Two Thirds Done

Thoughts and experiences of an eighty one year old Wild Duck.

Avram Miller by the sea

587 posts since 2006

Category: Government

  • One Election Is a Mistake. Two Are a Choice.

    At what point do citizens become responsible for the actions of their government?

    As a dual American and Israeli citizen, I have found myself living with this question on two fronts.

    When Trump was first elected in 2016, he lost the popular vote. Many Americans did not support him. Voter turnout was low, and it was possible to argue that the outcome did not fully reflect the will of the people. I struggled with whether the American people were responsible. My conclusion, at the time, was that they were at least in part. Not because they all supported him, but because too many either supported him or chose not to oppose him. In a democracy, indifference is not neutral. It is a form of participation.

    Then came 2020. Americans made a different choice and Trump lost. A correction was made, and that mattered. Democracies make mistakes, but in 2020 America corrected itself.

    Then came 2024, and the same choice was presented again. This time Trump was elected with a majority of the vote. It is hard to argue now that the outcome is accidental or circumstantial. A pattern is not a mistake.

    Israel, for me, has felt different so far.

    (more…)

  • Strong Man or Smart Man

    The weak man wears the amor of ego.

    Deborah and I spent a few days with the mountain gorillas of Rwanda, in 2018.  It was an amazing experience which also included a  profound realization which sadly has come true; the power of the Alpha Male.  I witnessed how the alpha male used force to dominate and intimidate the males (mostly drive them out) and to dominate the females.  Looking at the suppliant behavior of the families (tribes) and thought “we are so fucked.”  I was so right.  What I realized that there were genes flowing through some of us that would respond to the alpha male.  That is what Trump also realized even if his pea brain is not really capability of articulating it.  He grew up with an alpha male father.   

    Humans are primates.  We are most closely related to  Chimpanzees and  Bonobos sharing 98.7% of our DNA with them.  The former has a very strong dominant hierarchies  while the latter are more matriarchal.  I think we are some kind of mix.  While some of us will relate to the Alpha Male and fall in line, others of us will not even understand the concept.  That may be at the root of the political turmoil we are now seeing and also explains much of human history.

    This dissonance in how we relate to authoritarians can be seen so clearly in the political situation in which the world finds itself. a world that has mostly been run by tyrants and dictators.  It is, sadly, the world we once again find ourselves.

    So while some of us want to be lead by someone smart (does not have to be a man) others want to be lead by someone strong (most likely a man).  It is also possible to have a hybrid, someone that is both an authoritarian and smart such as Lee Kuan Yew, the amazing founder of Singapore.  But I think they Hybrid is the exception as is the Smart Man.

    I wonder how much of the predisposition to supporting a Smart Man versus a Strong Man is genetic.   Perhaps this could be tested using genetics and AI? I am sure there is a difference by gender. 

    Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

    The DEI movement can be thought of as an unconscious attempt to resist the Strong Man.   DEI distributes power while the Strong Man concentrates it.   It is very difficult to be really powerful without concentration of power.  Having few people with power makes it more practical for  the leader to consolidate his power.

    The role of Religion

    God, while portray as benevolent, can  also be seen in the Abrahamic  religions (Christianity, Islam and Judaism) as the ultimate Strong Man and is invoked by the hierarchy of the various religious institutions.  God is seen as male.  But for the human Strong Man, God is just another Strong Man whose power can be used to bolster his own position.    

    Why Science has to be repudiated by the Strong Man

    The Strong Man has  little appetite for science because it does not lead to a concentration of power. Science is open-ended and based on doubt, experimentation, and revision. It is decentralized with no single person having  the “final truth. It is transparent where data, methods, and peer review are public and open to challenge. In contradiction to the Strong Man,  science constantly reveals how much we don’t know.

    The Strong Man, by contrast, is an authoritarian: He claims absolute truth, often without evidence. He is dogmatic and sees questions as threats, not invitations. The Strong Man is hierarchical, expects loyalty, not peer critique. The Strong Man needs to appear invincible and infallible.

    What can bring the strong man down

    The Strong Man fears that emergence of other Strong Men that can challenge his leadership.  So to protect himself, he will end up surrounding himself with weaker and less effective versions of himself.  He will seek to create conflict between them so that none of them can consolidate power. He will often turn against them and remove them.  The result is that he can never create an effective team to deal with the issues that confront him.  To stay in the Strong Man’s graces, the mini versions will never confront him with the truth if they think it will displease him. Rather, they will tell him what he wants to hear. 

