“It cannot be stressed enough that we can win significant battles at the state and local level against the left and their destructive agenda. In fact, we are winning significant battles. There are the high-profile victories, such as Ron DeSantis’ amazing record in Florida against woke corporations and Covid sharia, as well as the growing number of states that have now banned the transgender industry from altering children’s bodies. But below those top-of-the-fold stories, there is a lot more winning happening.”
I see that now some “experts” are saying that Trump is as bad or worse as Biden in his cognitive functions. I guess they are getting worried after all.
Bob Wilson,
Regarding your point and that post at ace of spades, I mention repealing the XVIIth Amendment here often. Imagine if we had Senators at the Federal level in lockstep with the actions taken by their states, locally?
There currently are 27 Republican governors in the U.S. Imagine if those states’ legislatures were choosing who to send to Washington D.C. to represent their states.
Rufus
I have not thought through the implications of returning the election of senators to the legislature. But I do know that electing Republicans, regardless of how rino, is better than electing Democrats. On that, there’s also good news. In Montana, Rosendale dropped out of the Republican primary, leaving the field open for Tim Sheehy. Trump endorsed Sheehy.
With Manchin out of the race in West Virginia, it looks like the Republicans have a clear path to flip that seat.
The Democrats will run on abortion and J6. Let’s hope the Republicans have figured out how to address those issues.
Monday Open Thread: Weapons systems.
Unlike the YouTube genre of turning your already dangerous angle grinder into a quick hack tool (ticket to the emergency room) this isn’t about turning your microwave oven or laser printer into a death ray to deal with your HOA functionary.
Laser and Microwave Weapons – Directed-Energy Weapon Programs, Potential, and Issues -Perun
Navalny’s correspondence (from Bari Weiss)…
“Exclusive: Navalny’s Letters from the Gulag;
“From his punishing cell, the Russian political prisoner wrote to the former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky. Here is their historic correspondence.”— https://www.thefp.com/p/navalnys-letters-from-the-gulag
H/T Powerline blog.
About the Trump real estate case and overvaluing properties… if the government can sue a company for an estimate of property values, can a homeowner sue the local government for its valuation of a home for property tax purposes?
The answer can be yes – a homeowner can argue about a property value, but I would guess that most valuation appeals are rejected.
At least in my county, there is an annual limit to the tax basis increase, but that doesn’t stop the county from increasing the “market value” based on price per sq ft of recent sales in the area. In years that they can’t justify an increase in market value, they can still get their 5% increase in the tax base.
I just checked the ballot for the March 5th primary – there are eight people on the ballot, including two I never heard about (Binkley and Stuckenburg). I’m sure that Trump will win the state (OK), but I might just vote for DeSantis in case there needs to be a replacement candidate, especially since Haley is also on the ballot. I would not want Haley to come in second and try to claim that she deserves to be the replacement because of her showing in the various states.
liz, I will also vote for DeSantis in the primary for similar reasons.
RE: Chinese real estate collapse
According to reports individual Chinese, with few investments possible in a Communist economy, have sunk 70% of their capital into real estate, which comprises 30% of China’s GDP.
Here is a very recent look at some of the reported 20 million unfinished and abandoned houses in China.*
Here is report on the often shoddy construction of such projects often referred to by Chinese as “rotten tail” or “tofu-dreg” construction.**
Here is a video in which Western vloggers on China serpentza and laowhy86 traveled to investigate some of these tofu-dreg buildings, as–up close and personal–they show that despite what initially may look like impressive facades, they’re just that, “facades,” with things like fake exterior stonework, which basically crumbles when you just touch it.*
Jonathan Turley on further outrages in the New York verdict against Trump. He cannot appeal without depositing the entire amount of the proposed fine with the court as bond.
This may destroy Trump financially, for a political verdict. It should also destroy the State of New York. No one should do business in a state which has imposed a targeted political verdict aimed at destroying a politically unfavored person.
I think Republicans could benefit by working to reform the legal immigration laws– which could possibly include raising the quotas, based on economic conditions in the country.
