Why Trump Won (and the Democrats got a drubbing)

Beyond the people who always vote Republican, Trump won because his flagrant flaws could not win over enough people to vote Democratic because of their flagrant flaws.  The appeal of Trump to many voters is well articulated in this WSJ 2020 opinion piece.  The gist: “This is the voice of the resistance on the right. This sentiment has been building for decades. Its scale is suggested by the degree of Trump outrages these voters have been willing to discount on behalf of a larger cultural and political cause. What exactly is their problem? In our time, it takes the form of the left’s cultural triumphalism on matters of identity, race, gender and indeed assimilation, or “the American idea.” Basically, they think we are arrogant jerks who do not consider them or care about them.

To me, below are the central reasons Trump won.

Economic issues:

1. It was the Republicans to win as the party in power was being punished throughout Europe for inflation related to covid supply chain collapse and stimulus spending. I don't think that is fair or rational, but it's true.

2. Harris failed to say what she was for clearly and didn't defend Biden's economic policy, when it was quite defensible. Many believed that inflation was Biden's fault, which Kamala didn't even touch. Personally, I do not believe it was primarily his fault, and Biden did great compared to other leaders, but she didn't even make the argument.

3. She didn't criticize Biden's border policy at all, though it is the number one issue with voters. While she has endorsed his late-to-the-table reforms and the Congressional bill that Trump torpedoed, she needed to say he was wrong in his approach from the beginning, and she would not follow that path. She did say the latter, but she had to say the former.

4. Crime “reforms” of Democrats that have led to a decrease in prosecutions and an increase in retail crime in some localities. Plus Democratic states/cities not being able to make a dent in homelessness despite a flood of money to do so. Obviously, there is nuance in this area but the perception is - with reason - that Democrats have been worse about solving the issue. And the numbers say so. Together, New York and California have 250,000 homeless people out of 58 million people; Texas and Florida together have 54,000 homeless people out of 53 million.

“Woke” issues. They are all connected in a new dogma.  Democrats are generally on board or tolerant of the new dogma; Trump is completely against it (and like the right in general, not in a nuanced way.)

4. Democrats going all-in for identity politics instead of for keeping the focus on the poor and working class across all demographic lines. This ended up pushing out, particularly, white men but also, to a degree, white women. (Think about that obnoxious "Karen" slur directed to white women.)

5. Democrats support of DEI, in which diversity only includes BIPOC groups , equity means equality of outcome, not opportunity and inclusion means inclusion of the same "diverse" groups - and specifically excludes Jews. Plus it doesn't work as done. 

6. The rising anti-Semitism, particularly among youth, in which there is a double-standard seen, particularly, at the Universities. When protestors break the law and policy at colleges protesting the war, they are met with kid gloves. When someone says something racist, homophobic or transphobic, the response is met with quick and consequential condemnation. 

7. Decolonization and the oppressor/oppressed narrative plus the white people bad/brown people good narrative. The best example of this woke nonsense is the non-sensical attack on Israel via a "decolonizing" lens and "white oppressor "lens. These attacks are incoherent on the face of them and make zero historical sense, but is part and parcel of Woke dogma. 

8. Gender madness

• Supporting - even over the objections of parents - youth gender transition in spite of the lack of scientific evidence that it is a sound practice and the fact that youth cannot reasonably consent to interventions that can or will lead to sterilization for females and inability to orgasm. When a person detranstitions, they are given no support and, in fact, attacked. A couple of left-leaning groups have sprung up to ring the alarm, but Democrats aren't listening (so far!) The groups are DIAG and LGBT Courage Coalition 

• Supporting anti-female policies of Title IX revisions to, effectively, change the point of the act from protecting women based on sex to gender, which, perversely ends up hurting females. (It won't survive Supreme Court scrutiny.)

• Supporting homophobic and misogynistic policies of pushing trans ideology, which is attempting to erase sex and put gender in its place. (So, practically, there are no longer female spaces and kids who are most likely gay are being talked into changing sex.)

• Supporting policies that encourage schools to lie to parents about their child's gender transition. And supporting anti-parent and family policies of creating "sanctuary states" for gender-confused kids due to the bans on all youth gender care in red states. Neither policy is right to my mind, but encouraging the breaking up of families has absolutely turned many Democrats to the right.

“ Nanny State” issues 

9. The perception that Democrats were too rigid in dealing with Covid, particularly in terms of school closures. Plus that they tried to suppress the speech of those who didn't agree with the CDC. Plus they tried to shame (or force) people into getting vaccines, even after it was clear getting the vaccine was unrelated to the transmission of the virus.

10. Biden's administration attempt to suppress "disinformation", but it was always politically coded - disinformation was always on the right to the administration.

