EDUCATION

 We read where a lack of education is causing our national catastrophe and is a part of the ruling party's plan. Maybe so. But I think that kids are learning. Depending on the source of their education, they receive such tidbits as:

The universe came about in six days at the hands of a mighty Deity of unknown origin some 6,000 years ago.

Gender is a meaningless designation that should left to the choice of a pre-teen.

Understanding computers is the dominant achievement of the modern world.

And many useful things about being a financial and social success in life.

What they don't learn is to cognitively process such questions as: If A equals B and B equals C, does A equal C? 

URBAN PLANNING

TRANSPORTATION 

More on my current readings on urban planning. Writer and planner Lewis Mumford once observed that transportation is simply a tool. It can be used to transfer goods from the farm or manufacturer to seller to buyer. It can be used to connect areas of commerce and trade and to connect cities for mutual benefit. It can be used for leisure, entertainment, and education.

Not so much these days

These days it is used to a great extent to support the exponential growth of entities that profit from its existence, primarily the automobile industry and the businesses that profit from highway and bridge construction or the production of fossil fuels.

It allows parents to choose the type children with whom their children will attend school.

It provides frontage and access for business, no longer neighborhood ones but city and regionally oriented chains and mega-facilities.

It is now a winding, slithering monster that controls our lives with scant regard for serving the overall public good.

Urban Planning

 Still on my mission to review thinking about urban planning since our legislature made such of an issue this time around. One thing that emerged to, perhaps, focus our attention. That is the new realization that there is more to urban planning than bike paths, pickleball courts, and roundabouts.

Now I'm Re-reading "Design With Nature" by Ian McHarg. The result? Reading it at my age makes me wish I had paid more attention when I read it in my 20s. For example, he wrote:

"Show me a man-oriented society in which it is believed that reality exists only because mean can perceive it, that the cosmos is a structure erected to support man on its pinnacle, that man exclusively is divine and given domination over all things, indeed that God is made in the image of man, and I well predict the nature of its cities and their landscapes. I need not look far, for we have seen them—the hot dog stands, the neon shill, the ticky-tacky houses, dysgenic city and mined landscapes. This is the image of the anthropomorphic anthropocentric man; he seeks not unity with nature but conquest. Yet unity he finally finds, but only when this arrogance and ignorance are stilled and he lies dead under the greensward. We need this unity to survive."

Hard to argue with that.

DEFEAT FASCISM

 I'm not prescient, or smart, or highly educated. Well, that last I am by the standards of my state. But after the Covid epidemic slowed, and people got checks, my nephew and I decided that there was money to be made in day-trading stocks of sound, but undervalued, retail companies.

The decision rewarded us quite well. When, unlike Elon Musk, I decided I had enough, I ceased the enjoyment and concentrated on Life-Partner, her animals, and my guitars. By then, fixed-income vehicles had moved into yields of nearly five percent. Following conventional advice (I ain't smart enough to figure it out on my own) I moved us from equities (except for that little percentage on the top of the investment pyramid that can't hurt but might provide some fun in the autumn days of life) and sat back.

Now that America has chosen a band of thugs, charlatans, neo-Nazis, and grifters to run the three branches of government, I realize how temporarily fortunate I am. I say temporarily for I know I talk too much for them to grant me immunity for long. So these days I enjoy my good fortune and work on what I'll utter as my last when they line me up against the wall. I've narrowed it down to:

(1) Foxtrot Delta Tango
(2) I told you so.
(3) What were you thinking?
(4) You gotta hate people of color awfully bad for this, and
(5) Would someone please buy Donald Trump a banjo?

I guess the bottom line is that choosing someone to govern the country ain't like picking a favorite on a reality-TV show. Too bad 77,302,580 Americans didn't figure that out in time.