Given the retiring boomers and the falling birth rate, it’s likely we will need additional immigrants to maintain a 2-3% GDP growth rate.
We need legal immigration and we need to know who is coming to the country. The media focuses only on the efforts to stem illegal border crossings. We need to make it clear the benefits of legal immigration as opposed to illegal entry.
Here is a video about fake fire extinguishers, fake fire hydrants, and fire hoses in high rise buildings which, on the surface–signed inspection tag and all–appear to be OK but which, in reality, have no connections to a source of water.*
Same with fake drainage systems around high rise buildings which are just grills sunk a few inches into the ground, but which are not connected to any actual drainage system, because there is no drainage system to connect to.* *
Bob Wilson…”“It cannot be stressed enough that we can win significant battles at the state and local level against the left and their destructive agenda. In fact, we are winning significant battles.”
I’ve heard it argued that with higher mortgage rates and the consequent difficulties in moving, people will more frequently feel that they will be in the same place for many years and hence will be motivated to pay more attention to local politics.
… I mention repealing the XVIIth Amendment here often. Imagine if we had Senators at the Federal level in lockstep with the actions taken by their states, locally? — Rufus
I certainly agree that the 17th Amendment was a mistake. However, if you recall the original reason or excuse for that Amendment, it was because state congress persons were selling their votes. I don’t doubt that this happened. Though the degree to which it happened is always important, and unknown to me.
So, if a number of votes are being bought, is it necessarily true that the person elected would align with the state legislature? How does one fix that problem without resorting to the 17th Amendment?
The writer Arthur Koestler (‘Darkness at Noon’), who was once a Communist and a Party member, later offered some thoughts on the nature of intellectually closed systems. My excerpt and comments here:
At least they’d be selling them to in-state interests. Now Senators sell their votes to K Street in D.C.; far from their constituents.
Bob Wilson,
I think the way the GOP addresses abortion and J6 is by not addressing them. It’s the Dem’s briar patch strategy. Do you see any Democrat candidates obsessing about addressing the BLM riots or abortion up until birth? Too often GOP candidates allow the opposition to define the topics and boundaries of debate.
GOP Candidate: “Mr./Ms. Journalist, I know the corporate media and elites are obsessed with J6, but poll after poll shows the main topics of interest to the American public are the spike in prices in everything from milk and eggs to auto insurance and our Executive’s failure to secure our borders. Why don’t we stick to the topics real Americans care about? Do you have any questions on those subjects?”
JD Vance for VP. I think he will be a future candidate for President, if he survives the minefield of politics.
This is an unfortunate title since this is a lengthy speech and includes more about the border before turning to the situation in Ukraine. He bases this one line “Russia is not going to lose the war” on the facts on the ground, at this point. He points the lauded spring counteroffensive gained almost no gain. He makes rational reasons for his position.
I recently posted a link to a speech given by an EU official encouraging Ukraine and, while saying the sanctions hadn’t worked to this point, they were targeting individual channels of trade that were being closed down and sanctions would have effect. This may be Ukraine’s best hope.
But bringing Russia to its knees economically might still be years away.
Very impressive speaker.
‘Russia Is Not Going To Lose The War’: JD Vance Blasts Senate Voting To Send Funding To Ukraine
Thanks for the vids. Has that hand-tinted photo look. There’s where ‘learning software can do some real good. The don’t handle generating the images all the well but colorizing existing ones should be far easier. For instance: getting the way colors cast shadows as opposed to the way they look rendered in grays.
Knowing it contributes to a better world for everyone, India and the US pay handsomely for that Russian petrol. It’s good to the last drop!
Vlad’s cheerleaders never tire.
Russia lost 40,000 to “take” Avdiivka in 4 months. Sustainable? Otay, Brain E.
But keep hoping that you and yours can choke off the ordnance.
How’s that Black Sea fleet doing lately?
I’m not sure why you think I’m a cheerleader for Putin.
Russia lost 40,000? Exterminated? KIA? Wounded?
