Why Harris & Walz Will Win

Current Affairs, Japan, Politics

“We are effectively run in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.” Senator JD Vance.

[The] false claim by Trump that Harris is generating fake big crowds with AI was a true Captain Queeg moment, maybe the most bat-guano crazy thing I’ve seen in 40 years of covering presidential elections. Will Bunch National opinion columnist, Philadelphia Inquirer.

But there’s no question something big happened on July 21. Lenny Bronner  in the Washington Post

“I don’t know where you all are, but Gov. Tim Walz, everybody gives him thumbs up. By the way, I didn’t get that 100 percent thumbs up for any of the other candidates.” Democratic strategist Donna Brazile.

Vice-president Kamala Harris is going to be the next President of The United States. That shocked me, and I’m not sure why. Part of the reason, I think, is that I thought an Elizabeth Warren or Amy Klobashure type would be the first woman President. Harris seems too young or too lightweight, too amateur, because of her coltish demeanor and laugh. Now, I think that is part of her draw.

Ambition is not considered a virtue in women. “She is ambitious” is a slur, just like “He has no ambition” is a slur. That Hillary Clinton was ambitious was one of the things that many people didn’t like about her, and Harris being ambitious was a detriment when she ran for President in 2020, but this time around, Harris didn’t run for President; she was in the right place at the right time, and it seemed to just fall – for lack of a better word – on her.

Even if Harris thought Biden might drop out, she must have been somewhat surprised when he did; still, she moved extraordinarily quickly to round up support and money. She started with the party royals; the Clintons backed Harris on the first day after Biden withdrew, and the Obamas were brought around on day 4. That’s impressive. There must have been other contenders, but Harris sewed up her nomination before they even got started. Then she didn’t pick the guy the party establishment wanted her to pick. She picked the guy she wanted. Harris immediately took control.

I voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and I voted for Joe Biden in 2020, although I didn’t really vote for either of them; I voted against Donald Trump. Since then, Trump has become even more erratic and bitter and, to my thinking, even harder to vote for. He has become a senile old man ranting about how everybody is cheating on him and treating him wrongly. Strangely – or weirdly, if you prefer – Trump has retreated to Mar-a-Largo.

Michele thinks that the reason Trump is holed up at Mar-a-Lago is because his crowds are smaller than Harris’ crowds. That may be a factor, but I think the biggest reason Trump isn’t holding rallies is because he is afraid after he was almost shot dead at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. And, I have to say, I don’t blame him; I’d be afraid, too, if some wacko had tried to kill me.

Meanwhile, Vice-president Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz are on the campaign trail and drawing record crowds. It turns out that Walz is a great campaigner and an effective attack dog, playing bad cop to Harris’ good cop (which is, after all, one of the main jobs of the VP). It turns out that Harris was right about her VP choice. That’s a good quality to have as President.

“Best of The Low” At The Peterson

Art, Cars, Japan

All of which makes lowrider culture perfect for a museum exhibit, where those familiar with the art form can appreciate the chance to look more closely at cars they’ve only seen in motion, and those new to the scene can marvel, slack-jawed, at the incredible imagination, artistry, and history that goes into making the perfect lowrider. Car and Driver Magazine.

The lowrider show at the Peterson Automobile Museum was astounding. I took about 42 photos at Macchinissimathe – all Italian cars, my fav – and 134 photos at Best of The Low. Going in, I thought it wasn’t my aesthetic, but I’m not so sure anymore. I’ve never seen a group of cars with this level of workmanship, this level of attention to detail, and this level of imagination.

When I say that these cars are not my aesthetic, that’s still true in that I wouldn’t want one as a daily driver, but these cars are not meant to be daily drivers, they are works of art. If I had a big house and were rich, one of these cars, or bikes – in a plex box would be great in the entry.

The cars – and bikes – speak for themselves, but I do want to point out some commonalities. Part of being a Low Rider is not just being low; they all have hydraulic systems that enable them to raise themselves and even jump up. They all have huge speakers, usually in the trunk along with the hydraulic systems. Many of them have airbrushed murals, which I found most interesting.

Still, walking around, the entire car, details, and murals all contribute to the energy of the exhibit. Rather than show a car and write about it, I’m just going to show a bunch of photographs.

iPhone photo by Michele Stern
iPhone photo by Michele Stern

I’m ending this post with the Red Bull Formula One car that was driven by Sergio Michel “Checo” Pérez Mendoza and was just outside the entrance to the Low Riders exhibit.

A Weekend in LA with More Cars Than A Sane Person Would Want to See

California, Cars, Japan

We went south to Los Angeles last weekend to see Macchinissima, which billed itself as Equal parts Villa d’Este, Punk Rock, and L.A. car culture, and a show at the Peterson Automotive Museum of Low Rider cars that celebrates the end of the discriminatory anti-cruising ban in California. I want to write and show photographs of both shows, but first I want to make a couple of general comments.

I’ve driven to Los Angeles a lot, more than a hundred times, for sure. When I first started driving back and forth, it was on Highway 99 or along 101 near the coast, then on the newly constructed I5 (the I5, if you live in LA). I5 is the fastest way to get to LA, Death Valley, or my sister’s home in Albuquerque, so it has become my default route going South or back North. It is also the default route for trucks traveling between Northern and Southern California. Much of I5 runs along the west side of the Central Valley, which is the largest flat place on Earth at about 18,000 square miles – or about 42,000 square miles, depending on which sentence in the same Google-generated AI paragraph you want to believe – so it is a very boring, but front brain, drive.

On this last trip, on the way home, we started in LA at about 91°F, climbed up the south side of the San Gabriel Mountains at ten miles an hour in 110°F heat, and ran north in an almost constant straight line up the Valley for about 190 miles in 105°F heat. In the car, it was a balmy 75°F, and the coolant temperature gauge was at less than the halfway mark. The whole way, I kept thinking that our SUV being able to do this was amazing. I also kept thinking: Don’t try to tell me that the Earth isn’t getting hotter at an increasing rate, and do acknowledge that, at some point in the near future, it will be too hot to grow anything in the Great Centraal Valley.

Back in LA, on Saturday, we had a great time at the Macchinissima, which was held at the Los Angeles River Center & Gardens. I had never heard of the Los Angeles River Center & Gardens, and when Michele showed me where it was on her iPhone, I thought: this is crazy; there are literally 11 sets of railroad tracks between the Los Angeles River Center & Gardens and the actual river. But, it turns out that the Google map was outdated. The land was an abandoned railroad equipment repair area, LA bought the land and took out the tracks as stage 1 of a future park next to the river. The city has been spending about $800M a year since 2000 on the river, and this is one of the early stages.

The show was great and a kind of throwback to the car gatherings I used to take in when I was really into cars. The Villa d’Este part was covered by a dozen, maybe two dozen, Concours d’elegance grade cars, motorcycles, and even bicycles. The Punk Rock portion was covered by live DJs playing mostly loud Italian Italo-Disco music while we ate pizza and drank Campari spritzers. The L.A. car culture cars were mostly spread around the blocked-off parking lot, and, in many ways, they were the most fun. There were lots of exotic cars in good shape but not perfect, several of which I’d never seen before. Rather than bore us both with details, here are some photos.

Coming up soon, Low Riders at the Peterson.

So Much Has Happened

Japan, Politics
Found on Gary Peterson’s Twitter account with a caption saying: “The satanic woke Olympics have gone too far in mocking God, which is why we need Christ himself to pass the torch to our new messiah, President Trump, who will make sure that blasphemy has no place in winning the gold.

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.