The psychology of politics

I follow politics. I like to know how the world is working. I like to know how to dream for a better world. But sometimes I am overwhelmed by the sorrow and rage and have to set it aside for awhile. I am very knowledgeable about politics, but not particularly good in articulating it in common conversation. Sometimes I am pretty good at articulating it here. But here is its own planet and it has its own rules.

I almost never talk to Republicans I know are Republicans, but occasionally I imagine what I would say in an argument with a Republican or even with a conservative Democrat. Some of these things are pretty sharp, or smart, or cutting, or witty. But in real life I would never say them. Sometimes I would manage to say nothing, which isn't too bad. Sometimes I would say something too mean. Sometimes I would say something too nice.

If someone said to me they were a Republican there might only be one thing deep down for me to say:

Sometimes I hate myself too.

 

Jokie

 

 

 

 

 

I was talking to a bit of a narcissist about something in Uganda. He said "I'm not sure why, but I always seem to want to call it "Ugandia".

"I don't know." I replied. "You seem to put an extra "I" into everything." 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The informational email vaccine analogy

 

 

 

At the library where I work sometimes things are done the wrong way. And sometimes when that happens someone, often a manager, will complain "But I sent an email about this!". 

Informational emails are great. They are important. I fully endorse their use.

But they are not 100 percent immediately effective. Rather they are like vaccines. Indeed, they are exactly like vaccines.

Like a vaccine any informational email will have an effectiveness rate depending on the subject and quality of the email. This will depend upon a combination of the clarity and sensibility of the issue of the email, how well written the email is, and how many people actually read their email. This can make one of these emails anywhere from 20% to 95% effective.

Like a vaccine most informational emails are safe. But they may have minor side effects like irritation or soreness around the site of the email (like, "I can't believe I'm getting another stupid email about this issue. I already know this!"). Sometimes there are also short term illnesses as the body builds up its resistance (like, "Ugh, we have to walk these all the way over there now! I'll just pile them up here for a bit first.").

In the end the ideal goal of any informational email is herd immunity, the state wherein the information of the email has been fully absorbed by the workplace. The path to this can be seen in the following scenario:

 "Hey. That doesn't go there."

"It doesn't?"

"There was an email."

"Oh. Was it that one I didn't read?"

"Yes."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leopards ate our faces

 

 

 

 

 

 I had my cap on, and my mask. I took the elevator down. The doors opened up and a woman was standing there with her dog. Bundled up for the cool morning she had her hat and scarf wrapped 'round. The bottom half of her face was covered too by her mask. We may have mumbled muffled greetings, but what I thought was: 

Oh my god! We're all in Burkas now!

Little more than a year ago we all thought Burkas should be illegal and that the people who still wore them should be thrown in Burka camps!

We didn't think that?

I'm pretty sure there were tons of Republicans thinking that! And just about now when they look around I bet they're burning white hot with shame!

They aren't?

Well could someone tell them that they should be?

Word on the streets

 

While yesterday's post was full of pictures derived from graffiti pieces and from their layers of scribbling and peeling paint, it did not much partake of writing. And since graffiti's origins and traditions are in writing I have come here today to present to you the wild messages I found out in the world on this recent foray into the graffiti underworld.

Like all things one finds out at large in the World, some of them are fervently true, some hurt, some are false, some are unclear, and some will point the way.

What sucks is that we have to figure out which is which.

I ain't no freakin' monument to justice

 

About a year ago I got a camera and started taking pictures. If you have been following along here you have seen a few... hundred... million of these pictures. But the first pictures I took were of graffiti. They were mainly of graffiti on a train. I was very respectful. I said: look at these wonderful unheralded artists of the train tracks and underpasses! Like a devout documentarian my pictures detailed the complete works of these trainyard Kandinskys. I tried to get whole, clear, unblemished pictures of their vibrant pieces.

They were very nice and polite pictures. 

But a year of Pandemic will make a savage of a man. Or maybe it's a year of photography will make a savage of a man. Or maybe I just ain't no freakin' monument to justice!

So when after nearly a year I found myself, camera in hand, back at the tracks, with a new train but the same old bridge barricades, and new and old painting and scribbling to explore, I did not dutiful record it all like an Art Historian. 

No, I stole it all for myself, to do with as I will. 

I took it all, without regard...

And I made some pictures:

The good weather

 

 

 

 

It's been a challenging week. I've had a lot of really painful back problems all week. But because of a variety of other health issues around my house, and difficulties with the library involving the Pandemic, I had gone through too much of my sick time over the past half year to feel comfortable staying home from work.

So there I was, on a Wednesday in early March that was hinting broadly of Spring, answering the phones: 

"Good afternoon. Lilyvale Library, this is Feldenstein." I said brightly into the receiver.

