Wow.  Pbs NewsHour, of all people, chose to interview, as an economic expert, a reality TV show personality. What qualifies him as an expert? The fact that he sits on a show, "shark tank", and tells people that he will or will not invest money in their idea. I thought we'd had enough of reality show fakes when the con man who was just playing a CEO on TV got elected president… Bad form, PBS

I’m listening to Ezra Klein talking with his compatriots about where we are on the autocratic timeline, and what we should be looking for, and is this competitive autocracy or failing tyranny or Orban or Duterte or what (actually, doesn’t the monomaniacal nature of tyranny mean that every one is different, tuned to the differences in the Dear Leaders?), and does the robustness of the resistance mean that he’s lost, and …

Coincidentally, I just read a good article in the Times about the hurricane in North Carolina, and how different individuals, their families and the emergency response system fared.  Never happened there before, that creek has never gotten this high but this house is fine, it’s never flooded, sure hurricanes happen on the coast but they don’t do that here, they need that level of preparedness out there but not here, then BOOM landslides, mass destruction, death.

Amazing resonance.

https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/piercylowroad.html

It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again and they said no,
it starts when you say _We
_and know who you mean,
and each day you mean one more.

In the meantime, the world’s richest man has been involved in the deaths of the worild’s poorest children.

Frm NYT may 8, "The $200 Billion Gamble: Bill Gates’s Plan to Wind Down His Foundation", in a discussion of Elon Musk's involvement in shutting down PEPFAR, which is predicted to result on an increase in the deaths in the millions worldwide. 

A succinct and devastating summary.