Author Archive: Bill Black
I'm a baby boomer, lefty Democrat, Boston Irish Catholic, born in 1953. I work as a public affairs consultant in Washington.
Hope for the Church
http://www.onourshoulders.org/#doctrine
America is at a tipping point where the traditional commitment of our government to protecting and advancing the common good is in very real danger of being dismantled for generations. Members of the “Tea Party,” libertarians, Ayn Rand followers and other proponents of small government have brought libertarian views of government into the mainstream; legitimating forms of social indifference. After decades of anti-government rhetoric and “starve the beast” tax cuts, some even appear to exploit predictable fiscal problems to establish a privatized, libertarian order that reduces society to a collection of individuals and shrinks the common good to fit the outcomes achievable by private, for profit firms.
Crate & Barrel Sucks
This post was in my drafts section and was written years ago. I posted it thinking that WordPress would preserve the original date. It did not. So, it is posted out of sequence.
I used to be a fan of Crate and Barrel. I have spent many thousands of dollars at the Spring Valley store in Washington, DC. I find the products of high quality and tasteful design. And their salespeople are unfailingly polite and solicitous. It’s like they are good a both ends, but suck in the middle.
About a year ago, I bought some patio furniture for more than $3,000. It was probably two months before I was able to actually sit on the furniture on my back deck, all because they couldn’t produce the cushions that went on the furniture. But the worst part of the experience is that I was guaranteed on multiple occasions by their very solicitous salespeople that the cushions would arrive at my house on a date certain…..and nothing would come. It would happen again and again and again, with various explanations for the breakdown in each individual instance. In the end, the store grudgingly gave me a $150 gift card as compensation for the enormous hassle that this nightmare caused.
I was so frustrated, I boycotted the company for a year. But I had this gift card, so I finally decided to weigh in again and buy a barbecue grill.
Big mistake. Another nightmare.
Rita’s Relations
This post was in my drafts section and was written years ago. I posted it thinking that WordPress would preserve the original date. It did not. So, it is posted out of sequence.
Rita’s father’s people are from County Kerry. We were told that she had relatives in a place called Kilgobnet. No one we spoke to had ever heard of the place. Fortunately, Google had, so we were able to place it generally, near Kilorglan, the place where Puck Fair takes place. Rita’s father’s boat was named Puck Fair in honor of his ancestors.
Unfortunately, most of the people in Kilorglan had never heard of Kilgobnet either. We ended up stopping at a private home and got directions that brought us close. We ended up asking about three more people before we found the Kilgobnet Post Office. Here’s Rita there.
Willie and John
Here are Willie Corrigan and John Cod, who came from central casting. They are a couple of laddies from County Whitlow and were visiting Kinsale on holiday.Scalia
I have lost all respect for Antonin Scalia. I used to think he was a smart, principled judge with the wrong principles. Now I think he’s just a jerk. On 60 Minutes, Leslie Stahl got him talking about torture and whether it violated the Constitution. He said, as he always says about issues he doesn’t want to deal with, “There’s nothing in the Constitution about torture,” thereby absolving him from declaring the practice unconstitutional and getting crosswise with his friends in the Bush Administration. Stahl pointed out that there’s a prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment.”
“Ah!” he says, “That applies to punishment. Torture to extract information is not punishment.”
Bullshit! You say to the person being tortured, “Tell us the information or we’ll torture you.” If that’s not punishment, nothing is. It just shows the lengths to which he’ll go to advance his conservative philosophy.
It’s reminiscent of “Depends on the what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”
My John Dingell Story
John Dingell Speaking on the Floor
I was a relatively new legislative assistant on Capitol Hill in 1984 when my most exciting experience to date was about to occur. I was going to get to go onto the House floor for the first time to staff Congressman Barney Frank who was offering an amendment to a major piece of environmental legislation, the Superfund reauthorization bill. Barney had agreed to offer an amendment on behalf of the environmental community to increase the legal liability of polluters for their bad acts. It was a perennial amendment that environmentalists supported and was usually voted down for reasons unimportant to this story.
It was relatively early in Barney’s congressional career, a period during which he generally didn’t rely heavily on staff. Because he was so smart and such a skilled legislator, the role of staff was simply to supply him basic information, not advise him on strategy or tactics. Thus, he didn’t think it would matter much that he was going to the House Floor with an amendment staffed by a guy who only a few years before was stocking shelves in a supermarket. Boy, was he wrong. Continue Reading
The Simple Way
Fuller Center riders enter the offices of The Simple Way.
