Thursday, January 22, 2026

#22 / Private Equity Meets Mr. Malaise



Click Here For The Blog In The Original
The guy pictured above, Harvey Schwartz, is the chief executive of Carlyle, one of the world's largest private equity firms. He is emphatically not a "Mr. Malaise," where "Private Equity" is concerned. In fact, going into 2025, Schwartz predicted a banner year for "Private Equity." As it happened, that prediction was way off the mark.

I found out about Schwartz' failed prediction by reading an article in the December 24, 2025, edition of The New York Times. In fact, my blog posting title today is really just a reworking of the title on that New York Times' story. Here's The Times' version: "Once Wall Street’s High Flyer, Private Equity Loses Its Luster."

I do not pretend to be an expert on "Private Equity," or on the stock market in general, but I do, I think, get the basic idea. "Private Equity," as Wikipedia tells us, is "stock in a private company that does not offer stock to the general public. Instead, it is offered to specialized investment funds and limited partnerships that take an active role in managing and structuring the companies. In colloquial usage, 'private equity' can refer to these investment firms rather than the companies in which they invest."

Here is my non-expert commentary. "Private Equity" is, in both its operation and design, an investment that is focused on one thing only: will the company in which the investment is made go up in money value? Can we sell the company later for more than we bought it for? People like Mr. Schwartz, and others who do business in private equity, are not interested in a company because of what it makes, or does. They are interested in the company only with the idea that the price someone is willing to pay for the company will increase over what the private equity investors paid. 

This is, by the way, the exact opposite of the investment formula promoted by Warren Buffett, generally considered to be the world's most successful investor. One online source explains Buffett's investment philosophy this way: 

He looks at each company as a whole, so he chooses stocks based solely on their overall potential as a company. Buffett doesn't seek capital gain by holding these stocks as a long-term play. He wants ownership in quality companies that are extremely capable of generating earnings. When he invests in a company, Buffett isn't concerned whether the market will eventually recognize its worth. He's concerned with how well that company can make money as a business (emphasis added).

In other words, someone who is considered to be the "best" investor tries to buy companies and invest in companies that will be successful "as a business." "Private Equity" focuses only on whether the price of the business purchased will go "up." How the actual business does is of secondary importance. 

It is my belief that investors who focus on "money," on "price," as opposed to focusing on investing in enterprises which are well-managed and doing a good job in their business, are undermining our economy. Ultimately, the "Private Equity" focus is self-defeating, and as the billionaires and their wanna-be imitators drive investment decisions, jobs are eliminated, and businesses are run into the ground. 

Maybe, paying attention to "Mr. Malaise" will end up being a good thing for our economy. I'd like to think that might be the case! Letting "Private Equity" determine the fate of our economy is putting our bet on the wrong horse.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/business/private-equity-stock-market.html

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Wednesday, January 21, 2026

#21 / Did We Make A Mistake? We Need To Admit It

  


I was tempted to title this blog posting, "Bored With Peace." As you undoubtedly know, if you follow the news at all, our current president has been threatening war all over the place - and not least within the United States itself. By the way, just in case you haven't picked up on this, if military action is ordered by our current president, the people who would go off to kill and be killed do not include him. 

So far, the Congress, which is charged by our Constitution with responsibility for deciding to take the nation into war, has taken absolutely no action to threaten war, or to approve the threats being made by the person currently serving as the president. Maybe our current president is just "bored with peace." He presents himself, at least, as an "action-oriented" guy, so when others don't jump to do what he'd like, those Commander in Chief powers must seem tempting. If our chief executive gets a little "bored," taking unilateral action might have a lot of appeal. 

When "bored with peace," let's go to war, right? That is a recent theme of various remarks, and actions, coming from our current president. 

But wait a minute! Let's not forget that our current president actually wants to be known as a "man of peace," worthy of being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and so mad that he didn't get it that the warlike side seems to be coming out. Here's the latest on the "Peace President" theme. As outlined in a recent story in The Wall Street Journal, our current president is proposing a new, international organization, a global "Board of Peace." He'd be the chairman, of course, and he would personally take charge of the billion dollar entry fees he is suggesting should be paid by all those nations agreeing to join. By the way, the Congress has not voted in favor of such an organization, but the current president doesn't seem to think that's necessary. It's his proposal, pure and simple.

