Responding to Brussels

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President Obama was in Cuba when suicide bombers killed over 30 people in Brussels, with over 200 injured. The schedule called for the President to attend a ballgame with Raul Castro, and so that’s what he did. So, of course, he was criticized for the bad optics, the President doing the wave in the ballpark while all the news networks were obsessed with terrorism. An Arizona Congressman called it “disgusting” and Ted Cruz opined that the President should have cut the Cuba trip (which he hated anyway, this President going to Cuba) short, and fly to Brussels. Or the White House. Or something.

Guess what? They’re wrong. The President did exactly what he should have done. Except maybe dab a little more mustard on his hot dog, if ballparks in Havana sell hot dogs.

The point of terrorism is to terrorize. Terrorism is a tactic intended to disrupt; it’s what the anarchists used to call ‘propaganda of the deed.’ In Brussels, suicide bombers hit the city’s transportation grid, killed innocent people. That’s horrifying, and it’s meant to be. We’re supposed to feel shocked, angry, appalled, disgusted. And we’re supposed to want revenge. The intent is for the us, the west, the civilized western world, to overreact. Terrorists want us to go after the bad guys. Because they’re trying to disrupt mainstream western society, suspend civil liberties, expose ourselves as the hypocrites they’re convinced we are.

Which is why Ted Cruz’s response to the attacks was so unhinged. He suggested that the United States “empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized.” He also reiterated his intention, if elected, to carpet bomb ISIS territory. That’s a war crime. So is torture, which Donald Trump has recently embraced.

It seems to me that an effective response to terrorist attacks is simple enough. Internationally, ISIS has a disciplined army, occupying territory in eastern Iraq and northern Syria, possibly spreading to Libya. They’re a threat to western interests in the region. Our current efforts are reasonably effective–the territory they control is greatly diminished–and should be continued.

But in Europe, terrorism is essentially a law enforcement issue, and should be treated as such.

Joshua Hersh, writing in The New Republic recently (I’m having a hard time linking to the article, sorry), described the neighborhood of Molenbeek in Belgium, where he spent several months embedded as a journalist. He points to neighborhoods of petty crooks, drug dealers, high unemployment, seedy bars, few opportunities where the terrorists who attacked recently in Brussels came from. Here’s his suggestion:

. . . the answer to the scourge of homegrown terrorism in Europe is not to be found in more abstract notions of defeating radical jihadist ideology, or in militarized responses. It is to be found in the basic tools of routine police work: learning the ins and outs of a tightly knit neighborhood where dozens of people could lend support to a plot, and only a few of whom would know, or care, that it was terrorism.

Or, as a friend of mine on Facebook put it:

Dear Senator Cruz:
I live in a neighborhood populated by Muslim Immigrants. Please do send people to police this area. The kids need more spectators for their football (soccer) games, and someone to teach them the fundamentals of baseball; they suck at it, but they do try. It’s sad, but it’s sweet to watch.
While you’re at it, please send more teachers to the local elementary so the kids aren’t crammed into their class rooms. And maybe that cop could stand at the school bus stop for the older kids so the parents won’t be late to work because they feel they have to protect them. A translator would be welcome as well.
While you’re at it, please strongly encourage their landlords to actually fulfill their contractual obligations and fix the plumbing, electric, structural, and other deficiencies of their apartments.
I think these small things would help their lives be better “like the old days” and to help keep “terrorists” from growing here.
We try in our own way by giving money to charity, but I think they need more help. Perhaps you could.

What we can’t do is overreact. As the Onion helpfully put it:

Growing increasingly tired and frustrated as they pored through tens of hours of footage packed with usable material, members of the militant group ISIS informed reporters Friday that they’ve been struggling to narrow down which GOP debate sound bites to use in their new recruitment video. “We’ve spent days cutting down our video to feature only the most inflammatory anti-Muslim statements that will attract new soldiers of jihad, but it’s still over 40 minutes—no one’s gonna sit through something that long.”

In other words, when we, not just the US, but the broader ‘we’ including the other nations of the west, when we give in to Islamaphobia and the atavistic desire for revenge and retribution, when we talk irresponsibly about blowing things up, we play ISIS’ game by their rules. We give in to terror, precisely what terrorists are trying to get us to do. Relax, watch a ballgame, have some cracker jack. Mourn, sure. Feel; absolutely. Otherwise: Namaste.

 

Utah caucuses

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I didn’t vote yesterday. I wanted to. I went to the polling place with the intention of voting. It just proved impossible. The lines were too long, parking nonexistent, access inaccessible. For a Democratic primary, in Utah County, in Utah. In Provo.

I always vote. I can’t think of an election in my lifetime when I haven’t voted. School board bond issue votes, I’m there. Every municipal election, every county caucus. And in past years, I’ve attended the Democratic caucus meetings in Utah County. They were usually held in an upstairs room in the Utah County Library. Maybe a hundred people would attend. Usually, I would be elected a precinct captain, because I was the only person from my precinct to attend. I was a completely worthless precinct captain. I never had the faintest idea what I was supposed to do, and nobody ever contacted me, at all, ever. Back in the day, that was the Utah County Democratic party. Moribund. (Consulting a thesaurus) declining. At death’s door.

Last night, we were told the caucus began at 6:00, at Dixon Middle School. Driving there, my wife wondered what was going on; where all the traffic was heading. There was zero parking, not for blocks and blocks. We finally got close enough to Dixon to see the line, and it stretched forever. Even if I’d brought my wheelchair, it would have been impossible; the door people were going in was handicapped inaccessible. I am physically able to walk a block or so, stand for ten minutes or thereabouts. There was no way. I later heard that people waited in line for hours, that polling places ran out of ballots, that the party was completely unprepared.

It’s really quite astonishing, to see the way people are responding to this race. This morning, I went grocery shopping, and got to chatting with the check-out clerk; asked if he’d been able to vote. He said he’d tried, but he had a test in one of his classes this morning, and just didn’t think he could spare the hours in line. The bagger said she’d voted with her boyfriend: took three hours. The woman behind me chimed in: “you thought the Democratic caucus was nuts, you should have been there for the Republican one. I waited four hours!” A woman in another line weighed in: “We were visiting my sister, in Sandy. She was going to vote, and then we were going to a movie. Hah!” And then we all laughed. The whole thing was nuts.