    Hitler was a great example of this.  He probably thought he could still win the war until a few days when the Russians entered Berlin, Then he poisoned his newly wed wife, Eva Braun, and blew out his brains with a gun. 

    Most strong men historically end up with a violent death (Hitler, Mussolini, Gaddafi, Hussein, and Ceausescu) or public disgrace (Nixon and Berlusconi ).  But the Strong Man can do so much damage while in power.  The Strong Man doesn’t just want obedience—he wants  worship. Legacy is everything to him. His deepest fear? Becoming a footnote instead of a monument.

    Many if not most Strong Men suffer from some physiological problems.  Some were/are likely  psychopaths such as Stalin. While others demonstrated sociopathic behavior such as Gaddafi.  There term Malignant Narcissism might be an apt description for others such as Trump.  

    The Smart Man

    It has been a struggle to come up with examples of a Smart Man leader.  In my opinion the last clear example was Roosevelt more than 80 years ago.  We had some that came close, such as Jack Kennedy. Obama could have been this but in my opinion lacked the political skills needed.  Outside the USA, we have a few examples such as  Nelson Mandela, Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore and Angela Merkel.  Obviously, Merkel is a woman but since she was the only example of a Smart Woman leader, I could find, I choose to put here together with the few Smart Men leaders I found. I think she would not mind the company.

    After Mao (the ultimate Strong Man), China had a collection of hybrids until Xi who is a text book example of a Strong Man.  The UAE leaders are a fascinating collections of Royalist, Strong Men and Smart Men.

    Israel, the country that is the closest to my heart was initially lead by Smart Men, starting with  David Ben-Gurion, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres.  But since 1996, it has been run by Benjamin Netanyahu who is definitely a classic version of a Strong Man.

    Strong Women and Smart Women

    I used the term Strong Man and Smart Man but these traits are not limited to men.  It is just that most leaders have been men.   Example of Strong Women are Margaret Thatcher (the Iron Lady) ,  Indira Gandhi and Golda Meir. 

    Evolution and the Strong Man  

    It makes sense that we would have the strong man/alpha male in our midst.  It probably serviced to have such people especially those that were a hybrid of strength and intelligence such as Genghis Khan.  But as human civilization evolves and increase in complexity, we must have smart leaders not just strong ones.  Unfortunately, and to me,  surprisingly, we seem to be going in the opposite direction.  

  • Are You Lonely Tonight

    I am not lonely. Fortunately, I have a soul mate, my wife, Deborah. We are together all the time, and even that is not enough. I also have a close family and strong social connection. But so many others are lonely. I think the holiday season is a tough time. Everything is closed, but walking around, you can observe families celebrating the holidays together.  

    Loneliness is an epidemic. It is estimated that as many as half of Americans experience loneliness. The Surgeon General of the USA, Vivek H. Murthy, published a paper on this crisis which I can recommend.. 

    Click to access surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf

    I am an advisor and investor in an Israeli company, Wisdo, that addresses this issue. It has demonstrated the positive impact and consequent reduction of costs to insurance providers.  

    As we approach 2024, I can say that I am proud to be working on four critical areas of health care: improvements in cancer detection and treatment, longevity, sleep health, and loneliness. 

    I wish you a health, happy and productive 2024. For just a few minutes, I am going to let myself be optimistic about the future. 

  • Some of what I learned about Covid 19

    Covid 19 took the world by surprise. Few countries had plans for dealing with the virus, but they should have. It also took a very long time to realize for the world to understand what was happening, although it was, sadly, all pretty predictable. I want to continue to share my thoughts about the virus.

    Flattening the curve-delay is not cure

    The purpose of fattening the curve is primarily to make sure that the hospital system is not overwhelmed. Assuming that it is not and that patients receive the same care they would get if the curb is no longer flattened, there is no need for measures like social isolation, except for those that have underlining conditions that make them highly vulnerable. Likely, we will not get a vaccine for 12-24 months. Most likely, herd immunity, which will require an infection rate of 60-70%, will happen before that. There is another benefit of such a delay. We might learn more about how to treat those that are infected. For instance, I have been an advocate of using CPAP to assist breathing. We don’t know if this is helpful, but I suspect we will find out it is.

