I just received The New York Review of Books on election eve. In this issue is a review of a book about Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling. When I was a teenager I sat transfixed each week watching the latest episode.

The Hitch-Hiker episode has been indelibly etched in my mind for over 60 years. Inger Stevens portrays a young woman driving cross country. She is closely followed by a hitch hiker who appears throughout her journey. The end of the story is a total mind bender.

Rod Serling influenced an entire generation of television viewers.  His work and this book makes me think on election eve of the book I read earlier this year,  “Audience of One.  Donald Trump, Television and the Fracturing of America,” by James Poniewozik.

Rod Serling may have been present at the creation of television. Trump helped destroy it.

New York Review of Books – Andrew Delbanco, 11.19.2020 issue

The Twilight Man: Rod Serling and the Birth of Television

Serling had an incipient sense of women’s craving for freedom in 1950s America.

Here was the keynote of almost everything Serling wrote—soul-killing loneliness—which he embodied in voyagers stranded, astronauts marooned, spouses estranged, clerks doing mind-numbing work while dreaming of a larger life. Loneliness was again his subject in “The Hitch-Hiker,” based on a radio play by Lucille Fletcher that Serling remembered hearing while still in high school. Fletcher’s protagonist was a man, but Serling preferred a woman for the role, casting the delicately vulnerable Swedish-born actress Inger Stevens.

She’s driving alone along unlit roads. Like Janet Leigh in Hitchcock’s Psycho (which opened a few months later), she’s in flight through the night from a transgression—though exactly what sin or crime she has committed goes unsaid. Along the way she encounters one attentive man after another: an auto mechanic, a café proprietor, a naval recruit, and, again and again, a weary hitchhiker with sad eyes who inexplicably stays ahead of her, awaiting her arrival up the road even though she has sped away from him after each previous encounter. Some of these men are menacing, others alluring; some are surly and cool, others wolfish and leering, but she cannot tell who is a hazard and who is an opportunity. There is fear in her eyes but seduction in her smile. It’s unclear to us, and perhaps to her, whether she’s feeling the dread of violation or the rush of freedom.

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/11/19/twilight-zone-night-terrors/

Following is a  Wikipedia link to “The Hitch-Hiker.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitch-Hiker_(The_Twilight_Zone)

At long last election day is here. Black people, who the racist demagogueTrump has villified throughout his entire shameful life, are ready to evict this awful man from the White House.

Pay Back is sweet.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 11.2.2020

Robert Patterson, professor for African American Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.  predicts that the election will come down to voter turnout, and he sees the Black Lives Matter movement as a major contributor to the mobilization of African American voters.

Vote Donald Trump out. The demonstrators on Louisville’s streets all agree that the president is a blatant racist who has praised the armed white supremacist militias who often show up to confront protests against police violence, but refused to condemn police violence against Black people.

“Black people will support Biden,” Professor Patterson said. “They will get their friends, cousins, and will turn out. They will definitely turn out in numbers grander than 2016, because they understand what’s at stake. People that have taken a chance on Trump will not this time around.”

According to a New York Times nationwide poll of likely voters, Biden had 90% support within the Black electorate overall, and Trump had just 4%.

A movement against police violence could help motivate more Black people to go to the polls. That would not likely be to Donald Trump’s benefit.

It is a cold and windy Saturday in Louisville, Kentucky. A few hundred demonstrators have turned out to take part in a memorial march for Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old Black medical worker who was killed in her home by police during a botched raid in March. “Say her name,” they call out, “Breonna Taylor!” It is one of the chants for justice employed by the Black Lives Matter movement.

Keturah Herron, a juvenile justice policy strategist with the American Civil Liberties Union in Kentucky, walks down the street, her fist in the air and a hoodie pulled up over her head. On her black mask are the words “Justice for Breonna Taylor.”

After months of nationwide protests, and ahead of the US presidential election on November 3, the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Louisville also have a political message — one shared by many other activists across the country:

After an officer paralyzed an unarmed Black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August, a 17-year-old Trump supporter shot three demonstrators protesting police brutality, killing two. Though a video of the violence was already circulating, Trump jumped to the teen’s defense, alleging that the shooter had been fighting off attackers.

