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BART Art: A Door Adorably Adorned

Riding back from SF on BART recently, I noticed an odd warning sign on the door of BART car #2570. One of the windows on the automatic door had a small, illustrated sign warning: "Don't Block the Doors." The adjacent window had a similar illustrated sign that read: "No Cross-country Skiing."

Say what?

Looking closer, I discovered that some anonymous BART jokester had pasted an official-looking-but-bogus warning over a sign that originally read: "Do Not Hold Doors."

Sure enough, the drawing of a passenger holding two vertical bars apart in the open position DOES look like a skier holding two cross-country ski poles!

My Nominee for City Employee of the Week

Making a run to the Main Post Office last week, I pulled into a parking spot on Harold Way. After exiting my car, I had to dance around a city employee who was busy power-washing the sidewalk. On my return, the hosing was still in progress and, I noted—with a mix of amazement and amusement—that the fellow wielding the hose was also pausing to spray each of the cars parked along the curb.

Ducking back inside my car, I caught his eye and gave him a smile and a salute. He returned the salute and set about power-washing my Nissan until it gleamed, allowing me to execute a clean getaway. 

Ain't We the Best? 

The English language is distinguished by it's use of apostrophes, a quirky typographical aberration that allows for the creation of contractions. 

Some contractions are familiar, like: Are not = aren't; Do not = don't; cannot = can't; that would = that'd; it was = 'twas. 

Others are not so familiar. As in: what would = what'd; what will = what'll; when did = when'd; when will = when'll; why will = why'll; how will = how'll; might not = mightn't. 

And then there are those rare "double contractions" like: it is not = 'tisnt and she would have = she'd've. (Could we shorten "they would not have" to they'd'n've?) 

And what's to stop us from creating new contractions like: will not = willn't; shall not = shalln't; may not = mayn't; might not = mighten't? 

All of which brings us to the ultimate question: What is "ain't" a contraction of? 

The Times Tweaks Trump's Tweets 

One Thursday, November 12, while Congress was focused on debating articles of impeachment in a record nine-hour marathon session, Donald Trump devoted most of the day to watching the proceedings on TV and setting a new personal record—firing off 108 tweets and re-tweets in a single day. 

Recently, two New York Times reporters tackled the daunting task of analyzing Trump's bizarre Twitter habits and reported the following findings after studying 11,000 of Trump's Tweets: 

• More than 5,500 of the tweets were attacks on others. 

• More than 2,000 were Tweets of self-praise 

• Nearly half of Trump's "attack tweets" were sent between 6-10 a.m.—"executive time" that Trump spends "mostly without advisers present." 

• Trump has tweeted "at least 145 unverified accounts that push conspiracy or extremist content" from sources that were subsequently banned by Twitter. 

• Trump has bragged/lied about his Inaugural crowd size 183 times, attacked immigrants 570 times, praised dictators 132 times, called the media "the enemy of the people" 36 times, and called himself everyone's "favorite president" 16 times. 

• Trump has retweeted conspiracy threads pushed by "white nationalists, anti-Muslim bigots and adherents of QAnon." 

• Trump even retweeted "a phony Russian account that said: "We love you, Mr. President!" 

• Trump doesn't like to use reading glasses so he dictates his tweets to White House Social Media Director Dan Scanino. 

• Scovino occasionally "prints out suggested tweets in extra-large fonts for Mr. Trump to sign off on." 

Becerra Mi Mucho 

Is California the only state that boasts a grassroots-funded Attorney General? 

In a political landscape where politics is dominated by Big Money, Cal's A.G. Xavier Becerra has made Donald Trump's life miserable by calling on Little Money donations to confront Don J's depredations. 

So far, Becerra's office has filed suit against the Trump administration more than 60 times—and has been successful in a majority of the cases. 

When Trump tried to jettison California's "clear car standards," Becerra filed suit to halt the Big Polluter rollback. And Becerra had a few choice words for Trump:  

“The Oval Office is really not a place for on-the-job training. President Trump should have at least read the instruction manual he inherited when he assumed the Presidency, in particular, the chapter on respecting the Rule of Law. Mr. President, we’ll see you in court.” 

