Author: tomwamser

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2020 Election, Part 2 (A Saner Reflection)

Since I saw fit to comment on the 2020 Presidential election with a 5:00 a.m. semi-depressed rant I thought that I should probably follow it up with something more measured now that the counting is all but done. Obviously, I am ecstatic about the outcome, but what happened isn’t really weighing on my mind. The more interesting questions are what this election foretells for the future, not that I have a lot of answers.  

It is hard to see this election as anything other than a referendum on Donald Trump. What is not clear is the extent to which it was a referendum on him personally or on his policies, though both naturally come into play. Ultimately, did the coalitions that formed reflect a belief that we have to implement/repudiate action on issues such as climate change, student debt, tax structure, pandemic relief? Or did the coalitions form to either embrace or reject Donald Trump and his style of leadership? 

The upcoming Georgia runoff elections for Senator should tell us something about these coalitions. Will the 2.455M Georgia voters who supported Trump in the general election come out in similar numbers in an election where he is not on the ballot and is unlikely to significantly engage? Conversely, will the 2.465M Georgia voters who supported Biden come out in similar numbers in an election where Trump is not on the ballot to vote against? Plus, how many of those voters who could not stomach four more years of a Trump Presidency will be equally wary of a congress fully controlled by the Democrats? How many of those voters really wanted to see a significant change in policies, or were they just interested in getting rid of Trump?       

And what now for Donald Trump himself? I watched a post-election webinar sponsored by Authors against Trump because it included two novelists I greatly respect, Paul Auster and Salman Rushdie. They, along with the other panelists, said they thought that Donald Trump would now go quietly in the night. I wonder whether they had been paying attention to the last four years and had digested the election results. 

Donald Trump garnished over 70,000,000 votes in this election, more than any other candidate in the US history (except for Joe Biden of course). If this was a referendum on Donald Trump half of the country answered with a resounding YES!!! Whether we like it or not, Donald Trump remains the most popular person in the country. Is there anyone else other than rock stars that can pack arena after arena the way he does? I certainly doubt if Joe Biden could.  

Knowing Trump’s love of the spotlight, and how much he feeds off of these crowds, do you really think that he will give that up? (Honestly, do you think any of us could?) We know that he will never admit that he lost this election, that much is already clear. We also know that many of his followers believe that as well, regardless of whether there is any proof of fraud. Donald Trump will eventually have to abandon the White House, but it will be kicking and screaming. 

I think that what we are likely to see from Trump is a never-ending, unrelenting Twitter stream castigating Joe Biden, being received by millions of receptive fans. Barring debilitating medical or legal issues (both of which are very possible considering his lifestyle and the way he conducts his business dealings) I can very easily see him coming back for round two in four years. He knows the support will be there. There are clearly no Republicans that could challenge him. If he does run again, will the voters come out again in droves once more to reject him? Because you know his supporters will be there for him. 

Actually, I think that Joe Biden is coming in at a good time to withstand any challenge four years from now. We are at an ebb, much as we were in 2008 when Barak Obama became President. Four years from now the pandemic should be behind us. The long-term economic outlook is actually pretty good, especially if Biden provides short term stimulus for those hit hardest by the virus and invests in infrastructure projects that put people back to work. That being said, all Presidents are subject to attack because of where they sit, and many of his supporters, especially young progressive voters, will be looking for more than a return to stability to enthusiastically support him again in four years (assuming that he is in shape to run again – a whole different topic).  

Well, again, I really hadn’t planned to delve into politics in this Blog, but there are some things I can’t resist. I feel like all of the networks that have had 24/7 election coverage for the last week. “Now back to our regularly scheduled program”.   

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2020 Election

It is 5:00 a.m. on November 4 and I am wide awake. I spent most of the night after my stint as a poll worker trying to avoid watching the election results, but failed miserably. Just as I have failed in my attempts to go to sleep. At this juncture the final tally has not been recorded, or a winner declared, but it is clear that the results will closely mirror 2016. Regardless of how the few remaining states play out, there is no doubt that Donald Trump remains immensely popular, and any thought of a blue wave is gone.  

I know that I said that this blog would not be political, but, as Bill Murray said in Ghostbusters, that is more of a guideline than a rule. Anyone who knows me knows that I am bitterly disappointed in these results, and will be even if Joe Biden manages to eke out a victory, which, frankly, I doubt will happen. However, if you are looking for a screed against Donald Trump or those that voted for him, you will be disappointed. I believe that it would be misplaced. 

