Road Rage and Other Travel Stories

Idiot. Crazy. Asshole, the latter designation reserved for drivers who not just violate good driving norms but whose actions also imperil or just physically undermine my safe transit.

Perhaps you’ve seen the comic strip where kids tell their mother they learn more vocabulary when riding with their father. They’re exposed to words that would make a sailor blush is the way their father’s language would have been described in more genteel times.

Hardly a day goes by without another incident of road rage being reported. On Sunday the White Plains Daily Voice reported, “A Hudson Valley man was nabbed for alleged road rage after allegedly pulling a gun on another driver he had been tailgating.”

It is painfully obvious that civility has departed normal discourse and interaction among sizable segments of our society. It happens on the road between strangers and on streets between rival gangs.

Can I attribute it to Donald Trump? For sure, at least partly. Recall that during his rallies he would incite his faithful to manhandle any protesters. And, during debates with other Republicans, rather than score points on policy he would deprecate their physical characteristics. And he stalked Hillary Clinton during one of their debates.

When your leader opens the door to confrontation is it any wonder that the masses follow?

Now, I’m not so naive to exempt Democrats from boorish behavior, though I fervently believe those Dems that practice uncivil behavior are a small cadre of the party.

Republicans, no doubt, would quickly point to riots in Portland and elsewhere but without citing the cause, that usually being a problematic police killing of an unarmed black person for an incident, such as a broken car tail light, that usually would not result in a white person being stopped.

Those demonstrations were the direct result of years, decades, centuries of institutional abuse, not one-on-one interactions between individuals.

Road rage, on the other hand, seems to be just an outgrowth of depreciating respect for others. Sad times, indeed.

Uncivil Arizona: The height of uncivil behavior is still being played out in the aftermath of the 2020 election. Defying tradition, Trump and his minions have refused to acknowledge defeat.

If you’re interested in a deep look at how Republicans do not accept the reality of the last near two years, spend a few minutes reading an article from The Guardian profiling the Republican speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives who refused to cave in to Trump’s entreaties and threats to reverse Joe Biden’s victory in Arizona (https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/20/rusty-bowers-interview-trump-arizona-republicans).

On the Road Again: Just back from a 600 mile roundtrip to Rockville, MD, made tolerably pleasurable by listening to different Sirius stations on the car radio.

I was intrigued by one of Sirius’ promos that lauded the construction of our interstate highway system (IHS) as mankind’s greatest public works project in history. That’s according to historians, said Sirius, which added a pitch for its entertainment network as a must-have traveling companion.

Yes, America has benefitted from our linked highways north and south, east and west. But I wonder, in context of tools and equipment available, as well as technical knowledge of their times and the financial and manpower resources that could be tapped, whether the aqueducts built by ancient Rome, or the roads spanning the Incan empire, or the Great Wall of China might surpass the IHS in greatness.

Perhaps the historians Sirius cited referred only to America’s public works. In that case, a good argument could be made for the construction of the Erie Canal (I’d have added the transcontinental railroad but that was a private endeavor).

What’s your opinion?

Road Kill: On May 24, with my three year lease on a Toyota Camry coming due in mid August, Gilda and I signed up for a 2022 plug-in hybrid Ford Escape. We knew about construction delays and a shortage of chips, but we felt good about the prospects of coinciding giving up the Camry with the delivery of the Escape.

Ha! Every two weeks or so a new email from Ford advises building our car would be delayed. The latest date given is September 19. It takes about a day to build a car, but then six weeks or so for it to be delivered to a dealership.

Ah, the delivery. Last week when talking with our Ford salesman he informed I had to choose a different dealership for delivery because his was closing down at the end of August. 

At least we had a vehicle identification number, he said. Customers who had not received a VIN would have to start the whole buying process over with, no doubt, a higher price tag now that they were back in the market.

What really galled me is that our salesman who worked hard for our business will not receive commission for the sale. Some stranger at the new dealership will have a bonanza dropped in his or her lap.