Many young Black Americans are also critical of Trump’s Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden. A survey published in September found that Biden had the support of fewer than 70% of Black voters aged 18 to 29, and though fewer than 10% supported Trump, a surprisingly large number remained undecided.

https://www.dw.com/en/black-lives-matter-movement-could-boost-the-anti-trump-vote/a-55412690

Unlike its American counterparts, the German government under Angela Merkel has taken the Pandemic seriously from Day One earlier in the year.

Now that the Covid-19 virus has resurfaced in large numbers Chancellor Merkel has put Germany in partial lockdown mode.

The same cannot be said for the moronic Trump who from Day One has attempted to debunk the entire Pandemic.  Why?  It hurts him politically.  Rather than pour American resources into fighting the Covid-19 this Fool has called it Fake News and ridiculed the scientific community which has been correct in its professional analysis of the crisis.

It’s only two days until Trump will be sent packing.  A new Administration will bring some much needed clear headedness and sanity into the fight against the Pandemic.  Naturally brainless Trump has criticized the Germans for instituting a partial lockdown.

Deutsche Welle 11.2.2020

Germany began a monthlong partial lockdown on Monday as part of efforts to curb the momentum of the coronavirus that has infected half a million people across the country.

As the new lockdown came into force, the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases announced a drop in cases, with just over 12,000 new infections, though the figure is often lower on the first day of the week as not all health authorities report on the weekend.

Infections of COVID-19 have been increasing sharply in recent weeks, with record caseloads becoming the norm, and Chancellor Angela Merkel has introduced stringent measures on public life as a result.

Some have described the lockdown as a lighter version of the one seen in the spring, as schools and shops will remain open, churches will be allowed to hold services and protests will not be banned. Nevertheless, all restaurants and bars will be closed, meetings in public will be restricted to just two households and all recreational centers, such as pools and gyms, will be shut.

State and federal leaders will meet again in 10 days to assess if the new measures need to be tightened further still or whether they may be eased in December, depending on the rate of infections.

Read more: Coronavirus: Merkel promises to shore up German economy

German Health Minister Jens Spahn urged citizens to significantly reduce their contacts in order to deal appropriately with the “situation of the century” and that a “national effort in November” is required, he told public broadcaster ZDF.

Meanwhile, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is going into isolation for at least a few days after he revealed he had been in close proximity of someone who has since tested positive.

“I have been identified as a contact of someone who has tested positive for #COVID19. I am well and without symptoms but will self-quarantine over the coming days, in line with WHO protocols, and work from home,” Tedros said in a tweet.

https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-digest-germany-enters-lockdown-who-chief-in-quarantine/a-55468913

How much do we miss the class guy Barack Obama???

This is one guy who doesn’t miss a shot.

Photo – LeBron James and President Obama.

Talking Points Memo 10.31.2020

The citizens of Germany  know something that America will soon believe,  happily acknowledge and party on down.

In just three days Trump will be more than tossed into a trashbin at Madame Tussaud’s in Berlin. 

Trump next role is  the ashbin of history where he can sit amongst other failed wannabe crackpot despots.  Good riddance.

My good friend Jean Barish sent me this breaking news.

New York Daily News 10.31.2020

President Trump is deeply unpopular in Germany, according to a Pew Research Poll published last month, which shows 26% of Germans view the U.S. favorably. Only one in ten Germans expressed confidence in Trump.

“Today’s activity is rather of a symbolic character ahead of the elections in the United States,” museums marketing manager Orkide Yalcindag told news outlets. “We here at Madame Tussauds Berlin removed Donald Trump’s waxwork as a preparatory measure.”

In the midst of the Pandemic and days before the Election it is reassuring to know there is a return to normalcy, of sorts.

We live a10 minute walk away from the Legion of Honor. It is the place I often take our dog Jack on his daily walk. We sit by the Joan of Arc statue which stands proudly in front of the museum.