That fact, that this proposal is coming solely from our current president, and not from our elected representatives, would make this proposed organization different from other organizations of which the United States is a member. And here is another feature of our current president's so-called "Board of Peace" proposal, according to that article I just linked (emphasis added): 

As chairman, Trump would have wide authority over the new organization, with the power to appoint and remove member states, as well as a veto over its decisions. The charter specifies that the board’s decisions will be “made by a majority of the member states present and voting, subject to the approval of the chairman, who may also cast a vote in his capacity as chairman in the event of a tie.”

The so-called "Board of Peace," in other words, according to this plan, boils down to an international organization, established by Donald Trump, that will do whatever Donald Trump wants. It would be an organization "of, by, and for" him, personally, and him alone.

There is a word to describe this kind of thing. It has medical connotations. Here is that word: Megalomania.

The latest pronouncements and actions of our current president are convincing that in electing him the nation made a mistake. If so, we need to admit it. Putting a possible megalomaniac into office as president has already had a lot of negative impacts, but now that the current president has focused on warlike actions, to achieve "peace," as defined by him, the stakes are pretty  high. We need to look into it, in a serious way. Heather Cox Richardson, by the way, who is a well-regarded historian and commentator on politics and government, seems to agree. Click here to see her recent Substack newsletter. 

Who is in charge of all those nuclear weapons possessed by the United States? Well, precedent suggests that whoever is serving as president calls the shots. The last time a president told the U.S. military to drop a nuclear bomb, the military did what they were told, and no other nation could reciprocate. That is no longer true. 

Putting a possible megalomaniac in charge of our nuclear weapons - if that is what has happened - is (and let me say it, again) a "mistake," and we really do need to address this matter. There are some things that could change that situation, and lead to the removal a person who appears to be suffering from megalomania from a command position, but they require action by the United States Congress, which, after all, is actually supposed to be setting policy for our nation, including, specifically, whether to pursue war or peace. 

Ultimately, though, as I keep reminding myself as I write out these blog postings, it's up to us!


Image Credit:

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Tuesday, January 20, 2026

#20 / The Great Dictator

  


I see statements all the time that we are now living in a "dictatorship." Sometimes, when friends of mine make statements like that, I speedily provide them with a kind of "shame on you" message, since saying that we are currently living in a dictatorship comes across, to me, as a kind of stipulation to a "possibility" (not yet a "reality") that we should be resisting, full-force. Once we agree that we're already there, our problems become much greater. 

Where's our Charlie Chaplin (shown above), to make fun of the pretensions of our current president? The picture above shows Chaplin in "The Great Dictator," one of his best-remembered films, and at this stage in our national life some Chaplinesque humor could be a real weapon, helping to prevent something that is, truly, a possible danger, but that has not yet become a fully-accomplished fact. 
 
Our current president's "I, alone, can fix it" claims, as well as the prolific "Presidential Proclamations" he issues, rather willy-nilly, not to mention his decisions to send out the U.S. military to kill various people in small boats - and maybe in Minneapolis - do demonstrate a rather strong predisposition to dictatorship. I have referenced, of course, only a very small and "partial list" of the various dictatorial actions and orders of our current president and his appointed followers. Given where we are, and as we see where this seems to be going, our job is not to proclaim that the "dictatorship" has arrived, but to do everything we possibly can to resist, and to prevent it from ever arriving. 

Thinking about "dictatorship" made me recall my years on the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors. I served for twenty years, and (as illustrated below) I routinely employed "dictation" to permit me to exercise the powers of my office, "dictating" various letters, memos, and other documents. I think it's true that the picture below might well have been a picture of me during those years (except that I didn't then have grey hair). If you were to consult the Chief Administrator of the Board's office, who also "took dictation," as did other employees, I think she would verify that I was, quite probably, the biggest "dictator" in County Government. 


Here's what I know from my time as someone who was, perhaps, the "Chief Dictator" of Santa Cruz County government. The "Dictator" only has power - "agency," to use a word in contemporary parlance - when those to whom such a person "dictates," will then actually do what the "dictator" has said what the dictator wants done. I never issued any orders to violate the law, but if I had, no one would have obeyed. When I wanted something to happen, I had to get at least two other members of the Board of Supervisors to agree - to follow the process set out in the law, in other words. 

At the national level, there are many laws, not to mention the Constitution, that our current president is ignoring. He is dictating away, issuing orders, and a lot of the time, people are doing what he says, despite the fact that his orders demand things that would violate the law. We, as citizens, need to be clear that this kind of conduct is wrong, and impermissible. Many are doing just that. Let's encourage everyone to refuse to follow the dictated commands of anyone who is seeking to have people violate the law or the Constitution. In fact, let's start with our elected representatives in Congress who seem to be doing what they're told - or saying nothing effective, and doing nothing effective, to oppose improper or illegal orders.