Whenever I talk to anyone about this election, that one word keeps coming up: nuts. This election is nuts. Certainly, it’s unlike anything I’ve seen in my lifetime. Our choices last night were, from right to left: Ted Cruz, an ideological extremist who wears, as a badge of honor, the fact that he’s genuinely and widely loathed. Donald Trump, a reality TV star, who extols, in his rallies, violence towards protesters, and whose views are xenophobic to an extreme. Essentially, they represent the ghosts of conservative ideologies past: Cruz, the John Birch society, and Trump, the Know-Nothings. Moving leftwards, there’s Hillary Clinton, the velcro candidate. If Reagan was teflon (nothing stuck to him), every hint of scandal gets attached to her, like burrs. Finally, Bernie Sanders, a 74-year old democratic socialist. Oh, yes, there’s also John Kasich, who gets an unearned reputation for moderation by just sounding, very occasionally, like an actual human being.

Those are our choices. Nuts. That’s what the Republican field looks like, winnowed down from the seventeen varsity letterman of their very deep bench. Remember when the putative favorites were Scott Walker and Jeb(!) Bush? And when the Trump joke was how he’d hired actors for his announcement speech, so there’d be someone, cheering, in the room? How long ago that all seems.

Watching the folks queuing up to vote last night, I was astonished to see how many of them were young. Bernie supporters, I think; he did win last night, in Utah. That’s been the pattern so far in this election. Bernie sweeps up the young folks, while Hillary does well with minority voters. Utah has lots of the former, very few of the latter, so of course Bernie did well. And it’s really awesome.

Had it been possible for me to vote, I would have voted for Hillary. But if Bernie Sanders is the nominee, I will cheerfully campaign for him, send him donations, make phone calls, vote for him. What scares me about the Bernie phenomenon is not that his followers won’t vote for Secretary Clinton, if she’s the nominee. It’s that the enthusiasm and excitement Sanders generates seems, so far, to be Bernie-centric. There’s so much work that needs to be done. This shouldn’t be about a single candidate. I mean, sure, Presidential election years mean a lot of work, and a lot of passion and excitement and fear. And then the election’s over, and guess what? There’s even more work waiting afterwards.

Republicans have figured this out. Conservatives have. Right now, the headlines are about disarray and confusion on the right–Trump’s upset a lot of apple carts. But I take my hat off to the conservative movement. They’ve done a much better job than progressives have at organizing at the grass roots level. There’s a reason Republicans do so well in local elections, in races for state legislators and city council members and county commissioners. Conservatives know what they want to achieve, and are willing to wait, with infinite patience, to organize and persuade and inform and build coalitions. We, on the left, can’t come close to matching it. President Obama did build a tremendous infrastructure for winning national elections. Then come the off-years and we lose more ground.

Just one example, of many, is ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. Last year, the US Congress passed 120 bills. State legislatures passed 29,000. ALEC writes templates for legislation, models for what a bill might look like, an immensely helpful shortcut for state congresspeople. They’re all conservative, of course. And of course progressives are fond of attacking ALEC, as nefarious and malign, as evil incarnate. As my son is fond of asking, though, is this: why isn’t there a progressive ALEC? ALEC’s not doing anything illegal, or unconstitutional. They’re just really effective.

So, if you’re a Bernie-phile, and you want to change society in positive ways, then get involved. Run for office. Work within the system. This isn’t, and shouldn’t be, about Bernie vs. Hillary. This is about creating a political system that actually helps poor people effectively.

I sucked as a precinct captain, and that’s on me. But to that long line of people waiting for hours outside Dixon Middle School last night, let me say this. I’m thrilled that you voted. I’m delighted that you’re engaged in the political process. Use that energy and commitment, help make the world a better place to live in. Do a better job than I did, than my generation did. Don’t stop with one vote, in one election. Keep going.

Baseball in Cuba

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I watched a baseball game today; not all of it, a couple of innings. It was between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban national team. For Tampa, it counted as a preseason game, which is to say, it didn’t matter at all. For the Cuban team, it was likewise an exhibition. But in the crowd were two Presidents: Barack Obama and Raul Castro. Big deal game, in other words.

But why? Because this: for the first time since the good ship Maine’s boiler blew and we blamed it on terrorists, the United States is edging, tip-toeing towards a policy towards Cuba that makes a tiny bit of sense. In 2014, President Obama normalized relations with Cuba, and re-opened the US embassy in Havana. The next step would seem to be lifting the US trade embargo, which absolutely cannot happen in 2016, because it’s an election year and Florida is a swing state. And Cuban emigres vote.

There remain serious barriers to overcome, the biggest of which remains Cuba’s human rights record. Human Rights Watch’s 2009 report sadly concluded that Raul had kept Fidel’s repressive security apparatus largely unchanged. Freedom House continues to list Cuba as ‘Not Free,’ the category they reserve for the world’s most repressive societies. And so, at the ballgame today, as Castro urged the US to continue normalization efforts–specifically by lifting the embargo–President Obama kept the pressure on for Castro to end arbitrary arrests of dissidents.

But despite the attacks in Belgium early in the day–a situation the President was, of course, able to monitor throughout his Cuba visit–President Obama stayed for the ballgame. And that’s significant. Because baseball is one thing both countries have in common. In fact, baseball is probably now only the third most popular sport in the United States, after football and basketball. In Cuba, it’s still number one.

There have been 193 Cuban-born players in major league history, including two Hall of Famers. Tony Perez is the one Hall of Famer you’ve probably heard of. Slugging first baseman for the Big Red Machine of the ’70s. Martin Dihigo came earlier, with most of his career taking place in the ’20s and ’30s, making the Hall of Fame as a Negro League player in 1977. But there have dozens of brilliant star-quality Cuban major leaguers over the years, including Luis Tiant, Cookie Rojas, Bert Campaneris, Minnie Minosa, Tony Oliva and Mike Cuellar. And of course, some of the brightest stars of the game today are Cuban, including Yasiel Puig, Jose Abreu, Jose Fernandez, and Yoenis Cespedes.

Fidel Castro was an amateur baseball player, scouted, according to legend, by the old Washington Senators. He was a pitcher, had played some college ball in Cuba, but simply didn’t have the stuff to stick professionally. Still, he loved the sport, and the Cuban national team has been an international powerhouse.

