We Are In LA For The Weekend: More Cars Than You Ever Want To See
Category Archives: Japan
So Much Has Happened
I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening. GOD BLESS AMERICA! Donald Trump on Truth Social June 13, 2024.
Art restorers use the term photodegradation to describe the process by which a painting fades. The colors remain present; they just become less vivid. That’s the Joe Biden story. David Frum in The Atlantic
The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the Black woman. The most neglected person in America is the Black woman. Malcolm X in 1962.
“I took on perpetrators of all kinds: predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rule for their own gain. So, believe me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type.” Harris to staffers at her campaign’s offices in Wilmington, Delaware, and sure to become a theme.
A lot has happened in the last two-ish weeks: Trump was shot and nominated—probably winged and coronated, is a slightly better descriptor—Biden withdrew from his campaign, Harris immediately became the new presumed presidential candidate, Mukesh Ambani’s, youngest son Anant finally got married in a wedding that, reportedly, cost $600M, and we broke the record for the hottest day on earth – two days in a row.
When Donald Trump was shot, my first thought was of President Reagan getting shot and how it raised his poll numbers because of the sympathy generated by him being shot. It gave me a sinking feeling that history would repeat itself. However, the shooting – and the coronation, for that matter – does not seem to have changed Trump’s numbers very much. He still has an approvable rating in the low forties and an unfavorable rating in the low fifties.
When Biden withdrew from his reelection campaign, he immediately backed Harris. Well, maybe not immediately, but quickly. He withdrew with a letter and then, shortly afterward, Tweeted his backing of Harris, and, by all accounts I’ve read and heard, Harris immediately started rounding up backing. Almost overnight, Harris raised $1.5M from a Zoom call with Black Women and rounded up enough delegates to get the nomination.
At first, I was sort of put off by the speed of the whole thing. By not having an open convention, it seemed like the party insiders were feeding us their choice and, once again, not waiting for us – the hoi polloi – to have our say. I don’t feel that way anymore. Michele was on the “White Women” Zoom call for Harris, and her enthusiasm has rubbed off on me. But, it’s not just me; in two, maybe three weeks, Vice President Harris has gone from being a problem to being almost everybody’s answer.
When Barack Obama ran for president, I almost immediately thought he was going to win. I have the same feeling about Kamala Harris. I’m not sure why; it just seems to be in the zeitgeist—well, in the zeitgeist and Michele’s enthusiasm, and the incredible rate at which Harris is raising money. To quote the LA Times: Since Vice President Kamala Harris vaulted into becoming the likely Democratic nominee for president a week ago, a groundswell of identity-based grassroots groups have sprung up online to rally behind her. The nightly calls are raising millions of dollars and securing hundreds of volunteers, drawing comparisons to the grassroots efforts that fueled former President Obama to victory in 2008.
As an aside, one of the interesting things about Barack Obama and Kamala Harris, who are both mixed race, is that they self-identify as primarily Black. Logically, as Spook used to say, which is not as advantageous as their abandoned half. But I know the feeling. When I was relatively young – say 14 – I didn’t believe in God. I don’t remember ever making an actual decision about it. Thinking back on it, I’m sure my atheist grandfathers and my atheist Dad were an influence. And, as far as that goes, my atheist Mother who would explain, when trying to get me to go to church, “I don’t believe in God, but people who do seem to be happier, so you should go to church.”
Still, identifying as an atheist seemed to be a cheap way of denying my Jewish heritage which was not an advantage. So, when asked – and people in those days seemed to care more about what religion somebody was, so I was asked – I would say something along the lines of “I don’t believe in any religion, but my heritage is Jewish.” End aside.
Back to Vice-President Kamala Harris. She is going to win this Presidential Election election. I started out by writing; Right now, I think that she is going to win. then I think that she is going to win. But both of those read too tentative so I’ll stick with: Kamala Harris is going to win the 2024 Presidential Election election.
