* This is an archive of my own online blog and notes, with monthly entries.
TRUMP SHUTDOWN: The news in January was dominated by Trump's government shutdown, which ended up being the longest such in US history, lasting over a month. Gradually, the pain being suffered by Federal employees became too obvious to disregard, and the Democratic caucus of the House of Representatives -- resolutely led by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi -- showed not the least sign of budging. Trump's position was: "Give me $5.8 billion USD as a down payment for a border wall, then I'll re-open the government." Pelosi kept on replying: "Re-open the government, and we'll discuss border security."
It was Trump's plan, to the extent he has such things, to blame Democrats for the shutdown, and his admiring fans did so. However, the people who actually voted for the Democrats overwhelmingly blamed it on Trump, and so the Democrats had no reason to care what the Trumpies felt. Indeed, the general feeling was that the Democrats in Congress better not cave in, if they knew what was good for them. There were some people who at least claimed to blame both sides -- but that didn't really harm the Democrats, since it harmed Trump just as much. He could get no leverage out of the equivocation.
Nancy Pelosi then made her contempt for Trump evident by saying that the president would not be allowed to give his annual State of the Union address to Congress until the shutdown ended. Her response seemed to catch him flat-footed; sure, he could deliver the address someplace else -- the venue suggested on Twitter being McDonald's -- but he'd look pathetic, and he knew it. After some pause, he announced he was going to make the address anyway, with Pelosi replying, in effect: "What part of NO did you not understand?"
By 24 January, Trump seemed to be softening, suggesting that he was agreeable to putting off the address until the shutdown ended. In the meantime, bills had been flying through Congress to try to end the shutdown -- with the endpoint being a bill pushed by Democrats that got a fair number of moderate Republican signatories, indicating impatience with Trump in the GOP. The next day, with airports going into partial shutdown because of absences of air traffic controllers, Trump re-opened the government.
The contest went entirely to Pelosi, who came out looking almost Thatcheresque. There was some grumbling about her snub with the State of the Union address, that it was petty-minded politics when Federal employees were suffering. Yes, it was petty-minded, but that was precisely the point. The Trump blitz into the White House took most of the media, politicians, and many others by surprise; they hadn't ever run into anyone so outrageous. Anybody who had spent a long time hanging around on the internet saw nothing surprising about him: he was just a loudmouthed, tiny-minded internet troll. Although it is unlikely Pelosi has spent that much time hanging around on the internet, it appears she's a quick study, and figured out that he needed to be treated roughly to let him know his cheap tricks weren't working.
What to say? It worked. Pelosi is the hero of the moment. It seems likely that Trump will treat her with more respect. He's full of bluster, but not very bold.
The agreement to re-open the government was specified as "temporary" -- but having not found the shutdown to his advantage, it is most unlikely Trump will try it again. Indeed, this may well be the very last government shutdown, legislators now attempting to come up with a formula that makes them impractical, if not impossible. They've never been very practical, so it shouldn't be too difficult to figure out a way to put them down for good. If the effort doesn't fly now, it will in the next administration.
However, Trump has been making noises about declaring a national emergency, which would allow him to take extraordinary measures without congressional support. He's completely welcome to try, since it would go nowhere. In 1952 President Harry Truman, citing the needs of the Korean War, seized control of the steel industry to deal with a strike. The courts replied: NO. Trump's position is far weaker than Truman's. How could Trump claim there was an emergency at America's southern border that demanded a wall? The Republicans controlled both the White House and Congress for two years, and Trump didn't get a wall. Now the Democrats have taken over the House, and suddenly it's an EMERGENCY! And THEIR FAULT!
Like I said, many of the powers-that-be aren't familiar with trolls -- but nonetheless, Trump's claim of a national emergency is unconvincing to anyone with sense. Incidentally, during the month I came up with my own proposal for a wall: build one out of wood and canvas, paint it to look like concrete, put wheels underneath it, then keep rolling it from place to place: "100% coverage, just not 100% of the time!"
Trump will give his delayed State of the Union address to Congress on 5 February. That leads to the interesting question of what happens when, as it is sure to, Trump talks outrageous trash to Congress. Will the Democrats sit quietly and take it? Or respond with boos and laughter? That would entirely out of the question for any other president -- but Trump has never felt compelled to live up to the gravity of his office, claiming he is "new presidential". Very well, if he doesn't feel any need to observe norms, why should his audience? [UPDATE: No, there was no confrontation.]
EU & EURO STANDING TALL: As discussed in an article from BLOOMBERG.com ("The EU and Euro Keep Defying the Doomsayers" by Alan Crawford, 2 January 2019), the European Union may seem under threat, menaces including Britain's imminent departure from the EU; the populist Italian government's attacks on Brussels; the spread of nationalism in the bloc's east; the eventual exit from power of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, one of the pillars of the union; and the loud protests against French President Emmanuel Macron, an enthusiastic EU booster.
The EU, however, is not faced with imminent collapse. Ten years ago, a debt crisis brought Greece to its knees, with Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Cyprus following Greece in asking for international aid. The crisis led to tension between the wealthier, mostly northern donor nations, and poorer bailout recipients on the periphery. It seemed like the euro, the EU common currency, was doomed.
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi took a stand with his pledge to do "whatever it takes" to preserve the single currency. Angela Merkel backed him up, proclaiming: "If the euro fails, Europe fails." The crisis galvanized the EU, with measures taken such as implementation of the 500 billion euro ($568 billion USD) European Stability Mechanism bailout fund, along with efforts to improve surveillance of euro member budgets to spot and deal with problems before they went out of control. Now the euro is more popular than ever: Bulgaria and Croatia are moving to adopt the single currency, bringing the number of EU participant nations to 21.
Europeans have not, by and large, forgotten their long history of fratricidal conflict, and recognize the era of continental peace brought by union; Merkel and Macron have persistently reminded them of it. However, there are also practical economic reasons why even the EU's surliest members are unwilling to push nationalist policies to the point of bailing out of the EU.
Poland, for example -- where the nationalist government clashed with Brussels over judicial reform that EU officials said contravened the bloc's democratic norms -- is the biggest net recipient of EU funds, having received 27 billion euros for transportation and environmental projects alone in the current budget period of 2014 to 2020. That's equal to about 6% of Poland's annual gross domestic product. Money talks: Poland backed down on the "reforms" at the last minute.
Similarly, the possibility of an "Italexit" has faded as the unlikely coalition of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and the anti-immigration League has pulled back from its dubious fiscal policy. There are still worries: Italy is too big to rescue with the tools devised in the wake of the debt crisis. Nonetheless, Italy is showing no real signs of bolting from the EU -- the League having its base in richer northern Italy, with members in the business community who dread the idea of leaving the union. In addition, a poll in November 2018 showed 57% of Italian voters thought the euro was a good thing, up 12% from the previous year.
The gilets jaunes protests against Macron have certainly put his leadership under strain -- but the movement is spontaneous, composed of elements with different grievances, and suffers from weak leadership. The movement is not, in electoral terms, going anywhere in particular. Macron is wisely making modest concessions and engaging in dialogue, with the crisis likely to gradually dissipate.
