Opinion | Is It Policy- or Just Reality TV? – by Paul Krugman – NYT

“The other day the Trump administration announced a new trade deal with South Korea. It also announced that President Trump was nominating the White House physician to head the Department of Veterans Affairs. What do these announcements have in common?

The answer is that both are indicators of how Trump views his job. He doesn’t seem to see actual policymaking as important; instead, he treats it all as an exercise in reality TV.

Unfortunately, what looks good on TV isn’t necessarily good for America, or the world.Ronny L. Jackson, the veterans affairs nominee, certainly looks good on TV, as we saw when he gave Trump an excellent bill of health, including a declaration that the president, while overweight, is just shy of being officially obese — thanks to having apparently grown an inch in office.

However, girtherism isn’t the real issue here; as David Axelrod says, “a waist is a terrible thing to mind.” The point, instead, is that running veterans’ health is a management, not medical, job — and Jackson has no managerial experience.”

Opinion | Mitch McConnell- Your Female Colleagues Are Fed Up – The New York Times

“Over the past six months, Americans have come to understand the galling ubiquity of sexual misconduct and how such misdeeds are too often swept under the rug. Now some of the most powerful women in the United States are saying they’ve waited long enough to address these issues at their own workplace.

All 22 female members of the Senate, Republicans and Democrats, are demanding the chamber’s leadership stop stonewalling an overhaul of Congress’s byzantine method of handling complaints of sexual harassment against members of Congress and their staffs under the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995.”

“Why I am still grateful” op-ed by Peter Wehner – NYT

I am grateful for my family, friends, community, our country, and this wonderful world. I pray every day that we practice good stewardship, as part of our celebration and gratitude for life.

“Why I am still grateful,” the op-ed below, is by Peter Wehner, who served in three Republican administrations.

Opinion | Why I Am Still Grateful

It isn’t easy to feel this way, in our broken world, but it is necessary.

NYTIMES.COM

CreateSpace Community: Creating a PDF for Print

. Creating a PDF for PrintBy Laurel, CreateSpace PrePress If you’re planning to submit your own fully-formatted files to CreateSpace for publication, you’ll first need to format your book document according to CreateSpace specifications using our online submission guidelines. Before submitting your finished documents, they will first need to be converted to PDF. Follow one of the three methods below to output a PDF intended for high-quality printing.

Make sure to save your working documents before creating your PDF files so that you may edit them later if you wish. Keep in mind that PDF is an open source file format, which means anyone can write PDF creation software programs or plug-ins. However, not all software will create a PDF for use in print applications. For best results, use programs and plug-ins from reputable software providers to create PDFs.

Option 1: Print to PDF With the native document open in the application you used to create your work, select “File>Print” Select “PDF” from the list of printers you are able to print to. If you do not find “PDF” in the list, there may be a “Print to PDF” or “PDF” button in the dialog box. Select this option if it is available. Otherwise, try the “Save as PDF” method below. Click “Properties”, “Settings”, or “Options” (naming depends on your system) to check the PDF settings that will be used to create your PDF file. If available, select “PDF/X-1a,” “High-Quality Print” or “Press Quality” from the list of presets. If your system allows, make sure the following settings are chosen. Any other settings should be left to default in most cases. Fonts and images are embedded. Specified page size matches the intended trim size plus bleed (if applicable). You may lose the bleed you included in your native document if not printed to the proper size. Bookmarks, annotations, and comments are disabled. Document security (any type) is not used. PDF/X format is used. PDF/X is preferred, but if you are submitting non-PDF/X files (for example, PDF/A), any comments, forms, or other non-printing objects could be removed during our review process. Transparent objects are flattened. Spreads and printer’s marks are disabled. Downsampling, or decreasing resolution, of images is disabled. Provide a name and location for the PDF file you are printing to (may default to the current name and location of the native document) and click “OK” in the print dialog box. Once created, make sure to open the PDF file to see that it appears as you intended. Otherwise, make the necessary adjustments in the native document and re-create the PDF file.

Option 2: Export as PDF With the native document open in the application you used to create your work, select “File>Export” You may need to select “PDF” if other file formats are available for export in the application. Provide a name and location for the PDF file you are exporting (may default to the current name and location of the native document) and click “Save” or “OK” in the print dialog box. Check the PDF settings that will be used to create your PDF file. If available, select “PDF/X-1a,” “High-Quality Print” or “Press Quality” from the list of presets. If your system allows, make sure the following settings are chosen. Any other settings should be left to default in most cases. Fonts and images are embedded. Bookmarks, annotations, and comments are disabled. Document security (any type) is not used. PDF/X format is used. PDF/X is preferred, but if you are submitting non-PDF/X files (for example, PDF/A), any comments, forms, or other non-printing objects could be removed during our review process. Transparent objects are flattened. Spreads and printer’s marks are disabled. Downsampling, or decreasing resolution, of images is disabled. Bleeds are enabled (if applicable). Click “Export” or “OK” in the export dialog box. Once created, make sure to open the PDF file to see that it appears as you intended. Otherwise, make the necessary adjustments in the native document and re-create the PDF file. Option 3: Save as PDF With the native document open in the application you used to create your work, select “Save As” from the application’s main menu or “File” menu. Choose “P

Source: CreateSpace Community: Creating a PDF for Print

Greece’s Island of Despair – The New York Times

His brown eyes sunken and flat, Jahangir Baroch had spent another sleepless night in the metal container on the Greek island of Lesbos where he has lived for more than a year.

