Don’t believe everything you see

This evening we watched a Hercule Perot DVD, “The Big Four”.  It is about illusion and countering illusion.

After we watched the video, I checked my email.  One messages was from The Atlantic giving a link to “Stop Trusting Viral Video” by Ian Bogost (https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/01/viral-clash-students-and-native-americans-explained/580906/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20190121&silverid-ref=NTExMzk2MjAyNDU4S0).

It is about the supposed clash between a Catholic high school student mocking a Native American elder beating a drum.  Even after reading the story, I am uncertain about the details, but they are not as simple as many news stories have asserted.

I’ll let you be your own judge of what really happened.

Donald Trump is no Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt used the phrase “bully pulpit.  He meant that the Presidency gave him a good venue to promote his agenda, an agenda that he believed would make the country better.

With Trump, he is the bully in the pulpit lashing out at anybody who contradicts him in any way.  Trump believes his bullying will “Make America Great Again”, but he is only dragging it down, making the world and America grate again.

See “CNN stars Blitzer, Cooper, Amanpour and others fire back at Trump in a day of rage.”

Trump, Taxes, and military adventures

Mr. Trump has proudly acknowledged that he fights to pay as little tax as possible so that the federal government cannot waste his money.
- https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/07/us/politics/democrats-see-opening-in-tax-overhaul-fight-trumps-own-deductions.html

So now he is busy wasting our money with military attacks that didn't do much lasting damage, with increased military spending in a military budget that dwarfs quite a few of the next largest military budgets combined.

Does "Make America Great Again" mean being able to engage in whatever military fiasco Trump wants?  Ah, but he doesn't read history: Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Syria.

And he forgets the American Revolution: a ragtag bunch of locals beat a seasoned army of a superpower of the day.  Ah, they did get some help from an enemy of the superpower, but that superpower was acting under the direction of the American generals.  The American generals were not acting under the direction of the superpower.