Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy?

Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt wrote an article with the above title that was published in the New York Times, 2106-12-16 at
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/16/opinion/sunday/is-donald-trump-a-threat-to-democracy.html

I was surprised that a day later it was still open for comments with 1667.  I just had to put in my two cents with my the following comment.

"Let's stop blaming the system for the embarrassing low turnout, among the worst in the world, especially for a nation that regards itself as the greatest democracy in the world.

"Sure, many blocks to voting have been put up by corrupt, self-serving politicians. Sure, the "media" has spread many distorted stories that have discouraged many potential voters. But too many people willingly choose not to vote.

"What would the result have been if half the no- shows had actually voted? We really don't know. Maybe Clinton would have won. Maybe Trump might have done better than third to a defacto none of the above.

"Whatever elections come up next where you live, remind your friends and neighbors 'The only way You throw your vote away Is to stay away!'”

After I posted the above, I searched for “The only way You throw your vote away.  One of the top hits was https://justinegraykin.wordpress.com/2016/02/09/be-subversive-vote.  Justine posted a lot of right-on comments:

“If you fail to vote, you have only yourself to blame."
“Bad politicians are elected by Good People who don’t vote”
"If 99% of America showed up to vote, it wouldn’t matter what the 1% wanted.”
“Vote as if the future depends on it.  It does.”

She had a link to “HP Lovecraft Historical Society — Why settle for the lesser evil?”  As I had recently listened to a “To the best of our knowledge” podcast on HP Lovecraft http://www.ttbook.org/book/hp-lovecraft.  I thought I would check the link out.  Unfortunately, it was broken.  But I did find https://cthulhuforamerica.com/.  Among the pictures is hooded figures holding signs for “Cthulhu for President 2016, Vote best evil”.  Cthulhu was a deep sea monster in one or more of Lovecraft’s stories.

What would have happened if there had been a massive vote for Cthulhu?  If Cthulhu won, the election would have to go to the runner-up because Cthulhu doesn’t exist?  But what if somebody had adopted that name?

I think this kind of tomfoolery indicates that we should have far better candidates running: people who truly want to make the U.S. a country for all of us rather than stoke their own egos or be in the pockets of the 1%.

Only in dreams does beer not spill

In a dream I knocked over a full glass or bottle of beer. Not a drop came out.

The above is from a note in May 2014.

How do we dream something physically impossible but in the dream believe its reality.

For years I haven’t had any flying dreams or dreams of levitating over a floor and skating forward.  Could this mean I’ve settled down and no longer think I can do everything?

Sometime in the last two months I’ve had a recurrence of dreaming of a glowing fire in something that should not be burning.  In the dream nothing is consumed.

I heard on a recent “To the Best of Our Knowledge” that thoughts can be captured from one animal and replayed in the brain of another animal, inducing false memory.  Will sometime we be able to capture our dreams and replay them when we are conscience.

What are the legal implications of this?  Could the authorities read our minds?  Could the authorities put a false memory in our heads and get us to confess to something we never did?

Paranormal events

Wisconsin Public Radio's To the Best of Our Knowledge had an hour devoted to ghost stories recently.

One of the sections was on people who think of someone dying at another place and they are proven right.  What too many people don't consider is all the people who thought of someone dying and no such thing had happened.

I woke up one night certain that a friend had died.  This was almost two decades ago and he is still alive.

Too often people are incredulous about some "miracle" but completely ignore all the times the "miracles" didn't happen under similar circumstances.

One of the anecdotes I read long ago was a picture of a shipwreck where survivors were huddled on shore.  Supposedly these survivors had prayed they would reach safety.  The cynic asked about all those who prayed to reach safety but drowned.

Contradictory thoughts on contradictory thoughts

"Apes and Humans" was one of Wisconsin Public Radio's "To the Best of Our Knowledge" (TTBOOK) broadcasts for 2013-06-09.  One segment was about the so-called "monkey girl", a five-year-old girl kidnapped in Columbia and then abandoned in the jungle.  Supposedly she survived with the help of monkeys who "adopted" her.  She, Marina Chapman, and her daughter, Vanessa James, wrote a book on Marina's experiences – "The Girl with No Name".  Philip Sherwell of the Telegraph was asked to go to Columbia to check up on her story.

There were some inconsistencies in the stories he heard, but considering the events were fifty years ago, he would have been concerned if they were consistent.  He came away not establishing anything that would make him "believe that she'd made it up…"

In other words, by compiling a mosaic of thoughts, Sherwell came away believing Chapman's story in general.

On the other hand, in the preface to his satire, "L'Ile des Pingouins", Anatole France claims if you have a "fact" about certain events from one person, you should believe it, but if you have reports from several people then their reports are always contradictory and always unreconcilable (my translation).

Unfortunately, too many people today rely on one source of news, and whatever is said by that source must be true.  They just don't want to believe that some of what the source says may be true, some may be partly true, and some may be completely false.

Corporate Whimsy

Facebook, that time gobbler that so many can't do without and so many hate, is at it again changing the way it works.

Yesterday I posted a picture on Flickr and then wrote a note on Facebook with a link to the picture.  When I clicked return, the picture was showing on my message list.  A few friends commented on it and I saw the picture above their comments.

Today as I scrolled through my list of messages, the picture was gone but the text remained.  I left a comment about it, and one friend said she hadn't seen it before and now she did.

One of the first rules of good human interface is consistency.  If I do a certain thing in a certain set of circumstances, I should be able to get a similar result each and every time.

Facebook is not alone in inconsistent user interfaces.  Microsoft, Apple, and many others confuse users time after time.

Through iTunes I download Wisconsin Public Radio's "To the Best of Our Knowledge" podcasts, receiving two each week.  Suddenly, about four weeks ago I was getting only one.  Last week I got none.  This week I got one.  With a little email help from the TTBOOK host, Jim Fleming, I figured out that iTunes or somebody has decided that I don't need podcasts that I've already downloaded, even if they were from two or more years ago.  TTBOOK does rebroadcast programs and thus republishes the podcasts.  But shouldn't I be the one to decide that I don't want to listen to an old program again?

Microsoft Office 2004 for the Mac had programmable macros with an extensive, easily used description for each available function.  Microsoft decided to take macros out in Office 2008.  They said users should write AppleScripts instead.  I'll just say that AppleScript is a byzantine programming language.  Microsoft decided to put macros back in Office 2011, but many old macros don't work or only work erratically.  And the descriptions of the functions are often incomplete.

I'm sure many readers have their own tales of frustration about how software, computers, cars, and customer service departments work.  So many of what we depend on may be produced efficiently, but do we get effective results using them?