In much the same way, although Germany's ruling Christian Democratic Party has been under pressure from the Right that has sapped Merkel's influence, it has not wavered from the center, with her preferred successor, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, holding to the trajectory Merkel has set for Germany. Polls suggest the pressure from the Right is declining. Freed from CDP leadership, Merkel can focus on European unity in her remaining three years in office. Merkel is intelligent and determined; she may have been weakened, but it would be unwise to count her out.
The EU tends to emerge stronger from its crises. When Britain voted for Brexit in 2016, there were fears there would be a rush for the exits -- but the rapid descent of the UK into political chaos made everyone much more willing to stay inside. 62% of EU citizens see their country's EU membership as a positive, the highest figure recorded in 25 years, according to an October 2018 Eurobarometer survey for the European Parliament.
Indeed, it is not at all clear if Britain will actually go through with Brexit, having reached the point of either leaving the EU without a deal -- unilaterally severing most of its connections with the Continent -- or calling it off. Sony Kapoor, managing director of Re-Define, a London-based think tank, comments:
QUOTE:
The European Union has been written off several times before, but has always proved far more resilient than its critics have assumed. It has lived and even thrived through the fall of the Berlin Wall; a huge, ambitious, and ultimately successful integration of former Soviet states; an existential euro crisis; the conflict in Ukraine; the rise of Donald Trump and Trumpism; and now the farce of Brexit. Yes, there are always urgent, critical, problematic, and important problems to confront -- but the EU has proven its resilience beyond all doubt by now.
END_QUOTE
There is no cause for complacency. Europe's economy is slowing, and bloc-wide elections in May could undermine support for the union. The biggest danger lies beyond its boundaries. President Vladimir Putin is emboldened by Russian success in Syria and President Trump's decision to pull out US forces, while Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is preparing to ramp up the fight against Islamic State. That hands Putin and Erdogan control over a potential new wave of refugees directed toward Europe, which would re-energize European nationalists.
Trump is clearly waffling on the Syria withdrawal -- actually increasing US forces in the country for the moment, in principle to cover a withdrawal -- and his noisy trade war game is similarly hard to read. Trump's inconsistency and incoherence don't reassure Europeans, but the pressures are strengthening, not weakening the union. As Benjamin Franklin put it during the American Revolution: they can all hang together, or they can all hang separately.
[UPDATE: The mad dark comedy of Brexit appears to be reaching a crescendo as the country stumbles towards Brexit on 29 March. As discussed below, Parliament has rejected the deal with the EU negotiated by Prime Minister Theresa May, and talk of altering it has been firmly rejected by the EU: "Take it or leave it."
The satirical website THE ONION ran an article with the title: "Fed-Up EU Rejects United Kingdom, Gives British 30 Days To Vacate Europe". The article had a picture of European Council President Donald Tusk, whose normal expression conveys: "I haven't slept well, I have indigestion, and you're saying nothing to make me feel any better."]
THE UK & REFERENDUMS: With the collapse of British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit plan and the looming approach of a "no-deal" Brexit on 29 March, the UK has been thrown into turmoil, and seems to be -- despite outraged protests -- a drift towards a second referendum on Brexit. An essay from ECONOMIST.com ("How Britain Embraced Referendums" by Robert Saunders, 17 January 2019), discussed the past history and idiosyncrasies of referendums in the UK. They've long been controversial:
QUOTE:
In 1945 Clement Attlee denounced it as "alien to all our traditions" and an "instrument of Nazism". Harold Wilson, the prime minister who would hold Britain's first national referendum in 1975, had previously dismissed the idea as "contrary to our traditions" and "not a way in which we can do business", scoffing that a referendum would probably abolish the income tax. His Conservative opponent, Margaret Thatcher, called the referendum "a device of dictators and demagogues" that would be dangerous to minorities and destructive of parliamentary sovereignty.
END_QUOTE
They are not, in practice, so outrageous:
QUOTE:
... the referendum is now an established part of our constitution: for better or worse, a tool that has been used 12 times since 1973 can no longer be described as "alien to all our traditions". From Harold Wilson to David Cameron, prime ministers have repeatedly called in the electorate as a political bomb-disposal unit, tasked with defusing explosive issues on their own backbenches.
END_QUOTE
The real difficulty with referendums has been using them wisely. They effectively entered the British political scene early in the 20th century, when a fragmented Parliament had been rocked by a series of eruptive political questions -- like votes for women, tariff reform, and Home Rule for Ireland. A.V. Dicey, the most prominent constitutionalist of the era, believed that referendums could cut through parliamentary chaos.
Dicey, however, was cautious in saying that a referendum could only endorse or reject proposals that had already been approved in Parliament -- acting as "the People's Veto". He understood that they could otherwise go off the rails:
These difficulties all became obvious with the 2016 Brexit vote:
QUOTE:
It reduced a question of mind-bending complexity to an abstract proposition, onto which voters could project incompatible versions of Brexit. It placed extraordinary power in the hands of two campaign vehicles that were under no responsibility to deliver on their promises; indeed, within days of the vote, the winning side had erased most of its website, like a drugs cartel torching the evidence before the police arrived.
Moreover the 2016 vote has imported a theocratic principle into British politics, in which competing sects stalk the political landscape, warning heretics and unbelievers that "Brexit is our God, and Theresa/Boris/Jeremy is its prophet". The result turbo-charged the most dangerous idea to which a democracy can fall victim: the fallacy that "the will of the people" forms a single, unitary intelligence, issuing instructions to which all must bend the knee. It is a fantasy made possible only by the ruthless suppression of dissenting voices, casting critics as traitors, MPs as "saboteurs", and judges as "enemies of the people".
END_QUOTE
It is increasingly obvious that only a second referendum can break the political logjam, though obviously it has risks:
QUOTE:
Trying to solve the problems of one referendum by launching another might seem the political equivalent of drinking through a hangover. But Parliament is deadlocked and no party has a united position that it could put to a general election. We cannot break that deadlock by repeating the flawed exercise of 2016. But the Diceyan model of a "People's Veto" offers something more hopeful.
END_QUOTE
The 2016 referendum was disastrous because all it specified was that Britain would leave the EU, without a single detail of how that would happen. Dicey understood that the pitfalls of referendums could be avoided if the referendum was a choice between two planned courses of action. What the UK faces now is a very clear choice between calling off Brexit, or taking a no-deal Brexit. It's become clear that nobody wants a "soft Brexit", a negotiated deal with the European Union, both sides finding that prospect an unhappy halfway house -- and the EU throwing cold water on further discussion anyway.
Theresa May rejects a second referendum -- but she has to, since otherwise she would be violating her directive to take Britain out of the EU. It falls to Parliament now, and Parliament is rapidly running out, has run out of, all other options. Brexit is not going well; the vote for Leave was very narrow, and second thoughts have set in. Is there a possibility for a second referendum? That remains to be seen. If not, who knows what will happen?
[UPDATE: It didn't happen. As of 2026, there is again talk of another referendum.]
SOUTH AMERICA BETWEEN LEFT & RIGHT As discussed in an article from BLOOMBERG.com ("South America Votes Right While Leaning Left" by Raymond Colitt, 19 December 2018), at the beginning of January, Jair Bolsonaro was sworn in as Brazil's president -- with the result that 85% of South America's 415 million people are now being governed by Right-leaning, market-friendly leadership.
Given the continent's collective $3.2 trillion USD economy, that could mean billions freed for investment, merger activity, and trade partnerships, particularly with the USA. However, that would imply reversing traditional protectionist policies that rely heavily on government subsidies to support weak industries, coupled with a workforce that's not up to global standards in education and skill.