A Final Road Rage Note: Click on the link for a piquant take on the type of drivers one sees on the road: https://www.facebook.com/564562817313029/photos/a.564745477294763/1510200936082541/?type=3.

Trump Exemplifies Chutzpah

Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the FBI for conducting a court authorized search of Mar-a-Lago for documents including top secret material he illegally took from the White House evokes the classic definition of chutzpah—a man accused of killing his parents pleads for leniency because he is an orphan. 

Trump is a master deflector, raising distractions to prolong proceedings until his interlocutors give up, get removed or give in.  

I sense he has met his match in Merrit Garland. Denied his chance to be a Supreme Court justice for life by Trump’s 2016 pre-election Republican enablers, Garland’s role as attorney general gives him the power of payback.  

The wheels of justice turn very slowly but I believe Garland will not wither.  

Opinion Disconnect: Americans have a habit of saying one thing while behaving exactly opposite, especially when it comes to responding to public opinion surveys. 

Thus, while many vocally deplored Trump before the 2016 election, in the privacy of the voting booth they chose him over Hillary Clinton. 

A new study by Populace found “a tendency for people of all demographics to succumb to social pressures to have the ‘right’ opinion when it comes to hot-button issues like abortion, mask wearing, and discussing gender identity in schools, despite their true feelings.” (https://dailyvoice.com/new-york/chappaqua/lifestyle/americans-self-silencing-in-record-numbers-new-study-reveals-heres-what-it-means/840942/)

It means another long election night as polls of voters are not to be fully believed until all ballots are counted. 

Cross Wyoming off a list of states I would consider living in if I were ever to contemplate relocation from New York. And by New York I mean the part that is liberal and progressive. The beauty of upstate notwithstanding I do not think I could live in a regressive environment. 

So, no to Wyoming. Despite my love of western movies, I am not a horseman. Nor do I own a gun, much less ever shot one. I’d be in awe of Wyoming’s beauty, but repulsed by opposition to laws and efforts to protect the environment which, admittedly, might limit an individual’s ability to fully exploit the land even if he or she owned it. 

 Wyoming exemplifies all that is foul with today’s Republican Party. By any normal standard Liz Cheney is an exemplary Republican. But her correct assessment that Trump lost the 2020 election and has fostered an anti-democratic movement of election deniers has made her persona non grata to GOP members who swear an allegiance to a self-styled autocrat rather than the Constitution. 

Because of her conservative views I wouldn’t support Cheney for any public office, but I am in awe of her courage and decorum in facing down Trump and his ignorant, gullible, delusional masses. 

As she properly said during one of the January 6 hearings, “In our country, we don’t swear an oath to an individual, or a political party. We take our oath to defend the United States Constitution. And that oath must mean something. Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”

Why? Because Trump Thinks He's Entitled

 If you’re wondering why Donald Trump absconded from the White House with dozens of presidential papers including Top Secret and confidential material, the answer is quite simple: He believed, and still believes, he is entitled to them.

Throughout his life he has been accustomed to getting, taking and keeping what he wants. Why should it have been different after his four year reign as the most powerful man on Earth?

The papers were no different than his having a trophy wife to reflect his success. What better way to flaunt his entitled status than to revel and reveal in his private lair the secrets of the presidency of the United States? 

To understand his mindset, go back to the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape of Trump boasting of his ability to molest women without consequence. Anything is there for his taking.

He’s quick to accuse others of impropriety, quick to claim unconscionable offense when criticized, quick to discredit subordinates deemed insufficiently loyal, quick to assert greater knowledge than professional experts, but sloooooow to respond to legitimate legal challenges, believing his best defense is to stall, to string out proceedings until his inquisitors tire, retire or are replaced.

He’s still the chief grifter in the land, using the FBI search for and discovery of presidential and Top Secret papers at Mar-a-Lago to scam more money from his duped supporters, allegedly to be used for his legal fees.

Trump epitomizes the definition of entitlement: “The belief that one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment.”