Now, Becerra is among the millions of Californians who are aghast over Trump's plan to open more than 1 million acres of federal land inside the State to oil drilling and hydraulic fracturing—a dirty process that pumps chemicals into the ground to recover hidden oil. It pollutes groundwater and is also known to trigger earthquakes. Trump's plan even calls for oil drilling inside Yosemite National Park! 

According to Becerra, "This latest action by the Trump administration joins a long list of other foolish attacks on our health and environment: Rolling back the Endangered Species Act. Attacking our fuel economy standards. Weakening policies that expose families to toxic chemicals. Trump’s Big Polluter agenda hurts our health, and our 30-plus climate lawsuits are blocking him in court. We’re prepared to do what we must to avert this latest attack." 

Thanks to Becerra, while our "Emperor has no clothes," he certainly has a lot of suits. 

If you like the idea of a Trump-busting AG who is funded by small grass-rootsy checks instead of large, covert, five-figure donations, Xavier Becerra is open for (the people's) business at xavierbecerra.com. 

The Red Cap Crowd Loves Trump as Thanos 

A recent item in a Hollywood news platform (appropriately named Deadline) raised the question: "What’s more presidential than a sadistic alien despot who wipes out half the universe? In a curious move, the campaign to re-elect President Donald Trump has circulated a mash-up photo and video that melds the head of chief executive with the hulking form of Thanos, the extraterrestrial menace made infamous in the Avengers films from Disney and Marvel Studios." 

The news-note included a response from Jim Starlin, the fellow who created the Thanos character in 1973. “After my initial feeling of being violated," Starlin confessed, "seeing that pompous dang fool using my creation to stroke his infantile ego, it finally struck me that the leader of my country and the free world actually enjoys comparing himself to a mass murderer. How sick is that?” 

The new Trump-as-Thanos ad is based on an independently produced campaign video from August 24, 2018. In the TheGeekZTeam video titled "Thanos Trump: Winfinity War," Trump was shown brutally attacking and Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Viewer discretion advised. 

 

House Members Vote No on Pentagon's 2020 Budget

The House version of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) contained some hard-fought-for antiwar amendments, including: 

• Restricting participation in Saudi Arabia’s war with Yemen,
• Withdrawing the president's Authorization for Military Force,
• Restricting the development of a Space Force,
• Preventing war with Iran,
• Stopping transfer of Pentagon funds to build a border wall,
• Halting development of tactical (aka "useable") nuclear weapons,
• Requiring the Pentagon to justify the existence of overseas military bases.

But when the House and Senate versions were reconciled into a final bill, all of these progressive amendments—voted on and approved by the House—had been stripped away, in favor of a $738 billion bill that continues spending. Meanwhile, calls to constrain military fraud, waste, and excess were ignored. 

In response, 48 members of the House confronted the Democratic leadership for its "moral cowardice" and voted against the 2020 Pentagon budget. 

 

Those Who Voted Against More War 

List prepared by Environmentalists Against War 

Democrats 

Karen Bass (CA), Earl Blumenauer (OR), Judy Chu (CA), Clarke (NY), Steve Cohen (TN), Danny K. Davis (IL), Peter DeFazio (OR), Diana DeGette (CO), Mark DeSaulnier (CA), Debbie Dingell (MI), Michael F. Doyle (PA), Eliot Engel (NY), Adriano Espaillat (NY), Tulsi Gabbard (HI), Jesus García (IL), Jimmy Gomez (CA), Raul Grijalva (AZ), Jared Huffman (CA), Pramila Jayapal (WA), John Neely Kennedy (LA), Ro Khanna (CA), Dan Kildee (MI), Barbara Lee (CA), Andy Levin (MI), Alan Lowenthal (CA), Jim McGovern (MA), Grace Meng (NY), Jerrold Nadler (NY), Grace Napolitano (CA), John Neguse (CO), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Ilhan Omar (MN), Mark Pocan (WI), Alanna Pressley (MA), Jamie Raskin (MD), Jan Schakowsky (IL), Rashida Tlaib (MI), Paul Tonko (NY), Nydia Velázquez (NY), Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ), Peter Welch (VT). 