“There was no electricity in the container last night,” Mr. Baroch, 26, said desperately, at a center for refugees, away from the holding camp in Moria, where he is housed. “It was like a fridge.”

“I want to go to Athens,” said Mr. Baroch, who came from Baluchistan, an embattled province in Pakistan. “If you don’t want me, I want to go to another country.”

“Why am I here?” he asked, somberly.

Others are asking the same question two years after the European Union struck a deal with Turkey aimed at cutting off the route across the Aegean Sea for asylum seekers, many propelled by wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Since then, thousands have remained stranded on Lesbos, unwilling to go back to the countries they left, unable to move forward, toward the opportunity they had hoped to find in Europe. Though the numbers are fewer, they keep coming.

The lucky ones, whose asylum applications are accepted, are eventually shipped to the Greek mainland. Those whose applications are rejected (they can apply twice) are sent back to Turkey as part of the deal with the European Union.

via Greece’s Island of Despair – The New York Times

Wooing Saudi Business- Tabloid Mogul Had a Powerful Friend: Trump – The New York Times

“In July, David J. Pecker, the chairman of the company that owns The National Enquirer, visited his old friend President Trump at the White House.

The tabloid publisher took along a special guest, Kacy Grine, a French businessman who advises one of Saudi Arabia’s richest men and sometimes acts as an intermediary between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Western businesses.The two men and other Pecker associates chatted with the president in the Oval Office and briefly met with Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and Middle East envoy, Jared Kushner. Before moving on to dinner with the group, the president had a photographer snap pictures of the guests standing with him behind his desk.

Mr. Pecker has long used his media empire to protect Mr. Trump’s image. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Mr. Pecker’s company, American Media Inc., suppressed the story of a former Playboy model who claimed to have had an affair with Mr. Trump.The night of the dinner, Mr. Pecker got something from Mr. Trump: an unofficial seal of approval from the White House.”

David Lindsay:

Ouch. I can’t wash this dirt off my hands, it won’t come off.  Yes to this article. Here is one of many comments I recommended:

Avatar

New York 1 hour ago

So Pecker buys the Stormy Daniels story and doesn’t print it thereby covering for Trump. In return, Trump hooks Pecker up with Saudi investors. I’ll bet Pecker would have done the same thing if the story were about Obama. Right?

Trump repeatedly told us he’d drain the swamp; instead he’s filled it with the shadiest, sleaziest, most corrupt collection Washington, D.C. has ever seen. The Republican Congress thinks everything is just fine. Please leave our boss alone so we can go back to work tearing down protections for the poor, minorities, the environment, women, the 99%, public education, victims of the N.R.A., etc. As Ryan has repeatedly told us, Trump is new to the job; we need to give him time to “get adjusted.” In 2018 and 2020 we need to tell the Republican Party that their brand is destroying America.

• 121 Recommended

Opinion | The 2016 Exit Polls Led Us to Misinterpret the 2016 Election – The New York Timesby Thomas Edsall – NYT

“The Pew Research Center and the Center for American Progress have produced methodologically sophisticated surveys of the electorate that sharply contradict 2016 exit polls.Perhaps most significant, a March 20 Pew Research Center public opinion survey found that 33 percent of Democratic voters and Democratic leaners are whites without college degrees. That’s substantially larger than the 26 percent of Democrats who are whites with college degrees — the group that many analysts had come to believe was the dominant constituency in the party.

According to Pew, this noncollege white 33 percent makes up a larger bloc of the party’s voters than the 28 percent made up of racial and ethnic minorities without degrees. It is also larger than the 12 percent of Democratic voters made up of racial and ethnic minorities with college degrees.In sum, Pew’s more precise survey methods reveal that when Democrats are broken down by education, race and ethnicity, the white working class is the largest bloc of Democratic voters and substantially larger than the bloc of white college-educated Democratic voters.In a detailed analysis of the 2016 vote, Pew found that 44 percent, or 60.1 million out of a total of 136.7 million votes cast on Nov. 8, 2016 were cast by whites without college degrees — demographic shorthand for the white working class.”

Opinion | These Kids Could Tutor World Leaders – by Nicholas Kristof – NYT

 

NDONGA, Central African Republic — This remote village doesn’t have an official school, and there’s no functioning government to build one. So the villagers, desperate to improve their children’s lives, used branches and leaves to construct their own dirt-floor schoolhouse.