11. Obviously, the revoking of parental rights in trans matters is a major "nanny state" issue. Particularly egregious is teaching kids at a young age about gender as per gender theory (overthrowing the primacy of the sex binary for the gender "spectrum").   Since the theory is not accepted by majority of people in the US, it amounts to indoctrination by a special interest group in America and is completely anti-pluralistic.  The same could be said about the troubling ethnic studies movement, which is trying to instill the anti-Western civilization and anti-Israel (anti-Semitic as well) post-colonial, oppressor/oppressed narrative to young kids. 

I voted for Kamala because of the unique danger of Trump, but unless Democrats make a real break with woke ideology, there is a good chance I won't vote Democratic in 2028. I am a liberal. I believe in equal opportunity for all. I believe in free speech. I believe in diversity and inclusion of all. I believe we should help those in need. I believe that we should support the working class. I believe in pluralism. I believe in democracy. Basically, I believe in Martin Luther King's vision of America. But the current far left does not believe in these things.  And Democrats haven't broken with the far left. We need to reject them, isolate them, and get our party back on the right path. Here's hoping.

Trapping Opossums

Now, why would I have wanted to trap an opossum? I didn't!!

I have tried - a few times - to trap a squirrel. Squirrels are our nemesis - eating away daily at antlers that we bought in Alaska (dropped seasonally by elk) and painstakingly brought back from there. Turns out squirrels like calcium.

We have two traps. Last year, I tried the bigger one. I was a little worried about trapping a skunk. I had an elaborate plan of how to let it go if I did. I wasn't thinking about opossums, but I should have been. First, it turns our opossums will go where they really don't fit. So I found the thing taking up pretty much every square inch of the trap. I felt very badly for it. It couldn't possibly turn around, but I figured it should be able to back out once I opened the door. It didn't. I lifted it so gravity would help. It didn't. Finally, I started shaking the cage and, bit by bit, it came out. It gave me this look that yelled: WHY?, though it was silent. It turned and lumbered off. That is the only word that describes the gait of an opossum.

I put that trap away and have never brought it out again.

This year, I thought I would try a smaller trap that I had used for rats. It seemed big enough for squirrels and, thankfully, too small for opossums.  I, in fact, did trap one squirrel, which we relocated up the coast. I was trying for another. And I caught - yeah, I'm a little dumb - a baby opossum. It said nothing to me, but gave me the look below.

I opened the door but it just kept giving me that look. I tapped the cage a few times and it finally realized it was free and, yes, lumbered off.

I was fascinated with the poop - which was not under the thing - but crammed into both sides of the cages. Obviously, they don't like sitting on their own poop, so it tried its very best to move it outside the cage (and succeeded a little bit).

My only other direct contact with opossums was when I worked at Kresge. One morning, one was lying motionless on the Kresge upper street (which is a pedestrian street except for occasional service vehicles.) It looked dead, but it was, you know, an opossum. Why would it play dead on a pedestrian street? I kinda kicked at it a few times and it didn't move. I called Deb, the animal control officer, and she said she would deal. I went to grab a coffee and await Deb's arrival. Of course, by the time I got back, there was no opossum.

Anyway, I am now completely out of the trapping business. I freecycled my cages away. The squirrels may have the antlers. 

In reading about opossums, I ran into this anecdote:

Sunquist found out just how trappable an opossum is when he was in Venezuela in the early 1980s doing fieldwork with crab-eating foxes. Nearby, Steven Austad was studying the social behavior of Venezuelan wrens. Austad recalls that his colleague was unable to catch enough foxes. "His traps kept filling up with opossums. I said, 'Mel, you're studying the wrong animal. These opossums are trying to tell you something.- Before long, both researchers had switched to opossums.

Monster critique

1. Polanski

"A victim has the right to leave the past behind her, and an aggressor also has the right to rehabilitate and redeem himself, above all when he has admitted his mistakes and apologized.” Samatha Geimer - the victim of Polanski.

On page 16, Dederer acknowledges that Samantha has forgiven him but she doesn't interrogate that at all, and I find that disturbing. The act that Polanski did (and others in the same time frame have come forward to say they had a similar experience) was monstrous. But that doesn't reify him as a monster to me for all time, particularly if Polanski led a different life after. He seems to have. I could change my mind, here. But the victim forgave him, 44 years have passed, and I forgive him too.

2. Her insensitivity

Polanski's victim has asked one thing most strongly: Please, stop it! You are hurting me and my family if you keep bringing it up. You have victimized me more than Polanski did. I have forgiven him. But you (the press, books like this) are still victimizing me.

Dederer knows this or is a horrible researcher. Thus, she put her need to call him a monster and use him for this book above Samantha's insistent, consistent and persistent plea. (yeah - borrowing from another area...) She should have addressed this in the book. 

