I can't imagine what you're going through

Take a look at this photo:

Source

And now this photo:

Notice anything different?

One person is missing.

She is dead.

Carmen was one of the 17 who were killed by a gunman at a Florida high school last month.

I was listening to the report on NPR when I was driving back home.  It made me teary as hell.

After that, I shut the radio off and drove the rest of the way in silence.

You, too, should listen to it.  Hear the parents and others. Their emotions.

I don't want to reproduce anything here about Carmen, her accomplishments in the short life that she had, and what people had to say.  Because I want you to listen to it all.

But, I will bring this in because I want us all to think about it for a long, long, time.  Carmen's father says:

People constantly say to me, I can't imagine what you're going through. Well, you should. You should try to comprehend your daughter, who you are so proud of and who was just beginning to live her life, being riddled by bullets. Being told when the medical examiner gives the body back to the funeral home, you can't see her. We have to spend days working on her body. And maybe, maybe you'll be able to see her then. Think about that

Yes, think about that, while you listen. And imagine what they--and many others like them--are going through.  That's the least we can do.



Fucking Second Amendment nutcase bastards and their fucked up NRA!

Build that freaking wall!

I don't care whether or not Einstein really said or wrote somewhere that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  It makes a lot of sense.  Yet, humans often tend to do the same bloody things over again, believing things will work out differently.

I wonder if Einstein ever considered in his thought experiments the possibility that humans do the same thing again not because they expect different results, but because they completely deny the results.  Such denial would never occurred to his logical mind, perhaps.  Einstein versus the climate change deniers would have been one interesting discussion.

Yet, that is what is unfolding in plain sight.  People are gladly doing the same things.  Like this, in in South Florida:

Its very existence depends on the continued allure of the beaches, waterways and natural environment. Yet, by 2050, an estimated $15 billion to $36 billion of Florida’s coastal property will be threatened by sea-level rise, according to a report last year from the Risky Business Project, a Bloomberg Philanthropies effort that quantifies economic risks from climate change.
In South Florida, sea-level rise and climate change are already having an effect on available drinking water, roads and sewer lines in low-lying areas, and storm and flood insurance rates.

If problems are showing up in every day life even now, then Einstein's logic will tell us that people won't develop the land and sell multi-million dollar homes, right?  Welcome to the insanity:

there’s an emerging industry eager to find a way to help people stay in that paradise, a place born of real estate speculation and rebirthed cyclically out of natural disasters like hurricanes and man-made disasters like real estate bubbles.
Developers have started marketing storm-resistant homes and resilient buildings, like a high-rise in downtown Miami designed to withstand 300-mph winds. In Miami Beach, the city is beginning to implement building codes that require new construction and city infrastructure to be elevated. Fort Lauderdale is considering raising the height limits on sea walls.

Rising sea-levels will be matched by rising sea walls!  Ah, the insanity that is more than my criticism of American solutions to American problems!

“Sea level is rising, and we have to plan for the next 50 to 100 years. You have to, for the purposes of marketing, build for the future. You have to build for the future, even if the code may not allow it.”

Seriously?

Meanwhile, whatever the deniers might want to believe, the data trend is worsening.

The last station on Earth without a 400 parts per million (ppm) reading has reached it.

Where was that, you ask?  In Antarctica.  Far, far, away from South Florida and China and India and humanity.

In the remote reaches of Antarctica, the South Pole Observatory carbon dioxide observing station cleared 400 ppm on May 23, according to an announcement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Wednesday. That’s the first time it’s passed that level in 4 million years (no, that’s not a typo).

So, those of us who are not into insanity, nor into denial, will worry about trends like this:

“The increase of carbon dioxide is everywhere, even as far away as you can get from civilization,” Pieter Tans, a carbon-monitoring scientist at the Environmental Science Research Laboratory, said. “If you emit carbon dioxide in New York, some fraction of it will be in the South Pole next year.”
It’s possible the South Pole Observatory could see readings dip below 400 ppm, but new research published earlier this week shows that the planet as a whole has likely crossed the 400 ppm threshold permanently (at least in our lifetimes).
Passing the 400 ppm milestone in is a symbolic but nonetheless important reminder that human activities continue to reshape our planet in profound ways

And, one of the results will be, yes, rising sea levels in South Florida too.

Guess who is in favor of building higher sea walls even when denying the very climate change?  Yes, it is the fascist, who is worried about his wealth!

Insanity!

Liberal Democracies are for Pussies!

Back on February 24th, I tweeted this:

Beware the Ides of March, #GOP: Florida and Ohio vote on 15th#Trump Wins, Wins, Wins in Nevadahttps://t.co/5eXziaQw2X via @tnyCloseRead

— sriram khe (@congoboy) February 24, 2016

In the more than two weeks since then, Donald Trump has practically become unstoppable.  With the convincing victories yesterday, Trump and the Party of Lincoln are now all set for a "tryst with destiny", to borrow from the founding prime minister of the old country.

