Wordle 20

 

Wordle 19

My 3rd guess was a mistake:  I didn't intend to put in a word with the R in the same position.  The next guess got me a little worried, since I gained very little new information.  I focused my attention and made it with one guess to spare.
 

Two Conceptions

 It seems to me, that while few people think explicitly in these terms, their underlying conceptions of what government is for, boil down to two categories:

People have certain rights, which are fundamental.  Nobody granted these rights, they stem from being Human.  Governments are formed by the people, primarily for the purpose of protecting these rights.  This first conceptualization is well represented in the Declaration of Independence.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

The  second conception of government is that the most fundamental rights are material in nature, not freedoms so much as food and shelter.  Governments are created to ensure everybody gets all the essentials of life.  The best exemplar of this is found in The Communist Manifesto. 

Question 2: What is the aim of the Communists? Answer: To organise society in such a way that every member of it can develop and use all his capabilities and powers in complete freedom and without thereby infringing the basic conditions of this society. 

Question 3: How do you wish to achieve this aim? Answer: By the elimination of private property and its replacement by community of property

I believe that both are based upon opposite conclusions regarding opportunity:  

For Marx, the assumption is that society is stratified:  If you are born poor, you will remain poor.  The owners of farms, factories and so forth will only pay you enough for you to live, but never to accumulate capital of your own. 

For our founders, the assumption was opposite:  They certainly acknowledged that the rich have advantages, but they believed that, at least here in the United States, a person could accumulate wealth, no matter their starting point.

Who was right?  To some degree both: There are those, who because of their starting point, talent and initiative may find it impossible to advance to the top. On the other hand, most people can, through diligence and effort, better themselves.

Some evidence:

There is a lot of mobility in the US, both up and down.

Wordle 18

 

Wordle 17

 

Wordle 16

 I really was tempted to not use knoll for my opening word.  Objectively, it's a terrible choice: 1 vowel, re-use of one of the 3 not-so-common consonants.  It was so bad that I started to type in something different.  But then I set my resolve and walked off the knoll cliff.  It was harrowing, but at least it wasn't my first fail.

Wordle 15

 I got nothing out of my first guess, which by habit was the answer to the last puzzle.  I knocked off three more vowels in the second guess and picked up one right letter.  In the third guess, I knocked off the last vowel and a couple of consonants.  The 4th guess saw some progress but I was really stumped to find any word for guess # 5.

Scrabble

 I felt like there were too many great words to not preserve this someplace.  Welcome to someplace!

--The two blanks are I and O, 

--"Pavilion" is the only time I've used all 7 letters (the L was already there).

--Wombats did not use 7 letters, V came in with "sing" later.

Inadvertent Comedy

 From our friends to the North...

To fly home we needed a COVID PCR test, almost impossible to come by in Montreal, with lineups hours long at most hospitals. Consequently, the Quebec government won’t allow anyone but the very sick to take them, while travellers must go to private clinics and pay perhaps $200.

Meanwhile, every Florida pharmacy does free PCR tests, even for travelling foreigners. It seems bizarre in a country with no universal medicare, where people are often bankrupted by medical bills.

But when we went for our free test at a pharmacy, there were a dozen people waiting, all wearing masks, the only place I’d seen that all week.

For the first time, it felt a bit like home.

I Guess Reich Would Know About Ego

Where egos dare: Manchin and Sinema show how Senate spotlight corrupts

It's a bit unseemly to psychoanalyze from afar, not just because almost all of it is done by people with no training in the field but also, people with such training would be committing professional malpractice.  So nobody should do it.

Still, it's fair to hold people to their own book of rules.  Reich seems okay with musing on the psychological motive of senators, so maybe little I, can put little Reich on the couch for a bit. 

I think Reich is an egomaniac.  If you look at the comments from a random Tweet of his, many of his 1.4 million followers will shamelessly stroke his ego.  I think he says intemperate things like his assertion that Democratic senators should give senator Sinema the back of their hands, to get attention.  It works.  How many minor cabinet secretaries from 30 years ago have 1.4 million followers on Twitter?  He serves up the red-meat so craved by the soygentsia.

I Thought I Was Losing My Mind

 But really, it was all Fios' fault.

I normally only watch the Buccaneers these days, but since it's the playoffs and there was a Saturday game, why not DVR the Packers 49ers game?  I set the recording and later in the afternoon watched a very exciting game!

The Packers led most of the way,  but the 49ers fought back and went one point ahead 28-27 with less than a minute left.  The Packers used that time well and scored a field goal, making it 30-28 as the clock ran out.

This morning, I went to see what the standings looked like and the 49ers beat the Packers 13-10!  WTF did I watch?  I don't know enough about football to imagine a whole game.

I decided that the most logical thing was that, for some fucking reason, the guide on my cable box decided that the game I wanted to see was not the playoff game being played later today:  No. Who would want that?  Instead, it found a game played last September.  Of course, crazy me:  Why would I want to watch a game that's on today, when I could watch one from the beginning of the season?

The game I really want to watch is the Rams Buccaneers game:  I am going to be really careful about what I pick.

Added:  There was one odd thing that struck me:  They said something about a game in Foxborough and I know the Pats are out already, but I wasn't really paying attention and thought they might have been talking about a game from another week.

Wordle 14