    The importance of testing and tracing

    If we can detect the disease early and trace the people that have interacted with the person who has contracted the disease, we can reduce the spread, which also means we can take more risks with opening the economy. But the testing has to be done quickly. Many patients are asymptomatic. There have been studies that show that these people can transmit the disease, but I have not seen any studies that show what the rate of transmission for these people is. This would be important to know, and I suspect we will know eventually.

    Herd immunity will have significant economic benefits

    Herd immunity will allow things to get close to what was normal. The economic benefits are enormous, allowing governments to spend money to help those that need to be isolated until there is a vaccine. We don’t know the number of people that have been infected but not tested. We need an antibody test to know that. It is essential to have this information to develop strategies.

    The strategy has to be local.

    It is nuts to talk about the curb in a country the size of the USA. Even in Israel, where I live, the curb for the country is a summation of the curves of very different communities. At one time, 50% of the cases in Israel came from a religious community that made up only 10% of the population. They would have their peak much earlier than the rest of the country. Probably another 30% are those in nursing homes. They would also peak much earlier.

    The USA is made up of very different regions. It did right not have a national lockdown, I think. The problem in a country like the USA is that people can easily migrate from one area to another. When NYC got their challenge, many New Yorkers, including friends of mine, move to other states and likely carried infection with them. I am not sure how this should be handled.

    The importance of viral load

    The amount of virus one gets is a significant factor in how sick one gets. It only makes sense. If you have a small amount of the virus, your immune system has more time to build up antibodies before the virus count is too large.

    I think two factors account for how ill one might get. The first is the exposure, and the second if the strength of the immune system. The exposure is a function of how contagious someone is. For instance, if someone has a large viral load and is coughing and sneezing, my guess is they have a high viral load. The distance from them and the amount of time exposed will impact the viral load. The distance has an exponential decline. That means at 6 feet distance; almost no virus will be present. But I would think that at 3 feet there much less than two feet. Time, on the other hand, is linear. Sitting next to someone that is sick for an hour has twice the exposure as sitting next to someone for 30 minutes.

    Masks are crucial

    They play two roles. The mask can significantly reduce the transmission rate from someone that is ill but wearing a mask. A mask worn by someone that is not ill will significantly reduce the chance that the virus will be picked up by the hand and transmitted to the mouth, nose, and eyes.

    The virus is not going away when it is warm

    There seems to be no data supporting this. I hope I am wrong. But we will see an uptick in the fall and winter because flu and colds will weaken immune systems.

    How will identify those that have had the virus

    I believe that having the virus confers immunity. We will end up with large populations of people that no longer have to be concerned. How will we identify them, and will this create two classes of people? Can you imagine job posting that requires the person to have had the virus?

    Travel

    Air travel will happen when there are fast tests that can be done at the airport. I think this will be in Sept. These tests must be done before people get on the flight. Perhaps the day before.

    Quarantine

    We don’t know the life cycle of being contagious. It may be that the last week of a two-week quarantine does not confer much more protection.

    We need science but we also need judgement

    We need our best scientists working without political consideration but our elected leaders must use some judgement and weigh the pros and cons of various actions. They should reach out to the smart people that are not in the government but would give substantial amounts of their time to help if asked.

     

  • COVID 19 Exit

    The purpose of flattening the curve is to make sure the number of people requiring hospitalization including ICU does not overwhelm the system.  Assuming that patients will receive the same quality of treatment in that case, there is no benefit for flattening the curve further. Unless we get a vaccine, the majority of people will get the virus.  Those that will die from it because of underlining conditions will die unless they are isolated until there is a vaccine.  Once we get to 60 or 70% infected, the virus will decline as the R.0 will be less than 1.  Knowing how many people are infected is very important and requires reliable antibody testing. 

    In Israel, where I live, 90% of deaths to individuals with underlining conditions.  The majority of cases are in individuals over 65 but that is because they have more underlining conditions. However, many people older than that, are healthy and will survive the virus. 

    To the extent that you can control what segment of the population gets infected, you would want to start with the youngest.  Israel is going to open up kindergarten’ for that reason.  The parents of the children will infect each other but they are young.  Most young children do not live with a grandparent present.  The more people infected, the lower the rate of infection.   So as we exit here, we will see a spike I would guess and then a gradual reduction as herb immunity impacts the rate of infection. 

    I am happy to report that I have been able to influence a few of our major hospitals to use cPAP on sedated patients to prevent severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea.

