The City of Seattle has confirmed that it is Lawless

The City of Seattle has confirmed that it is Lawless

Through a number of city-wide policies, the fast-growing city of Seattle has decided that, because more people “of color” than whites skip out on Library fines, ride the Metro buses without paying, live in tents on the streets, commit property crimes, and use and deal drugs out in the open, that those crimes and misbehaviors will no longer be punished.

This article on the Fox News Web site details how Seattle no longer enforces its laws, and everyone suffers.  This is pathetic.

It’s pretty funny that many wealthy residents of big houses on the east side of Lake Washington are downsizing and moving to pricey condos in downtown Seattle.  They should watch where they walk, lest they get tripped up by used needles and human feces on the sidewalk. Luxury Urban Living.

Welcome Guest Author Richard Easton, and his Proposed New Format for Presidential Debates

This article was originally posted over at Ricochet.com, and I am happy to make Calling-all-RushBabes available to spread his wisdom.  Comments very welcome!

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There has been widespread dissatisfaction with previous presidential debates between the Republican and Democratic candidates. In 2012, Candy Crowley stated shortly before the second debate that she would not abide by the contract she signed. She then interfered in the debate on the side of Obama. In 2008, the vice presidential debate moderator, Gwen Ifill, was completing a biography of Obama. One can easily surmise that financial considerations alone gave her a bias favoring Joe Biden. Clearly, her book had the potential to sell more copies if Obama won the presidency. One may ask why the Republicans didn’t insist that these biased moderators be removed. This tacit agreement to participate in a process that was biased against them may partially explain why they lost both races.

How can you solve the problem of biased moderators? I suggest eliminating them and using the model of the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates. There were seven debates, one in each congressional district, each of which was three hours long. The first debater spoke for 60 minutes, the second spoke for 90 minutes, and the first responded for 30 minutes. Today’s Americans don’t have the attention span for an unstructured three-hour debate. I suggest that the candidates cover specific questions in fifteen-minute segments. A coin toss determines which debater speaks first for five minutes. The second debater then speaks for 7.5 minutes, and the first speaker responds for 2.5 minutes. There is a timer in place of the moderator. This allows for more time for speakers to talk without interruptions while also allowing them to challenge each other. In contrast to the behavior of Candy Crowley in the second debate, Jim Lehrer in the first debate asked general questions and let the candidates talk. My proposal codifies this by eliminating the moderators and putting the focus on the questions.

How are the questions determined? One possibility is to have a liberal and a conservative scholar each selecting half of them. Victor Davis Hanson would be a good choice for the conservative scholar. Another alternative would be to have each campaign select 25% of the questions, with the scholars picking the remainder. All of the questions would be known in advance to the public. The only unknown in advance of the actual debate is who speaks first on a question. This alternative is fair to both sides and removes the media from the debates.

The fall debates have recently been of two hours’ duration, including about twenty minutes of commercials. Using my proposed fifteen-minute segments, this would allow for six questions in a debate with ten minutes for closing statements. Recently, there has been both an opening and closing statement, but I suggest eliminating the opening segment to allow for more questions.

My unbiased proposal allows voters to understand better how the candidates think about issues than under the current process. It will be difficult to stall for 7.5 minutes. It will challenge candidates to speak intelligently for that duration and the debates will be improved.

How would this change be implemented? Currently, the Commission on Presidential Debates organizes them. One possibility would be to petition the members of the commission to make this change. Another alternative would be to bring this to the attention of the leading Republican candidates. Removing the press from the process eliminates the possibility for bias to affect the result. If the Democrats refuse to consider this change, the Republican candidate could refuse to participate in the debate. There is no reason to give one side an advantage in shaping public opinion.

The vagaries of the English Language

This is what happens when you are in the bathroom stall at work, and you are given something to think about.  At my workplace, which is a factory, many women of every possible ethnicity use the bathroom.  Some of those women are not the most fastidious, and leave various kinds of trash behind.  The Facilities staff have left various messages on the inside of the stall doors to try to get the users to clean up after themselves.  The current message says:

Be Courteous, Leave the Bathroom Stall Looking Like You Were Never Here.

