Scattered Acres

  Democrats:    1) Democracy is in deep trouble.    2) Trump is not fit for the office.  Republicans:    1) Praise Trump from whom all blessings flow.     2) Biden is the socialist's stooge. 

I saw my first convention on a small black and white screen TV in 1956. I saw then President Eisenhower make his way in a cavalcade of motor vehicles to the Republican convention site at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. That’s right, the Cow Palace. I saw his opponent, Adlai Stevenson, campaign in Boston’s Mechanics Hall. He tried to “talk sense to the American people”, but lost handily. The next convention of memory was the Democrats of 1960. Kennedy had the nomination locked up, so only the VP pick remained. Kennedy picked rival Lyndon Johnson and the convention erupted in boos.  1968 was a year to remember in many ways. The Democratic Convention in Chicago takes the prize for drama. LBJ had dropped out; Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated. There were lots of loose delegates which headed toward VP Hubert Humphrey. The backdrop however, was the Vietnam War and the hippy movement. Humphrey carried the burden of Johnson’s war and so became a target of protest. And protest there was ...

We don’t have cable, so I don’t get to see Fox News very often. Usually it’s at a motel while traveling. This time it was an overnight in the hospital for a routine procedure.  What I saw on Fox and Friends was a parade of cynical, hard-nosed commentators with the singular purpose of advancing a right wing political agenda. Well, I’m not sure I saw an agenda, but what I saw was a constant tear down of Democrats. The big issue was socialism , socialism ,  socialism , without ever defining it. The second big issue was violence in the cities with plenty of video up close and personal. Often words were attributed to Democrats only identified by mug-shot, but not by name. And during the hour or so I watched, I saw virtually no reference to the COVID-19 pandemic. For those who get their information solely from Fox News, some critical thinking is needed. Viewers should fact-check and verify what they hear and see from other sources. Fox News is carbon-copy of the Trump campaign pla...

Maine, where I live, is one of the states least affected by the coronavirus. Here, about one out of every 313 people in the state has been touched by the virus. And my county is even safer with one case recorded for every 990 people.  So you can imagine how surprised I was to learn that a case arrived next door. Arrived is the correct word, because it came from away . It was the middle-aged son or our neighbor whom I see in my imagination arriving home saying, "Mom, I'm sick." It turns out that the gentleman lives in a far away state and seems to have caught the bug at a wedding. Weren't we all warned about that? I don't know where the wedding was held, but here's a story from Millinocket, Maine, the gateway to Mount Katahdan and the terminus of the Appalachian Trail. They had a wedding reception there with 65 people gathered in a church with reception to follow. 26 folk tested positive with 6 more probables. About half the people caught COVID-19 at the weddi...

Donald Trump has defined the landscape for the general election. It’s rigged no matter who wins. He has questioned voting by mail. He has sent in his lackey, Louis DeJoy, a big Republican donor, to sabotage the US Postal Service which now admits it cannot handle a deluge of voting by mail. He claims the process is fraught with fraud. Fearing loss by popular vote and in the electoral college, Trump has undermined the legitimacy of the election. There are three possible election outcomes. The first is that Trump will squeak a narrow victory as the electoral college distorts the popular vote as it did in 2016. The second is that Biden will win the popular vote and gain a narrow victory in the electoral college. It’s in the states with close votes that the claims of rigging will be raised. In either of these cases - a narrow Biden win or a close Trump win - legitimacy of the victor will be questioned.  There is only one outcome that can set the republic back on course. That is a Democr...

There are over 31,000 Post Offices in the United States. The come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. They are present in all quarters of large cities and stretch to even the most remote hamlets in America. The Unites States Postal Service is the most ubiquitous of any American institution. Almost everyone has been to the Post Office. There, across the counter you will engage with a postal worker when you buy stamps, send a package, or expedite an important letter. You may find the agent friendly, helpful, cheerful or perhaps a little cranky or just plain bureaucratic. You know what to expect at your local Post Office. The have a personality. It’s not just the Post Office personnel with whom you engage, but also the letter carriers. Those who walk miles each day. Most of them are easy to engage in conversation. We have gotten to know some of them. There was Richard who became known as the Mayor of Downtown Amherst when he had that route. He even came to the neighborhood Sunday brunch. Th...

I was coming up the Maine Turnpike yesterday and what I saw was a lot of out-of-state money. There were cars from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and a smattering of other states all bringing money to Maine. You could see plenty of water craft on top or behind - kayaks, canoes, surfboards, speedboats; camping gear and trailers; plenty of bikes - all destined for a vacation in Vacationland . And it all translated into money. That’s what we need in Maine, money from out-of-staters. We love it. It’s good money! - But don’t bring the virus! But there’s another kind of out-of-state money that people don’t like so much. It’s the money that’s going to the senatorial campaigns of Sara Gideon and Sue Collin. It’s an obscene amount of money. In July the Bangor Daily News reported that forty million dollars had been dedicated to the two campaigns; somewhere around $30.00 for every man, woman and child in the state; more than $50.00  for every actual voter.  It seems like...

Here’s some data from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health as of August 3 as reported by the Boston Globe . For the population from 20 to 79 years of age, the cumulative incidence of COVID-19 ranges from about 1,700 to 2,000 per hundred thousand people. This means that one out of every 50 to 60 people in that age range has experienced a coronavirus event. By contrast, for people over 80, it one out of every 18 people.  The death rate from COVID-19 climbs with age regardless. At 70 to 79 one out of every 303 people in the Commonwealth dies from coronavirus; at 80 and older it’s one out of every 54. It is inescapable that the old folks among us are more apt to suffer from the virus and we are more likely to die from it.  I am alarmed at the incompetence of the COVID-19 challenge at the highest level of government. For oldsters, the risks of disease and death are much higher than the general population - and unacceptably and massively greater than the risks from guns or ...

First, let’s get the often business out of the way. I don’t mean that one should vote many times in the same election. That would be illegal; it would even be cheating. By often , I mean that one should vote in every election that comes along - federal, state and local. I cast my first vote in 1956 and I haven’t missed a presidential or state election since - well, maybe a primary here or there, but you get my point.  About early : If you don’t know who you’re going to vote for before the campaigns start, it’s unlikely that you’ll know any better as they roll along. The track record of national candidates is pretty well known before they run. What the campaigns add are obscuration of uncomfortable realities and negative aspersions upon an opponent. Rarely is there a coherent statement of policy positions that isn’t softened with platitudes.  And more about early : The coronavirus shows little sign of tapering off to safety levels before the November 3 election. And all th...