“The American ideology, on the left and the right, that props up inequality”

The problem is us.

This is the most important article you will read this week, assuming you read it at all. If I sent it to you personally, if you were the only one getting it, I know you’d at least skim it. But since this is a mailing list, one to many, you can avoid taking the time to read this article, but you shouldn’t.

Now the nature of writing anything about politics is those on the right come out in force to tell you you’re wrong. The left tends to sit somnambulantly knowing it is right, therefore not having to act. This is wrong. But I focus on the left because it is not as right as it believes it is.

The above link takes you to a review of Thomas Piketty’s new book “Capital and Ideology.” That’s right, the French economist whose previous book was the definitive statement on income inequality.

You see the left is self-righteous, to the point of obfuscation, it’s got no idea what is really going on in this country. And it’s simple, globalization has left many behind. We live in a country of haves and have-nots, and the haves in the Democratic Party, who earned their wealth, have contempt for the less advantaged, if they think of them at all.

“‘Improving the lot of the disadvantaged ceased to be its (the Democratic Party) main focus. Instead, it turned its attention primarily to serving the interests of the winners in the educational competition.’ By 2016, according to post-election surveys that Piketty analyzes in depth and across several countries, the Democrats were the party of not just the highly educated but even the highly paid.”

And the consequence of this?

“…Piketty identifies the turn toward identitarian politics as a direct consequence of the left-wing parties’ conversion to market capitalism. ‘The disadvantaged classes felt abandoned by the social-democratic parties (in the broadest sense) and this sense of abandonment provided fertile ground for anti-immigrant rhetoric and nativist ideologies to take root.'”

But the lambasting of Democrats goes further:

“Beginning with Bill ‘The era of big government is over’ Clinton, party leaders actively repudiated what they saw as an embarrassing legacy of industrial unions, welfare programs and redistribution. Having repeated for decades that public policy must bow to the iron laws of economics, the Democrats ‘remain unable even today to perceive the alternatives to the situation they themselves created.'”

It gets even worse, and I know I’m quoting a lot of the article, but there’s so much genius in it:

“The result is that economic elites in the United States have their choice of two party ideologies: one favoring educational achievement and rationality, the other entrepreneurialism and wealth. Both assume the primacy of competitive markets and justify their outcomes as the natural workings of a meritocratic system. Compared with earlier belief systems that conferred advantages based on birth or race, this shared ideology of meritocracy has the distinct advantage of justifying inequality as a pure product of natural (market) forces operating on a presumed starting point (however fictional) of equal opportunity.”

And the conclusion:

“…if redistribution between the rich and poor is ruled out…then it is all but inevitable that political conflict will focus on the one area in which nation-states are still free to act, namely, defining and controlling their borders.’ And so, in the United States, a pro-market party that claims to defend rural, white, Christian America faces off against a pro-market party that embraces the image of a diverse, cosmopolitan, urban America. To the half of the population that has known only stagnant incomes and increasing income insecurity, one party offers modestly beneficial economic policies bestowed by a technocratic elite; the other promises to restore their faded glory by winning trade wars and expelling immigrants.”

So, the Democrats have become the Republicans without even realizing it. They pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, got a good education, made it as a professional or business person and then conferred these same advantages squared upon their progeny. Meanwhile, the traditional blue collar Democrats were left out, even worse their unions were busted and their jobs shipped overseas and they were told it was the market’s fault, no one took responsibility.

Now the truth is that Biden and the DNC are on the wrong side of this. Sanders and Warren were on the right side. But Biden got the votes. Is it because only the aged and entitled vote? Possibly. Or is it that everybody else is so disillusioned they don’t even bother to vote, if they’re paying attention at all. Bezos is on the way to becoming a trillionaire, and the rank and file lost their jobs. It can’t be their fault, maybe it’s China’s? Or the immigrants stealing their jobs. Trump is speaking to these constituents, the left is just telling them they know better and are less bad than the Republicans and they need to be trusted…does anybody trust a politician anymore?

In other words, the problems in America today are much deeper than Trump. He won because he tapped into them. People were sick of a two-faced overeducated Clinton who didn’t seem to benefit them, as Hillary and her husband became millionaires.