It has no electricity, windows or desks, and it doesn’t keep out rain or beetles, but it does imbue hope, discipline and dreams. The 90 pupils sitting on bamboo benches could tutor world leaders about the importance of education — even if the kids struggle with the most basic challenges.

“It’s hard to learn without a paper or pen,” Bertrand Golbé, a parent who turned himself into a teacher, acknowledged with a laugh. “But this is the way we have to do it.

“They never have had breakfast when they arrive,” Golbé added. “They’re hungry. It’s difficult.”

via Opinion | These Kids Could Tutor World Leaders – The New York Times

David Lindsay:   Lovely op-ed by Nicholas Kristof, but it was short on numbers refered to by not shared.
Kristof wrote;
“And in South Sudan, a girl is more likely to die in childbirth than to graduate from high school.
…..
Education is also a bargain: By my back-of-envelope calculations, for about one-half of 1 percent of global military spending, the world could vanquish illiteracy forever by ensuring that every child completes primary school.”
I wonder why he excludes the numbers. He was over his word count, or thinks we would be burdened?
The numbers matter. It is too bad they are left out.
That said, his thesis right. We should support and help pay for elementary education in the third world, because it its good for humanity and the evironment, and slowing out of control population growth.
David Lindsay Jr. is the author of “The Tay Son Rebellion, Historical Fiction of Eighteenth-century Vietnam,” and blogs at TheTaySonRebellion.com and InconvenientNewsWorldwide.wordpress.com

Opinion | David J. Shulkin: Privatizing the V.A. Will Hurt Veterans – The New York Times

“It seems that these successes within the department have intensified the ambitions of people who want to put V.A. health care in the hands of the private sector. I believe differences in philosophy deserve robust debate, and solutions should be determined based on the merits of the arguments. The advocates within the administration for privatizing V.A. health services, however, reject this approach. They saw me as an obstacle to privatization who had to be removed. That is because I am convinced that privatization is a political issue aimed at rewarding select people and companies with profits, even if it undermines care for veterans.

Until the past few months, veteran issues were dealt with in a largely bipartisan way. (My 100-0 Senate confirmation was perhaps the best evidence that the V.A. has been the exception to Washington’s political polarization). Unfortunately, the department has become entangled in a brutal power struggle, with some political appointees choosing to promote their agendas instead of what’s best for veterans. These individuals, who seek to privatize veteran health care as an alternative to government-run V.A. care, unfortunately fail to engage in realistic plans regarding who will care for the more than 9 million veterans who rely on the department for life-sustaining care.”

Opinion | Facebook Isn’t Just Violating Our Privacy – By Noam Cohen – NYT

Even as it issues full-page apologies in print newspapers promising ritualistically “to do better,” Facebook and its allies have minimized the importance of the seismic revelation that the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, which worked on behalf of the Trump campaign in 2016, had gained access to the private information of about 50 million Facebook users.

Some executives have pointed out that the mechanism that until a few years ago allowed a researcher with 270,000 app downloads to have access to 50 million profiles wasn’t exactly a secret, and, besides, Facebook users nominally agreed to the sharing of these profiles so that apps would perform better. The company’s chief security officer, Alex Stamos, took to Twitter to complain that Facebook and other “platforms” were being held to a double standard concerning the profiles, since they may well “have been criticized as monopolists for locking them down.”

Others poured cold water on the idea that Cambridge Analytica was able to use these profiles as grist for its research on swaying voters by cracking the code of human intention. Marc Andreessen, the venture capitalist and a Facebook board member, doesn’t tweet anymore, but he “likes” hundreds of tweets a week, a group that recently included a string that mocked the public’s fear that new media forms can be turned into “weapons of total mind control.”

Perhaps these are the wrong reasons for outrage, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be outraged. What Facebook is selling to political campaigns is the same thing Uber is selling to its drivers and customers and what YouTube is selling to advertisers who hope to reach an audience of children — namely, the right to bypass longstanding rules and regulations in order to act with impunity.

via Opinion | Facebook Isn’t Just Violating Our Privacy – The New York Times

David Lindsay Jr.

Hamden, CT | Pending Approval at NYT Comments.

Angry is too soft a word for how I feel about Facebook. I don’t plan to quit it, because it is a useful communication device, but since we don’t expect the GOP to regulate this rogue capitalist monster, it becomes another log on the fire, for the great resistance of the mid-term election this November. It is time to bring honest, science based, pro democracy, citizen regulators back to all levels of government. Yesterday, I finally visited my apps department in Facebook. There are 16 apps on my account, and I only recognized, and was possibly responsible for three of them. What is the Bing App? Google won’t say in the first pages, and Facebook says it doesn’t understand the question. Let’s get to work, and take over Facebook, and make it absolutely transparent. None of this bullshit, Oh, we can’t tell you what the disappearing ads in the election were.

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David Lindsay Jr. is the author of “The Tay Son Rebellion, Historical Fiction of Eighteenth-century Vietnam,” and blogs at TheTaySonRebellion.com and InconvenientNews.wordpress.com