John Brown's Notes and Essays

image (not from article) from David A. Fahrenthold The Washington Post Oct. 30, 2020 at 7:00 a.m. EDT  Excerpt:  "The question we started with — how much had the State Department spent at Trump’s properties? — was as much a mystery as it was in February. So, two weeks ago, we tried something new.  We didn't ask the State Department.  We asked everybody else. ...  That worked.  Within a few days, we had obtained documents that showed payments the State Department had never previously disclosed. We reviewed those documents, compared them with documents we had already obtained from other sources and concluded they were authentic. They showed catering bills from Mar-a-Lago during Trump’s summits with Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Included in those bills was a $6,000 charge to taxpayers for floral arrangements during Abe’s 2018 visit.   And the $3 bill for Trump's water.   That was a powerful illustration that Trump has set up a hidden business relationship with his

" Truth has been Balkanized." -- Maureen Dowd, "Sharknado Goes to Washington ,"The New York Times, Oct. 30, 2020

image (not from article) from "[T] he best 'disinformation,' goes a longtime C.I.A. rule, 'is actually truthful.'" From: Ron Suskind,"The Day After Election Day: Current and former Trump administration officials are worried about what might happen on Nov. 4,"  The New York Times , Oct 30, 2020  

image (not from article) from From: Ron Suskind, "The Day After Election Day: Current and former Trump administration officials are worried about what might happen on Nov. 4," The New York Times , Oct 30, 2020      "Would ... Mr. Trump cause [...] planned activities or improvisations [after the November 3 election]? No, not directly. He’s in an ongoing conversation — one to many, in a twisted e pluribus unum — with a vast population, which is in turn in conversations — many to many — among themselves."

It's not hope or change. It's not making anything great. It's just about making in through.  image from article: Early voting at the Hialeah John F. Kennedy Library in Hialeah, Fla. By Matt Flegenheimer Photographs by Todd Heisler  The New York Times   Oct. 31, 2020, 5:03 a.m. ET [jb: original article contains remarkable photos] Excerpt:  In the course of human events that should probably be taking place virtually this year, in a house so divided that talk of jailing opponents registers as typical fare, in a country asking not what can be done, exactly, but whether anything can at this point, an election is happening on Tuesday.  It is not a hope-and-change kind of year. It is not a moment for being made great again.   Instead, a tour of these final, furious campaign days makes clear that the abiding theme of 2020 is something like survival: getting to 2021 in one piece, individually and collectively. ...  [C]ampaign snapshots can double as a sort of rolling testament to

Japan the Titan of Soft Power Modern Diplomacy , Published   9 hours ago   on   October 31, 2020 By   Kripendra Amatya SHARE TWEET 0 Comments Japan the titan of soft power is well recognized for its technological superiority, arts, aesthetics, and cuisines. Japan once avoided spreading its culture around its neighborhood in the fear of  reviving the old wounds  but after Japan ignited its public diplomacy it projected far superior power which could overshadow its grim past.  Public diplomacy is conducted by appealing to foreign audiences specifically those who can project audience costs to the rulers and could threaten to remove them from power. So, they play a key role in the agreement processes between the two governments. The ability to intervene in foreign affairs generally depends upon the various type of regimes. In the autocratic regimes, there is a smaller pool of audiences which are generally made by generals of the army, bureaucracies, and secret police but in democratic regi

With little else to do, Americans are spending record amounts of money on videogames. New players are taking up the habit, and even parents are embracing the pastime as a way for kids to socialize online. The way we entertain ourselves may never be the same. Image from article:   Jason Anthony went from playing videogames only on weekends to playing daily when he started working from home in March. He’s still playing every day even though he’s now back at the office for work. By Sarah E. Needleman The Wall Street Journal Oct. 31, 2020 12:00 am ET   Excerpt:  "Now, as coronavirus infections continue to rise in several countries, videogames are in an unprecedented position to captivate people who typically wouldn’t have as much time to dive in, according to academics who study consumer behavior.  'The pandemic has been the perfect breeding ground for the mushrooming of what was already a very large industry,' said George Loewenstein, a professor of economics and ps