3. Wagner

She truly knows nothing about Wagner and most everything she states as fact are not true, beyond that he wrote Jewishness in Music, and that she quoted the mean parts accurately. She quoted the Callow book accurately, but his book is wildly inaccurate and hyperbolic with no sources. It's just crap historically, though somewhat entertaining - he is an actor who did a Wagner stage show. Dederer has no business writing this chapter. It's pure character assassination without any research beyond the two sources (Fry and Callow.)

Wagner died 50 years before Hitler came to power, which she strangely leaves out. His politics were solidly left-wing (anti-militarism, anti-war, anti-capitalist) his whole adult life. He was not a fascist, a proto-fascist and, according to all historical biographies, had nothing to do with Hitler's anti-Semitism or the rise of the Nazis (though Hitler, as countless others in that era were, was a big fan of Wagner's music.) I would need to write a book to explain the true story and, happily, I basically did. I wrote it ten years ago as a blog to see if I could resolve the cognitive dissonance of loving Wagner's music with his reputation as a monster. I am currently redoing it to be more like a book (and fix links, various font problems, etc.) But here is a link to the old blog and what will come up is the conclusion that, no, he was not a monster.

4. The point of the book

She claims the point of the book is to explore how a fan should explore the dilemma of the art being created by "a monster". I don't buy it, at all. Most Wagner historians believe that "Jewishness in Music" was not written primarily to explore that issue but was a veiled attack on the Jewish composer Giacomo Meyerbeer, who he believed betrayed him. Similarly, I believe this book is actually her attempt to get revenge, particularly on those men who betrayed her. The ones she loved. Polanski. Allen. Jackson. Bowie. She wants to dig the knife in and, then, pull more people into her revenge via this book. Oh, and attack male critics along the way.

5. Woody Allen

I have followed this case closely since it emerged and have come to the conclusion - just as those who investigated did - that Dylan Farrow was coached by Mia Farrow to say she was molested and implanted those memories. I do believe Dylan believes them - she is a victim of Mia Farrow. This process - to induce memories - is quite easy. Look at the McMartin and other child care panic cases. Look at all the women who "recovered" memories of being sexually assaulted in therapy. Read Ceci and Bruck's "The Suggestibility of Childhood Memory."

So, for me the only issue is Soon-Yi, and it's none of my business, and he did nothing that hurt the public and, certainly, her. He and Soon-Yi did betray Mia Farrow and I did feel sorry for her but, then again, I felt sorry for Dory Previn, too. I know nothing about their dynamics and, again, it's none of my business, and I don't judge him for falling in love with another woman. Now, this is where Dederer starts twisting facts and throwing in conclusions that are just bull. She ignores what investigators concluded, and Soon-Yi and Woody have long said, which is that they had barely any relationship when she was a child. It was, ironically, the lack of that relationship that led Mia to ask Woody to spend some time with her. He didn't live with her, wasn't her father. Period. Dederer had an important relationship with her mom's boyfriend - good for her. But she is attacking Woody for no damn good reason on this count. Then she says that they started to sleep together when she was in last year of high school or first year of college. I cry foul. She was 20 (or 21). Because Mia thought Soon-Yi had learning problems, she was held back. But there is no doubt she was a woman when the affair started (though Dederer didn't mention the fact, and refers to her as a girl.)

Then there is the Manhattan thing. The Mariel Hemingway character was 17. Age of consent is New York is 17. So, nothing illegal. And I don't find it immoral. Such relationships happen, and I have known some. I realize I am probably in the minority here, but if there is consent, it is between them (fictional or otherwise). I will raise an eyebrow but that is about it.

6. Dederer clearly believes that girls are vulnerable, unable to consent when teenagers, particularly with older men. And it's disgusting (ok, not for those reasons said if you hit the link, but still - disgusting for her.) It's a moral thing for her that she assumes everyone shares. I do not. I believe in the agency of women and teenage girls. Once you are sexually mature and emotionally mature enough to date older guys, I don't have a moral problem with it. When I was in my teens, I went for guys in their 20s (more interesting, and I assumed better at sex). I wasn't having intercourse (gold star lesbian here!) but I did sexual things with those guys that were, technically, "statutory rape". I wasn't going to bust them (and my parents knew and thought I was mature enough to do what I wanted so they weren't going to bust them either). There are a lot of girls out there who were like me, I know.

Now age of consent laws have an interesting and strange history. But, in this day and age, they serve two purposes: to make a man be responsible financially if he makes an underage woman pregnant and to protect girls. What the actual age of consent is varies from state to state and between countries. And really between centuries! In 1890, in America, the average age of consent was 12, with 10 being quite common (clearly sexist and horrifying!!) In the reform era - the age of consent laws shot up by 1920 to 18 in most states as women reformers lobbied for the change. Now in America, the ages are between 16-18. In Europe, the ages are most commonly 14-16. France is 15.

I am European on this one... Anyway, there were lots of underage groupies that rock stars (and other types of stars) were having sex with that was consensual such as Bowie's groupie. She said she was fine with it, so I am fine with it. Not a Bowie fan, but it would have been completely legal in most Europe countries.

