Barley Literate: Politics

You are seeing this message because you are one of the generous, enlightened folks who have been following my blogs: Barley Literate, History: Bottom Lines, and Magister Librorum.

Thank you for taking an interest in my scribbling, I hope I have informed and entertained you now and then.

I have switched all of my blogging and commentary to my new website.

Please click this link http://richardsubber.com/worlds-whirling-waiting/

to see a recent post and also sign up for daily email alerts from my website for my book reviews, my poetry, and my thoughtful insights about history and politics and human nature.

Thanks again! Your feedback is always welcome.

Rick Subber

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Your daddy’s daddy’s daddy was an immigrant.

Almost half of Americans alive today have an ancestor who went through Ellis Island to get into our great country.

Read the full post on my new website:

http://richardsubber.com/your-daddys-daddys-daddys-daddy-was-an-immigrant/

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Hand me that hammer

I will build one bridge today, and look forward to the next election.

Read the full post on my new website:

http://richardsubber.com/hand-me-that-hammer/

Despair for America

Reach out to people you love….

Read the full post on my new website:

http://richardsubber.com/despair-for-america/

Monday, November 7, 2016

The media giveaway helped Trump

The media grabbed profits, gave Trump $2 billion of free air time, and gave up any pretense of presenting objective news as a public service.

Read the full post on my new website:

http://richardsubber.com/the-media-lets-get-real/

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

The email thingie: silence is golden

The email server story is the non-story that won’t die in this election….and the latest hooraw, well, there’s really nothing to say about it. Why won’t the media give it up?

Read the full post on my new website:

http://richardsubber.com/that-email-server-thing-im-speechless/

Sunday, October 30, 2016

Voter fraud: Gotcha!

Click below to read the full post on my new website:

http://richardsubber.com/voter-fraud-gotcha/

Saturday, October 29, 2016

Rick Subber’s new website

Here’s a sneak preview of my new website, check it out here:

http://richardsubber.com/

It’s still under construction, but you can read samples of my poetry and my blog posts on books and book reviews, history, politics and some strange and wonderful stuff in the “Tidbits” category.

In the near future I will say goodbye to my three longstanding blogs—Barley Literate, History: Bottom Lines, and Magister Librorum—and do all of my daily posting on the website, where everything will be conveniently accessible from a single landing page.

I will manage the new website in tandem with my dedicated Facebook page, click here to take a look at it—and please “Like” the new Facebook page if you care to, I need 25 “Likes” to get access to some advanced Facebook audience measurements (all aggregate stuff, no personal or private information about individual persons, not even a little bit, not ever).

With appropriate humility and excessive excitement, I mention that in the near future I will publish my first poetry chapbook. Stay tuned!

Thanks again for your kind consideration in reading my daily scribblings. I try to write something worth reading every day.

Words, words, words—they can say so much if we choose them carefully, and if we choose to listen....

Rick

Thursday, October 27, 2016

AT&T and Time Warner: not perfect together

AT&T wants to buy Time Warner for $85.4 billion.

This should be an easy call for the regulators: no way this acquisition should be approved.

Let’s just leave aside for a moment the colossal impact this merger would have on the telecommunications and entertainment industries. It would concentrate too much power in these rapidly evolving consumer industries.

We hear so much—including all the wrong stuff—about the compelling benefits of the so-called “free market.” This kind of consolidation is totally destructive to the arguable advantages of the “free market,” and, in fact, this kind of reality confirms the persistent failure of the “free market” to effect anything that’s much good for the average person.

At a fundamental level, this combination creates a manifestly unmanageable organization. Initially, the merged company would have more than 300,000 employees. No group of human beings can successfully and strategically manage an organization with that many human components. Just. Not. Possible.

I won’t even bother to speculate about how many of those 300,000-plus employees would retain their jobs.

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Trump blackout?

Here’s my thought: why are the media continuing to report anything that Trump says?

The situation is:

Much of what Trump says are lies.

He says one thing and then he says the opposite, repeatedly.

Just about everything Trump says is bluster, untroubled by facts, details or reality.

Trump says the same things, over and over and over.

Just about all of his senior staffers and “surrogates” try to say—day after day after day—that he really doesn’t mean what he says.

Here’s my thought: the media should completely stop reporting what Trump says, until he says something that’s new, true, civil, and meaningfully detailed….and says it for, say, three or four days in a row.

Thursday, October 13, 2016

The “golden years”—does anyone still say that?

Americans who aren't retired yet say they're going to keep working for a while….recently they said 66 is the average age when they plan to clean out the desk and head for home.

I think that's optimistic. They're probably going to work a little longer than that, because a lot of folks are getting the idea that Social Security benefits aren't going to get a whole lot better in their realistically attainable future, and, anyway, most folks who are still working only have about one egg in the old retirement account….