"Wow, you sound like you're having a good day!" They said back.

"Oh." I replied. "That's just performative. I just play a happy, engaged, and helpful person in my role as a person working at the library."

They either didn't get it or buy it. "I'm doing pretty good today too."

"It is a fantastically beautiful day." I admitted.

Because, despite everything, it kind of is. 

The balance

 

My friend Richard asked me to read something his childhood friend wrote in the Star Tribune, our main city paper around here. Apparently this friend writes an occasional opinion piece for the paper. I was a little hard on it. Probably because I feel I should have a daily column in the newspaper to intoxicate the citizenry with, and I curse all who keep me from it. But it was a reasonably nice piece. It was about walking in the woods, paying respect, and how we who have found some dominion over the natural world, like with this vaccine for covid, should try to be worthy of it. 

Fair enough.

So I went for a walk in the snowed over swamp behind the library. And I thought: I don't believe there is a balance between good and evil. I believe that while solving the problems caused by our own malfeasance averts disaster, it does not make us special in the Universe. I believe that what makes us special in the universe is solving a problem where there is no problem, it is in the acts of committing good that is untethered to any evil.

Joe Biden undoing some of the damage of the previous president doesn't make him a good president. Fighting the battle of correcting our mistakes is a losing battle because one can only lose ground in failure, or conversely not lose ground in success, but one can never improve or advance. There is only attrition in it.

Many dots of hope have been reported from this new government like victories, but there aren't really victories there. There is no $15 minimum wage to report. There is no $2,000 stimulus. If a green new deal comes it will be 20 years late and a fraction of the size needed. We're still a country trying not to drown. Just because we're giving it a good go on trying not to drown, improved as it is, doesn't mean we're swimming.

It was a nice enough piece my friend's friend wrote. But I say that for all we have stolen from ourselves the vaccine is our right. 

If we want to be worthy of something we should aim higher. 

Readers

There is an old joke about the number of readers of this blog. It is that there is always one less reader than the last time I checked.

Ha.

There are 100 readers of this blog. Maybe even 200. But not right now.

That's my total of adding up all the dedicated readers who were ever once here as regulars and then slipped away into the other world. The other world is the vast anything that is not this blog and so definitionally beyond the purview of anything we could ever discuss.

By Internetland standards 200 is such a statistically small number as to be meaningless, like a lottery chance or the amount of an active ingredient in a homeopathic remedy, closer to zero than to something that will register or make a mark. But it's a number that nevertheless looks okay to me. It is just enough for me to remember everything here and everyone who has ever dropped by. We keep a catalog of everyone's footprint, their favorite drink, their cozy corner, their preferred subject, and when they mysteriously slip away we keep their spot, forever if need be, growing dusty and old in its undisturbed place.

I remember a passionate follower of the blog who once responded to some post, probably not so different than this one, many many years ago, to say he enjoyed my obscurity against all the other bloggers he followed who cashed in on their success and were ruined. 

Hey, I'm not ruined!

To that reader: your red leather chair you loved still awaits you. Have you been by? It looks covered in a deep layer of dust. Regardless, there it will sit, used or not.

Another time I wrote something that caused a reader to cry out "I am here. I read clerkmanifesto almost all the time!" And this reader enumerated the many things they liked about this blog, pointing only to the "Letters to the Publisher" posts as the ones they dreaded and did not enjoy. I thought of this reader during my very recent last two letters to publisher posts, eyeing their empty tea table in a favored spot in the sun, a cat sleeping under the chair, the tea long grown cold.

Maybe they're there, maybe they aren't. On February 6, 2015, at precisely 12:54 pm, under this post, a reader wrote: "You do have "fans". This fan chooses to remain anonymous yet loyal." I take them at their word then. There they are, right now, at their old study table deep in the great library, dark beer in hand, owl perched on the overwrought chandelier above them, reading along with us now, never forgotten. 

 

I would like to be a famous blogger!

You caught me. My defenses are down. I admit:

I would like to be a famous blogger.

One is not supposed to admit to a desire for fame. It is unseemly, a trait only for the child too young to know, or for the craven person who wants to be famous for fame's sake. 

Nearly every famous person wants to be famous, but they can't admit it, barely even to themselves. It's a terrible dance.

I asked my friend Bob Dylan "Do you want to be famous?"

"No." He replied calmly.

"Liar!" I yelled.

"Whoa. What's got into you?"

"I want to be a famous blogger!" I exclaimed.

"Like...?" He asked.

Oh shit. There aren't any.

So it's not my fault that I'm not!

"So it's not my fault that I'm not?" I asked Bob.

"I'm not sure you're taking the right message here."