But the stories of escaping ballplayers and their threatened families remain. Yasiel Puig is exactly the kind of young superstar that Cuba was always particularly anxious to keep home. He risked his life to escape, though, in a story so spectacular as to seem improbable. ESPN covered it, but I can’t link for some reason. But it left Puig in debt, to the tune of millions of dollars, to some very sketchy customers.

And of course, the whole situation stinks. A young Cuban ballplayer should have the right to play baseball where ever his talent leads him. When the Olympics or the World Baseball Classic rolls around, why not let him go back and play for the national team, just as Dirk Nowitzski does for the German national team in basketball.

And it will happen. Raul Castro is 84 years old, Fidel’s 89. The brothers won’t be in power for much longer.

No, the real question is whether raising the trade embargo even without significant human rights advances by the regime will help, or hurt. Personally, I think it’s likely to help, and think we should proceed as quickly as possible. But I understand the feelings of Cuban-Americans who disagree.

Meanwhile, the crowd in Havana watched a ballgame. The Rays won 4-1. Dayron Varona, from Cuba, led off for the Rays, and hit the first pitch he saw for a routine popout. And then the ball was retrieved, and will be sent to the Hall of Fame. James Loney, from Houston, hit a big home run. Mike Moore was the winning pitcher. And President Obama and Raul Castro did the wave. Normal ballgame stuff, at a meaningless exhibition game. A game that also couldn’t have been more important.

The High Mountains of Portugal: Book Review

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I know I’m not alone when I say that Yann Martel’s Life of Pi was one of my favorite novels of the last twenty years. A boy on a lifeboat with a tiger; what a spectacular premise for great fiction. But it wasn’t just a white-knuckle adventure yarn. It was also a thoughtful meditation on world religion, an exercise in unreliable narratives and narrators, a mystery and a puzzle. And then Ang Lee turned it into a movie as rich as the novel itself. It’s also the last novel I read aloud to my children, before they, inevitably, grew, left, scattered.

So to say that I eagerly anticipated reading Martel’s latest novel, The High Mountains of Portugal would be an understatement. I read it with great interest and enjoyment, though it’s certainly a slighter work. When I say that it is one of the stranger novels I’ve read in my life, I don’t mean that as a criticism or dismissal. I just want to describe accurately my experience with what I found to be a very weird book. Let me add, as well, that I couldn’t put it down, and have been thinking about it for days.

It’s essentially three connected novellas, entitled Homeless, Homeward, and Home. They’re narratively and thematically connected; they’re also all three about exploring possible spiritual relationships between humans and chimpanzees. Chimps are not monkeys, but apes, and are the closest mammals genetically to human beings. As such, they’re our closest evolutionary cousins. Hominids may have split from our ape relatives as recently at six million years ago. At least one question this novel poses, therefore, has to do with the religious connections between men and apes, especially as it might emerge in a theologically Christian context.

The first novella, titled Homeless, begins in Lisbon, with a young man named Tomas, in 1904. Tomas works as a researcher, and makes very little money at it, but he is from a prominent family. His Uncle Martim, who loves him dearly and who he loves in return is the only member of his family still living. Tomas’ father, his girlfriend, Dora, and their son, Gaspar, all died in quick succession a year earlier. Since that time, crushed, destroyed by grief, he has been unable to walk forwards. He only is able to walk backwards.

He has become obsessed by a diary found in his research, by a priest from the previous century. Ulisses, this priest, created some object of singular religious devotion, he thinks, probably a crucifix. He is desperate to find it. He has decided that this religious object must have ended up in the church of a small village in the high mountains of Portugal. He has gotten a short leave of absence from work, and has persuaded his uncle to lend him a car, which he intends to drive on his quest. Most of the novella, then, has to do with Tomas’ journey, in a car he is barely able to drive, to find a crucifix made by Father Ulisses. That journey, both comical and horrifying, is at the heart of the novella. I must apologize now for this spoiler, but it’s necessary: when he finds the crucifix, it is not of Christ, but of a crucified chimpanzee. I’ll let it go at that.

In the second novella, Homeward, Dr. Eusebio Lozora works as a pathologist in the basement of a hospital, on the last day of the year 1938. He’s catching up on work; writing up some autopsies. On that night, he is visited by two women. The first is his beloved wife, Maria, a relentless unorthodox theologian, much feared by the local priest. She has come to a realization about Jesus’ miracles, and can’t stop herself from stopping by his office and telling him about it. And it genuinely is an extraordinary new reading of the gospels. Heavily informed by the works of her other favorite author, Agatha Christie.

Who murdered Jesus of Nazareth? We all did.

It is not the guilt of the Jews that goes down through history, it is the guilt of us all. But how quick we are to forget that. We don’t like guilt, do we? We prefer to hide it, to forget it, to twist it and present it in a better light, to pass it on to others. And so, because of our aversion to guilt, we strain to remember who killed the victim in the gospels, as we strain to remember who killed the victim in an Agatha Christie mystery novel.

It’s very long, Maria’s exegesis, and takes up at least half of the novella. And then, she brings him a present; the newest Agatha Christie novel. And he is overcome with gratitude and love.

And then she leaves, and he is alone with his thoughts and his new novel. And then his second visitor knocks on his door, another woman named Maria, a good deal older than his wife, from the same village visited by Tomas in the first novella. And she has brought a body with her, and wants him to autopsy it. Her dearly beloved husband. And the autopsy becomes increasingly surreal and strange. And inside that body, curled up inside it, (and again, I apologize for the spoiler), he finds the deceased body of a chimpanzee.

In the third novella, Home, a Canadian politician, Peter Tovy, in the early 1980s, is incapacitated with grief when his wife dies. Barely able to function, he accepts a position on a junket to Oklahoma, where he visits an animal refuge. He becomes obsessed with a preternaturally self-possessed chimpanzee. On a whim, he buys it. He then turns his life upside down; quitting his job, selling his Canadian home (too cold for a chimp, he thinks), and moving to his ancestral home, a small village in the high mountains of Portugal. And in a very real sense, the chimpanzee becomes more than his companion, certainly a good deal more than a house pet. The chimpanzee becomes his guru. And when his grown son comes to visit, Odo, the ape, becomes beloved by them both.

