30 November 2016
Trump's Need to Win
The President-elect's denial of Hillary Clinton's popular electoral majority is another illustration of the Donald's visceral need to score a win in a competition just for the hell of it, without regard to its objective. That will be the principal driver of his coming administration. Once Steve Bannon or another table-setter in his entourage selects an issue for him to focus on, he will fight to impose those views on the nation with the same promotional skill and determination that won him the White House.
That may be the greatest danger of a Trump presidency--not his belief in reactionary values, for he may not have any beliefs other than in his own importance. We are in for leadership by an impressario of convincing salesmanship who can be used by a destructive right wing to reverse some of the progressive accomplishments of the country since the New Deal. Therefore, it is up to the people who have voiced their concerns in futile demonstrations rather to educate and mobilize popular resistance to the backward-looking strategists who have dominated Trump during the campaign and who threaten to continue their influence over him during the next four or more years.
The President-elect's denial of Hillary Clinton's popular electoral majority is another illustration of the Donald's visceral need to score a win in a competition just for the hell of it, without regard to its objective. That will be the principal driver of his coming administration. Once Steve Bannon or another table-setter in his entourage selects an issue for him to focus on, he will fight to impose those views on the nation with the same promotional skill and determination that won him the White House.
That may be the greatest danger of a Trump presidency--not his belief in reactionary values, for he may not have any beliefs other than in his own importance. We are in for leadership by an impressario of convincing salesmanship who can be used by a destructive right wing to reverse some of the progressive accomplishments of the country since the New Deal. Therefore, it is up to the people who have voiced their concerns in futile demonstrations rather to educate and mobilize popular resistance to the backward-looking strategists who have dominated Trump during the campaign and who threaten to continue their influence over him during the next four or more years.
06 November 2016
Correcting ouir Changing Economy
Correcting our Changing Economy
The NYT’s editorial on 5 November 2016 criticized Donald
Trump for ignoring the official statistics that substantiate the federal
administration’s and the Hillary Clinton Campaign’s claims that the nation’s
economy is doing as well or better than it has since before the Great Recession
in 2007-8. Sadly, in order to agree one
has equally to ignore that the recovery has come
simultaneously with the apparently more complete transformation of our domestic
economy into one in which physically creative human
activity, like manufacturing and mineral extraction, are less valued than the
sum of intellectual and interpersonal services.
Mr. Trump has tapped into the vocal stratus of American
society that has not managed successfully or self-gratifyingly to change their
livelihoods from physical production to conceptual or ministrative pursuits. The dissatisfaction of those U.S. citizens
who believe the traditional measures of economic progress do not apply to them
should be resolved by government jobs- and education-programs undertaken by whoever
wins the 2016 presidential election.
03 November 2016
Driverless Cars Will Reduce Traffic Tie-ups
Driverless Cars Will Reduce Traffic Tie-ups
Most traffic tie-ups are caused by the shortcomings of driver psychology. How many times have you waited in slow traffic, particularly on supposedly obstruction-free four or more lane divided highways. Sure, there are occasional accidents that hold up the progress of vehicles; but these have proven, seemingly more and more often, a small portion of the causes. When you reach a final resumption of speed after a long slow-down, there is usually no logical expanation in evidence--no accident or breakdown blocking the road, no natural disaster impeding the roadway, not even a pair of hitchhikers, one of whom is exposing her thigh.
There is often a confusing electronic sign suspended from an overpass, a rise in the pavement hiding the assuring view of continued miles and miles of divided highway lanes ahead, the sidelined wreckage from a prior accident, an automobile pulled-over by and next to a patrolman's squad car, an eye-catching bill board that requires more than an instant of contemplation--you name the distraction. Computers will not be diverted by these attention-grabbers and as they come to dominate the number of vehicles on the road, they won't have slower vehicles ahead of them to create delays they will have to negotiate.
Moreover, only human drivers will discomfort their passengers with their verbal expressions of frustration at the inability of other drivers to deal with the tie-up's cause or at the poor design of the highway and its signage, or even at the uneven justice of God that subjected them to a sudden rainstorm or other more serious exogenous event. Until the elmination of human drivers clears superhighway traffic, unfortunately, we will suffer from the limits on highway speed and flow caused by our own humanity--we are not just along for the ride.
Most traffic tie-ups are caused by the shortcomings of driver psychology. How many times have you waited in slow traffic, particularly on supposedly obstruction-free four or more lane divided highways. Sure, there are occasional accidents that hold up the progress of vehicles; but these have proven, seemingly more and more often, a small portion of the causes. When you reach a final resumption of speed after a long slow-down, there is usually no logical expanation in evidence--no accident or breakdown blocking the road, no natural disaster impeding the roadway, not even a pair of hitchhikers, one of whom is exposing her thigh.
There is often a confusing electronic sign suspended from an overpass, a rise in the pavement hiding the assuring view of continued miles and miles of divided highway lanes ahead, the sidelined wreckage from a prior accident, an automobile pulled-over by and next to a patrolman's squad car, an eye-catching bill board that requires more than an instant of contemplation--you name the distraction. Computers will not be diverted by these attention-grabbers and as they come to dominate the number of vehicles on the road, they won't have slower vehicles ahead of them to create delays they will have to negotiate.
Moreover, only human drivers will discomfort their passengers with their verbal expressions of frustration at the inability of other drivers to deal with the tie-up's cause or at the poor design of the highway and its signage, or even at the uneven justice of God that subjected them to a sudden rainstorm or other more serious exogenous event. Until the elmination of human drivers clears superhighway traffic, unfortunately, we will suffer from the limits on highway speed and flow caused by our own humanity--we are not just along for the ride.