Active, nonviolent resistance to illegitimate dictation is the proper course of action in our present moment. And that kind of active, nonviolent resistance should be our response, right now. Let's not tell ourselves that a "dictatorship" has already arrived. Instead, let's make sure it never does - and we do that by refusing to undertake, and by actively and nonviolently resisting, illegitimate and illegal actions ordered by our current president, and by anyone else who is telling us that we should conform and obey any illegal or illegitimate order.


Image Credits:
(1) - https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/oct/18/chaplin-great-dictator-comedy
(2) - https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/news-photo/professor-of-business-history-at-johns-hopkins-university-news-photo/588673922

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Monday, January 19, 2026

#19 / Leaders And The Led

  


oooOOOooo
It's not the leaders who disappoint me. It's the led. - Shalom Auslander
oooOOOooo

The statement above, by an author who is known for his "existentialist themes, biting satire and black humor," if we are to give credit to his Wikipedia profile, was published in the January 16, 2026, edition of The New York Times. Click the link below to read Auslander's column in its entirety. 

The statement I have reproduced above is what struck me most. Auslander's piece in The Times was titled, "They Were Ordinary Germans. We Are Ordinary Americans." 

Auslander says that he thought that Americans were "different" from the Germans who accepted, and often advanced, the horrendous actions of Hitler and the Nazis. Not different at all, he now appears to conclude, looking at how Americans (including Members of Congress) are reacting to the actions of our current president. 

You can make up your own mind about that comparison between Germans in the Nazi era, and Americans today - there has certainly been some very significant and apparently growing "resistance" to our current president and those who are following his orders - but what I'd like us all to focus on is that distinction between the "leaders" and "the led." 

Supposedly, the United States of America is a "self-governing" nation. Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address summed up what that means. What that means, to quote Lincoln directly, is that what we usually call our "democracy" is a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people."

As I often say, it's the "by the people" part that is most important.

If we, people now living, and operating in our contemporary times, truly believe that we are personally implicated in that claim that our government is "by the people," then the idea that we, as citizens, are "led" drops out of view. In the kind of self-governing democratic republic in which we profess to believe, and the reality of which can be validated by our history, including during both the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement, "we, the people" are "in charge." We claim the right to "run the place." We have never, in other words, ever conceded that our role as citizens is to be "led." We don't "choose" our leaders, and then comply with their directions. We take leadership upon ourselves, both individually and collectively. Today, as we celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., is a good day to remind ourselves of this.

I do think, with Auslander, that this aspect of our self-understanding as Americans is being challenged, most certainly and centrally by our current president, who claims that "he, alone" is in charge.

It is never easy to be "in charge," and citizens, today, are overwhelmed with the need to earn a living and pay the bills - besides maintaining some positive and hopeful stance towards a world in which economic, social, and environmental doom is ever more present in our minds as a possibility, or even as a likelihood. 

In our circumstances, it is an easy temptation to forego the responsibility of "leading" ourselves. As Faulkner said, however, in his famous Nobel Prize acceptance speech, we must commit ourselves not only to "endure" the realities of our time, but to "prevail." 

If we are to be "leaders," and not "the led," and if we are determined to "prevail," we must not "accept," or allow ourselves even to "endure," the authoritarian and dictatorial claims of our current president.

So, that's the question: Are we "leaders," as our Constitution and history proclaim - putting us, collectively, in charge of our own destiny? Or, are we "the led," subjects who are told what to do, and what to think - and told, actually, what is "true," despite the evidence of our own eyes?

We need to decide. It is high time for us to decide! 

What's your choice? We will either be "leaders" or "the led."

But if we are going to be leaders, individually and collectively, we need to take action, and that means reallocating our time and getting personally involved. 

If any residents of the City of Santa Cruz are reading this sometime before 10:00 a.m. on Monday morning, January 19th, you are invited to participate in a march, downtown, in honor of Dr. King. That is one small way for someone to get "personally involved." 

Just a start, though!


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Sunday, January 18, 2026

#18 / The Upside-Down Kingdom

   


David French, who writes columns for The New York Times, anticipated the then-upcoming Christmas holiday by writing a column with the following title: "Christianity Is A Dangerous Faith." I am providing you with a copy of the entire column, below. The image I have included, above, accompanies the column online. Frankly, I am not quite sure what that image is supposed to convey. 

