Chinese Tariffs

The US has issued a 40-some page list of Chinese tariff items.  It targets all kinds of stuff, including medical, automotive, aircraft, transport equipment, lots of machinery, ag and industrial equipment, all kinds of metals, appliances and parts, electronics .... full list:

https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/files/Press/Releases/301FRN.pdf

The level of detail is excruciating.  Also the randomness of detail -- for example, there are separate categories for various types of parts within a trash compactor (cabinet, ram, frame,container...) yet only one category for "Vessels, designed for the transport of goods, tankers."

Some of the quirkier items:

• Industrial machinery, plant or equip. for the treat. of mat., involving a change in temp., for molten-salt-cooled acrylic acid reactors
• Aluminum, foil, w/thickness n/o 0.2 mm, backed, covered or decorated with a character, design, fancy effect or pattern 
• Bed plates, roll bars and other stock-treating parts of machinery for making pulp of fibrous cellulosic materials
• Sewing machines, other than automatic, specially designed to join footwear soles to uppers
• Caps, lids, seals, stoppers and other closures, of noncellular vulcanized rubber other than hard rubber
• Honing or lapping machines for working metal or cermets, other than numerically controlled
• Parts of trash compactors, ram assemblies
• Parts for bookbinding machinery, including book-sewing machines
• Bombs, grenades, torpedoes, mines, missiles and similar munitions of war and pts thereof; other ammunition projectiles & pts. thereof
• Bakery ovens, including biscuit ovens
• Cassette players (non-recording)
• Klystron tubes
• Flight data recorders
• Balloons, dirigibles and non-powered aircraft, gliders and hang gliders
• Artificial teeth and parts and accessories thereof, of plastics 
• Vessels, designed for the transport of goods, tankers
• Root or tuber harvesting machines

New Lighting

The downstairs room is awkward.  It's 24'  long, with only one ceiling box at one end.  How to light the whole room?  Recessed lights are good, but a big project unless your sheetrock is open.  I decided to use the existing ceiling box and run some lighting from there down the length of the room.

Decided to go with the flexible track LED lighting, Home Depot Hampton Bay El Cheapo.  Regular tracklight is cheaper, but they're mounted right on the ceiling.  The flexible stuff is slightly suspended.

I always thought this stuff was kind of jakey, the way people run it in spirals and waves and try to make seashells and stuff. But I thought if I just made one long slight curve it would look OK.

Kind of a bear to install.  Had to lay a rope on the floor in the shape and position I wanted, then use a plumb to mark the mounting spots on the ceiling.  Used a hard disk magnet to locate the drywall screws/joists.

I had to join two tracks together end-to-end, and for some reason I had a hard time getting continuity between the two.  Only discovered this after putting the track in the stanchions and testing some lights.  Had to take it down like 3 times, experimenting and testing with the meter.  I think it was the copper conductor sliding around in the track and not making contact in the connector.  Anyway finally got it working.

The other irritating thing was that each tracklight head had 4 separate warning stickers on it.  I probably spent an hour taking the stickers off and using Goo Gone to get the sticker gunk off them.  8 or 9 lights times 4 stickers....thanks Nanny State.

End result is OK.  Like any tracklight they glare, and when they hit you in the eye it's pretty bright, it's sorta like being in a trendy retail shop, but it's a big improvement over the prior dim 'n dank look.

Pinochet

Broadly quoting Judy Klass, Vanderbilt University, D.Phil Political Science/Latin American Studies:

"In the 1988 plebiscite in Chile, the Chilean people at last had the option to vote General Pinochet and his military junta out of office. The film "NO" follows the ad campaign to get people to vote NO, trying to convince people that they could vote without fear, and that they could choose democracy once again for their country..."

