Author Archives: Tom Lewis

It’s My Narrative and I’m Sticking To It

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“Once upon a time,” is not a suitable opening for a news story. Ever.

We are spending more and more of our time trapped in other peoples’ narratives — and by narratives I don’t mean just stories. Let me explain with an example.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, I got an excited call from the editor of a magazine I wrote for. The Feds were about to de-list the American alligator from the endangered species list. After fewer than 20 years on the list the population had rebounded almost magically, proving the efficacy of the list. This was a huge story for conservationists, and I was to go get it.

It was February. The assignment was in Florida. He got no argument from me. Problem was, the story he sent me to get was dead on arrival. Continue reading →

Guns & Poses

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“I need these guns. All of them. To hunt deer, and, um, in case of feral hogs.”

“Finally,” gushes the Washington Post editorial board today, “a president takes on America’s epidemic of gun violence.” I rushed to get to the story. This should be good — a Democratic president, Democrats in control of the Congress (although just barely, and not of Joe Manchin), new administration with some political capital left, and the National Rifle Association a tattered, smoking hulk, destroyed by its own corruption. What better time to get it done?

There’s no mystery about what’s needed to bring this monster to heel, as every other civilized nation has done. All we need to do is treat guns as we do cars –useful machines that can hurt people if misused. Countries should not be hosts for the Crime show and should seriously deal with crimes and criminals. With that as our guide, real gun reform could be straightforward:  Continue reading →

Genocide by Spermicide

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This is the latest, most endangered species: us.

In the 15 years or so that I have been actively researching the prospects for the end of the world (Brace for Impact came out in 2009), it has always been in the back of my mind to be on the lookout for a ringer — the thing that would do us in finally while we were intently watching 20 other things and expecting one of them to do it. It might be here.

Sperm counts. I did not see that one coming. In the western industrialized nations sperm counts dropped nearly 60% between 1973 and 2011, which is worrisome. Fertility rates in half the world’s countries are now below the replacement level, which worries the industrialists. But now, the epidemiologist who conducted that sperm-count study has projected that on the current track, sperm counts will hit zero in 2045. This wouldn’t be the end of the world, of course. Just the end of the human race. Continue reading →

Politics is a Three Way Street

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Once you accept that politics is a three way street, it gets easier.

Far too much time is being wasted, by people running for office, by pundits, by Facebook posters and especially by the Biden administration, trying to figure out how to change the minds of Trump supporters. I could make this the shortest essay on record by simply saying, “you can’t change what you don’t have,”  and going home, but I have a more serious point. 

These speakers, almost without exception, make their arguments as if there are only two kinds of voters in America — left-wing Democrats and right-wing Republicans. These groups hate each other and are almost everywhere almost the same size, so it follows that the way to win an election is to persuade some of “them” to vote with “us.” I have encountered a good many campaigns lately that regard that as their job. They lost. As will any campaign so organized. 

Because here’s the reality I am familiar with: in every political jurisdiction — precinct, county, or state) I have ever analyzed for political purposes since I started doing it in 1965, the profile of registered voters has been, approximately, one-third Republican, one-third Democrat and one-third other (independent, third party, whatever). Continue reading →

You Gonna Believe Me, Or Your Lyin’ Eyes? It’s Driverless!

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What happens to a Tesla when you leave it on autopilot and do other things. You die, as this Florida driver did when his car ran into an 18-wheeler at 68 miles per hour.

Donald Trump has gone away, perhaps temporarily, but the culture he shaped remains — a culture that imagines the world it wants or that it fears, unconstrained by reality, and then lies about it. Lies have become to us as water is to fish, and contenders to take up Trump’s mantle as the lying king are many. Prominent among them is Elon Musk.

Elon Musk says that a fully autonomous Tesla (the electric car his company makes) is less than a year away. He has been saying that for about ten years now. He says it whenever his company’s stock starts to tank. In April of 2019, when Tesla was suffering a serious cash crunch, Musk announced that there would be one million fully autonomous robotaxis on the road by the end of 2020. By the end of 2020 not one robotaxi had been built, but Tesla has sold $3 billion dollars worth of stock. Works like a charm. 

