Tuesday, June 2, 2026

#153 / Same Fate As The Dinosaurs?




If you have been following the news, you probably know that SpaceX will soon promote an Initial Public Offering (IPO) - a sale of its stock to the public. This stock offering will possibly end up making Elon Musk (pictured) the world's first trillionaire. As the BBC tells us, in the article I have linked in the first line of this blog posting, "SpaceX makes rockets, offers a satellite internet service called Starlink, and also owns Musk's controversial artificial intelligence (AI) firm xAI. The initial public offering (IPO) on the US stock market is set to be the largest in Wall Street history and could start next month under the ticker symbol SPCX."

Naturally, the BBC is not alone in covering this news. The Saturday-Sunday, May 23-24, 2026, edition of The Wall Street Journal had a couple of articles on the SpaceX IPO. Ben Cohen wrote a column titled, "SpaceX’s Ambitions Are Intergalactic. Its Business Is Selling You Internet." Corrie Driebusch's article appeared under this headline: "SpaceX Is Aiming for Civilization on Mars. Its IPO Couldn’t Be More Old School." Both of these are worth reading, and I think that clicking on the links will get you to them. Here is an excerpt from Cohen's column that caught my attention (emphasis added): 

SpaceX consists of three segments: space, AI and connectivity, which is primarily driven by Starlink. Last year, the Starlink division was responsible for $11 billion of revenue, which amounted to more than 60% of the company’s total sales. It was the most valuable part of the business—and the only profitable one. And for years, it has been absolutely essential to the success of SpaceX. As it turns out, even companies that defy the laws of gravity are bound by the laws of economics. 
The mysterious finances of Musk’s company were detailed this week in SpaceX’s IPO filing, which is far more bonkers than financial paperwork has any right to be. 
The highlights include the company describing itself as “the most ambitious, vertically integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth,” claiming a total addressable market of $29 trillion, revealing that Musk’s pay package is tied to “the establishment of a permanent human colony on Mars with at least one million inhabitants” and declaring: “We do not want humans to have the same fate as dinosaurs.”

Now, when I say that the report above "caught my attention," I am somewhat understating my reaction. First, Musk, apparently, thinks that it's actually going to be possible to transport a "human colony" to Mars - a "colony" with "at least one million inhabitants." Remember how much time, effort, and money it took to put a couple of guys on the Moon? A million on Mars? Wow! That's a truly different thing, indeed. 

But check out the last line I have quoted. Musk doesn't "want humans to have the same fate as dinosaurs." We do remember what happened to the dinosaurs, right? They all died, as conditions on Earth changed to make the planet incapable of supporting their life, going forward. 

So.... it looks like Musk believes that this is what's going to happen in the relatively near term (within Musk's lifetime) with respect to human beings. Humans are either going to die out here on Earth, or they are going to have to migrate to Mars, to avoid extinction. As a personal note, Mars does not seem very hospitable, or a nice place to live, at least to me (witness the photo below). 

My suggestion? Let's forget about putting our money into a company that is betting against the continued ability of human beings to live on Planet Earth, and start investing our money on keeping Earth habitable. Wouldn't it make more sense to use our financial resources to fight off global warming, and to bring peace to the world (eliminating the possibility of a global nuclear war), instead of betting on some whacked-out potential trillionaire's dream that he, and a million or so pals, can all scoot off to Mars, avoiding the extinction of human life on this planet?

Check out the pictorial comparison below. Don't you agree that sticking with Earth is the better bet?

Earth

Mars


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Monday, June 1, 2026

#152 / The Law Of Small Numbers

 

Click Here For The Blog In The Original
 
Robert Hubbell (who happens to be a lawyer) writes a Substack blog about politics. Hubbell calls his blog, "Today's Edition." I subscribe to Hubbell's daily blog, and if you don't subscribe yourself, I suggest that you should check it out. It is quite informative, and there is a no-cost option available. 

On May 28, 2026, Hubbell's newsletter provided "some perspective on the Texas primary results." As you may remember, if you are following our national politics with at least some attention to events taking place in states far from where you live (I am assuming that most of the people reading this blog posting of mine do not live in Texas), a guy named Ken Paxton, running for the United States Senate in Texas, defeated the current U.S. Senator, John Cornyn, in a primary election to decide who would be the Republican Party candidate in November. 

Cornyn, as the incumbent U.S. Senator since 2002, can boast a long record in the Congress. I would characterize his record as quite conservative, but principled. Paxton, who beat out Cornyn in the primary, has been the Attorney General of Texas since 2015, and is regularly called the "most corrupt politician in America." While this charge has been lodged most notably by James Talarico, the Democratic Party candidate for the Senate in November, Talarico is not the only one who thinks that this is a good description. 