Joan of Arc at Legion of Honor

San Francisco Examiner 10.30.2020

While some European institutions including the Louvre Museum are being shut again by the pandemic, in San Francisco, re-openings are the order of the day. The latest among them is the Legion of Honor of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

The historic Richmond District building, a replica of Palais de la Légion d’Honneur in Paris, was shuttered in March under The City’s temporary closure and shelter-in-place order.

The Legion of Honor re-opened to the public on Friday, just in time for the Halloween weekend, even featuring Alexandre Singh’s “A Gothic Tale,” a topical show.

The installation includes Singh’s short film “The Appointment,” a mystery inspired by 19th century European literature that pays homage to San Francisco’s place in in film noir history.

The 20-minute locally produced film, shown continuously in Gallery 1, is deliberately confusing and thrilling. It’s a saga of good and evil, transfer of identity into other bodies, and dealing with the unknown and frightening — with parallels obvious in 2020.

At the newly reopened site, health and safety measures include reduction of visitor numbers to below 25 percent of capacity, admission by timed ticket to ensure social distancing and masks required for staff and adult visitors.

As a possible benefit from the reduced attendance, the traditionally difficult parking around the museum may ease up for a while.

TThe Thinker – Rodin at Legion of Honor

All of the museum’s famed collections are on view again, including European Paintings, European Decorative Arts, European Sculpture and Ancient Art.

In the Works on Paper department, Friday also marks the opening of “The Book of Now: Dieter Roth and Ed Ruscha,” about two artists in the 1960s working in different styles, both revolutionizing the way to work in the medium of books.

Coming from Italy, the exhibition “Last Supper in Pompeii: From the Table to the Grave,” depicting life in BCE 79 as the ash from Mount Vesuvius began to rain down on Pompeii, has been postponed due to pandemic-era uncertainties. The opening date has not been announced.

Slated to open in February 2021 is Kenyan-American artist Wangechi Mutu’s “I Am Speaking, Are You Listening?” a site-specific exhibition of new sculpture, collage and film. Three years in the making, the show, curators say, “invites visitors into an alternate universe of powerful female characters, hybrid beings and fantastical landscapes, challenging traditional art histories, mythologies and conventional techniques of archiving and remembering.”

Where: 100 34th Ave., S.F.

When: 9:30 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. Tuesdays–Sundays

Tickets: $15 general; discounts for students and seniors, free on first Saturday each month

Contact: (415) 750-3600, legionofhonor.org

https://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/legion-of-honor-reopens-in-time-for-halloween/

Photos – Lee Heidhues

Just five days before the election the totally immoral and narcissistic Audience of One Trump has effectively designated North America’s gray wolf population for extinction.

This vile and unconscionable act has one goal.  Appeal to what’s left of his Base as Trump stares into the crosshairs of defeat on November 3.

One of the first things the Biden Administration must do is rescind this murderous and inhumane decision.

The Hill 10.29.2020

The Trump administration removed endangered species protections for the gray wolf Thursday, paving the way for hunting of the species even as environmentalists argue it has not yet recovered.

The rule from the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) lifts protections for the wolves in the continental U.S., except for a small band of Mexican gray wolves present in Arizona and New Mexico.

The move ends more than 45 years of protections for the species — something that has been opposed by conservation groups and members of Congress.

“After more than 45 years as a listed species, the gray wolf has exceeded all conservation goals for recovery. Today’s announcement simply reflects the determination that this species is neither a threatened nor endangered species based on the specific factors Congress has laid out in the law,” Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said in a statement.

Environmentalists have already said they will challenge the rule in court.

“This is no ‘Mission Accomplished’ moment for wolf recovery,” Kristen Boyles, an Earthjustice attorney, said in a statement. 

“Wolves are only starting to get a toehold in places like Northern California and the Pacific Northwest, and wolves need federal protection to explore habitat in the Southern Rockies and the Northeast. This delisting decision is what happens when bad science drives bad policy — and it’s illegal, so we will see them in court.”

The gray wolf population was around 1,000 when the species was first listed, and the FWS now says those figures are now closer to 6,000.

A peer review commissioned by the government largely opposed the delisting proposal.

Leave it to the German satirical political mind to make fun of Neo-Nazis and get a reaction from the government.