I referred to the famous Julius Caesar connection not merely because it is such an awesome quote, but because of the primaries that are scheduled for that day.  In Florida and Ohio. If you thought those are just yet another stops along the way, well, there is an important distinction.  The GOP primaries in Florida and Ohio are winner-take-all events.  The winner even by a plurality of votes that falls short of a simple majority, will get all the delegates.

Source

If Trump wins in Florida and Ohio, then the game will be over for Marco Rubio and John Kasich, and it will be left to Ted Cruz to launch an even more quixotic challenge!  President Trump will become even more realistic than ever.

Trump is no longer a freak show, but is a legitimate national candidate:

Just a few days ago, Trump seemed to be losing steam, particularly after his opponents aired a series of television attack ads in key states. The attacks focused on Trump’s business record, such as the fraud lawsuits that surround Trump University and the billionaire’s four bankruptcies. The 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney piled on by calling Trump a phony and a fraud who would likely lose to Hillary Clinton in the general election.
But none of the attacks on Trump worked.
Trump’s crushing victories in Mississippi and Michigan were striking because they once again demonstrated his broad appeal to all segments and all regions of the Republican electorate. He won evangelicals, working-class voters, and college graduates, just as he has in previous primaries. He also once again showed great geographical range, winning in the Deep South and in the heart of the industrial Midwest. By any conventional measure, Trump is a truly national candidate, at least among Republican voters.

Who woulda thunk that!

I bet political scientists and talk show pundits will have plenty to talk and write about how Trump became a candidate, and how he seemingly can do nothing wrong even when everything he says is nothing but wrong.  While such demagoguery might be new to America, it is but the latest at a global level:

Pull the camera back, and Trump can be viewed as part of a deadly serious wave of authoritarians and xenophobes who have come to power in Russia, Poland, and Hungary, and who lead such movements as the National Front, in France, and the Independence Party, in the United Kingdom. Vladimir Putin and Trump have expressed mutual admiration. It’s not hard to see why. Putin has obliterated the early shoots of Russian democracy as evidence of weakness and obeisance to the West; his eighty-per-cent popularity rating is built on arousing nationalism and a hatred of minorities (ethnic and sexual), the suppression of dissent, and a bare-chested macho image. Trump says approvingly, “At least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country.”

The global fascination with "the strongman" has always worried me, unlike this debating-friend who has always championed the strong leaders of China and the current leader of India, despite the leaders' blatant disregard for liberty and democratic values.  The emergence of Trump as a candidate--and, gasp, as President of the proverbial free world--will only further reinforce the idea that liberal democracies are for pussies!

Oh well, we get the leaders we deserve!

Fleeing California. And Florida. And ????

For the first time in the post WWII era, Florida is apparently experiencing more people exiting the state than entering it. The Miami Herald reports that:

the state lost about 58,000 people from April 2008 to April 2009, according to a new estimate from the University of Florida's Bureau of Economic and Business Research.

``It's such a dramatic shift from what we've seen in the past,'' said Stan Smith, the bureau's director.

``Florida's economy is, in a lot of ways, driven by population growth,'' he said. ``Perhaps more importantly, population growth is a reflection of how the economy is doing both in Florida and in the nation.''

Smith said the decline doesn't look like a trend. Instead, he sees it as a deviation from previous decades of growth upon which Florida's development-based economy relies. He also said the decrease is a ``drop in the bucket'' compared with Florida's 18.3 million population.

Smith said the last time Florida lost population, in 1946, it was because so many soldiers left the state's military bases to go home. This population loss, he said, is solely due to the bad economy.

In Florida's case, it seems to be a response to economic conditions, and nothing else. However, the state of the economy might just be the last straw for many Californians who have endured the chaos in the state for a long time. This LA Times op-ed describes the break-up between the writer and the state:

I've been thinking about this for a very long time, and I've come to the conclusion that we should go our separate ways. I thought I loved you and it would last forever, but I was so very wrong.

I know that our relationship has lasted 50 years and that we should fight to stay together, but you've changed so much that, frankly, I don't know who you are anymore!

When we first met I was young and rather naive, and I loved you unconditionally. I spent years running with abandon across your sandy beaches in the bright sunshine, playing in your beautiful parks and attending your top-rated schools, which were a national model for the other states. For 18 years or so, I can honestly say that I was truly in love with you,

"Exit, Voice, and Loyalty" was how the late Albert Hirschman succinctly described our responses to institutions: We might stay out of loyalty even when we sense that things are going wrong. Later, as the level of discomfort rises, we voice our opinions. And, when nothing works, we exit. We do this to corporations, to municipalities, to states and countries as well.

We better pay attention to the "exit" numbers.