There lies the contradiction, in that South America hasn't really undergone a Right revolution at any deep level, Right-leaning leaders being faced with Left-leaning citizens. In Colombia, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil, voters and institutions have stubbornly resisted change. None of the conservative leaders elected in the past three years took office with the absolute legislative majority needed to avoid a runoff, or to form a clear governing bloc. Many pursued austerity policies on entering office, only to find their approval ratings sinking, with their efforts to modernize economies, strengthen up public finances, and generate growth bogging down.
Daniel Zovatto -- Latin America director at the Stockholm-headquartered International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance -- comments: "The Right is in power, but it's weak, often unpopular, and faces an unfavorable global scenario." Throughout South America, budgets are strained, while America's turn toward trade wars are discouraging. Zovotto adds: "Investors betting on magic formulas and quick solutions will be very disappointed."
Bolsonaro has promised to get the budget of the continent's biggest economy under control, deal with a looming pension crisis, and sell off state companies. He also wants to stop the runaway crime that plagues the country. He'll need help from lawmakers to do all that -- but Bolsonaro has also reduced the number of cabinet-level posts traditionally doled out to rival parties to keep them happy. They're not happy.
It's roughly the same story elsewhere in South America: Ivan Duque in Colombia, Mauricio Macri in Argentina, and Sebastian Pinera in Chile were elected with ambitious agendas, only to bog down and suffer in public approval polls. The underlying problem is restless, ambivalent voters -- many of which want a developed-world standard of living, but are deeply suspicious of capitalism and free-market doctrines.
Chile pioneered market-friendly policies in Latin America; by 2004, it had become the region's richest nation by per capita income. However, Chileans have become restive, with protests over inequality in education and income forcing the government to reinforce social services. Pinera promised to increase pension pay and improve health care, with pressure on him to do even more.
Such pressures tend to encourage the emergence of populists with magical solutions that don't work. They also make fiscal belt-tightening, always troublesome, even more so. In countries with growing income inequality, chronic poverty, and inadequate public services such as health and education, it's hard to cut fuel subsidies, deregulate labor markets, or reduce pension benefits.
Today's struggling Rightists don't have the padding of a commodities boom that got Leftists such as Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil or Argentina's Nestor Kirchner re-elected more than a decade ago. Mexico's firebrand leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is the exception that proves the rule: even after achieving a landslide victory, he proposed a restrained budget that does little to upend the priorities of his more conservative predecessor. He doesn't have the backing or the money to do much more.
Bolsonaro appointed a group of pro-market University of Chicago-trained technocrats to cabinet and administration positions to pursue opening up the country's notoriously closed economy. Unfortunately for him, having avoided a meaningful discussion of economic issues during the campaign, he doesn't have a clear mandate to downsize Brazil's costly and unwieldy social welfare state. Says Murillo de Aragao, head of Brasilia-based consulting firm Arko Advice: "If he can get done half of what he plans, that would be a success."
[UPDATE: In more specific South American news, following a dubious election that gave the odious Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro a new term, Juan Guaido -- the leader of the opposition, which had boycotted the election -- simply declared himself to be president, and moved to gain control of the government.
The Trump Administration recognized Guaido as the legitimate president of Venezuela, as did a number of Latin American states and other countries. The Russian and Chinese government denounced Guaido. So far, widespread violence has been avoided; but the amount of obvious trolling on Twitter and other social-media systems in favor of Maduro skyrocketed. It is unclear if the trolling is being orchestrated by the Maduro government, or by the Russian government in support of Maduro. One ends up wishing for the quick fall of Maduro -- just so the trolls will shut up and go away.]
[UPDATE: As of late 2025, we got entertaining news of Bolsonaro going to prison for 27 years for trying to overthrow an election he lost. The only flaw in the news was that he didn't have Trump as a cellmate.
US CHRISTIANITY BETWEEN LEFT & RIGHT: As discussed in an article from TIME.com ("Christianity's Future Looks More Like Lady Gaga Than Mike Pence", 24 January 2019) by Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimons -- a gay Christian activist -- one of the background incidents to the shutdown was a media flap when Vice President Mike Pence's wife Karen went to work at a "Christian" private school that bans LGBTQ students and parents. Pop singer Lady Gaga, a demonstrative Christian who supports the LGBTQ community, fired back, saying from the stage in Las Vegas:
QUOTE:
You [Mike Pence] say we should not discriminate against Christianity. You are the worst representation of what it means to be a Christian. I am a Christian woman, and what I do know about Christianity is that we bear no prejudice, and everybody is welcome.
END_QUOTE
A few days later, Fox News anchor Sean Hannity asked White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders about Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her proposal for a "Green New Deal." The White House press secretary responded that climate change should be left up to God: "I don't think that we are going to listen to her [Ocasio-Cortez] on much of anything, particularly anything that we will leave into the hands of a much, much higher authority. And certainly not listen to the freshman congresswoman on when the world may end."
Ocasio-Cortez, who is also demonstrative about her faith, fired back on Twitter -- much like Trump, a favored tool -- with Biblical receipts. The author of the article concluded:
QUOTE [EXCERPTS]:
Since well before I was born in 1989, fundamentalists have defined our public imagination of what it means to be a Christian. They told America they were the only Christians and the only issues of "Christian" morality were attacking LGBTQ people and controlling women's reproductive choices.
First, the LGBTQ rights and climate change debates illustrate US Christianity's diversity. Progressive Christians embrace both causes, while fundamentalist Christians tend to support the discredited practice of gay conversion therapy and distrust climate science. Public opinion research on these two subjects shows how millions of Americans stand on each side of the divide:
Denominational divisions within Christianity have largely given way to a progressive and fundamentalist divide. Mike Pence embodies this development: He self-identifies as an "evangelical Catholic" which obscures his opinion of the Protestant Reformation. But it's clear to everyone: He's a hero to fundamentalists Christians across denominations.
When Pence said: "This criticism of Christian education in America should stop." -- he didn't mean the type of "Christian education" a young queer Christian like myself gets from attending a Lady Gaga concert. He meant a fundamentalist Christian education. And sadly, I thought he was going to get away with equating Christianity with conservatism. But Lady Gaga stood up for our faith and fought back. And the fundamentalists took notice. Prominent fundamentalist flamethrower Franklin Graham took to Facebook to disparage Lady Gaga, and call the Pences "the best kind of Christian."
Christian role models [like Lady Gaga] remind me why I'm a Christian myself. Christians must ask whether our faith compels us to embrace progressive or conservative values.
END_QUOTE
Unlike many religious questions, that one is entirely relevant to non-believers. Being a non-believer myself, I have conflicted feelings about religion, desiring to be tolerant, but finding nothing in the fundamentalist style of intolerance, ignorance, and sanctimony to admire -- with the embrace of the amoral and odious Trump by many evangelicals lending the lie to their rotten act. It is a relief to find that many believers don't like that act, either.
Barack Obama ran on the campaign slogan of: CHANGE -- which got a bit tiresome, though it still was the truth, Obama attempting to lead America into the 21st century. The irony is that Donald Trump, in his clumsy attempts to turn back the clock, has greatly accelerated change. Yes, the new order is not entirely comfortable, but any misgivings about it have to be put aside, at least for the time being, in the face of an intolerable push to restore a dead past. Trump has forced people to take up sides; he has indeed made a revolution, but it is one that will discard him and what he stands for into the trash-heap of history.
