July 10

 Early right now--still dark. We have had some heavy rain overnight. That continues the rain we had yesterday which left the gardens somewhat bedraggled. Since I can't go back to sleep I might as well see what is in the news.

I hadn't realized that writing checks is becoming passé. Target is going to refuse to accept them as of the 15th of this month. We don't do much shopping at Target so it won't impact us and the last time I used cash. We have drifted back to cash and checks though I do use my debit card in some cases. Dealing with the credit card companies became more frustrating as we both got older and the process much more complicated. So we have gradually eliminated them. I also don't trust the "cashless" systems enough to rely on them totally.

Evidently residents of Barcelona are fed up with foreign tourists. Recently protesters fired water guns and threw things at tourists shouting for them to go home. I have read of similar discontent in other places. A town in Japan at the base of Mt Fuji installed barriers to prevent pushy tourists from using a favorite space from which to take selfies including the mountain. The Spanish protestors complain that the tourists have driven up the cost of living for locals. I wonder how much of the considerable money tourists spend actually benefits ordinary citizens.

Stray thought: Saw a headline (didn't read the article) that asked if the Democrats are ready for "generational" change. I wondered why it focused on the Democrats. After all Joe Biden isn't the only elderly candidate. Trump is only 3 years younger. Both men are undeniably old. But both managed to win their primaries. To put my thoughts bluntly, neither faced any real opposition. Nikki Haley managed to get a maximum of about 20% of the Republican vote and stayed in until Trump had accumulated enough votes to win. There was a similar percentage of voters who remained with her even after she dropped out which shows a core of voters who wanted someone else. Biden didn't even have that much opposition. As an incumbent the party coalesced around him even though polls indicated he also had a substantial number of Democrats who wanted someone else. It isn't just the Democrats who rejected a passing of the torch.

I read this morning (forgot the link) that June has followed the pattern set for the previous 12 months. June also exceeded the target of an average 1.5°C temperature rise above pre-industrial levels. Some people might prefer to believe that climate change isn't happening but it is much harder to ignore the heat, or the storms, or the fires. All of those are causing damage to our infrastructure. Damaged roads, railroads, or electric lines all have to be replaced. I just looked up the number for billion-dollar-plus environmental/climate events so far this year: 11 so far. That doesn't include hurricane Beryl.

Joyce Vance hast posted the Republican Party platform with commentary. She is right that such documents rarely express substantive programs and this one is especially devoid of substance. I notice that though Trump insists that he "doesn't know anything about Project 2025" and "doesn't know anyone involved" (both lies) This platform echoes that document in the few specific proposals and can easily be put into the more nebulous ones. It isn't much better than the 2020 platform which simply said "We agree with Trump."

John Ganz makes a valid point: we could erase Trump and/or Biden and it won't make much difference. The world has changed and was changing before they became presidents. I have said before that they and some other leaders in this world (Putin and Xi for a start) are either living in the past or trying to recreating the past. The present has already left them behind.