  • Sleep Apnea and COVID 19

    As many readers of my blog will know,  I was very involved with a company that has developed a breakthrough device for Obstructive Sleep Apnea, http://www.sommetrics.com.  That afforded me an opportunity to learn a great deal about this disease.  Recently, I was talking with the CEO who is Pulmonologist originally about interest in the part of the medical community using the company’s technology to help with COVID 19 patients that are sedated and getting oxygen.  The hope is by keeping the airway open, the need for a ventilator might be avoided.

    In the discussion, I realized something.  Many people have Sleep Apnea to varying degrees.  Having people lay on their backs and be sedated will greatly increase the severity of their apneas.  Apneas are the cessation of breathing.  If you are not breathing, oxygen does not help you.

    I have read that putting patients on their stomach has better results than having them on their back.  This could be due to sleep apnea.

    CPAP machines are also being used and they are certainly effected in the treatment of sleep apnea but they are an open system and can easily spread the disease so they should be used with caution.

  • And even more thoughts about the virus

    We don’t know how many people have Covid 19

    It appears that many people have Covid 19 but no symptoms but are still capable of transmission.  Only testing a sample population will let us know this very important piece of information. 

    We need to test for antibodies and not just the virus

    Most people who get the virus will recover.  They will have antibodies and while they may not be totally immune they will have far greater immunity.  If you are one of these people you may be able to do things the rest can not do.  This will be very important for health workers.  I would think that testing for antibodies would not be that hard but I don’t really know.  IT could be the many health workers have already had the virus and don’t even know.

    Developing drugs to treat will be faster than vaccines

    I am not sure of this but it is a lot easier to test the drugs on people that have the virus than give a group of healthy people a vaccine and then wait and see if they develop Covid 19

    My heart is breaking

    Today, I was listening to the news about New York City and thinking of what is happening in Italy.  I just started crying.  I am also thinking about all the young people that have had the dreams dashed. 

    The USA has no national leadership

    I don’t want to make this political. Those of you that know me, already know my views on Trump.  It is about competence and trustworthiness. 

  • Some more thoughts about the Coronavirus

     

    The Chinese Century

    China will be coming out of the problems due to the Covid 19 virus before the USA.  Right now the USA looks like it is in real trouble medically and financially.  China will fill the vacuum left by the major decline of the USA.  

    The world’s experience with democracy is ending

    Democracies are struggling to cope with the changes that globalization and technology are creating. Democracies are short term oriented and what is needed now is long term thinking. This is another reason that it will be the Chinese Century.

    We have been preparing for the wrong wars

    The USA has been spending a large percentage of its budget making sure we could fight WWIII. We have an army and weapons not because we need them now but because we could need them to fight a future war. We have to look at Virus the same way. We need to be prepared for that war.

    Some good may come out of all this

    We will learn that we do not have to travel as much or even need offices. This will help our planet. The trend towards online retail, home delivery of meals etc will continue and accelerate.

    It is time to reevaluate what is really important in our lives

    It is the people you love and that love you.  

  • The Tax Bill:  Policy, Payoff, and Politics

    I want to share my perspective on various aspects of the bill. This blog post is not a comprehensive analysis, but I do hope it adds a bit of insight.

     

    Policies

    Tax is not just a way to collect the funds for the government. It can also be a way to shape policy. For instance, giving a deduction for children is a way to encourage families to have children. Giving a deduction for mortgage interest could stimulate home ownership.

    I believe there were actual policy changes that influenced the structure of the tax bill. For various reasons (probably political) they have not been articulated.
    Deductibility of State Tax (income, property and sales tax)

    The tax bill sought to eliminate the deductibility of state taxes, but because of a lot of pushback, a deduction of up to $10,000 for any combination of these taxes was preserved. Most taxpayers were no itemizing deduction and did not take advantage of this deduction. With the increase in the standard deduction to $24,000 less than 20% of taxpayers will take advantage of this deduction. Note that those taxpayers that have been paying Alternative Minimum Tax have not been able to deduct state taxes.

    I believe that it does not make sense to have a tax deduction for state taxes. Some states have very high tax rates for various reasons. If California wants to spend money to provide health care services to the poor (which I believe in), I don’t know why citizens of Florida would have to pay for part of that. However, that is what happens when you allow for the deduction of the state taxes.

