The chemistry of lead in drinking water

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Our county, like many in the US and Canada, is served by thousands of miles of lead pipes. Some of these are the property of the government, others sit beneath our homes and are the property of the home-owner. These pipes are usually safe, but sometimes poison us. There is also problem of lead-tin solder. It was used universally to connect iron and copper pipes until it was outlawed in 1986. After years of sitting quietly, this lead caused a poisoning crisis in DC in 2004, and in Flint in 2015-16. Last month my town, Oak Park, registered dangerous lead levels in the drinking water. In an attempt to help, please find the following summary of the relevant lead chemistry. Maybe people in my town, or in other towns, will find some clue here to what’s going on, and what they can do to fix it.

lead pipes showing the three oxides: brown, yellow, and red, PbO2, PbO, and Pb2O3.

Left to itself, lead and solder pipe could be safe; lead is not soluble in clean water. But, if the water becomes corrosive, as happens every now and again, the lead becomes oxidized to one of several compounds that are soluble. These oxides are the main route of poisoning; they can present serious health issues including slow development, joint and muscle pain, memory issues, vomiting, and death. The legal limit for lead content in US drinking water is 15 ppb, a level that is far below that associated with any of the above. The solubility of PbO, lead II oxide, is more than 1000 times this limit 0.017 g/L, or 17,000 ppb. At this concentration serious health issues will show up.

PbO is the yellow lead oxide shown in the center of the figure above, right; the other pipes show other oxides, that are less-soluble, and thus less dangerous. Yellow lead oxide and red lead oxides on the right were used as paint colors until well into the 20th century. Red lead oxide is fairly neutral, but yellow PbO is a base; its solubility is strongly dependent on the PH of the water. In neutral water, its solution can be described by the following reaction.

PbO + H2O(l) –> Pb2+(aq) + 2 OH–(aq).

In high pH water (basic water), there are many OH–(aq) ions, and the solubility is lower. In low pH, acidic water the solubility is even higher. For every 1 point of lower pH the lowubility increases by a factor of 10, for every 1 point of higher pH, it decreases by a factor of ten. In most of our county, the water is slightly basic, about pH 8. It also helps that our water contains carbonate. Yellow lead forms basic lead carbonate, 2PbCO3·Pb(OH)2, the white lead that was used in paint and cosmetics. Its solubliity is lower than that of PbO, 110 ppb, in pure water, or within legal limit in water of pH 8. If you eat white lead, though, it reacts with stomach acid, pH 2, and becomes quite soluble and deadly. Remember, each number here is a factor of ten.

A main reason lead levels a very low today are essentially zero, even in homes with lead solder or pipe, involves involves the interaction with hypochlorite. Most water systems add hypochlorite to kill bacteria (germs) in the water. A side benefit is significant removal of lead ion, Pb2+(aq).

Pb2+(aq) + 2 ClO–(aq) –> Pb(ClO)2(s). 

Any dissolved lead reacts with some hypochlorite ion reacts to form insoluble lead hypochlorite. Lead hypochlorite can slowly convert to Lead IV oxide — the brown pyrophilic form of lead shown on the left pipe in the figure above. This oxide is insoluble. Alkaline waters favor this reaction, decreasing solubility, but unlike with PbO, highly alkaline waters provide no significant advantage.

PbClO+(aq) + H2O(l) –> PbO2(s) + 2 H+(aq) + Cl–(aq)

Lead IV oxide, PbO2 was used in old-fashioned matches; it reacts violently with phosphorus or sulfur. People were sometimes poisoned by sucking on these matches. In the stomach, or the presence of acidic drinking water, PbO2 is decomposed forming soluble PbO:

PbO2(s) +2 H+(aq) + 2 e– –> PbO(s) + H2O(l).

You may wonder at the presence of the two electrons in the reaction above. A common source in water systems is the oxidation of sulphite:

SO3-2(aq)–> SO4-2(aq) + 2 e–.