That got me thinking about pronunciation in English.  In the sentence above, there are two words that are only one letter different, but they are pronounced totally differently.  How would a non-English-speaker remember that Were is pronounced “Wur”, but Here is pronounced “Heer”.  And then, there is the word “There”.  Same “ere”, but pronounced differently than here and were.  How would you know that “where” is pronounced the same as “there” and not the same as “here” or “were”?  There don’t seem to be much in the way of hard and fast rules of pronunciation, so English learners just have to learn as they go.  Makes me glad I’m a native English-speaker.

You CAN teach old ladies new tricks-the joy of giving!

This past week, I did something I’ve never attempted before…since until now I had no need to do it.  Over at Ricochet.com, one of our most beloved members did a post about her unfortunate situation.  She is elderly, and living alone.  She lives in Montana, and we met her in 2017 at the big Montana meetup.  Everyone just loved her, and she was the life of the party.  Well, last week she was essentially cast out by her family.

Since this is the 21st Century, the obvious response was : Someone should set up a GoFundMe for her.  Since no one else volunteered, the task fell to me.  I had already done a post over at Ratburger, for the many Rico Refugees over there, so I had two big groups of “friends you haven’t met yet” as possible donors.  She gave permission, and her post was copied over.

So last Saturday, I sat down at my trusty iMac, found the GoFundMe Web site, and initiated a campaign for her.  I found the site pretty easy to use, and it only took me about 30 minutes to get the campaign set up.  Then, I put up posts on both Ricochet and Ratburger, with links to the site, and an initial goal of $5,000.  I had a pretty good idea that the members of both sites would give generously to help our friend, and I was right, big-time!  Before the end of the day, we had reached the initial goal.  I was just flabbergasted that it took so little time!  That was helped by large donations from a couple of people, and many smaller donations.

The campaign is still open, with a new goal of $7,500.  We are almost there, and I am leaving it open until we reach the new goal.  When the initial posts got buried, I posted updates, and more donations came in.

I have always believed, since I was a psychology grad student, that giving to others not only benefits the recipient, but the donor.  We humans are programmed to get a thrill from helping someone else, and this campaign proves it.  My heart is just bursting with joy, at being able to succeed at a first effort to corral that many donors to reach a goal that would help someone we all know deserves it.  I have this big grin on, whenever I see a new donation drop in!  I get a text message on my new iPhone whenever a new donation is registered, and the site makes it easy to say “thank you”.  I remembered a few years ago, when a Rico member who was wheelchair-bound needed a handicapped van to get around, and the Ricochet family pulled together, and funded it.

I learned that if I want to help someone, I can do it.  I am glad that GoFundMe is there, and their people should be proud that they are able to help so many.  Try it, you’ll like it, and you’ll benefit almost as much as the beneficiary does.

RushBabe Enters the 21st Century

I celebrated my 70th birthday in April.  Just before that, I made it into the Twenty-First Century.  Yes, I bought my very first smartphone.  Thank you, thank you for all the applause, much appreciated.  After a few hiccups in the setup process (don’t EVER forget your initial passcode-it’s awful trying to reset it), I got the thing together.  I bought the phone, an iPhone XR, unlocked at the Apple Store.  I just love going into the Apple Store-nobody has figured out the Retail Ambience like Apple!

This is what I bought:

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And this is what I bought to keep it safe:

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I have the coolest phone out there, in my opinion.  Already owning an iPod Touch, it was pretty easy setting up my email account, and syncing my apps and music from iTunes.  The phone doesn’t have a headphone jack, so I had to buy the adapter so I can use my noise-canceling headphones at work.  Well, I confess that I am still keeping the little iPod, since it does have the headphone jack for listening to my Rush Limbaugh podcast at work.

I made certain to get enough memory with the new phone, so I won’t run out of space for all my pictures.  This summer, I plan to take an iPhone photography class at the Apple store, so I can get familiar with all its features.

One of the things I was really looking forward to with an iPhone was getting the ringtone I’ve always wanted.  Years ago, I discovered that the best-known of Mozart’s Piano Quartets, the G-Minor, was nicknamed “Answer the Telephone”!!  So that’s the first thing I did, try to find it on the Apple Tone Store.  I found it, and now when my phone rings I get to answer the telephone to the music of Answer the Telephone!  Even if it’s a robocall,  just hearing the ringtone makes me smile.  Eventually, once I learn how to use the new version of GarageBand on my computer, I am going to make that ringtone from the real music in my iTunes.