Oh, don’t point to egregious behavior on the right. As stated above, being an entrepreneur and becoming rich is the ethos of the right! And it’s all about perception. And the perception is Democrats don’t care about working people. But it’s even worse, Democrats don’t care about struggling college graduates either. Biden, the man from Delaware, the home of the corporation, was pushed over the threshold and is now depending upon those corporations to get him elected. The funny thing is the people popped up more money for Sanders, who has boatloads of Twitter followers, who said you were entitled to health care and that the corporations were the bad guys.

But it’s got to be business as usual. The writers at the “New York Times” played the educational game, they’re friends with the rich and powerful, they don’t want to demote themselves to the hoi polloi.

And the news is laden with stories of Bernie Sanders putting a stake in his own heart. He just wouldn’t play the game. Hell, most people don’t even get a chance to play the game, who is speaking, who is even thinking about them?

Vote for Biden, I will, but it will only be the beginning. The vaunted Obama didn’t solve any of the above problems. If the rich get richer and the poor get poorer…WATCH OUT!

“WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE: Trump Is Gambling on a Resurrection, With Lives and Livelihoods – There is another way. A realist’s guide to getting through the pandemic, rebooted and safe.”

I told my shrink it was raw insanity. And he agreed. I’m looking for leadership, a way out. And there is none. Some are partying like it’s 1999 and the death rate in L.A. County keeps going up and am I supposed to stay home or go out or..?

Michael Bloomberg may have fumbled the nomination, but he resurrected “Businessweek.” A staid McGraw-Hill publication, in the wake of the last economic crisis, 2008, “Businessweek” was sold to Bloomberg and it got better! It could be the best pure business publication out there. If you have no time, subscribe to “Businessweek” and “The Week” and you’ll be caught up, even more than most people who say they follow the news.

Anyway, in this week’s magazine, “Businessweek” has the definitive statement on Covid-19, where we are, what is happening, and how we can get out of this mess.

David Rocke, a mathematician at UC Davis, says it’s all about game theory:

“The concept is that if you’re behind in a game – say, a presidential campaign – big, bold moves can make sense, even if there’s only a small chance they will pay off. If someone does stumble on a miracle cure for Covid-19, or the national economy somehow gets going by Election Day, then both Trump and the American people win. If the gambles fail, he’s no worse off because he was probably going to lose the election anyway. As far as the American people, they could wind up much worse off from his experiments. But if the president has a bad Election Day, that won’t be his problem anymore.”

In other words, it’s all about Trump, protecting his presidency, the penumbra is irrelevant, just noise. He’s betting that Covid-19 will fade, the economy will bounce back, and even if a few oldsters die, people will forget the crisis and vote for him. He’s throwing the long ball. The news media and the Democrats are grunting it out in the ground game, going for inches and yards, moving forward and then getting pushed back.

“There’s actually a fair chance that Trump’s bet will pay off. Let’s say the number of new cases continues to fall nationally, as it has in most of the world, because most people take precautions. Deaths remain elevated in nursing homes, prisons and crowded multigenerational housing, but the public regards that as an inevitable consequence of the pandemic and doesn’t blame Trump. Democrats come to be seen as silly hand-wringers, or worse, obstructionists who tried to kill the growth for political ends. Trump suddenly has a good shot at winning a second term.

Two points about that scenario. One, allowing more vulnerable people to die is a choice, not an inevitability. Two, there’s a risk that things will turn out much worse, with a second or third wave of infections that kills tens of thousands or more.”

The author of this article, Peter Coy, says that our failure in fighting Covid-19 has been one of

“imagination: an inability to grasp the magnitude of this disaster and the measures required to combat it.”

“By now we know what works. The pandemic-fighting strategy that was pioneered by China and applied successfully elsewhere is to get the rate of new infections low enough that you can stamp out fresh flare-ups through testing and tracing. If there are too many active infections, though, testers and tracers won’t be able to keep up. They’d be fighting a brushfire with a water pistol.”

The U.S. doesn’t want to spend the money, on testing, or employing citizens to do contact tracing, but according to NYU economist Paul Romer:

“‘To control this pandemic, and any future pandemic, the U.S. should make the investment necessary to test people every two weeks, which would mean 25 million tests per day on an ongoing basis.'”

In other words, there is a way out.