The presence of sulphite in the water means that hypochlorite is removed.

ClO–(aq) + 2 H+(aq) + 2 e– —> Cl–(aq) + H2O(l).

Removal of hypochlorite can present a serious danger, in part because the PbO2(s) slowly reverts to PbO and becomes soluble, but mostly because bacteria start multiplying. In the Flint crisis of 2016, and in a previous crisis in Washington DC, the main problem, in my opinion was a lack of hypochlorite addition. The lead crisis was preceded by an uptick in legionnaires disease; It killed 12 people in Flint in 2014 and 2015, and 87 were sickened, all before the lead crisis. Eventually, it was the rise of legionaries disease that alerted water officials in Virginia that there was something seriously wrong in Flint. Most folks were unaware because Flint water inspectors seem to have been fudging the lead numbers to make things look better.

Most US systems add phosphate to remove lead from the water. Flint water folks could have stopped the lead crisis, but not the legionnaires, by adding more phosphate. Lead phosphate solubility is 14 ppb at 20°C, and my suspicion is that this is the reason that the legal limit in the US is 15 ppb. Regulators chose 15 ppb, I suspect, not for health reasons, but because the target could be met easily through the addition of phosphate. Some water systems in the US and Canada disinfect with chloramine, not hypochlorite, and these systems rely entirely on phosphate to keep lead levels down. Excess phosphate is used in Canada to lower lead levels below 10 ppb. It works better on systems with hypochlorite.

Chloramine is formed by reacting hypochlorite with ammonia. It may be safer than hypochlorite in terms of chlorite reaction products, a real problem when the water source is polluted. But chloramine is not safe. It sickened 72 soldiers, 36 male and 36 female in 1998. They’d used ammonia and bleach for a “cleaning party” on successive days. Here’s a report and first aid instructions for the poisoning. That switching to chloramine can expose people to lead is called “the chloramine catch”.

Unlike PbO, PbO2 is a weak acid. PbO2 and PbO can react to form red lead, PbO•PbO2(s), the red stuff on the pipe at right in the picture above. Red lead can react with rust to form iron plumbable, an insoluble corrosion resister. A simple version is:

PbO•PbO2(s) + Fe2O3(s) —> 2FePbO3(s).

This reaction is the basis of red-lead, anti-rust compounds. Iron plumbable is considered to be completely insoluble in water, but like PbO it is soluble in acid. Bottom line, slightly basic water is good, as are hypochlorite in moderation, and phosphate.

Robert Buxbaum, November 18, 2019. I ran for water commissioner, and might run again. Even without being water commissioner, I’ll be happy to lend my expertise, for free, to any Michigan town or county that is not too far from my home.

Ladder on table, safe till it’s not.

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via GIFER

Two years ago I wrote about how to climb a ladder safely without fear. This fellow has no fear and has done the opposite. This fellow has chosen to put a ladder on a table to reach higher than he could otherwise. That table is on another table. At first things are going pretty well, but somewhere about ten steps up the ladder there is disaster. A ladder that held steadily, slips to the edge of the table, and then the table tips over. It’s just physics: the higher he climbs on the ladder the more the horizontal force. Eventually, the force is enough to move the table. He could have got up safely if he moved the tables closer to the wall or if he moved the ladder bottom further to the right on the top table. Either activity would have decreased the slip force, and thus the tendency for the table to tip.