At any rate (I'm getting distracted from the point I wanted to make), Hubbell's blog posting on May 28th discussed "The Law of Small Numbers," and I thought that his commentary was instructive: 

The breathless reporting about the margin of Paxton’s victory could create the misimpression that Trump is getting stronger. Not true. Trump is maintaining his death grip on a shrinking minority, even as he is losing support nationally across all demographics. 
Moreover, the turnout in Texas was pathetic, making it dangerous and foolhardy to draw conclusions about the relative strength of Trump, Republicans, and Democrats among Texas voters. Only 8% of Texas registered voters participated in the run-off election. 
In some counties, Paxton and Cornyn received votes in the single or double digits. For example, in Zapata County, Paxton garnered 22 votes, while Cornyn won 6 votes, making it appear that Paxton crushed Cornyn 79% to 21%. 
Given the tiny number of votes cast in Zapata County, it would be easy for the Law of Small Numbers to lead observers to incorrect conclusions. 
For example, the latest available data from the Texas Secretary of State shows there are 7,886 registered voters in Zapata County, meaning the turnout in the Republican runoff—28 voters—was very close to 0%. 
Moreover, because Zapata County is predominantly Latino (93%), someone not paying attention to the low turnout could erroneously conclude that Paxton has very strong support in counties with large Latino populations. 
Instead, the most reasonable inference to be drawn from the Zapata County results is that in a county that is overwhelmingly Latino, there was virtually no support for Paxton or Cornyn (emphasis added).

Hubbell's point? His point is that how election results are reported does not, in all cases, tell us what's actually going on. One of the virtues of the Hubbell newsletter is that it does, as it advertises, look at our politics through the "lens of hope." Many citizens, today, have stepped away from "politics," because they do find it "hopeless." Maybe it's not! Maybe that's just the way politics is often reported and discussed, and this is why what we read about politics ends up elevating "hopelessness" over my favorite category, "possibility." 

I actually think that's true, and the antidote (I speak from experience) is our personal participation in politics - not as "observers," but as actors, as those who believe it's possible to change the world, and who work at it!

https://www.chaivillagela.org/content.aspx?page_id=4002&club_id=599592&item_id=2296682

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Sunday, May 31, 2026

#151 / Walk In The Light

 

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There’s a Light that is shining
when the world began,
And a Light that is shining
in the heart of man:
There’s a Light that is shining
in the Turk and the Jew,
And a Light that is shining,
friend, in me and in you.

[Chorus]

Walk in the Light,
wherever you may be!
Walk in the Light,
wherever you may be!
In my old leather breeches and
my shaggy, shaggy locks,
I am walking in the glory of the Light, said Fox.

oooOOOooo

George Fox (pictured) was the "First Quaker." If you click right here, you can read an "Autobiography," edited by Rufus M. Jones. This "Autobiography" is based on George Fox's Journal. Click that link to read his Journal. Clicking here will let you see the entire lyrics of that "George Fox Song." 

In my blog posting last Sunday, "Light" was featured, as I cited to William Blake's poem, "The Little Black Boy." "Light," indeed, features in all things relating to the Society of Friends (Quakers), including in the Meeetings for Worship that the Quakers hold on Sundays, which the Quakers call "First Days." When Quakers gather to worship there are no sermons. No one with supposed "authority" says anything. Anything said during a Friends' Meeting comes spontaneously from those gathered in silence. 

Sometimes, some astonishing are said during Meeting - some "weighty" things, some revealing things, some poignant things. During the Meeting, or at the rise of the Meeting, those in attendance may be moved to ask all those present to hold some person, or some concern, "in the Light." 

I believe I attended my first Quaker meeting in 1963 or 1964, at the Palo Alto Friends' Meetinghouse on Colorado Street, in Palo Alto. I used to walk over from Stanford, where I was an undergraduate student. In Santa Cruz, Friends meet at the Meetinghouse on Rooney Street. 

As I said in an earlier blog posting, you are invited!


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Saturday, May 30, 2026

#150 / TIME TO VOTE (Cummings For Supervisor)

 

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I usually vote almost immediately. I get my mail-in ballot; I fill it out; I dispatch it the very next day. I assume that a lot of California residents and voters do that. This year, things are a bit different. The absurdity of a Governor's race with, I think, 61 candidates has led many to hold off till near the very end, so that their vote won't end up creating a situation in which the General Election, upcoming in November, will end up being a contest between two Republican Party candidates, even though only about 25% of registered voters in California are Republicans. It will be interesting to see what happens in this so-called "Jungle Primary." 

At any rate, if you happen to be a voter who has been holding off voting, to let published polls give you some guidance about how you ought to vote in the Governor's race, this blog posting is to remind you that the time has come. Election Day is June 2nd. Get your ballot in by Tuesday or miss your chance. Personally, I am planning to walk my ballot down to the County Building at 701 Ocean Street (the place where I worked for twenty years as a County Supervisor for the Third Supervisorial District). There's a "dropbox" for ballots right near the foot of the stairs, or you can go inside and head to the Second Floor, and give your ballot to the Elections Office in person. 

IF, by any chance, you happen to be a voter in the Third Supervisorial District (most of the City of Santa Cruz, Bonny Doon, the North Coast, and Davenport), you don't actually need to vote for County Supervisor this time around. Justin Cummings, the current Third District Supervisor, is running for reelection unopposed. I have endorsed Justin, and I have actually worked for Justin in both of his campaigns for Supervisor. I think I know what the job requires. Justin is the "real deal," and is doing an exceptionally good job. Even if your vote is not actually needed to make sure Justin is reelected, I hope you'll vote for Justin in the Third Supervisorial race.