Republicans 

Ken Buck (CO), Louis B. Gohmert, Jr. (TX), H. Morgan Griffith (VA), Thomas Massie (KY), Tom McClintock (CA), Tom Rice (SC). 

Independents 

Justin Amash (MI) 

The Boys Who Said NO! 

Finally, after years in the making, a long-awaited, Berkeley-brewed draft-resistance documentary is about to hit movie screens around the nation. And it comes at a good time—following on the release of the Washington Post's damning expose of the incompetence and mendacity of the Pentagon's 18-year-long war in-and-on Afghanistan. 

For nearly two decades, at a cost of $5.9 trillion (including interest) and scores of thousands of lost lives—soldiers and civilians—the "Defense" department stands revealed as an over-hyped fraud. As with the Pentagon Papers before it, the Afghanistan Papers strips away the veil of official lies and exposes a litany of loss as bumbling officials tried to cover up their failures by fanning a haze of fraudulent accounting and outright falsehoods. 

Taxpayers were robbed. Voters were deceived. Survivors were left torn by anger upon learning that their loved ones did not "die to protect our country" but had their lives taken from them for no good reason. 

The scale of this crime leaves one wishing that it would be possible to impeach the generals for "high crimes and misdemeanors" and to impeach the equally guilty Republican and Democrat presidents who joined in the cover-up. 

The documentary, The Boys Who Said NO! offers a stirring tribute to more than 500,000 young Americans who clearly saw through the lies of the US War on Vietnam, resisted the draft, and faced jail for their acts of moral resistance. 

In late November, producer Bill Prince sent word that the local crew was about to "lock picture" on the project. "Only six to eight weeks of technical processing remain." The film recently screened at New York's famed Tribeca Film Festival. 

The filmmakers are inviting readers of The Planet to watch a three-minute trailer for the film here or at their website. 

And here is an earlier trailer from January 2018: 

 

Bullets Below: Under Siege Underseas 

According to Business Insider, the Department of Defense is developing bullets that be fired from underwater. This could foreshadow the creation of "submarine machine-guns" capable of blasting holes in enemy subs. The bullets are being tested by the Pentagon's Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office. 

Who knew terrorists were plotting to attack the Homeland with submarines? 

DSG Technologies, the firm that is developing this aqua-ammo for the Pentagon tells Defense One that, once these tungsten-tipped mini-missiles prove seaworthy, it "plans to start selling the bullets to governments around the world." 

Well, there goes Washington's strategic advantage. 

So, thanks to the march of corporate science, we may soon live in a world where underwater snipers can hide beneath the waves and take-out human targets both on ships and on shore. 

America: Ask Why You Are Hated 

Shortly after an outburst of gun-slaughter rocked the Air Force's Pensacola base, a tweet by the shooter—a Saudi national named Mohammed Saeed Al-Shamrani—was flashed on the nation's TV screens. Al-Shamrani's words were not read in their entirety, however, leaving news anchors to caution that it was "too early" to determine whether the attack was an act of "terrorism." 

For anyone who could manage a screen-grab in that first hour of breaking news, the message was perfectly clear: 

O American people, 

I'm not against you for just being American, 

I don't hate you because every day you supporting, funding and committing crimes not only against Muslims but also humanity. 

I'm against evil, and America as a whole has turned into a nation of evil. What I see from America is the supporting of Israel which is invasion of Muslim countries, I see invasion of many countries by its troops, I see Guantanamo Bay. I see cruise missiles, cluster bombs and UAV. 

Ironically, while Al-Shamrani's attack appears to have been a brutal act of retaliation, it was not terrorism. Terrorism is defined as an attack on civilians in the pursuit of political aims. While Al-Shamrani clearly had a political motivation, he didn't attack civilians, he targeted his fellow soldiers—those situationally complicit in the murder of civilians in nations targeted by the US overseas.