July 8, 2020

What Germany can teach America about confronting history

What Germany can teach America about confronting history

James Rosen
Published 8:45 a.m. ET July 8, 2020 | Updated 10:30 a.m. ET July 8, 2020


(Detroit Free Press) In 1975, a friend and I left college — David at the University of Michigan, me at Kalamazoo College — after our sophomore years and went to Europe. Now it’s called a gap year; then we were labeled dropouts.

We found jobs on a U.S. military intelligence base in Munich — David as a dishwasher, me as a bartender. I would stay in Germany for nine months. David fell in love with a German woman, moved in with her, and lived there for a decade.

David and I grew up in Oak Park when almost all of its 40,000 residents were Jewish. Many of our friends’ parents had emigrated from Europe, and some had survived Nazi concentration camps. The parents of my best friend Harry had met at Auschwitz, a massive complex in southern Poland. They were among the 7,000 skeletal survivors liberated by Allied troops in January 1945.

.....(snip).....

For more than a century after the Civil War, the Confederate flag flew over Southern states that saw most of the country’s 4,743 lynchings between 1882 and 1968, some executed by mobs that included mayors and sheriffs and police chiefs murdering under cover of white hoods.

Only when the last Confederate flag falls can the United States claim that it has come to final terms with an evil part of its past. .............(more)

https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2020/07/08/history-germany-nazis-america-confederacy/5389066002/

July 8, 2020

Ocean Water Is Hurricane 'Fuel' - It's Currently High Octane

(Forbes) Are you paying attention to the heat in Florida right now? According to the National Weather Service - Key West, July 1st marked the 46th daily warm minimum temperature record that was tied with or set during the first half of 2020. The same office also tweeted on July 2nd, “It also marks the 10th consecutive such record — with this morning's low (84°) on track to tie again.” On the same day, University of Miami meteorologist Brian McNoldy tweeted, “And we now have an 11th consecutive day with a 103°+ heat index in #Miami. #heatwave #flwx.” Much of the country will get to experience extreme heat during 4th of July weekend so be careful. The temperature records are certainly jaw-dropping, but another Tweet by McNoldy caught my eye. He pointed out that the water temperature at Virginia Key, Florida on July 2nd was the hottest recorded at that site (92.5 degrees F). When I saw that statistic, my immediate thought was that the Atlantic hurricane season “fuel” is currently high octane.



Let’s review some basic information about hurricane season. One of the most important pre-conditions for tropical cyclone development is that the ocean waters must be at least 26 degrees C (or 79 degrees F). That’s the low octane stuff. You read a few seconds ago that some water temperatures are being measured at above 90 degrees F. The map of current sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic basin show temperatures in the 28 to 30 degrees C (82.4 to 86 degrees F) range with pockets of even hotter water. There is a particularly warm swath of water in the western Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico.

Currently there is no significant tropical activity in the Atlantic basin. Even if there was a storm, the “belches of dust” coming off of the African coast might suppress development. The graphic below is a climatology of where tropical cyclone development typically occurs in July, August, and September. In July, the most favorable locations coincide with where some of the hottest waters are currently located. As the season progresses, the location of origin extends further eastward as the Cape Verde season ramps up. ............(more)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2020/07/03/ocean-water-is-hurricane-fuelits-currently-high-octane/?fbclid=IwAR2LVP8TZ8APErNwKWOphOT2y7LwP-9xw8Yjbq-esGf-m4dbTO5t66PL8ro#bbd94666ea99

July 7, 2020

Donald Trump's behavior was shaped by his 'sociopath' father, niece writes in bombshell book

(Guardian UK) Donald Trump’s extraordinary character and outrageous behaviour “threaten the world’s health, economic security and social fabric” and were shaped by his “high-functioning sociopath” father during childhood, according to a bombshell book written by the president’s niece.

Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man by Mary Trump will be published next Tuesday, 14 July. The Guardian obtained a copy.

As well as an extended consideration of familial dysfunction which she says shaped Donald Trump, Mary Trump alleges multiple instances of shocking behaviour by the president as a younger man, including academic cheating to get into a prestigious business school, and brutal treatment of women.

In the acknowledgments, Mary Trump thanks her aunt, Maryanne Trump Barry, “for all of the enlightening information”. Maryanne Trump Barry, the president’s sister, is a federal judge who retired in 2019, thereby ending an inquiry into fraudulent tax schemes. ...........(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/07/donald-trump-abuse-father-niece-mary-book

July 7, 2020

Trump wanted to 'Kaepernick' Bubba Wallace. Instead he made him too big to fail

(Guardian UK) More than 130,000 Americans have died from coronavirus. Double-digit unemployment plunges the economy ever closer toward depression. All the while the police continue to kill unarmed Black people with impunity, sparking demonstrations across the country. Any one of these legacy-defining crises would consume the average American president. For Donald Trump, somehow, there is an even more pressing agenda item: wrecking the racing career of Nascar’s Bubba Wallace.

The bashing began on Monday with Trump wondering on Twitter whether Wallace – whose status as Nascar’s only top-level Black driver came into sharp relief after a noose was discovered in his team garage a little more than a week after he successfully called on his Southern-fried sport to ban the Confederate flag – had “apologized to all those great Nascar drivers & officials who came to his aid, stood by his side, & were willing to sacrifice everything for him, only to find out that the whole thing was just another HOAX?”