I won’t give away the ending of the third novella, except to say that, narratively and thematically, it ends up, in an odd sort of way, tying all three stories together. Also, as strange as they are, these three stories have kept me up three nights in a row. So I blog, not so much to review this book, but to discharge it. It is, in any event, an extraordinary accomplishment.

 

The freeloader myth

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One of the great mysteries of contemporary politics has been how ubiquitous and enduring the conservative narrative remains that Barack Obama is a uniquely sinister figure, a Muslim socialist terrorist-coddling America-destroying catastrophe. Often expressed in anguished cries of ‘our country can’t survive four more years of this,’ it’s frankly comical. Which explains the omnipresent “Thanks, Obama” joke.

President Obama was elected in the middle of a financial crisis of historic dimensions, which he had nothing to do with creating. His Presidency has coped with the crisis aftermath with resolution and intelligence. The economy is recovering, growing, creating jobs. By any estimation, he’s done a good job. He’s been an excellent President.

At the same time, prosperity has not blessed everyone, and for a lot of people, the last seven years have been terribly difficult. Hence the phenomenon of Donald Trump. People are angry, and that what they’re angry at can be summed up as ‘whoever’s in charge.’ Presidents make for easy targets, and voter anger is growing. And those who are feeling it, and those who respond by embracing Trump, tend to be white, rural, working class and poor.

The National Review’s Kevin Williamson took a stab at explaining why. Which, of course, since it’s TNR means an explanation compatible with movement conservatism. Guess what? It’s their fault:

It perpetuates a lie: that the white working class that finds itself attracted to Trump has been victimized by outside forces. It hasn’t. Nobody did this to them. They failed themselves. If you spend time in hardscrabble, white upstate New York, or eastern Kentucky, or my own native West Texas, and you take an honest look at the welfare dependency, the drug and alcohol addiction, the family anarchy, you will come to an awful realization. Nothing happened to them. There wasn’t some awful disaster. There wasn’t a war or a famine or a plague or a foreign occupation. Even the economic changes of the past few decades do very little to explain the dysfunction and negligence — and the incomprehensible malice — of poor white America. The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die. Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible. The white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles. Donald Trump’s speeches make them feel good. So does OxyContin. What they need isn’t analgesics, literal or political. They need real opportunity, which means that they need real change, which means that they need U-Haul.

On top of all that, they’re dying. The death rate among white is rising. Suicide, alcoholism and opioid abuse mean that the US is unique among all industrial nations in having a sizeable sector of the population with a rising death rate. And counties with high death rates among whites also tend to swing Trump’s way electorally.

Which means that Trump’s candidacy isn’t about the supposed power of reality-show celebrity, it isn’t about the cretinous stupidity and foolish cupidity of uneducated folks, and it probably isn’t much about xenophobia and racism. It’s built on a foundation of desperation and fear and panic and hopelessness. I’m not saying that Donald Trump has any solutions to any of this. He doesn’t. But when he says he’s going to make America great again, that’s enormously appealing to people who might otherwise give up. And when conservative talk radio talks about the Obama apocalypse, it resonates. In their towns, communities, homes, life can seem pretty daggone post-apocalyptic.

But, I have to say this: National Review is wrong. The analysis in this odious article is wrong about absolutely everything, except for one sentence. What the rural poor need is precisely what the urban poor need: opportunity. Everything Williamson describes–the breakdown of families, the drug and alcohol addictions–are symptoms, not causes. In fact, Williamson’s entire article is an exercise in arrogance and false judgment; blaming the poor for their misery. The Book of Mormon offers this riposte:

Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just. But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent; and except he repenteth of that which he hath done he perisheth forever, and hath no interest in the kingdom of God.For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have, for both food and raiment, and for gold, and for silver, and for all the riches which we have of every kind? Mosiah 4: 17-19

Start there. Start by refuting the way modern conservatism preaches a gospel of selfishness, the false Ayn Randian world-view of heroic achievers and worthless moochers, the 47% canard. Poor people, white or black, are not freeloaders. As Paul Krugman points out: “the argument that the social safety net causes social decay by coddling slackers runs up against the hard truth that every other advanced country has a more generous social safety net than we do, yet the rise in mortality among middle-aged whites in America is unique: Everywhere else, it is continuing its historic decline.”

What’s the answer? First and foremost, we need to recognize the sad truth that income inequality leads inexorably to opportunity inequality. The codified selfishness embodied by anti-tax fanatics like Grover Norquist, the faux compassion of Paul Ryan’s condescending description of a social safety net that becomes “a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency,” any and all explanations for poverty that blame it on the poor have to be immediately and emphatically rejected.

What’s needed are jobs, and to qualify for those jobs, education. Improved public schools, in which teachers are respected (and compensated like the dedicated professionals they are), and creativity and imagination are fostered and encouraged and rewarded, in which every child has a computer and internet access, let’s start there, in our inner cities and in our outer small rural areas. And yes, absolutely, provide social safety nets: food stamps and housing help and health care and child care for working moms.

It will mean, politically, raising taxes. It means telling the truth about trickle-down economics–which is that it doesn’t. Nothing trickles down, except misery and despair. It means abandoning, forever, the myth of welfare dependency. It means investment. It means giving people a hand up when they need it, a chance to better themselves. It means that those who rail against taxing those who have prospered in this economy need to be called out as the cowardly traitors they are.

Do you think corporate taxes could, or should be lower? (In fact, I do). All right, Mr. CEO. Here’s a list of five struggling communities. You want a tax break? Build factories in any two of them.

Donald Trump’s actual proposals, on his website, won’t help. He’s all bluster, with no real ideas. But we could enlist him. I think it’s possible he may actually care. In any event, the success of his candidacy is remarkable, and, if it leads to genuine change, could be a positive thing. But he shouldn’t be President. What we need are people in office committed to actually helping poor people. That’s the bottom line.

Let’s just recognize that the poor are still among us. And they’re dying. And their poverty is, absolutely and inequivocally, Not Their Fault.

10 Cloverfield Lane: Movie Review

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10 Cloverfield Lane is generally listed as a horror movie, and described as a sequel to Matt Reeves 2008 found-footage fright-fest Cloverfield. In fact, it’s neither. It’s not really a horror film, and it’s not remotely a sequel. Cloverfield had an urban setting, a young cast of terrified-out-of-their-minds millennials, and used the found-footage gimmick to build scares and thrills. This new film is something else entirely. It’s a powerfully suspenseful psychological drama, with a sci-fi twist at the end. Imagine Room set in the world of Independence Day, and you’ve just about got it.