7. The #metoo problem. While I was very glad that the movement arose and women came forward, there was a horrific groupthink that led to people with wildly different levels of accusations were lumped in - without due process - as perpetrators. She repeats this in her book where she just repeats on page 14 a list of names. I hated this about the movement - if a woman accuses, it's true and we don't need any exploration of the charges. Women do lie! It happens. The "believe the women" thing is horrible. I blogged on it, if you care. Anyway, I think that list without, at least, trying to justify each inclusion was just mean.

7. J.K. Rowling.

Dederer says of Rowling's non-alignment with gender ideology that: "Many of the former Potter kids were trans and they were rightly very angry". No, they weren't! Rowling said nothing anti-trans, only that women's spaces should be protected. I can't disagree more with Dederer.

8. She is incredibly myopic while, at same time, accusing male critics of being so. She doesn't see it though, so I don't trust her self-awareness at all and her "Am I a Monster" chapter reflected that myopia to me.

Just to sum up, I believe she often didn't state facts accurately - sometimes horribly so, and has a lack of nuance, sympathy, empathy or historical understanding. And, I didn't find the "stain filter" helpful in any case.

The Crazy Horse Memorial is a scam

The Crazy Horse Memorial, located near Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota, makes me sick.

The state of the monument in the background
The pipe dream in the foreground.

Leslie and I went to the Crazy Horse Memorial back in 1988. At that point, all you could see was a sketch of a horse in the rock. I thought: This looks like a pipe dream. But I also thought the project was something that the Lakota people wanted, and I was happy to support that dream, pipe or not.

So, I decided to go back last summer (with my brother Russ) and see the progress. And there is now a face carved on the mountain. An enormous face. It's not Crazy Horse, because there is no likeness of him in existence. In fact, he refused to be photographed. It's supposed to be a symbolic portrait of him (informed by people who described him back in the day.) There is also an enormous parking lot, a big building with Native American artifacts from many different tribes arranged haphazardly, a gift shop, a restaurant, and a "university."

The story told at the memorial is that a Lakota chief, Henry Standing Bear, asked sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski, a Polish-American sculptor, if he would take on the project. He agreed and spent the rest of his life working on it. And I truly think that—while he wanted to go down in history as this heroic sculptor—he did in fact sacrifice and really believed that the USA was horrible in terms of Native Americans, and he wanted to help right that wrong.

But Ziolkowski died in 1982. His wife, Ruth, took over. The family had set up the Crazy Horse Foundation, and it was—and remains—in family control.  All ten of their children and two of their grandchildren have been sucking on this teat ever since.

This is the family getting rich off of the memorial.

Henry Standing Bear had made it clear in a letter to Ziolkowski that he wanted the Lakotas to be in control of anything related to the monument. That didn't happen, as neither Lakotas nor Native Americans in general have control, nor even a say in what the foundation does. All the high-ranking staff was white until this year. Due to pressure that was put to bear after this New Yorker expose came out in 2019, they finally appointed a Native American as the CEO this year, Whitney A. Rencountre

While there are some fans of the monument within the Indian nation, mostly it ranges from abhorrence to disgust to pain. The foundation is sitting on 95 million dollars in their coffers. The Lakota nation is poor. The only give-back to the Lakota a pittance of their yearly haul.

For instance, per their 2020 tax filing (990PF), the foundation took in $20 million in 2019, while they gave out in grants to organizations and individuals only $156, 216 (Part IX of the tax form). They compensated the Ziolowski family board members $526,730 (part VII). And, as mentioned before, all the other family members are also on the payroll, though not on the board. But that isn't the half of it!

The family wholly owns a private company, Korczak's Heritage, which runs the gift shop, the snack shop, the restaurant, and the bus to see the Crazy Horse sculpture up closer. Considering that between 1 - 1.5 million people go through the memorial a year, the family is both wealthy and set-up in perpetuity as long as people are suckered into going there, thinking that it helps and honors Native Americans.

There is a so-called university, which is, according to Brooke Garvis in her New Yorker expose, "a summer program, through which about three dozen students from tribal nations earn up to 12 hours of college credit each year. They also pay a fee for their room and board and spend twenty hours a week doing a ‘paid internship’ at the memorial—working at the gift shop, the restaurants, or the information desk."

By the way, after Korczak died, his widow decided to change the plan from working on the horse first to, instead, prioritizing the face. The face was completed in 1998. Since then, there has been no noticeable change. They have a crew of 3 that works on it when it isn't too hot or too cold/snowy or when there are no thunderstorms (and there are a lot of thunderstorms in the summer!). It will never be done. I read a geologist's report that it CAN never be done, as the rock is too soft for the final plan. So, they have an incentive to go as slowly as possible and keep raking in the dough.

