Monday with The Union

George Rebane

Jo Ann and I very much enjoy reading The Union – our town’s newspaper.  (This pleasure preceded her joining the paper’s editorial board.)  I am particularly entertained by George Boardman’s columns, and the regularly occasioned other voices from locals with academic credentials like Dr Milan Vodicka.  Dr Vodicka is a longtime Nevada County resident and a naturalized citizen immigrant like me.  We have met him before in these pages - e.g. here, where I noted that “the good Dr Vodicka is an ‘Independent Education Management Professional’ with an academic pedigree from the California Institute of Integral Studies that prides itself with academic departments such as ‘Ecology, Spirituality, and Religion’, ‘Integral and Transpersonal Psychology’, and ‘Drama Therapy’.”

In today’s (19nov18) Union, Dr Vodicka illustrates his academic prowess to readers by misunderstanding the difference between the communist controlled economy of his native Czechoslovakia and the US economy we are now enjoying.  There he likens the centrally planned economy of his youth, that based all progress on the tons of steel produced while totally ignoring the people’s needs for consumer goods, with that of America’s which is based on defining our economic boom in terms of providing the wherewithal for record consumer consumption.  He considers both to be short-sighted ‘single attribute’ measures that fall equally short of other attributes that should be the proper measure of an economy.

His measure of an economy (seatbelts please) must center on how well it concerns itself with ecological and environmental affairs, instead of crass indicators like consumer satisfaction, financial growth, and a nation’s quality of life.  In Vodicka’s perspective – “Measuring the ‘boomness’ of the economic performance just by money is like wandering in the world being blind.”

The focus of this liberal academic’s (may I use that label?) environmental interest is, of course, scientifically indisputable ‘climate change’, aka preventable manmade global warming.  There he lectures us on the characteristics of “scientific fact” – “1. measurability, 2. verifiability, and 3. repeatability” - without noticing that the propositions which support ‘climate change’ can lay claim to none of these. (more here)

A correspondent sent me one of the countless debunkings of public policies put in place to limit human emissions of that dreaded CO2.  This was recently put out by Prof Rutherford Plimer, much published geologist and professor emeritus of earth sciences at the Universities of Melbourne and Adelaide.  Plimer points out again what the lamestream bends over backwards to hide facts about the natural emissions of CO2 by the ongoing eruptions of earth’s over 200 active volcanoes.  For example, just four days of the recent Icelandic eruptions “negated every single effort” all humans have made over the past five years to reduce CO2 emissions on our planet.  More convincing to discerning minds is the fact that Mt Pinatubo’s 1991 eruption, that lasted for about a year, “spewed out more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the entire human race had emitted in all its years on earth.”

Dr Vodicka apparently knows nothing of such ongoing natural processes that overwhelm human intents and activities, and he most certainly does not have the academic credentials to understand or dispute such obvious realities, which should at least invite some open-minded skepticism about our current politically faith-based writhings to combat global warming.

Turning now to our favorite local liberal commentator and RR commenter George Boardman, we learn from his column (here) that he has missed the news of the Central American migrants’ arrival at the border in Tijuana.  And it also seems that he’s unaware of the bus and truck transportation that is now available to the thousands whom he characterizes as being “weeks from the border”.  Again, it’s best not to know stuff that will upset the Left’s carefully crafted and continuously fed narrative.

Mr Boardman also laments our not allowing illegal aliens into our country as somehow doing ourselves harm.  Why?  Well, look at all the good stuff immigrants have contributed to America and its workforce over the years.  And today, with the economy booming and unemployment at record lows (call your office Dr Vodicka), denying entry to these illegal Hispanics will “shut off the source of most of our economic growth and access to brain power we need to fuel our high-tech economy.”  Just when did we discover that Latin America provided us such critically fueling brain power?  But what we do know is that our progressives have made the schools they control such that academically America’s Hispanics vie for the bottom of the barrel along with our African-American students.  Else how can they continue to count on such reliably voting constituencies.

Skipping right along from topic to topic, Mr Boardman then takes to task those dastardly capitalists and privately-owned corporations.  These folks have the temerity to use the monies they earn and save for purposes totally out of line from those prescribed by the progressive central planning elites who wait in the wings to fundamentally transform our economy.  The corporations have actually been (gasp) returning too much of their profits to the companies’ owners of the enterprise and those who risked their investment to keep it growing.  For our intrepid columnist, these corporations are doing everything wrong – everything from paying proper worker salaries, compensating management, investing in R&D, paying performance bonuses, …, the list seems to be endless of how these capitalists are screwing up.

And what’s even worse is that President Trump is successfully fooling enough people so that they don’t understand all those inequities occurring right in front of their noses.  He has messed with the media so much that the message can’t get through to Americans who otherwise would be assembling in town squares with torches and pitchforks to demand social justice.