Indeed, Trump displays narcissistic entitlement, the “belief that one’s importance, superiority, or uniqueness should result in getting special treatment and receiving more resources than others.”

A dispassionate, objective pursuit of the law would likely render anyone contrite, but in Trump’s case his legions of co-conspirators to the overthrow of the Rule of Law in this country have buttressed his entitlement syndrome.

And that is the tragedy of America. Roughly half the country, represented by one of our two major political parties, has chucked social and governmental norms to follow a narcissist down a rabbit hole of lies, deceit, grifting, scams, and abuse of power, along with a determination to restrict the freedoms and rights of those who do not fit neatly into their portrait of a white, religiously observant, male-dominated America of their dreams.

"Crazy?" No. "Brainwashed" by Trump Et Al

Why did Ricky Shiffer, 42, attack an FBI field office in Cincinnati Thursday, armed with an AR-15 assault rifle and a nail gun?  

We may never definitively know, as he died in a shootout with the Ohio State Highway Patrol a short time later. 

Gilda believes he was “crazy,” a reasonable hypothesis for many acts of violence, such as shoving strangers onto subway tracks perpetrated by emotionally disturbed individuals no longer housed in institutions. Demons inside their heads take over. Perhaps Shiffer succumbed to his inner demons.

I, on the other hand, think Shiffer was “brainwashed.”  

He was but one foot soldier in an army of Trump believers, PINOs (Patriots in Name Only) who have figuratively swallowed Donald Trump’s hallucinogenic Kool-Aid that the 2020 election was stolen, that Joe Biden is an illegitimate president, that law enforcement, particularly the Justice Department and the FBI, is not to be trusted, that, as Esquire has reported, Democrats are part of a “cabal of pedophiles who not only traffic kids for sex, but also physically abuse and even murder and cannibalize them in horrifying Satanic rituals.”

I am not a psychiatrist, a psychologist or a social worker trained to study the human mind and its actions. Yet, it is transparent that reason has been replaced by thoughtless beliefs in millions of American minds, not just fringe members of the population. 

Alex Jones, Mark Levin, Tucker Carlson, the late Rush Limbaugh, all trade on conspiracy theories, the more divorced from reality the better to sway the gullible. And the masses who feel disenfranchised, alienated, stuck in desperate lives by an elite class often found on the East and West coasts. 

Most Republican politicians, on the other hand, are very clear-headed about their fealty to Trump. They see him as their ticket to election and re-election. They’re not in the game to improve the lives of their constituents. Otherwise, they would not have blocked a cap on insulin costs. They would not oppose climate change legislation during a time of unprecedented floods, fires and heat waves. They would not oppose equitable tax reform. 

Trump and his surrogates have made government, especially Washington, the enemy. They believe laws no longer apply to them. 

Remarkably, they’ve convinced—they’ve brainwashed—a sizable portion of the populace they are right. To them, The Rule of Law is an archaic term.

 

Apology Long Overdue and a PINO Threat

Pope Francis’ trip to Canada to apologize for the inhumane treatment of Canadian indigenous people by the Catholic Church is a welcome example of a leader accepting responsibility for the actions of his predecessors, no matter how well intentioned they might have been.

About a year ago a PBS aired a documentary on the forced removal of native children from their families and their placement in boarding schools where the church and  Canadian government hoped to erase their culture, to substitute Western values, to teach them trades.

I was struck by a sign on the wall of a classroom filled with children. It read, “Labor Conquers All Things.”

It was eerily reminiscent of words that greeted Jews and other “undesirables” to Auschwitz and other concentration camps—“Arbeit macht frei” (“Work sets you free”). 

The horrors of Nazi death camps lasted a little more than a decade. Sadly, the abuse of Canada’s indigenous people lasted about 150 years.

Great vs. Consequential: There’s a difference between great and consequential.

Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt were great and consequential presidents. Harry S. Truman was a great president. Because of his three Supreme Court appointments Donald Trump earned the right to have his presidency labelled consequential.

