February 11

 Oh my!! Almost half past February. I keep complaining how fast time seems to fly by but It just keeps speeding up. I spent yesterday transcribing by genealogy notes from Ancestry.com to my own files. I often don't see gaps or discrepancies as I go between files on Ancestry. Writing it out and putting it into my own summaries helps. So far Ancestry is the easiest for me to use of the programs I have tried. It is a bit odd that I have had a more difficult time finding information of my nearest relations that some of the more distant ones. Part of the problem is that we are a spread out family that over the years lost contact. I am probably the oldest my generation of the family and I found my childhood memories sometimes reliable. Mom is the only member of her generation left and sometimes her memory isn't reliable.

Just found this article by Robert Reich which describes the economy very well and why people aren't feeling good about it. For most of the last century economists have touted "productivity" which is defined as "output per worker." However, various business and finance people have discovered that they can boost "productivity" by cutting workers and pushing the work on those who remain. Yeah, they actually produce more per worker. Or, they can invest in automation which will allow them to, again, cut worker bodies creating the impression of higher productivity. Each strategy will increase GDP and may increase profits, though Rachel Bitecofer I saw recently indicates that companies can invest in expensive technology and yet not turn a profit. But that totally ignores the workers who are without jobs. We were always told not to worry about that because new, higher paying jobs would open up for them. That isn't always true. As we have found out.

Stray thought: my what a bunch of whiney babies some of the Republicans are. Now they want to "investigate" the Bad Bunny halftime show. As if they really don't have more important matters to deal with. But I guess having the vapors over an AMERICAN from Puerto Rico singing in Spanish is easier than dealing with those problems.

Second stray thought: I have a vague memory that I read someone once said that disasters make for bad law. Politicians have a tendency to over react and make vague and over broad laws which tend to be messy in practice. I remember thinking of that back in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks when Homeland Security was established and agencies like FEMA were rolled up into it. Allegedly for efficiency. Instead FEMA has been neutered and made ineffectual. And under the current administration nothing runs efficiently--except the gutting of every program that helps those of us who are not part of the "Epstein class."

Another stray thought: those poor right wing snowflakes went spastic about Bad Bunny starting with his very polite sentiments about ICE but no one has mentioned Billie Eilish's comment which I though was absolutely right on point: "no one is illegal on STOLEN LAND."

Yet another stray thought: a number of commercials are so irritating that I mute them so I can more easily ignore them. We leave the TV on because it is Mom's main amusement. However, I had a slightly different reaction to the Homeland Security encomium to ICE declaring the men of ICE are loving fathers, little league coaches and valiant upholders of law and right. I mute it just like the other irritating commercials but in my mind I remember the Joseph Goebbels was also a loving father and when the Third Reich was in its very last moments gave his six young children morphine followed by cyanide before he and his wife took their own cyanide pills. You can be a loving father and still be a monster.

Bill Astore asks on his substack if Iran will be our next "forever war." I would argue we have never ended our Middle East/Central Asian forever war. We have just moved "assets" around to counter this or that perceived threat. We won't get out of these wars until we realize how bankrupt we are. And re-evaluate our ties to Israel.  I don't recommend cutting those ties but a deep examination of the relationship.