That's my opinion. That's a "good government" vote. Take it from someone who has some experience!

Justin Cummings

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Friday, May 29, 2026

#149 / Unnatural Selection And The God Complex

 

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In tody's blog posting, I am advertising two articles, both available in the May-June, 2026 edition of Mother Jones. I subscribe to the magazine, and I am not certain that non-subscribers will be able to access these articles. Nonetheless, maybe these articles will be available to those who may read this blog posting, and if they are, I am letting you know that I definitely found them worth reading:
#1
#2

I presume that you can see the thematic connection between these two articles. Both report on some of the preoccupations that are claiming the attention of various "Tech Billionaires." Now, "Tech Billionires" is a category with which I am familiar only by way of report, and not by way of any personal experience. Based on this somewhat limited source of information about such people, let me say that "Tech Billionaires" come across, to me, as disgustingly self-absorbed and so completely convinced of their own greatness that I think I would find it very difficult to stay in the same room with any one of them for any appreciable amount of time. 

The names that come to mind: Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg, Thiel, Ellison, Altman (and so on) are undoubtedly known to you. In the two articles I am referencing, above, specific names are only slightly associated with the comments made. 

To characterize the comments made in the two articles to which I am citing, the first article reports that some "Tech Billionaires" seem to want to substitute in for "God," or for "Nature" (for those who find the word "God" a little off-putting). Apparently, a number of the so-called "Tech Billionaires" are taking concrete action to create their own "Baby Geniuses," so that the intellectual eminence of the "Tech Billionaires" can be transmitted to future generations (and particularly to those persons in such future generations who will bear their names, and, key to the concept, their genetic characteristics). 

The second article, which associates "Christianity" with some of the "Tech Billionaires," documents their efforts to make sure that Christians will love Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) at least as much as they love the intelligence made available to "ordinary" people, by way of their Creator ("God" or "Nature" - pick the term that you like best).

Here is a brief quote from article #2 (the one focusing on "Christianity"):

The likes of Palantir’s Peter Thiel and other religious techies such as Andreessen Horowitz’s Katherine Boyle and Anduril’s Trae Stephens ... argue that far from being the demonic force [that some suggest] technology is more comparable to a savior—even a Christlike messiah. Not only are Christians called to embrace technology, but they have an obligation to do so, because progress itself is a moral good (emphasis added).

Again, I trust it is clear that the "Tech Billionaires" mentioned in Article #2 want to substitute themselves in for "God," and (relevant to those religious persons who identify as "Christians") for Jesus Christ Himself. 

WHY, you might ask, would I suggest that anyone should read these articles (as I did, in fact, suggest as I began this blog posting). Well, I am of the general opinion that when someone actually knows what's going on, they will better understand how to value and relate to these "Tech Billionaires" who assert - directly or in other ways - that they are "superior beings." 

Hey, folks. They're not! As I have already said, it strikes me that they are disgustingly self-absorbed and improperly convinced of their own greatness. They are not models to emulate. They are models of what to avoid.

Give the "Tech Billionaires," and their ideas, and whatever they propose, a very wide berth, and distance yourself (and your political efforts) from any of their policy (or religious) recommendations. 

That suggestion is why I wrote this blog posting. That's my recommendation!


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Thursday, May 28, 2026

#148 / Talarico On Disillusionment

 

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James Talarico (pictured above) is from Texas. He is running for the United States Senate, and will be facing off against our current president's personal pick. If you aren't familiar with Talarico, then just lick the link that I am providing so you can read a New York Times' article entitled, "5 Things To Know About James Talarico." Once you know something about Talarico, if you'd then like to send him a campaign contribution, here's the place you need to click!

Below, I am providing you with an excerpt from a commencement address that Talarico recently gave to graduating seniors at Paul Quinn College, the oldest HBCU in Texas. If you don't want to read Talarico's commencement address,  here's a link to the commencement address on YouTube.

I want to highlight one specific statement in this recent speech by Talarico: 

Disillusionment has a bad reputation. But being disillusioned means being freed from illusions — to see reality. To know the truth. As painful as it may be, your disillusionment is a superpower. You can see the world as it is and dream of the way it ought to be.

"Disillusionment" can be our "superpower," but there's the caveat. You must not allow your "disillusionment" to be accompanied by "despair" or "discouragement." That will only lead you - and all of us - to "defeatism" and "defeat." 

Tallarico is absolutely right in saying that once we have become "disillusioned" with what exists now, we are freed to create the world we want, the world that "ought to be." 

And can we do it? Well.... YES!

And just in case any of my own respect for Bob Dylan might have rubbed off on you, please remember the final verse of that song I quoted a while back, and the lesson it proclaims: 

Something is burning, baby, something’s in flames
There’s a man going ’round calling names
Ring down when you’re ready, baby, I’m waiting for you
I believe in the impossible, you know that I do
oooOOOooo

Unshakeable Things: Gen Z and the New Great Awakening

By James Talarico

As a former teacher, graduation days are always special to me. The world these young people are graduating into is not easy.

I called my speech “Unshakeable Things: Gen Z and the New Great Awakening” because, as I told the graduates, I believe we are on the verge of a New Great Awakening. This generation — with disillusionment as their superpower — will lead us.


