President Kais Saied of Tunisia

"Trumps" Trump

AP Network News October 3, 2025

 

https://apnews.com/article/tunisia-death-sentence-facebook-posts-president-b75f9ca0d2629fda054031f5792d502

 

Come on Donald, get moving and stop dragging your feet.  Other world leaders are taking your playbook, doing a better job and outshining you.

 

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — A court in Tunisia has sentenced a 51-year-old man to death over Facebook posts deemed offensive to President Kais Saied.

 

President Saied recently dissolved the elected parliament and started ruling by decree, nullifying the principle of judicial independence.

 

Most of Saied's well-known critics are already in prison or abroad.

Nobel Peace Prize 2025 

Here’s the headline that news editors around the world should begin preparing for October 10, 2025.  

Funding for NRP National Public Radio

Surprise — NPR never really needed all that taxpayer money in the first place!

By Becket Adams, The Hill Online Newspaper

October 6, 2026

 

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5537336-surprise-npr-never-really-needed-taxpayer-funding-in-the-first-place/

 

In July, National Public Radio’s CEO cried and hollered, claiming her organization could not possibly survive without government funding.

 

This week, however, the same news organization claimed that on its first day functioning without taxpayer dollars, it was performing as well as ever — possibly even better.

 

In other words, NPR’s critics were right all along about defunding. NPR never needed those dollars. It just wanted them.

 

“Today marks the first day in public media’s history without federal funding,” the newsgroup said in a statement on Oct. 1. “It’s the beginning of a new chapter — but we’re not going anywhere. With your help, we’ll continue to bring you honest, rigorous journalism that doesn’t bend to the interests of shareholders.”

 

The statement added, “We’ll still hold a microphone to American voices that might otherwise go unheard. And we’ll always stand behind our First Amendment right to a free press. Your donation on this historic day protects one of the last places where America comes together to hear itself, understand one another, and acknowledge that we belong to one always-changing story.”

 

In a graphic uploaded to Facebook, NPR also declared, in all-caps, “WE WON’T BE SILENCED.”

 

Newsroom staffers offered the same boast elsewhere on social media.

 

“This is the first day since NPR was founded it has not had federal support,” beamed NPR host Scott Simon. “And we’re here, strong, vital, and with an audience of millions we will keep on serving, no fees, no paywalls, and across all divisions. We hope you’ll support your local stations to serve all America.”

 

Host Leila Fadel also declared on NPR’s first day free of government funding, “We will not easily be silenced. We will continue to be advocates for the truth — for facts. We will ask the questions our listeners, the American public, want the answers to, even if those we’re asking don’t like our questions.”.  

 

First, this is a bit rich coming from an organization that had been so eager to participate in the censorship campaign against the New York Post after the latter broke the news just before the 2020 election of the infamous Hunter Biden laptop, filled with corruption allegations embarrassing to former President Joe Biden.  Not only did NPR have nothing to say about the efforts to censor the Post’s reporting — which included Twitter and Facebook banning the story entirely from their platforms — but NPR went a step further, announcing and bragging even that it would not cover the laptop story at all.

 

NPR Public Editor Kelly McBride explained in 2020 that, “We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions.” For additional context regarding what NPR considers to be a “waste” of “listeners’ and readers’ time,” it once assigned three reporters to byline an 800-plus-word report on the supposedly racially problematic legacy of the thumbs-up emoji.

 

This is beside the point, though. The point is that NPR’s bragging this week should be cited forevermore to prevent any attempt by NPR to claw back taxpayer funding.

 

NPR never really needed those government bucks. It just preferred the easy, guaranteed payout. As with PBS, the funding was never essential. Like PBS, NPR always had a viable commercial product and an audience. It has always been capable of surviving on its own, more easily than many independent news organizations, despite claims to the contrary by NPR’s CEO and its supporters.

 

NPR just didn’t want to compete in the market like everyone else.

 

Taxpayers are no longer on the hook to pay for a specialized style of stilted news reporting and breathy radio commentary — as it should be. Taxpayers should not be on the hook to pay for any news, let alone reporting that explicitly disfavors 50 percent of those footing the bill. No one is “silencing” NPR. What happened to the New York Post during the 2020 election was “silencing.” That’s not what’s happening here with NPR. It is not a victim. It simply has to operate like everyone else now, competing in earnest for ratings and advertiser dollars.