In French's column, I was most struck by the following phrase, which comes, he explains, from a former pastor:

The Upside-Down Kingdom Of God

I like that! I have always been partial to Jesus' statement that "the first will be last and the last will be first," reflecting the fact that our human-derived measures of excellence are deservedly suspect. For an example, think about the claims to greatness of our "billionaire class."  

Without having to focus on the "religious," the idea that our lives are best lived when we seek service to others, not personal advancement, is what I think of as some profoundly good advice. 

The Christmas holiday may have come and gone (for the past year, I mean), but this message of bold humility as the right road to glory and success seems appropriate in this year that is just beginning.

oooOOOooo

Christianity Is a Dangerous Faith
David French - Dec. 21, 2025

Now let’s talk about the Christmas story. Every year, like clockwork, a series of debates breaks out in Christian America. When Jesus was born in a manger, did that mean he was homeless? When Jesus fled with his family to Egypt to escape King Herod’s order to kill all baby boys in the region of Bethlehem, did that mean he was a refugee? And when his family entered and lived in Egypt until Herod died, did that mean he was an immigrant?

You can see why the debate matters, whether or not you are a believer. If the man Christians believe is the Messiah, part of the Trinity, the maker of heaven and earth wasn’t just human, but also a human of low social status in the ancient world — and never elevated himself to any position of power on the earth — then that has immense implications for believers who want to imitate Christ.

If you can somehow distinguish the facts of Jesus’ birth from the realities of the modern world, however, then you can push it away — it becomes merely an ancient origin story, a matter more of academic interest than anything else.

I tend to think it’s a waste of time to debate whether Jesus fits into any specific modern legal or cultural category. For what it’s worth, I don’t think he was homeless (his family was on a trip, and there is no indication they had no home at all), but I do think he was a refugee by any fair definition of that term since his family was fleeing religious persecution. It’s a bit strange, however, to call him an immigrant when he fled to a different part of the same empire.

My conclusions don’t matter, though. The core truth of Christ’s birth is that when God became man, he entered the world in a posture of extreme humility and extreme vulnerability, and that posture never changed.

Jesus, God made flesh, spent his life as a carpenter and an itinerant preacher. He proved so vulnerable that he was easily executed by the Roman Empire, with only the tiniest band of followers still clinging to their faith.

And if we who call ourselves Christians are to truly imitate Christ, then shouldn’t we also place little regard on our own worldly status? Jesus told us to take up our own cross, not to nail others to that terrible tree.

My former pastor often used a phrase that has always stuck in my mind — “the upside-down kingdom of God.” I use it all the time as well. Yes, Christ is King, but of a very different kind of kingdom, where the first are last, where you love your enemies, where you bless those who persecute you, and where you sacrifice to serve your neighbor.

And Jesus established the upside-down nature of his kingdom from his very first moments on earth.

When I think of the contrast between Jesus’ life and ministry and the will to power that has consumed so many Christians, I’m reminded of the words usually attributed to Mahatma Gandhi: “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

That’s a fair critique. And by that metric, every single one of us will fail. Who among us is truly like Christ? But Gandhi’s critique contains a potential fallacy. There is an unspoken implication that people would actually like Christians if we behaved more like Christ.

But no. That’s demonstrably wrong. It’s true that people want to receive love and compassion, and that when they encounter Christians who love them and serve them, they tend to like them.

Many people do not, however, appreciate it when a Christian loves and serves their enemies. They absolutely do not like it when a Christian refuses to join their political crusade.

That’s what happened to Jesus. He healed the sick. He caused the lame to walk and the blind to see. But that wasn’t enough — a true Messiah was supposed to lead the people to political triumph.

When he did not, the religious people cast him aside. When the fateful choice was put before them, the religious people chose Barabbas, an insurrectionist, over Jesus.

But Christ did not endear himself to Rome, either. The secular authorities crucified him under a mocking sign, calling him “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”

In the upside-down kingdom of God, religion is still dangerous, but the danger has flipped. Fundamentalist faiths make religion dangerous to others, the nonbelievers and heretics who must be made to yield.

But Christianity properly lived is dangerous to Christians. It’s dangerous to people who refuse to hate those they are told to hate, to people who refuse to oppress, to conquer, to exploit — even when they’re told to conquer in the name of God.

It was Christ’s humble birth that set the stage. It was the first lesson in a series: to oppress others is to oppress Christ, to hate others is to hate Christ, and to love your enemies can be the most dangerous and revolutionary act of them all.


Image Credit:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/21/opinion/christ-christmas-humility-kingdom-god.html

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Saturday, January 17, 2026

#17 / Do These Complaints Sound Familiar?


