By SJWNY, a Trail Mix Contributor
I saw the footage of Joe Biden comforting Meghan McCain on The View: it was comforting, lovely & how every human being should treat another. Of course this is not always the case. But it was reassuring to see two people responding to each other simply as people, not as rivals.
On a purely political note, as a fellow human being I humbly request the Democratic Party to declare Joe Biden the Official Ambassador/Grampa of your Party. He is so needed in this dark world, giving us hope & as an example of the need to change back to common decency. All is calm, all is bright. Peace.
More Posts by SJWNY
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. [kjv 1 Corinthians 13:13]
the guardian:
A journey through a land of extreme poverty: welcome to America
The UN’s Philip Alston is an expert on deprivation – and he wants to know why 41m Americans are living in poverty. The Guardian joined him on a special two-week mission into the dark heart of the world’s richest nation
Los Angeles, California, 5 December
“You got a choice to make, man. You could go straight on to heaven. Or you could turn right, into that.”
We are in Los Angeles, in the heart of one of America’s wealthiest cities, and General Dogon, dressed in black, is our tour guide. Alongside him strolls another tall man, grey-haired and sprucely decked out in jeans and suit jacket. Professor Philip Alston is an Australian academic with a formal title: UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.
General Dogon, himself a veteran of these Skid Row streets, strides along, stepping over a dead rat without comment and skirting round a body wrapped in a worn orange blanket lying on the sidewalk.
The two men carry on for block after block after block of tatty tents and improvised tarpaulin shelters. Men and women are gathered outside the structures, squatting or sleeping, some in groups, most alone like extras in a low-budget dystopian movie.
We come to an intersection, which is when General Dogon stops and presents his guest with the choice. He points straight ahead to the end of the street, where the glistening skyscrapers of downtown LA rise up in a promise of divine riches.
Heaven.
Then he turns to the right, revealing the “black power” tattoo on his neck, and leads our gaze back into Skid Row bang in the center of LA’s downtown. That way lies 50 blocks of concentrated human humiliation. A nightmare in plain view, in the city of dreams.
So begins a two-week journey into the dark side of the American Dream. The spotlight of the UN monitor, an independent arbiter of human rights standards across the globe, has fallen on this occasion on the US, culminating on Friday with the release of his initial report in Washington.
His fact-finding mission into the richest nation the world has ever known has led him to investigate the tragedy at its core: the 41 million people who officially live in poverty.
Of those, 9 million have zero cash income – they do not receive a cent in sustenance.
Alston’s epic journey has taken him from coast to coast, deprivation to deprivation. Starting in LA and San Francisco, sweeping through the Deep South, traveling on to the colonial stain of Puerto Rico then back to the stricken coal country of West Virginia, he has explored the collateral damage of America’s reliance on private enterprise to the exclusion of public help.
[….series depressingly continues…]
sjwny, he does deserve the honor of grampa-in-chief
biden, the dude abides
meanwhile, there’s also hope in a way in other areas which involve the twit’s lack of decency
wapo: A new sisterhood of Trump’s accusers pushes for action ,
…
Not all of the Trump accusers wanted to participate in the new alliance or in the push for Congress to investigate Trump’s behavior. A third accuser showed up to dine with Crooks and Holvey, Greenwald said, but did not want to be identified because of repercussions she said she suffered after she came forward a year ago.
Levine said she now has a core group of six to eight women who want to participate and intends to link them all by email.
The atmosphere has changed, Levine said, since the women first stepped forward,…
[…]
Four of the women also issued a statement Tuesday, calling Trump’s denials “straight out of the Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby playbook.”
Melinda McGillivray, who said last year that Trump groped her in 2003 at his Mar-a-Lago resort, could not attend the dinner and got a separate interview with Kelly on Tuesday, in which she asked why Congress has not launched an investigation.
“It’s important that we hold this man to the highest standards,” McGillivray said on NBC’s “Megyn Kelly Today.” “If 16 women have come forward, then why hasn’t anything been done?”
