You are not your party. You are not who you voted for.

Exercising voice is important, particularly in time of distress and in matters concerning rule. I believe that everyone should be openly discussing issues of rights and stability with allowances for differences of opinion and perspective. Regardless of your party, our collective goal is national stability and a high quality of life. Trump is the president, that is fact. However, it is unacceptable for a president to lie to the people (Cf. David Muir interview with Donald, January 25th http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/transcript-abc-news-anchor-david-muir-interviews-president/story?id=45047602). Honesty isn’t the most complex fulcrum of discussion, but it's a primitive issue on which most individuals can agree: dishonesty is wrong. Trump, disdaining grace in victory, has chosen to make public and defend a claim of voter fraud, citing a Pew Research Center (PRC) report as his evidence, despite the fact that the report doesn't address the probability of voter fraud, but rather the inefficiency of the voting registration databases. When told that the author of the report, David Becker, attested to the fact that the report doesn't support voter fraud, Donald Trump bristled and expressed incredulity: “Really? Why did he even write it?” Donald followed up this statement by asserting that the author was "groveling" and then went on to talk about how "reporters like to grovel," which is a nonsensical answer. In my opinion, he was repeating part of his litany that the media is always dishonest, as if that somehow justifies or makes sense of the POTUS predicating a lie on evidence he did not understand. In any event, whether or not he won the popular vote is irrelevant now that he is POTUS, so it's a troubling topic upon which to state an obvious lie based on "evidence" that doesn't support it. If he's willing to lie on a trivial topic when the stakes are low, what might this person do when the stakes are high and the deception is not so conspicuous? If Trump simply misinterpreted the report, then Trump either didn't completely read the report, lacks adequate reading comprehension, or has simply chosen to deny the reality of the metrics, any of which should be wildly alarming. At the same time, Trump has attempted to undermine the credibility and assessment of national intelligence agencies (CIA and FBI), has made efforts to silence media outlets as well as control the voice of governmental departments, and has attempted to redraw the superficial and largely unimportant portrayal of his inauguration and voting statistics. A human being who is unable to accept defeat on trivial matters and is unwilling to tolerate even the existence of criticism is not someone who values an objective honesty or the wisdom of perspectives. Someone who cannot see weakness in themselves will make decisions on the assumption that they cannot make a mistake.

Trump wants information and conclusions to come from him, and him alone. Nations that control information in such a way are oppressive communities in which to live compared to our mode of life. What Trump cannot yet do is prevent the people from speaking out against his methods and behavior. However, if citizens turn aside and allow him to lie to them directly with impunity, thereby allowing him to be unaccountable to factual reality or the consequences of poor judgement, then our system of government is in peril. A collective complacency amidst this political environment could be the first step in a series of lost opportunities for the people that eventually results in a ruling government which elects itself, penalizes free speech, and rescinds other civil liberties which have been hard-won and are being taken for granted. Trump might not survive long enough to see that reality, but he might create a precedence for naked deception of the people as an acceptable modus operandi for the president. Do these words seem dire and unrealistic? If they do, I ask one to consider that the current president is not being transparent about clear financial entanglements domestic and abroad, has put forth a cabinet bereft of public service experience but rife with special-interest dependent wealth, has already spent time filing his re-election, and is insistent on rushing to rapidly drafted executive orders despite the fact that his party firmly controls both the senate and the house. Trump is already displaying a preference for rule by edict, cutting off the voices of elected officials where possible, decrying free sources of information that disagree with his opinion, and neglecting to address the concerns of his citizens regarding conflicts of interest in finance or scandals involving a foreign power (i.e., Russia).  Indeed, creating a narrative about voter fraud, despite the fact that it's an unsubstantiated claim made outlandish by its assertion that the supposed fraud was on the order of 3.5 million votes and injurious to Trump alone, could be the first step on the path to consolidate control over the voting process and to further limit voting rights of the people. Trump believes that the only way he can lose is when someone else cheats (cf. claims of rigged elections pre-election and voter fraud post-election), so in his reality the whole voting process may not make sense to him, since he does not believe he can lose a fair vote. The farther we move from this point in time, the more people will forget that his claims about voter fraud as it pertains to the Pew Research Center study were patently false, and the more likely it is he can set forth legislation, perhaps an executive order, which attempts to alter voting rights or protocol in ways advantageous to him. If he can lie now and not face serious penalties, then a door opens onto an arena wherein he can generate a false narrative which would be accepted on faith by enough people to blur the perception between fact and fiction for people too busy or uninterested to sift through credible sources of information. The type of logic that can be exploited here is this: "I mean, if he's not getting into trouble, he has to be telling the truth, right?" The loss of individual rights will not occur overnight, but through a series of questionable pieces of legislation which will be ignored on presentation and then passed among the clangor of finger pointing, name calling, and bipartisan bickering complemented by the din of executive power controlling information by brute force and distracting its people through a barrage of tweets both captious and trivial.