Later White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany defended her boss’s comments by comparing Wallace to the actor Jussie Smollett, a false equivalency that had gathered momentum among self-styled fake news watchdogs after the FBI closed its investigation by declaring the noose had been hanging in the garage stall for at least eight months. Never mind the pictures, or the word “noose” appearing three times in one paragraph of the FBI’s case-closing statement, or the fact that it was Nascar rather than Wallace who reported the noose in the first place.

Trump has never had much bandwidth for context that can’t be measured in ratings. So it figures that he’d also claim in his Bubba-bashing tweet that Nascar’s Noosegate controversy and flag ban was responsible for the sport’s “lowest ratings ever,” even as the data disproves him. ...............(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/jul/07/bubba-wallace-donald-trump-twitter-nascar

July 7, 2020

'It's a deliberate strategy': Trump uses civil war as culture war in bid to beat Biden

'It's a deliberate strategy': Trump uses civil war as culture war in bid to beat Biden
Trump has dug in over statues, protests and the Confederate flag – and experts say it’s all part of a calculated election plan

David Smith in Washington
@smithinamerica
Tue 7 Jul 2020 09.46 EDTLast modified on Tue 7 Jul 2020 10.46 EDT


(Guardian UK) Two miles from the White House is a small gun. The .44-calibre deringer pistol is displayed in a museum beneath Ford’s Theatre in Washington. It was fired by John Wilkes Booth, a white supremacist and sympathiser of the slave-owning Confederacy, when he assassinated Abraham Lincoln five days after the end of the American civil war.

Booth could never have guessed that, a century and a half later, the lost cause would find a new flag-bearer in the White House – nor that it would be in the form of Donald Trump, a New York businessman obsessed with being on the winning side.

As a surge of protests against racial injustice in recent weeks toppled Confederate statues and demanded the renaming of military bases, the US president dug in for the status quo. And on Monday he went further by explicitly criticising Nascar, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, for banning the stars and bars flag of the slave-owning Confederacy.

On one level, it may seem bizarre. On another, it makes perfect sense ahead of November’s election against Joe Biden. The president, who counts Gone with the Wind among his favourite films, is repurposing the civil war as a culture war against an enemy within. .........(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/07/trump-civil-war-culture-war-election-biden

July 7, 2020

'Cause we need a laugh.....Rewind to a year ago....

....when Cheetolini claimed that the Revolutionary Army protected airports from the British in 1775.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/05/trump-revolutionary-war-airport-claim-memes
'Battle of the Baggage Claim': Trump's 1775 airport claim inspires parodies




I'll be glad when he's gone, but I'll miss these moments of comedy gold.

July 6, 2020

London pubs reopened and it was 'absolute madness'

London (CNN) — Drunk people can't properly socially distance, a UK police officer warned after finishing a late shift Saturday -- the first day that pubs reopened in England after the coronavirus shutdown.

"A predictably busy night and confirmed what we knew, alcohol and social distancing is not a good combination," tweeted John Apter, national chairman of the Police Federation, a staff association for police in England and Wales.

Apter, who was on duty in the southern England city of Southampton, said he and colleagues had dealt with "happy drunks, angry drunks, fights" and antisocial behavior. "What was crystal clear is that drunk people can't/won't socially distance," he said.

In a post on Twitter, London's Metropolitan Police urged people to "please be responsible, stay safe and follow social distancing and other guidance that has been put in place" as pubs reopened. ....................(more)

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/england-pubs-reopening-police-gbr-intl/index.html

July 6, 2020

California: 'Go back to China,' Asian-American kids targeted due to virus

'Go back to China,' Asian-American kids targeted due to virus
More than 800 cases of anti-Asian hate incidents have been reported in California.

Link to CNN video report: https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2020/07/06/hate-incidents-asian-americans-california-sidner-vpx.cnn

July 6, 2020

Several men direct racial slurs, Nazi salute at black family at Oregon beach, police say

Lincoln City, Oregon — Seven men were arrested after, police say, they taunted a Black family by yelling racial slurs and using Nazi salutes during a Fourth of July incident in an Oregon beach town. The men also challenged officers to a fight when officers arrived at the scene in Lincoln City and set off fireworks that were banned, police said.


They were arrested on various charges including riot, disorderly conduct, interfering with police and possession of illegal fireworks, reports CBS Portland, Oregon affiliate KOIN-TV.

The men are from Clark County, Washington, police said. They were cited and released. ................(more)

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lincoln-city-oregon-racial-slurs-nazi-salute-black-family-beach/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab6a&linkId=92977050&fbclid=IwAR3estqXluwspxcr5AdQA9aVqcPn-WDJvBFVJVo_u5KIJ-PeHUa7uSTKswU

July 6, 2020

Donald Trump launches baseless attack on Bubba Wallace over noose 'hoax'

(Guardian UK) Donald Trump has launched a baseless attack on Bubba Wallace, Nascar’s only black driver, over an incident in which a noose was found in his team garage last month.

“Has @BubbaWallace apologized to all of those great Nascar drivers & officials who came to his aid, stood by his side, & were willing to sacrifice everything for him, only to find out that the whole thing was just another HOAX?” wrote the president on Monday morning. “That & Flag decision has caused lowest ratings EVER!”

Trump’s tweet echoes conspiracy theories aimed at Wallace. An FBI investigation found that Wallace was not a victim of a hate crime and the noose had been fashioned as a door pull last fall, long before his team had been assigned the garage at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama.

Quite why Wallace should apologise is a mystery: he did not find or report the noose.

Last month, Wallace spoke of his frustration over the reaction to the FBI’s investigation. ...............(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/jul/06/donald-trump-bubba-wallace-noose-tweet-nascar