Change is really happening in Washington! "Sleepy Joe" Biden has been displaying an alert and affirmative presence that has elevated him to the status of Dream President. Under Der Trump, the phrase "Executive Action" came to mean "regressive, mean-spirited, poverty-promoting, and planet-polluting." Under Biden's pen, the EA-signing ceremonies have become liberating, inspiring, and cause for celebration.

On his first day, Biden hit the ground running (his injured, booted foot apparently healed) and he's been gaining ground with every hour and Oval Office press-op. If he hasn't already set a record for the greatest number of campaign promises kept, he soon will.

In addition to decreeing major reversals of the previous Misadministration's despicable rulings on the environment, public health, and military sales to dictators, Biden is also taking the lead in one of the Democrat's most ambitious—and most needed—challenges: reforming the US Electoral System.

In a sane world, this initiative would unit both parties—including not just those American's who cheer the policies of Obama, FDR, and MLK but all those alienated Trumpublicans who continue to believe the canard that the last US election was rigged. 

The first bill before a new Congress always raises a special flag to future hopes. In this case, a well-considered House bill (House Resolution 1) could assuage the fears and concerns of every serious democracy-loving ballot-holder from every political party. 

As Adam Schiff explained, H.R. 1 (aka the "For the People Act") "will begin to restore our democracy and strengthen voting rights immediately by making Election Day a federal holiday, establishing national automatic voter registration, ending partisan gerrymandering, requiring disclosure of high dollar donors, and so much more." 

Let's hope "so much more" includes retiring the woeful, anti-democratic relic known as the Electoral College. 

Getting Around in Style 

There's been some new branding in the taxi business. This week, I spotted a vehicle bearing the name "VIP Shuttle." The company's website promises its Very Important Passengers "a great deal of freedom, space and service that is tailored exactly to your needs." Not sure if this includes complimentary snacks and drinks en route. 

Which got me wondering: what do the words "taxi" and "taxidermy" have in common? 

Nothing but the same string of letters, it turns out. A taxi cab takes its name from the Greek word "taxis," which means paying a tax for a service. But "taxis" also means an "arrangement" of derma, or "skin," for example. 

So I guess I'll never see a Yellow Cab stuffed and mounted on my livingroom wall. 

Gas-guzzlers Begone! 

California's Gov. Gav wants to ban gas-powered cars from the state by 2035. To do this, he wants to massively expand the installation of electric charging stations statewide. 

I would hate to see the Big Oil companies wrest control of these electric charging stations and run the network as a new profit center. Would Exxon become Electron?  

But there's another option: subsidize the purchase of home-installed storage batteries for electric car owners. 

A letter in the January 27 Chronicle suggested another approach—homeowners with storage batteries could become independent entrepreneurs, opening up their driveways to charge electric vehicles owned by neighbors and strangers alike. 

Tow Trucks on Steroids 

An odd sight on Addison Street. One of AC Transit's hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered buses had broken down. The towing vehicle dispatched to drag the hulkback to the shop for repairs was nearly as large as the bus itself. 

Warspeak 

The elections are over but the political fund-raising solicitations keep appearing, non-stop. This week, two fat envelopes arrived the same day. One, from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, bore a message on the outer envelope that read: "Gar, I need you to stay in this fight." The second envelope, from gun-control advocate/survivor Gabby Giffords bore the message: "Courage to fight gun violence." (Emphasis added.) 

There's something profoundly disconcerting about a message that calls for "fighting violence." That's seems akin to calls to "combat war" or "overpower bullies." 

Even Joe Biden is guilty of firing off volleys of warspeak. It was Biden who characterized his presidential campaign as "A Battle for the Soul of America." (Unfortunately, the armed extremists who invaded the Capitol building armed with clubs, hockey sticks, and bear-mace, could happily adopt the same slogan.) 

