A number of great comments have emerged from this article and the subsequent
discussion. I have found it most interesting to follow as one of the Canadian
citizens now a naturalized American and participating in the voting process.
There are many Republicans who are both evangelical and have no desire to
support Trump in the past election or in the coming midterms and future
presidential election 2024.
Many current Republican politicians in the Senate or Legislature (or those that
I know who are considering a run for the party nomination) are actively
figuring out how to mount a campaign while clearly distanced from Trump and the
radical right.
I am currently reading a very well researched and written book by Jon Meacham
called “The Soul of America” that speaks to the current polity of the US from a
tracing of similar conflicts and threats to the democracy of the US since the
framing of the Constitution. It puts the current state of affairs into
historical perspective and is a great read for anyone interested in
Race/immigration/culture/history/social and cultural stressors. This book give
room for Bob’s optimism, since history repeats itself.
As an aside there is no evidence of voter fraud after multiple recounts and
investigations.
Literature/articles abound that present a biased right wing and left wing view
of current event – so one should always keep balance and perspective as they
consume the “information’ published.
Don
Donald M Denmark
820 North Curtiswood Lane, Nashville, TN 37204
Cell: (520)-349-1893
From: <dsp-ea-general-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf of Willow Arune
<walittleboots9@xxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: <dsp-ea-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Friday, January 7, 2022 at 4:25 PM
To: <dsp-ea-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Bob’s Optimism
I agree with your analysis of current magazines and sites. We seem to share
may opinions - and Bob, you perhaps should reflect on that!
Time is a waste of whatever it now costs. One I add is Vanity Fair, not as I
am looking for designer clothing or Swiss watches, but as it always has
interesting long articles on recent trials. Occasionally the Walrus or
Atlantic. On line, NYT and WP.
I have fallen into a continuing series of very long telephone calls. Almost
daily with my best friend who lives on Vancouver Island and another in Denver.
Both are women such as I. Calls are never less than an hour and very wide
ranging. Present activities, current affairs, theology, history, and more.
Neither are book addicts such as I. These calls ever last less than 45
minutes and up,to two hours. They fill my evenings.
On my home front, I have unboxed and shelved our rather large DVD collection as
well as a massive classical CD collection assembled. Many of the dvds are from
Britain over the years (less expensive to buy and lower shipping costs)so I
have a multi zone player. The CDs are are also purchased from Britain. Again
shipping, but prices at Amazon UK are often less than half of Amazon.ca. One
CD I bought for under $10 from the UK while on ca. The price was over $200! I
grant that my musical taste has wandered during the years. Atonal - pass.
Early music? Only recorders asI play that instrument. I end to avoid Baroque;
Britain provide the Complete Mozart for a song. Not the real Mozart, of
course. Just his music. Most of the CDs are from the romantic period. Of
recent, one label has released box sets of a number of Scandinavian composers,
hitherto not know me. The 20th Century? Hmmmm. A few good, but most to
postmodern. So many resident and expat Russians. Almost all of this
collection is of symphonies. Composers from all over - South America, Japan,
China, Canada and many more.
Evenings are for long telephone calls, reading, and music.
I have only rarely left home for over a month. The cold, yes. Covid too. On
those rare occasions I use my scooter. The car is under a lot of snow. It took
me a while and some experimentation to find the best hand and head solutions.
My very old sheepskin jacket is more than adequate. For my hands, exposed as
they are on the scooter, gloves worked until -15 or so, mittens after that, and
finally gloves in mittens! Arn’t delivery services Devine?
Willow
On Fri, Jan 7, 2022 at 12:15 PM Bob Thomlinson <bthomlinson@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I could have mentioned that Time magazine also arrives in our postal mail
according to whatever greatly diminished schedule they have been reduced to. I
subscribed to it 5 years ago to get access to their online archive of back
issues – wonderful stuff. Five years later it still comes but I have never
received a renewal request or paid for more than the first year. Willow you are
correct that Time used to write long and well researched articles on a broad
range of issues (hench my interest in their archives). Some of the current
issues continue to have articles like that but there seems to be an increasing
percentage of issues pumped out the door full of tabloid style “Best of ..”
(leaders, influencers, ever form of minority, etc.). Those issues seem to all
be very short articles written by other supposed celebrities so I don’t know
how Time’s editors can claim copyright. They quickly depart to the recycle bin
unread.