Paul Quinn College was not built by politicians. It was built by Black preachers holding classes in church basements and living rooms just seven years after emancipation came to Texas.

For 154 years, Quinnites have been guided by a deep moral commitment to all of God’s children — regardless of their skin color or their zip code.

This place has spiritual roots. This place is rooted in faith, in service, and in love. Today, I want to call you to live out of those roots.

When this school fell on hard times, God sent a teacher, a leader, a visionary — Dr. Michael Sorrell — to pick up the pieces.

Dr. Sorrell returned this school to its roots. He doubled down on serving the poor and the marginalized. He transformed this college into one of the best HBCUs in the country and sparked a revolution in the process.

I’m reminded of the words of scripture: “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” In this new world Dr. Sorrell is building, all who have been counted out, who have been left behind, who have been forgotten — the stones the builders rejected — will be the cornerstone. A revolution from below.

Because in the words of Dr. Sorrell himself, “in the history of mankind, how many revolutions have started from above?"

You may not believe that a world rooted in faith, service, and love is possible.

In your short lives, you’ve seen a pandemic and an insurrection, natural disasters and artificial intelligence, mass shootings and mass deportations. All piped through your screen into your soul. You have scrolled through more suffering, more division, more chaos than any generation in human history.

You’ve grown up in an economy that isn’t built for you. The American Dream is on life support. 90% of Baby Boomers went on to earn more money than their parents. For Millennials, it’s 50%. For Gen Z, it’s even lower.

And we know that Black Texans have 10 times less wealth and are half as likely to own a home.

This current cost of living crisis is the culmination of 50 years of trickle down economics. 50 years of the top 1% rigging this economic system and this political system for their own benefit — at our expense.

Young people can’t buy a home, but Jeff Bezos has 12. Young people can’t afford to fill up their gas tank, but Mark Zuckerberg is launching helicopters from his mega-yacht. Young people pay more than their fair share of income taxes, but Elon Musk can get away with not paying a penny.

All this has left your generation disillusioned.

Disillusionment has a bad reputation. But being disillusioned means being freed from illusions — to see reality. To know the truth. As painful as it may be, your disillusionment is a superpower. You can see the world as it is and dream of the way it ought to be.
… 

Scripture tells us, “All of creation will be shaken, so that only unshakable things will remain.

The world as we know it is shaking — the old certainties, the old institutions, the old corruption. The old world is dying — and a new one is struggling to be born.

In the rubble of this shaken world, you’ll find the stones the builders rejected. The people who have been told they’re too poor, too different, too young to matter. You will be the cornerstone of a new world built on unshakable things: faith, service, and love.”


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Wednesday, May 27, 2026

#147 / Thanks For The Stress Test, Mr. President!



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Writing in the May 25, 2026, edition of The New York Times - which was published on our Memorial Day Holiday - Adam Liptak thanked our current president for helping to make visible (and thus potentially susceptible of a cure) a "blind spot" in the United States Constitution. Actually, Liptak's article did not directly speak out any "thanks" to our current president, but a full reading of what Liptak wrote allows me thus to characterize Liptak's excellent column. 

In the hardcopy version, which I encourage you to read in full, Liptak's analysis was titled, "Founders Had A Blind Spot, And Trump Is Exposing It." Online, which is where you will go if you click the next link, the title is slightly different: "Were The Constitution’s Authors A Little Too Optimistic?" 

I believe that no paywall will prevent you from reading what Liptak is telling us. In short, what Liptak is telling us is that our Constitutional system basically assumed that only persons of good character would be chosen to lead the nation (with our first president, George Washington, providing the model). You will remember, I am sure, that Washington is associated with a boyhood promise that "I cannot tell a lie." Even if that story isn't truly accurate, as it probably isn't, the fact that the story is still told, and celebrated, demonstrates what we would like to think would be the character of anyone who is chosen to serve the nation as its president. With respect to the current incumbent, of course, the opposite is what is most likely to be the case, when we consider our current president's reputation for honesty. It is not too far from the mark to say that our current president "cannot tell the truth." 

Here is an abbreviated presentation of Liptak's analysis (emphasis added):

In a parliamentary system, the executive and the legislature are in dialogue rather than structural opposition. Prime ministers generally do not serve fixed terms and may be removed by a vote of no confidence.
The framers rejected that model for something new. They were looking for a sweet spot. They wanted a president less powerful than the king they had rebelled against but more effective than the state governors of the time, who were all but powerless, or prime ministers, who were creatures of the legislature.
Defining the scope of the new office had an improvised quality. James Madison, writing to Washington just before he left for the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in April 1787, said he had not given the matter much thought. In those same papers, Madison acknowledged that “the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judiciary, in the same hands” may “justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
The framers believed that the threat of impeachment and removal would be a decisive check on the president. They envisioned a Congress that would be jealous of its institutional power and would muster, when appropriate, not only a simple majority vote in the House of Representatives to accuse presidents of misconduct but also a two-thirds vote in the Senate to convict and remove them. 
To the extent that they [were] worried about a demagogue, they ... expected that impeachment would deal with scoundrels.
[However], they failed to anticipate a development that would make impeachment improbable: the rise of political parties.
To this day, the idea of self-sustaining political competition built into the structure of government is frequently portrayed as the unique genius of the U.S. Constitution, the very basis for the success of American democracy ... yet the truth is closer to the opposite. As competition between the legislative and executive branches was displaced by competition between two major parties ... the machine that was supposed to go of itself stopped running.
The rise of political parties, to say nothing of the current extreme polarization between them, has made other forms of congressional supervision of the president vanishingly rare. There have been four presidential impeachments in the history of the United States, of Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and, twice, Donald J. Trump. In none of the four cases did the Senate muster the required two-thirds vote to convict. 
These days, those circuit breakers are gone: Voters elect senators, and the Electoral College is a formality. A structure designed by elites wary of direct democracy has moved toward one far more responsive to the popular will. 
That has made the government more vulnerable to the sort of populism that the framers feared. But it may also — whether expressed in public opinion, on the streets and at the ballot box — supply a counterweight to the executive overreach that some of the men who drafted and ratified the Constitution feared.