After the 2016 election I was among many who dismissed the results as stemming from a hatred of Hillary Clinton, or people not appreciating who Donald Trump really was. I was wrong to do so. We have now had four years of Donald Trump, so people know who is and what he stands for, and Joe Biden is not Hillary Clinton. And yet his support has not waned in the least. If anything, it has strengthened. It is time to admit that Donald Trump won in 2016, and has made the showing he has in 2020, because many people in this country like him and his positions.  

I totally fail to see the allure of Donald Trump, and could not disagree more with what he stands for, but that is immaterial. Clearly millions of people in this country do think that he should be our President. There is no Russian interference, or voter fraud behind that. It is not a matter of Democrats being complacent. It is the reality of our electorate. 

At this juncture, as painful as it is for me to say it, we have to accept this reality. We are where we are because we live in a democracy and the people have spoken. I have joined the chorus deriding Donald Trump for undermining democracy, but I cannot have it both ways. I cannot attack those who seek to dismantle our system and at the same time refuse to accept the results of the democratic process.  

Nor can I continue to bemoan to electoral college. It is a waste of energy. Yes, it is antiquated and anti-democratic (with a small ”d”), but it is not going anywhere. There is no chance of achieving the consensus needed to alter this process in the foreseeable future, so we better learn to live with it, for better or worse. 

Does this mean that we roll over and play dead? Of course not. We still need to agitate, and then agitate some more, for what we believe in until we are blue in the face (pun intended). If Donald Trump is the ultimate winner, we need to call him out on every policy and every pronouncement we disagree with. We also need to strengthen and hone our positions to convince more people that we have the better vision for this country and not get sidetracked by minutiae.  

Turning this around is not as farfetched as it seems. We have to remember that half the voters in this country voted against Trump in both elections, and want to see change. Further, many of the same states and counties that supported Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020 supported Barak Obama in 2008 and 2012. (Don’t ask me how that’s possible, but it’s true). Politics in this country goes in waves, and the tide will shift again.  

Well, it’s 5:45. Little has changed on CNN. There is no way that I am going back to sleep, so I am going to make myself some coffee and start reading a book that has nothing to do with politics (The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, if you must know). Please forgive these early morning ravings. I promise that going forward I will rarely go down this path again (emphasis on rarely).       

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A Tale of Two Movies (Part 1)

One of the definite joys of retirement is having the time to pursue whatever quirky topic comes across my path. To that end, as soon as I retired, I eagerly signed up with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, run through Temple University, to take some classes. The offerings were many, with subjects ranging from Chinese Literature, through Modern Britain: Empire, War, Rock and Roll to Medieval Art from Timbuktu through Paris. I was, to put it mildly, like the preverbal kid in a candy shop.  

I ended up signing up for three courses, including Prehistory Today: Cave Art and Beyond. I had an interest in this course mainly because of a remarkable film I had seen a few years back, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, directed by Werner Herzog, about the exploration of the cave paintings in the Chauvet cave of Southern France. As I will explain further below, it was one of the most stunning movies that I have ever seen, and remained firmly implanted in my mind. It also, as I found out, altered forever my ability to watch other movies on the same topic. 

Our first assignment in the Cave Art class (yes, there can be assignments in lifelong learning classes) was to watch a film called Finding Altamira. It is a dramatization of the discovery of the first cave paintings in Europe. It is an interesting story, which was, from what I can tell,  fairly depicted in the film. 

The Altamira cave paintings were discovered and publicized by an amateur paleontologist, Don Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola (gotta love those Spanish names). The trouble was that if these cave paintings were what they seemed to be it meant a lot of people had been very wrong in what they had been saying about the origins of humans and their development. The Church, still reeling from the recent publication of Darwin’s Origin of the Species, could not accept proof of human activity that long predated its calculations of the age of earth based on biblical interpretation. For the professional paleontologists to accept the find was to admit that their theories of pre-historic humans had all been wrong.  

Sautuola was, to put it mildly, vilified. The Church labeled him a heretic, who was not fit to raise a child. The professional paleontologists went even further. They called Sautuola a fraud, who had concocted the paintings to take recognition from the real scientists. He was summarily dismissed and disregarded, and the cave sealed up (and they say the cancel culture is something new). 

What Is Cancel Culture? It's Not an Easy Topic to Discuss

Of course, the story doesn’t end there. Over the next 20 years other cave paintings were found, mainly in southern France, that could not be disputed (i.e., found by professionals). Sautuola’s find was reconsidered and accepted by the scientific community. Émile Cartailhac, who had been one of Sautuola’s leading critics, admitted his mistake in doubting the find by publishing an article, “Mea culpa d’un sceptique” (I know, more French, but it sounds so much better than the translation), in a leading Anthropology journal. By then Sautuola was dead, but at least his reputation was restored, which made his family happy (or so the movie suggests). 