You are not your party. You are not who you voted for. You are a human who wants to be happy and healthy, with rights and infrastructures in place to assist you in this endeavor. Please set aside any grudges as party members and turn your attention towards ensuring that the government knows that they are accountable to you, and that you will not give up that arrangement. Call your elected officials and let them know that you will not tolerate lies from the executive administration, and that, as taxpayers who fund their position, you expect them (your elected officials) to do their jobs and earn their keep through honest, sustainable work that puts citizen over party. In particular, it should be made clear that they should be willing and able to check the power of a president who is capable lying to his people. 

Regrading the design of electors in Federalist No. 68 as it pertains to current events

     I do not normally comment on matters political, because I often see merit on both sides of the argument and prefer not to engage in discussions which often pivot around binary, party-defined solutions to complex problems. However, the current state of affairs has gone beyond bipartisan strife. I am very concerned with the state of the presidency and unity in The United States of America, as I’m sure everyone else is. The whole election process left all parties involved wounded, sour, and hell-bent at proving their positions. I don’t care who you voted for, what is your partisan bent, or how much you like or dislike presidents past or elect. What I do care about is that you wish for this country to remain a republic wherein the power lies with the people, the citizens who uphold the edicts of our constitution and whose primary aim is to make out of The United States an inclusive government for all the people. As citizens, we need to rise above our quibble over the left and the right, because it’s a distraction we cannot afford, and one which is being heavily exploited. Whole societies have been brought to ruins over excessive consolidations of power and foreign corruption. The same can happen here at home, but we have the power to stall the defining events, if we have the foresight to recognize it. There has been a profound amount of blaming, theory crafting, and questionable trafficking of information during this election in ways that have undermined everyone’s trust and potentially defaced the integrity of our election process. What needs to happen is that we need to remove ourselves from the agendas of the parties and consider what brought us here: the electoral college and controversial candidates.

     Regardless of who you are or from what party you hail, any mention of a foreign power attempting to influence the current of governmental power in your country should be a cause for undeniable, strident alarm. Individuals have been debating over the nature of electors’ duty and the ethics of attempting to influence and/or inform them. There is a famous essay, Federalist 68 (http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp ) which addresses many issues being discussed. First, the electors are not supposed to be voting based on group affiliations or under duress of political or public reprisal, but rather voting “as the electors, chosen in each State…to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.” So, the electors are designed to be as detached as possible to be voting without pressures. Removing external pressure is more difficult in the age of digital information, to be sure. A major arguing point for this divide and vote approach was to guard against foreign powers or special external groups from directly influencing the true voting body in this process: “Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one querter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union?” At this junction I would like to bring the attention back to some facts of the current reality. Russia has been implicated in the hacking and leaking scandals that harrowed this election process, something which has been confirmed by intelligence agencies in the United States and has been acknowledged by the current president. This is a serious accusation, and one which our current president elect has attempted to dismiss. It is important to note that during the presidential race, Donald Trump publicly addressed a camera and said “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing…I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.” In case you want to watch the video to see how this remark was delivered in context, here is a source: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/28/us/politics/donald-trump-russia-clinton-emails.html. Now, encouraging a foreign power to exploit a rival candidate during an election process is something that could be construed as not serving the best interest of the country, or potentially treasonous, if we’re going to be direct about the gravitas of such a boast in a candidate. In more recent weeks, Trump has been trying to play down the Russian interference scenario, even claiming the CIA and FBI are helping Hilary Clinton make excuses. Furthermore, the president has selected for the position of Secretary of State, the third most powerful executive position and key voice in foreign affairs, Rex Tillerson, a CEO of an oil company which has direct and extensive connections with Russia and its current president, Vladmir Putin. Tillerson himself earned a Russian Order of Friendship award for his role in negotiating a business arrangement between ExxonMobil and the government-owned Russian oil company Rosneft, which is headed by one of Putin’s closest allies, one Igor Sechin. In and of itself, this award is not significant, but it does demonstrate a potential for conflict of interest, and it the worst type of conflict of interest to have when it involves close association to people holding executive power in the foreign entity which is accused of intentionally meddling in the US election process. A prudent concern would be why the meddling in the first place and to what end, to say nothing of determining whether or not it’s still occurring. What I’m saying is that you should raise your eyebrow to the fact the president elect, having previously encouraged Russia to hack e-mails of a rival candidate on public TV, who now denies Russia’s influence, is calling the CIA and FBI’s judgement of interference “ridiculous” while at same time selecting for the highest cabinet position a man with objective interests in Russia https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/18/leak-rex-tillerson-director-bahamas-based-us-russian-oil-company. Questioning the public statement of domestic intelligence agencies as a president elect also sends a mixed message about the stability and likelihood of productive cooperation between the highest branches of government. If the president of the United States has small faith in his intelligence branch, is willing to make light of foreign infiltration, and is ready seat a wealthy businessman with a paucity of government experience and a plethora of ties to the very foreign government accused of election tampering, then the election process has gone awry.