As for economic costs…many people are self-quarantining still, and a second wave will put us even further behind.

In other words, we don’t have to throw our hands in the air and just march forward ignorantly. But this doesn’t align with Trump’s plan to throw the long ball. He’s gambling that it’ll all work out. And if it doesn’t? He still might win.

“Trump Sows Doubt on Voting. It Keeps Some People Up at Night. – A group of worst-case scenario planners – mostly Democrats, but also some anti-Trump Republicans – have been gaming out how to respond to various doomsday options for the 2020 presidential election.”

1. Is the election going to happen.

2. To what degree will voting be suppressed.

3. To what degree will the voting process be hacked.

4. Will Trump decide the election is illegitimate if he doesn’t win.

People are now planning for these possibilities. Unfortunately, I’m not sure what the rank and file can do here. We’re dependent upon elected officials and a few insiders with power. Pelosi is speaking about the integrity of our elections, but the issue is not sexy until AFTER elections occur. We sit on our duffs and complain about the result, oftentimes not having voted to begin with. You can’t complain if you didn’t vote.

It’s twenty years since Bush vs. Gore, and we still don’t have a handle on the voting process. It is not run by the best and the brightest and the more it becomes computerized the more questions come up. We’ve been so convinced that the United States is the greatest country in the world that we refuse to acknowledge our deficiencies and address them.

But in this case, some are.

FINAL NOTE

“Gambling on a resurrection is one of the pathologies that can emerge from what finance types call the principal/agent problem: the potential for misalignment of interests between the principal (in this case, the American people) and the agent who works for them (in this case, Trump). In business, the fix for a principal/agent problem is for shareholders to have the information and power to control the CEO.”

This is from the “Businessweek” article above. Leftists live in the land of emotions, whereas Trump is first and foremost a businessman, and therefore you need to analyze his acts through this lens. We do have a problem. The checks and balances have been minimized, if not outright eliminated. We cannot depend upon the Republicans to fix our national problems. Trump delivers what most Republicans want…an unfettered economy wherein you’re entitled to your spoils and you live by your smarts and your wits. If you don’t succeed, the problem is you. Of course there are distractions, like immigration and school vouchers and gay marriage and abortion…but that’s just to keep the hoi polloi busy as the fat cats get fatter. A realignment, if it is to ever arrive, must come from the Democrats. But that would mean fat cat Democrats would have to suffer a bit. But when Joe Biden considers $400,000 a year borderline compensation, that must have tax advantages, it’s hard to have hope.

So, here we are, with a President running amok and the Democrats disunited, complaining about social issues, while it really all comes down to money. Who’s got it, who controls it and how it is distributed.

In other words, if you’re expecting the ship to be turned around, don’t hold your breath, elite Democrats are more similar to elite Republicans than you. We’re stuck in the middle, and if we’re going anywhere, it’s probably down.

Today’s Covers-5/24/20 Playlist

“Oh, You Pretty Things”
Peter Noone

It was Herman’s debut single.

Phil May of the Pretty Things died. The band meant little in the U.S. Although I did buy their 1974 album “Silk Torpedo,” because it came out on Swan Song. When we think of labels that could do no wrong, where every release mattered, like Pixar in films, at least until the sale to Disney, the obvious choice is David Geffen’s Asylum, and then Swan Song.