"Pinochet lost the plebiscite (against his own expectations), but he still got over 40% of the vote. Over 40% of Chileans were fine with military dictatorship. They were fine with people disappearing and being tortured, raped and murdered by the government. They were fine with propaganda, and the shut-down of a free press, and years without a chance to vote … They liked having a strong man in power. They found him thrilling and commanding. They didn’t want a democratic leader; they wanted a king. I spent years studying Latin American countries, and I had a sense that democracy can be quite fragile. But I did not realize how casual a huge portion of the American people could be about tossing it away."

"When Trump obstructs justice and tears down the firewall between different branches of government — again, they find him terribly thrilling and commanding! They watch State TV (aka FOX) and they believe what all the king’s men tell them about the state of the world. And sadly, that probably will not change. We may be able to save US democracy, just as democracy was restored in Chile and other countries that allowed it to be destroyed — but we should never, ever forget that the 40% who do not value it at all are out there."

Ian Fleming On Nation-Building

I’ve spent the past 18 months or so immersed in the electronic news media, being pummeled with anxious messages about “democracy.”  Certainly we have a president in office whose inclinations, if we’re being honest, are decidedly anti-democratic.  And the Washington Post has added a catch-phrase to their masthead: “Democracy Dies In Darkness” – whatever that means.  So what is this Democracy stuff?  I’m here to discuss.

The premise of all the furor is that democracy is good.  Do we really like democracy?  Democracy is  frustrating; it takes forever to get anything done; you’re lucky if you get 50% of what you want in terms of policy.  But let’s cut to the chase: basically we like its concepts of accountability and transparency, because no one wants to live under a system that might allow a brutal oppressive corrupt regime to come to power, denying its victims any means of seeking recourse or relief.

And it seems to be stipulated in American public discourse that democratic systems are the best, and should be encouraged everywhere.  Are they the best?  If democratic representative government is “the best,” the most robust and effective system, why aren’t all the world’s nations representative democracies?

The answer is that democratic systems are NOT robust, they are inefficient and fragile, and require educated, enlightened participation to sustain them and make them work.  Given this, is it reasonable to expect that any given nation, regardless of its history or culture, could be a suitable host for democratic government?  Look at Russia, which, after the downfall of the Soviet system, started afresh with democratic elections – and quickly fell back under the yoke of corruption and criminality.

Indeed, look at the sizable portion of the US electorate who is ready to hand authoritarian power to a single person, without concern for his corruption and malignancy.

Being thoroughly pickled from my media immersion, and fearing for my sanity, I put down the mobile devices and picked up some paperbacks. 

Ian Fleming wrote “From Russia With Love” in 1957.  Early parts of the story take place in Turkey, scenes of which Fleming describes with imaginative detail.  With the media jabber about democracy, corruption, nationalism, racism, bigotry etc. resonating in my mind, a couple passages stood out.  I will quote them:

[On arrival at Istanbul airport] “So these dark, neat, ugly little officials were the modern Turks.  He listened to their voices…and watched the dark eyes that belied soft, polite voices. They were bright, angry, cruel eyes that had only lately come down from the mountains… They were eyes that had been trained for centuries to watch over sheep and decipher small movements on far horizons.  They were eyes that kept the knife-hand in sight without seeming to, that counted the grains of meal and the small fractions of coin and noted the flicker of the merchant’s fingers.  They were hard, untrusting, jealous eyes.”

  

[A local Turkish capo] “...’That is the only way to treat these damned people.  It is all they understand.  It is in the blood.  All this pretence of democracy is killing them.  They want some sultans and war and rape and fun.  Poor brutes, in their striped suits and bowler hats.  They are miserable.  You’ve only got to look at them.’”

Well there you have it – if Ian Fleming wrote it, it must be a universal truth: some people just aren’t ready for the civilized niceties of democracy.  I imagine we’ve all witnessed instances where some person, through accident or luck, has handed to him some responsibility that’s he’s just not ready for.  It’s often not pretty.  And everyone knows a story of some person biting the hand that fed them.

But my intention is not to promote some “screw the Turks” message.  Or to malign any nation or region or people.  In fact, good people can and do come from everywhere –- they’re just darn few, and far between.