 

That doesn’t make NPR different. It makes it normal.

 

But now that we know NPR can (and evidently always could) operate without government assistance, the real question is: Where do we go for a refund?

 

Becket Adams is a writer in Washington and program director for the National Journalism Center.

 

On Writing

"In my case, writing is primarily a question of patience."

--  German children’s writer Michael Ende

--  Author of "Die unendliche Geschichte" or "The Neverending Story" in year 1979

Coronavirus in Mexico

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqasQyatfBQ

How do you combat the novel coronavirus?  If you live in Mexico, where music and dance are an essential part of everyday life, you make a song.  Enter "La Cumbia del Coronavirus" written and performed by Iván Montemayor, leader of the Mexican musical group Mister Cumbia.  Cumbia is a style of Latin dance music that emerged in the 1940s and 1950s and remains popular today.  Mister Cumbia created a melody that's both entertaining and educational -- the lyrics give listeners practical tips about how to prevent the disease:

Coronavirus, coronavirus, lávense las manos, háganlo seguido.

Coronavirus, coronavirus, pónganse las pilas en lugares concurridos. 

Coronavirus, coronavirus, no se toquen la cara, evítenlo amigos. 

Coronavirus, coronavirus, usen desinfectante, eso es muy efectivo.

(Coronavirus, coronavirus, wash your hands, do it often.)

(Coronavirus, coronavirus, pay close attention in crowded places.) 

(Coronavirus, coronavirus, do not touch your face, avoid it friends.)

(Coronavirus, coronavirus, use disinfectant, that is very effective.)

Scientists say singing releases "feel good" endorphins into our bodies.  Perhaps these compounds can help us battle the virus, too.

U.S.A. Politics . . . In a Nutshell

Democrats election 2020

The democratic party is making plans for the 2020 U.S.A. election.  Should they oppose Pres. Donald  Trump because he is incompetent, because he is unpleasant?  Or should they run against him because they have better ideas for running the government of the United States?

Make a Difference

 I use this blog sometimes to record things I would never say to people I care for.  Here's another message about which I would never hit the ""post" or "send" button:

"I hope and pray you are doing something other than ranting on Facebook to make the world a better place.  If you feel you are powerless and there is nothing you can do to make the world a better place other than ranting on Facebook, then God help us all."

Justice vs. redress

The distinction between sexual misconduct and allegations of sexual misconduct is getting narrower every day.

Here's another message I will not be sending out to my politically passionate friends:  Your life does not have to revolve around Donald Trump.  Your life does not have to revolve around Barak Obama.  Unless, of course, you want it to.

A Social Media Memo I Will Never Send

Here's something I will never place on the facebook pages or blog sites of friends or relatives:

Please alternate your doom-and-gloom, end-of-the-world, "can you believe this outrageous injustice? " social media declarations with occasional postings that draw attention to something wonderful that is happening in the world.

Thanksgiving In North America

When was the first Thanksgiving celebrated in North America? History provides several possibilities. For most folks in the United States the answer would be 1621. That's the year early European settlers called Pilgrims hosted a 3-day feast near present-day Plymouth, Massachusetts to celebrate their first harvest in the New World.

However, an earlier Thanksgiving had already taken place in Spanish North America.  In 1598 an expedition of colonists led by Adelantado Don Juan de Oñate marched from Santa Barbara, México across the Chihuahuan Desert and reached the Río Bravo del Norte near what is now San Elizario, Texas.  A day-long thanksgiving feast was ordered to celebrate the safe arrival of the expedition following the treacherous 50-day journey.  Some historians mark this event as the beginning of Spanish colonization of the American Southwest.

But from a Canadian perspective the first Thanksgiving goes back further still. That's because in 1578 a flotilla of settlers led by English navigator Sir Martin Frobisher anchored in what is now Frobisher Bay in the present-day Canadian territory of Nunavut. There they held a Thanksgiving ceremony to celebrate their safe arrival following the difficult voyage.