Which leaves us with a powerfully engaging film with an essential weirdness that you don’t really notice until you leave the theater. It’s awfully well-acted though. And well enough written, aside from the fact that it doesn’t make a lick of sense.

The movie begins with a woman named Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), packing her stuff in a box, very emotional, leaving an apartment in a city. She finally walks out, leaving behind her room key and an engagement ring. All this is handled quickly, a fast-paced montage, no dialogue. She drives along lonely highways, and her phone keeps buzzing. She answers, and a male voice begs her to give him another chance. She disconnects the call without responding. Just about at the point when I thought ‘she’s paying too much attention to that phone to be able to drive safely,’ a truck smashes into her car, which careens off the highway. Blackout.

When she wakes up, she’s chained to a bed in a featureless concrete room, with an IV in her arm. Enter Howard (John Goodman). He’s not terribly communicative, but does explain that he saved her life, that she was in an accident, that he found her and brought her to his, well, shelter. Which she can never leave. Because something terrible has happened.

Howard is, we learn, a survivalist, and this shelter is his refuge from a disaster that he always anticipated, and which now has come. He’s not sure what the nature of that disaster might have been. He’s the kind of person who always anticipated catastrophe, and is a little jazzed now that one’s taken place. But what exactly is the problem? He doesn’t know, if the air outside is poisoned by chemicals or biological agents or aliens or radioactivity. But he’s sure that the area outside is uninhabitable. He shows Michelle the front door, up some stairs, and she can just barely see his livestock in a pen, two pigs, dead now of some dreadful skin disease. A woman comes to the door, her face ravaged as well, screaming to be allowed in, raw with disease, and then dies just outside.

There’s also a third person down there, a local guy, Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.), who helped Howard build the shelter, and was similarly rescued, though he did sustain what appears to be a major burn on his arm. Emmett’s clearly a few sandwiches shy of a picnic, but he’s the only potential ally Michelle might have. Assuming that Howard’s wrong, and they can actually escape. But who knows?

Because, of course, the central dramatic question in this film is ‘which is more dangerous, the world outside this shelter, or Howard.’ Because Howard is clearly crazy. And potentially lethal. And weird and creepy.

I mean, the shelter’s actually kind of nice. There’s a TV, not hooked up to any cable system or anything, but available for DVD and VHS movies, of which Howard has quite a collection (mostly of the John Hughes variety). There’s even a jukebox. There’s a kitchen, with electric stove, and plenty of victuals. And there’s plumbing, but that belongs more in the weird category.

Each of them has a personal space; Michelle has her featureless concrete room, Howard has a nice bedroom, and Emmett sleeps in the corner of a storage room. But the only bathroom facilities are in Howard’s room, and he insists on being present when Michelle uses those facilities. She does get a shower curtain to draw, for privacy. But she knows he’s right there. Which frankly creeps her out, and who can blame her? It is creepy.

So every plot twist has to do with Howard, some new revelation about him and what he stands for and what he intends. And, of course, there are twists and turns, moments when he seems genuine and decent, moments when he seems dangerously nuts. The entire film is a battle of wits, Michelle vs. Howard, with Emmett in the middle. In fact, I kept wondering if it wouldn’t make a better play than film.

You’d need three great actors; this film has them. John Goodman is genuinely one of the legendary American character actors ever, is he not? John Gallagher retains an air of mystery, and just a hint that this character may be brighter than he appears, that he’s hiding behind a clueless rube facade. And Mary Elizabeth Winstead is tremendous. I love the character’s intelligence, her wary vulnerability, the way the character plots and schemes and hides and thinks her way through problems. It’s a fine, nuanced performance. In an action thriller.

Why is Mary Elizabeth Winstead not a bigger star? She’s so good in Mercy Street, on PBS.  She was marvelous in Smashed, and in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Those are great movies, and she shines in them, but she’s also been charismatic and fun in crappy movies; a splendid Mary Todd Lincoln in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. That’s a ridiculous film, of course, but she was honestly the best thing in it.

This is, of course, also kind of a ridiculous film, especially the last ten minutes, when something suggested by the ‘Cloverfield’ of its title happens. But it’s an acting tour-de-force, genuinely suspenseful and nicely directed, by first-timer, Dan Trachtenburg. It was such a pleasure to see a film that didn’t rely on gross-out bloodiness or cheap shocks, that instead just relied on two dangerous human beings, trying to figure each other out.

Zootopia: Movie review

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I wasn’t going to see Zootopia. The trailer I saw featured a colorful world of anthropomorphic bipedal animals, mammals all, walking around on their hind legs in an urban environment, chatting on their cell phones and sharing apps and riding around in trains. It looked cute, a fun kids’ movie, but probably a bit one-joke, maybe a little content-free. And then my son saw it, and called it a ‘must-see’ and my wife and I figured we’d give it a shot.

What I did not expect to see was a thoughtful, intelligent allegory about racism and exclusion and prejudice and politics and how fear can lead to a mob mentality. What I did not expect to see was a movie about bullying and violence and how scarring childhood violence can be, even years afterwards.

What we did not expect to see is a movie in which the main character, one of the most plucky, smart, courageous, undaunted female characters I’ve seen in any movie ever, would nonetheless succumb to culturally inherited racism and do tremendous damage to her own society.

It’s a wonderful movie. What it isn’t is a cute Disney kids’ comedy.

Okay, so, Zootopia is set in an idyllic possibly-even-millennial future, where carnivores have overcome their hunting instincts and embrace herbivore lifestyles, where accommodations are made for mammals of every shape and size–very tall drink stands for giraffes, trains with different sized doors–and predators and prey co-exist happily enough.

Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) is a country bunny, a cute (only ‘cute’ has become racially problematic–rabbits can call each other ‘cute,’ but non-rabbits? Better not.) little rabbit with a winsomely twitching nose, and with the unrealistic dream of becoming a cop. A police officer. Except cops are all predators, or at least very large veggiephiles; chief of police Bogo (Idris Elba) seems to be a cape buffalo. Judy was first in her police academy class, but no one really takes her seriously. But she does land an assignment no one else wants, to find a missing, possibly kidnapped, otter.