DREAMSCAPE IMMERSIVE VR: The startup company Dreamscape Immersive, which develops virtual-reality (VR) environments for entertainment, made a bit of a splash in 2018 with its ALIEN ZOO environment. An article from THEVERGE.com ("Dreamscape Immersive Wants To Bring Location-Based VR To The Masses" by Bryan Bishop, 15 January 2019), took a tour of Dreamscape's new, refined VR facility in a Los Angeles shopping mall:
QUOTE:
Walk into the new Southern California flagship location for location-based VR company Dreamscape Immersive, and the sights and sounds of the bustling shopping center it's located in quickly fade away. A large clock hangs over a wooden concierge desk, while a pair of monitors advertises "departure times" for the location's trio of immersive experiences, using three-letter abbreviations that echo an airport more than a movie theater or arcade.
The transition away from reality continues in the location's waiting lounge, where physical artifacts from the worlds explored in titles like ALIEN ZOO, THE BLU: DEEP RESCUE, and LAVAN'S MAGIC PROJECTOR: THE LOST PEARL await examination. The props set up backstories and plot details well before audiences get anywhere near a headset or backpack computer, and by the time guests are ushered into the gear-up rooms -- designed to echo train cars, decked out in wood and soft overhead lighting -- it's tough to shake the feeling that you're doing more than stepping into a virtual reality experience. This feels like a journey.
END_QUOTE
For each experience, groups of as many as six people are kitted up with backpack computers, headsets, plus hand and foot trackers. They are then led into a room about 5 meters (16 feet) on a side, with a vibrating haptic floor -- the location has five such "pods", though not all are active yet. They then can interact with the virtual environment, with the visitors experiencing smells, mist, or wind. Tickets are $20 USD each, with the experiences lasting about 15 minutes each.
The earlier ALIEN ZOO is just what it says, a visit to an otherworldly zoo; while BLU: DEEP RESCUE lets the visitors ride undersea scooters to rescue a whale; and LAVAN'S MAGIC PROJECTOR is an INDIANA JONES experience, taking place in the ruins of an ancient temple. The "Magic Projector" of the title suggests the visitors have stepped into an old movie, with company officials saying that other old-movie environments are in planning for the series. Simple props support the VR experiences, though the effects aren't perfect: a visitor may try to touch a wall, and find nothing there.
Dreamscape is planning to expand beyond Los Angeles, having established a partnership with the AMC Theaters chain, initially bringing up four new locations. Dreamscape is also looking for partners in Europe and the Middle East. "Coming soon to a theater near you!"
[UPDATE: As of 2020, it seems not. Theaters were clobbered by the COVID-19 pandemic, and too many people, it appears, are afflicted with VR sickness. As with the first bout with VR in the 1990s, VR was a flash in the pan.]
BACK_TO_TOPTRUMP'S SOTU ADDRESS: The news for February effectively started on the 5th of the month, when President Donald Trump gave his State of the Union address to Congress. There was thought he might declare a state of emergency to allow him -- in principle, if not necessarily in practice -- to begin work on his border wall, but the White House said that wasn't going to happen then, and it didn't.
As mentioned here last month, there was also the possibility that the congressional session would be rowdy, but that didn't happen either. However, it wasn't really for lack of provocation, since Trump's speech was nothing all that unfamiliar. Yes, there were moments of graciousness -- though they included calls for an end to partisan divisiveness, which even many Republicans had to think was rich, coming from Trump -- and even a call for a program to get rid of HIV in the USA, which was by all appearances sincere, and regarded as practical. However it gets done, it needs to be done. On the other side of that same coin, he also claimed he was defending access to healthcare for all Americans, when the Trump Administration has been doing all they can to destroy ObamaCare.
Trump produced various justifications of the Trump Administration's policies -- OK, all State of the Union addresses do so, but Trump's claim that he had prevented war with North Korea was preposterous -- and he also came out for an effort to ban late-term abortions -- without understanding, or for that matter caring, that late-term abortions are rare, and effectively never performed except out of medical necessity. He strongly pushed his border wall, continue to overblow the menace of illegal immigration, and also complained about the continued investigations swirling around him.
Like complaining would do him any good? All it did was make him sound guiltier, and in any case, the Democrats in the House of Representatives just ramped up their probes in response. In other words: "OK, you had your address, now back to business as usual."
Continued discussions on border security led up to a bipartisan bill that provided $1.375 billion USD for the job, including substantial stretches of fencing. Trump, under pressure from Right-wing talking heads, signed the bill -- but also declared a state of emergency to allow him to build the border wall through his executive power. Reactions from Congressional Democrats were, as could easily be expected, strongly negative, saying the action was unconstitutional. The Democrats crafted a bill to nullify the declaration, and got it through the House.
In reality, Trump's case for declaring a national emergency was vaporous, the exercise was sure to be challenged in court, and the courts were sure to strike it down. The Democrats knew that, and no doubt privately gloated that Trump done something so foolish -- but they couldn't say that in public. Republican leadership publicly approved, but they knew it was a nonstarter, too. There was no chance of the congressional bill becoming law, since Trump was sure to veto it; it was just establishing a position, and putting pressure on Republicans who are uneasy about supporting Trump. After the declaration, the matter went into a state of effective suspension, as it worked its way through the courts.
MUELLER REPORT NEAR RELEASE: In the meantime, the Justice Department hinted that Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation into Russian meddling into the 2016 election -- and by implication, into Trump's handling of the campaign -- was close to being wrapped up. That led to a great deal of tense speculation in the media. It is not expected, at least by the well-informed, that the report will implicate Donald Trump directly in collusion with the Russians. That might be hard to prove, and so the investigation has focused on things that could stand up better in court.
That's how the FBI does things -- to make a case that will stick, and let the court then take into consideration the wider context of malfeasance. Charges against Trump cronies like Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort included campaign finance violations, money laundering, and tax evasion. Those weren't trivial charges, either; Manafort had the bad judgement to lie to investigators, with Mueller recommending that he get a sentence of at least 19 years.
Cohen has more wisely cooperated, indeed he's been singing like a canary. There was also speculation in the media about why Manafort felt the need to lie when the penalties for doing so were painful -- "What was he so determined to hide?" -- but he may have simply been foolish enough to think he was smarter than the investigators, and could easily trick them. If so, he thought wrong.
Along the same lines Roger Stone, another Trump crony, who was busted and is facing the court, raised a great fuss about the charges against him, denouncing the investigation and the court, and went so far as to release a photo of the judge in the case with crosshairs marked on her. The judge was not amused, and Stone quickly backtracked. The judge decided not to have him locked up, but slapped a gag order on him, or in other words: "Do some silly stunt like that again, you're in jail."
It is recognized that nobody has anything specific on Donald Trump right now, but CNN's Chris Cillizza suggested, on reviewing the legal difficulties of Trump's people, that if all there was on Trump so far was smoke, there was a lot of smoke. Nobody's expecting the Mueller report to exonerate him. Trump is a very, and literally, careless person, and carelessness doesn't work well for the presidency. However, it is an open question as to whether the report will list any putative charges against Trump. The Justice Department cannot indict a sitting president, and that makes producing anything that looks like an indictment tricky.