At a time when neo-Nazi and fascist sympathizers are ascendant it is worthwhile to see how one German group of Germans goes about exposing these foul people.

This article is from the DW archives.

Deutsche Welle 12.6.2018

A group of artists said it created a website for people to denounce their neo-Nazi acquaintances. But the doxing website was actually a so-called honeypot engineered to get members of the far-right to reveal themselves.

German activists took down a controversial website on in late 2018 after revealing that it was a honeypot trap to encourage neo-Nazis to reveal themselves.

A group of artists known as the Center for Political Beauty (ZPS) had previously said that their “Special Commission Chemnitz” campaign was an effort to get people to dox friends, neighbors or colleagues they saw in pictures from far-right demonstrations that took place in the city of Chemnitz earlier this year. The ZPS also promised monetary rewards for the denunciations.

But now the group has revealed that the true nature of the soko-chemnitz.de website was to get far-right supporters to supply their own names, which they did by using the site’s search function.

‘Thank you, dear Nazis’

“Thank you, dear Nazis,” ZPS wrote on the site, explaining in detail how they used the searches to discover the identities of at least 1,500 participants in the violent anti-immigrant protests in Chemnitz in August 2018.

“This is the most relevant set of data on right-wing extremism that currently exists in Germany,” ZPS founder Philipp Ruch told German news agency EPD.

ZPS said it recorded search terms users entered, usually a person’s first and last name, to create a list of potential far-right sympathizers. The average visitor searched for the names of 6.7 friends, according to ZPS. By comparing the names a user searched for with a list of names of people thought to sympathize with the far-right, ZPS expanded the network of potential far-right supporters.

“We built a website with one single goal: To get you to deliver your entire network yourselves without even noticing it,” ZPS wrote on its website. “Using the search function you shared more with us than publicly available sources ever could have revealed.”

ZPS’ initial announcement of the website prompted a flurry of controversy about privacy rights online, and Germany’s data protection commissioner’s office said it was looking into whether the site was acting within legal limits. The German Arts Council also called the site “problematic.”

Shortly after the launch of the site, the ZPS said that an angry mob stormed their office in Chemnitz, and when the police came, they confiscated the group’s posters of far-right demonstrators.

https://www.dw.com/en/german-artists-reveal-truth-behind-neo-nazi-doxing-campaign/a-46606772

A couple of months ago I watched the video by Alan Lichtman predicting the result of next week’s election.  Interesting.

The Hill 10.22.2020

Using an earthquake forecasting model adapted to election forecasting, he uses 13 simple true/false questions, labelled the “Keys to the White House,” with six or more false keys indicating that the challenger will defeat the incumbent. Originally formulated to forecast the popular vote winner, Lichtman’s forecast modifications after the 2000 Bush-Gore election resulted in a correct forecast of Trump over Clinton in 2016.

For the 2020 election, Lichtman classifies seven of the keys to be false, indicating that Joe Biden will be elected the next president, and not just win the popular vote, which is certain to occur without the assistance of any models (think Biden’s dominance in California and New York).

Brandeis Alumni and Friends 10.7.2020

Historian Allan Lichtman ’67 has devised a system that has enabled him to predict the winner of every U.S. presidential election going back to 1984.

His prediction for the 2020 election? Look forward to President Joe Biden in 2021.

For more information on Lichtman and the 13 Keys to the White House, you can purchase his book,

Predicting the Next President: The Keys to the White House

or watch a recent video from the New York Times.

“Donald Trump will become the first sitting president since Bill Clinton beat George H.W. Bush in 1992 to lose in a reelection bid,” Lichtman, distinguished professor of history at American University, told a virtual Brandeis audience on Sept. 22.

More than 800 alumni and friends who tuned in to the virtual event heard Lichtman describe the method he calls the “13 Keys to the White House,” which he has used to correctly call each presidential election for the past four decades. 

Lichtman said the Keys to the White House work in “geophysical earthquake terms.” When there is “stability, the party holding the White House keeps the White House,” and when there is an “earthquake, the party holding the White House loses.”

Each key represents a category on which the candidates are assessed, and when six or more keys go against an incumbent candidate, the rival is favored to win.