One thing I discovered that really made me jump out of my skin the first time it happened, was that when the phone rings, so does the iPod!  You can answer the phone, but you can’t “answer” the iPod, since it’s not a phone!  That was really weird.  So now, I can join the ranks of those who keep their phones with them at all times, just in case they get notifications or calls.  Mine will stay pretty silent, since, unlike most others, I am not on social media, which is the source of most notifications for everyone else.  I am looking forward to being able to surf the Web in the doctor or dentist’s waiting room (so I don’t have to read 3-year old magazines).  And the phone uses WiFi when available, thus saving those valuable Data Bytes you have to pay for.  Actually, I have a very reasonable phone plan from the folks that used to be AAA Cellular.  I pay $36 a month for unlimited talk and text, and 2Gb of data.

I am getting better pictures of our owner, since the phone is by my bed and by my desk when I’m there.  Kitty likes to curl up on the bed with me, so I can get her in her unguarded moments.

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She is sitting on a little tote bag I got from my oral surgeon.  Can you resist that face?

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Waiting while the sheets are in the laundry, she just takes over!

I think the phone camera takes excellent pictures, and I discovered, much to my delight, that what the camera takes is a tiny movie, and if you hold down your finger on the screen, the subject moves!  That really surprised me the first time I saw it.

So, the learning begins.  Just shows you that we old ladies can learn new technology!

Springtime in the Skagit Valley of Washington State

See the header picture on my blog?  That was taken a few years ago in the tulip fields of the Skagit Valley in Washington State.  Hubby and I took a drive up there this afternoon, and it was a perfect day for it.  Sunny, but with beautiful clouds in the sky, and temps in the low 60s.  All of these pictures were taken out the window of the car where I was a passenger.  There were fields that were plowed and ready for planting.

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We saw some beautiful barns, no two exactly alike.  We Washingtonians tend to be free thinkers and idiosyncratic.

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Given that it is the last week of the annual Tulip Festival, there were the roads, with cars parked along every side.

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And this is what everyone was looking at, and taking pictures of.

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We are so fortunate to live in such a beautiful part of the country, and to have these farms and fields so close to our suburban home.  It never gets old, ever.

Is this Cruel and Unusual Punishment?

Is this Cruel and Unusual Punishment?

I was reading an article in the Wall Street Journal this week.  Here are some sentences describing someone’s imprisonment.

  • Alone in his cell, he isn’t permitted to leave (on weekends) for the 30 minutes of fresh air he gets on weekdays.
  • The lights burn 24 hours a day.
  • He can’t wear a watch, and sometimes finds himself disoriented.
  • Authorities state this is “normal treatment”.
  • He has been interrogated for up to five hours a day, with no lawyer present.
  • Prosecutors can sometimes harangue suspects who choose to remain silent for ten hours a day.
  • The person is forced to sign statements in a foreign language that he cannot read.
  • Family members are not allowed to visit.
  • The cell has a window, but it is very deep in the wall and the prisoner cannot see out.
  • Prisoner is allowed a shower twice a week (three times a week in summer).  Cold water is all he gets from the tap in his cell.

So, what do you think of this punishment being meted out, to a person imprisoned for a non-violent, financial crime?  It sounds cruel and unusual to me, especially for a person charged with a white-collar crime, who has not yet had his day in court.  He has not been convicted, or even tried, for this crime.  He is being treated like a violent criminal, subject to conditions often found in high-security prisons.

Where do you think this might be happening?  Some third-world country in Africa or Latin America? Nope, this is Japan.  And the prisoner is a gentleman named Carlos Ghosn, who until recently was the CEO of an alliance between automakers Nissan of Japan and Renault of France.  Mitsubishi of Japan was also a party to this alliance.  The companies had been thriving, and producing cars for the world in multiple countries.  He was very highly thought-of, and a well-paid globetrotter, often jetting around the world to attend meetings and watch over all the factories.  He has been accused of understating his salary, and skimming funds from his corporations to pay for things for his family and himself.  He has lost all of his jobs, and has been in prison in Japan since mid-November of 2018, with only one month out of jail before being re-arrested and sent back to confinement.

This seems to me to be cruel and unusual punishment for a non-violent crime.  How the mighty has fallen.  I don’t think he deserves this kind of punishment.  What do you think?