A Proposal I Can Get Behind…

Trump and his people are floating the idea that they might eliminate Daylight Saving Time and keep the country on standard time. That’s a good idea, if you ask me, but someone at ‘The New Republic’ doesn’t like it at all. I just read this sentence from one of their articles: “His promise would make Standard Time, which we are currently in and which people overwhelmingly hate due to the increased darkness, permanent.”

So, how stupid is that? I hate to break it to the writer, but the “increased darkness” she’s experiencing is because it’s late fall and nearly winter. See, the days get shorter and shorter in North America (therefore, ‘darker’) because of Earth’s angle relative to the position of the sun. Then, on one very special day we call the ‘Winter Solstice,’ the days start getting longer again – because the angle of the Earth relative to the sun shifts a bit. It happens that way EVERY SINGLE YEAR and will continue to do so long after humanity has wiped itself off the planet. It has nothing to do with clocks. It turns out, if we don’t change our clocks, the days will get longer anyway.

That’s the kind of ignorance people are up against, these days. Changing the clocks twice a year is just stupid and dangerous. It serves no functional purpose. Oh, and leaving the clocks on Daylight Saving Time year round actually kills people. That’s not a theory. The US tried it once, in 1973. We set up a two year program and left the clocks on Daylight Saving Time. So many people died – kids, mostly – the program was cancelled after the first year.

But that was leaving the clocks permanently on Daylight Saving Time. (It made it too dark for kids to safely walk to school or the bus stop so moms started driving their kids to school. So much for saving energy, which it doesn’t do, anyway.) Trump is proposing to leave the clock on Standard Time – and that’s a proposal I can get behind…

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

One of the things MAGA has long-since been conditioned to gripe about is all the people who work in government who weren’t elected. I don’t mean the day-to-day functionaries, though they bitch about them, too. I’m talking about, for example, the so-called “Czars” (or Tsars or Tzars. We probably should have asked them how to spell it before we eliminated them.)

These are high-ranking, high-profile political appointees put into position by an elected official, but they’re not elected themselves. Right up until this last “election,” MAGA has known, without question, they hate, hate, HATE the czars – specifically because they’re high-powered appointees who were NOT elected by the people.

It’s just a wild, random guess, mind you, but I’m thinking that, suddenly, now that Trump is appointing Czars, MAGA is going to be on board – every one of them. Yay, let’s hear it for high-ranking, high-powered, not-elected appointees!

MAGA is a very easily manipulated, re-directed group…

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

I have to confess, I’m a little irritated that ABC has settled with Trump. Trump sued ABC because George Stephanopoulos said he (Trump) had been found liable for raping E. Jean Carroll. Technically, you see, Trump has only been found liable for sexually assaulting Ms. Carroll. The ruling didn’t include the word ‘rape.’

People didn’t start applying that word until the judge sitting in the case clarified that, yes, forcible penetration with one’s fingers is a form of rape. Nevertheless, ABC is going to pay $15 million dollars to the Trump museum/foundations AND air an apology for “mischaracterizing” the E. Jean Carroll verdict.

ABC didn’t have to pay. They could have relied on the Judge’s words to defend themselves. I suspect ABC settled because Trump is about to seize power and they’re afraid of what he can do to them from the Oval Office. That is to say, they KNOW he’s likely to abuse his power and they don’t want to be on the receiving end of it. Yeah, okay.

I’ll tell you this: the ONE thing we know, now, is that we shouldn’t trust ABC going forward. We KNOW they’ll tailor their “news” reporting to whatever makes the mad king happy – and that makes them an untrustworthy source…

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

Man, you don’t see it very often and there’s a reason. A football player named De’Vondre Campbell was on the Forty Niners NFL team. The team needed him to go in and play. He said, “No.” Apparently, he was irritated that he had been demoted for a better player. When his number came up and he was called to play, his tantrum caused him to refuse – and then leave the field.

If there’s one thing the NFL won’t stand for, it’s a player who refuses to play. It takes a LOT to even get in to the NFL. Most of the players there are grateful for the opportunity. There’s another guy on the Niners, Fred Warner, playing with a fractured ankle, fercrissakes! Campbell won’t play because he feels slighted.

Campbell will be off the team as quickly as they can arrange it. I seriously doubt any other team in the NFL will pick him up. Campbell’s tantrum cost him what’s left of his career but, hey, maybe that’s the point. He has played for nine years and his game has dropped off. Maybe he’s done, anyway, and this was just a high-profile way to leave the league. Whatever he intended, it IS a high-profile way to leave the league. And don’t let the door hit you…