 

Do the following complaints sound familiar? See what you think:

  • He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
  • He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance...
  • He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people... 
  • He has endeavoured to [obstruct] the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither... 
  • He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. 
  • He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone...
  • He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
  • He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. 
  • He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power... Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us...
  • [He has attempted to cut] off our Trade with all parts of the world...
  • [He has transported] us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences...
That's King George, III at the top of this blog posting, for anyone who doesn't immediately recognize him. The complaints I list are all direct quotations from our Declaration of Independence, which initiated the American Revolution two hundred and fifty years ago. Ellipses are noted. 

Below, I am providing a picture of our current president, and let me provide the following link, too, to an article in The New York Times about Tom Paine. His 47-page pamphlet, Common Sense, played a significant role in stimulating Americans to take effective action to deal with their complaints.

It never hurts, I think, to consider historical parallels as we decide what actions we might take - and perhaps should take - as we deal with our legitimate grievances, today. 




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Friday, January 16, 2026

#16 / Right On, Rahm!

  

Pictured is Rahm Emanuel, who formerly served as White House Chief of Staff under President Obama. Subsequently, Emanuel served as the Mayor of Chicago, and he is now considering a run for the presidency. Emanuel is also dishing out advice to parents, by way of a relatively recent column in The Wall Street Journal, "Lessons From Modern Parenthood." 

In 2004, Emanuel had some pretty cute kids: 

From left to right, Leah, Ilana and Zach
Leah, who is now 25, is "working as a consultant to government agencies." Ilana, 27, "joined the Navy Reserve after completing her bachelor's degree and is on track to earn a joint law and business degree." Zach, now 28, "joined the Navy as an intel officer after college and is now a lieutenant." All of these kids are doing just fine, in other words, and Emanuel says that there are four reasons why. 

Emanuel lists, as #2, providing his kids with quantity time, not only "quality time." The #3 reason for his  kids' success, says Emanuel, is that he and his wife never stinted on telling the kids "that they were loved." #4 on the list Emanuel provides is this: "Families need to nurture every child's interests."

These are all good tips for parents (and I'm speaking as a parent, myself). But what about reason #1 - the MOST important reason for his kids' success, according to Emanuel? Well, listen to his own words (emphasis added): 

Our first principle, perhaps the most important, is a tribute to my Jewish mother: Meals matter. If you want to raise successful children, families have to eat together.

I have never been the President's Chief of Staff, and I have never been the Mayor of any major American city (or even a minor American city). While I think I could probably do a pretty good job as president (or mayor), I am not intending to run. Despite what might be counted as a lack of credentials, my wife Marilyn and I completely endorse this recommendation from Rahm Emanuel. 

"Meals matter." Eating together, each day, matters. It really could be that this is the MOST important lesson not "from" but "for" Modern Parenthood. My sense is that the "family meal" is a disappearing  part of American life - and if that's so, I count that as a big mistake.

"Families have to eat together." 

Right On, Rahm!

 
Image Credits:

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Thursday, January 15, 2026

#15 / The Elite Charade

 

I have mentioned Anand Giridharadas before, in an earlier blog posting. He is pictured above. He wrote a book called, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing The World. That's the book I was commenting on back in 2021. Today, prompted by an Opinion essay in The New York Times, I am mentioning Giridharadas once again. His recent essay in The Times is titled as follows, online: "How the Elite Behave When No One Is Watching: Inside the Epstein Emails."

You will note, I feel certain, that Giridharadas wants his readers to understand that "the elite" are not to be trusted, or to be counted on, as those persons who are most likely to "change the world." 

I'm with Giridharadas! I think he's right about that! If we expect "experts," "elites," or "those in the know" to help lead us to a better world, we're missing out on our only chance to get there. The "elites" are absolutely satisfied with the way things are right now - though I guess it would be correct to say that they'd like to lower their taxes a little bit more. 

Our current president got elected, in my opinion, because he seemed to be different from the "elites" who have been running the world - and the United States of America, in particular. He was on "our" side, battling the "deep state," which is, of course, run by those "elites" who have caused all our problems. We have now discovered that this was actually a misapprehension. Mr. Trump is not, in fact, our "retribution." He's one of the "elites" himself. 