    Mortgage Deduction
    Before the tax bill, interest on mortgages for personal residences (up to two) could be deducted up to a million dollars. So if you ad a mortgage of $1 million or more, and the interest rate was 4%, you could deduct $40,000 from your income. If you were in a 40% marginal bracket, this would reduce your tax by $16,000. The majority of taxpayers did not get a deduction even if they had a mortgage because they used the standard deduction. The doubling of the standard deduction will reduce the number of people deducting montage interest. The drafters of the bill probably wanted to eliminate all future mortgage interest deduction, but lobbying from the builders and real estate agencies made that unlikely. They ended up reducing the deduction by 25% by limiting the interest to a $750,000 mortgage. In my example above, this could result in someone paying an additional $4,000 in tax. I am in favor of eliminating the mortgage deduction.

    Individual Mandate
    The Affordable Care Act requires everyone to have health insurance or pay a fine. The purpose of this was to encourage young and healthy people to buy medical insurance even if they did not feel they needed it. The result of having a pool of young and healthy people was to bring down the premiums for the others. This requirement to buy medical insurance or pay a fine was in effect a tax on these people. It has been eliminated. I agree with that, but I have to say that I believe in a single-payer solution or what is sometimes called Medicare for All. There were government subsidies associated with this so eliminating this provision brought down the amount of the deficits caused by the tax bill.

    The Estate Tax
    The Republicans hate it on a matter of principle. Before this bill, about $11 million could be left tax free by a couple. This bill doubled that amount to more than $22 million. Like many provision in the bill, there is a reset after eight years to game the rules of the Senate and pass the bill with only a simple majority vote. However, they also changed the gift tax rules. Up to $22 million for a couple can be gifted before the estate tax returns to the $11 million. There will be many ways to deal with the estate tax coming back down by using gifts. One can set up a trust where the principle is gifted, but the earnings are provided to the person giving the gift as long as they are alive. I have already been contacted by my estate attorney about this. Not too many estates paid the tax in the past. Either they were too small, or those the person living the estate had found ways of getting around the estate tax (and there are many). I am sure the drafters of the bill wanted to eliminate it 100%, but the optics of this would be ugly and anyway, the really rich don’t care as they have already figure out how to get around the tax.

    Step-up

    They kept the rule about basis step up. What that means is if you bought an asset for $1 million that was now worth $10 million and you die, the basis is stepped up to $10 million, and no tax is due on the sale. However, if you sold it before dying, you would have had to pay capital gains on $9 million. The step up is very significant. If you have, let’s say, a real estate asset like an apartment building, that has appreciated, you may want to refinance it so that you can get at some of the cash without having to pay capital gains.

    Change in Corp Tax Rate
    The marginal rate of tax paid by C Corps has been changed from 35% to 21%. The policy here is that the USA tax rate is one of the highest in the world and makes the USA noncompetitive concerning other countries. If the tax rate is lowered, USA companies will expand more in the USA thereby creating jobs for American workers. Also, the reduction in tax will increase earnings and allow American companies to invest more in the USA. Frankly, while I think the authors of the bill believe it will. I do not. I don’t think USA companies pay 35% after deduction and tax credits. Considerations in addition to tax drive foreign investment. Investment by many corporations is not limited to their earnings. Most likely will just use the extra money in nonproductive ways like buying back their stock.

    Changes in Pass-Through Corporations ( S Corp and LLC)
    The idea here is to give them about the same break to Pass Through Corps as to C Corps. But it does it by eliminating the 20% of the gains. That means the tax rate is reduced to a bit less than 30% versus the new top tax rate of 37%. However, there are many limitations on this exception. I also do not believe this will lead to any substantial job growth.

    Increase in Standard Deduction
    The policy here is to reduce the amount of effort to file a tax return. I think it does that. Many people already use the standard deduction and much more will use it now that it has been doubled. However, it will be difficult for many taxpayers to know if they are better off using the standard deduction or making itemized deductions. I bet that many will still pay to have their taxes done to determine this.

    There will be an effect on charitable giving. If you use the standard deduction, you can not deduct the donations. The result may affect the amount people donate. Some people are considering bunching up their donations. They would take the standard deduction one year, and the itemize the next year. They would make their donations in the years when they are itemizing. This is particularly smart if you use donor-advised funds.

    It will also have the effect of making homeownership more expensive since one can not take the mortgage interest deduction if they utilize the standard deduction.

