 2025. This race will shape voting rights, decisions on election subversion, legislative district lines, and so much more—and will likely have a larger effect on the 2024 presidential race than any other contest in the country in 2023.

Over these last two presidential cycles, the state Supreme Court has played an outsized role in shaping the electoral playing field and the powers of government in ways that have systematically advantaged Republicans in Wisconsin.

Currently, three independent and relatively progressive Justices serve on the nominally nonpartisan court, along with three hard-right Republican, and one conservative, Brian Hagedorn, who occasionally declines to take the most extreme GOP position. Wisconsin was the state that came closest in the country to overturning the results of the 2020 election; only Hagedorn’s decision to side with the three
non-GOP-aligned Justices led to Trump’s suit losing 4-3.

With a conservative justice retiring, April 4 represents a chance to flip an open seat—which could lead to a Wisconsin Supreme Court majority ready to adopt far less gerrymandered state legislative maps, defend voting rights, rule that Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion ban is invalid, and otherwise side with the law rather than Republican ideology. Fair maps, in turn, could open the door to contested legislative majorities in 2024 and the possibility of winning a blue trifecta in Wisconsin in 2024 or 2026.

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin intends to fully support the more progressive candidate in this nonpartisan contest. In keeping with other recent high-stakes races here, this is likely to be the most expensive Supreme Court race in Wisconsin history.

To help, click here.

ISRAEL

It could have been called Zionism for Dummies and is written by an actress/model/producer who went to Burning Man dressed as Lawrence of Arabia.  If you’re concerned about the plight of the Palestinians (and who can fail to be?), read Noa Tishby’s Israel to check your perceptions.

Have a great weekend!

 

PRKR, But First: A Look At Cops From The Inside

“Officers who see themselves as noble heroes can be the ones who do the most harm,” writes former sheriff Rahr.

A cop for decades, she went along to get along:

. . . I had misgivings, but ultimately, I voted with the rest of the board to find the shooting justified. As their precinct commander, I knew that the officers involved were good people, and I didn’t have the heart or courage to call out their bad tactics. I just let it go. I knew nothing about the person they’d killed—except that he had a criminal record and had just committed a felony. That was enough for me to rationalize my vote, and thus dodge the risk of being seen as a traitor to my tribe. Over my 33 years with the sheriff’s office, I participated in more than a dozen such review boards, and every time, I voted in defense of the officers’ actions.

I ignored how the board’s validation of bad tactics perpetuated future bad practices. Or how it mirrored the cultural tolerance for rough and aggressive tactics in high-crime neighborhoods. The board’s approach reinforced the myth about how policing should be done in those neighborhoods—with those kinds of people. It was considered the cost of doing business.

My acceptance of this culture began to shift when I ran for sheriff in 2004 and had to listen to people outside of my cop cave during my campaign. . .

Concluding:

. . . We continue to use police to maintain order as a substitute for equality and adequate social services. It will take a generation of courageous leaders to change this culture, to reject this myth, and to truly promote a mission of service—a mission that won’t drive officers to lose their humanity.

Ideally, we would have more cops.  They would be better trained (as in almost every other country).  They would be as honest as Serpico (what? you’ve never seen it?).  They would be friends of the communities they serve.

Theirs is one of the 25 most dangerous professions in the U.S. . . . a crucial profession . . . and surely more stressful than almost any other.

To lessen that stress, would it make sense to institute universal background checks?  To reinstitute the assault weapons ban?  To register guns as we do cars?  To license their owners as we do drivers?  To grant cities and towns the freedom to impose whatever weapons restrictions their votes want?

As they did back in the Wild West?

Wyatt Earp!

PRKR

I can’t call yesterday’s outcome a “crushing disappointment” — that sort of phrase works for someone who’s trained a lifetime for the Olympics and is knocked out the night before by Covid.  This wasn’t that.  Nor did the jury find in Intel’s favor.  Instead, the judge (inexplicably, to me) told the two parties they had to settle . . . and pushed hard (as best I read the tea leaves) for a small settlement rather than what a lot of us who’ve been helping to fund the lawsuit thought would be fair.  So instead of, say, tripling yesterday, the stock dropped by half, back to 22 cents.

This article tries to make sense of it.

The bonanza I had hoped for is now off the table.  But as the article notes, there are other PRKR suits before the same judge.

Those might result in settlements as well.  And the Qualcomm appeal should be decided this year, and could eventually lead to a jury trial.  And the company believes it has valuable new inventions on the shelf.

So I’m selling no shares and still have hopes — albeit less immediate and more modest.

Sorry, guys.

HOUSEKEEPING

I’m off to a foreign land.  If I don’t post, it could be either sloth, jet lag, or an Internet issue.

If what I do post seems oddly disconnected — why am I writing about cops instead of the State of the Union? — it’s because I wrote it before I left.

To compensate, I will extend your subscription as circumstances warrant at no charge.

 

Could Israel Go The Way Of Hungary?

Like the U.S., Israel is messy and flawed but, overall, a spectacular success and gift to the world.

But also like the U.S., it is flirting with autocracy: the kind of strongman government Trump’s team openly admires.

That would be a tragedy.

Tom Friedman explains (“Can Joe Biden Save Israel?”), concluding:

Israel and the U.S. are friends. But today, one party in this friendship — Israel — is changing its fundamental character. President Biden, in the most caring but clear way possible, needs to declare that these changes violate America’s interests and values and that we are not going to be Netanyahu’s useful idiots and just sit in silence.

If you have time for one more:

Could Israel go the way of Hungary?

. . . The new minister for communications, Shlomo Karhi, is seeking to shut down Kan, the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation, one of the largest investors in original content in Israel. According to common estimates in the industry, the government’s intention is to divert at least some of Kan’s budget to commercial networks, and especially to one small hard-right news channel that is widely regarded as a mouthpiece for Mr. Netanyahu and his supporters.

Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition has also introduced proposals that would make critical journalism and documentary work close to impossible. One bill would forbid the airing of recordings done without the consent of the participants, while another would forbid recording soldiers in action, or even the online sharing of such videos. The taking over of the culture and media industry by the government would go hand in hand with efforts to limit the power of the courts.

It is not a huge leap to say these are the first steps in the populist playbook, the likes of which the world has seen in Turkey and Hungary. Nothing guarantees that Israel will not follow the same path. . . .

So much to applaud in tonight’s State of the Union.

> The basket case economy Biden inherited is roaring ahead.

> The crumbling infrastructure he inherited is being revitalized.

> The demoralized Free World alliances are now stronger than ever, with respect for our leadership restored.

> The lurch toward strongman-style government and “alternative facts” has been halted — at least for now.

These are huge things.