This is a huge number. According to the records kept by Ukraine, Russia has lost 410,000 since the beginning of the war! Whether that’s deaths and casualties or just deaths is up for debate, but either way it’s a huge number by today’s standards.
For comparison, the US lost 58,000 killed and about 300,000 wounded in the Vietnam War. 40,000 of those killed occurred in a three-year period 1967-69.
But it raises a point that most people agree with. It’s harder and more costly to take territory than to defend it. And Russia has certainly taken high losses.
This is one of the reasons why I think it’s unlikely Ukraine can retake all the territory Russia now holds. It takes more soldiers to take a position than to defend it, which means more casualties. Does Ukraine have the manpower to re-take all of its pre-2014 territory?
Ukraine’s population is now around 30 million while Russia’s population is around 145 million. More people to draw from.
What Ukraine has done in the Black Sea is impressive but likely won’t affect the outcome of the war.
Why do I think so? Just your comments since early 2022.
Exterminated? Check footage of Russians executing Ukrainian POWs. Casualties are 200s (KIA) and 300s (wounded). But Russia “needs” its empire. Russian poverty feeds Vlad’s slaughter house.
You can wish about the Black Sea fleet.
Consider the Crimea Peninsula and its loss to Russia. It will be very bad day for Vlad.
It is harder to defend you country from a foreign invader without ordnance; tubes without rounds are just so much scrap iron. But you know that?
The Russians used to surround Kiev, used to hold the Kharkiv area, used to hold Kherson. Is there a pattern? Nope, not to a Vlad cheerleader.
This is just my opinion:
some people on the left are choosing to see “controversy”, in the 1970s, TV show/one-time special, “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving”.
These people think that- the show, showing Franklin…who is an African-American character, is “racist”, because in one…lunch scene, “Franklin is sitting on one side of the table, all by himself!”
These people see this putting Franklin…all by himself, is [separating Franklin from all of the other kids at the table].
So now- in 2024, a [new] Charlie Brown TV show has been made, where the kids tell Franklin that he can sit with them.
This show was made to “correct” the “issue” of the 1970s show.
My goodness. What in the world.
Maybe this isn’t directly connected, but when the 1970s show was made- the maker of the Charlie Brown/Peanuts comic strips, Charles Schultz [did not] direct the 1970s, TV show. Two other people directed the show.
There is no evidence that Charles Schultz decided that Franklin should sit alone, at one side the table, so this [sitting of Franklin], was not done by Charles Schultz.
Maybe it was an honest mistake by the show’s directors, or the show’s animators, to put Franklin alone?
Maybe they put Franklin by himself, on that side, as a random decision?
Or it could be- that rather than have Franklin be flanked by 1 or 2 friends at the table, that the directors wanted to be very-noticeably seen at the table, at a table with a bunch of kids with a different ethnicity than his?
How much can be “read into” a pre-2024, kids’ cartoon?
If I like Daffy Duck cartoons…and Daffy is a black feathered duck, more than Donald Duck Cartoons…and Donald is a white feathered duck, does that mean I like [black-feathered characters] more than [white-feathered characters], or vice-versa?
The mind boggles.
Moreover- it might be a thing to celebrate that an African-American character was seen, in a good light, [at all], in a 1970s- TV show.
In the early 1970s, in my view- it was rare to see African-American [characters + heroes], in good ways, in- films and TV shows.
African-American characters and/or Black characters, being shown in good, or in morally-good ways, was a novel thing in: 1970s films, and in 1970s TV shows.
This was the time that the 1970s films…Shaft [tm], and Superfly [tm], came out, with Black heroes in them.
This was also the time when the early 1970s , TV show, “Good Times”, came out, with Black heroes in it.
These were kind of the beginnings of African-American people, and Black people, being shown as good-and-regular people, and as heroes, on TV and in films.
Whatever the reason was for Franklin being sat by himself was, I don’t think the Charlie Brown’s show’s makers put [Franklin by himself], as a way to separate Franklin from everyone else, on the show].
They probably thought: “Hey, here’s a kid in a group of kids. Let’s sit them all at the table.”
I have a friend who is a therapist.