Cave of Forgotten Dreams is something else entirely. It’s a documentary chronicling the investigation the Chauvet cave, which had only been discovered in 1994. The paintings in this cave are some of the oldest discovered, estimated at approximately 35,000 years old. They are also some of the most beautiful and intricate.   

The film’s depiction of the cave paintings is stunning. I was lucky enough to see it at the Ambler Theater (oh, how I miss movie theaters). It was shot in 3D which made these ancient paintings jump off the screen. Through much of the movie I held my breath as these incredible depictions of horses, mammoths, cave lions and other animals leapt out at me, as moving and as magnificent as anything I have ever seen. To me, these paintings are as relevant as any hung in the Louvre, or elsewhere. 

But there is another aspect of Cave of Forgotten Dreams that really stuck with me. We are so used to hearing of filmmakers being given full access to whatever they want to depict, whether it’s on the battlefield (embedded in Iraq) of in dissecting someone’s life (check out Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck). Herzog had anything but. Those studying the Chauvet cave designated a 2-foot-wide pathway through the cave that Herzog had to maintain while filming. He as only allowed three people with him in the cave. The cameras had to be custom-built for the shoot, and he could only use lights that gave off no excess heat. And, of course, the crew could NOT touch the cave wall or floor. Frankly, these limitations make the final movie that much more amazing.  

Scientists had learned the need for these precautions the hard way. Cave art had been a 20th Century tourist attraction and the results were not good. Lascaux is perhaps the most famous cave ever found and it became one of the most visited, with up to 1,200 people going through the cave each day when it was open. The result was the formation of lichens, fungus and mold that threatened the very paintings people wanted to see.  

That was not going to happen at Chauvet. There was no public access to this cave!!!! In fact, even the number of scientists would be severely limited, and the cave was eventually shut off to all comers. The film is just as meticulous in documenting the efforts to preserve the Chauvet cave paintings, as it is in depicting them. 

So, how did Cave of Forgotten Dreams impact my watching of Finding Altamira? Let’s just say that the cave at Altamira was not treated as gingerly as the cave at Chauvet. I guess you really couldn’t blame Sautuola. No one had seen anything like this before. Still, I did not handle it well. 

There is a scene shortly after the paintings were found where Sautuola’s daughter and a local painter that Sautuola had engaged to assess the paintings go into the cave and begin to replicate the paintings on the cave walls. I was screaming, “With are you doing? Are you out of your f%*#ing minds??????”. Not surprisingly these freshly painted copies strengthened the claim that all the paintings were fraudulent.  

Even worse was the climactic scene where Sautuola’s wife finally agrees to go into the cave after avoiding it because of the objections of the Church. This is meant to be a moving scene of reconciliation between husband and wife, but it lost all impact for me when the first thing she does is put her hand on the wall to measure her hand size against the hand prints there, while Sautuola looked placidly on. I started yelling “Are you out of your mind? Get your grubby, filthy mitts off the paintings, you idiot”. I am sure that my family thought I was watching a football game (“You’re a bum de Sautuola!!! You want to play with the big boys??? They shouldn’t even let you do Junior High Science Projects!!!”) 

Once my blood pressure got back to normal, I had to ask myself, what was that all about? I realized that my infatuation with Cave of Forgotten Dreams had made it impossible for me to tolerate the character’s behavior in Finding Altamira, even though I knew: 1. it was only a dramatization, not actual events; and 2. even if it was how it happened Sautuola, et al. had no way of really knowing what they had or how delicate the cave paintings were.  

The more I thought about my over-reaction the further I went down the rabbit-hole of examining my response. It dawned on me how many things that I had previously glossed over now really bothered me because of what I had subsequently encountered. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that cave paintings were just the tip of the iceberg.    

I want to explore this further, and better understand how the person I am today differs from who I used to be, and why. However, I have gone on too long here and so will pursue that in my next post (I can feel the waves of anticipation flowing through the internet). Till next time.            

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Enough Already, I get it!!!

This blog is not about politics, I promise. It does, however, deal with how candidates reach out to us and the messages they seem to want to convey. I am afraid that it has a bit of that cranky old man feel that I would really like to stay away from, but which keeps on sneaking up on me when I am not looking. I will try and avoid such whining as much as possible going forward, but for now, here goes.  

My guess is that I am not alone in waking up every day to an inbox that is full of pleas from a wide array of political candidates and organizations all of whom must have my donation NOW!!! The messages come from all over the country and beg me to please, please, please contribute something, anything, to their cause. My contribution is essential. Without it everything will come crashing down and bury us all.    