Billions for Bombs, Zilch for Bread 

Just saw a great meme from Gulf War Vet and history professor Andrew Bacevich. Prof. Bacevich, a prolific political commentator, recently noted the inequity of: "Firing a $70,000 missile from a $28,000,000 drone flying at a cost of $3,624 per hour to kill people in the Middle East living on less than $1 per day." Bacevich concluded with the observation: "We live in a country where, if you want to go bomb somebody, there's remarkably little discussion about how much it might cost. But then you have a discussion about whether or not we can assist people who are suffering, the suddenly, we become very cost-conscious." 

Keep It Golden? 

A new TV ad promoting energy conservation shows young students, activists, a boxer, and a basketball team all pushing energy conservation. But it's a bit discordant that no one is wearing a facemask. (Whassup? The human brain can only handle one crisis at a time?) 

The TV spot also ends with an incongruous image—the words "KEEP IT GOLDEN" are spelled out in the lights of a San Francisco high-rise. Sure, the lights in the building flicker out just before the ad ends but every other light in every other building in the vast, lit-up cityscape continues to burn brightly. 

Lock, Stock and Rain Barrel: Water Is Now a Commodity 

A Legacy of Trump Left-overs? 

The Donald may be out of The Office but the Trump entourage apparently has plans to re-seize the reins of power. Presidential daughter and Chief Advisor Ivanka Trump has announced a run to unseat Florida GOP Senator Marco Rubio. Meanwhile, sister-in-law Lara Trump (married to Eric) has her eyes on a Senate seat in North Carolina. Don Junior's backers are pushing him to run for office in Florida or Montana. Former White House press-hound Sarah Sanders Huckabee has announced her campaign to run for the governor of Arkansas. Meanwhile, Trump's son Barron won't be able to run for president until 2040. (Barron may not have any desire to follow in his father's GOP-steps, however. Trump's disaffected son was a no-show at his father's Farewell Address.) 

Trump's Last Resort—Mar-a-Lago 

We all know how Donald Trump liked to take long breaks from his empty White House work schedule and knuckle down to the daunting task of hacking divots at his Palm Beach golf resort. Well, the Huffington Post has done the math. 

HuffPo notes that Trump "spent the equivalent of 379 years of presidential salary — which he and his supporters frequently boast that he does not take — playing golf." As of December 24, Trump had undertaken no less than 31 tax-payer-paid pilgrimages to his Mar-a-Lago retreat. The cost for these taxpayer-funded jaunts (including security costs for protecting Uncle Scam) amounted to $151.5 million. According to HuffPo, "Trump has already played golf on his own properties 289 times since taking office in January 2017" and, at a cost of $524,221 per game, that factors out to $7.281 per stroke." (Just think, if our paunchy, 322-pound Misleader had suffered a stroke, it could have saved the US Treasury a cool half-million!) 

Defund the Despot 

UC Berkeley Professor of Public Policy Robert Reich recently made the following suggestion in a MoveOn posting: "Now that Democrats are in power, I've got an idea: Let's defund Donald Trump's presidential pension and divert the funds to reunite migrant children with their parents. 

"Trump is no longer the president, and I say that we treat him as though he never was. No $200,000 pension. No million-dollar travel budget. No national security briefings. No respect. Not for someone who led a white supremacist insurrection on the US Capitol, did everything he could to attack Black and brown communities, and trampled on our democratic values." 

Did US Attempt to Promote Coup Mobs in Russia? 

At the same time the US is in a panic over the January 6 Capitol "coup attempt," it's being accused of trying to stir up an insurrection in Russia. The Russian Foreign Ministry has accused the US Embassy in Moscow of promoting unrest by publicly posting details on the time and location of demonstration in support of jailed dissident Alexi Navalny. The information was posted on the official US Embassy website. 

"All that coincides with Washington’s provocative doctrinal guidelines to encourage ‘protests in the countries with unwanted governments’," the Foreign Ministry said, adding: "Any attempts of this ‘coverage’ of unauthorized rallies will be regarded as gross interference in our country’s domestic affairs and will lead to a corresponding response." 