He advises people not to search for [very…unlikely problems, in the past, or very…unlikely problems in anything].
He says- “try not to look for ghosts, that aren’t there”.
Here is a 2020 article/interview with Charles Schultz’s wife, June Schultz(?), where she talks about the 1970s, Charlie Brown show:
This is just my opinion:
recently, producer Rob Reiner, has made a film titled: God & Country.
This film appears to be a biased + one-sided look at: [The Christian religion], and [my words- the very, few…American people- who get the Christian religion’s view wrong, + [turn to violence + threats, as a way to promote these people’s wrong view…of the Christian Religion].
This film is such baloney or nonsense.
Can you get a more, politically-slanted person, to run this film?
I think I’d rather have [the Friendly’s…fast food restaurant + ice cream shops], or have [the Hersey’s chocolate factory], teach me about- exercise and weight control.
Pssst. Here’s what’s really going on…
(The lies, of course, abound…)
“The Bankruptcy of Bidenomics;
“Biden’s economic policies gave us three years of excessive, wasteful, and poorly targeted federal spending.”—
https://reason.com/2024/02/04/the-bankruptcy-of-bidenomics/
H/T Powerline blog.
P.S. The Wise Owlita could not be reached for comment….
I wonder what effect that trucker strike will have on NYC?
Can I now be charged for “fraud” by a Federal, State or Local Prosecutor if I ask the bank for a loan on my remote hut in a swamp?! Ridiculous Trump Verdict Catastrophic for US Economy
A good news article on Presidents’ Day.
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/408414.php#408414
More Winning in the Culture Wars at the State & Local Level
“It cannot be stressed enough that we can win significant battles at the state and local level against the left and their destructive agenda. In fact, we are winning significant battles. There are the high-profile victories, such as Ron DeSantis’ amazing record in Florida against woke corporations and Covid sharia, as well as the growing number of states that have now banned the transgender industry from altering children’s bodies. But below those top-of-the-fold stories, there is a lot more winning happening.”
I see that now some “experts” are saying that Trump is as bad or worse as Biden in his cognitive functions. I guess they are getting worried after all.
Bob Wilson,
Regarding your point and that post at ace of spades, I mention repealing the XVIIth Amendment here often. Imagine if we had Senators at the Federal level in lockstep with the actions taken by their states, locally?
There currently are 27 Republican governors in the U.S. Imagine if those states’ legislatures were choosing who to send to Washington D.C. to represent their states.
Rufus
I have not thought through the implications of returning the election of senators to the legislature. But I do know that electing Republicans, regardless of how rino, is better than electing Democrats. On that, there’s also good news. In Montana, Rosendale dropped out of the Republican primary, leaving the field open for Tim Sheehy. Trump endorsed Sheehy.
With Manchin out of the race in West Virginia, it looks like the Republicans have a clear path to flip that seat.
The Democrats will run on abortion and J6. Let’s hope the Republicans have figured out how to address those issues.
Monday Open Thread: Weapons systems.
Unlike the YouTube genre of turning your already dangerous angle grinder into a quick hack tool (ticket to the emergency room) this isn’t about turning your microwave oven or laser printer into a death ray to deal with your HOA functionary.
Laser and Microwave Weapons – Directed-Energy Weapon Programs, Potential, and Issues -Perun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGzL3fZgPZY
It wouldn’t be prudent to provide Ukraine ordnance or weapons systems, continued ….
Another Russian Su-34 and Su-35 Shot Down: Near Mariupol. Six Aircraft in Three Days! – Suchomimus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRlottU4N8o
Navalny’s correspondence (from Bari Weiss)…
“Exclusive: Navalny’s Letters from the Gulag;
“From his punishing cell, the Russian political prisoner wrote to the former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky. Here is their historic correspondence.”—
https://www.thefp.com/p/navalnys-letters-from-the-gulag
H/T Powerline blog.
Silly survey of political scientists on the best and worst presidents
The results are as bad as one would expect.
About the Trump real estate case and overvaluing properties… if the government can sue a company for an estimate of property values, can a homeowner sue the local government for its valuation of a home for property tax purposes?