The latest column by Giridharadas drives the point home: the "elites" hang out together, even to the extent of overlooking the kind of conduct in which Jeffrey Epstein engaged. Maybe some of the "friends" who took Epstein's plane ride to his private island in the Caribbean also engaged in the kind of conduct that Epstein did - with those underage women, I mean. However, whether Bill Clinton, and Bill Gates, and all those other "elites" who hung out with Epstein actually did the same things that Epstein did, is really not the main point. The "elites" hang together. That's the main point, and the "elites" insulate their own from any criticism or consequence. That kind of guarantee survives even death and the public dishonor that Epstein experienced. That's what the fight over disclosing the Epstein files has been all about. We'll see how much we actually learn about all the "elite" friends of Jeffrey. I'm willing to bet it won't be nearly as much as many expect.

At any rate, again as prompted by the recent Opinion essay by Giridharadas, I want to reiterate that "changing the world" is exactly what we need to do. The survival of the human race, and perhaps the survival of all life on Earth, depends on it. That means that "we, the people" have to reclaim our authority over the "political world" in which we most immediately live. And let me be very clear. That "we, the people" language is a way to say "us," and to make clear that you and I are personally implicated, and need to respond ourselves, as individuals, and in those small groups that Margaret Mead has told us about.

Hoping that some kind of "elite" is going to be on our side - and solve the problems that have put us all in such danger - is just plain wrong!

 
Image Credit:
https://www.wired.com/story/wired-25-anand-giridharadas-tech-billionaries-philanthropists/

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Wednesday, January 14, 2026

#14 / The Quark Test

 

Click Here For The Blog In The Original

Ruth Porat, pictured above, is the president and chief investment officer of Alphabet and Google, and she propounds a "Quark Test," as a way to decide whether or not someone who has an opinion "knows what they're talking about." 

Following is what Porat has to say about that topic, as she has expressed herself in an article in The Wall Street Journal Magazine, outlining her "Quark Test" idea (emphasis added):

A Savvy Leader Has A Fine-Tuned B.S. Detector. Do You?

My father, who was a physicist, said if someone can’t define a quark in less than 30 seconds, they don’t know what they’re talking about. Throughout my career, I have used the quark test. If you think something adds value, at Alphabet, or at Morgan Stanley, and you can’t tell me why in a compelling way in less than 30 seconds, then you don’t know what you’re talking about.

I think that there is a lot of truth in what Porat says. If you truly do know "what you're talking about," you should be able to tell someone else about it in a very brief (maybe even 30-second) statement. However, it has been my own experience that a person will often arrive at "knowing what they are talking about" by actually talking about the topic - "talking it out." 

Arriving at "the truth," or finding the right thing to do (or think), is not something one does unilaterally, and it usually requires more than 30 seconds. Making a correct decision about "the truth," or about what to say, or do, is almost always the product of a discussion with other people. The "truth" is almost never one's own, first-thought idea, defined in that 30-second statement that Porat is suggesting.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Porat

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Tuesday, January 13, 2026

#13 / Miller Time



Click Here For The Blog In The Original

This blog posting is not to announce that I have left behind my teetotalling ways. It is also not a suggestion that one good way to react to the events of our present moment (and to survive them) is to kick back, chill, and quaff a nice, cool, tall one. According to a website devoted to the Gilmore Girls, which is where I got the image above, the phrase, "Miller Time" has come to mean that "it's time to relax." 

I do not believe that "it's time to relax." Quite the opposite. In fact, what I mean by "Miller Time," in this blog posting, can be read on the contemptuous face you can see below. In case you don't immediately recognize it, that face belongs to Stephen Miller, who is serving as our current president's deputy chief of staff. I talked about him in my blog posting yesterday, too. For a commentary by someone else, here's a link to an article in The Guardian. 


Below, here are some words from Miller himself, as garned from William Galston's January 6, 2026, column in The Wall Street Journal (emphasis added):

After seizing Mr. Maduro and his wife, Mr. Trump renewed his demand to acquire Greenland. Pressed by CNN’s Jake Tapper on whether this could involve the use of force, Stephen Miller, one of the president’s most influential advisers, replied: “There’s no need to even think or talk about this in the context that you’re asking of a military operation. Nobody’s gonna fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland.” Similarly troubling was a comment that revealed his outlook on foreign policy: “We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

An article in The New York Times also quoted Miller (on both Greenland and Venezuela), pretty much to the same effect (emphasis added):

Stephen Miller, a top aide to President Trump, asserted on Monday that Greenland rightfully belonged to the United States and that the Trump administration could seize the semiautonomous Danish territory if it wanted. 
“Nobody’s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland,” Mr. Miller told Jake Tapper, the CNN host, after being asked repeatedly whether he would rule out using military force. 
The remarks were part of a vocal push by Mr. Miller, long a powerful behind-the-scenes player in Trump administration policy, to justify American imperialism and a vision for a new world order in which the United States could freely overthrow national governments and take foreign territory and resources so long as it was in the national interest.