To which end, she meets Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman), a fox, a street smart, world-weary hustler and con man. Although he exists on the fringes of the law, he considers himself unprosecutable–but Judy goes the Al Capone route with him, nails him for tax evasion, a charge she promises not to pursue if he helps her find the otter. And so, a cop-buddy comedy ensues, a mismatched pair of underfoxbunnies sorting through clues and solving a crime that turns out to be bigger and more widely spread than they first imagined. And becoming ever more unlikely friends.

As they search, we join them in visits to the various Zootopia ecosystems, from tundra to rain forest to savannah. All beautifully realized. And, along the way, we meet Mr. Big, a mafioso vole (wonderfully voiced by Maurice LeMarche), a sheep-run meth lab (where we hear that they have to hurry, as ‘Walter and Jesse’ are on their way), and in my favorite conceit, a DMV office entirely staffed by three-toed sloths. I should also mention the recurring character of Gazelle, a pop star voiced by Shakira, who also sells an app where you can replace her head on your own, as she sings her one big hit, “Try Everything.” Not to mention a bug-infested hippie yak, voiced by Tommy Chong, a chubby feline desk clerk, Clawhouser (Nate Torrance), and assistant mayor Bellwether (Jenny Slate), a peculiarly obsequious sheep civil servant, with, it turns out, larger political ambitions of her own.

So, yes, it’s a brightly colored Disney confection, lots of fun. But underneath all of that is the ubiquitous issue of race. And in this film, race is, initially, more about difference than about class or oppression or post-colonialism. Animals have evolved. Predators no longer predate; prey are no longer eaten. Animals live in harmony, and cities clearly take measures to accommodate essentially any mammal, tiny or massive or anything in between.

I don’t want to give away the film’s biggest plot point. But our own culture’s falsest notions about race make an ugly appearance in this film, brought into the narrative by the unlikeliest of characters. By Judy, our plucky, brave, bright-eyed bunny heroine. The film actually raises the idea of biological determinism. Some creatures can’t help themselves, posits Judy (falsely, it turns out). Just as contemporary racists insist that certain racialist characteristics are inborn and fundamental, this film raises the possibility that change, ultimately, is impossible.

Nick, the fox, street-wise and damaged, sees right through it. He knows better–he knows that diversity is strength, or can be, or should be. Not because he’s some kind of liberal weenie idealist, but because that’s what the world has taught him. And eventually Judy figures it out too, and the film has an appropriately happy ending. Still. This is a Disney animated film, for children. And yet, amazingly, also a film about how damaging racism is to us all. And a film in which every character, at some level, is both victim of racism and perpetrator of it.

It’s fun and funny and smart, and of course, it’s Disney; it’s a great looking film. More than that, though, it has intelligent things to contribute to our society’s continuing conversation about race. I was amazed. You will be too.

Reaping

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I find myself in an odd position, politically, these days. I’m a liberal Democrat, which means my ward/neighborhood tends to regard me, with a bemused chuckle, as our resident amiable eccentric. But Donald Trump’s ascendancy has alarmed the natives–Utah is not Trump territory, and the thought of him becoming the Republican candidate for President is regarded with horror by nearly all my church friends and neighbors. Trumpism has led, both here and nationally, to a certain amount of Republican soul-searching and navel-gazing: with anguished cries of ‘how could things have gone so terribly wrong?’  How indeed.

I’m a big fan of the Deseret News, the more right-wing of the two Salt Lake City newspapers. Its editorial page is such a splendid guide to Utah conservatism. And today, the paper published this letter to the editor:

I believe the Republican party has reaped the result of ignoring their base for too long and this is the reason we are angry. I was blown away after the last two elections, when Paul Ryan, the House Speaker, passed the huge deficit-laden budget two months ago. All we conservatives want is for the federal government to live up to Constitutional Principles, including limited government, balanced budgets, secure borders, lower taxes (particularly corporate type, which are the highest in the world), eliminate our national debt, obey the rule of law and to get the federal government out of the healthcare and welfare business, which is a personal and state responsibility. At this late date, Mitt Romney and other leading Republicans will not be able to reverse the damage that has been done to their base. They deserve what is happening.

All right: the big sin of the loathed ‘Republican establishment’ was to compromise with President Obama in negotiating and passing a budget. Beyond that, I think this letter does a dandy job of listing the policy positions of Tea Party conservatives. Let’s take a look.

‘Constitutional Principles, Limited government.’ These are conservative First Principles, and everything else flows therefrom. Government should stop doing lots of things it’s currently doing; the federal government should get smaller. That’s where we start.

‘Balanced budgets.’ The federal government should live within its means. Got it. It would be snarky of me to point out that the two most conservative Presidents of my lifetime, Reagan and Bush 43, both vastly increased the deficit. Still, I’m generally sympathetic to the argument that Congress should not vote to spend money without specifying where it’s going to come from. Generally, spending=taxes. But that’s Republican heresy.

‘Secure borders.’ We disagree here; I’m pro-immigration and don’t see the distinction between ‘illegal’ or ‘legal’ immigration as particularly significant. If we have people coming across the border looking for work, the obvious solution is to issue more green cards. But, okay, let’s assume that ‘securing borders’ is important. That means hiring more border guards, building stronger barriers, hiring more customs’ officials. It’s an expensive proposition. How specifically should it be paid for?

‘Lower taxes, eliminate deficits, pay off the national debt.’ Well, if you lower taxes, you lower tax revenues. The government collects less money, and therefore has less money to spend on fences and border guards. We’ll get back to this point later.

‘Obey rule of law.’ Fine. So that means hiring police, building courts and prisons and jails, supporting an entire legal system. I’m not opposed; I do think that’s something else you’re going to have to pay for.

‘Get the federal government out of the health care and welfare business.’ So you want to eliminate Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veterans Administration? Good luck with that. I think you may find getting rid of Medicare a little tricky politically. Older folks like it, and older folks vote.

But that’s only the start. You also want to eliminate the Indian Health Service, the Center for Disease Control, the FDA, the Agency for Healthcare Research, The Agency for Cancer Research and fifty other agencies tasked with supporting research into a whole variety of diseases. OSHA and CHIP? The entire Department of Health and Human Services? Those programs are all really popular. You want to get rid of the CDC? Seriously?