It was A Great Sunday
It’s hotter than a fart. Steve L. while walking up a fan in Death Valley in, probably May of 1972, but applicable to the SF Bay Area in late June and early July 2024.
Sunday, a week and a day ago, was a way-above-average good day. For the first time in more than a week, the temperature was lower than 90 °F. It was in the mid-80s ° and delightful. We could go outside, and it wasn’t like walking into an oven. We don’t have air conditioning, so our strategy is to keep all the doors and windows closed during the day and then open them at night with our three fans on to blow cool air into the house. It works great unless there are three 100° days in a row, which there were.
“It’s so tough, I think, for anyone. But I think the important thing is just how you continue to get up in this, and you have got to continue to dig deep, even when you feel like you’re at the bottom of the barrel. I mean, there’s definitely been days between 2021 and here where I didn’t feel like I was good enough or whether I was going to get back to where I am today. But the important thing is I have great people around me who continue to support me and my team. Every time I turn up and see them putting in the effort, that really encouraged me to do the same thing. Lewis Hamilton to Jensen Button in the post-race interview.
Still, the best part of that Sunday came from good ol’ rainy England, where Sir Lewis Hamilton won the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, England. It was the first race Hamilton had a good enough car to win since 2021, and he drove a spectacular race. Well, spectacular is the wrong word, to be honest. Exciting and emotional might be better descriptors. Actually, exciting and emotional are good descriptions for most of the great Formula 1 races; they are rarely spectacular. Formula 1 is more of a chess match at very high speeds.
The race on Sunday started with a dry track, then a very light drizzle, dry again, a twenty-minute light rain, and a dry track to the finish. In other words, it was chaotic and a perfect track for Lewis. It was perfect because the temperature was lower, and this year’s Mercedes seemed to like cooler conditions. It was also perfect because the rainy conditions favored the driver over the car. Racing in off-and-on rainy conditions requires a lot of tire changing, which the Mercedes Strategist planned perfectly.
The race was emotional because Lewis Hamilton hadn’t won a race in 945 days – a big deal for someone who had won 103 races – and this was in front of his home crowd. Congratulations, Sir Lewis Hamilton.
I’m Shocked, But Not Surprised
Mr. Trump now leads Mr. Biden 49 percent to 43 percent among likely voters nationally, a three-point swing toward the Republican from just a week earlier, before the debate. Nate Cohen in the New York Times.
Democrats have had the tendency to think, ‘Well, we owe it to the person. They’ve been good to the party, they’ve fought for the right causes over the years. Therefore, it’s kind of up to them to decide when to step aside.” Eric Schickler, co-director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley.
Michele and I didn’t see The Great Debate Disaster – we were driving to her family cabin in what is now known as Olympic Valley – although we did listen to the debate on the car radio. Well, we listened to parts of the debate anyway. After Biden or Trump would say something, I would turn the radio off, saying, “I can’t listen to this.” Thirty seconds later, in a FOMO frenzy of thinking Biden had to improve, we would turn it back on, listen for ten or fifteen minutes, and then repeat the cycle. It was painful.
I thought Maybe Biden did better on TV, where people could see how much better and more Presidential he looked. However, by every account I’ve read, Biden looked even worse on TV. Part of the problem is that Biden is not a very good campaigner. According to President Biden’s campaign team, part of the problem was that Biden had jet lag from going to Normandy to celebrate D-Day, and part of it was that he had a cold. It’s safe to say that whoever made the deal with former president Trump’s campaign team wasn’t thinking it out. And Biden surely signed off on the debate date which doesn’t speak very well for him.
Actually, President Biden running for a second term does not speak well for him. I say that even though I believe that President Biden had a great first term with a long list of accomplishments like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law – which, somehow, was a bill that everybody wanted but nobody could get passed – $280B to bring very high tech chip manufacturing back to the United States, and he got the Respect for Marriage Act through Congress which codified marriage equality for same-sex and interracial couples. For me, most importantly, he actually acknowledged that Climate Change was real and started doing something about it with the infrastructure law and the Build Back Better Act. However, all these bills were passed in the first half of Biden’s term, while the second two years were much less impressive.