Apropos to all this, I note that not one leftwing outlet can parse the nuance of Trump’s labeling ‘fake news’ as an “enemy of the people”, and not so the entire Fourth Estate.   It serves the Left better to continue fooling all the people all the time with repeated reports that our President is trying to censor or shut down media outlets that are unfavorable to him.  This would be a clear violation of the First Amendment, which the Left doesn’t like all that much either, but here its claimed violation serves a purpose.  To be fair, not even Chris Wallace (FN’s left-leaning star journalist) was able to make that distinction in his interview with President Trump that aired yesterday (18nov18).  It appears that none of these worthies can tell the difference between a pipe, and the stuff that flows through it.

Now wasn’t that a fun time with our Monday morning newspaper?

Comments

[Bill Tozer]

Ah, The Union and it’s opinion pieces. I read Dr. V’s piece last night and am glad I refrained from commenting. Yes, we cannot judge Main Street by Wall Street, but this was my initial reaction: “Yo, Dr. Vodoodick, we are having an obesity crisis here, not a starvation crisis.”

The only science deniers on the Union’s pages are the ones who argue there are more than two genders. Psychosomatic conditions is not a sex or gender.

[Scott O]

I didn't bother with Dr V's piece. Maybe later after a libation or 4.
Boardman chimes in with a highly creative tack I'm sure no one's ever heard before. The Rs are racist.
OK. But not fascist or homophobic.
Whew!
I guess they're improving!
But George - you failed to mention Tommy Elias.
He points out that there seems to be a certain 'inequality' in income and wealth accumulation among various grievance groups in good 'ol California.
But now that Newsom and the Dems have total control over the state, that will all change!
Yessir!
Tommy points out that the CBP (California Budget Project) is suggesting an 'estate tax'. Unfortunately California did away with the state inheritance due to the voters' say-so (damn democracy!).
Also they want to reduce or get rid of deductions for mortgage interest and property taxes. Little Tommy somehow forgot that Trump already shoved that through at the fed level and the Dems in California got their knickers in a twist and claimed they would fight it.
I could go on and on, but the bottom line is the Dems and the left in California have everything they want and you can bet the store they will spend the majority of their time from now on trying to figure out how to blame the feds and the Rs for the reason they actually have no idea of how to get everything all tickety-boo in the Golden State.
This is what happens when you only know how to obtain power without any clue as to what to do with it.

[George Rebane]

ScottO 525pm - I wanted to focus on locals and time ran short. Guilty as charged.

[Scott O]

S'OK - can't cover everything at once - here's a view of the California the left wing whitey-tighties of Nevada County haven't got a clue of.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDaQ_UMV1zw
But don't you lefties worry - that's waaaaaay south of you. Just watch the pines and remember to repeat the BS mantras you've been taught.

[Bonnie McGuire]

We just returned from a Mexico Rivera cruise. Our tour guide in Mazatlan hopes that their newly elected leader would be better. Today this popped up and I couldn't help wonder why we haven't heard about how the Mexican people feel about these caravans coming through Mexico to America feel about it.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/631320203613646/permalink/1990080761070910/

[George Rebane]

BonnieM 817pm - Good point Bonnie. I posted my remarks on the topic in the 19nov18 Sandbox comment stream. Apropos to your comment, I am reposting it here. And our neighbors on the Left are totally unaware of what's happening because their media suppresses such reports.

The invasion of Mexico. Now here’s something that will call out the progressives’ cricket corps. The lamestream (along with local liberals) have been mocking President Trump for labeling the thousands of Central Americans “invaders”, those who are marching north to enter the US illegally. And then going hyper when the president sent troops to the border. These liberal know-nothings can’t tell the difference between someone asking for legal entry into our land, from someone planning to illegally crawl over or under our border barriers. To those numbnuts both entrants are undifferentiated as ‘immigrants’, and not invaders, a term invented by Trump. Well boys and girls, now that the ‘migrants’ have hit Tijuana by the thousands and started fighting with the city’s police and citizens, every Mexican interviewed has now started calling them (wait for it) “invaders” – and boy are they angry at these invaders. My money says the lamestream will do everything they can to suppress this little shift in the political winds.

Tonight’s news reports that the first tranche of these invaders number over 10,000 and are overwhelmingly military age males travelling alone, with over 500 who already have been identified as criminals, and the men’s confirmed tactic to generate fake news is to have whatever women and children there are to take the up front positions so that the double dummies in the US will be fooled into thinking this is women and children’s march to our borders. All this is invisible to our anti-American Left.

Exit question – how many retractions and corrections will we hear about all this from the Dem-pocketed progressive media?

[Scott O]

Check out the videos of the people living on the border with Mexico.
Oh, wait - not you lefties and MOTR types. Just go back to sleep. The violence and rapes are all made up by the Trump voters. Except it was going on long before Trump ran for office.
We have the rule of law or the rule of people. You only get one choice.
The left in Nevada County chose to ignore reality.
The problem with that is that reality WILL catch up with you.