Finally, let me quote Oona A. Hathaway, who is a professor of law and political science at Yale and is the president-elect of the American Society of International Law.  Her opinion column in The Times tells us that "The Great Unraveling Has Begun." 

What does Hathaway mean by that? I urge you to read the full article to see. I am informed that no paywall should prevent you from doing that, so just click the link. In short, Hathaway indicates that the kind of approach to foreign relations espoused by Stephen Miller - "might makes right," meaning that the United States can and should just take whatever it wants, since it's powerful enough to do so - would be a "blatant assault on the international legal order," and would end eight decades of relative peace. "Unraveling" is one way to say it.

If you think back to the years of your lifetime, Hathaway is telling us that those years have been, for the most part, years of "relative peace." Since I am eighty-two years old, my own experience does encompass all of those eight decades called out by Hathaway, and I wouldn't exactly call them "peaceful." However, Hathaway is talking about a comparison of post-World War II conditions to the conditions that came before. In that context, you can make a case that things have been much better over those eighty years than they were during World War I (16 million civilian and military casualties) and during World War II, which was the deadliest military conflict in history, with 70–85 million deaths caused by the conflict, representing about 3% of the estimated global population of 2.3 billion in 1940.

Now, of course, nuclear weapons will be available in any major new conflict, and it's questionable that anyone will survive a war in which they are deployed. Back in 1963, Bob Dylan pointed this out, singing that if "God's on our side He'll stop the next war." 

Stephen Miller, obviously, thinks he knows better.

Hathaway says that "as the United States fails to abide by the underlying principle of the international legal system it once championed, the already ailing system faces total collapse." 

There may still be a chance to save it, but the decades of imperfect but transformative peace that the U.N. Charter helped create cannot survive what I am calling "Miller Time."

It's no time to kick back and relax!


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Monday, January 12, 2026

#12 / Stephen Miller: His Concerns Reviewed

 


That is Stephen Miller pictured above, and here's the headline that prompted this blog posting: "Miller Cites Children Of Immigrants As A Problem." The article appeared in The New York Times, back near the end of last month - on the "day before Christmas," as a matter of fact. Lovely holiday sentiments!

Naturally, I was interested in finding out about the news behind the headline. Specifically, I wanted to know the nature of the "problem" that Miller has identified. Well, here it is. According to Miller, "seven decades of immigration has produced millions of people who take more than they give." The Times' article does immediately note that this assertion "has been refuted by years of economic data." As Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. immigration policy program at the Migration Policy Institute puts it, "study after study has demonstrated the upward mobility of children of immigrants."

Upon reviewing Wikipedia's write up on Miller (click the link to his name, in the first line, above, if you'd like to review it yourself), it is clear to me that Miller has zealously objected to "immigrants" since his high school days. My observation is that when people start deciding that any particular "group" is causing problems, and demands that members of such group be penalized, it is appropriate to demand that the focus should be on the behavior objected to, as opposed to declaring that a particular "group" is, ipso facto, causing the identified problem.

"Taking more than they give," Miller's stated concern, could be defined, I suppose, as applying to those persons who receive more in government "benefits" than they have contributed in taxes, or who have made some other demonstrable contribution to our society that offsets what they have received. Candidly, that measurement would put lots of non-immigrants in the same category as the "immigrants" that Miller denounces and derides. You have probably heard the designator "white trash." If we are going to object to "immigrants," for the reason specified by Miller, we should probably start trying to deal with impecunious white people, too.

In fact, lest anyone mistake my personal position, I do not think we should be trying to get rid of "immigrants," or poor white people, or any other "group." My continuing claim is that we are "in this together," and that includes ALL of us. And in case it hasn't become clear to anyone who is reading this, I would argue that we are "in this together" not only in the United States of America, but in "the world." 

If it is true that the entire world is, in fact, "in it together," as I think the threat of nuclear war, and massive starvation, and desertification, and global warming, with all of its anticipated impacts, including mass extinctions, make clear, we need to make allies with everyone, and figure out how to work together as "people of this planet," not glory in efforts to pick out groups to belittle and denounce. 

The article that prompted this comment was published, as I disclosed earlier, on "the day before Christmas." You'll read my comment after Christmas has come and gone, but let's try remembering that "Christmas Spirit" that we heard about on December 25th, and make it a year round thing. 