The very first release on Swan Song came during the summer of ’74, it was the Bad Company debut, with its out of the box hit single “Can’t Get Enough.” Despite Paul Rodgers singing one of the all-time rock staples, Free’s “All Right Now,” most people in the U.S. did not know his name. Nor did most people know Mick Ralphs, the longtime guitarist of Mott the Hoople, which had finally broken through after their switch to Columbia and Bowie’s gift of “All the Young Dudes.” But one thing people did know was rock and roll music, and the combination of a great vocal and great guitar playing and melody was an elixir listeners could not deny. Actually, I preferred the opening cut on the second side of the LP, the eerie eponymous track “Bad Company,” which sounded like a bunch of outlaws alone on the prairie who suddenly started to swagger in the middle of the track. And to some people, the most memorable cut on the debut LP was the final one, “Seagull,” a Rodgers/Ralphs composition that evidenced the flip side of the power of rock, there’s in your face bluster, but there’s also internal resonance, quiet songs that speak to the listener’s alienation, a core element of humanity on this planet we call Earth, where we have more questions than answers and look to music to make us feel whole. The fact that the follow-up, “Straight Shooter,” was even bigger than the debut was confounding, “Feel Like Makin’ Love” with its stinging guitar explosion emanated from dashboards all over America, and “Shooting Star” is one of the two best songs about being a rock star, the other being the Kinks’ “A Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy,” and “Deal With the Preacher” and “Wild Fire Woman” demonstrate that Rodgers can emote with the best, that he’d listened to McCartney through Little Richard to…remember when you used to have to have a great voice to succeed? And speaking of the Kinks, David Bowie covers “Where Have All the Good Times Gone” on “Pinups,” although Van Halen’s cover on “Diver Down” is superior but neither can beat the Ray Davies sneer in the original Kinks iteration. Anyway, based on the Swan Song imprimatur, I purchased “Silk Torpedo” with its memorable cover, but I can’t say I ever cottoned to it.

So I was reading Phil May’s obituary, and it said that Bowie covered two Pretty Things songs on “Pinups,” and I decided to pull up the LP to listen to them. And “Don’t Bring Me Down” resonated, I bought “Pinups” upon release, was always a bit disappointed with it, but I listened to it, so I knew the track. The album’s opener was the other Pretty Things song, “Rosalyn,” but I never loved this rendition, I hadn’t even heard the original. Funny the roots of these rockers in retrospect, you can trace the direct line from the aforementioned Little Richard on through, but not anymore.

Now if you want to talk “Don’t Bring Me Down,” my favorite song with that title is the one by the Animals. The funny thing is for a band from Newcastle on Tyne, the track has the U.S. stamped all over it, the composition was by Goffin and King and the producer was Tom Wilson, whom of course you know from the work he did with Bob Dylan.

And since I’ve referenced Newcastle on Tyne, I’ve got to note the Elton track wherein the burg is referenced. I’m speaking, of course, of “Can I Put You On,” which most listeners do not know, but should. The original studio version was actually released after the live recording. And although the live take is a killer, there’s magic in the studio take that warms my heart. The song was part of the soundtrack for the long forgotten 1971 flick “Friends,” and the LP with the pink cover released by Paramount opened with the title cut, which was lost to most until it was released on CD as part of Elton John’s boxed set “To Be Continued…” in 1990. I owned this LP and the arm on my turntable that steadied stacked records scratched it and I always lamented this until the CD version was released, it’s one of my favorite Elton John cuts. Anyway, the lines in “Can I Put You On” are:

And a second cousin works in the pits in Newcastle on Tyne
And he don’t care if it rains outside, there’s coal dust on his mind

Now many rockers associate the title “Don’t Bring Me Down” with ELO, but to tell you the truth I think the Electric Light Orchestra peaked with “Eldorado.”

And one of the best cuts on “Pinups” is “Sorrow,” and I’d completely forgotten, if I ever knew, that the original was done by the McCoys, yes, of “Hang on Sloopy” fame. The funny thing is this b-side for “Fever” was a big hit in the U.K., it meant nothing in the U.S.

So thinking about the Pretty Things and Bowie, my mind segued to that track on “Hunky Dory,” “Oh! You Pretty Things.” I’m partial to “Ziggy Stardust,” it was the first Bowie LP I purchased, I saw that tour, but I can make a strong argument that “Hunky Dory” is Bowie’s best album. At this late date “Changes” still gets airplay, and since David’s death there’s been a focus on “Life on Mars?,” but “Kooks” is sheer magic, “Andy Warhol” is great, and “The Bewlay Brothers” is haunting, David had a thing about ending his LPs this way, “Ziggy Stardust” ended with “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide.” And reading about “Oh! You Pretty Things” I was stunned to find out that Peter Noone had the first released version of this song, he’d gotten it from Bowie’s publisher. And the truth is Noone’s take is pretty close to the one ultimately released by Bowie. Neither was big on the hit parade, but both contain magic, there’s less gravitas in Herman’s take, but it’s got a whimsy that’ll remind you of the English countryside.

“Growin’ Up”
David Bowie

And doing further research on “Pinups” I was reminded that Bowie did a cover of Springsteen’s “Growin’ Up,” from “Greetings From Asbury Park” that was added to the initial Rykodisc CD of “Pinups.”