The ridiculously long and self-fawning narrative of their explanation of how their profit-raising activities serve the public is truly nauseating. (See "additional data" after Part VII)

Jim Bradford, a Native who served in the State Senate summed it up for Brooke: “It kind of felt like it started out as a dedication to the Native American people,” he said. “But I think now it’s a business first. All of a sudden, one non-Indian family has become millionaires off our people.”

So, my advice is don't be suckered to pay out your $15-$35 per vehicle (depending on the time of year and the number of people). Instead, go to the nearby Pine Ridge Reservation and their visitor's center. Give them the money. Go check out the Wounded Knee Massacre site. Don't make the Ziolkowski's richer than they already are, please.

Still a Conspiracy After All These Years

Q-Anon. Sandy Hook. The Lizard Illuminati. Lots of crack-pot conspiracy theories out there.

Michael Shermer, who founded Skeptic magazine, has a new book out about why rational people believe conspiracy theories. I became alarmed the other day when I was listening to my favorite podcast - the Unspeakable with Meghan Daum - when Michael was the guest. He immediately acknowledged that there are, in fact, real conspiracies. How could he not? But later he casually dismissed that there was conspiracy to kill JFK with, essentially, nothing but air.

Kennedy on the day of the assassination

What most alarmed me was that I realized that people not alive during that period don't know anything about it. Meghan is a very smart, fact-based person. If she knew what I know, she could have and would have pushed back. But clearly, the lone-nut non-conspiracy theory is winning for younger folks who were born after the shit-show that was the assassination and the Warren Commission. So, I feel the need to, at the very least, put a doubt in folks' heads who believe that crazy lone-nut theory.

The difference between a crack-pot theory and a real conspiracy comes down to the quality of the evidence. In the case of JFK, the quality of the evidence strongly points to a conspiracy and not a lone-nut.

So, today, on the 59th anniversary of the assassination, I will lay out just a small part of the overwhelming evidence that there was in fact a conspiracy, and the government - for reasons benign or not - covered it up.

This blog focuses on the witnesses to the fatal brain injury.

After being shot, Kennedy was rushed to Parkland hospital. He was D.O.A., but they nevertheless tried to revive the corpse because, you know, he was the President. There was a large team of doctors (16) and three nurses who viewed his brain injuries and they were all later interviewed or gave testimony regarding what they saw. They all testified that they saw a gaping wound in the right back of the head about the size of baseball with brain matter extruding. (One intern in the room thought the wound was higher.)

The wound seen in Dallas

Clint Hill was the Secret Service agent who climbed onto the limo after the gunshot. He was next to JFK for seven minutes on the drive to the hospital, and he described the same wound. So did Jackie Kennedy.

While the autopsy was supposed to be - legally and ethically - performed in Dallas, the Secret Service commandeered the body to take it - via Andrews Air Force base - to Bethesda Naval Hospital. Beyond the Parkland hospital staff, several more people testified to the same exact condition of the head wound (though others described a massively bigger wound). Among those were the mortician who prepared his body for burial, several secret service men, the autopsy photographer, and the x-ray technicians who all saw what the Parkland staff saw: that there was an exit wound (which is always bigger than an entrance wound), with part of the occipital bone blown out.

In fact, 44 people (out of 46) - both in Dallas and in Bethesda - gave an account of an occipital injury. Read those accounts here.

Only three people also noted a small entrance wound above the ear where the hairline/brow meet. (Kennedy's hair covered that wound so most didn't see it, and it was a small entrance hole.)

Meantime in Dallas, a passerby named Billy Harper found a part of the president's skull on the ground. He brought that fragment (called the Harper fragment) to his uncle at Methodist Hospital. There, three pathologists examined and photographed it, and all opined that it was occipital (back of the head), confirming exactly what the 44 other folks saw.

The body arrived at 6:35 at the morgue. The official autopsy started at 8 pm, with the first incision at 8:15. (Why the delay? Read this and be amazed!) When the casket was opened and the body unwrapped, according to a witness, there were gasps because of the massive injuries to the President's head. At that point FBI agent Sibert reported that "it was apparent that a tracheotomy was performed [that did happen at Parkland] and surgery to the head area." But, nope - no surgery had been done at all. Something clearly rotten was going on!

What the autopsy, performed by Humes and Boswell, described in a nutshell is: the whole damn right side of the brain was clear blown off. The wound described in the autopsy was five times bigger than the wound that everybody saw earlier. 

The wound described in the autopsy -
note the occipital entry point

No wonder there were gasps. That said, Humes and Boswell did both acknowledge that the wound included the back area initially described.  But, what everybody thought was an exit wound had now miraculously transformed into an entrance wound!

Well, cut to the future. The autopsy photos didn't show the wound that 44 people saw (including the guys who did the autopsy!) - no brain extruding, no bone gone. Just hair. Here is the "autopsy" picture from the back of the brain - the official autopsy photographer claims that was not his photo and not how the brain looked.