Perhaps the following analysis will help. Lets assume that the ladder is 12.5′ long and sits against a ten foot ledge, with a base 7.5′ away from the wall. Now lets consider the torque and force balance at the bottom of the ladder. Torque is measured in foot-pounds, that is by the rotational product of force and distance. As the fellow climbs the ladder, his weight moves further to the right. This would increase the tendency for the ladder to rotate, but any rotation tendency is matched by force from the ledge. The force of the ledge gets higher the further up the ladder he goes. Let’s assume the ladder weighs 60 lbs and the fellow weighs 240 pounds. When the fellow has gone up ten feet up, he has moved over to the right by 7.5 feet, as the diagram shows. The weight of the man and the ladder produces a rotation torque on the bottom of 60 x 3.75 + 240 x 7.5 = 1925 foot pounds. This torque is combatted by a force of 1926 foot pounds provided by the ledge. Since the ladder is 12.5 feet long the force of the ledge is 1925/12.5 = 154 pounds, normal to the ladder. The effect of this 154 lbs of normal force is to push the ladder to the left by 123.2 lbs and to lift the ladder by 92.4lbs. It is this 123.2 pounds of sideways push force that will cause the ladder to slip.

The slip resistance at the bottom of the ladder equals the net weight times a coefficient of friction. The net weight here equals 60+240-92.4 = 217.6 lbs. Now lets assume that the coefficient of friction is 0.5. We’d find that the maximum friction force, the force available to stop a slip is 217.6 x 0.5 = 108.8 lbs. This is not equal to the horizontal push to prevent rotation, 123.2 lbs. The net result, depending on how you loot at things, is either that the ladder rotates to the right, or that the ladder slips to the left. It keeps slipping till, somewhere near the end of the table, the table tips over.

Force balance of man on ladder. Based on this, I will go through the slippage math in gruesome detail.

I occasionally do this sort of detailed physics; you might as well understand what you see in enough detail to be able to calculate what will happen. One take home from here is that it pays to have a ladder with rubber feet (my ladders do). That adds to the coefficient of friction at the bottom.

Robert Buxbaum, November 6, 2019.

Water Towers, usually a good thing.

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Most towns have at least one water tower. Oakland county, Michigan has four. When they are sized right, they serve several valuable purposes. They provide water in case of a power failure; they provide increased pressure in the morning when people use a lot of water showering etc.; and they allow a town to use smaller pumps and to pump with cheaper electricity, e.g. at night. If a town has no tower, all these benefits are gone, but a town can still have water. It’s also possible to have a situation that’s worse than nothing. My plan is to show, at the end of this essay, one of the ways that can happen. It involves thermodynamic properties of state i a situation where there is no expansion headspace or excess drain (most towers have both).

A typical water tower — spheroidal design. A tower of the dimensions shown would contain about 1/2 million gallons of water.

The typical tower stands at the highest point in the town, with the water level about 170 feet above street level. It’s usable volume should be about as much water as the town uses in a typical day. The reason for the height has to do with the operating pressure of most city-level water pipes. It’s about 75 psi and each foot of water “head” gives you about 0.43 psi. You want pressures about 75 psi for fire fighting, and to provide for folks in apartment buildings. If you have significantly higher pressures, you pay a cost in electricity, and you start losing a lot of water to leaks. These leaks should be avoided. They can undermine the roads and swallow houses. Bob Dadow estimates that, for our water system the leakage rate is between 15 and 25%.

Oakland county has four water towers with considerably less volume than the 130 million gallons per day that the county uses. I estimate that the South-east Oakland county tower, located near my home, contains, perhaps 2 million gallons. The other three towers are similar in size. Because our county’s towers are so undersized, we pay a lot for water, and our water pressure is typically quite low in the mornings. We also have regular pressure excursions and that leads to regular water-boil emergencies. In some parts of Oakland county this happens fairly often.

There are other reasons why a system like ours should have water towers with something more like one days’ water. Having a large water reserve means you can benefit from the fact that electric prices are the lowest at night. With a days’ volume, you can avoid running the pumps during high priced, day times. Oakland county loses this advantage. The other advantage to having a large volume is that it gives you more time to correct problems, e.g. in case of an electric outage or a cyber attack. Perhaps Oakland thinks that only one pump can be attacked at one time or that the entire electric grid will not go out at one time, but these are clearly false assumptions. A big system also means you can have pumps powered by solar cells or other renewable power. Renewable power is a good thing for reliability and air pollution avoidance. Given the benefits, you’d expect Oakland county would reward towns that add water towers, but they don’t, as best I can tell.