The US is no stranger to coups. Since 1903, Washington has toppled more than 50 foreign governments—from Afghanistan to Ukraine. Pointing to a recent series of violent insurrections in the US—targeting a government building in Portland, Oregon and a city hall in Bellingham, Washington—the Foreign Ministry claimed that Russia's response to street protests was more civil than crackdowns in the US where "police kill more of its citizens than any other nation." In the first 24 days of 2021, police in the USA killed 70 fellow Americans. 

The Russian government also chided the US on the way it responds to street protests. In Moscow, the Ministry claimed, police reportedly issue the following warning: “Dear citizens!...This activity is illegal…We do our best to ensure your safety…Be vigilant and, if possible, leave the illegal event”—while reminding protestors to "maintain social distancing and keep their masks on." 

America's Poetess Laureate Steals the Show 

For the millions who became instant fans of Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman (who so electrified a nation with her poem, "The Hill We Climb," that she became a best-selling author even before her first two books were published!), here is a video rendition of "Earthrise," another of her poems. 

Inevitably, following Gorman's electrifying debut, there were a few dissenting voices among the Hallelujah chorus. Ishmael Reed, one of the country's most esteemed poets, volunteered this assessment of Gorman’s poem: 

It was prose. Sorry. Cliché-ridden, too—"belly of the beast," "windswept." Why didn't they choose Nikki [Giovanni], or Sonia [Sanchez], household names among Blacks?  

She was chosen by the first lady, who heard her at a poetry reading. We still let others do the shopping for us. Louise Meriwether is as good as [James] Baldwin. She had to solicit Go Fund Me support to help in her recovery from COVID. She's 97, while people who hated Baldwin when he was alive have turned his legacy into profits for themselves. 

Oakland poet Jack Foley chimed in: 

I think Ishmael's point is that White people rather than Black people were the true audience of this admittedly remarkable young woman. He went on to remark that when he was on the East Coast his white liberal friends told him that everything he wrote was wonderful. Later, he realized that 'a lot of it was bad.' These friends were doing him no service by lying to him about his work. I believe that it's in that spirit that he criticizes Amanda Gorman's work. She was, of course, a wonderful presence at the Inauguration. 

Foley reflected further in a poem titled "Inauguration 2021" that contains the following lines: 

What’s needed is not recrimination
but a better national myth,
a positive one that will have the right values
rather than the wrong ones. We need
a new story that will allow people
to feel good about themselves
rather than (as many white liberals do)
secretly guilty. We are moving toward it—
Biden’s inaccuracies, the image of the young black woman— 

but we’re not there yet.  

Ishmael Reed
has been moving toward an image of—his word—
“MultiAmerica” for years.
I think that’s where our hope lies.  

Phrases like Black Lives Matter are good too.
Let’s push ethnicity rather than
the phony concept of “white.”
Biden identifies Irish. That’s good too.  

[Note: Ethnicity annihilates the concept of white. The phrase "white superiority" is a redundancy: white means superiority.] 

The youth poet, Amanda Gorman, loves HAMILTON,
which Ishmael rightly calls
"the plantation owners’ musical."
She overcame a speech impediment, like Biden.
Her, truly, not entirely satisfactory poem
was just a tiny bit street/rap,
an amazing form born from the mean streets of our cities.  

She looked great, which was perhaps more important
than the quality of her verse.
Radiant bourgeois young woman. Harvard. Part of the elite.
Intelligent, gifted, courageous without a doubt
and given a task that might defeat even the most
accomplished and canny poet. 

People are calling her poem "stunning."
This is perhaps one of the—fictions—of the Biden era,  

the arrival of a man
who has promised to tell us the truth.
Only a myth can counter a myth. 

Equality
is an ideal
trying to be
a fact.  

It's a New Year: Let's Kick Off Our Shoes and Dance! 

"Festival En Guararé" with Adriana Lucía and Alfredo Gutiérrez