The song was added to the 2004 remaster of “Diamond Dogs,” which is available on Amazon Music, but for some reason not on Spotify or Apple Music. Hmm… I guess the 2016 remaster superseded the 2004 version, but something was lost in the transition. In any event, in case you don’t subscribe to Amazon Music, you can listen to Bowie’s version of “Growin’ Up” on YouTube here:

David Bowie – Growin’ Up

It’s not super-memorable, but the interesting thing is it was cut before Bruce’s big breakthrough with “Born to Run” a full year later. Funny how Bowie knew about it. “Greetings” got a ton of hype, but it was cut like an acoustic Dylan album as opposed to the E Street Band experience that came thereafter.

Now Bowie was changing direction. “Aladdin Sane” did not live up to “Ziggy Stardust,” it was hard to convert those that were not already on the bus. At this late date, most of the focus is on “The Jean Genie,” and that is good, but I like “Panic in Detroit” even better, but the song I ended up playing most from the album is one that never gets any mention, another slow, meaningful closer, “Lady Grinning Soul,” an old torch-like song that builds to a climax, it’s a mini-movie.

And then Bowie broke through with the less than satisfying “Diamond Dogs,” finally getting a huge hit in the public consciousness, now that everybody was tuned into FM, “Rebel Rebel,” which was castigated as meaningless, there was now a Bowie backlash in the critical community.

And then Bowie completely changed direction. He reincarnated himself as a Philadelphia soul singer, the Thin White Duke, and suddenly he was monumental, everywhere, embraced by black and white audiences both.

“Young Americans” did not jump out of the box, fans bought it but AOR was flummoxed by it and black radio didn’t immediately embrace it, it was a slow burner until suddenly it was everywhere. And if I never hear “Fame” again, I’m cool with that. And I like the title cut just a smidge better, but the opening cut on the second side, it’s a killer! But before I get to “Somebody Up There Likes Me” there’s a magical track on the first side that never gets any ink, which never comes up in conversation, that is my second favorite on the LP, “Fascination,” which was cowritten by Luther Vandross before almost anybody knew who he was, actually you’ve got to credit Bowie with popularizing the soul singer.

But we were talking about “Somebody Up There Likes Me.”

This is the only track on “Young Americans” without its own Wikipedia page, but it’s the one that sticks out for me.

What do I like about it?

It’s long, six minutes and thirty six seconds. Bowie and the band stretch out, the track goes through movements, but the best part of the cut is it allows Bowie to emote. And David Sanborn’s saxophone contribution is an integral part of the record, but Bowie dances all over the track and the background singers testify, their vocals were arranged by Mr. Vandross, and it’s like being in church, not one constrained by a roof, but the open landscape, where you can feel the joy of nature and music.

I’d slept in my car behind the Hart ski factory in Reno on my way to Mammoth Mountain on April 30th, 1975. I was awoken by a security guard in the middle of the night. He bought my reason for being there and when the factory opened I went inside and got a pair of replacement skis and got back in my 2002 and spun the dial of my Blaupunkt as I left the metropolis and entered the Sierra Nevada and I wasn’t sure if somebody up there liked me, I’m still not sure of that, but at that particular moment, for those six plus minutes, I liked myself and my life, I was in heaven.

It’s time for you to get on.

Oh, I know, you’ve heard it’s too complicated, that it doesn’t really matter, you don’t need another social media network.

But forget about all that.

Twitter is the heartbeat of America. Actually, it’s the heartbeat of the world. And you do want to know what is going on, believe me.

Maybe you signed up long ago, during the initial wave, 2010-11. So you’ve still got an account, you can reactivate it, assuming you remember your user name and password. Or you could sign up for a brand new one, it’s easy, like taking candy, from a baby!

Yes, one, two, THREE, just like Len Barry said!

Start with your smartphone. If you don’t have one…well, scroll down further.

You know how to download an app, hell, you’ve got scores of unused ones on your device!

Don’t let that deter you. Download Twitter and put it on the very first screen. That’s right, you don’t want to have to scroll for it. Then you won’t check it, and then you’ll be left out.