Congressional Democrats are making it very clear they expect to see the Mueller report in full detail. Even if all they get is a NO COMMENT out of it, however, that still not good news for Trump -- since the issue will hang fire for the rest of his presidency, and generate nothing but trouble for him. Worse, once Trump leaves office, the report will then come to the surface, and be actionable.
What makes that very bad for Trump is that he won't then be able to swing a deal, resigning in exchange for a pardon from President Pence. Trump may well tough it out to the next election, on the assumption he will win -- good luck with that -- and be past statutes of limitations when he leaves the presidency in 2024. Of course, if he loses -- as is a good bet -- then he will be very frantic in his lame-duck period, but he wouldn't be able to cut a deal. Mike Pence would commit political suicide for no real reward to make a deal that could be seen as obstruction of justice, merely to be a lame-duck president.
MICHAEL COHEN TESTIFIES: At the end of the month, on 27 February, Michael Cohen testified to Congress. Cohen started out with: "I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is. He is a racist. He is a conman. He is a cheat."
There was a bit of a groan at that statement, since it was merely underlining what everyone who isn't infatuated with Trump already knew. However, it seems to have been calculated, both to set a tone, and to hook the audience into what he had to say next. Chris Cillizza listed the highlights:
Cohen cut a sympathetic figure, seeming entirely contrite, and not denying his 100% complicity in Trump's actions. The Republicans made much of the fact that he was a demonstrable liar -- but witnesses who bring down Mob bosses are usually not upstanding citizens either, and the authorities know better than to take them at their word. If told where the bodies are buried, the bodies are dug up. Cohen topped the GOP who were attacking him by warning them they would, in the end, regret covering for Trump, just as he did.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION & THE EU: As discussed in an article from BLOOMBERG.com ("US Is at Odds With European Allies, Munich Meeting Shows" by Marc Champion, 17 February 2019), it's apparent that US President Donald Trump doesn't have a high opinion of America's allies, and has a clearly low opinion of NATO. Europeans, as a result, are finding Trump increasingly hard to stomach. At the annual gathering of the trans-Atlantic security community in Munich Sunday, its organizer Wolfgang Ischinger -- a former German ambassador to the USA -- concluded at the end of the event: "We have a real problem."
That was easily observed when Vice President Mike Pence addressed the meeting, proclaiming that he brought greetings from a "great champion of freedom and of a strong national defense ... President Donald Trump." Pence paused for a few seconds, expecting applause. There was none.
Pence also played up Trump's stature in international leadership -- surprisingly, it seems nobody laughed. He also demanded that France, Germany and the UK join the USA in withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Europe, of course, has been desperately trying to save the deal, working to help their companies dodge US sanctions when trading with Tehran.
Audience reactions were more mixed to other US positions, including opposition to German plans for a new natural gas pipeline to Russia, and a potential trans-Atlantic trade war if the US Treasury should designate imports of automobiles a threat to US national security. The bottom line for Europeans is, as former Estonian President Thomas Ilves put it: "The actions of the US are getting a lot of people worried and they're thinking: Well, what do we do? Do we go it alone?"
So far, the answer is NO. American military and economic clout is too obvious, and the Trump Administration is swimming against the long-term current of US internationalist foreign policy anyway. Europeans recognize that the Trump White House is inept and incoherent, and that Trump will out of office -- possibly in court -- sooner rather than later. Pence wasn't the only American politician at Munich, there being more than 50 members of Congress there. Former Vice President Joe Biden was present, reassuring US allies that normal service would resume after Trump leaves office.
Two initiatives were put into motion at the conference to reinforce the common values written into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's 1949 founding treaty, reflecting the sense that those values are being undermined:
NATO was not always so concerned with principles, being happy to keep both Turkey and Greece as members when they were ruled by military juntas. However, matters of principle became more significant after the fall of the Soviet Union, when the threat that NATO had been set up to meet had disappeared, and NATO needed a new organizing principle. Albright said: "I was there when we were admitting new members and we talked about it as an alliance of democracies." The new bottom line was that NATO was "trying to be not just against the Soviet Union, but to be for something."
The current crisis of NATO is unprecedented, a rot from within -- not merely the erratic hostility of Trump, but more importantly the lurch of NATO members such as Hungary and Poland towards authoritarian rule. Burns and Lute say most NATO members recognize the difficulty, but are reluctant to address it. The two former diplomats have proposed penalizing NATO governments that stray from the democratic path. Burns says: "It's a cancer."
LEFT BACK IN FASHION? As discussed in an article from ECONOMIST.com ("The Resurgent Left", 14 February 2019), it might have seemed that the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 meant the end of socialism. Only a few backwards states continued to cling to the idea, while China embarked on a "capitalist road" that proved wildly successful.
Over a quarter-century later, socialism is back in fashion. In the USA, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ("AOC"), a freshman congresswoman who calls herself a "democratic socialist", is grabbing headlines, while early contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination for 2020 are veering hard Left In Britain, Jeremy Corbyn, the hard Left leader of the Labour Party, still hopes to become prime minister.
The Left has made a comeback because the Right, in attaining power, has proven itself hollow -- trapped in the past, unable to govern, tainted by bigotry, as well as servitude to the wealthy and powerful. The Left has the causes that ring true, such as inequality, the environment, and power to the People. Alas, while the reborn Left gets some things right, it suffers from a "nirvana syndrome" -- being infatuated with a perfect world that pointedly ignores the realities of commerce, economics, and governance.
From its last high tide in the 1960s, the Left became increasingly marginalized. In the 1990s, Left-leaning parties shifted to the center. As leaders of Britain and America, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton chose a "third way", an accommodation between state and market. The Left has bitterly resented its marginalization, expressing their frustration in 2016 by lashing out at Hillary Clinton.
The resurgent Left has now clawed back at its marginalization, but the revived movement is unfocused. The first irony of the resurgent Left is that its radicalism is more sound than substance. One of the major planks of the Left platform in the USA is universal health care -- which is normal everywhere else in the developed world. Many Leftists also accept an accommodation between state and market, conceding to the "third way"; the Left isn't uniform or regimented in its doctrines. Still, there are common beliefs:
Much of this perfectly true, notably the curse of lobbying and belligerent neglect of the environment. Inequality in the West has certainly skyrocketed over the past 40 years. In America, the average income of the top 1% has risen by 242%, about six times the rise for middle-earners.
However, the Left suffers from unrealistic expectations, in particular misreading public sentiment. Certainly, Americans are generally frustrated with the status quo, and agree the rich should pay more taxes -- but there's no such agreement on radical redistribution. Public support for environmental issues is mixed, and there's no broad support for democratization of business organizations.
Many of the high-profile candidates emerging for the Democratic presidential nomination have taken a strongly Left line. However, the primaries won't take place for well over a year, and the Reddish tinge of the early jockeying for position is likely to be misleading. After all, even though high-profile Left candidates won in 2018, most of the Democrats that were elected are moderates, many of them who won out over Leftist candidates in primaries.
Again, the hard Left and the moderates want the same things: universal healthcare, reducing inequality, addressing climate change, and taxing the rich. The difference is that moderates don't believe fundamental change is needed, or useful, to get things done -- and the moderates have the numbers, giving them control over Democratic politics. Trump is, ironically, energizing the American hard Left; once he leaves, the hard Left will lose that focus, and fall more into Democratic infighting that does the party no good.