Here’s one way that a water column can cause problems. You really need those pressure reliefs.

Now for an example of the sort of things that can go wrong in a water tower with no expansion relief. Every stand-pipe is a small water tower, and since water itself is incompressible, it’s easy to see that a small expansion in the system could produce a large pressure rise. The law requires that every apartment hose water system has to have expansion relief to limit these increases; The water tower above had two forms of reliefs, a roof vent, and an overflow pipe, both high up so that pressure could be maintained. But you can easily imagine a plumber making a mistake and installing a stand pipe without an expansion relief. I show a system like that at left, a 1000 foot tall water pipe, within a skyscraper, with a pump at the bottom, and pipes leading off at the sides to various faucets.

Lets assume that the pressure at the top is 20 psi, the pressure at the bottom will be about 450 psi. The difference in pressure (430 psi) equals the weight of the water divided by the area of the pipe. Now let’s imagine that a bubble of air at the bottom of the pipe detaches and rises to the top of the pipe when all of the faucets are closed. Since air is compressible, while water is not, the pressure at the bubble will remain the same as the bubble rises. By the time the bubble reaches the top of the pipe, the pressure there will rise to 450 psi. Since water has weight, 430 psi worth, the pressure at the bottom will rise to 880 psi = 450 + 430. This is enough to damage pump and may blow the pipes as well. A scenario like this likely destroyed the New Horizon oil platform to deadly consequences. You really want those pressure reliefs, and you want a competent plumber / designer for any water system, even a small one.

Robert Buxbaum, September 28- October 6, 2019. I ran for water commissioner is 2016.

Recycle nuclear waste

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In a world obsessed with stopping global warming by reducing US carbon emissions, you’d think there would be a strong cry for nuclear power, one of the few reliable sources of large-scale power that does not discharge CO2. But nuclear power produces dangerous waste, and I have a suggestion: let’s recycle the waste so it’s less dangerous and so there is less of it. Used nuclear fuel rods, in particular. We burn perhaps 5% of the uranium, and produce a waste that is full of energy. Currently these, semi-used rods are stored in very expensive garbage dumps waiting for us to do something. Let’s recycle.

I’ve called nuclear power the elephant in the room for clean energy. Nuclear fuel produces about 25% of America’s electricity, providing reliable baseline generation along with polluting alternatives: coal and natural gas, and less-reliable renewables like solar and wind. Nuclear power does not emit CO2, and it’s available whether or not the sun shines or the wind blows. Nuclear power uses far less land area than solar or wind too, and it provides critical power for our navy aircraft carriers and submarines. Short of eliminating our navy, we will have to keep using nuclear.

Although there are very little nuclear waste per energy delivered, the waste that there is, is hard to manage. Used nuclear fuel rods in particular. For one thing, the used rods are hot, physically. They give off heat, and need to be cooled. At first they give off so much heat that the rods must be stored under water. But rod-heat decays fractally. After ten years or so, rods can be stored in naturally cooled concrete; it’s still a headache, but a smaller one The other problem with the waste rods is that they contain about 1.2% plutonium, a material that can be used for atomic bombs. A major reason that you can’d just dump the waste into the ocean or into a salt mine is the fear that someone will dig it up and extract the plutonium for an a- bomb. The extraction is easy compared to enriching uranium to bomb-grade, and the bombs work at least as well. Plutonium made this way was used for the bomb that destroyed Nagasaki.