In an interview with The Post earlier this year, McGillivray said she was initially afraid to make her claims publicly during the presidential campaign. McGillivray also said she received online death threats after speaking out last year.
[…]
Now, the women say they are braced for more backlash.
Holvey passed on to The Post a threatening, obscenity-laced message she received after speaking on Monday. “I would hate for something to happen to you . . .” it read in part.
But she said the new bond among the women makes threats seem more manageable.
[…continues…]
SJ, he would have made a great president. Still could if we weren’t such an ageist society.
Joe is nothing if not decent, and he’s 4 years older than SF. Not that much difference, but still, being elected at 78 would be a ridiculously long shot at least.
Put my ’78 yo grampa in charge of my affairs for the next four years? Not a good idea, IMO.
at 78, joe would have to worry about this
from alz org
Age: The greatest known risk factor for Alzheimer’s is increasing age. Most individuals with the disease are 65 and older. One in nine people in this age group and nearly one-third of people age 85 and older have Alzheimer’s.
and
Head injury: There may be a strong link between serious head injury and future risk of Alzheimer’s, especially when trauma occurs repeatedly or involves loss of consciousness.
SJ… agreed… it was a very touching moment.
I’m a baby boomer and I think it’s time for younger generations to get involved in politics. I like Joe… would gladly vote for him to be “grandpa in chief”… but would not vote for him in a presidential primary. If that makes me an ageist…. so be it.
Give me age and experience over young, healthy and clueless.
Ya know Joe has been running for president for 30 years and there is a reason he never even came close. He may be a nice lovable old guy but he sucks as a presidential candidate. It is things like he is doing right now, playing the grieving father to get attention that leave me feeling a bit unclean. But it does make some folks go, aaaaawwwwe, poor Joe. But to each his own.
Jack
I would expect this to cause Biden a big problem in 2020…
What Joe Biden’s Anita Hill apology tells us about his 2020 plans…
Truman had the right combination of age and experiences to take FDR’s place–despite having been kept in the dark on virtually all matters of State. He was 60.
I am happy to support the move to name Biden grandpa of the Dems but it isn’t because we are ageist that he cannot be president. He would have sucked big time.
Crap, California’s gov and one senator are really old and still going Difi is running again at 83 and no one is saying she is too old just that she is too conservative on some issues
If we were an ageist society then Congress would not look the way it does.
Harry Truman underrated, misunderstood and underappreciated.
Seriously I grew up thinking he ran a clothing store and was in a political gang in Mo and should never have been president. My mother who worked for Henry Wallace contributed a lot of that but history textbooks and television did not change that impression. It wasn’t until I read the David McCollough biography of Truman that I got the big picture
Yeah I think 60 is the right age, give or take 5 years, You have been around long enough to know something but still have enough vigor to perform a very tough job and adapt. Adapting may be the most important virtue for a president.
Jack
Truman was an interesting character, he got ahead because he had a reputation of being loyal and honest. Boss Tom promoted him because at the time he was having legal problems and he needed somebody with an honest reputation that wouldn’t stab him in the back. Tom promoted him to the Senate(Truman wanted to be governor) Because by that time he didn’t need honest people in the state or local government. Truman may have been the only politician at his level that didn’t get rich from the job. In fact Truman never owned his own house, the house in Independence that is called the Truman house actually belonged to his mother in law. And when Truman left the white house he rode home on the train, just him and Bess.
Jack
got to Orlando last night, just put up our porch tree, still needs decorating
One of my mother’s fave jokes:
Why did Truman shoot his dog?
He stepped on his tail and the dog said, “Ike!”
You can’t even spell the way she said “Ike”. Almost two syllables, but not quite.
kgc & jack, I join you in a “here’s to harry” salute.
2 Truman quotes of note:
No young man should go into politics if he wants to get rich or if he expects an adequate reward for his services. An honest public servant can’t become rich in politics. he can only attain greatness and satisfaction by service….