Great writers have always challenged us to measure the compromised reality of politics against our national ideals. Image from article: Henry Adams, author of ‘Democracy: An American Novel,’ 1883. By  Adam Kirsch The Wall Street Journal Oct. 30, 2020 10:56 am ET Article contains additional illustration America’s independence was won on the battlefield, but American democracy was written into existence. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution created the country that America aspires to be, where all people are created equal and politics is a common effort to establish a more perfect union. This is the ideal democracy that Walt Whitman likened to “leaves of grass”: “Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,/Growing among black folks as among white,/Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.” When Whitman wrote those lines in 1855, of course, the divisions among whites, Blacks and Native Americans were stark and bloody. But lik

 image from To repent for my many sins, during daily promenades in the  District of Columbia neck of the woods ( Cleveland Park ), where I live, I pick up trash/garbage on streets/sidewalks with the help of a grabber  image from (and dispose of the s--t in public trash bins).  image from I can't help but notice that among the many litter/pollutants is a growing number of  face masks and latex gloves strewn/dumped all over the place ...  Image from , under the headline: " Used Masks and Gloves that Litter Streets and Parking Lots Could Be a Health Hazard, Officials Warn " The irony of it all. Who says America, a splendid land of the people, is not a contradiction?  To fight a pandemic we pollute!  

  video [JB:] Critical comment via email on this video from a learned Russian-born friend: Don't trust these girls. Nobody ever uses "За здоровье" alone as a toast. Toasts are  always  personalized: За твое здоровье! За ваше здоровье! За здоровье детей! За здоровье будущего президента Байдена! etc It is also common to drop "здоровье": За тебя! За вас! За детей! За  будущего президента Байдена! etc

Now That More Americans Can Work From Anywhere, Many Are Planning To Move Away  Up to 23 million Americans are planning to relocate as telework becomes the new normal, according to new survey.  Image from article: Ken Wramton/Getty Images Adedayo Akala  NPR   October 30, 2020 6:05 PM ET  As coronavirus cases continue to spike and working from home seems permanent, many Americans are planning to set off to live in new places.   An astonishing 14 million to 23 million Americans intend to relocate to a different city or region as a result of telework , according to a new study released by Upwork, a freelancing platform. The survey was conducted Oct. 1-15 among 20,490 Americans 18 and over.  The large migration is motivated by people no longer confined to the city where their job is located. The pandemic has shifted many companies' view on working from home. Facebook announced plans for half of its employees to work from home permanently. The company even hired a director of remote wo

With a typewriter and a mailbox, a sidewalk project explores the art of consoling those who need good news.  Image from article: Brandon Woolf takes dictation from Quentin Miller for a letter to his Nanna. Credit...Amr Alfiky/The New York Times  By Deborah L. Jacobs The New York Times Oct. 30, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ET 28 Original article contains links and additional illustrations   On a recent foggy morning, Brandon Woolf was sitting on a foldable chair, in front of a foldable table, next to a Brooklyn mailbox, writing letters on a 1940s-vintage portable Royal typewriter. He was dressed in a navy blue T-shirt emblazoned with the U.S. Postal Service logo. A chalkboard sign in front of him explained the project to passers-by: “Free Letters for Friends Feeling Blue.”  Mr. Woolf, 37, doesn’t work for the post office; he’s a performance artist with a doctorate, on the full-time faculty of New York University. In addition to teaching two courses via Zoom and directing the Program in Dramatic Lit

The real estate industry has long enjoyed uniquely favorable tax treatment — thanks in part to Mr. Trump’s actions before and after he became president. Mr. Trump at his under-construction Washington hotel, which likely made him eligible for federal tax credits. Crdit...Zach Gibson for The New York Times By Jesse Drucker and James B. Stewart The New York Times Oct. 30, 2020, 11:25 a.m. ET  Original article contains links and additional illustrations Twenty-five years before he was elected president, Donald J. Trump went to Capitol Hill to complain that Congress had closed too many tax loopholes. He warned that one industry, in particular, had been severely harmed: real estate.   The recent demise of real-estate tax shelters, part of a landmark 1986 overhaul of the tax code, was “an absolute catastrophe for the country,” Mr. Trump testified to Congress that day in November 1991. “Real estate really means so many jobs,” he said. “You create so many other things. They buy carpet. They buy