The Long Road Out

 The idiot in the White House believes that it's a good idea for 17-year old kids to load up with weapons and drive to minority communities to defend property.  He believes that such a kid, after a two-hour drive filled with intentionality, has a right to a self-defense claim when he unloads his weapons into a crowd.  So, I want to make it absolutely clear:  you won't even let 17 year olds into our military or secret police.  Now, without any training, you want them on the streets, near schools, and on the fringes of agitated citizens? What the serious fuck.  You, Donald Trump, are a dangerous accessory to murder.  Here's a baseline principle: no teenager should have access to weapons.  This would reduce the teen suicide rate in the United States by half in an instant. It would reduce the number of women murdered by young boyfriends. And it would save our Democracy.  As has always been the case in the United States, people who reject the gove...

Today's wacko news:  five or seven individuals, perhaps Chinese high school students, have been kicked off Facebook and Twitter for posting pro-Chinese depictions of the Hong Kong protests.  Presumably we've also kicked some Russian programmers off those platforms too because they posted stuff that supported Trump for president. The reason:  stating government points of view on the platforms so that you and I could possibly see them here in the United States.   Please note the ludicrousness of this--the Chinese government itself has banned the platforms domestically, so clearly China (and Russia) has very little reason to care what gets posted since their own citizens can't legally see any of it (not even all the selfies!). Still-- the media, including NPR for instance, characterizes the high school student posts as "an international propaganda campaign." Two points of insanity destroy this perspective: The Chinese government has been heavy-handed, but ...

Most U.S. citizens don't know that France occupied Mexico in the 1860's.   In fact, they probably assumed that Spain was somehow in control, if they've thought about it at all.   True, Spain was the main colonial bully, from the 1500's until, a fter eleven years of war (1810–21), New Spain became the sovereign nation of Mexico, with the signing of the  Treaty of Córdoba . A brief period of monarchy (1821–23)  was followed by the founding of the Republic of Mexico, established under a federal constitution in 1824. That left free reign to the US to attack Mexico in 1846.   We didn't really want to occupy the country like the Spanish--we just wanted to take half of the land, which we did in 1848 via the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.  So much for the Mexican-American War, and the glory of San Antonio and Davey Crocker and Sam Houston.  Now we have Beverly Hills and Phoenix! So, 1848 passes.   A half-sized Mexico continues, initiating a series of li...