A Gallup poll recently said that folks who are already retired hung up their track shoes at the average age of 61. In the early 1990s that number was 57, so part of the reason that retirees are getting older, aside from increasing life expectancy, is that they're waiting longer to punch out.

The whole notion of "retiring" is a relatively new concept. You only have to look back to the pre-World War II era to see a world in which the average person basically expected to work until she died, or became too sick or frail to work anymore.

American society hasn't completely figured out this retirement thing yet.

If you're in your prime, you really need to think carefully about the current and long term effects of government policies on your personal future. Congress isn't doing anything that makes sense right now.

All of us need to take personal responsibility for retirement, and we have to make sure the government doesn't screw it up..

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

"Out of the mouths of babes...."

So, here’s the story:

The 8-year-old asked his father to start recycling in the household.

Indulgent father, chuckling, asked “Why?”

He replied: “So you can help me save the planet.”

Indulgence was extended. “And why do you want me to save the planet” said father.

“Because that's where I keep all my stuff," he said.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s the only planet our grandkids will have to live on.

Let’s commit now to the hard work and the expense of cleaning it up.

RichardSubber.com

Book review: A Farewell to Arms

"...inter librorum copias" redux

Lake Wobegon at Veterans Affairs

The Revolutionary War didn't end at Yorktown

"...the commotions in America..."

Book review: The Witches: Salem, 1692

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

“Pants on fire!”….

Just so we keep things in perspective:

We don’t even have to remind ourselves that Trump tells a lie more or less every five minutes while he’s talking….

David Leonhardt of the New York Times reminds us that “Remarkably, every Republican presidential candidate this year was untruthful more often than every Democratic candidate, according to the watchdog PolitiFact (which was trying so hard to be neutral that it didn’t point out the pattern!).”

Of course Hillary and Tim have stretched the literal truth more than once. I wish it weren’t so.

Leonhardt’s point is that the Republican candidates have defined themselves by telling lies, again and again.

Promise yourself that you’re telling the truth when you say “I’m going to vote on November 8.”

American elections aren't rigged

Better than releasing Trump's tax returns

Another legal way to stop Trump

Don't vote for Johnson or Stein "to make a statement"

"Kabuki citizenship" isn't the worst of it....

Sunday, September 25, 2016

American elections aren’t rigged

Once again, let’s be clear on this: voter fraud doesn’t exist in the United States.

Here are the numbers:

About one billion—that’s 1,000,000,000--votes were cast in elections all over the country during 2000-2014, a 15-year sample.

There were 31 reports of possible voter impersonation fraud.

That’s 31 out of 1,000,000,000.

Here’s another way to understand that:

Say there are 500 people voting in your election precinct. The teeny number of possible fraud cases suggests that in your precinct, once every 32,000 years or so, someone might try to impersonate another voter.

We don’t need any restrictive voting laws to fight “voter fraud.”

Data from New York Times editorial, September 20, 2016

Better than releasing Trump's tax returns

Another legal way to stop Trump

Don't vote for Johnson or Stein "to make a statement"

"...inter librorum copias" redux

Book review: The Witches: Salem, 1692

Let's put one more thing in context....

Saturday, September 24, 2016

Better than releasing Trump’s tax returns

Trump’s hiding stuff by refusing to release his tax returns. We all know that.

The New York Times says that Trump and all his companies have pulled in at least $885 million in “tax breaks, grants and other subsidies” in New York for all of his real estate projects.

Here’s my idea: if Trump pays back the whole $885 million before November 8, I’ll stop clamoring for him to release his tax returns.

The guy’s worth billions, right? Does anybody think he couldn’t afford to do that?

The payback wouldn’t make him presidential material, but it would be the right thing to do.

Another legal way to stop Trump

Don't vote for Johnson or Stein "to make a statement"

"Kabuki citizenship" isn't the worst of it....

The umbrella thing....

Media "fairness" is bogus

Friday, September 23, 2016

Another legal way to stop Trump

Count on Garrison Keillor (the Lake Wobegon guy) to bring a fresh perspective to the current dangerous corruption of our political process. At WashingtonPost.com, he wrote:

“A week ago, a panhandler in Times Square sat holding a sign reading, ‘Give me a dollar or I’ll vote for Trump,’ and people laughed and reached into their pockets. His bucket overflowed.”

Keep a few singles in your pocket in case you walk past that guy or someone he’s talked to.

Don't vote for Johnson or Stein "to make a statement"

"Kabuki citizenship" isn't the worst of it....

Pricetag on bigotry

A long moment at the Wailing Wall

Book review: The Witches: Salem, 1692

Let's put one more thing in context....

"...inter librorum copias" redux

Book review: The Witches: Salem, 1692