And that’s only the health care part of the equation. This letter also wants to eliminate all federal welfare. For starters, that means getting rid of Social Security. That’ll be a fun political fight; it’s the most popular federal program of all time, basically. Still, you’re committed, as a matter of principle, to eliminating welfare. That means Social Security.

But that’s not all. Getting rid of welfare means getting rid of the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is maybe the most successful anti-poverty program now running. It means getting rid of food stamps, which feed 45 million Americans, including a lot of military families. There are special programs for blind and disabled Americans, a big variety of housing assistance programs, Pell Grants, Head Start, Child Nutrition programs, Job training programs. I’m a big fan of TANF, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which moves families from welfare to jobs. How about WIC? I’m not sure if it fits under welfare or health care, but it’s a program providing healthy food for pregnant women in poverty and their small children. How about LIHEAP? The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. Because for poor families to freeze to death on cold days strikes me as unAmerican.

Now, this letter writer insists that welfare is a private responsibility. And in fact, Americans spend 1.6 trillion dollars of their own money on private social welfare expenditures. We do a lot. It’s not terribly realistic to expect us to do more.

More to the point, if we Americans hard-heartedly cut all welfare spending (including Social Security and Medicare), yes, that would enable us to balance our budgets; sure. Unless we cut taxes by too much. And all of the Republican Presidential candidates, without exception, are running on platforms that include massive tax cuts. The two worst are the two front-runners, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. The trillion dollar tax cuts those two propose would leave us with massive budget deficits even if we eliminated Social Security and Medicare.

But don’t tax cuts stimulate the economy enough to pay for themselves? No. It just doesn’t happen. A small, carefully focused tax cut can have some small stimulative power if the biggest problem in the economy is a lack of investment capital. That’s absolutely not the situation we find ourselves in now.

When Donald Trump talks about how he can balance the budget by eliminating wasteful spending, that’s a sound bite that sounds terrific, and also really familiar, because it’s what Republican office seekers have been saying for years. It also isn’t true. To make government small enough to simultaneously cut taxes AND eliminate the deficit/pay down the debt would require cutting a whole lot of very popular government programs. It’s politically impossible, and rightfully so; caring for the health and welfare of its citizens is a legitimate function of government, and also, entirely constitutional.  But this kind of grumpy-old-man ‘kick all them lazy bums off welfare’ tirade does not add up to sensible or feasible policies.

And that’s the problem. Because the contents of this letter could have been lifted straight from every speech by every Republican seeker of national office over the last forty years. People have been systematically lied to. They’ve been promised impossibilities. And they’ve gotten ticked off when the politicians they elect can’t deliver miracles. Which, of course, they can’t.

Conservative ideology is built on a foundation of falsehood, a foundation that says that ‘government can do all the things we want it to do, but remain small and cheap.’ (To some extent, liberal ideology is similarly dishonest: ‘the government can fix everything, and cheaply too!) And so the electorate is saying ‘you didn’t deliver!’ And, now, has turned to one of two buffoons, Trump and Cruz, who won’t be able to deliver either, but who sound outrageous enough that it’s harder to tell that they’re also lying. Conservatives have sowed; now it’s time to reap. And this preposterous election season is the harvest.

The case for Hillary Clinton

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My task with this post is to try to persuade you to vote for Hillary Clinton for President of the United States. But before I do that, let’s talk about governors.

Right now, the citizens of several states in the US are particularly furious with their governors. In Kansas, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, governors (with the acquiescence of their legislatures), have so mismanaged their states that coffers are empty, schools are closing, basic government services are neglected, and cities are becoming unlivable. All these states have one thing in common; governors who are committed movement conservatives, who insist that tax cuts pay for themselves, that government services should be privatized for increased efficiency, and that regulations should be eliminated, as though these ideas were engraved on stone and handed down from Sinai.

This is the point at which opinion hardens into ideology, where any deviation from a core set of principles is seen as apostasy, where no evidence is ever allowed to inform governance. Those governors–Sam Brownback (Kansas), Bobby Jindal (Louisiana), Scott Walker (Wisconsin), Bruce Rauner (Illinois), Mike Pence (Indiana) and Rick Snyder (Michigan)–have all put conservative theory into practice in their states, and have doubled-down when those ideas didn’t work. Snyder’s the most famous of these, because of the Flint water disaster, but they’re all pretty loathed in their own states. You’ll note that I have not included the governor of my state, Utah, Gary Herbert. He’s a conservative, but I don’t believe him to be a conservative ideologue. He’s displayed a most welcome and helpful flexibility on a number of issues, and I think Utah is, as a result, reasonably well governed.

Governance is hard. And very few problems come with simple, easy solutions. What we should be looking for in a chief executive is someone open-minded to new evidence, willing to listen to views from a variety of sources, someone, above all, willing to compromise. Of course, we want our leaders to ground their ideas in deeply felt moral principles. But I think our best Presidents (or governors), have been those willing to embrace a kind of . . . ideological flexibility. I never mind when a politician changes his/her mind on an issue. I don’t care for the ‘flip-flopper’ label. I think it can be admirable when someone, confronted with better evidence, changes his/her mind. Ideological rigidity, whether displayed by conservatives or liberals, can be dangerous, and I think makes effective governance unlikely. As we have seen in the states listed above.

The two Democratic contenders for President are both, in my view, admirable people, well worth my support. But I enthusiastically will vote for Secretary Clinton. The argument against her, of course, is that she’s unprincipled; that she’s slippery. I don’t think this is fair. She’s certainly a progressive, liberal in approach and temperment. She believes that government can improve the lives of people who are struggling. She wants government to provide a safety net, so that the poorest, unluckiest among us don’t slip through the cracks. But she’s, well, flexible. Pragmatic.

When she ran for the US Senate in New York, my brother lived in Ithaca. He was worried about her, because she hadn’t lived in the state for long; how could she know much about New York issues. Once she was elected, though, he had an opportunity to work with her, and was astonished at how informed she was. She’s smart, disciplined, hard working and effective.