There is much to be thankful for in this world, so I for one am happy to have several Thanksgivings on the calendar to celebrate during the year:

• 30 April - Thanksgiving Day feast by new settlers in Spanish North America (1598)
• 2nd Monday in October - Traditional Thanksgiving Day holiday, Canada
• 4th Thursday in November - Traditional Thanksgiving Day holiday, U.S.A.

Presidential Debate - Lies & Broken Promises

During the televised presidential debate last night, people in the audience were not supposed to applaud or cheer.  But they did anyway. They abandoned what they promised to do and did they wanted instead. Yet these same people get quite indignant when political candidates lie and break their promises.

"In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve."

Joseph de Maistre, French writer & philosopher, 1753–1821

Public Affairs as Entertainment

Despite all the chaos it's still fun to read the news.
1. 9/9/2016. "A massive stock market rally is at our doorstep. Stocks are on the cusp of an historic surge." - Economist Paul Mampilly, http://thesovereigninvestor.com
2. 9/9/2016. "A 50% stock market collapse is looming. We could see the end of Social Security as soon as 2017. " - Economist James Dale Davidson, http://thesovereigninvestor.com

Politics of Love

Discrimination is bad. That's why laws and principles are in place to protect the rights of people who are members of protected classes. The list of protected classes is long and growing. Today discrimination is prohibited based on:

race; color; creed; religion; national origin; citizenship; age; sex; disability status; marital status; parental status; sexual orientation; gender identity; political ideology; criminal history; genetic composition; and more.

In Seattle, Washington, women who breastfeed babies in public are a protected class shielded from discrimination.

For members of protected classes, discrimination is prohibited in employment, housing, and public accommodation. Members of protected classes cannot be denied access to public programs and cannot be excluded from public activities. Members are safeguarded from harassment. People with family or friends in a protected class get these protections too.

From this one might think good progress is being made in guaranteeing equal rights for all Americans. There's another view, however, which says these efforts are not enough.

US Senator Cory Booker spoke at the Democratic National Convention on July 25, 2016. He said observing tolerance for those in protected classes is not enough. Extending respect, dignity, support, and cooperation to others is not enough. Guaranteeing rights and ending discrimination, sometimes under the force of law, are not enough.

Senator Booker said society cannot function properly and our nation cannot work well unless people are loved. That the highest duty of a patriot is to love every fellow countrywoman and countryman. That the only way to ensure people have a sense of worth and value is for others to love them -- especially members of protected classes.

So it's not about acceptance, it's not about equal rights, it's not about ending discrimination anymore. It's about embracing people, celebrating their choices, and loving everyone everywhere.

The US Constitution has a Bill of Rights. Is it time to enact a "Bill of Love"?

Why Aren't There More Women in Public Office?

Women are underrepresented in elective political offices at federal, state, and local levels. Is this because of unfair treatment, lack of equal rights, repudiation of entitlements, discrimination, misogyny?  Here is one view from a study in 2012.

"Men Rule - The Continued Under-Representation of Women in U.S. Politics"
Women & Politics Institute - School of Public Affairs - American University
Washington, DC. - January 2012

Seven barriers to women running for office:

1. Women are substantially more likely than men to perceive the electoral environment as highly competitive and biased against female candidates.

2.  The way Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin's candidacies were treated in 2008 aggravated women's perceptions of gender bias in the electoral arena.

3. Women are much less likely than men to think they are qualified to run for office.

4. Female potential candidates are less competitive, less confident, and more risk averse than their male counterparts.

5. Women react more negatively than men to many aspects of modern campaigns.

6. Women are less likely than men to receive the suggestion to run for office — from anyone.

7. Women are still responsible for the majority of child care and household tasks.

end

Injustice

You are the victim of racial profiling by police. Now what do you do?  1) Refuse to follow instructions from police. 2) Go to court and rectify the injustice. Pick choice #2.

Communist Sentiment

“We will always defend the cooperation and friendship with all peoples of the world, including our political opponents.”

-- Fidel Castro, 88, former president of Cuba, in a letter written in Jan. 2015 about new efforts to normalize relations between the U.S. and Cuba. 

How better matters in the world might be today if more leaders in the United States could express a similar sentiment.