The original plan for US nuclear power had been that we would extract the plutonium, and burn it up by recycling it to the nuclear reactor. We’d planned to burry the rest, as the rest is far less dangerous and far less, long-term radioactive. We actually did some plutonium recycling of this sort but in the 1970s a disgruntled worker named Silkwood stole plutonium and recycling was shut down in the US. After that, political paralysis set in and we’ve come to just let the waste sit in more-or-less guarded locations. There was a thought to burry everything in a guarded location (Yucca Mountain, Nevada) but the locals were opposed. So the waste sits waiting to leak out or be stolen. I’d like to return to recycling, but not necessarily of pure plutonium as we did before Silkwood: there is no guarantee that there won’t be other plutonium thieves.

Instead of removing the plutonium for recycling, I’d like to suggest that we remove about 40% of the uranium in the rod, and all of the “ash”, this is all of the lighter atom elements created from the split uranium atoms. This ash is about 5% of the total. The resultant rods would have about 2% plutonium, 97.5% enriched uranium (about 1% enriched at this stage) plus about 0.5% higher transuranics. This composition would be a far less dangerous than purified plutonium. It would be less hot and it would not be possible to use it directly for atom bombs. It would still be fissionable, though, at the same energy content as fresh rods.

There is an uncommonly large amount of power available in nuclear fuel

Several countries recycle by removing the ash. Because no uranium is removed, the material they get has about half the usable life of a fresh rod. After one recycle, there is not much more they could do. If we remove uranium material is a lot more easily used, and more easily recycled again. If we keep removing ash and uranium, we could get many, many recycles. The result is a lot less uranium mining, and more power per rod, and fewer rods to store under guard.

The plutonium of multiply recycled rods is also less-usable for fission bombs. With each recycle, the rods build up a non-fisionabl isotope of plutonium: Pu 240. This isotope is not readily separated from the fissionable isotope, Pu 239, making multiply used rods relatively useless for fission bombs.

Among the countries that do some nuclear waste recycling are Canada, France, Russia, China, and Germany. Not a bad assortment. I would be happy to see us join them.

Robert Buxbaum September 9, 2019

Why does water cost what it does?

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Water costs vary greatly about Oakland county, and around the US, and I have struggled in vain to find out why. In part the problem is that each city gets to add as much maintenance and management costs as the city government thinks appropriate. High management and infrastructure fees can increase to the cost of water, but I also not that different cities about Oakland County Michigan get their water at different rates from the multi-county organization that oversees water in South East Michigan: GLWA, The Great Lakes Water Authority.

$112 water bill for zero usage. The base charge is so large that prices are essentially independent of useage.

I’ve attended meetings, both local and multi county and have tried to find out why one town gets its water at a far lower rate than another, near by. Towns get lower rates if they have a water tower, but it is not at all clear what the formula is. It also helps to separate the storm sewage from the sanitary sewage — something that I have proposed for all of Oakland county, but if there is fixed formula of how that affects rates, I’ve not seen it. And I wonder how well communities monitor the amount of storm sewage they generate.

The water itself is free. For the most part, in this county, we pump it from the Detroit river. Some of the rest of the water is pumped from wells. None of this costs anything. There is a pump cost, but it is manicure. Pumping 1 gallon of water up 75 feet, costs about 0.002¢ in pumping cost. The rest of the cost is infrastructure: the cost of the pumps, the pipes, the treatment, the billing and sewage. Among the sewage fees is a pollution penalty, and Oakland county pays plenty of pollution penalties. When it rains, we generate more sewage than the system will handle, and we dump the rest into the rivers and lakes. This results in closed beaches and poisoned fish, and fines too. The county pays the EPA when we do this, and the county passes the cost to the cities. I don’t know what the formula for fee distribution is, and don’t even know what it should be. What I do know is that we do this vastly too often. I’d really like us to stop this by moving to separate the sewers so that, as a city, we don’t spend so much on treating rainwater and we don’t pollute so often.

Another oddity is that we do a propaganda campaign to tell folks to use less water. Why? I’d much prefer if people would use more. We could then charge a lower base charge, and then collect the rest on per-gallon fees. As with much that is socialist, the current system is inefficient, but pleasant for the management. Or, for those cheapskates and environmentalists who wish to save water, here are some ideas.