The answer can be yes – a homeowner can argue about a property value, but I would guess that most valuation appeals are rejected.
At least in my county, there is an annual limit to the tax basis increase, but that doesn’t stop the county from increasing the “market value” based on price per sq ft of recent sales in the area. In years that they can’t justify an increase in market value, they can still get their 5% increase in the tax base.
I just checked the ballot for the March 5th primary – there are eight people on the ballot, including two I never heard about (Binkley and Stuckenburg). I’m sure that Trump will win the state (OK), but I might just vote for DeSantis in case there needs to be a replacement candidate, especially since Haley is also on the ballot. I would not want Haley to come in second and try to claim that she deserves to be the replacement because of her showing in the various states.
liz, I will also vote for DeSantis in the primary for similar reasons.
RE: Chinese real estate collapse
According to reports individual Chinese, with few investments possible in a Communist economy, have sunk 70% of their capital into real estate, which comprises 30% of China’s GDP.
Here is a very recent look at some of the reported 20 million unfinished and abandoned houses in China.*
Here is report on the often shoddy construction of such projects often referred to by Chinese as “rotten tail” or “tofu-dreg” construction.**
* See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQwc3EBW0Sc
** See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4S9igjJgwA
and here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ8JBTIVUVw
and here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0PxRxwTa50
The more I see of Nicki Haley the less I like.
RE: Examples of China’s tofu-dreg construction
Here is a video in which Western vloggers on China serpentza and laowhy86 traveled to investigate some of these tofu-dreg buildings, as–up close and personal–they show that despite what initially may look like impressive facades, they’re just that, “facades,” with things like fake exterior stonework, which basically crumbles when you just touch it.*
* See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKbLB_T-IjY
Jonathan Turley on further outrages in the New York verdict against Trump. He cannot appeal without depositing the entire amount of the proposed fine with the court as bond.
https://nypost.com/2024/02/19/opinion/democrats-weaponized-justice-system-to-punish-trump-in-business-case/
This may destroy Trump financially, for a political verdict. It should also destroy the State of New York. No one should do business in a state which has imposed a targeted political verdict aimed at destroying a politically unfavored person.
I think Republicans could benefit by working to reform the legal immigration laws– which could possibly include raising the quotas, based on economic conditions in the country.
Given the retiring boomers and the falling birth rate, it’s likely we will need additional immigrants to maintain a 2-3% GDP growth rate.
We need legal immigration and we need to know who is coming to the country. The media focuses only on the efforts to stem illegal border crossings. We need to make it clear the benefits of legal immigration as opposed to illegal entry.
https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/how-united-states-immigration-system-works
RE; China as the land of “shortcuts and facades”
It’s all about appearances, not reality.
Here is a video about fake fire extinguishers, fake fire hydrants, and fire hoses in high rise buildings which, on the surface–signed inspection tag and all–appear to be OK but which, in reality, have no connections to a source of water.*
Same with fake drainage systems around high rise buildings which are just grills sunk a few inches into the ground, but which are not connected to any actual drainage system, because there is no drainage system to connect to.* *
* See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5SHxnBzrho
* * See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6MANCW9yWA
Bob Wilson…”“It cannot be stressed enough that we can win significant battles at the state and local level against the left and their destructive agenda. In fact, we are winning significant battles.”
I’ve heard it argued that with higher mortgage rates and the consequent difficulties in moving, people will more frequently feel that they will be in the same place for many years and hence will be motivated to pay more attention to local politics.
… I mention repealing the XVIIth Amendment here often. Imagine if we had Senators at the Federal level in lockstep with the actions taken by their states, locally? — Rufus
I certainly agree that the 17th Amendment was a mistake. However, if you recall the original reason or excuse for that Amendment, it was because state congress persons were selling their votes. I don’t doubt that this happened. Though the degree to which it happened is always important, and unknown to me.
So, if a number of votes are being bought, is it necessarily true that the person elected would align with the state legislature? How does one fix that problem without resorting to the 17th Amendment?
