Random Thoughts

It’s too hot to write a coherent essay, so here’s some random noodling.

I think of Donald Trump more as a former game show host than as President of the United States. Now he’s stage-managing his second Supreme Court nomination, announcing the date he’ll announce his choice, scheduling the  reveal during nationwide prime TV time, and — I’m sure — inviting multiple candidates to be present at the proclamation, all to heighten the “suspense.”  He’s running the government just like a game show. And naturally Donald Trump is making it all about him.

I’m trying to hold off on remarks about being up the creek, or being in deep shit, but those kids in that cave in Thailand are really in a fix. On Thursday morning the rescuers — who already knew how to reach the boys — took six hours to get to where they are. A member of the rescue team, an ex Navy Seal, died the other day from lack of oxygen in the cave. None of these kids know the first thing about SCUBA diving, which is apparently the only way out. Meantime, the forecast is for monsoon rains, beginning any minute, which will flood the cave even more, and may make a dive rescue impossible. And guess what Elon Musk is planning.


Donald Trump is rewarding his loyal heartland supporters by sticking them with a variety of new taxes stemming from the trade war he is starting. There are numerous examples, but I like this one: Of U.S. soybean production, 60% goes to export. Half of that is sold to China. But China has now attached a 25% tariff to U.S. soybeans (retaliation for Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods), making them too expensive for Chinese buyers, who are now turning to Brazil and — say it with me — Russia for their soybeans. This will cost U.S. farmers around five billion dollars every year, wreck decades of cooperation between American farmers and Chinese buyers, and give Russia a way to get hard-to-find cash despite U.S. sanctions, which are still in place despite Trump’s continuing game of patty-cake with Vladimir Putin. But since Trump has no idea what he’s doing, he’s going ahead and slipping the wood to some of his strongest followers.


Whenever it snows anywhere in the world, climate change deniers jump up and exclaim “See?! No such thing as climate change!” So I can hardly wait to hear what they have to say about the current 95-degree weather in Siberia. You can read about it here, but apparently as a result of sea ice melting, the darker blue Arctic Ocean is heating up much faster than usual and creating conditions in the region leading to temperatures forty degrees Fahrenheit hotter than normal.

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