Mr. Miller is invited to try that out, himself!

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Sunday, January 11, 2026

#11 / Father Forgive Them

  


New Year. New Deal! 

I wrote a blog posting on the New Deal, once - way back in 2011. You can click this link to review it. That blog posting centered on the idea that Roosevelt's New Deal represented "debt forgiveness, American style." I think we need another round of that!

I have been thinking quite a bit about various varieties of "forgiveness," and the place of forgiveness in politics, and this being a Sunday, I thought it might be good to refer you to Luke 23:34. I guess that reference provides a kind of extreme example of forgiveness, since Jesus clearly thought that forgiveness could be extended to just about the worst thing you might ever conjure or contemplate doing. If you are not already familiar with the verse I have mentioned, that is the verse that quotes Jesus saying, "Father, forgive them; they know not what they do," just as the Romans were getting ready to drive those great big nails right through his hands and feet.

What Jesus called for could be a pretty good model. That's what I have been thinking.

After our president oversaw the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro, in order to bring him to the United States to face what might  be a pretty well-justified criminal prosecution, a good friend and I started talking about forgiveness, and apology, and what role they should play in politics. 

A pretty big role, is what we concluded. Not only do we all make mistakes (big ones; really significant ones), we also do bad things which really can't be called "mistakes." Sometimes, we do bad things intentionally! 

During World War II, for instance, the United States government rounded up thousands of Japanese-American citizens and put them in concentration camps. Those who were rounded up weren't drug dealers or criminals, either, and it was that guy Roosevelt who did it. The Supreme Court signed off on the legality of doing that, too, with Justice William O. Douglas writing the opinion. 

In this case, the United States Government did, later on, provide an official national apology to those impacted, and who were still alive at the time the government got around to that apology. That is the only example my friend and I could immediately think of in which the U.S. Government apologized, and took some remedial action, after realizing that it had acted badly. There may be other examples, too, but we weren't able to bring them to mind. 

Might be a good precedent for the future, though! That's what we concluded. 

We do make mistakes, and we do intentionally undertake actions that are just plain wrong, and we do these things both as individuals, and and collectively through our government. If we have been adversely affected by such an action, do we want to double down on recrimination and hatred and decide to hurt those who have hurt us? Some mode of forgiveness might be better. 

You know, singing with those "better angels." 


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Saturday, January 10, 2026

#10 / I, Alone




The person pictured above is currently serving as the President of the United States of America. He won his election to that office in 2024, and he did so, largely, on the basis of the following, undoubtedly well-remembered, assertion: "I, alone, can fix it."

Mr. Trump has certainly not backed away from that claim. The front page of The New York Times on Friday, January 9, 2026, headlined its lead article as follows: "Trump Asserts His Global Power Has One Limit: Himself." That's the hardcopy version, which differs from the online version not only by utilizing a slightly different headline, but also by utilizing an even more striking picture than the one I have copied above, which comes from the online version of the article. 

I believe that it would be wise for every American to think about the claims being made by our current president, as featured in The Times' story (emphasis added):

President Trump told The Times during a wide-ranging interview last night that he alone was the arbiter of his authority as commander in chief. He brushed aside international law and other checks on his power to order the U.S. military to strike or invade nations around the world. 
When asked if there were any limits on his global powers, Trump said: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.” 

You might call these claims "autocratic." You could even call them "megalomaniacal." These claims are definitive evidence that our current president believes that he - and he exclusively - is empowered to act for our nation, and that he, and he "alone," can decide every question relating to our nation's present and future. 

This recent article is clear evidence that our current president believes that his voice, and his decisions, and his "morality," are the only things that count. His "own mind," our current president says, is "the only thing that can stop me."

Our current president's claim to possess the unilateral power to speak for, to make decisions for, and to act for the United States of America (with no one else having any say-so) is inconsistent with what our Constitution says about the powers of the executive. That claim, though, is completely consistent with the following news stories in the same edition of The Times that I have quoted above, these recent news stories documenting recent actions by the government which came exclusively from the president:


The United States of America can lose the distinction of being a "self-governing" democracy if it acts as if the above claims, made by our current president, are either acceptable or true. 

They are not true, and are flatly inconsistent with what our Constitution says about the powers of the president, and they are not acceptable, either, if we intend to remain a "self-governing" people, acting through our representative democracy. 

Power must be met by power, which is not the same as, and is completely different from, "violence." Organized political action is demanded of us. 

Now. 

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