     I will make small mention of the president elect’s tendency to misrepresent facts and distract people by inflating trivial matters on twitter, or his selection of other cabinet positions which consist almost entirely of superlatively wealthy like-minded, specialized business-people, because I would like to focus on the electoral college and its intention as a safeguard for the republic. In addition to protection against foreign meddling, the electoral college was to ensure that “The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.” The next part of this document is even more important, for it addresses the notion that someone can rise to high office through demagoguery and shameless intrigue, and that the electoral college is supposed to prevent this ascendance, since such skills do not serve high office: “Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States.” I believe it’s important to focus on “low intrigue” and the “little arts of popularity,” as this addresses specifically some highlights of this election race in totality. I will leave it to the reader to exercise their critical thinking skills to draw their own correlations between these phrases and our most recent election race, for many minds together are more powerful than my single one here. For my own reflections, I considered twitter and the fact that I know more about who our president elect dislikes and why, on a daily basis, than I do about his specific policies or intentions to address public concerns. I even know why the president elect believes he didn’t win the popular vote: voter fraud on the order of what would need be more nearly 3 million votes, which has no evidence and has not prompted our president elect to investigate the voting process (http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/27/politics/donald-trump-voter-fraud-popular-vote). The conclusion of this brief discussion of this Federalist No. 68 with respect to electors is that we should not be discouraging our electors from voting against their outside party affiliations, and that we need to appreciate that, at a fundamental level, no electors should fear reprisal for voting with a critical mind and honest reflection. Indeed, there is another Federalist statement explaining that this whole setup is one intended to foment deliberation: “…. the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice.”A key premise for the electors is that they should enter upon the vote in frame of deliberation. Insofar as deliberation is important, I find that requests for more details about Russian hacking are prudent, albeit I understand why such a briefing may not be realistically possible before the vote, given the nature of potential sources and classified information.

     I would assume by now that someone who had the attention to read this would criticize my focus on Donald Trump, rather than Hilary Clinton. This is discussion about the spirit behind our laws and electoral process which directly address the type of candidate this electoral process was designed to elect as well as the type of candidate that it is designed to forestall, should there be significant concerns about the affiliations, interests, and suitability of the candidate chosen by the "people." The fact of the matter is Donald Trump is the president elect, not Hilary Clinton. The concerns and attendant realities of that fact are to what we should be directing our attention, since that is what will guide our government, which in turn will define our existence as a nation and inform our role on an international stage of increasing tension and uncertainty. Hilary Clinton has been a favorite distraction, but she has been rendered less significant by her loss, so it’s now time for us all to consider who’s about to be commander-in-chief of a country that is currently one of the most powerful in the world. We should all consider the values Hamilton might have had in mind when he said the presidency should only fall to men who are “to an eminent degree, endowed with the requisite qualifications.” We need to consider what it means to have a president who dismisses the importance of foreign interference, who, ignoring conflicts of interest even in matters of foreign corruption, chooses cabinet picks chiefly on business acumen rather than public service record, who uses private social media as a way to express his thoughts both personal and political, and who has been unwilling to decisively distance himself from potential personal conflicts of interest prior to inauguration. If the president elect has difficulty being a gracious winner, I do not expect that he will be honorable loser if he runs again and does not succeed, or is otherwise forced to step down from power. We’ve already seen one governmental official, a governor from North Carolina, undermine the power of those who elected him in a partisan bid to make less effective his successor (http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/16/505872501/north-carolina-governor-signs-law-limiting-power-of-his-successor). I fear what a self-righteous and self-important chief of the nation might be able to accomplish if left unchecked by the people and its government, even in the event that he is cast out of his supreme role. We need to assume the responsibility for whom we elect and understand that we are standing behind a person, not a party, and that as individual persons we should hold our president to supreme standards of moral and political rectitude.