Conservatives and progressives may debate the positive or negative aspects of that consequence but there can be no legitimate argument about the impact America will experience going forward for years, possibly decades, to come.

As he ponders another run for the presidency one has to wonder how our country and Western liberal society would survive under a second Trump term.

Would Trump assist former Soviet bloc countries, now NATO members, if Vladimir Putin pushes to physically bring them back under Russian control? If the war in Ukraine was still being fought, would Trump stop American support for Ukraine?

Here’s a short list of what’s at stake not just in two years when we elect a president but more immediately when we elect a new House and one third of the Senate:

Free and fair elections; Democracy; Minimum wage; Social Security; Environmental laws; OSHA laws; Same sex relations and marriage; Legal contraception; Interracial unions.

It’s not being an alarmist to point out these vulnerabilities given the conservative bent on the Supreme Court and Republican long-standing opposition to federal regulations.

PINO: One of the victims of the Fourth of July massacre in Highland Park, IL, was Kevin McCarthy, along with his wife, Irina. They left a two year old son, Aiden. 

I wonder if the similarly named minority leader of House Republicans—Kevin McCarthy—now has enhanced empathy for those seeking greater restraints on the proliferation of guns in America?

Who am I kidding? 

McCarthy’s only concern is garnering power for himself. 

McCarthy is what I like to call a PINO, a Patriot In Name Only. He might profess to believe in the Constitution, evidenced by his forceful rebuke of Trump after the insurrection at the Capitol. 

But his allegiance to our country lasted but a few short moments after he realized without Trump’s backing he had no chance of becoming Speaker of the House. His dream of power might still go unfulfilled, but he has become the poster boy of cowardice, of spineless duplicity, of thinking more of himself than of the good of the nation.

Sadly, there’s an army of Trumpsters who either never learned about the Constitution or have chosen to ignore it. These PINOs are a threat to democracy as we know it. They favor the type of repressive regime Viktor Orbán has impressed upon Hungary. Fox News, especially Tucker Carlson, is their cheerleader. 

To defeat them, true patriots must stay alert and vote! 

Manchin's Not the Only One at Fault

About the only thing Joe Manchin hasn’t done in his mostly one person crusade to thwart President Joe Biden’s agenda is flash his Republican Party membership card.

Ostensibly a Democrat, Manchin has singlehandedly sabotaged Biden’s presidency. Yes, Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema has been a naysayer as well, but Manchin has been the alpha donkey of dissent, given that with the Senate evenly split 50-50 between Democrats (with their Independent colleagues) and Republicans, all Dems must stay together to give Vice President Kamala Harris the deciding vote to pass any legislation.

Manchin has made me into a prophet, a seer of political fortunes, for back in February 2021 I wondered which Joe had more power to control events, Biden or Manchin? (https://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2021/02/which-joe-is-president-biden-or-manchin.html)

So far Manchin has his hand on the legislative lever. If Biden wants to gain control, he needs to campaign hard, in person, for Democratic Senate candidates in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Ohio, Iowa, Georgia, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Carolina, and for as many House candidates as he can fit into his schedule. 

Not much of a positive nature will happen if the House flips Republican. If Democrats hold onto the Senate—by that I mean securing enough votes to not have to rely on Manchin and Sinema—at least they would be in a position to fill federal administration and judicial appointments, especially Supreme Court vacancies should they occur. 

Manchin is an easy target for progressive/Democratic ire. But the real tragedy is that Republican senators where the plains are frying, cattle are starving and thirsty, where floods are sweeping away lives and homes, where water is too scarce to cultivate fields, where unrelenting wind is blowing topsoil away, where glaciers are melting, Republican senators from those regions refuse to act to save our environment. 

Not one GOP senator would sign onto Biden’s bill to save the planet. They’ll all be dead in 20 years or so when payment for their failure to act will come due. But their children and grandchildren will be alive. How do they sleep at night with the knowledge that their legacy is a doomed existence for their progeny, for Earth?