We have made some modest donations over the last few months to Democratic candidates, so the e-mails we receive are, not surprisingly, from Democratic organizations. I would be shocked if the other side of the aisle is any more creative. I have no doubt that Republican supporters get a similar array of messages, which convey the same type of requests and make the same type of arguments.  

By my count I received 77 e-mails over the last 24 hours seeking donations, though I am sure I undercounted. Among those 77 e-mails, 8 different Senate campaigns were represented. I was asked to take numerous surveys or polls, and told that my response was crucial to evaluating where the campaigns stand (a truly scary thought). I was told that one campaign must have $88,0832 immediately to compete, and another must have 6,581 donors to ensure their campaign had enough funds to win. I was told my “pledge” to vote for a Democrat was required, and that my response was “due in one hour”. I was told that polls have Dems winning and that polls have Dems losing. And this has been happening day after day for months. 

To be honest, I really don’t mind getting these e-mails. Yes, it is somewhat frustrating to open my e-mail folder and see well over 100 unopened messages. However, I think it would probably be more distressing to open the folder and see none, as if that’s ever going to happen. (No Natisuha Honey, I don’t remember chatting with you on a social network a few weeks ago, and I am not interested in getting together once COVID restrictions are lifted).  

My real question is whether anyone believes that this bombardment of e-mails is effective? There must be people out there who are getting paid gobs of money telling candidates that the best way to get people to donate is to send them e-mail after e-mail after e-mail. Of course, these are probably the same people who think I may want Hemp gummies, or to take a Mississippi River cruise. (Wait, what was that about Hemp gummies?)  

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there are people out there who open every one of these e-mails and actually are persuaded to give $5.00 here and $10.00 there, to take each of the surveys and polls thinking that they are providing useful information, to fret endlessly that a campaign will only get 6,580 donors and not the 6,581 it needs to win. Maybe there are people who think that by responding to one of these e-mails they will stop the flow, not realizing that even responding to one will increase the volume exponentially. And maybe Mitch McConnell will be persuaded not to fill the vacant Supreme Court seat because I signed a MoveOn petition (and threw in $25.00 to boot). Yeah, just maybe.  

It’s like those charitable solicitations that include all kinds of free giveaways. I got one last week from Boy’s Town that included Christmas cards, a crossword puzzle book, personalized return address stickers and other miscellaneous stuff I really didn’t need.  Now Boy’s Town is a good organization (Gotta love Father Flanagan), but my immediate reaction is that if they can afford to send me all of this unsolicited junk, they really don’t need my money. What they thought was an enticement, was a disincentive (sorry about that boys).  

I also wonder about what the candidates are saying about themselves. So many of these e-mails are written as if the sender in a total panic. And this is a panic that has been going on for months. “This poll from Transylvania U (not the one in Kentucky) has us down a percentage point. All is lost without your $10.00!!!!!” “If we don’t get your $7.00 within the next 24 hours, our campaign might as well pack it in!!!!” Do they really think I am going to be persuaded to support a candidate who appears to be running around like a chicken with their head cut off? 

So, what is effective, at least for me? An e-mail or two a day from the Presidential campaign makes sense, just to remind me that I may want to consider a further donation. Plus, regular e-mails from the Pennsylvania candidates running is absolutely fine. Even an e-mail every few days from the Party generally, alerting me about other national races would be welcome. I might actually read those and they may spark me to donate to a campaign that I would not otherwise consider. 

But just be straight with me. I know the battleground states. I know that get out the vote efforts are crucial to success and that those efforts take a lot of volunteers and a lot of money. I know that the system is structured to require constant donations to keep going. I don’t need a fake, meaningless poll to pull me in. I don’t need apocalyptic pronouncements to try and scare me into giving. I know what’s at stake. 

Ok, I got that off my chest, though it’s not going to change anything. Even as I have been typing the flood has continued (e-mail from today below):

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION ALERT from Washington Post: Pennsylvania emerges as ‘tipping-point’ battleground for Biden and Trump
THOMAS: Joe Biden’s home state of Pennsylvania is a must-win swing state where Joe and Kamala are LOSING critical ground to Donald Trump. New polls show it’s virtually tied!

But grassroots Democrats AREN’T DONATING to make sure we stop Trump in his tracks!
Rush $1 (becomes $2)
Kamala knows that everything from access to health care, to voting rights, and President Obama’s legacy are at stake in this election. But right now, Republicans are MASSIVELY outraising Democrats in battleground states with less than a month before Election Day. We simply don’t have the resources to take on Trump and the RNC.

