Public Comment

g There They Goes
Some unfortunate soul wound up on the tracks in BART's Embarcadero station on April 11 and the Chronicle's April 15 report left a lot of unexplained questions.

The two BART passengers who jumped in to avoid a catastrophe received full credit (all hail John Hyman and Blake Garrett) but the near-victim remained a total mystery.

The Chron article could not even establish the individual's sex. Instead, there was a confusing stream of gender-affirming pronouns. The at-risk citizen was described as "pacing around the platform… talking to themselves." At one point they "desperately raised their arms." Fortunately, as "the train was about [to] reach the station," John and Blake were able to "pull the person up on their stomach."

Sportcasts, Militarism, and Funny Names

"Bread and circuses." It's an old recipe but it's still in fashion.

I've been frustrated lately when I turn on the televised evening news to absorb the details of some breaking story only to discover the news supplanted by a baseball game or a football match.

There's a lesson here, and it dictates that sports competitions are deemed more important than breaking news. You needn't over-think it to come to the conclusion that favoring conflict over information is the hallmark of a militaristic society and the means by which corporations and federal oversight conspire to make cooperation and compromise appear unattractive.

The essence of the sports universe shares a lot with the tenets of capitalism and the realm of warfare. Physical confrontations. Tests of strength. Blocking anything that stands in your way. Out-running pursuers. Out-gaming the opposition, Gaining more yardage. Reaching a goal. 

The message is that life should be a game and a challenge to test your ability to dominate, not commiserate. This combative top-predator worldview is hidden in plain sight. Take the naming of sports clubs. Golden State Warriors. Oakland Raiders. Chicago Bulls. Washington Commanders. Sacramento Kings. Pittsburgh Pirates. Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Houston Rockets. Minnesota Vikings. Minnesota Timberwolves. Atlanta Braves. Kansas City Royals. New York Giants. Tennessee Titans. New York Rangers. New England Patriots. 

And then there are the predators: Carolina Panthers. LSU Tigers. Chicago Bears. Atlanta Falcons. Detroit Lions. Philadelphia Eagles. Baltimore Ravens. Cincinnati Bengals. Jacksonville Jaguars. Seattle Seahawks. 

However, when you move from the main-line national leagues to regional competitions, the combative stance gives way to a more humanistic, humorous and down-home brand of signage. Take the memberships constituting baseball's Pacific Coast League, which include: Albuquerque Isotopes. Las Vegas Aviators. Sugar Land Space Cowboys. Sacramento River Cats. Salt Lake Bees. 

And the Eastern League: Portland Sea Dogs. Akron Rubber Ducks. Richmond Flying Squirrels. New Hampshire Fisher Cats. Hartford Yard Goats. Binghamton Rumble Ponies. 

Fashion Plates
Personalized license plates spotted around town.
CO81FO
DANNY E
1 JAZZ 1
FILMYYES
DRYEYES
BRK A BUY
BLKNITE (Black Night)
LIVRKID (Liver Kid)
JUCY RT (Juicy Rat?)
8TUD269 (Etude to 69?)
FOS BEAU (Freedom Of Speech. Beautiful) 

Bumper Snickers
Don't Follow Me. I'm Lost
I Stop for Critters
Don't Believe Everything You Think
Keep Honking. I'm Listening to Jazz 

A Ponzi Scheme, but with Weapons
A few days ago, I emailed the following note to Joe Biden: "Sending more weapons to Ukraine will only prolong human suffering and expand genocide. 

Sending US weapons & arms funding to Israel is a violation of US law and international treaties." 

According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, since February 2022, the US has shipped a total of $174 billion to Ukraine. As I type this, the US Senate is debating sending another $15 billion to Israel and a tidy $8 billion to Taiwan. That's money that could have been spent housing the homeless, feeding the hungry, rebuilding the thousands of homes destroyed by tornados, hurricanes, and wildfires. 

As Prof. Steven Starr points out another problem: the US Treasury is bankrupt and faces "a national debt of $34 trillion that is increasing by $1 trillion every 100 days (note that all the money given to Ukraine had to be borrowed)." 

There's a name for trying to get rich by using borrowed money: It's called a Ponzi Scheme." In the US, the main beneficiaries of these "pay-to-slay" fiscal hand-outs are the powerful corporations that profit from supplying the MIC's costly and deadly weapony. 

It's time to call this weapons-for-wealth scam what it is: a "WeaPonzi" scheme. 

The Billionaires' Club 

Public Citizen recently published some pulse-stopping facts about America's super-rich. Including:
• There are approximately 806 billionaires in the US—about 1 billionaire for every 417,265 non-billionaires. 

• The average US billionaire's net worth now tops $7 billion. 

• The combined wealth of these billionaires exceeds $5,800,000,000,000.00—that's 5.8 trillion dollars. 

• According to Americans for Tax Fairness, the wealthiest Americans have seen their fortunes double since the end of 2017. 

• America’s 806 billionaires possess $2.1 trillion more than the entire bottom half of the population. 

A major cause of this inequality is a lobbyist-infected, special-interest tax system that gifts the very rich with numerous avenues to avoid paying taxes. 

Now for some good news: The Ultra Millionaire Tax Act of 2024—a bill now before Congress—would impose a modest tax on anyone with a net worth exceeding $50 million. 

The UMTA's sponsors include Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and Representatives Pramila Jayapal, Brendan Boyle, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—and you, if you wish to click on the following. 

Tell Congress:
The American people need you to fight back against worsening economic inequality. It is past time to make the richest of the rich pay their fair share. Pass the Ultra Millionaire Tax Act of 2024without delay. Click to add your name now. 

Closing on a High Note
Screen-skipping through the Online World I happened to discover a young, multi-talented Polish gent who has mastered two diverse and seemingly contrary talents. 

Jakub Jozef Orlinski is both a spellbinding countertenor and a fast-footed, floor-flipping break-dancer. Having conquered the world of coloratura arias, Orlinski has also synced in with break-dancing's best top-and-down stunts, from windmills to freezes to powermoves. 

Here's a link to a brief video of Orlinski crooning onstage at the National Radio Symphony Orchestra Hall and caroming across a dance-hall floor executing knee-drops, hook-sweeps, spin-drops and propeller kicks. And here's a video of Jakub sharing both of his sterling talents onstage at the same time two months ago at the Royal Opera of Versailles.