Tom Glenn's Blog, page 89

Climate Change During the Pandemic

In the midst of the covid-19 pandemic, the coincident economic collapse, and Donald Trump’s disastrous administration—for which Vote Vets labels him “Traitor Trump”—the news media has been reporting less on the disaster of global warming. But it’s getting worse every year.

According to the Global Climate Change Network, “Earth’s global average surface temperature in 2020 tied with 2016 as the warmest year on record, according to an analysis by NASA.”

The details: 2020’s globally averaged temperature was 1.84 degrees Fahrenheit (1.02 degrees Celsius) warmer than the baseline 1951-1980 mean, according to scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. “The last seven years have been the warmest seven years on record, typifying the ongoing and dramatic warming trend,” said GISS Director Gavin Schmidt. “With these trends, and as the human impact on the climate increases, we have to expect that records will continue to be broken.”

The continuing warming of the earth, despite the reduction of human activity brought on by the world-wide pandemic, makes clear how quickly we are rushing toward a time when the earth will become all but unhabitable. As the Global Climate Change Network points out, “Rising temperatures are causing phenomena such as loss of sea ice and ice sheet mass, sea level rise, longer and more intense heat waves, and shifts in plant and animal habitats. Understanding such long-term climate trends is essential for the safety and quality of human life, allowing humans to adapt to the changing environment in ways such as planting different crops, managing our water resources and preparing for extreme weather events.” The raging fires that have consumed so much of California are symptoms of the environmental disaster we face.

Donald Trump did nothing during his four years in office to fight against global warming. He dismissed it as a hoax. Fortunate for us, the incoming Biden administration has immediate and urgent plans to reduce the causes of global warming.

Maybe, just maybe, thanks to Biden, we may be able to slow down global warming before it makes our planet unlivable.

Sneeze and Laugh

Two human actions that have always intrigued me are sneezing and laughing. Both feel impulsive and unplanned, natural and spontaneous. I have tried without success to unearth detailed physiological definitions of either one. The best I can come up with is that sneezing is making a sudden involuntary expulsion of air from the nose and mouth caused by irritation of the nostrils. And laughing is producing the spontaneous sounds and movements of the face and body that are the instinctive expressions of lively amusement or, less often, of contempt or derision.

As a writer of fiction, I regularly have recourse to laughter in creating scenes, especially those involving two or more people. Laughs can be honest and wholesome, cruel and hurtful, snide and insulting. And English has many words for various kinds of laughs—chuckle, giggle, snigger, snicker, hoot, snort, cackle, chortle, guffaw, titter—the list goes on. The emotional quality of each of these words is distinctive and specific. They allow me as a writer to be quite explicit.

Sneezing is another matter altogether. It does not express emotion and is not inherently expressive. Only occasionally is it funny or alarming, and then only because of the circumstances, not due to the act itself. Unlike laughing, sneezing has no alternative designations, except the highly technical term, sternutation. I use sneezing so rarely in my stories and novels that I can’t think of single example.

So here I am as a writer with one valuable human action and one useless one. I guess I shouldn’t complain. Better one than none

Trump’s Farewell Sabotage

Donald Trump has only four days (counting today) left in office, and he’s making the most of the time he has left to cause as much damage as he can. As far as I can tell, his purpose is not to leave a lasting beneficial mark on the nation. It is to make the job of the incoming administration as difficult as possible. Or maybe he wants to hurt us all as much as he can in vengeance for our refusal to reelect him.

Trump, as I write, is weakening environmental regulations to allow more pollution to the environment. And he has just delayed fines on auto makers for failing to make their vehicles less damaging to air quality. He has reduced the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, weakening our ability to hold the nation’s enemies at bay. Presumably at Trump’s direction, Mike Pompeo, the outgoing Secretary of State, has made the incoming administration’s diplomatic job inestimably more difficult by eliminating restrictions on diplomatic contacts with Taiwan and applying terrorism designations to Cuba and Yemeni’s Houthi rebels.

Worst of all, Trump has speeded up executions. Yesterday morning, the U.S. federal government executed Dustin Higgs, the thirteenth person to be put to death by the Trump administration in the span of six months. Before Trump’s execution spree, it had been seventeen years since a federal execution had been carried out.

What kind of man is Donald Trump to take deliberately damaging steps against the country as he leaves office? What kind of leaders are the Republicans who empower him? What kind of nation have we become?

I remind readers that Trump is still in office for three more days after today. He remains the most powerful man on earth for fewer than 90 hours. What kind of injury will he inflict?

The Importance of Voting

There is ample evidence—but not proof—that more Americans are Democrats than are Republicans. According to various polls, half of all America voters identify themselves as Democrats or Democratic leaners whereas only 39 to 44 percent (depending on the poll) call themselves Republicans or lean to the GOP.

So why do Republicans win elections? Because so many eligible Democratic voters don’t vote. Some are prevented by gerrymandering or voting rules designed to discourage or prevent voting; many, especially minority members, believe that their vote won’t make any difference. A few simply don’t care.

I’m a strong believer that voting is a civic responsibility. And it is clear to me that the reason why the working class is so often deprived to the benefit of the well-to-do is because the rich vote when the poor don’t. We all need to commit to voting for the good of all.

That means, among other things, that we need to make voting as easy as possible. And we need to abolish the electoral college which allows candidates who lose the popular vote to win an election (Donald Trump, for example).