If donations don’t pick up, Democrats will LOSE, THOMAS! We cannot afford to miss a single deadline between now and Election Day, but we’re still falling short of our $150,000 mid-month goal – our final one of this election. Our records show that you still haven’t donated to stop Trump and defeat Republican governors:
Email: tomwamser@comcast.net
Supporter ID: 8751682
Donated to have your gift matched: PENDING.
Rush $1 now to stop Trump and defeat his extremist allies!
THOMAS time is running out to make up for the ground we’ve already lost. This matching offer will only last until our mid-month deadline (at midnight tonight!) Every donation will be matched dollar-for-dollar up to our $150,000 goal!
Rush $1 (becomes $2)Rush $5 (becomes $10)Rush $25 (becomes $50)Rush another amount

No doubt this flood will last until election day. But I feel better. Now, about those Hemp gummies….          

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The Return of Tomser

Why write a Blog? Why would I think that anything I would put out there would have any interest to anyone at all, including me? How could I possibly fool myself into believing that I have anything to say that has not been said a million times before, and has been said so much better than I ever could? And why this idiotic, sophomoric reference to Tomser? What possibly could be going through my warped, little mind? So many questions, so few good answers. 

Well, whether the answers to these questions are good or not, there is a method to this madness. As most likely anyone who reads this will know (and I certainly hope someone will read it), I recently retired. It is, without a doubt, the biggest mental leap that I have taken since I got married. But in many ways that was an easier leap. I was quite comfortable that I was making the right decision then. I had a fairly good idea what I was getting into, had no doubts about my partner on that journey (yes, I am talking about you dear), and, though I could not foresee all the twists and turns, felt comfortable that I could take on the responsibilities that came with that decision. (I know, silly me).  

This is a different animal. While everyone tells me how great all of this free time is, it is a challenge. I feels like I have to reinvent myself. For the last 38 years I have had structure, and whether I liked it or not, I settled very neatly into that structure. In fact, one of the things that I learned quickly working from home in COVID times was that I needed a routine. I don’t do well with an open schedule, and yet that is exactly what I have. 

I know that there are some habits I don’t want to fall into. Retirement has to be something more than an opportunity to binge watch all the new Netflix movies (by the way, have you seen Kissing Booth 2 yet? It’s a can’t miss), or even all of the great films on the Criterion Channel (a daily dose of Kurosawa?). I have to fill my time in a somewhat meaningful way, or at least in a way that does not make me feel like a leach on society. But what do I want to do?   

Of course, being who I am the first thing I did was look for books to help guide me. There are a million books out there on financial planning for retirement, but few on what to do with your time. The best I could find carried the not too promising title of “How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free”. While it was often trite and simplistic, it did have a lot of good insights. And one of the best pieces of advice it offered was to find a creative outlet.  

That made sense to me, and it was reinforced by a friend who took up sculpture when he retired (check out the Evan Eisner Instagram page). However, my options are limited. I certainly can’t draw, unless you count stick figures. Anyone who has ever been subjected to my sousaphone playing knows that I have no musical talent (RIP Mr. Copenhaver). And if shop class taught me anything it taught me that I have no aptitude (or patience) for carpentry or anything of that sort. That leaves writing.  

Writing is a big reason why I became a lawyer. I always liked to write. I have always felt, sad as it may seem to non-lawyers, a real satisfaction in crafting a well-argued brief or piece of advice. I tried to make sure that it was not only legally sound, but was clearly and concisely written. I wanted not only to convey information, I wanted to convey it well. 

For all the satisfaction it gave me, I have no interest in doing legal writing now that I have retired, even if there was some legal writing to do. Let’s face it, no matter how you dress it up, legal writing is just not very interesting. The topics are generally dry as dust, and stylistically it leaves no room for humor or flights of fancy.  

To find a spark of the kind of writing I want to do, I had to go back to my college days, and the publication of The Motley Corner.  Hence, Return of Tomser, my nom de plume for that venerable underground tuba newspaper. (I know that’s French. Don’t worry, this blog will be in English). I would no doubt cringe to read now what I wrote then, but it was uninhibited and it was liberating. That is what I want to recapture. 

My plan to use this space to write about whatever comes into comes into my head as worth exploring. I read a lot, so my guess is that most of the ideas will come from there. However, I already have topics lined up on sports, movies, TV and other assorted subjects, so I will look for inspiration from all over. I will, for the most part, stay away from politics. Not that politics doesn’t interest me, but I really don’t think I have anything original to say about it. Plus, I want to keep my blood pressure under control.  

So there you have it. For better or worse I am off and running. We will see where this leads. I am optimistic that I can convey some ideas, spark some thought, and have some fun. But then again, I am optimistic about most things. Heaven knows why.