To repeat myself, Liptak is not really "thanking" our current president for putting our Constitution to a "stress" test, but the fact that our system of democratic self-government is being "stressed," and "tested," is quite clear - and has some real benefits, in instructing us on how things have to change. In the end, Liptak is telling each one of us, as citizens, that it is up to us to prevent "executive overreach." 

Liptak, in other words, hasn't given up. Neither have I. 

You shouldn't, either!

 EXTRA READING: 

Ben Rhodes' opinion piece, also in the May 25, 2026, edition of The Times: "Whatever Happened To America's Great Orators" [Hardcopy Title]; "This is How A Party Ends Up Looking Like A Clown Car" [Online Title].



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Tuesday, May 26, 2026

#146 / A Catholic Moment?

 

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I have been prompted to write, today, by Christine Emba's Guest Essay, published in The New York Times on April 28, 2026. The title of Emba's essay - you can take your pick - is either, "A Catholic Church's Defiance Of Trump" [from the hardcopy version of the paper] or, "What A Catholic Church Unafraid Of Donald Trump Means To The World" [which is the online version of the title]. I am assured by The Times that even non-subscribers will be able to read the entire column, just by clicking that link I have provided. 

I was struck by Emba's suggestion, in the next-to-last paragraph of her essay, that we are experiencing a "Catholic Moment." Maybe we are, and I have to say that I certainly was experiencing such a "Catholic Moment," myself, as I read The Times on April 28th, since I turned to The Times, and to Emba's column, immediately after having read the 93rd Anniversary Issue of The Catholic Worker, the first issue of this newspaper having been published on May 1, 1933. Given the radical politics of The Catholic Worker, right from the very beginning, the May 1st date of its initial publication was undoubtedly intentional. 

The Catholic Worker does not publish online, so my suggestion (if you'd like to have a "Catholic Moment," yourself - and I do recommend that) is to subscribe to the newspaper. The price is listed on the first page as "One Cent" per issue, but I'd send them something more, along with your request for a subscription. Here's the address: The Catholic Worker, 36 East First Street, New York, N.Y. 10003.

In that 93rd Anniversary Issue, on Page One, The Catholic Worker published two graphically striking essays by Peter Maurin, who was the co-founder, along with Dorothy Day, of The Catholic Worker Movement. One of those essays was titled, "The Age Of Reason." The other one was titled, "The Age Of Treason." 

Since The Catholic Worker isn't reliably found online, I couldn't capture either of these graphically striking essays, as printed in the May, 2026 issue of the newspaper. What follows will have to do, this from an online collection of some of Peter Maurin's "Easy Essays." 

The Age Of Treason 
1. Pope Pius IX and Cardinal Newman consider liberalism, whether it be religious, philosophical, or economic, the greatest error of the nineteenth century. 
2. Modern liberalism is the logical sequence of the so-called age of Enlightenment- the age of Voltaire, Rousseau, Thomas Paine- sometimes called the Age of Reason in opposition to the Age of Faith. 
3. By sponsoring nationalism and capitalism modern liberals have given up the search for truth and have become paid propagandists. 
4. Modern liberals have ceased to appeal to reason, and have chosen to appeal to prejudice. 
5. So the Age of Reason has become the age of Treason, as Julien Benda points out in his book entitled: "The Treason Of The Intellectuals."

When you get more deeply into The Catholic Worker Movement, maybe you'll agree with me that we absolutely do need to have a "Catholic Worker" kind of "Catholic Moment," should we wish for any good things in our future. 


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Monday, May 25, 2026

#145 / What Was College For?

  

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Theo Baker - click that link. If you do, you'll be taken to Baker's "Author Website." Baker is a young person who has not yet graduated from college, but he is slated to do so soon (or maybe he will have already done so by the time you read this). Also coming soon (or probably already here, by the time you read this) is Baker's book, published by Penguin Random House. Baker has titled his book, How To Rule The World.

How To Rule The World is subtitled as follows: "An Education In Power At Stanford University." If you have already read, Palo Alto: A History Of California, Capitalism, And The World, you will be well-prepared, I think, for what Theo Baker has to say about Stanford. 

