Thought for the Day

[broncofan]

For my part, I would never believe people who supported Trump could be sincere in their concern about any form of ethnic or religious bigotry. Everyone wants to find someone who will champion their cause, but I'd rather make common cause with his targets than be alienated from groups he vilifies. In that sense, the worst part of this week's spectacle was having to see Trump tweet about anti-Semitism or the Republican party putting forward a motion condemning anti-Semitism but not the other forms of bigotry they've bathed in. It was hypocritical, it felt like a slap in the face to other minority communities, and was deeply embarrassing for those Jews who felt ambivalent about the whole thing.

And I say this as someone who thinks that someone should only say another individual or group of individuals has allegiance to another country if they are making an accusation. Probably not everyone agrees with me and I am not looking to argue this point though obviously you're welcome. I don't think Ilhan Omar was acting in bad faith, and I wish her well. Maybe she can convince some members of Congress to support policies that benefit the Palestinians. I hope she does.

[Stavros]

As I understand it, US law does not allow or prohibit dual nationality, whereas I believe that if a US citizen wishes to live and work in Canada they are obliged to give up one for the other. It is not illegal in the UK, Conservative MP Boris Johnson, for example, who was born in Manhattan, has dual British and American citizenship, and it is possible to be a citizen of the UK and Israel, or Pakistan and so on -the free movement of people, guaranteed under the Single Market Act of the European Union does not affect citizenship, so we have had over a million Polish citizens who have lived and married here but have not taken British citizenship whereas their children can have both.

The assumption has been that if you have dual nationality your loyalty is in question, but what is the test of loyalty, indeed, is there one? Is someone who burned their draft card rather than to go Vietnam, anti-American, disloyal? They swore allegiance to the flag every day in school, what happened? I suspect that those who question the loyalty of American Jews who, in whatever way support Israel -or those Arab Americans who support the Palestinian cause- and have their loyalty questioned, may be victims of a prejudice that smuggles its hate into a political argument without actually engaging the political issues.

[Stavros]

Two quick questions:

1) Is it true that it is illegal in the USA to turn your phone to silent if taking a photograph?

2) Elizabeth Warren wants to abolish the Electoral College -a) can this be done? b) is it a good idea?

[buttslinger]

1) Is it true that it is illegal in the USA to turn your phone to silent if taking a photograph?
Of course it is, privacy laws.
2) Elizabeth Warren wants to abolish the Electoral College -a) can this be done? b) is it a good idea?
a) The move would require a constitutional amendment, which is rather tough to pass. To do so, two-thirds of both the Senate and House of Representatives would need to support the change, as would 38 of the 50 states.
b) It's a great idea unless you're a Republican.

I've never heard about the phone thing, I think they want perverts to have a camera click sound when they're shooting "upskirts" in the mall.
ALL the voting laws are nuts, the reason we vote on Tuesday is so everyone's horse and buggy can get to the Polls on time. The IRS code is just as bad. The rich are guilty and the poor are innocent.

PS you brits hang in there, I have absolutely no advice to give....

[filghy2]

2) Elizabeth Warren wants to abolish the Electoral College -a) can this be done? b) is it a good idea?

Another possible way to achieve this without changing the constitution is a compact between the states to award their electoral college votes to whichever candidate gains a majority. That's unlikely to work for the same reason that the red states are unlikely to go along. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...obably-doomed/

Ironically, the founding fathers devised the electoral college as a way to prevent a clearly unsuitable candidate from winning the presidency by manipulating the voters. https://www.historycentral.com/elect...collgewhy.html

I googled the phone thing and got nothing, so it sounds like a myth.

[Stavros]

The protests against the Sackler Foundation have led to museums and galleries withdrawing their appeal for funding, and led to a confused debate on the origins of arts and education funding. A key reason for the protests at the Guggeneheim in New York has been the Sackler family business and the creation of powerful opioids that are at the centre of a health care crisis in the US. The problem for me, is that the Sackler family cannot be responsible for the drugs doctors prescribe for their patients, and there is evidence that US doctors prescribe opioids at far highe levels than in other countries. Heroin and Morphine are powerful drugs that have medicinal uses, as does cocaine, and it is clear that in some cases the production and distribution of these drugs is not medicinal but recreational and can lead to severe and indeed, fatal addictions. I don't see how the medical profession can be blamed for drug addiction which mostly is social and individual in origin, and where the medical profession has developed therapes to deal with addiction.

What strikes me about this, is that fossil fuels companies blamed for climate change are targeted by people who drive cars, use public transport -in other words, use the very fuels that they are complaining abou, while goverrnment funding of the arts and education is not condemend even when the government is not only legally and morally respnsible for wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and other places, but is involved in the destruction of life and property right now. If the Sackler Foundation, why not the Rockefeller Foundation, or the US Government, or the British Government?

And, if the money dries up, where will the arts get its funding from? The search for a perfect donor is a wasted trip. And how much of the world's great examples of art and architecture were created using slave labour? In some case there might be an argument to resist funding -say, from the 9/11 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but the Sackler Foundation is not run as part of the family's pharmaceutical business, so I don't see the connection between it, and an opiod crisis that can be solved in the US if the medical services in the US want to -there are a plethora of pain killers on the market, it is up to doctors to make the right choices.

[filghy2]

And, if the money dries up, where will the arts get its funding from? The search for a perfect donor is a wasted trip. And how much of the world's great examples of art and architecture were created using slave labour?

There's a famous quote from Harry Lime/Orson Wells in the Third Man along similar lines:
"Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

[Stavros]

There's a famous quote from Harry Lime/Orson Wells in the Third Man along similar lines:
"Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

The Third Man, a cynical dismissal of life itself, with a soundtrack guaranteed to drive any music lover mad. How many times does that damn zither insert its spikes into the brain? As for Lime, what his quote does is expose his pathetic ingorance of Switzerland as a country, and its achievements. Funding the arts is not the same as creating them.

[FavreDisco]

My daughter told me a couple months back she identified as pan sexual, that she didn't base attractedness to another person based on their gender. I didn't know how to react. I admit, I had been narrow minded (mainly based out of my own fear) but in a gesture finding common ground to discuss things, I read a book she was reading called "Beyond Magenta." What stuck with me was in the author's note which states: "...once we get to know individuals who may be different from ourselves, it is less likely we will be wary of them. And maybe, just maybe, we will learn a little more about ourselves."
Individuals who decide to express themselves and embrace who they are, despite backlash, are courageous. And in the end, 'everyone wants love in their own way.' I think, ultimately the enemy here is fear. People fear what they don't understand and it's easier to play the hate card than actually taking the time to try to understand the other person as an individual who deserves respect and acceptance.

[Stavros]

To the extent that people are afraid of something they don't know, you are right. Some people like the unknown, the challenge of an opposite, not being comfortable where for others security is everything -knowing when they get to a foreign country there will be a hotel, the food will be edible, the people honest. With sexuality there may be a fear that difference is also unhappiness, but if parents truly love their children they must surely allow them to be who they are, but the fear that alternative sexualities to the simple binary choices is eroding the fabric of society is nonsense. There just aren't enough homosexuals, transexuals, any 'sexuals' to disrupt the balance that exists. If there is a 'threat' it is infertility and the decline of population growth, the curve expected to rise to 2050 and decline thereafter, a decline already evident in parts of Asia. Set against this and the wider problems of climate change, economic opportunity and political stability/instability, why get so stressed by something that for the person concerned is simply normal?