The time has come for the U.S. to mature. We must work to correct our flaws (e.g., our devotion to firearms, our huge prison population, our choice to make health care a way to earn money rather than a right) and join the advanced nations of the world in making life better for our citizens. To get there from here, we all need to vote.

I believe we are already on our way. Almost 160 million people voted in last November’s election, more than in any year since 1900. And we elected a progressive administration that will improve the lives of our majority, the middle and lower class members.

We’ve made a strong beginning. Now let’s expand it.

New Interview

This afternoon, Michael Kurcina, Founder/Editor of Spotter Up Tactical Solutions, interviewed me about my time in warzones and my writing. You can view the session at  https://youtu.be/9DEKr0TdRX0

Let me know your reactions.

Republicans: Forget Trump

So many Republican legislators appear to be fearful of accepting publicly Donald Trump’s defeat in the November election, and they’re hesitant to condemn his call for marauders to attack the Capitol. I think they need not concern themselves. By the time Trump leaves office next week, he will be so discredited that no one will pay heed to him. And once he is no longer president, previously hidden evidence of his malfeasance will trickle out. We’ll learn of corruption we knew nothing of. In short, Republicans, feel free to speak openly of your disgust with your president. Over the next year, Trump will cease to be a powerful figure.

Those Republicans who do not speak out against Trump risk righteous condemnation from the majority of Americans. The only ones who will support them are others who lied about the outcome of the November election or who believe that the mob violence against the Capitol was acceptable. Those numbers will decrease quickly.

The Republican party is so damaged by Trump’s lies and corruption that it may not survive over time. That the Republicans have been complicit in Trump’s degeneracy will remain a stark blemish on the party. We’ll all long remember the injury that the GOP inflicted on our nation.

Leadership in a Time of Chaos (2)

So now I see that the most virtuous means of working with others—leadership—can be used to damage the followers. It should have been obvious to me all along. I now must alter my advocacy of leadership to stress its use for the good of all. I must condemn leadership that leads to evil.

I’ve been impatient with Joe Biden because he has not called for the punishment of Trump and the Republicans for their misdeeds. He has instead emphasized bringing together the divisive forces in America. Trump’s example has finally made me understand that Biden is right. We need virtuous leadership to escape the evils of the past. He pleads with us to work together for a better future. In Biden we will have a leader showing the way to an upright America. I hope we have the wisdom to follow.

Leadership, in sum, can be manipulated in the service of autocracy. Let’s never let it happen again.

Leadership in a Time of Chaos

Several times in the course of the years I’ve been posting to this blog, I’ve urged Americans to choose leadership rather than management as a way to achieve. Recent discussions with readers have made me realize that it’s time to reappraise the role of leadership in American life. I have seen for the first time in my life leadership used for destruction of democracy.

Donald Trump has rarely relied on leadership. He has instead exploited the sycophancy of his base and the Republicans who support him to attack American democracy. In the end, he tried to overturn a legitimate election and establish himself as a dictator. He failed.

But when his worst moment came, he used leadership, as I define it, to attack the underpinnings of the country and maintain his presidency. On 6 January 2021, he called upon his followers to storm the Capitol and prevent the Congress from endorsing the election he had lost. It worked, to the detriment of all involved, until members of Congress refused to follow his lead.

Trump’s call for vandalism was not management or power grabbing. He summoned his followers to be the best that they could be—as defined in his credo—and restore him to power. The result was the savagery seen at the Capitol.

It was the first time I had ever witnessed leadership being manipulated against democracy. Trump’s actions made me realize that it is possible to abuse leadership. In retrospect, it is now clear to me that Hitler and Mussolini led their followers in seizing control and becoming dictators. Not force. Leadership.

More tomorrow.

Larry Matthews Interview

Larry Matthews’ interview of me from earlier this year on the program “Matthews and Friends” is now available online. You can hear it at https://pod.co/impact-radio-usa/matth...    Larry talks to two other people during the same clip. My interview starts about 25 minutes in.

In the interview, I talk about writing my most recent novel, Secretocracy, and about my experience in the U.S. intelligence system. If you take a listen, let me know your reaction.

Thanks.

Obama Top Best Seller

I’m informed by the press that a book I reviewed, Barack Obama’s A Promised Land (Crown, 2020), is currently outselling all other books on the market. That’s a first for me.

In my estimation, the book deserves its sales. It’s the best nonfiction I’ve read for many years and a book I’ll long remember. You can read my review at http://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/bookreview/a-promised-land

I liked the book for all the obvious reasons—superbly written, subject matter thoroughly explored, historical accuracy meticulously respected. But my fondness was also more personal. I find Obama himself likeable. He is, like me, a disciplined researcher, intrigued as much with the history and depth of the topic he’s writing about as with the breadth of his view. I remarked in the review on his flair for similes. And his occasional forays into humor were so subtle that I often only appreciated them in retrospect.

I can’t claim that I write like Obama. His style, like his subject matter, is complex and intricate. I, as a novelist and short story writer, stress simplicity, brevity, and poetic construction. His very long sentences, while suitable to his milieu, would not work well in my prose. And I don’t see him consciously striving for musicality in his structures.

None of that is intended to be a criticism of Obama’s writing. His style and approach are ideal for subject matter. I’m delighted at his success. I continue to believe he is a great man that we all can learn from.