You can also prepare yourself for Baker's book by reading his opinion column, published in the Sunday, May 17, 2026, edition of The New York Times. To make that easy for you, I am providing a link to Baker's opinion piece, which is an engaging exploration of the following topic: "What A.I. Did To My College Class." Among other things, A.I. turned 49% of Baker's fellow students at Stanford into persons who have self-confessed their willingness to engage in whatever academic cheating might be necessary to make sure that they don't ever fail a test. Baker reports that Stanford University has essentially tossed out its long term, and much-admired, "Honor Code," indicating that the University is, quite clearly, nothing if not realistic about who they're now dealing with.

Since I am a graduate of Stanford University myself (B.A. in History, 1965, with Honors In Social Thought and Institutions), I am particularly interested in the latest news about Stanford. It's not heartening, particularly the reports from Baker on the university's current focus on making money as the main reason to show up and attend (until you get a better offer, that is). 

My out-of-county relatives have been contacting me, recently, telling me that they hear that I'm "depressed." They want to cheer me up!

Well, I like to think that I'm not really "depressed," but news like the news I am reporting here isn't exactly encouraging or uplifting. Do I have some prescription that could cure the disease that Baker is reporting on, with reference to my old alma mater? 

I keep thinking that I might. Maybe I should write a book, I keep thinking. Maybe, "How To Rule The World"? Well, probably not - and that's been done, anyway, as now you know. What about this for a title: "How To Change The World"? I have some ideas about that, and cheating will not be required!


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Sunday, May 24, 2026

#144 / Look On The Rising Sun



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One of William Blake's most wonderful poems has a title that I think probably rings quite strangely to modern ears, "The Little Black Boy." 

The poem is from Blake's Songs of Innocence And Experience, published in 1789. Click that link to the title of the poem to read Blake's poem in its entirety. 

The following lines from the poem came to me on a recent Sunday, as I participated by way of Zoom in an online Quaker Meeting held in Patagonia, Arizona on Sunday, May 3, 2026: 

Look on the rising sun: there God does live
And gives his light, and gives his heat away..... 
And we are put on earth a little space, 
That we may learn to bear the beams of love.

These lines of the poem moved me to understand that final phrase, "the beams of love," to be true in the two different meanings of the word "beams." 

We are here, indeed, "a little space," to feel and absorb, and to learn how to bring into ourselves those "beams" of love that irradiate our persons and our lives, and do so for everyone, and the world entire. 

But we are also called to learn, in this life, how to utilize and carry those "beams," like the sometimes heavy timbers with which we build any kind of edifice, and from those beams of love, given to us so freely, to construct a home, a society, a world that is created, and fashioned, from "Love" itself. 

Those words from Blake's poem came to me, quite unanticipatedly, in that Zoom Friends' Meeting, as I sat with my wife, and a friend, in Santa Cruz County, Arizona, and those words from the poem were not unfamiliar. Those very words, as I have presented them above, were written on the invitation to our wedding, held in September 1969 at the Palo Alto Friends Meetinghouse. 

How I hope I have done something, in my life, that would qualify me as having accomplished what the mother told her son was ours to do - to learn to "bear the beams of love," to receive in gratitude and joy the love that is the essence of the gift of life, and to meet the challenge of those words, in their other sense, and to bear and carry those "beams of Love" and to use them to build a better home, and a better society, and a world that can shelter, protect, and be a joyous place of residence for every one us.


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Saturday, May 23, 2026

#143 / Funded By "The Government"



Click Here For The Blog In The Original

I read The New York Times every morning - in a hardcopy edition tossed onto my lawn sometime between 5:00 and 6:00 a.m.. Quite often, I am struck by some little turn of phrase in one or another story, and that was the case with respect to a story published on April 28, 2026, documenting how the "Ballroom Builder" Got A "No-Bid Deal" for a nearby job. Click the link, and you can read that article, too - but you will be reading it in the online version, which does come with a headline slightly different from the headline from which I have just quoted.

As I presume that anyone reading this blog posting knows, our current president has destroyed the East Wing of the White House (without any prior approval or authorization by anyone, including the Congress), and is attempting to build a huge new "Ballroom." The initial good news for America was that this would, allegedly at least, not cost the taxpayers anything. Munificent "donors" (not expecting anything in return, we are supposed to believe) were supposed to have made free-will donations to take care of the costs of the current president's "Ballroom" demolition and rebuilding project. 

The Times' article I have linked above notes that the same contractor who is undertaking the "Ballroom" project is now, in addition, refurbishing the fountains in Lafayette Square, just a block or so from the White House. In the photo at the top of this blog posting, you can see Lafayette Square in the foreground, with the White House in the background. The main point of The Times' article is that the contract to refurbish the two fountains located in Lafayette Square was awarded to the "Ballroom" contractor by our current president without being put out to bid, as it should have been: 

In January, government documents show, the Trump administration secretly gave the company a no-bid contract to do another job at a sharply inflated price.
The National Park Service wanted to repair two ornamental fountains in Lafayette Park, across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House. The Biden administration in 2022 had estimated the work would cost $3.3 million. But Mr. Trump’s government agreed to pay Clark $11.9 million to do it, and later added tasks that increased the contract to $17.4 million, the documents show (emphasis added).