The writer Arthur Koestler (‘Darkness at Noon’), who was once a Communist and a Party member, later offered some thoughts on the nature of intellectually closed systems. My excerpt and comments here:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/70622.html
TommyJay @3:31pm,
At least they’d be selling them to in-state interests. Now Senators sell their votes to K Street in D.C.; far from their constituents.
Bob Wilson,
I think the way the GOP addresses abortion and J6 is by not addressing them. It’s the Dem’s briar patch strategy. Do you see any Democrat candidates obsessing about addressing the BLM riots or abortion up until birth? Too often GOP candidates allow the opposition to define the topics and boundaries of debate.
GOP Candidate: “Mr./Ms. Journalist, I know the corporate media and elites are obsessed with J6, but poll after poll shows the main topics of interest to the American public are the spike in prices in everything from milk and eggs to auto insurance and our Executive’s failure to secure our borders. Why don’t we stick to the topics real Americans care about? Do you have any questions on those subjects?”
JD Vance for VP. I think he will be a future candidate for President, if he survives the minefield of politics.
This is an unfortunate title since this is a lengthy speech and includes more about the border before turning to the situation in Ukraine. He bases this one line “Russia is not going to lose the war” on the facts on the ground, at this point. He points the lauded spring counteroffensive gained almost no gain. He makes rational reasons for his position.
I recently posted a link to a speech given by an EU official encouraging Ukraine and, while saying the sanctions hadn’t worked to this point, they were targeting individual channels of trade that were being closed down and sanctions would have effect. This may be Ukraine’s best hope.
But bringing Russia to its knees economically might still be years away.
Very impressive speaker.
‘Russia Is Not Going To Lose The War’: JD Vance Blasts Senate Voting To Send Funding To Ukraine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W53wILyEyEc
Thanks for the vids. Has that hand-tinted photo look. There’s where ‘learning software can do some real good. The don’t handle generating the images all the well but colorizing existing ones should be far easier. For instance: getting the way colors cast shadows as opposed to the way they look rendered in grays.
Russia is entering its third year of war in Ukraine with an unprecedented amount of cash in government coffers, bolstered by a record $37 billion of crude oil sales to India last year, according to new analysis, which concludes that some of the crude was refined by India and then exported to the United States as oil products worth more than $1 billion.
Knowing it contributes to a better world for everyone, India and the US pay handsomely for that Russian petrol. It’s good to the last drop!
Vlad’s cheerleaders never tire.
Russia lost 40,000 to “take” Avdiivka in 4 months. Sustainable? Otay, Brain E.
But keep hoping that you and yours can choke off the ordnance.
How’s that Black Sea fleet doing lately?
I’m not sure why you think I’m a cheerleader for Putin.
Russia lost 40,000? Exterminated? KIA? Wounded?
This is a huge number. According to the records kept by Ukraine, Russia has lost 410,000 since the beginning of the war! Whether that’s deaths and casualties or just deaths is up for debate, but either way it’s a huge number by today’s standards.
For comparison, the US lost 58,000 killed and about 300,000 wounded in the Vietnam War. 40,000 of those killed occurred in a three-year period 1967-69.
But it raises a point that most people agree with. It’s harder and more costly to take territory than to defend it. And Russia has certainly taken high losses.
This is one of the reasons why I think it’s unlikely Ukraine can retake all the territory Russia now holds. It takes more soldiers to take a position than to defend it, which means more casualties. Does Ukraine have the manpower to re-take all of its pre-2014 territory?
Ukraine’s population is now around 30 million while Russia’s population is around 145 million. More people to draw from.
What Ukraine has done in the Black Sea is impressive but likely won’t affect the outcome of the war.
Why do I think so? Just your comments since early 2022.
Exterminated? Check footage of Russians executing Ukrainian POWs. Casualties are 200s (KIA) and 300s (wounded). But Russia “needs” its empire. Russian poverty feeds Vlad’s slaughter house.
You can wish about the Black Sea fleet.
Consider the Crimea Peninsula and its loss to Russia. It will be very bad day for Vlad.