Outside Looking In

Folks in Arkansas like being outside, but that doesn’t extend to their politics.

Landowners and government officials in Missouri and Arkansas are concerned about a proclamation from the Secretary of the Interior designating the 700 miles long White River and it’s entire 17.8 million acre watershed as a National Blueway.

The authority to create National Blueways was asserted by Secretarial Order #3321 issued last year. Thus far the Connecticut River, which runs 410 miles through four states, and the White River have been designated as National Blueways. These mandates from the Department of the Interior are part of the America's Great Outdoors Initiative launched in 2010 by President Obama under the auspices of a Presidential Memorandum. The goal of the initiative is to reinforce community-level efforts aimed at conserving outdoor spaces and getting citizens outside.

The purpose of making the White River a National Blueway is to help federal, state, and local partners share management resources and best practices, and to improve the collaborative stewardship of the White River watershed. The designation doesn’t establish any new protections or regulations, but simply recognizes and supports existing local and regional conservation, recreation, and restoration efforts by coordinating ongoing federal, state, and local activities.

All this sounds fine, so what’s the concern? The problem is 1.2 million people who live, work and play in the watershed were not consulted in the matter. No public hearings, no public presentations, no discussions in state legislatures, no considerations in Congress. Partners supporting the White River National Blueway are primarily the Dept. of the Interior, the USDA Forest Service, and the Army Corps of Engineers, plus private conservation organizations like Ducks Unlimited, the National Wildlife Refuge Association, and The Nature Conservancy. Some other organizations signed on such as the Missouri Department of Conservation, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, the Arkansas Canoe Club, and the cities of Augusta and Clarendon, Arkansas. Despite all the talk in press releases about fostering community-level and local interactions, key stakeholders left out of the loop include: area residents, landowners, municipal governments, county officials, state legislatures, and Congress.

With this background, who can blame folks for being skeptical about whether this new program is truly a plan to promote river conservation and outdoor recreation or whether it is an effort to create new land use designations bypassing the considerations of citizens and elected officials? Some counties in the White River watershed are considering actions to abrogate the National Blueways designation within their boundaries. State wildlife and conservation organizations are withdrawing their support. State legislators are speaking out against the plan. Congressional delegations are asking the interior secretary to delay action until more is known about how areas within the National Blueway will be impacted.

A sad lesson about how not to create and lead a government program. When non-elected officials launch public plans without inviting public participation the result will be surprise, skepticism, and pushback. And when federal administrators talk about programs that include community-level partnerships, they must involve more than those who reside in and around the “community” of Washington, D.C.

The Death of Facts

Something’s been bothering me lately. I had trouble narrowing it down. It has to do with what does and does not matter to people today.

Consider the facts. Or, instead, don’t consider them, because it seems they may not matter very much anymore.

Everyone is biased, I have many biases, nothing new there. Early writers commented on the slant of self interest. Here’s the historian Thucydides in 431 BC: “... it is a habit of mankind to entrust to careless hope what they long for, and to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not fancy." But the expression of bias has taken a nasty turn in modern times.

Today, hearing opposing facts can make people hold even more firmly to contradictory beliefs. Facts themselves have less power to correct misinformation. Facts are less likely to get people to change their minds. The more educated people are the more likely they are to disregard facts that conflict with their beliefs.

Several factors are driving the death of facts. Any threat to self esteem, especially admitting one is mistaken, is unbearable for many these days. Facts are insipidly dry -- folks today are used to being coddled, titillated and entertained before conceding their attention. And there is so much information floating around now that absorbing any portion of it is exhausting.

None of this represents new thinking. Old studies from 2005-2006 confirmed these notions, which were described by several researchers well before then. But if the assertions are true, if what has historically been bias has been transformed into blindness, if having the facts reduces the validity of an argument, then competent decision-making and effective governance are doomed for generations to come.

Readings:

Popular media. The Boston Globe reports facts don’t matter in political debates. July 2010.  Link

Journals. Paper concerning the persistence of political misperceptions. Political Behavior, Amer. Political Science Assoc. Nyhan & Reifler. June 2010.  Link

Journals. Paper about the impact of misinformation in democracy. The Journal of Politics. Aug. 2000.  Link