BILL GATES ON TAXES: Those on the hard Left have floated notions of charging 70% income tax on the super-rich, an article from THEVERGE.com ("Bill Gates Says Tax Policies Like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Are 'Missing The Picture' by Nilay Patel, 12 February 2019), reported on an interview with billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, in part which focused on the push of the Left for higher taxes.
Gates is unimpressed with the 70% income tax rate, calling it "extreme", and saying it would simply push the super-rich to off-shore their wealth. He added that the world's wealthiest people only have a "rounding error" worth of income, as such compared to their wealth -- their money is in stock options and other assets, which aren't taxed as income. The top 400 earners in the US are only paying something like a 20% tax rate. A 70% tax rate? It's not a question of right or wrong, it's just a practical non-starter. Gates says: "If you focus on that, you're missing the picture."
Gates, however, does believe the rich should pay more tax, speaking approvingly of a general wealth tax, the estate tax, and changes to Social Security in order to increase tax revenue. "But we can be more progressive, the estate tax and the tax on capital, the way the FICA and Social Security taxes work."
He also was not enthusiastic about "modern monetary theory (MMT)", whose most extreme advocates say that government deficits can be run up without limit, because the government controls the money supply. Gates says: "That is some crazy talk. It will come back and bite you."
Actually, it is not clear that most advocates of MMT advocate bottomless deficit spending. MMT is correct in saying that government debt is not inherently a bad thing. After all, the government is not a for-profit operation, and so it can only fund investment though debt, using ongoing tax revenues to pay off the debt. As long as the payments on debt don't become a painful burden, the system is healthy. Indeed, Gates himself suggests that deficits could be run up to 150% of GDP without difficulty -- which sounds extreme enough. It's something for the economists to argue out, but they'd have to make a very convincing case for it to be accepted by the rest of us.
The "wealth tax" Gates mentions is notably being pushed by Elizabeth Warren. It is seen as problematic, in part because it's hard to estimate total wealth -- and easy to cheat -- and in part because the wealth tax looks too much like a "direct tax", which is effectively denied to the Federal government by the Constitution. Of course, estate taxes are perfectly practical, having been imposed in the past, and they can be seen as an "end of life" wealth tax.
There's been a massive retreat from estate taxes, but that can be reversed. In short, the talk of "more taxes" is welcome and overdue; it's just that, carelessly handled, the rush to taxation will be self-defeating. Instead of radically changing the system, it might work much better to get the system we have working right.
LIGHTSABRE SPORTS IN FRANCE: As discussed in an article from Associated Press ("Lightsaber Dueling Is Now Recognized As a Competitive Sport in France", by John Leicester, 18 February 2019), the STAR WARS franchise has global reach -- as shown by the fact that lightsaber duels are now a competitive sport in France.
Of course, this is a fantasy sport, there being not much lethal about the plastic, LED-illuminated lightsaber replicas used in the bouts. Some of the higher-end lightsabers also generate a menacing electric rumble, but they're no more dangerous. Nonetheless, the three-minute bouts require a lot of training and involve a lot of exertion, and so the French Fencing Federation has accepted the lightsaber.
Federation officials believe that embracing the Force will help them reach young people in need of exercise. Serge Aubailly, the federation secretary general, says:
QUOTE:
With young people today, it's a real public health issue. They don't do any sport and only exercise with their thumbs. It's becoming difficult to (persuade them to) do a sport that has no connection with getting out of the sofa and playing with one's thumbs. That is why we are trying to create a bond between our discipline and modern technologies, so participating in a sport feels natural.
END_QUOTE
Promoting fencing is all for the good, too -- but there's some dash in lightsaber duels, and the French have long been big on dash. Aubailly says: "Cape and sword movies have always had a big impact on our federation and its growth. Lightsaber films have the same impact. Young people want to give it a try."
Police officer Philippe Bondi, 49, is an experienced fencer who has taken up the lightsaber. He wears his fencing wire-mesh mask, and has acquired protective body armor. He uses a luminous green lightsaber "because it's the Jedi colors, and Yoda is my master ... I had to be on the good side, given that my job is upholding the law." One trusts he says that with a grin on his face.
Matches are played in a darkened space, allowing the glowing lightsabers to stand out. Cosplayers are evident in the audience. The matches are carefully regulated:
There's no jabbing with lightsabers; the sweep of the lightsaber has to start from behind the fighter. That gives a theatrical style, very much in the style of the lightsaber duels in the movies. There are only a few hundred active lightsaber duelists in France, and it's unlikely there will be a lightsaber event in the Paris Olympics in 2024. The sport is nonetheless on a growth path. As Yoda would put it: "Dust off my French, I must."
BACK_TO_TOPTRUMP'S TROUBLES: The news for March started out subdued, everyone hanging fire on Trump's attempt to declare a national emergency to get his border wall. The Democrats managed to push through a bill to nullify Trump's declaration, obtaining enough Republican votes -- twelve in all, almost a quarter of the GOP there -- to pass the Senate. Trump said he would veto it, and he did. He did late on Friday the 15th, as usual trying to get some buffer time from the weekend before the system reacted.
The veto was of course expected. The real reason for pushing through the bill was to let Trump know that he did not have congressional support, and also to exploit tensions among the Republicans -- not all of them being infatuated with Trump. In any case, the controversy then fell into the lap of the judiciary.
Although states had filed suits against the national emergency declaration early on, nothing happened in the courts. While that seemed puzzling, it was less puzzling on reconsideration: the courts were staying out of way until Congress formally disapproved, and Trump exercised his veto. If Congress hadn't disapproved, the judiciary would have been in an awkward position to slap an injunction on the state of emergency. The veto left the way clear for the courts. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, the legal firestorm circulating around Trump continued without a letup. On 8 March, Paul Manafort -- once Trump's presidential campaign chairman, convicted of a list of crimes including money laundering and tax evasion -- was sentenced for his wrongdoing. Special Counsel Robert Mueller had recommended 19 years at least, since Manafort had lied to the investigation. It was expected that the sentence wouldn't be that long, since Manafort was a nonviolent first-time offender; but there was consternation that the sentence was only 47 months, far under guidelines.
However, Manafort had also been convicted for lying to the investigation, and that meant another sentencing a week later. That sentence wasn't so tough, either, giving Manafort a total of seven and a half years in lockup -- but it was still far from trivial, and judge Amy Berman Jackson gave him a thorough chewing-out. CNN commenter Phil Mudd, an ex-CIA official advising on counterterrorism, said: "She took him, she ground him up, sprinkled him in her coffee, and drank him for breakfast. She crushed him. ... She crushed him like a bug,"
The Democrats are now after Trump's tax returns, which he has refused to release. A per a 1924 law, the chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee has the authority to request anyone's tax returns, and the IRS, normally strictly secretive about tax returns, has to hand them over. A House resolution was passed to authorize obtaining the returns -- and surprisingly, the vote was unanimous, even though Trump has his toughest allies among the GOP in the House.
Then again, maybe it wasn't so surprising, since no doubt his supporters believe that nothing will be found in Trump's tax returns. However, that would make it most puzzling as to why he was so reluctant to release them. It would be a bit much to think they will reveal income tax evasion, at least not without a lot of digging -- but it's not hard to believe they would embarrass Trump, by showing how little taxes he paid. That, despite the fact that he boasted in the 2016 campaign of being slick on taxes. Of course, that's not the only thing that Trump said in 2016 that's likely to come back to sink its teeth into him.