How the system was created is a story in itself. In a chance encounter at the California Institute of Technology in 1981, Lichtman met Vladimir Keilis-Borok, the world’s leading authority in earthquake prediction and head of the Institute of Pattern Recognition and Earthquake Prediction in Moscow.

The two came up with a revolutionary idea to try predicting political outcomes with earthquake prediction theories. The system has correctly called the past nine presidential elections.

The keys themselves range from an assessment of the country’s overall economic welfare and policy changes, to social perception of the current president and the country itself. Lichtman said he strives to keep his own political views out of the process, and defers to the theoretical method of the keys

In the wake of economic and social upheaval, the keys have turned against Donald Trump’s bid for reelection, Lichtman said.

“As of late 2019, less than a year to go before the election, President Donald Trump was down only four keys,” he said. “That’s two key short of predicting his defeat. But then, as we know, everything changed in America in 2020…We were hit with the worst pandemic in 100 years, by far, one that’s still going on,” as well as continued “cries for social and racial justice.”

Citing a famous quote by Herbert Hoover, he said, “‘As President, you get credit for the sunshine, and blame for the rain.’ Well, it’s raining really hard in America.”

Lichtman closed his remarks by recalling the words attributed to Abraham Lincoln: “The best way to predict your future is to choose.” He continued: “And how do you choose this year? Overcome all the barriers, all the rhetoric, all the bombast, and vote. That’s your future.”

Brandeis Trustee Monique Nelson chaired the event hosted by the Brandeis Alumni Association. A recording is available online. For more information on Lichtman and the 13 Keys to the White House, you can purchase his book, or watch a recent video from the New York Times.

https://alumni.brandeis.edu/news-events/news-archive/2020-10-07-lichtman-allan-election.html

A segment of the German population is unhappy with restrictions imposed on the citizenry in response to The Pandemic.  Ignoring social distancing and shelter in place are the norm.

The difference between Germany and America is simply stated.

The German government led by Angela Merkel, herself a scientist, has taken strong measures to combat the Covid-19 virus. The German government has modified its policies over the months while continuing to keep firm restrictions in place.

In America there is Donald Trump. Nothing more need be said except to point out this country is having a massive increase in the number of daily infections and deaths.

Deutsche Welle 10.26.2020

The German capital,  has one of the nation’s highest infection rates.

Some 2,000 demonstrators gathered at Berlin’s Alexanderplatz on Sunday to protest against the German capital’s coronavirus restrictions, according to local authorities.

Berlin police said it deployed 600 officers to disperse the crowd. They said on Twitter that, “for the most part, neither minimum distance nor the obligation to cover one’s mouth and nose was observed.”

Pink heart balloons and protest signs could be seen among the protesters. Many people shouted: “We are here and we are loud because we are being robbed of our freedom” and “we are the people” among other things.

Elderly people and families with children were among the crowd, according to the DPA news agency.

Read more: Coronavirus: Merkel in fresh plea to stay at home amid record infection tally

Protesters were set to march down Karl-Marx-Allee to the Kosmos convention center about 2.7 kilometers (1.6 miles) away.

The venue was originally scheduled to host the World Health Summit on Sunday, but the conference was moved online due to rising infection rates in the German capital.

German Health Minister Jens Spahn and other members of the Robert Koch Institute, Germany’s health authority, were scheduled to speak at the conference.

But after protesters repeatedly ignored orders to socially distance and put on masks, police began dispersing the crowd.

Some demonstrators broke away from the group and gathered at Kosmos, which was closed off with fences.

Counterprotesters could also be seen outside the convention center. Most of them were wearing black clothing and shouting “Nazis out.”

Berlin has seen multiple protests against coronavirus restrictions, with one at the end of August attracting more than 30,000 demonstrators.

Earlier on Sunday, Berlin authorities said bottles and other incendiary devices were thrown at a building for the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases.

Another demonstration that was expected to draw 10,000 protesters was scheduled to take place on Sunday evening near the Berlin zoo, but police said it was called off.

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-thousands-protest-against-covid-19-rules-in-berlin/a-55392704