Americans lead a cushy life. Even at a national average cost of $4.52 per gallon, regular gasoline costs less in America than almost anywhere else in the world ($4.19, cash or credit, at my local Costco today). 

Our municipal drinking water is among the best on earth. Yet, we are willing to pay an average of $9.60 per gallon for the freedom to buy bottled water. That’s right—bottled water costs more per gallon than gasoline!

“Last year, the share of household budgets devoted to food was 7.1% in the U.S.; it was higher in European countries like the U.K. (9.4%), Germany (11.7%), France (15%), Spain (15%), and Italy (16.5%), according to Euromonitor International, a London-based market research firm” (https://qz.com/2078132/the-us-spends-far-less-on-food-than-europe-but-thats-changing/).

Nobody likes inflation. It’s running at an ugly, scary 9.1% in the United States. While our rate of change between the first quarter of 2020 and 2022 has nearly quadrupled, it’s miniscule compared to Israel’s 25 times rate. (Here’s a graph from Pew Research Center showing inflation’s growth in 43 developed world countries: "https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/15/in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world-inflation-is-high-and-getting-higher/ft_22-06-08_globalinflation_2/".

The last dramatic spike into double-digit inflation happened in the late 1970s-early 1980s. Back then most Americans lacked what they take for granted today—a low-cost provider of consumer goods. 

By 1985, Walmart had but $6.4 billion in sales from 756 stores. For fiscal 2022 ended January 31, Walmart sales in the U.S. hit $466.8 billion from 5,342 stores and Sam’s Clubs. 

Many economists credit Walmart’s aggressive low pricing with keeping inflation down through the years. Add on Amazon’s 2021 sales of $469.8 billion and the impact of low price providers is doubled. 

Of course, there’s a downside to all the merchandise they provide and Americans crave. Much of it comes from overseas sources. Manufacturing jobs have been lost in America. Though more people are working today than ever before, most Americans lack confidence in the country’s and their economic outlook.

Calendar Season: I’m swamped with picture calendars. And peel-off return address labels.

One of the “benefits” of donating to a variety of social welfare causes is the “freebies” they inundate you with, before and after a donation is proffered. 

Calendars and return address labels are among the favorite tokens of their appreciation, leaving me to ponder if I prefer the animal photos from the World Wildlife Fund or the birds depicted in the National Audubon Society calendar, or the magnificent landscape photography of the National Park Foundation, to name but a few of my solicitors? 

It’s a tough choice, especially when they each send not one but multiple calendars. Even more challenging in my case—I prefer a Jewish monthly calendar. Fortunately several Jewish funeral homes provide them free to temple congregants, assuming one attends High Holy Days services in the early fall each year.

As for the return address labels, given my use of email and instant messenger rather than letters or postcards, what am I supposed to do with all those labels? 

 

A Modern Take on "First they came..."

Conservative Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas has endorsed Justice Clarence Thomas’s opinion that the Supreme Court decision validating gay marriage throughout the land should be overturned, leaving it up to each state to decide the matter (https://mol.im/a/11022059).

With reverence to German Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemöller and his powerful poem of creeping authoritarianism and the silent complicity of intellectuals and clergy to the atrocities of Nazi Germany (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...), here’s a modern take on the loss of national freedoms Americans have come to take for granted: 

First they stripped voting rights. 

Next they stripped the right to an abortion. 

Soon they’ll strip the right to same-sex marriage. 

They’ll follow by stripping the right to interracial unions. 

Then they’ll strip the right to use contraceptives.

The separation of church and state will fall next.

The right to peaceably assemble will be curtailed.

Books will be banned, histories will be rewritten, truths will be erased.

Social Security, minimum wage laws, the Fair Labor Standards Act, unemployment compensation, work safety regulations, environmental protections and the Affordable Care Act and will tumble like dominoes. 

All this, and more, because a self-absorbed public will be too distracted and ignorant to care, too indifferent to speak out, too lazy to vote. 

So, in the words of Pastor Niemöller, 

“Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”