Time to Think

Life Goes On #309

By Hank Silverberg

I am flabergasted. My first reaction to the election results came right from the lyrics of Paul McCartney

"Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da Life Goes on! Brah

Lala how life goes on"

Anyone who has read this blog before knows I am not a fan of Donald J. Trump. But he won the election and unlike his followers when Biden won four years ago , I am willing to accept the results. So let's move on.

But I need to point out one thing that I find extremely frustrating about the vote.

They are still counting votes in some insolated districts as I write this which is not unsual, so no conspiracy theories please. But as of now in the 2024 election Trump received 74,696,257 votes compared to the 74,223,975 he received in his losing effort in 2020.

In 2024, Harris received 70,967,637 votes. That is much less than Joe Biden's 2020 total of 81.2 millon which explains why she lost.

But that means just over 155.4 million people voted in 2020 compared to the approxinately 145.6 cast in 2024.

Third party candidates got just over 1.3 million votes-a signficant number. RFK Junior who took his name off the ballot, got 677 thousand votes anyway.

That means somewhere around nine million fewer people voted this November 5th than four years ago.

Why?

Were they tuned out because of all the negativity? Were they convinced their candidate would win anyway and just didn't go to the polls or were they displeased with all the candidates?

Those voters are going to be the sorriest people in the country in about 18 months to two years when the impact of a Trump's policies begin to have a big effect.

It's not that I want Trump to fail. I want my country to be free and strong, and morrally correct. It's The United States of America afterall. We were created for that reason. But everything I saw in the first Trump administration, and almost everything he has proposed for the next four years points to more division among our people, more racism in all its forms, more chaos in the way we are governed, and eventual failure.

So, yea, life goes on. But which way that life turns and which way our community goes, is very much up in the air with no flight plan and few places to land.

With that in mind I post these words of wisdom from the folks at the Hebron Methodist Church from Lebanon, Pennsylvania forwarded to me by a friend via Facebook.

(Franciscan Version)

Serenity Prayer

For Our Times

God, grant me the patience to work with the unjust systems I can not change today, to have the courage to strategically enact progress when I know I can, and the wisdom to know that despite structural oppression, I can still make a difference.

Amen to that.

Putin's Pin Up!

Vldamir Putin praised Donald Trump for his victory and called him a "real man" for how he handled the assisnation attempt against him. But Putin did not call Trump personally like many other world leaders did. It's all about the war with Ukraine of course, since Putin considers the U.S. as a party to that war and a participant in Ukraine's ability to fend off the Russian invasion. He did say he was willing to "talk" to western leaders again if they want to.

At the same time , the Russian Media, which

(Offical WH photo)

doesn't stray to far from the party line decided to have a field day with nude pictures of Melania Trump. They are not new. The soft porn shots, done way before Melania was married to Donald when she was a "model", were all over the internet the first time Trump ran for President. But the Russians apparently think embarassing America's former and future First Lady is fun. Frankly it's in bad taste, just like the pictures themselves. The photos would not have appeared on Russian State TV without Putin's approval.

The photo here is Melania's official White House portrait from Trump's first term.

Forest and Wild Fires

Be very careful with fire this week. If you live in Southern California or most of the Northeast, note the "red flag" warnings that have gone up about the dry, hot conditions just ripe for forest fires or wild fires.

In California more than 20,000 acres and dozens of homes have been burned. The Mountain Fire, which started on Wednesday in Ventura County near Los Angeles, jumped highways and neighborhoods with the help of Santa Ana winds forcing more than 10,000 people to evacuate. The National Weather Service says particulates in the air are at unhealty levels and could remain that way for a while, urging people to stay indoors.

The conditions were similar in the northeast. In

(Courtesy, New Jersey Forest Fire Service)

northern New Jersey, in the town of West Milford, near the border with New York State, an intense wildfire has consumed several thousand acres. It's one of 10 fires spread widely across the Garden State. The New York Post reports one teenager was killed by a falling tree while clearing out brush and shrubs that could have become fuel. The New Jersey fires have put an orange haze over New York City and surrounding suberbs on both sides of the Hudson River.

The dry warm conditions are widespread. You should not be burning any outdoor fires and should be careful with cigarrette ashes and butts in communities where a red flag warning has been issued.

https://nypost.com/2024/11/10/us-news/deadly-nj-wildfires-continue-to-rage-leaving-region-blanketed-in-smoke/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/11/09/mountain-fire-ventura-county-california/76155093007/

Dumbest Quote of the Week!

This week's dumb quote comes from someone you may not have heard from before--Fomer Harris Communications Direcetor Jamal Simmons. Speaking on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday he said:

Joe Biden has been amazing but he should fulfill one last promise - to be transitional. Biden should resign and make Kamala Harris the first woman president. It’d turn tables on Trump, keep Kamala from presiding over Jan 6 make it easier for next woman to run.

That might have been a real scenario if Harris had won the election but now it's pretty dumb. It would create a bit of chaos at the White House right at a time when we need calm. It would also take away a chance for Harris to serve two terms at a later time should she run, because these next two months would be considered a "term in office" and thereby prevent her from running for two terms in the future. I know Mr Simmons--the loss is hard to take. But let's be smart here. Spend all your capitol on keeping Trump's wacky ideas from becoming reality.

(Your comments and suggestions are welcome)

My recent book "The Campaign" can be purchased at the links below. Or you can buy a copy by emailing me at: HankSilverberg@gmail.com for instructions on how to get a copy at a reduced price and with my signature)