August 21, 2019, Robert Buxbaum

The Brexit, Trump, Johnson anti-crash

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Before Brexit, I opined, against all respectable economists, that a vote for Bexit would not sink the British economy. Switzerland, I argued, was outside the EU, and their economy was doing fine. Similarly, Norway, Iceland, and Israel — all were outside the EU and showed no obvious signs of riots, food shortages, or any of the other disasters predicted for an exited Britain. Pollsters were sure that Britain would vote “No” but, as it happened, they voted yes. The experts despaired, but the London stock market surged. It’s up 250% since the Brexit vote.

Lodon stock market prices from January 2016 through the Brexit vote, August 2016, to the Boris Johnson election, August 2019. The price has risen by more than 250%.

A very similar thing happened with the election of Trump and of Boris Johnson. In 2016 virtually every news paper supported Ms Clinton, and every respectable economic expert predicted financial disaster if he should, somehow win. As with Brexit, the experts were calmed by polls showing that Trump would, almost certainly lose. He won, and as with Brexit, the stock market took off. Today, after a correction that I over-worried about, the S+P index remains up 35% from when Trump was elected. As of today, it’s 2872, not far from the historic high of 3049. Better yet, unemployment is down to record levels, especially for black and hispanic workers, and employment is way up, We’ve added about 1% of adult workers to the US workforce, since 2017, see Federal Reserve chart below.

Returning to Britain, the economic establishment have been predicting food shortages, job losses and a strong stock market correction unless Brexit was re-voted and rejected. Instead, the ruling Conservative party elected Boris Johnson to prime-minister, “no deal” Brexiter. The stock market responded with a tremendous single day leap. See above

Ratio of Civilian Employment to US Population. Since Trump’s election, we’ve added about 1% of the working age US population to the ranks of the employed.

You’d think the experts would show embarrassment for their string of errors. Perhaps they would save some face by saying they were blinded by prejudice, or that their models had a minor flaw that they’ve now corrected, but they have not said anything of the sort. Paul Krugman of the New York Times, for example, had predicted a recession that would last as long as Trump did, and has kept up his predictions. He’s claimed a bone rattling stock crash continuously for nearly three years now, predicting historic unemployment. He has been rewarded with being wrong every week, but he’s also increased the readership of the New York Times. So perhaps he’s doing his job.

I credit our low un-employment rate to Trump’s tariffs and to immigration control. When you make imports expensive, folks tend to make more at home. Similarly, with immigration, when you keep out illegal workers, folks hire more legal ones. I suspect the same forces are working in Britain. Immigration is a good thing, but I think you want to bring in hard-working, skilled, honest folks to the extent possible. I’m happy to have fruit pickers, but would like to avoid drug runners and revolutionaries, even if they have problems at home.

I still see no immediate stock collapse, by the way. One reason is P/E analysis, in particular Schiller’s P/E analysis (he won a Nobel prize for this). Normal P/E analysis compares the profitability of companies to their price and to the bond rate. The inverse of the P/E is called the earnings yield. As of today, it’s 4.7%. This is to say, every dollar worth of the average S+P 500 stock generates 4.7¢ in profits. Not great, but it’s a lot better than the 10-year bond return, today about 1.5%.

The Schiller P/E is an improved version of this classic analysis. It compares stock prices to each company’s historic profitability, inflation adjusted for 10 years. Schiller showed that this historic data is a better measure of profitability than this year’s profitability. As of today, the Schiller P/E is 29.5, suggesting an average corporate profitability of 3.5%. This is still higher than the ten-year bond rate. The difference between them is 2%, and that is about the historic norm. Meanwhile, in the EU, interest rates are negative. The ten year in Germany is -0.7%. This suggests to me that folks are desperate to avoid German bank vaults, and German stocks. From my perspective, Trump, Johnson, and the Fed seem to be doing much better jobs than the EU bankers and pendents.