"How about: The field is wide open?" I suggested.

"Keep working on it." He suggested gently.

I fell silent and thoughtful for a long time, which Bob really seemed to appreciate.

Bird identification

 

I was out for a late Winter walk and I came upon a bird standing in a stream.

"Is it a pigeon?" I wondered.

I didn't think it was a pigeon, but I did what I always do in such a situation. I took three billion pictures of the bird until it flew away. Somewhere along the way in that I identified the bird as a hawk... of...some...kind.

I'm super good at bird identification!

Here is what I have learned about bird identification for the, er, non professional birder:

There are always 10 or 15 birds around that are easy to identify, like where I live; bald eagle, robin, blue jay, turkey vulture, cardinal, turkey, etc.  Most people around here know what these birds are without needing to consult thick and detailed guides. 

For everything else you can just look your bird up anywhere, a book, the Internet, a phone app, whatever, and you quickly find:

 

A. Your bird does not exist.

or

B. Your bird can be one of two birds. 

So I don't even try to identify my birds. I take my best picture to my co-worker who is an avid birder. And I ask "What is it?".

Here is my bird:

He was super interested because he is an avid birder.

He commented on how nice a picture it is, which was very satisfying. He said incredulously "You took this picture?"

I contain multitudes.

He checked the computer.

"It could be one of two birds" he said. "Do you have any pictures of its tail feathers?

No. 

I focused on that red eye, which apparently offered us little on what sort of bird it is. 

Go figure.

The Cooper's Hawk is maybe a bit more common around here, but it was decided that mine was a Sharp-shinned Hawk. 

 

Cool. 

 

Sharp-shinned Hawk. I'd prefer the name "Red-eyed Hawk", but I guess that wouldn't always be accurate?

 

It turned out the pigeon thing was a the helpful clue. The Sharp-shinned Hawk is small for a hawk, thus the almost pigeon size. Not that my bird wouldn't take a stab at eating a small pigeon if he could get one, or so I learned. Also the pattern on the chest is just like the pattern of the Sharp-shinned Hawk in the Internet picture. Although, to be honest, it's a lot like the pattern of the Cooper's Hawk too.

Definitely a Sharp-shinned Hawk though. It was verified by a professional birder! And it's rather a top notch Sharp-shinned Hawk if you ask me, although what with my close personal relationship to this bird I may be a bit biased.

Filibuster

 

Unlike my idea wherein our nation (legally) kills the richest person in the country at the end of every month, today's political idea is not unique to me. This is largely due to the iconic and stirring film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The way the filibuster worked in that movie to this day inspires a lot of what people think a filibuster should be, and it has furthermore lightly inspired people other than myself as a solution to the Democrats' current quandary of whether to break some tradition by quashing the filibuster rule, or to keep a filibuster rule that will make it impossible to do any important work for the country despite having control of both the Legislative and Executive branches of government. 

But despite there being some light dabbling in supporting this cinematic filibuster revision, I don't think it's been taken seriously, or properly understood as exactly the sort revisions that the Democratic party should make. Indeed it is precisely the kind of creative, left favoring solution the Democratic party would make if they were creative and left favoring. Which, it truly pains me to tell you, they are not.

But let's soldier on ahead because we really don't have anything else besides Democrats and don't have anywhere else to go. So let me a little more fully outline, than has been done in the common media landscape, what I am talking about with this Filibuster change, and how it would favor the left, Democrats, virtue, fairness, and hope, all while not breaking with tradition, or opening doors to future, more nefarious majorities. It is safe politically, because anyone can watch Mr. Smith and get the gist of this kind of filibuster's virtues, and also because it eliminates nothing, it only redefines the filibuster into what any common person, in a non partisan way, would think it should have been all along.

I'm going to simplify a lot, frankly too much. But the basic current idea in the Senate with the filibuster is that, in a wide range of legislation, instead of things being decided by a majority vote, any minority Senator can sort of just say "I filibuster!" and it will stop a vote in its tracks. If there aren't 60 votes to break this filibuster then the bill (or whatever is being voted on) is stuck and can't be passed. This functionally creates a situation where votes just become procedures that require a 60 to 40 majority. It is a perversion of the concept of majority rule and a perversion of what the filibuster is there for and how it should be used.

As we have seen in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, the filibuster is, and should be all about skin in the game. It should be all about throwing one's body on the line for a cause because one believes in it with everything they have. A filibuster is not about opinion, or decision, those are represented in majority voting. A filibuster is and should be about passion. Jefferson Smith in the movie drives himself to a state of physical exhaustion so extreme he finally passes out. All filibuster rules must be rewritten to this end.

What would these filibuster rules be?