I think Biden should withdraw from running for president because he is too old to effectively run for office or effectively run the office – as far as that goes, and he is getting worse. I also believe he is unlikely to stop running. That’s too bad for everyone concerned: President Biden, the Democrats, and, especially, the people of the United States.
Now that I’ve said that, I want to reference a couple of similar situations that suggest I’m wrong. Running for his second term, President Ronald Reagan lost the first debate to former Vice-president Walter Mondale and went on to win the second debate and the presidency. President Johnson had a great first term – a great 1.5 terms? – and then withdrew from running after a poor showing in the New Hampshire primary. Vice-president Hubert Humphrey won the nomination at the 1968 Convention in Chicago and went on to lose the election.
I do want to point out that six years after leaving office, Ronald Reagan made public that he had Alzheimer’s Disease. What he did not say was that he probably had the beginnings of Alzheimer’s during his second term in office, and it probably contributed to his second term being non-productive. I also want to point out that the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago was chaotic, and Johnson would have surely lost if he had run.
Lewis Hamilton Is Leaving Mercedes For Ferrari
Lewis Hamilton is an anomaly in Formula One. for several reasons other than his being the best driver and Formula One’s only Black driver. Automobile Racing is expensive, which is why, even today, it is a rich man’s sport. But Hamilton was an exception…sort of. While he was born and grew up in a working-class family, early in his career, while racing an old Go Cart and winning against much more expensive Go Carts, Hamilton was seen by Ron Dennis, the very rich CEO of McLaren Racing. That led to Dennis signing Hamilton on to the McLaren Young Driver Program in 1997, backing Hamilton through Formula 3 and then Formula 2. He started racing for the McLaren Formula One Team in 2007.
Under Ron Dennis, McLaren had become, behind Ferrari, the second most successful Formula One Team. Dennis ran a very tight ship, and Hamilton was expected to conform. But the world was changing, and McLaren wasn’t. It was on the way down. Still, Hamilton won his first Championship and McLaren’s last, in 2008, becoming the youngest Formula One World Champion. In late 2012, Lewis Hamilton left McLaren and joined the Mercedes Team, leaving the very cloistered environment of McLaren for a team in which they only cared how he drove.
Hamilton blossomed. Between 2013 and 2020, he won six World Driver Championships for Mercedes. He also started wearing his hair in dreadlocks, and he covered his body in tattoos. In his spare time, he took up skydiving, snowboarding, and surfing. See below for gratuitous skydiving and snowboarding videos.
However, aside from driving a very fast Formula 1 car very fast, Lewis Hamilton’s biggest love seems to be clothing, especially streetwear. If what they wear to the racetrack is any indicator, Formula One drivers are pretty conservative dressers. Except for Lewis (of course).
Almost every year, Lewis attends the super-expensive Met Gala, which is a fundraiser for the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. This year, the tickets were $70,000 a pop, and the theme was “The Garden of Time.” Inspired by a J.G. Ballard short story of the same title. Lewis wore an outfit inspired by the story of John Ystumllyn, a freed slave who became Wales’ first black gardener. Inside the coat was a poem by Alex Wharton, a black poet in England, about Ystumllyn entitled The Gardener.
Mercedes encouraged and played off of Lewis’es interests and activities. When Black Lives Matter became a rallying cry, Mercedes changed the color of their racecars from traditional silver to black. Still, Lewis Hamilton is now going to Ferrari, and Ferrari is very different.
Ferrari has been racing since 1950 and is the most successful and famous Formula One team ever. At Ferrari, everything is about Ferrari, and everybody, especially the drivers, is expected to conform. To me, that seems like a mismatch, so it will be interesting to see what happens.