For full disclosure I was also a subscriber to The Guardian (scary to many
Brits) and preferred the television reporting of Al Jazeera back in it’s hey
day to MSNBC, CNN, etc. which all seemed like talking heads continuously
recycling whatever “breaking news” they could find. When travelling we will
look for BBC News World, which does not seem to care about having attractive
news announcers and seldom tries to sensationalize news events.
I think television is an OK media for entertainment but a very poor media for
education and intelligent information. How could any TV news program attempt to
answer your question about voter fraud in the 2020 US election – and do it in
the 30 to 45 seconds allowed. Perhaps there is some evidence of voter fraud
somewhere, but it just doesn’t fit into the “story” time allowed without
bumping revenue generating commercials. All this should explain why we
cancelled our cable TV service a few years back now subscribe to some selected
streaming services for sports and entertainment. Don’t even get me started on
my opinion of social media.
In answer to your question I have not read of any hard admissible evidence of
widespread voter fraud that would have changed the outcome of the 2020
election. It appears that the duly appointed state electoral officials were not
presented with anything significant either.
Cheers,
Bob T
P.S. Willow, we really do have to get together once our “pandemic” virus has
been downgraded to an “endemic” one. The current thinking is that might happen
from the highly transmissible Omicron variant tearing through the population
while producing symptoms similar to a common head cold. That seems to be the
current opinion of Dr. Bonnie Henry, the Provincial Health Officer in B.C. and
I think she has been right a lot so far.
From: dsp-ea-general-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <dsp-ea-general-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
On Behalf Of Willow Arune
Sent: January 7, 2022 9:28 AM
To: dsp-ea-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Bob’s Optimism
I often look to books on current affairs. At times, I go overboard. TIME,
with all its faults, until it shank to its much smaller size. I prefer the
long articles that really dig down.
I do wonder how much of my viewpoint comes from the increasing bias of MSNBC.
For years I tried to follow both sides, National Review and Nation, for
example. That was back in the days when both sides presented reason arguments.
Starting well before Trump, that became impossible. Skip O’Neil and “You are
entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts”.
Which brings to mind a serious question. Has any Republican presented any
evidence of voter fraud? They (GOP) all claim it is a real problem and say
they have a lot of evidence but I have yet to hear or read a GOPER presenting
evidence to support that belief. It seems to be akin to a religion based on
nothing but the Big Lie and its repetition over and over. In all the past
year, no supporting evidence. They do not like Biden but can never enunciate
WHY they do so, only repeating that yes, they do have evidence but never
disclose what it is (excepting the quacks that give any number of “evidence”
directly from God. Doctored and misinterpreted videos are not evidence.
Bob. I have to break off here. I may be back later, once back to my normal...
Willow
On Fri, Jan 7, 2022 at 8:37 AM Bob Thomlinson <bthomlinson@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Yes, Bob does tend to be optimistic, although I like to think of it as a
measured realism. Things seldom are as great as they might seam, nor as bad as
they might seem when you are in the middle of an emerging event. No I do not
need to be reminded of the long list of events where this philosophy proved
wrong for various countries and peoples.
However, it seems timely and very relevant to refer to Barbara F. Walters new
book How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them (see Goodreads for a
description:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58369678-how-civil-wars-start?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=0anPS2K8qq&rank=1).
I could refer to the book itself but, although I have pre-ordered it, it is not
being released until January 11th (next Tuesday). However what is very timely
to this discussion, and illustrates some of my reasons for optimism, arrived in
my Inbox yesterday in my daily briefing from the Economist newspaper. The
Economist is a weekly publication but calls itself a newspaper and I have
subscribed to it for almost 20 years. I am attaching a copy of the book review
of Ms Walters new book that is being released in tomorrow’s weekly edition. The
review is critical and argues that she might be ignoring other facts.
My long trust in the Economist is based on their apolitical editorial stance,
their detailed investigative research, the international scope of reporting,
and a consistent approach to a writing style that avoids all forms of
sensationalism. I have also found that they have proven to be right far more
often that they are wrong (unlike weather reporting). Although I acknowledge
that Willow has a much wider knowledge of history than I will ever have, my
optimism has some supporting evidence.
What I discovered while living and working in the USA was that news reporting
and coverage is very inwardly focused and seldom refers to events outside the
country. We quickly stopped buying the Denver Post when we figured out that
their International Section was where they put articles about events happening
in Washington DC. I see the same kind of very local reporting in the newspaper
of our winter home, the San Diego Union-Tribune. I agree that the New York
Times and Washington Post continue to employ real journalists, but I still
think they are also too inwardly focused on the USA for me to be a subscriber.