I think we could work that out. I like making rules and so would be glad to try. We could start with the rule that before any vote in the Senate a single Senator can filibuster. At that point they would take the floor and address the Senate continuously on the subject without break.

From there I think modifications would be great. I propose the following, some of them a little complicated. But all of them are designed to make the filibuster never impossible, but always painfully difficult on a personal level.

1. Delays in speaking, or comments unrelated to the issue of the vote, can be issued a demerit, with a number of, for instance, three demerits breaking the filibuster and allowing the vote to go ahead.

2. While only one Senator per vote can be the "filibuster", the more Senators that sign on to this filibuster the more advantages are given to the Senator filibustering. So:

     A. No other Senator signing on gives the filibuster Senator one two-hour break per 24 hours.

     B. One Senator or more seconding the filibuster gives the  filibusterer two (non successive) two-hour breaks per 24 hours total. And each Senator signing on to the filibuster after that will add seven minutes to the second two-hour break. So if, for instance, 45 Senators signed on to the filibuster the filibusterer would get one two hour break and one seven hour and 15 minute break.

3. However, here are some very important costs for Senators seconding the filibuster. 

     A. The first person signed onto the filibuster must fill in speaking during all break time.

     B. For up to three supporters of the filibuster the Senators must be in attentive attendance to the filibuster for the first 18 hours of the filibuster, and thereafter must be in attendance 75% of the time.

     C. For four or more supporters of the filibuster 75% of the supporting Senators must be in attentive attendance to the filibuster at all times.

4. The main Senator doing the filibuster may refuse any supporting Senators.

5. Any violations in these rules will end the filibuster and allow the vote to go forward uninterrupted.

I can see other rules being required, for instance ones defining how the main filibuster person is chosen if two or more Senators want to do it. It also might be advisable to limit Senators involved in too many short nuisance filibusters. This all is just a kind of starting guideline.

I think this filibuster system favors people fighting the good fight, as I believe people are more ready to suffer for the right thing than they are to suffer for donors, but even if this sadly turns out to be untrue, my filibuster system still allows majority vote to go forward at a time we so badly need it, but it does so with cover on the issue of breaking Senatorial tradition. 

It's the best of both worlds.

Dear Publisher: volume four

Dear Publisher;

You will be excited to know that I have finally collected enough material for my next volume of my collected letters to Publishers. This will be my fourth volume of my prestigious "Letters to Publishers" series, and I feel your magnificently large and bloated multi-national publishing house would be the perfect home for this next volume. While my writing skills are slowly deteriorating as I enter into my late 50's, there are nevertheless contained in this collection some of my finest letter to editor moments. I think both you and your readers will particularly delight in "Dear Editor: Seeking Wisdom" which I wrote just 15 minutes ago, and you will keenly enjoy the classic "Dear Editor" from the end of last year. "Dear Publisher: Let Me Explain" is also pretty good, and even much of the filler material in this fourth volume is capable of making your readers chuckle quietly to themselves as long as they're in a super good mood and don't have any other book nearby to switch to.

I know that you will be eager to get going on publishing this book, but there is one small problem, really barely a problem at all, that we must discuss first:

It may be confusing for your readers to encounter this as the fourth volume of "Letters to the Publisher" when none of the other volumes have yet been published. Yes, believe it or not, "Letters to the Publisher, a Book of Letters to the Publisher: Volume One", "Letters to the Publisher, Letters to the Publisher: A Book of Letters to the Publisher About Letters to the Publisher: Volume Two", and "Letters to the Publisher, Letters to the Publisher, Letters to the Publisher: A Book of Letters to the Publisher About Letters to the Publisher About Letters to the Publisher: Volume Three" have yet to be seen by the public, and no book as yet exists of them.

The simple solution is of course to publish these first three volumes as soon as possible. We don't have to make a big fuss about them. Then we can go big on the marketing with this new book "Letters to the Publisher, Another Book of Letters to the Publisher: Volume Four" in which people will find an enthusiastic return to the high form of the first volume, even, unfortunately, if it's not quite as good as that breakout first book they remember so vividly, probably because it will have come out just a couple of months earlier.

If you have any more complex solution to this issue I am eager to hear it! Either way I look forward to getting to work with you on this exciting project as soon as possible. Neither of us is getting any younger.

Almost like I'm your friend already,

Feldenstein Calypso

Dear editor, seeking wisdom

 

Dear Editor:

I have an exciting new manuscript for you to consider for publication. This text represents a unique opportunity for your esteemed publishing house and breaks new ground on hitherto unexplored dimensions of the literary experience.

Naturally you are probably wondering:

"But is it any good?"

We both know that that's not what the most important thing is. We both know that the most important thing is...

Well, as we both know, I'll let you say first.

I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Feldenstein Calypso