Seriously, WTF?

After the x-rays and photos came out, they had to create a new
wound to match, ignoring what everyone at the autopsy saw.

And the x-rays showed no occipital bone gone.

Occipital bone completely intact.
Doesn't look like the wound described in the autopsy at all.

Perhaps, you are thinking, with advanced technology they can go to the evidence at the National Archives and see if there is some way to prove that they were faked or reexamine the existing evidence.  How about that occipital bone? Well, guess what? That's gone. In fact, lots of the evidence is gone (or not the original.)

What does not exist at the archive, but once did exist:

• the brain - all gone

• the bullet fragments retrieved at the autopsy - gone

• the Harper fragment (and another bone fragment as well) - gone

• the first draft of the autopsy - burned

• the real autopsy with signatures - lost

• only a copy of the autopsy remains - no original

• of the 5-6 x-rays of the body - 3 non-originals remain

• many of the original autopsy pictures have disappeared according to the photographer.

Maybe, if the evidence were extant, instead of systematically destroyed or altered; maybe if the body evidence was solid, instead of clearly riddled with fraud and deception and destruction; maybe if JFK's head hadn't snapped back (as we know via the Zapruder film); maybe if Oswald hadn't been assassinated after he made clear that he was a "patsy"; maybe if everyone heard the shots coming from the general vicinity of the book depository; maybe if there was no "magic bullet", well, then you might have - kinda - a fighting chance of shooting down those 44 descriptions as mass delusion instead of what it clearly is: proof that the shot was from the front and that our government systematically covered up the conspiracy to assassinate JFK. Clearly there was not simply a shooter from the back (where Oswald was), but there had to have been at least one from the front. Come on!!

As for the Warren Commission and to the later HSCA of 1978, they chose to believe that the autopsy and physical evidence (photos/x rays/ bullets) trumped all other evidence even though the photos/x-rays actually contracted the autopsy. There is extensive evidence of deception, fraud and just jettisoning of items that couldn't be successfully altered (the bullets, the brain and the bone fragments).

So what the lone-nut theory folks want you to believe is that a whole host of trained professionals can't tell a baseball-sized hole from something five times that size? And that even - after the hole had increased magically in size sometime between Parkland hospital and the autopsy - that the two men doing the autopsy still imagined a back-of-the-head injury that wasn't there?  I say this is utter nonsense and the government, playing us for fools, has gotten away with it for 59 years. 

If you want to go down the rabbit hole, there are two clear sources. One is the book that discovered the fraud and deception, David Lifton's Best Evidence. The other is the work of Douglas Horne, who was staff at the Assassination Records Review Board. He has put out five volumes of documentary evidence of the fraud and deception in the medical evidence, confirming, clarifying, and extending Lifton's revelations. But you can get the essence in these videos.

Also, I recommend Rob Reiner's new podcast, which is a very good summation of the evidence that the assassination came out of a faction within our Government. The podcast names all the names with clear and compelling evidence.

Fifty States Plus!

In my recent road trip, I bagged my 50th state.  I decided to write random memories of the states (listed in order of visitation, more or less.) The memories are not necessarily from the trip mentioned but, instead, just random memories of the times I have been there... It adds up to 51 as I put in D.C. separately, and let's make it a state! (And make Puerto Rico a state, too, assuming they still want it.)

1. California: well, too many. LIFE!

First Road Trip - to Mom's High School Reunion -around 1961?

2. Nevada : gambling, empty vistas, not a lot of trees, Valley of Fire, Keith, California Hotel, Margie, Burning Man

3. Utah : Salt flats, amazing National Parks, Lynn, Temple Square

4. Colorado: mountains, Denny's in Denver, Jon Benet's house followed immediately by a tornado (only one I ever saw – in Boulder), Darien

5. Kansas: Dodge City, Mom, pretty flat - It was clear to me on this trip that I was "a different kinda girl", Mildred's graveyard.

6. Oklahoma: drawing a blank - sorry Oklahoma - a lot like a lot of Northern Texas is my only memory

7. New Mexico: red rock, petrified rock (diarrhea), Terrero/Dad, balloon fiesta/ Tom and Roxanne, Patty and Dennis, yellow aspens, Meow Wolf, bats and Carlsbad, snow storm on 40 (had to go south to 10)

8. Arizona: red rock, Grand Canyon, Watching Dodgers 88 game in an Indian bar, watching the final at Grand Canyon, Tomoe, saguaros, Tucson's front yards, Julie Rowe

Second Road Trip with Lisa Sweet to see our amours (Karen and Jeff) in 1973

9. Missouri: St. Louis arches, the first time I saw the Mississippi

10. Illinois: Chicago, Susan, Wilmette (Jane at a Grocery store), Mercantile Exchange, Right-field sucks, No lights at Wrigley! campaign, Joan, Ryan, architectural tour, clean downtown!