It is harder to defend you country from a foreign invader without ordnance; tubes without rounds are just so much scrap iron. But you know that?
The Russians used to surround Kiev, used to hold the Kharkiv area, used to hold Kherson. Is there a pattern? Nope, not to a Vlad cheerleader.
This is just my opinion:
some people on the left are choosing to see “controversy”, in the 1970s, TV show/one-time special, “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving”.
These people think that- the show, showing Franklin…who is an African-American character, is “racist”, because in one…lunch scene, “Franklin is sitting on one side of the table, all by himself!”
These people see this putting Franklin…all by himself, is [separating Franklin from all of the other kids at the table].
So now- in 2024, a [new] Charlie Brown TV show has been made, where the kids tell Franklin that he can sit with them.
This show was made to “correct” the “issue” of the 1970s show.
My goodness. What in the world.
Maybe this isn’t directly connected, but when the 1970s show was made- the maker of the Charlie Brown/Peanuts comic strips, Charles Schultz [did not] direct the 1970s, TV show. Two other people directed the show.
There is no evidence that Charles Schultz decided that Franklin should sit alone, at one side the table, so this [sitting of Franklin], was not done by Charles Schultz.
Maybe it was an honest mistake by the show’s directors, or the show’s animators, to put Franklin alone?
Maybe they put Franklin by himself, on that side, as a random decision?
Or it could be- that rather than have Franklin be flanked by 1 or 2 friends at the table, that the directors wanted to be very-noticeably seen at the table, at a table with a bunch of kids with a different ethnicity than his?
How much can be “read into” a pre-2024, kids’ cartoon?
If I like Daffy Duck cartoons…and Daffy is a black feathered duck, more than Donald Duck Cartoons…and Donald is a white feathered duck, does that mean I like [black-feathered characters] more than [white-feathered characters], or vice-versa?
The mind boggles.
Moreover- it might be a thing to celebrate that an African-American character was seen, in a good light, [at all], in a 1970s- TV show.
In the early 1970s, in my view- it was rare to see African-American [characters + heroes], in good ways, in- films and TV shows.
African-American characters and/or Black characters, being shown in good, or in morally-good ways, was a novel thing in: 1970s films, and in 1970s TV shows.
This was the time that the 1970s films…Shaft [tm], and Superfly [tm], came out, with Black heroes in them.
This was also the time when the early 1970s , TV show, “Good Times”, came out, with Black heroes in it.
These were kind of the beginnings of African-American people, and Black people, being shown as good-and-regular people, and as heroes, on TV and in films.
Whatever the reason was for Franklin being sat by himself was, I don’t think the Charlie Brown’s show’s makers put [Franklin by himself], as a way to separate Franklin from everyone else, on the show].
They probably thought: “Hey, here’s a kid in a group of kids. Let’s sit them all at the table.”
I have a friend who is a therapist.
He advises people not to search for [very…unlikely problems, in the past, or very…unlikely problems in anything].
He says- “try not to look for ghosts, that aren’t there”.
Here is a 2020 article/interview with Charles Schultz’s wife, June Schultz(?), where she talks about the 1970s, Charlie Brown show:
https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/peanuts-creators-widow-addresses-franklin-controversy-charlie-brown-thanksgiving/
This is just my opinion:
recently, producer Rob Reiner, has made a film titled: God & Country.
This film appears to be a biased + one-sided look at: [The Christian religion], and [my words- the very, few…American people- who get the Christian religion’s view wrong, + [turn to violence + threats, as a way to promote these people’s wrong view…of the Christian Religion].
This film is such baloney or nonsense.
Can you get a more, politically-slanted person, to run this film?
I think I’d rather have [the Friendly’s…fast food restaurant + ice cream shops], or have [the Hersey’s chocolate factory], teach me about- exercise and weight control.
My goodness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_%26_Country
TR,
No, you like Daffy Duck cartoons because you have a well developed sense of humor. Warner Brothers animation teams were far funnier than Disney’s. 😉
TR,
Rob Reiner continues to lean into his breakout television role, “Meathead.”