US democracy; the greatest show on earth

I guess that was the "Trump coup." A few over-heated Trump fans barged into the Capitol. One of them was shot by a Capitol cop, thereby making this a "deadly" riot. Then their President told them to go home and cut it out, and they seem to be doing that.

But holy shit, did this "coup" (get serious!) ever unleash a tsunami of over-the-top bullshit about the sanctity of America's God-ordained democracy which is a light unto the nations, at least the ones they're not bombing or sanctioning into oblivion.

The crass stinking hypocrisy of those commentators who applaud every Maidan and Tahrir engineered by the USA now feign horror at a little public unrest in DC. We spend billions getting this kind of shit started in capitals all over the world. What continues to amaze me is how the wizards of narrative management bamboozle tens of millions into believing, quite passionately in many cases, that it makes one iota of difference who sits in the Oval Office. 

A substantial majority of the American populace knows the status quo ain't working for them. Sooner or later, democracy is coming to the USA.

Some health care workers more essential than others

We've heard a lot of talk over the past ten months about our woefully inadequate standard of care in long term care homes. Many commentators and several official reports have noted the many ways in which we dropped the ball on eldercare in the "first wave." 

The result of that hand-wringing and soul searching has been... absolutely nothing! We're repeating the same mistakes now that we're in the midst of the "second wave" eight months later. Part-time PSW staff still attend to clusters of patients in multiple facilities. Many residents remain in dormitory housing. LTC homes still account for the overwhelming majority of deaths.

I would like to see some research into how efficiently health care resources are employed. We spend a lot of money on health care, but are we spending it in the right places? The ranks of health care workers resemble a caste system. At the Dalit end of the spectrum, you've got your personal support workers (PSWs). At the Brahmin end, you've got folks like Dr. Tom Stewart.

The median wage for PSWs in Ontario is $18/hr. About 40% of all PSWs are part-time with no benefits. These are the people who stitch together multiple part-time jobs in order to make ends meet, thereby carrying the virus from one facility to the next. This is still happening today, ten months into the pandemic.

Generally speaking, PSWs are socio-economically among the working poor. As such, at least we know they'll be on the job, and not lying on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean. The working poor have neither time nor disposable income for Caribbean vacations.

The Brahmins, on the other hand, are showered with cash. Very few PSWs make in a year what Dr. Stewart makes in a month. His annual salary of $630,000 would pay for at least twenty full-time PSWs.  (Or perhaps ten if they were properly compensated.)

Here's a modest suggestion. Health care systems are far more dependent on the Dalits than the Brahmins, especially when the Brahmin is backed up by a phalanx of Brahmin-in-training also making six-number pay packets. Why can't we cut back on the number of Brahmins, and their compensation, and provide more resources where they're truly needed?

 

Black dude takes over White Supremacist outfit

Here's a quote from a Guardian story about the Proud Boys, published Oct 1, 2020;

Trump’s refusal to condemn white supremacists during the debate, and his suggestion that the Proud Boys “stand by” during the current 2020 election campaign sent shockwaves through American politics. The Southern Poverty Law Center calls the Proud Boys a hate group.

That's typical of the reportage about the group over the last several years. White supremacists are working with Trump to undermine America's smiley-face democracy, and create a thousand year Trumpian Reich!

So imagine my relief when I saw the headlines informing me that the leader of this vile band of proto-fascists had been taken into custody in Washington this morning. 

Whew! 

Maybe now that his feared street-fighting militia has been decapitated, Trump will finally throw in the towel, I hoped.

Anyway, the name of the arrested "Chairman of the Board" caught my eye; Enrique Tarrio. Hmm... sounds like a Mexican, I thought, but you don't want to jump to conclusions. Besides, how is it possible that a Mexican would be the leader of a "White Supremacist" group?

So I google the guy, and guess what? It's even better than that! Looks to me like the leader of America's most feared gang of white supremacists is black! Here's Enrique's photo from his Wikipedia page.

Enrique describes himself as "Afro-Cuban," and I see no reason to quibble with his self-assessment. He's certainly not any shade of "white" that I've ever seen.

White supremacy just ain't what it used to be.