11. Indiana: nice people

12. Ohio: Don and Mary, Herman, restaurant, rolling hills and car sick, Amish families that Mary hires, Bill and Kelly, the Chagrin Falls parade

13. West Virginia: Karen, Lisa Sweet, one of the strangest days of my life, snow

14. New York: Ithaca, what winter looks like in the East when snow is not on the ground (like a forest fire has just passed through) and how lovely spring is for those folks, New York City, standing room opera, Jean, honeymoon, party on our roof, Palmyra - way too many memories to fit...

Road trip with my partner, Susan Cahn, around the country - stopping to see her parents in Chicago. 1980

15. Wyoming: Yellowstone, which was awesome, during the fire in 88 (with Leslie) which was interesting

16. Nebraska: Nice skies; a lot like Kansas

17. Iowa: Nice skies; a lot like Nebraska, Jessica and Jim

18. Pennsylvania: Brett, Philly and their very small streets

19. New Jersey: Tami, Susan B, Kristin and staying in a funeral home, Kristin's wedding, Princeton and Patty Cuyler and family, the shore after Hurricane Sandy

20. Connecticut: visiting Judy at Yale (kill Nilda); visiting Barbara

21. Massachusetts: sitting on Einstein's lap, rude staff at the Subway, Pat

22. Rhode Island: in this state the very shortest - it was a highway

23. Delaware: pretty much the same as Rhode Island

24. Maryland: Susan M, Susan's Condo, Alfred House, Johns Hopkins, the purple line, the Angel Moroni when you drive at night on 495

25. DC: March on Washington for Gay Rights (Big Dyke clump), Steve Gunderson (gay Republican congressman), Andrew Sullivan convincing me that Leslie and I should get married, museums - free!, memorials, Lincoln Center, Ruth Ginsberg; Marianne and Harold and staying at the Watergate, Supreme Court, Jesse Ventura, Million Mom March for gun control/ Mom and Mary/ Karen - and much more

26. Virginia: a lot of trees, one really bad night at a motel

27. Tennessee: Nashville, Knoxville, Karen, Tobae's brother and sister-in-law, nice skies

28. Arkansas: Sitting on the runway in Little Rock for five hours; I have driven through it too but got nothing.

29. Texas: Austin and Paul Ruiz, Broken Spoke, Two-stepping, Cotton-Eye Joe, Galveston and Betsy Lee

'88 Three-month trip with Leslie around the country after she took her bar exam

30. Oregon: Eugene and Joanne/Pa and DJ, Portland - Dan, Erin and Tim, Karen (oboe) 

31. Washington: Jessica and Jim, Russ/ Tobae; Ken/Marni and too many others to name, but driving with Lisa and Stephen "Again", lots of bridges, Bainbridge, two bar mitzvahs, Wagner/Seattle Opera road trips, Spokane, Julie aka Alex, Sandy/Tom

32. Idaho: Lisa and Tom and Lake Coeur d'Alene, my trip to visit Richard H. but covid hit, then he died. So I don't know Boise.

33. Montana: It was just fine. Rural

34. South Dakota: Rapid City! Fights with Florida for having the greatest riches of tacky tourist traps (and some not tacky). Dinosaur Park at the best real estate in the City! Flintstone Land. Wall Drugs. Mt Rushmore (not tacky - but many tacky imitations about). Black Hills Holy Land. Corn Palace and more! Crazy Horse memorial (which I am going to blog about soon)

35. Minnesota: St. Paul; Randy Travis and the Judds

36. Wisconsin: Judy and Margie, Snow, No coats

37. Vermont: Horse farm, fence judge, they don't like Californians

38. New Hampshire: drove through; too many trees (true of most of the East Coast!)

39. Maine: Kennebunk River rafting (floating!!), the coast

40. North Carolina: Sandy and her family, the Bull in Durham, Case is in Greensboro so I have another visit to do

41. South Carolina: Charleston

42. Georgia: Savannah - Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil tourism including Mercer's grave

43. Florida: In order: St. St. Augustine; driving on Daytona beach; Orlando; Miami Beach; Miami; Key Largo; Key West and the southern most this and that; daily night festival; Cypress Knee Museum and Tom Haskins,"the ditches made the problem"; Everglades - mosquitos and alligators; Weeki Wachee and coke drinking mermaids, baby; Dali museum - and, on another trip - the circus at Florida State and glass-bottom boat on some of those amazing Florida springs. Seriously fun state 

44. Alabama: Seemed nice enough...

45. Mississippi: Gulf Coast is gorgeous - or was; don't know how it is post-Katrina

46. Louisiana: New Orleans. Stay off Bourbon St, and it is quite fun and not too rowdy. Too much alcohol spilled on Bourbon St. Valerie. Crawdads. Catherine Hancock.

