(1) You are all wondering how the new Prius is doing on gas mileage. We had the first real try to see how it would perform on the road, as we drove 75 miles (each way) yesterday to Orange, Virginia, to have a very nice visit and lunch with our old friends, Jeff and Karen Dwyer. When I say we are old friends, we realized that we have known each other for 51 years. Does that qualify?

Because I can get a bit neurotic about mileage on a Prius, I made sure to hide the calculation as we drove. Otherwise, I would be adjusting my speed and so forth continually to try to maximize my efficiency, and I just wanted to see how it would do on its own. Going down, the mileage was 61.4 mpg, and coming back 63.5 mpg, so I think it is doing just fine.

(2) So, we just got the July jobs report and, rather than increasing by an anticipated 85,000 or so, employment in the nation fell by 23,000. To make matters worse, job numbers for the past two months, May and June, were revised down over 100,000, which I think is about a 40% decrease. And to make things even worse than that, the average wage increases were below inflation.

Obviously, this is a bad sign for the economy, right? Certainly a bad sign for those Americans who can not find jobs, and for those employers with technical positions open who can not find enough Americans. But….

Clearly, all is not bad. Upon hearing the news, the stock market rises. Companies’ payrolls obviously are lower than anticipated; more for the investor class. And by the way, as the majority of the readers of this blog are of a certain age and have managed to put away a certain amount of savings, it is important to remember that 93% of the stock market (latest figures) are owned by the wealthiest 10% of the population. And you wonder why the Democratic Socialists are gaining votes.

(3) For those of you who are interested, I would strongly suggest that you go to the Haberman Institute website and click on the “Program Recording Archive” and watch/listen to our last two programs, both of which are very interesting. The two sessions are:

1. With Pen and Pistol: Heroines of the Holocaust by Prof. Lori Weintrob of Wagner University. It’s the story of the role of women in Holocaust resistance, and I think you will be surprised at much of what she says.
2. Mordecai Kaplan’s Reconstructionist Vision: What Panned Out? What Fell Short, by Rabbi Bradley Artson of the American Jewish University. It is a beautifully composed essay not on the Reconstructionist movement per se, but on Kaplan’s vision for a reconstituted American Jewish community, creating theological adjustments to conform to modern life.

http://www.habermaninstitute.org.

(4) I have thought about it long and hard. I think that Paul Toboni’s three moves at trade deadline time for the Washington Nationals are disastrous, especially sending Lius Garcia, Jr. to the Yankees. Now, everyone on the team feels like they have been ripped apart, they all know that they probably have no long range future with the club, and they know that the club will be on the losing end of things for some time to come. We received 9 players (8 of them pitchers, none of them seasoned) for two reliable and much loved infielders and one pitcher. I understand that the pitcher, Foster Griffin, was only under a one year contract, but you would think that we would fight to keep him, not trade him for four unknowns.

I know: we will see. But even if we see that we have acquired some strong pitching (which we obviously need), the destruction of what was building this year was not worth the price.

(5) The goal of the Repugnantcans in crucifying Fauci is not to jail him, but to make him spend the rest of his life and all of his money defending himself. What could be more sickening?