You could call that excessive optimism that just happens to enrich him, or you could call it a lie that works. But last year he removed the ambiguity. Continue reading →

Don’t Worry, Be Happy: Money Grows on Trees

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Wait a minute. If money grows as one-dollar bills, how long would it take to harvest $1.9 trillion for a COVID relief bill? Snag.

I have been trying to get my head around Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), but every time I try I end up wound around its axles. I don’t understand why I’m having such difficulty, since every congresscritter and would-be congresscritter in America is talking about it as if they totally understand it. It seems to me that its core proposal is that if you’re the federal government, money really does grow on trees. 

Deficits don’t matter, MMTers insist, neither does the national debt. Just today I heard a congresscritter lamenting on TV that the trillions of dollars the country is spending on COVID relief will have to be repaid by our unfortunate grandchildren. Not so, say MMTers, we don’t repay the loans, we roll them over — that is, when they come due we borrow enough to pay them off. And if we need more money t0 pay the ever rising interest costs, we just print it. (Actually, I think that metaphor is out of date; no need to print it now, we just imagine it into being, electronically. With artificial intelligence, or something.) Continue reading →

Some of Our Highways Are Missing

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California’s Highway 1 is very scenic, very popular, but nevertheless is falling into the sea, a victim of climate change.

The term “coastal highway” is fast becoming an oxymoron in the age of global climate change — which, while we were distracted by Donald Trump denying that it was coming, has arrived. The triple threat of rising sea levels, intensified storms and, on the west coast at least, raging wildfires has made it increasingly difficult and expensive to keep seaside roads open.

California’s spectacular Highway 1, for example, whose 650 miles of breathtaking views are on bucket lists around the world and draw millions of tourists every year, is seldom completely open from one end to the other. The latest worst case scenario was a landslide of mud scoured from 125,000 acres of land burned over by a wildfire, by a record 16-inch rainfall, which wiped out 150 feet of the highway 165 miles south of San Francisco, closing a 23-mile stretch for months. Continue reading →

Politicians on Easy Street

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There have been two major reformations of the practice of American politics during my time in or near the arena. One was launched in 1980 by a movie actor whose lines were given to him by a coterie of wealthy backers and cynical political operatives. The other was detonated in 2016 by a reality-TV host with no experience in or knowledge of politics, acting virtually alone. (My concern here is with practical politics, not issues, so I am laying aside for the moment such things as the obvious impact of the Civil Rights movement.)

Prior to 1980, politics was widely defined as “the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best,” in the words of Germany’s Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismark. Political combatants were expected to go into the committee room or the legislative assembly and hammer out their differences, giving a little here, taking a little there until the result was not perfect, in anyone’s view, but was acceptable in everyone’s view. The focus was on what needed to be done, and how to get it done.

It was hard work. And both the reformations I refer to had to do with professional politicians finding ways to keep their offices but avoid the hard work. Continue reading →

Getting Over Him

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Look, sweetie, he’s been gone a month now and you really have to start getting over your rage. Two things to know about rage: hold on to it too long and it turns incredibly toxic — for you, not for him; and rage almost always begins with fear.

Of course you were afraid of him. We all were, as long as he was the accidental president of the United States.  (I say accidental because he lost the popular vote but became president by an accidental alignment of the electoral college, and although he later claimed to have brilliantly planned the whole thing it is certain that he did not then and does not now have a clue as to what the electoral college is or how it works.) Fear was the right response when he could drop a nasty tweet and ruin a life, or mention someone in a speech and get them hounded by trolls spewing death threats; or get someone investigated because they looked at him the wrong way. And fear, when it’s prolonged and helpless, morphs into rage. Continue reading →

Senator Joe Manchin Keeps Nope Alive

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When a political party achieves the majority in the United States Senate, it acquires not only the ability to win all votes (that don’t require a 60% majority), but to appoint committee chairs and set the legislative agenda. It is an event of enormous significance for the party, the government and the people. Parties strive to achieve the majority, usually, by putting forth an agenda of things they would do if only.

In 2020 the Democratic Party won not only the presidency and vice presidency, but the senate, by virtue of winning two special elections in Georgia after the presidential election. Actual membership in the senate is an equal split of 50-50, but since the vice president chairs the Senate, and she is a Democrat, her party is the majority. Continue reading →