I would much rather be an honorable public servant and known as such than to be the richest man in the world. (From Truman’s diary, April 24, 1954. Post-Presidential Papers.)
oh for Truman truisms today. like this one would be as applicable about donald as it was about dick:
“Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he’d lie just to keep his hand in. ”
― Harry Truman
latimes:
“I don’t want to talk about pardons for Michael Flynn yet,” Trump said. “We’ll see what happens. Let’s see. I can say this: When you look at what’s gone on with the FBI and with the Justice Department, people are very, very angry.”
something about “I don’t want to talk about pardons for Michael Flynn yet” reeks of justice obstructing in the form of tampering with a witness…. that is if one can interpret that comment as dangling a pardon in front of an informant and other potential prez pal witnesses.
business insider: Poll shows that 7 in 10 US citizens think Trump did something illegal, or at least unethical, with Russia
Most Americans think Donald Trump did something illegal or at least unethical regarding ties between his presidential campaign and Russia — and they think he’s trying to obstruct the investigation looking into those possible connections.
The deeply divided country is more concerned about health care and the economy than any collusion with the Kremlin, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. But the survey also shows that Americans are unhappy with the way Trump is dealing with the investigations led by Congress and special counsel Robert Mueller.
Most people believe Trump is trying to obstruct the investigations, which have resulted in charges against four of his campaign advisers and increasingly appear focused on the president’s inner circle.
Four in 10 Americans think the president has done something illegal when it comes to Russia, while an additional 3 in 10 say he’s at least done something unethical. And 68 percent disapprove of his response to the investigations.
There are significant partisan divisions, with Democrats far more likely than Republicans to be concerned about Trump’s actions or to feel invested in what the probes uncover.
[….continues…]
the guardian: Facebook admits it poses mental health risk – but says using site more can help
Facebook has acknowledged that social media use can be bad for users’ mental health, a sign the company is feeling pressure from a growing chorus of critics raising alarms about the platform’s effect on society.
Researchers for the social network admitted in a blogpost Friday that studies have found that spending time on Facebook “passively consuming information” can leave people “feeling worse”, but also argued that part of the solution is to engage and interact more with people on the platform.
The company’s public recognition of some of its platform’s detrimental effects came days after a former Facebook executive made headlines with a speech slamming the corporation, saying: “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works. No civil discourse, no cooperation, misinformation, mistruth.”
[….]
The company’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has asked for forgiveness and claimed his new mission was to “bring the world closer together”.
Studies have repeatedly found that Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites can damage the emotional wellbeing of heavy users, particularly younger people. The new post from Facebook’s director of research, David Ginsberg, and the research scientist Moira Burke painted the literature on the subject as mixed and inconclusive, arguing that Facebook use can also have positive mental health impacts.
[….continues…]
David Ginsberg, and the research scientist Moira Burke painted the literature on the subject as mixed and inconclusive, arguing that Facebook use can also have positive mental health impacts.
Well, maybe if all you do is exchange pictures of family and pets you like.
Eprof2 lost his daughter Vicki today. I’m sorry I don’t know any details other than his Facebook message.
Could Henry Wallace have won, having been ejected from heaven like a fallen angel in 1944 ? I kind of doubt it.
OMG… Jamie, thanks for letting us know.
Eprof… if you are still reading here…. I am so very sorry about your loss…. my very deepest condolences.
Jamie, we lost our daughter Alice six years ago Christmas Eve. Let eProf know that whatever the cause, tragedy is tragedy and that this heart shares his pain.
Dear eProf,
I am so sorry. I will pray for you and all those who loved your darling Vicky.
Sending love & prayers to eProf. No other words.
Condolences eProf
EProf, so sorry for your loss. Parents aren’t supposed to have to say goodbye to their children.
eprof, my most heartfelt condolences.
wapo: CDC gets list of forbidden words: fetus, transgender, diversity
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