     

    Payoff

    The majority of the tax reduction is going to high and ultra-high earners. The argument is that they pay the majority of tax so they should get the majority of the reduction. There are two issues with this. First, they are getting more than their percentage share of the tax cut and also there is no reason that they should get a proportional share in the first place. The top 1% is doing amazingly well with the current tax rates and has been continuing to increase their share of the nation’s wealth. Providing this money to the rich will not grow the economy. How many homes, yachts, airplanes and valuable piece of art can you have? All that happens when people who have more money than they need, get it is that they invest it and not always in the USA. I can speak from my own experience. Half of my investments are outside of the USA. What is worse is that when there is an overabundance of money to invest, the prices of those assets increase. When I buy stocks, for instance, I am usually not buying from the company. Instead, I am buying from someone that owns the stock, and I have to give the person a reason to sell. I see no way that these tax savings are going to trickle down to the average worker. Many in the top 20% are hurt by the tax changes depending on in which state they live. They are also still subject to AMT. But once you earn more than a million dollars, you probably are no longer in AMT. You are not hurt very much by the reduction in mortgage interest because you have been buying homes that cost a lot more than the previous 1 million dollar mortgage cut off. You have probably figured out in the past how to get around property tax and state income taxes.

    The Carried interest Loophole which allows fund managers to get long-term capital gains treatment on their earnings was kept.

     

    The Politics

    Republicans were the only ones to vote for this bill. It had to pass with a simple majority to be subject to reconciliation which I am not going to try to explain. But to do that they had to meet the deficit below $1.5 trillion dollars over ten years. To do that, they had to make the tax deductions for individuals expire in ten years. They assume that in the future it will be extended, so this is just gaming the system.

    The Republicans claim the deficit will not happen as the bill will stimulate growth in jobs and wages and will end up paying for itself. This result has never happened in the past as far as I know and I don’t believe it will happen now. The way to accomplish this would have been a massive infrastructure bill that would have dealt with the sad state of our bridges, roads, trains, and airports along with a massive push in renewable energy. Reducing the payroll tax would also put money in the hands of those that would spend it to buy things and thus create jobs.

    I do believe that many of the Republicans do think that this tax bill will accelerate economic growth They’re wrong.

    When the Republicans say that this is a Middle-Class tax reduction bill, they are not telling the truth. So we are making the rich richer while poor children die for lack of healthcare.  Our infrastructure is falling apart and the average person is seeing their dreams for their children destroyed while the politicians server their masters and protect their jobs so they can cash in later.   And they do all of this on the credit card of the USA which will have to be eventually paid off by our children and their children.

  • Dick Gregory and I share a laugh in jail 1964

     

     

    The great comic, Dick Gregory died yesterday, August 19th at the age of 84. He was a great man. You can read about his life here.I only meet Dick once. It was March 1964 at the San Francisco Palace Hotel Sit-in. It was one of a series of protests on behalf of African Americans who were systematically denied good jobs in San Francisco. I was just 19. Dick was 12 years older which made him 31. It started out as a peaceful protest in the lobby  but eventually we sat in front of the hotel’s entrances. Then the police came and arrested us in a pretty brutal and forceful way. They threw us into police vans and took us to jail. After awhile, they booked us. The police organized us alphabetically. In those days, my name was Arnie Goldfinger (see here   for an explanation of that).

    I ended up standing in front of Dick. He could over hear my discussion with the police clerk. I was asked a number of standard questions. I was then asked to give my finger prints. The clerk would name the finger. I first gave my thumb, then my pointer finger, and then my fourth finger followed again by my pointer finger and fourth finger. Dick certainly noticed this. Finally, I was asked if I had any scars or incisions. I answered yes and explained that I had a major scar on my back as the result of a lung operation (true). I was then asked if anything was removed. I replied that both my lungs were removed. The clerk made a note of that and asked if it bothered me. I replied, “only when I cough.” Dick almost died laughing. We only spent a few more hours in jail together but we were friends during that time.

    After that, I always paid attention to Dick and what he was up to and count him as one of the many fantastic people I have been lucky enough to have encountered.

    It is so hard to imagine that some 53 years later, the battles that we fought then for civil rights are still going on. I am sorry for Dick that he had to see Donald Trump become President of the USA. That certainly is not a joking matter.

     

     

    Here is some film from the sit-in.  Just think that all the kids like me are now in their 70.