Mr. Toy's Mental Notes

I recently had a vivid dream. I was in a Trump prison because of something I said. I was given permission to roam the building freely, but it was a dark, dingy place. Everything was a shade of grey, the walls, the floor, the furniture, everything. I asked if I could have my phone back. I was told yes I could, but they said nobody could find it. At one point I saw through a doorway my phone being pulled out of a basket or something, but I was still told it couldn't be found. I then met a man who looked and talked like an old retired Nazi. He said he could help me if I did what he said. But he was so smarmy I  just said no thanks and moved on. Next I was sitting on a bench at a table contemplating my situation.  An attractive blonde woman in black business attire and carrying a briefcase came up to me. She handed me a small crumpled piece of paper with a symbol on it, and a small rectangular cinnamon cookie. She said "Here's something to help and something to make you fee...

This may sound counter-intuitive, but voting Yes on Proposition 50 will help neutralize political gerrymandering across the country.  I know, on the surface it looks like it will have the opposite effect. In 2008 California voters passed Prop 11 which took the drawing of state legislative districts out of the hands of self-serving politicians and turned it over to an independent commission so politicians couldn't pick and choose their own voters anymore. In 2010 the passage of Prop 20 extended that to include California's congressional districts as well. Prop 50 temporarily suspends Prop 20 for the next three election cycles, 2026, 2028, and 2030. It should be noted that Prop 11 will be unaffected. State legislative districts will continue to be determined by the independent commission. But California's congressional districts will be intentionally gerrymandered for the remainder of this decade. The reason for this is to level the playing field and give both major polit...

2024's Peninsula Nights  is what My Dinner With Andre would have been if it was written by Woody Allen. A chance meeting on a street initiates an evening of quiet discussion between two strangers, as they wander through the streets of Carmel. She is an artist from Manhattan while he is an aspiring screenwriter who sells Carmel real estate to make ends meet. Fast forward a year, and the two run into each other in downtown Monterey, again at night, and resume their uncertain relationship. As the night progresses they are faced with a decision to pursue their relationship further or travel through life on the separate paths already laid out for them. Peninsula Nights  is 90% dialogue and 10% imagery. You could just listen to it and not miss a thing. But the movie benefits from the unique character of the two famous Monterey Peninsula communities, taking advantage of their historic charm and modern sophistication, as the setting for this story. And limiting the story to nighttime ...

I saw this in an Associated Press article in the June 3 Monterey Herald.  “The high court in 2022 handed down a ruling that expanded gun rights and told lower-court judges they should no longer consider factors such as public safety in deciding whether firearm laws are constitutional. Instead, they should focus on whether a law fits into the nation’s historic tradition of gun ownership, the court said.” I checked it out, and it is true. The Supreme Court of the United States of America, in what is known as the Bruen decision, stated that tradition is more important than the written law. This comes from a court whose conservative members have often declared that the letter of the law is not open to interpretation. It should be taken literally, as the founding fathers intended. This is ironic, no it’s completely nuts, because the stated objective of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution is “the security of a free state,” in other words, public safety. On a few occasions I h...

My message to Congressman Jimmy Panetta After reading your May 4th newsletter on the chaotic first 100 days of Trump 2.0, I'm more convinced than ever that Congressional Democrats are taking boxing gloves to a gun fight. You write about legislation to curb Trump's abuse of power. But this legislation will require some Republican cooperation to pass, and most importantly, would need Trump's signature to go into effect unless you miraculously get a veto-proof majority in both the House and Senate.  Considering how unlikely it is that any of this legislation could ever become law it looks like you're just engaging in busywork so it looks like you're doing something, but which is clearly a waste of time. I understand you wanting to play by the rules, and certainly you shouldn't break any laws fighting Trump, But the Trumpers have thrown out the rule book, so you need to be more aggressive and visible than you would be under ordinary circumstances. Maybe I missed ...

CBS News posted this brief news item on Facebook: "World War II codebreaker Julia Parsons died last month at 104 years old. She was part of an all-woman team unscrambling messages to and from German submarines." When I was a kid, a common topic of adult conversation involved things that happened "during the war." Mostly they talked about everyday things that happened on the home front, like where they lived, who they knew, how they used gas ration cards, that sort of thing, as if it happened yesterday. I was fascinated by those stories, and it prompted me to learn everything could about WWII. Today there's almost nobody left to tell those tales.  The last civil war soldier died in 1956, at age 106, just three years before I was born. We think about the civil war as ancient 19th century history, but many people who were there lived through the first half of the 20th century.  Lately I've encountered several young people who are very interested in 1960s cu...