So, download the Twitter app. Of course there are other apps that will allow you to use the service, actually, I prefer Echofon Pro on my phone (which you have to pay for!) and I still use Echofon on the desktop, but now it’s buggy.

Well, since I mentioned the desktop… If you’ve got no smartphone, or if you want to be able to check in on your computer too, download the app there. If you’ve got a Mac, just click on the App Store, you know, that blue icon with the “A” in your dock. Or, you can always Google, you can do this too on Windows.

So, you’ve got your app(s). Make that account. Use a recognizable name. You don’t have to, but you’ll want to, in case you ever want to tweet, which you may never even do…unless you’re a hater and want to be anonymous, but if you are you’ve probably already got a Twitter account.

So you’ve downloaded the app(s), registered and entered your info, now what?

Don’t be daunted.

You need people to follow. Just about everybody with a profile has a Twitter account. Just Google to get their handle. It’s as simple as Googling (first name) (last name) Twitter. Or something like that, the handle will come right up. Click on this link in Google, and the person’s Twitter page will come right up, just hit FOLLOW and you’re all set.

Of course you can search for people in the Twitter app, but I do not want to make this complicated.

So, now back in the Twitter app…

Click on the house icon. That’s all you need to know.

A caveat, which I hate to add. Trying to make Twitter more usable, the company has made it less so. What I mean is when you click on your house icon, you’ll see curated tweets. Only from those you follow.

You can click for more tweets at the top of the screen, but that will just be more recent tweets from those you follow.

To get your tweets in running order, from everybody you’re following, click on the star icon in the upper right hand corner of the app and choose “See latest Tweets instead.”

Now I’ve scared you off. Please, DON’T GO!
Worst case scenario, you’ll see a curated thread. That’s not bad.
If you want to avoid this entire issue on the desktop, download Tweetdeck, it’s free, and very good: tweetdeck.twitter.com/

And, not to confuse you, but you can download the standard Echofon app, which is free, on your iPhone or Android device and avoid the problem with the Twitter app recents issue.

So, let’s recap.

You can use the Twitter apps. They’re good, but unless you click on the star in the upper right hand corner, you’re not going to see the absolute latest tweets, and you want to, Twitter is all about keeping up to date. The company is employing this curation to make the app easier to use, but you don’t want to use it that way, it’s for dummies.

Oh, hope I haven’t insulted you.

So, now you’ve got your Twitter-reading app on your smartphone. Hell, download both if you’d like. But, to make it easy, I say to go with Echofon: echofon.com

And maybe you’ve downloaded Twitter and/or Tweetdeck for your computer, cool.

All of the above is much less complicated than I make it, but I want to be thorough, I don’t want you to hit any brick walls and give up in frustration.

So, now that you’re following people…

You’re gonna use Twitter when you’re killing time. Yup, that’s right, that’s when you’re going to check the app. Come on, how often do you do this with your smartphone? Which is why your Twitter app has to sit on the first screen.

And this is all you’re going to do, check your feed. All the other features of Twitter…IGNORE!

There’s news and trends and search and lists…FORGET THEM! If you become hooked and you want to fiddle, be my guest, invade these other spaces. BUT NOT AT FIRST!

Consider Twitter to be your read-only news source.

Oh, that’s another thing, never ever tweet! All that hogwash about Twitter being a social media network of interaction, forget about it. You can tweet, but unless you’re somewhat famous, almost none of your tweets will be read by anybody.

Which brings us to followers. What are the chances your followers will read your tweets? In order to do this they have to make a conscious effort, and chances are your info is not that important to them. So, only a subset of your followers will read what you have to say.

AND IT’S NOT ABOUT FOLLOWERS!! Don’t worry about gaining followers whatsoever, you’re a lurker! And be proud of it! No need to get into any petty wars, and no one cares about your little life anyway.

This is not Facebook, which is about oldsters sharing their lives.

This is not Instagram, which is a place where you brag.

This is not Snapchat, which no one over the age of twenty five can even figure out, never mind be on.

This is about NEWS!

And there’s news in every vertical that appeals to you. And it only needs to appeal to you, you’re not burdened with threads of others that don’t interest you. It’s all you, all the time.

So, first you’re interested in hard news, what’s going on in D.C., the coronavirus. This is where you want to start.