1991 with Leslie

47. Hawaii: It may have been my 47th state but, like California, too many memories! But - Lava. It really is paradise.

1999 with Leslie (two trips that year)

47. Alaska - Aurora Borealis, Ice sculpture festival, looooong, beautiful sunsets, nice people, snow, flying over Denali, Iditarod and other dog sledding, Ziggy running in the snow, house/neighborhood in Fairbanks, Makai and Ziggy.

2019 road trip by myself

49. Kentucky - bourbon and horses; Claiborne Farm and Secretariat's grave. Great rocks - gorgeous highway cutouts.

50. Michigan - Detroit and outside 8 mile, too. Lynn, Belle Island, the museum and the library; Linda, Jessica and and Frazho road. Tiger Stadium and downtown. Fascinating place. Buy property there - inside the City. Best opportunity in America that I have seen.

2023 road trip by myself

51. North Dakota Hankinson, baby!  And, part of the song Lisa D and I wrote when she had to move to Minot AFB in her soph year:  "Why not go to Minot!  It would be so grand..."  And, better yet:  "Cows are frozen stiff there. Snow is apt to drift there. Minot is the place to be! Why don't you go and see!"

******

Bonus: 1997 with Leslie

Puerto Rico - Worst drivers ever, love PR women, Vieques, Bioluminescent Bay

U.S. Virgin Islands - Great hotel in Saint Thomas but I much preferred Virgin Gorda (British Virginia Islands)

Five Favorite States (including D.C.) I have had the most fun in order:

1. California

2. Hawaii

3. New York

4. Washington, D.C.

5. Florida

Favorite Cities

1. New York

2. Chicago (shot from nowhere to 2 after my recent visit)

3. Washington, D.C.

4. L.A.

5. Austin

States I haven't really given a chance:

1. Rhode Island

2. Delaware

States I have plenty of time in and that's all I need, thanks. They were fine.

1. Oklahoma

2. Montana

3. New England states (but we might go to Mass. again to see Pat and Katie and NH to see Barbara)

4. Alabama

5. Mississippi

Favorite things I have seen

1.  Hot lava many, many times.

At a skylight, with a lava river underneath

2. The aurora borealis, many times.

In Fairbanks

The Kenneth L. Karst Racial Equity Foundation

 

As you can see by the logo, Leslie and I have now created a foundation for racial equity to honor and extend Ken Karst's legacy.  The website is here. The type of projects we plan on supporting will be good for the climate, bring people of all races together, and serve a broad need in poor areas. For instance (pre-foundation), we gave to the project Keep Growing Detroit which helps to address the problem of the food desert that is urban Detroit (though, because of projects like this, that city is moving quickly towards a much better food future.) They are not only farming and raising healthy local food, but they are teaching others to farm or garden and giving them the means to do it. 

What Ken focused on academically was how to ensure opportunity and full citizenship for all, given our country's failure to do so for most of the United States history. This failure left many people behind, and it is those communities who will be the focus of the Foundation. And our vision of racial equity absolutely does include all who were left behind. Many whites have also been the victim of our tax and other economic policies that have hurt all poor people, while giving billions to a small segment of society. The Foundation will support causes that help everyone who has been the victim of these policies, and we are working with other like-minded groups towards broad-base community solutions.

The first initiative of the Foundation has been to endow a scholarship in Ken’s name at the UCLA School of Law, which will exist in perpetuity.  It is important both to us and to the law school that the students selected to receive this scholarship (who must be in need of financial aid) demonstrate those traits possessed by Ken—not only academic excellence and a commitment to racial equity, but also a belief in community, tolerance, civility, openness, listening, generosity, and kindness. As UCLA law professor Adam Winkler said of Ken at his memorial, Ken’s intent as a teacher “was not to mold people to his view, but to open them up to the views of others.”

Good thinkers and writers do matter, particularly if they have the characteristics that Ken possessed. And while I have no expectations that anyone will do so, feel free to contribute to the fund here: Kenneth L. Karst Endowed Scholarship in Law

Coda:

So, that's what I've been doing. I have to admit that it does have a shaggy dog story element. Basically, people often ask what's going on with me. Since the beginning of this decision to make the foundation, I have been very busy working on it, as well as many other already existing pursuits. But a starting a foundation is not something one can casually drop into a conversation. On the other hand, it's hard to tell the backdrop without, perhaps, going on a bit long.  Which is to say, I haven't figured out my elevator pitch.

When I had a car accident in high school, I made copies of the story of why my face was messed up to pass out so I didn't have to recount it over and over again. I have used that as a template from then on. So, for instance, when I got the throat cancer, I told people to just read the blog I'd written about the experience.

So, basically my motivation for this particular blog series was to be able to have this conversation:

“What's going on with you, Robin?”

“I'm very busy.”

And if they pursue the conversation, then I can just send them a link to my blog! Voilà!

And for those who actually read the whole thing, thank you!! Any questions?