Funding for the fountain rehab project is NOT going to be provided by those "Ballroom" donors. The Times informs us in the article that the inflated costs involved will be funded by "the government." 

I just want to highlight how that "the government" phrase fails, at least so I believe, fully to convey what has happened. As I believe we all understand, when we talk about "the government," we are really talking about you, and me, and everyone living in these United States. "Donors" and "the government" sound pretty much the same, unless you think about it. Whoever they are, "donors" and "the government" seem to be someone other than you and me. 

But that's not true. Instead of describing how the "inflated" costs of the fountain project will be paid for by "the government," a better description would have said something like this: 

The highly-inflated costs of the work on the fountains, which was assigned to a contractor admired by our current president without any competitive bidding having taken place, will be paid for by every person residing in the United States. The current cost estimate is $17.4 million dollars, up from an estimate by the Bidden Administration, four years ago, that the work should cost $3.3 million.
 
My point? It's the same point I make so frequently in my postings to "We Live In A Political World." WE are "the government." When "the government" takes action (starting a war or awarding a contract) that means that the project is being done in OUR name, and it almost certainly guarantees that we will each be personally affected, in one way or another.

Because we are, all of us, affected by what "the government" does, and because we truly do want a system of "self-government," our elected representatives are supposed to be making the decisions that will affect our pocketbooks, or perhaps cost us our lives. 

While the president is, of course, one of our "elected representatives," the job to which he has been elected in the job of "executing" the decisions made by our elected representatives in Congress - hundreds of them, who come from all over the United States and who because of this, are thought to be more directly in touch with the people (all of us) whom they represent.

If we don't keep remembering this, and if we don't take action to be sure that our governmental system operates the way it is supposed to, we are, essentially, standing by and watching the demolition of our system of self-government (in much the same way we have been compelled to observe the demolition of a significant part of the White House by a person who doesn't want to play by the rules that the Constitution has established). 


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https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/25/us/politics/lafayette-park-fountains-trump-contract.html

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Friday, May 22, 2026

#142 / The Rich Get Five Times Their Share


 

Pictured is Mike Hsu, the Chief Executive of Kimberly-Clark. Hsu was mentioned in an article in the Saturday-Sunday, March 21-22, 2026, edition of The Wall Street Journal. That article was largely focused on Huggies, a very popular brand of diapers, which are manufactured by Kimberly-Clark. Probably, that article is blocked by a "paywall," meaning that only subscribers will be able to make use of the link.

No matter! In fact, I am not really wanting to talk about either Huggies or Hsu. My purpose in this blog posting is to comment on the following statement contained in the article I just linked:

The wealthiest 10% of Americans account for almost half of consumer spending.

Normally, given what I am pretty sure is a resident "paywall," clicking that "acount for" link in the quoted paragraph (that link furnished by The Wall Street Journal, not me) is unlikely actually to take you to the article referenced. However, I am told that the following "gift link" should get you there. If it does, you will be able to read an article headlined as follows: "The U.S. Economy Depends More Than Ever On Rich People."

The point of my blog posting is to make note of the fact that "rich people" are getting more than what might be called their "fair share" of the economic benefits provided by the American economy. Our economy is supported, and made prosperous, by everyone. Thus, I suggest, the overall benefits should be flowing to everyone. Instead, the benefits of our economy are increasingly sequestered by and made available only to the rich - and as The Journal notes, this is increasingly true. 

Various laws have had this result. As we all pay our taxes (hopefully, you made the April 15th deadline), let's think about how we could change those laws and solve that "affordability" and "abundance" crisis that has become such big news. 

Just producing "more" won't do it. Other policies will! 

We do need to change the laws, however, to change what's happening. In case you might have missed this, that is what "politics" is actually all about. 

When I say that we "Live In A Political World," I am trying to suggest that we should be developing and using our political power to make sure that our world is actually a world we want to live in! 

A world in which economic "abundance" is fairly shared, not sequestered by the wealthy, should be a top priority. 

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Thursday, May 21, 2026

#141 / Manda El Pueblo




I am a real fan of Rebecca Solnit, pictured above. Because I am, please let me recommend one of her recent columns in The Guardian (full text at the bottom). The article is headlined this way: "We live among statues of lone heroes. But change comes through collective action." If you read my blog posting yesterday, you know that I most definitely agree!

Getting us to picture one of those statues of a "lone hero," of which we have so many, is a great way to get us to think about the fact - the reality - that Solnit so accurately describes. We have lots of statues of "lone heroes," but the reason for the success of the heroes we immortalize, when their stories are truly told, is almost always the result of "collective action." 

Here is a quote, in Spanish, that Solnit included in her column. I love this quote: 

“Aquí manda el pueblo y el Gobierno obedece.” This translates as “here the people rule and the government obeys.”

Solnit tells us that this was a key motto of the Zapatistas, the Indigenous revolutionaries who rose up in 1994 in southern Mexico and who, says Solnit, "continue to hang on to some autonomy and vision in their villages."

WE are "the government." That is what "self-government" means. That is what I was writing about in this past posting. Self-government is more than a right to vote for one's rulers. 