And then there’s the stuff you’re interested in. Like with me, it’s skiing. So I follow ski related tweeters, like @liftblog (all about ski lifts) and @RickysRidge (Rob Katz, head of Vail Resorts) and even Mikaela Shiffrin (@mikaelashiffrin). And I follow even more, I want to know what lifts are running or closed at Vail and…so much more.

But ignore all that. You don’t care about skiing. But you do care about something.

Don’t overwhelm yourself. At first, sign up to follow five people. Once you get comfortable, you can add more.

Now a good place to find people to follow is by looking at what is retweeted by those you do follow. I could walk you through this, but it’s pretty obvious.

So, what you’re doing is curating your own news feed. And believe me, you’ll get hooked. Because you want to know what is going on.

Forget celebrities, other than maybe comedians. You are not looking for canned info, which is what most celebrities purvey on Twitter, if they’re even doing the tweeting themselves. Their feeds are worthless. If you want celebrity info, go to Instagram, it’s all migrated there.

But that’s all hype, pretty much all the time.

But, once again, Twitter is about information.

All that hogwash in the news about Twitter not being representative of America…IGNORE IT! It’s inside the beltway talk from professional writers and pundits who are pissed that they don’t control the dialogue. Meanwhile, they’re all on the service anyway, posting and reading. Yes, it happens first on Twitter.

Do they sometimes get it wrong on Twitter? Of course. But a lot of tweets you read will link to well-known news sources, like the “New York Times” or “Washington Post”…and you can follow them too!

You are now going to the source. And separating the wheat from the chaff. Twitter is where it all happens and it happens there first, and you do care.

I’m gonna give you some people to follow. These are seen as left wing people, but I think right wing info, tends to be spread on specific websites, like Fox and the Daily Caller. And as far as disinformation, swaying people’s opinions…that is done on Facebook, where Zuckerberg controls the algorithm as to what is seen and they charge you to be seen a lot.

Sure, there are ads on Twitter…but you get to see all the tweets of those you follow.

So, if you’re a left winger, follow:

@sarahkendzior

@NaomiAKlein

@paulkrugman

@frankrichny

@maggieNYT

Now Michael Rapino and Irving Azoff tweet occasionally, and if you’d like to follow them:

@Michael_Rapino

@irvingazoff

And you can always follow me, @lefsetz, but just so you know, I don’t tweet much, it’s easier for me to reach people via e-mail, like this.

All the likes, the retweets…IGNORE ALL THAT!

At least until you feel comfortable and want to do more. But you never have to do more, ever! I never like, I don’t get that whole paradigm. But I do occasionally retweet.

And, once again, you are not building a monument to yourself, don’t worry about gaining followers whatsoever.

Is the Twitter learning curve steep?

No.

But you do have to jump a few hurdles, all of which I’ve outlined above.

Which is why the younger generation tends to own participatory media online, they can figure it out whilst oldsters cannot. However, a lot of oldsters have figured out Twitter.

I’ve got no problem with you wanting to stay in touch with your buddies via another social media platform, but that’s not what Twitter is about. Twitter is about feeding your head, giving you information, making you think.

And you need to be on!

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family

This book is utterly astounding.

Turns out book sales are down in the Covid-19 era. Digital more than physical. Seems inexplicable to me, then again, readers are a subset of the public, which may explain the adherence to the physical. However, those who do not embrace the future are left out when the screw turns. But that’s all of America today. We love our tech, we love its cheap prices, but when we no longer have jobs that can pay for them, we’re flummoxed. The future keeps rolling down the track, be prepared for it.

But some things you can’t prepare for.

We live in a world where we believe everything can be fixed, where if everybody just lifted themselves up by their bootstraps, we’d all be okay.

Not if you have schizophrenia.

But that’s about a third of “Hidden Valley Road.” The search for cures to the disease. Actually, they don’t even want to call it that anymore, they want to talk about a “spectrum,” and they’re still arguing how much is nature and how much is nurture. At this late date it’s agreed that nature is a huge component, but can patients be improved by psychotherapy?

We live in a world where mental illness is seen as something akin to leprosy. An exotic taboo that you must not get close to for fear you’ll be infected too. But at least you can see leprosy, mental illness is hidden.