MUELLER REPORT RELEASED: All such concerns came to a head on 22 March, when the Robert Mueller investigation released its report. That was noteworthy in itself, the investigation having been completed without any visible interference. The next question was whether there was anything of real interest in the report. A careful consideration of the realities of the matter suggested caution about inflated expectations; from early on, commenters had pointed out it was unlikely the report would accuse the Trump campaign of collusion, since that would be hard to prove; it seemed more likely that the investigation would focus on other malfeasance, such as money laundering or tax evasion.
In short, the safest bet was that the report would not change the status quo in any major way. That proved a good bet when, on 24 March, Attorney General Bill Barr issued a four-page summary that said: NO COLLUSION. OK, that wasn't a surprise, but then it got murkier, saying there was no basis for charging Trump with obstruction of justice, then adding that wasn't saying he was exonerated of it.
That was a strange thing to say. When the authorities announce they don't have a case, that's normally the end of it; saying there still might be a case is absurd and reprehensible. It's much like the way Jim Comey, during the 2016 election, cleared Hillary Clinton of wrongdoing in her handling of emails -- to then publicly condemn her, with Clinton having no way to defend herself. So why the comment about NO EXONERATION? Hedging bets? A big hint?
In any case, if release of the report changed anything in the status quo, it was to intensify the furor -- and the longer Barr sits on it, the problem will only get worse. In two years, Trump leaves office, the next administration will get the report, then take action on it if there is basis for doing so.
For myself, I was assuming that Trump would be in legal hot water after he left office -- but though that still may happen, there's no sense in banking on it. The important thing is that he leaves. By the end of the month, Trump was renewing his assault on ObamaCare, this time trying to work through the courts. It was unlikely he was going to get very far with the effort; the Republicans couldn't kill off ObamaCare for the two years they controlled Congress and the White House, and so it wasn't going to happen now.
Apparently, Republicans in Congress groaned at Trump raising the issue, since it's been a loser for them in election campaigns. Trump, having run out of new tricks to play, is now recycling old ones. This is getting dull. Trump is a temporary affliction; he will be gone in time, and his misadventure in politics is not likely to end well for him.
NEW CONTEST FOR AFRICA: As discussed in an article from ECONOMIST.com ("The New Scramble For Africa", 7 March 2017), in the 19th European colonialists carved up Africa, reducing African peoples to subservience and exploitation. The colonial era faded after World War 2, only to be replaced by a Cold War competition between East and West that did nobody -- least of all the Africans -- very much good. Now a third race for Africa is under way. This time around, Africans will benefit, if they play their cards right.
In the modern era, outsiders were inclined to see Africa as a basket case, nothing but trouble for anyone who chose to get involved. Today, the outsiders see the continent as important, and believe it is becoming more so. Governments and businesses from over the world are busily strengthening their ties to the continent. From 2010 to 2016, more than 320 embassies were opened in Africa, possibly the biggest embassy-building boom in history.
Military ties to Africa, which faded to a degree with the end of the Cold War, are growing stronger again. America and France are lending muscle and weapons to the struggle against jihadism in the Sahel. China is now the biggest arms seller to sub-Saharan Africa, with defense-technology ties with 45 countries. Russia has signed 19 military deals with African states since 2014, while oil-rich Arab states are building bases on the Horn of Africa and hiring African mercenaries.
In 2006, Africa's three biggest trading partners were America, China and France, in that order. In 2018, the pecking order was China, India, and America, with France running a distant seventh. Over the same period Africa's trade has more than tripled with Turkey and Indonesia, more than quadrupled with Russia; trade with the European Union has grown by a more modest 41%. The biggest sources of foreign direct investment are still firms from America, Britain, and France -- but Chinese ones, including state-backed companies, are catching up, while investors from India and Singapore are getting into the contest as well.
The stereotype of foreigners in Africa is that they are exploiting the land and its people, happy to hand out bribes to corrupt leaders. Sometimes the stereotype is true. There are still plenty of crooked African leaders, while the actions of companies from countries that don't believe in transparency -- meaning Russia and China -- can be murky. Three Russian journalists were murdered in 2018 while investigating a Kremlin-linked mercenary outfit that reportedly protects the president of the war-torn Central African Republic, and enables diamond-mining there. Nothing has been proven, but it looks rotten.
Nonetheless, engagement with the outside world has mostly been a plus for Africans. Foreigners build ports, sell insurance, and set up mobile-phone networks; Chinese factories turn out goods in Ethiopia and Rwanda; Turkish Airlines connects to more than 50 African cities. A more agreeable attitude to trade and investment is one reason why GDP per head south of the Sahara is 40% higher than it was in 2000; more professional political leadership and fewer wars helped, too. Africans make money when outsiders buy African textiles, holidays, and digital services.
There could be improvements. First, more government transparency. It is encouraging that South Africa is digging into the murky affairs of ex-President Jacob Zuma -- but not so encouraging that the even murkier governance of the misleadingly-named Democratic Republic of the Congo remain unprobed, and that the terms of Chinese loans to African governments that are bad credit risks also remain hidden. Journalists, such as the Kenyans who exposed scandals over a Chinese railway project, have a big role to play -- but they're going to have to be brave people, since sometimes they pay for their investigations with their lives.
Second, Africa's leaders need to think more strategically. Africa is as nearly as populous as China, but it consists of 54 countries, not one. That means more unity among African leadership. To be sure, there's no way that Africa could be as integrated as, say, Europe -- but the alternative is to let China have the upper hand in dealings with individual African countries. The power imbalance between, say, China and Uganda is huge. It could be reduced somewhat with a free-trade area, or if African regional blocs clubbed together. Why not? The benefits of infrastructure projects spill across borders.
Third, African leaders do not have to choose sides, as they did during the Cold War. They can do business with Western democracies; with China and Russia; with anyone else who treats them fairly. With more choices, Africans can drive harder bargains. Outsiders should not see this as a zero-sum contest -- as the Trump administration, when it pays attention to Africa, apparently does. If China builds a bridge in Ghana, an American car can drive over it. If a British firm invests in a mobile-data network in Kenya, a Kenyan entrepreneur can use it to set up a cross-border startup.
Last, Africans should take what some of their new friends tell them with a bit of salt. China argues that democracy is a Western idea, and that development requires a firm hand. African strongmen like this message, but it is nonsense. A study by Takaaki Masaki of the World Bank and Nicolas van de Walle of Cornell University found that African countries grow faster if they are more democratic.
The good news is that, as education improves and Africans move rapidly to the cities, they are becoming more critical of their rulers, and less frightened to say so. Voters are acquiring more clout; given transparency, they will be able to insist on a form of globalization that works for Africans and outsiders alike.
BREXIT FIASCO: Britain's Brexit fiasco continued to stumble on through March -- but things are, if not exactly looking up, looking sideways. After voted down Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit plan twice, with brutal pluralities, Parliament then moved to take charge of the Brexit process. There were suggestions that this was all part of May's devious plan, to force Parliament to take ownership. The less paranoid would have to think in reply that she was probably wondering: "What took them so long?"