Bruno Briefing: Week 2

 The big boy is making himself at home. 

Still not keen on getting in the car. I suspect that's because his limited car rides have ended badly, as in being dropped off and abandoned. As he grows to understand that every car ride ends at home, I'm optimistic that his reluctance will diminish.

He's getting comfortable on our walks. We've made it to the end of the Burgess side-road a few times now, which is my normal 5k route. Along the way, she's met some neighbourhood dogs. A couple of Aussie sheep-dogs who come out to bark, but keep their distance. Then Bella, who used to join me on my walks even when I had the entire gang with me, Lucy, Gus, and Boomer, and then Phil too. Bella would be the optional hound who joined our pack whenever we walked by her place.

Even after the last survivor, dear Boomer, went to her reward, Bella, if she was outside, would join me on my walk. She's a spitting image of the family dog we had way back when my folks first got their place in Elora, or more precisely, just on the other side of the railroad tracks that defined the Elora boundary. Husso was his name. I think of him every time Bella joins us for a walk.

Anyway, Bella has come out to see big Bruno, but hasn't joined us yet. Towards the end of the road Bruno has met Sophie a couple of times. Sophie is a rescue dog just like him, and she belongs to my old pal Harvard, who got his handle after dropping out of said institution to become an obscure high-school teacher in this woebegone backwater. 

Since the first Bruno report, I've gained some clarity re the jogger Bruno took after last week. I'd correctly assumed he couldn't be a local. His parents have a place at the end of the Burgess side-road, and he's been hiding out there for the lockdown. He's got New Brunswick plates on his car and I hear he's a doctor or something, but that's the kind of weirdo who'll jog by your isolated country home in the dark.

According to the Farm Manager, Bruno snores louder than I do. This has caused her to bail the conjugal bed in favour of one of our numerous spare bedrooms on more than one occasion. As much as I love the dog, he's not who I want to share my bed with.

Right now, he's snoozing in front of the fireplace. We've done our 5k for the day, and that's pretty much all a mastiff is gonna give ya. We'll do it again tomorrow!

Trump and Assange, the ultimate litmus test

 It's on Monday next that a court in UK will decide if Julian Assange will be shipped off to a prison in the US.

Assange is hated by the American state for outing their crimes against innocent Iraqi civilians. 

Trump has been busy showering  his deep-state acolytes with pardons lately. Can he extend his generosity to enemies of the swamp he once promised to drain?

My hunch is he won't. Trump has done his part in the great American democracy charade, and faux establishment outrage aside, he and his clan will be well looked after going forward. 

A pardon for Assange would throw all that over the side.

Reality TV and the triumph of dreck

In terms of the triumph of dreck, which in my view is not a good thing, the advent of "reality tv" marked a sea change. Any time Hollywood can get more eyeballs on shit that costs less to make, you know that's where things are gonna go.

Which pretty much explains Donnald J. Trump. 

Elected to be the president of the most powerful nation on earth, Donald had zero political experience, but according to the New York Times, made somewhere near half a BILLION DOLLARS off that reality show, which had little or nothing to do with any reality you or I would ever know.

Dreck rules!

The triumph of dreck

If you look up some archival street photography of American life in the 50's and 60's, you find a curious thing. At the beginning of the 50's, folks still had a "Sunday best" view of themselves. If somebody was taking pictures for posterity, you'd want to be remembered, for posterity, in your Sunday best.

By the end of the sixties, that was over, collateral damage in the triumph of dreck. There was no "Sunday best" anymore because Sunday wasn't there anymore. 

We never appreciated how much we lost when we lost Sunday. From a day of peace and grace to a day of jest and madness and business as usual. Why force shops to close on Sunday? Because the min wage retail workers don't deserve weekend time with family?

But that's a mere symptom of our descent into the pit of dreck. 

Dreck demands that the lowest common denominator prevail everywhere at all times, and especially on the screens you're addicted to 24/7.

Dreck addiction is what propels "entertainers" with no apparent attributes other than a top-shelf management team to the very pinnacle of pop success.

Dreck has triumphed.

DRECK RULES!

Once you're acclimatised to dreckwelt, everything kinda makes sense, don't it?