Well, not always. The Galvin boys act in bizarre ways and do bizarre things and they’re not always harmless.

This is a baby boomer story. If you were born in that era, you’ll relate to that setting. Mothers did not work outside the home. Fathers worked for the man and were moving up in their careers. And you didn’t need a chaperone to play outside the house. It was all dreamy, a simpler time.

Don Galvin was in the Air Force. He moved the family to Colorado Springs. And then…

Six out of his twelve children got schizophrenia.

The mother, Mimi, alternately blamed herself and her husband’s genes whilst doing her best to take care of these ill children.

Meanwhile, there were so many children…there was a pecking order, and violence, which the parents were unaware of. And as far as a stabilizing force, Don was oftentimes on the road.

So you’re living a charmed life.

As for the twelve children… Yes, the Galvins are Catholic. But it was also a time when you could take care of this many kids on one salary.

So everything is going swimmingly until the oldest boy goes to college and…

Goes off the rails.

And then it happens again and again. Not only with him, but his brothers.

The scientific advancement is interesting. But it’s the family and its dynamics that are fascinating. These are the stories that intrigue me, that I’m drawn to. What exactly is happening amongst all the people in the family?

Some are ignored. Some play hockey. Some are abused.

Meanwhile, it’s the sixties and music is dominant, such that some Galvins start playing for a living. It was a different era. Where there was less income inequality. You could make it as a music teacher. Sure, college helped, but you did not need to have a degree to become a receptionist.

And the father has relationships that enable the girls, there are two of them, they’re the last born, to escape the household. But they’re still traumatized, for their entire lives, by what happened back in Colorado Springs.

Meanwhile, the sick brothers are alternately zombies and out of control. In and out of mental hospitals. Men, who could hurt you.

As for the professionals… There’s always a new theory. You’re looking for answers, so you have hope. Even though some leads are scams. You end up just taking your own counsel, accepting this is the way it is, going through the motions so you don’t fall apart.

I guess everything today is about reality. Even though it’s faked. We want it visceral, right there on the flat screen. Or we want cartoons on the big screen, both animated and real life.

But we are living real life all day long. Where do we go to be understood, to be accepted.

You’ll see yourself in this book. Do you want to dive in, or pull yourself out. Can you let go of the past. Do you think you can fix people.

But this is not an everyday story.

You think everything is going just fine, and then there’s a left turn. All around you people are marching forward, but you’re lost. Happens to all of us, rich and poor. You have a financial setback. Your relationship ends. You have health issues. Meanwhile, you’re having to make decisions all the time…are you practical or do you go by your gut? And really, you’re in control, you’re the only one who cares, it’s overwhelming.

But “Hidden Valley Road” is really not about your life, about you relating, but the story of this family, the Galvins.

Now this is a big best seller. You can order it from Amazon, or dial up your local bookstore for curbside delivery. Or you can download a Kindle copy. Or, you can wait for it to be available at the library, good luck!

Everybody’s willing to spend fifteen dollars on a movie, but a book? That’s too much!

Which is one of the reasons why Amazon wanted to lower the price on digital books.

“Hidden Valley Road” is available right now, it’s just a click away.

I try to avoid non-fiction. Oftentimes it’s too dry. I’m truly looking for real life and too often I get facts, but no story, no emotion.

“Hidden Valley Road” is better than all the vaunted fiction from the writing factories. It’s not self-conscious. It’s not about flowery prose that distracts from the story. It’s a winding road that you can’t stop driving down.

It’s not hard to get into. But when you stick with it, you become engrossed, you’re constantly wanting to go back to it, to its world.

The girls are still alive. They’re still functioning just like you and me. We all have to make a life, they made theirs, as did their three uninfected brothers, even though they all were worried they would get it, and experienced guilt when they did not. This story starts long ago, but it’s positively up-to-date. Sure, it’ll make you think about mental illness, but even more it’ll make you think about yourself, wowing you all the time with its twists and turns.

You may see the scientific chapters as Tolstoy’s philosophizing in “Anna Karenina.” Roll through them, you do not have to catch every word.

“Anna Karenina” is the best book ever written. “Hidden Valley Road” is not quite that good, but like “Anna Karenina” it’s focused on people.

And that’s all we’ve got, that’s all we are.