I will confess this: one of her flip-flops drives me crazy. She worked for the passage of the Trans Pacific Partnership, a free trade agreement similar, in some respects, to NAFTA. Right now, though, the American electorate is pretty protectionist, especially in Rust Belt states like Michigan. So she announced that she had rethought her support of the TPP. She’s the only candidate running who has demonstrated a commitment to free trade, and I suspect that that will continue. Frankly, I discount her change of heart; I think she’ll govern as a free trade advocate. In other words, I’m counting on her notorious flexibility on this issue, which is an important one for me. And, frankly, one on which Bernie Sanders is wrong.

Right now, there’s a hilarious series of ads for Direct TV, in which people with cable TV in their homes are presented as sort of 19th century, if not actually Amish. Because, you see, they’re settlers. They settle for cable TV. Well, I think that if she’s elected, Hillary Clinton will be a settler. She’ll be willing to accept partial successes. But I think that’s how progress happens, one small step at a time. For example, Bernie Sanders wants universal health care; an expanded Medicare covering everyone. That would be great. But it’s not likely to happen. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, wants to use the ACA as a starting point, revising that bill, perhaps expand it a bit, work incrementally. The goal is the same for both of them; universal coverage. But I think Hillary is more likely to move the ball forward.

I value pragmatism, flexibility, reason and evidence, leading to effectiveness. Ideology scares me. Does this mean that I actually trust Hillary Clinton? Yes. I believe that she has the mature temperment to be entrusted with the nuclear launch codes, to make life or death decisions with the men and women of our military. I trust her to name smart, decent men and women to the Supreme Court. I trust her to weigh evidence, and to make informed decisions.

I trust her . . . enough. In this crazy election cycle, that’s easily good enough.

Since it looks like it’s going to be Trump and Clinton. . . .

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Super Tuesday has come and gone, we’ve put another Republican debate in our rear view mirror, and Mitt Romney has finally spoken out. It’s becoming increasingly likely that the Republican nominee for President could be Donald Trump.

It’s not certain, of course. The stat wizards at Fivethirtyeight.com suggest that there’s still the possibility of a brokered convention. That’s the result that Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and John Kasich are, by now, basically working for. And it’s not very likely. We are approaching a moment of truth in this campaign, in which voters across American are going to have to choose between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump for President. (I don’t mean to be dismissive of the chances of Bernie Sanders, who I respect immensely. But his path to the nomination is looking increasingly unlikely).

Mitt Romney’s speech yesterday was a masterful, angry put-down of Trump. It was also kind of hypocritical, since, in 2012, he courted and received Trump’s endorsement. We’re supposed to forget that, I think. But the real weakness of Romney’s speech was his unwillingness to offer any real solution. If Romney genuinely feels that Donald Trump is dangerous, that he’s a con man and a phony, that his policies will damage the US economy, and that he lacks the temperment to be President, all of which I agree with, well what does he suggest we do about it? Romney’s solution: vote for Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio, or John Kasich. Who are losing. Who probably can’t win.

Here’s what Mitt Romney did not say (and it’s really unimaginable that he would say it, especially this early), “I will not, under any circumstances whatsoever, vote for Donald Trump for President. If the choice really is between Mr. Trump and Hillary Clinton, I will vote for Secretary Clinton. And I urge my fellow Republicans to join me.”

I am a liberal Democrat, and I have already decided that I support Secretary Clinton for the Presidency. So it takes some chutzpah for me to recommend her to my Republican friends, or to criticize the last Republican President candidate for not publicly supporting her. But if there were a Democratic candidate for President as dangerous as I believe Donald Trump to be, I would consider it my patriotic responsibility to vote for the opposing Republican. I am asking my Republican friends to seriously consider doing something I know you’d really prefer not to do. Vote for Hillary.

Because that may well be the choice. Trump or Clinton. One or the other. And if it comes to that. . . ?

Months ago, I thought Donald Trump was a joke candidate. And I thought his entry into the race wasn’t just entertaining, but also healthy. I thought he was likely to bring a new dynamic into the race, that he might raise issues other candidates avoided, that he might stir things up. He’s certainly done that. But in the meantime, he’s offered policy proposals that would bankrupt our nation. And has demonstrated a temperment that genuinely frightens me.

Trump’s economic plans are completely unrealistic. His tax plan, if enacted, would increase the national debt, as a percentage of GDP, by 39.2%. (That’s close to four times more irresponsible than the George W. Bush tax cuts). That vast majority of those tax cuts would go to the wealthiest fifth of Americans. (It should be pointed out that the tax plans of Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are, more or less, equally irresponsible). He has unapologetically talked about starting a trade war with China, another with Mexico, and a third with Russia. For all his rhetoric about what a successful businessman he is, there is no reason to assume that he knows how to run a national economy. His plans would bankrupt and impoverish our nation.

Trump’s foreign policy is unsound and dangerous. He would, he says, rescind trade agreements everywhere. He proposes to tear up the Iran nuclear agreement, something no President can unilaterally do (it’s an international agreement, negotiated with our closest allies). Worse, he has proposed and defended the commission of war crimes. He would, he said, kill the families of terrorists, and torturing others, all in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions.

He is notoriously thin-skinned and litigious. He has suggested that the FCC fine his detractors, and says that The National Review be driven out of business. He has said that libel laws ‘should be looked at’ for revision. Salon.com, one of the most liberal on-line journals in the country, and The National Review, one of the most conservative, have both published recent articles expressing dismay over Trump’s apparent disregard for the First Amendment.

What’s worse, Trump has routinely given voice to xenophobic nativism and to racist stereotyping. His first speech as a candidate declared that a majority of undocumented Mexicans were rapists, and he has called for a travel ban for Islamic Americans. His rallies are routinely characterized by incidents in which black people in attendance are bullied, physically assaulted, and kicked out by security, including a recent incident in which 30 Valdosta State students attending a Trump rally were forcibly ejected. I do not agree with those who compare Trump to Adolf Hitler. But his views do, in many ways, mirror those of Benito Mussolini.

And yet, here’s the clinching argument against Trump for me. Trump overreacts. He blusters and brags and bullies, yes, but he also is so extraordinarily thin-skinned that he blows up at people. I have seen no sign of the kind of judgement or temperment of a man who should be entrusted with nuclear launch codes.

For all these reasons, I urge every American who reads this to reject the candidacy of Donald Trump. He is, I believe, the first actively dangerous Presidential candidate of my lifetime. Please, do not, under any circumstance, vote for him.

Even if that means voting for Hillary Clinton.