Happy Thanksgiving!

I know we might have to reach down a little bit this year, but there's still a lot for which to be thankful.  Let's, at least for a few days, focus on the good things happening.

But let's start tomorrow!

I see half a dozen states (or so) passed "minimum wage laws."  I wonder what the voters were thinking when they did that.  I'm guessing many of these same "yes" voters also support higher taxes for things such as alcohol and, esp, tobacco products.  The higher taxes, they'd argue, would drive up the prices and consumption/use would plummet.  Well, if we also drive up the prices for the good and services the minimum-wage earners make, won't consumption/use also have to fall?  After all, where would the money to meet the new minimum wage laws be found?  Of course, they would be in higher prices.  And I think big companies won't quite feel the crunch; they can raise prices only marginally and "make up for it in volume."  Small and medium-sized business hurt.  They can't make up for it "in volume" by definition.  So, where do they get the money to pay their employees what others who aren't business owners say they have to pay?  They can cut hours.  They can cut quality or service, likely to drive away customers.  They can reduce benefits, if there are any.  But mostly, I suspect, they will not hire as many workers, even firing/laying off some already there.  I'm sure the supporters of minimum wage laws mean well, think "a living wage."  But do they really think about the consequences?  I still like to throw this out at those who tell me they support minimum wager increases:  "Do you leave tips at McDonald's and Wendy's?"  Of course they don't......

I read this and lol'd out loud.  The headlines on an article I read were, "Post-election healing event" (my emphasis).  The "event" included "coping strategies" for those who are "hurting" at the results of the election.  Well, I'm hurting, too.  But I'd have been hurting even had the results turned out differently.  Either way, in my view, we lose.  But c'mon......  Is this a result of giving everyone a trophy at the end of the season?

Hampshire College was opened at the start of my junior year at Amherst.  It is right down the road (Rte 116), a few miles from our campus.  I'm guessing its mailing address is also "Amherst."  I was alerted that Hampshire, last week or so, banned flying the US flag on campus.  Huh?  There had been a flag-burning incident after the election.  I'm not certain of the exact circumstances, but that led to the college president issuing a directive to remove all flags.  Apparently this was in response to the "escalating hate-based violence." Where?  At Hampshire?  The flag-burning?  The anger the election of Trump had on students at Hampshire?  Who is this guy, this president?  For that matter, who are these students?  Oh, they are so angry and fearful!  I'm guessing the tuition their parents pay for this private school is a lot higher than the money many lower income families take home.  In this, like so much of what I see on college campuses, I see the spoiled rich kids acting out again.

I am not saying Black Lives Matter is responsible for the recent spate of police shootings and murders.  Let me repeat that lest anyone get the wrong message.  I am not saying Black Lives Matter is responsible for the recent spate of police shootings.  I am not one to condemn the many for the actions and words of a few.  But haven't a number of BLM marches included protesting chants of things such as, "Pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon.?" Isn't that incendiary and despicable?  Maybe that gained a lot of nation-wide coverage, but here in Detroit, neither of the two newspapers played it up; in fact, I don't remember any articles about this although I admit I might have missed them.  So, with such chants, where are the condemnations, the blanket condemnations of BLM?  Where are these self-righteous elites who have denigrated all Trump supporters as "racist, bigoted, mysogynist, stupid/ignorant, white men?"  After all, if some Trump supporters are that (and I'd guess some of them are), they arrogant political and cultural snobs have designated all Trump supporters as such.  If those are now the rules of the game, what about applying them consistently?  I know why and do you.

There still is some smattering criticism of the Electrical College and how it and not the popular vote elected Don Trump.  There is a lot of misunderstanding of the EC.  One might well favor a direct popular vote in selecting the President.  That's fine; some people can believe that.  The EC became part of the US system so that the smaller states "mattered."  In 1787, four states (MASS, VA, PA, and NY) could have elected a President, the other nine states unable to stop them.  What leads anyone to think what would lead the nine smaller states to ratify the Constitution with such a system?  In other words, four states could dictate to nine states.  Looking at this year's election, Clinton would have lost the popular vote except, for example, the 2 million more votes she rec'd in California.  That is, she would have been elected even though more popular votes from 49 states and DC went to Trump.  (I hope I'm not misrepresenting that.)  Here's some irony.  Clinton would have won had she carried a few states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, where she lost by mere handsful of votes.  Until toward the end, she didn't do a whole lot of campaigning there.  Had she paid more attention to the people there, she might well have won the Presidency.  But like the smaller states feared in a direct popular vote for President, apparently the people of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania didn't matter--until it was too late.  Like the FBI investigation, the election loss was Clinton's fault, not that of Comey or the Electrical College.