As always, it's good to be reminded about that! Here, in the United States of America, the people are in charge, and the government obeys! At least - and don't we all know it - that's the way it's supposed to be!

oooOOOooo

We live among statues of lone heroes. But change comes through collective action
As Cesar Chavez Day becomes Farmworkers Day, we must remember that the hero is the movement.

The way we commemorate history is often – too often – by celebrating an individual with a statue, a place name, a holiday. While some have been torn down – statues of Gen Robert E Lee have given way in some parts of the US to statues of Harriet Tubman – Republicans are trying to reverse the shift in statuary. To that end, the Trump administration recently plunked down a Columbus statue on the White House grounds, a replica of one thrown into the harbor in Baltimore in 2020 as the Black Lives Matter protests addressed racism and colonialism.

Still, maybe the age of individual heroes is fading. This year, Jon Wiener, a retired history professor and current Nation magazine editor, nominated Minneapolis for the Nobel peace prize for its residents’ valor and solidarity in opposing ICE and defending their neighbors. The magazine’s editors wrote: “Through countless acts of courage and solidarity, the people of Minneapolis have challenged the culture of fear, hate, and brutality that has gripped the United States and too many other countries. Their nonviolent resistance has captured the imagination of the nation and the world.” The Nobel is a longshot, but the Twin Cities – both Minneapolis and St Paul – got the John F Kennedy Profile in Courage award “for risking their lives to protect their neighbors and immigrant community members ... with extraordinary courage and resolve.”

This Tuesday, California will for the first time celebrate Farmworkers Day – a holiday declared by the state legislature in a quick pivot after revelations about the farm worker organizer Cesar Chavez’s history of sexual abuse. Maybe we’re beginning to recognize that the hero is often the collective, the movement, the community, and that plucking one person out of the crowd to anoint and celebrate often doesn’t work out for a lot of reasons. Cesar Chavez is only too useful an example: too many people made over into heroes did things that should have disqualified them. But even when the individual in question is irreproachable, most of the time, the world doesn’t get changed by solitary individuals. Sometimes one person as a writer, a preacher, a visionary inspires the many to do the work of changing the world. Sometimes one individual works directly with a group to do that work. Such people often get called leaders, but I think of them as catalysts.

To call someone a leader is at least implicitly to call everyone else a follower, and followers obey, are shepherded and managed, while in so many uprisings and movements, each person chose to be there, and contributed to deciding what exactly would happen. (I grew up in an age of cults, when followers followed their leaders into catastrophe.) The term leader may come from an era when military higher-ups literally led their troops into battle. But most of the best changes of the past several decades didn’t come at the point of a gun. Beyond that, at the heart of most democratic movements are many people taking on responsibilities and participating in making decisions. In this moment when we’re trying to defend democracy, democracy within movements is a must. And maybe democracies are antithetical to heroes, at least heroes as people put on a pedestal and presumed better than the rest of us.

“Aquí manda el pueblo y el Gobierno obedece,” which translates as “here the people rule and the government obeys,” was a key motto of the Zapatistas, the Indigenous revolutionaries who rose up in 1994 in southern Mexico and continue to hang on to some autonomy and vision in their villages. A catalyst is someone with a gift for motivating people and holding the group together, for finding common ground, but you’re not a catalyst unless there’s a population to catalyze into a community or movement. A lot of the heroes we celebrate are part of movements, and it’s a mistake in my eyes to give prizes to individuals who didn’t do it alone (and when they’re environmental or democracy activists in dangerous places, it can put a target on their back). The Nobel peace prize has often in recent decades gone to collectives, including Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties, the World Food Programme and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (with Al Gore).

In the wake of the report on Chavez’s assaults, the United Farm Workers and people who were part of the struggle were quick to say that the hero was the movement, was all the people who marched, picketed, risked, struggled. Chavez’s name was picked in part as a kind of shorthand, as if he was supposed to represent the whole, but when you put up statues and murals and name things after one person, the real history gets lost.

I’ve always thought that lone heroes of the Hollywood action-movie variety give people a mistaken sense of what change looks like and how to do it; they’re mostly musclebound or heavily armed guys whose special talent is face-to-face violence.

You can see that the men in the Trump administration have watched too many of these movies or played too many of these video games: both the Department of Defense’s Pete Hegseth and the FBI’s Kash Patel seemconvinced the people under their command should focus on push-ups and hand-to-hand combat. Patel even got UFC fighters to “train” FBI employees, apparently in the delusion that FBI work consists of macho slugfests, rather than, mostly, the cerebral business of information gathering, while the military requires everything from pilots to data scientists to doctors.

The heroes of Minneapolis engaged in no violence: they faced down heavily armed, faceless invaders in brutally cold conditions, day after day, week after week; they are still delivering groceries to those who can’t leave their homes, ferrying children to school and organizing neighborhood watches. They were hugely impactful in defending their neighbors and their city, and like the people of Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte, Memphis and other cities, they inspired those who watched from afar.

While Farmworkers Day has come about through something ugly, it is itself a lovely and timely thing, here in California where most of our farm workers are immigrants of exactly the kind ICE has been persecuting. Perhaps a monument to the unknown farm worker, or rather to the millions of them over the years, would be apt. At least giving them their due and their day is a beginning.


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