The Trump slide continues

Donald Trump has fired his secretary of state Rex Tillerson. The turmoil in this administration has become so routine that when I heard the news this morning, my only sense of surprise was that he was the person who was fired since the on-going speculation had pointed to other figures as being the next to go. What is noteworthy, though not surprising, is how ungracious Trump was in taking this action. Rather than telling him personally, Tillerson apparently first heard of it when Trump tweeted the news out to the world.
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A refreshing self-examination by National Geographic

I was never a regular reader or subscriber to the National Geographic magazine but it is famous for its photograph-filled articles from all over the world. But it has faced charges that its portrayal of many countries and its peoples were at best condescending and at worst racist, reinforcing stereotypes of people who did not conform to western standards of looks and living as being somehow inferior. It was particularly famous among schoolboys in Sri Lanka as the place to see photographs of bare-breasted women, and the fact that they were exclusively of color from the developing world was a subliminal message.
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I don’t understand some people

When one moves into a new neighborhood, surely one concern that one would have is how one gets on with one’s new neighbors. If they welcome you, then that is great because having cordial relationships with the people who live around you adds so much to the quality of life. Even though our children have grown and we really no longer need the hassle of maintaining a house, one of the things that keep up from moving into an apartment is because we enjoy our neighbors and the neighborhood so much.
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On being a victim of hacking

I retired from Case Western Reserve University a little over two years ago. About a year after I left I got a phone call at home from the head of the computer’s security division, whom I know pretty well, to tell me that they were investigating the activities of a former student at the university who had infiltrated the computers of quite a few people. The investigators had determined that my work computer was one of those hacked.
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Primary politics in Texas and Illinois

Texas is often seen as such a drearily and reliably extreme conservative state that its elections are often just referenda between extreme right and nutty right wings of the Republican party but this year is turning out to be interesting, more for what is going on within the two major parties than between them. Last Tuesday was primary election day in Texas and since primary elections are now where most of the action is, there were some interesting outcomes.
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