At the start of each day on the Fuller Center Cross Country Bike Adventure, we have a “circle up,” where we get basic information about the ride ahead and, sometimes but not always, information about where we will be staying, which is almost always a church. As we get to the end of the ride, my senses are heightened. I begin take in the neighborhood to get some idea what the next 12 to 15 hours will be like. I generally hope we will be near a commercial area where the basic needs are within walking distance, particularly things like IPA beer and ice cream. You know, the staples. I will also be interested in learning about the accommodations. Will this be a big church with lots of room for our sleeping pads? Or will we be tightly packed? Will it have a lot of electrical outlets for all our rechargeable electronics, bike lights, smart phones, Apple watch, bike speaker, supplemental batteries, etc. Will it have air conditioning? How many bathrooms? In-house showers or will we be shuttling offsite (and will the showers have hot water)? A kitchen? Will there be a welcoming committee of church members who can tell us about the town? Will they be serving food? Or will we just be handed the key and told to lock up when we leave?
The fact is that, after riding 70 plus miles on a bike, the answer to these questions are mostly academic. It’s nice when we have a lot of creature comforts, but mainly what I want at that point is to stop riding a bike. Everything else is gravy. For me, the exception is cold showers. I HATE cold showers. Every ride I’ve been on has had one or two. It’s almost enough to keep me from coming back. Almost. Continue Reading
Rozzie’s First Kill
While I was working on installing the new fence at the Cape, Rozzie was laying out on the lawn playing with a toy. I didn’t pay much attention and assumed she was fine. Hearing the squeaking of the toy told me she was content. For some reason, I walked over to her to give her a pat and discovered that she didn’t have a toy. She had a baby bunny, about 4 inches in size. It was the bunny that was squeaking. I was horrified and shooed Rozzie away. The bunny was still alive and walked slowly toward the house, looking for some place to hide. She stopped behind one of the fence sections. I checked on her periodically as she sat there motionless. At one point, I checked and she was gone. I’m telling myself that she was fine. But….
Later in the day, Charlie hit a baby bunny with the weed whacker. He then had to put the bunny out of its misery. We don’t know if it was the same bunny. Apparently, we had disturbed a nest of rabbits when we ripped up the old fence.
Probably going to have nightmares tonight.
65th Birthday
Rita arranged a birthday party for my 65th birthday. A good time was had by all. Very nice comments, particularly by Luke. I’m blessed with a wonderful group of friends.
This I Believe
I believe the Russians tipped the 2016 Presidential election to Donald Trump. I didn’t, at first. But the more we know about the massive intervention they conducted through social media and the Wikileaks dump, the more obvious it is that it was sufficient to turn 80,000 votes spread over three states to give Trump the electoral college win. I also believe the Comey letter tipped the election to Donald Trump. And I believe that the fact that the Democrats nominated the quintessential establishment candidate in an anti-establishment election tipped the election. And, yes, I believe the Clinton campaign strategy, which neglected Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin in the closing days of the election, gave it to Trump.
It is possible to believe all these things at the same time. Flip any one of those variables and the Democrats win. In a close election, everything matters. However, only one of those variables has consequences for the future, the Russians intervention. Frankly, I suspect that the Russians did not set out to elect Donald Trump, but rather to simply disrupt American democracy and weaken President Hillary Clinton. They may have been as surprised as the rest of us the day after the election. There were reports of celebrations in Moscow, but events since then may have tempered their euphoria. Some in the Kremlin may wonder whether they overshot. It’s nice to have a puppet, but maybe an incompetent puppet is more trouble than he’s worth.
But here’s the thing. Whether the Russian ultimately conclude they overshot in their election meddling is up to us. Will we, as a nation, respond in a way that will deny the Russians what, at this point, seems like the greatest intelligence triumph in human history, actually electing the President of the United States? The answer to that question is in the hands of Special Counsel Bob Mueller and the Republican leadership of the Congress. Mueller needs to build a rock-solid case that denies the Republicans the ability to rationalize away the reality of the Trump collusion in the Russian meddling. And the Republicans will need to stop protecting Trump and take affirmative steps to impose accountability into the system.
So far, Mueller is doing his part. The Republicans? Not so much.