An anecdote on wisdom and anecdotal evidence.

I once asked a wise fellow the following question: At night, when I've had a difficult day, or a great day, should I work, sleep, or read?

He said, more spewing the words upon my previously parched countenance than speaking them into my ready ears: "Read! Always read, you damned fool!"

I learned also the difference between knowledge and wisdom on that day. Knowledge is spoken by others, wisdom is felt and tasted by oneself. 

P.S., anecdotal evidence is highly unreliable and precious.

Stand back, I'm doing poetry again!

De Perspecti Natura (On the nature of perceiving thoroughly)

Brilliance abounds, from canyon precipice to familial edifice;

From the level plane of success to sinuous ebb of distress.

The light is seen by the bold, men who've studied the time of old

A wise man did once profess, the dying secrets of his finesse:

A perspective learned and true, is the biggest stick in a dark purlieu.

A tongue, supple, but not glib, is sharper than metal to pierce through the rib.

Poem by David J. Deardorff

Aside for future reference: This was a facebook response I posted on account of the following picture and a related discussion (it's a picture of mine from the Grand Canyon, hence the first line involving a canyon):

eo die, mihi est philosophia de maestitia

Applied proper, reticence in speech can be the most unerring form of persuasion, silence between keys the note of perfect poignance, and grief the most trenchant manifestation of love.

David J. Deardorff  De Maestitia

Lord's Prayer in Latin - Translated by David Deardorff.

Religion is becoming more important to me these days in accord with life events, and I am greatly missing Latin studies this semester so I thought I'd translate some familiar ecclesiastical documents to keep some of those language gears turning .

I thought I might as well start with the Lord's Prayer, Pater Noster. I've not used any translation notes, and I don't claim to know the vocab or idiomatic uses of these words during the early centuries AD (I think this version came from around the 4th century AD). I'm a classical latinist, which is more the academic Latin than the people's Latin but I'll give you my first shot.

It's relatively literal, I've tried to stick close to the Latin.

Pater Noster

Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo. Amen. 

Our Father (Translation by David Deardorff)

Our father, who is in the heaven(s), consecrated is your name. Your kingdom will come. May your will be done, just as (it is) on heaven and on earth. Give to us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive (those) in our debt ( literally = having been in our debt). And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen

The Latin itself is relatively simple, it's meant to be understood. The "Et ne nos...a malo" reads, sinistrodextral, practically like English.You can see a few differences from the translations you might already be familiar with. Most noticeable to me was the "forgive us our trespasses" part that I'm familiar with. They get the translation "trespasses" from the word "debita" and "debitoribus" which are both derived from the perfect passive participle of the Latin verb Debeo (pincipal parts = debeo, debere, debui, debitum) which roughly means "to owe" - this is exactly where we get the English word "debt". So the translation of trespassing is a creative decision for a more polished translation of its day. The verb governing the aforementioned sentence is "dimitte" and "dimittimus" (principal parts = dimitto, dimittere, dimisi, dimissum) which literally means to "dismiss, discharge" , that is to say, "forgive."


The "for thine is thy kingom" part was never written in the original and accepted Latin texts, in case that's bothering anyone.


Most common English version of "The Lord's Prayer" that I've been exposed to personally:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen

P.S. If anyone who knows late biblical Hebrew ever stumbles across this post and can give me an original translation based on that text, I'd love to hear it.

DD Craft Brew Review: FD's Gonzo Imperial Porter

Flying Dog Gonzo Imperial Porter

Beer Type: Imperial Porter

IBU: 85  ABV: 9.2%

Appearance: Gonzo pours espresso black/very dark brown, like a carbonated black coffee, if you will. There’s a slight foamy head that dissipates quickly.

Scent: Aroma is of dark chocolate, roasted coffee and perhaps a hint of black olives (likely from the interplay between the malt, hops, and alcohol.)  The bouquet is citrus from the hops.

Taste: Starts off tasting like bitter chocolate, coffee, and malt and then evolves more to a taste of barley wine. The finish is a dry bitter finish, with a nice spicy kick from the hops. The hop kick gets heavier as the beer warms. The body is quite full, the carbonation goes some way at making it feel lighter in the beginning, but this is still a full bodied brew. Considering the 9.2% alcohol content by volume, this is dangerously drinkable as a beer - the "alcohol bite" is slim.

Comments: Overall excellent beer, I would highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys port beer and especially to anyone who enjoys IPAs as you will appreciate the addenda hops here. Plus, how can you not grin at a beer whose name is inspired by “Dr. Gonzo” and has a Hunter S. Thompson quote on the box?

My rating: 9.0/10