As I write this, it’s still a few days out before the election. I’m old fashioned (not to mention old) and one of my all-time favorite things to do is to go vote on Election Day.
I even hope that there's a line to get into the polling place, one filled with Republicans and Democrats. There may even be a couple Independents, although they won't know which line to stand in, even though there's only one.
I've been all over the sample ballot so I won't waste anybody's time once I'm in the booth. Here are a few other things that have been occupying my mind as I wait for Election Day to come and then go:
• Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has announced that he's "concerned" about the rise in the number of Arizona schoolchildren who are not vaccinated against a variety of diseases and who therefore pose a health risk to themselves as well as to the vast majority of kids whose parents aren't complete idiots. And—surprise, surprise—while he claims to be concerned, he's not ready to do anything about it.
I understand that Ducey sees himself as a rising star in the political party that doesn't believe in science, but he also has a sworn duty to protect the people of Arizona. The Anti-vaxxers are, quite simply, stupid people. They think that they know more than the rest of us when, in fact, they actually (and intentionally) know less than the rest of us. That makes them dangerous. Now, it's not Ducey's job to protect stupid people from themselves, but it is his job to protect the rest of us from the stupid people.
There is a very simple solution to this. If a parent doesn't want to vaccinate his/her child due to "personal reasons" (as is the law in Arizona), just don't let those unvaccinated kids go to school with the children of non-stupid people.
• Have you noticed a marked increase in the number of drivers running red lights in Tucson since the cameras were taken down? If you say no, you're either lying or you're too busy interacting with your phone while driving to notice. It's becoming an epidemic of bad and selfish drivers and the number of deaths is going to start going up (if it hasn't already).
• I was watching TV the other night and a commercial came on for some product. The adult couple in the ad was white and apparently heterosexual. I found myself doing a double-take. While I personally welcome (rather than fear) diversity, it's been a while since I've seen Ward and June Cleaver in a commercial. It's as though the ad companies, in an effort to top one another in a headlong rush to enter the 21st century, have these multiple spinning wheels of ethnicity, sexual orientation and other factors.
Let's spin those wheels and see what we've got. Oh, an Asian husband with a Latina wife! And she's taller than he is! The combinations are endless...just as in real life. Way to go, Madison Avenue; we're noticing.
• A Republican friend of mine told me that he would donate a sum of money to the charity of my choice if I would (sincerely, not sarcastically) say something positive about Donald Trump in my column. I thought about it and then negotiated the terms down from positive to not-negative. I was having trouble coming up with something, but then I heard that Bernie Sanders had claimed that Donald Trump is the most racist President of all time.
While he certainly is the worst President of all time, I don't believe that he is the most racist of all time. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, so even considering the time in which they lived, that's got to be more racist than calling neo-Nazis "fine people."
Andrew Johnson opposed the 14th and 15th Amendments and took land that had been given to freed slaves and gave it to Confederate military leaders whom Johnson had pardoned. After the Great Mississippi (River) Flood of 1927, Calvin Coolidge ordered the intentional flooding of black communities along the river to ease pressure on the levees that protected white communities. James Polk actively wanted slavery to extend all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Franklin Delano Roosevelt shamefully allowed the internment of 100,000 Japanese-Americans (while not doing the same to Italian- and German-Americans).
Andrew Jackson (whom Trump reveres) is almost certainly the most racist president ever. He not only owned slaves, but he is also responsible for the attempted genocide of the Cherokee and other Native people through what became known as The Trail of Tears.
So there: In my sincere opinion, Donald Trump is not the most racist President of all time (although, in a list thereof, he would absolutely have a single digit before his name). Please make the check out to St. Jude's Hospital.