Whatever the way the cats were herded, they ended up in a herd. In a positive effort, Parliament then voted against a NO-DEAL Brexit, if not by a resounding majority. In reality, a NO-DEAL Brexit was completely out of the question to anyone with sense: if Britain unilaterally revoked all her treaty obligations to Europe, or at least a big subset of them, the UK would then effectively become a rogue state, loosely in a league with North Korea. OK, not that bad, but still bad.
However, Parliament then voted on a series of alternatives to May's Brexit deal, and shot all of them down. Now what? One hopes that sensibility will prevail. Possibly that may be too optimistic, but the time is drawing short to allow further dithering, and Britain's predicament demands an out. When May spoke recently of "sending a message to the whole world about the sort of country the United Kingdom will be", THE ECONOMIST replied: "She is not wrong; it is a laughing-stock. An unflappable place supposedly built on compromise and a stiff upper lip is consumed with accusations of treachery and betrayal."
CNN's Fareed Zakariah suggested that Britain had descended to the status of a banana republic. A reassertion of British sensibility and pragmatism is well overdue. Neither has been demonstrated by the voices demanding total Brexit at any cost; Britain now has to demonstrate they are not in control.
EU COPYRIGHT LAW: As discussed in an article from THEVERGE.com ("Europe's Controversial Overhaul Of Online Copyright Receives Final Approval" by James Vincent, 26 March 2019), it is truly said that when one opens up a can of worms, the only way to get them back in is to find a bigger can. As a case in point, to deal with the can of worms that the internet has opened up, in late March the European Parliament approved the Copyright Directive -- legislation intended to update copyright law for the internet age. The vote was 348 for, 274 against. The directive was then passed on to EU member states, who have two years to convert it into national laws.
The Copyright Directive has been in discussion for more than two years, and has been the subject of fierce lobbying from tech giants, copyright holders, and digital rights activists. Andrus Ansip, vice president of the European Commission and one of the major advocate for the directive, said it was a "big step ahead" that would unify Europe's digital market while protecting "online creativity." Julia Reda, a Minister of the European Parliament (MEP) from the German Pirate Party, wasn't so happy with it, calling it a "dark day for internet freedom."
Advocates of the directive say it will level the playing field between US tech giants and European content creators, giving copyright holders more power over how big internet platforms distribute their content. Critics reply the law is vague, poorly thought-out, and restrictive. The two primary points of contention are:
Article 11, the "link tax", is primarily focused on services like Google Search and Google News, which display snippets of news articles to flag them as links. Google has said the link tax will simply force the company to strip down content displayed in a search, and kill off Google News. Advocates of the law say Google is bluffing -- but they're not, it's a no-brainer. Earlier attempts to introduce similar fees in Germany and Spain proved over-reaching, and both failed.
Critics of article 13 say that it will push YouTube and comparable websites to implement "upload filters" to screen uploads, with the filters being error-prone and easily gamed. The critics also suggest the cost of deploying the filters may actually tilt the playing field towards the big US companies.
There have been public protests and petitions against the legislation, while websites like Reddit and Wikipedia have protested as well. Google said in a statement that the directive will "lead to legal uncertainty and will hurt Europe's creative and digital economies." Not too surprisingly, industry groups in music, publishing, and film have been enthusiastic backers. Xavier Bouckaert, president of the European Magazine Media Association, commented: "This is a vote against content theft." In the end, the vote may not go his way.
MY NEW GADGETS: I have a keen eye for gadgets, and found a few of interest this last month. First was that the Loveland Public Library installed a new book drop. It didn't look much different from the old one, except it had no buttons: it recognized somebody at the slot, then opened the door, giving voice instructions to explain what was going on. It also allowed all books to be shoved in at once, instead of one at a time; it had a sorting mechanism downstream. After a week or two of using it, I went up to it, and it announced in a Darth Vader voice: "MAY THE SORT BE WITH YOU!" A librarian told me they planned to come up with new voices every now and then.
I mentioned buying an ultra-cheap RCA Cambio tablet-notebook a few months back, and I like it -- but I figured it would be more useful on a stand, so I could adjust viewing angle. That would prevent me using it with the magnetic-lock keyboard that came with it, but I didn't like that keyboard anyway. I got onto Amazon.com, and looked around for wireless keyboards. Most required a USB plug-in receiver, but the Cambio has bluetooth, so I zeroed in on bluetooth keyboards instead.
I found a very small bluetooth keyboard from an outfit named Fosmon, presumably Chinese or Taiwanese. I wasn't too sure of what to make of it, but it was less than $25 USD -- so I bought it, along with an adjustable tablet stand. On setting it all up, I'm very happy. The keyboard is about the size of slimline TV remote; it has a full set of keys in a QWERTY format, along with a little touchpad. I can hold it in my hand and type conveniently with it, and can press a button to backlight the keys if it's dark in the room.
The keys have a firm click action, so I don't make many mistakes even with "fat fingers". It's charged with a USB cable; I have an AC / USB charging station in my kitchen, I charge all my gadgets every Monday morning, so no worries about running out of juice. If I need for another appliance computer, I'll probably buy a Cambio with similar accessories again.
Incidentally, while I was poking around on bluetooth keyboards on Amazon, I found another cute made-in-China gimmick: a bluetooth speaker that also projected a keyboard onto a tabletop. It's a fun idea, but reviews said it didn't work so well. Give it some time.
Another thing that came up was that my earbud earphones broke. That happens every now and then; I buy cheap earphones, not being very concerned about sound quality, and they're expendable. I went over to Walmart to get a replacement, and found they were pushing earphones for less than five bucks each. That sounded like too cheap even for me, but I shrugged and decided to buy two sets of them.
On trying one set out, I found they weren't high-fidelity, but they worked fine. They were a bit tinny, so I set the bass boost on my pocket MP3 player. On consideration, five bucks is a reasonable price; all they consist of is a stereo jack, dual insulated wires, a few little plastic shells, and cheap piezoelectric speakers. Product cost is likely less than a buck. I'll see how well they hold up.
And finally, I have my nephew Graham and niece Jordy, being my heirs, on an allowance, with them buying stuff from my Amazon.com account. Graham decided to splurge and get a Nintendo Switch portable game box. The fun part is that Nintendo has these "Labo" accessory kits for the Switch, with props made out of cardboard. Come mid-April, Nintendo is shipping a "Labo VR" kit that allows playing virtual reality games on the Switch. For example, it includes a "blaster" prop in which the player gets to, say, fight off an alien invasion.
It appears that the VR kit includes a set of "minigames" whose environments can be tweaked by the user, allowing users to tailor their own minigames. Presumably, user-generated games will accumulate on the Switch website. People who have trialed the VR kit also say they don't get nauseous at all, nausea being a long-standing problem with VR. I really like interactive gaming with my XBOX 360 / Kinect; it's like having a theme park ride in my living room. I knew that I'd be moving up to VR gaming eventually, and I'll likely spring for a Switch with the VR kit sometime,
Not right away, I'll sit on it for a while. There are rumors that Nintendo is coming up with a reduced-price Switch that can't be used as a console, and I don't need a console. I also don't particularly like the cardboard props, but the Switch is so popular that 3rd parties are likely to come up with equivalent plastic props. I'll bug Graham to get the VR kit; he graduates from Baylor University in Texas next year, I'll go down for graduation, maybe I can try it out then.
BACK_TO_TOP