Robert E. Buxbaum, August 16, 2019.

The psychology of Archie comics and Riverdale; then, now, and in the socialist future

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I learned a lot about social interactions from a comic of my youth called “Archie“. A very popular comic for 65 years, from 1941 through the 2010s, the social structure of Archie remained remarkably constant from when I first read it, in the early 60’s to when I read it to my children in the late 90’s. The comic mostly follows the title character, a love struck teenager with two (or more) gorgeous girlfriends, shown below, and his various relationships. I find the original stories to have been hyper-true, that is more true than truth. There are also several spin-offs, including a TV series, “Riverdale“, and an underground comic “Anarchie“. Both have a degree of charm, but the original stands out for it’s wide readership and long run; clearly, it resonated. Riverdale is a far grittier take, further from hyper-reality. 

Archie enjoys a malt with Veronica left and Betty right. Archie prefers Veronica. Betty is a doormat. Though Veronica is rich, she never pays.

In Archie comics, the poorer folks worked, as in real life, at relatively dull jobs. Their parents do too, and the poorer kids are visible poorer. Archie always wore the same clothes and drives (or drove) a junker car. The few rich folks do not work in the same way, as one might expect. In the TV series, and in most TV series’s, everyone has food, friends and a car, without any serious jobs, and little social hierarchy. It’s an ideal world of sorts, but somehow everyone’s messed up.

In the old time comic, one rich character in particular, Reggie Mantle, like to flaunt his wealth and make fun of Archie and his proletarian friend, Jughead. The comic book Veronica was also something of a bitch. Her dad, while occasionally charming, could be a bully as well. He certainly displayed, and benefitted from his exceptional wealth. Meanwhile, in the comic at least, while all the poorer folks worked (except Jughead), not all of them did a good job, most of those who worked did not enjoy it. There was humor in this engaging, realistic take on life.

The school lunch lady, Miss Beasley, was relatable in her extreme dislike for her job. What pleasure she gets, seems to come from making and serving bad food. Though the details of her employment are scarce, my guess was that she was unionized. Otherwise, she would have been fired years ago. There is no similar character in TV’s Riverdale.

Weatherbee and Flootsnoot

The principal, Mr. Weatherbee, also seemed to have trouble with his job, though his relationships were more nuanced. He takes his job seriously and runs an effective school, but he’s overweight, and over-stressed — a walking heart attack. Unlike most of the people at the school, “the bee” does not take out his anger on the kids, or on his fellow faculty. He keeps it in, while tormented by the students, by the parents, by the janitor, Svenson, and in particular by Mr. Flootsnoot, the science teacher. Flootsnoot seems to delight in causing trouble, giving Archie explosives, acid, and animals. My guess is that Flootsnoot is angling for Weatherby’s job, and is not patient enough to wait for Weatherbee’s heart to give out on its own. He’s a character right out of Hitchcock, IMHO.

Ms Grundy, Archie’s teacher was also drawn a victim of playing by the rules in a crooked game. In the original comic, as i read it in the mid 60s, she’s a puritan spinster in a black dress with a tall, laced collar. She seems to dislike Archie and Jughead, but not the other kids, nor her job as such. It makes sense that she’d dislike Archie and Jughead, since Jughead is lazy, and Archie is a skirt chasing cad. By the 90’s when I read Archie with my daughters, Miss Grundy had become a Ms, and was more at peace with her position, and a lot of the humor is gone. In the TV version, Riverdale, Ms Grundy, is in a sexual relationship with Archie. It’s a lot less healthy, and not very humorous.

The main focus, of course is Archie, a workin-class teen, and straight D student. How does he have two (or more) gorgeous girlfriends? After a few years of reading, the explanation becomes obvious, and fairly depressing. Each of his many girlfriends are motivated by jealousy for the others. His first girl is Betty. She’s pretty, poor, hard-working, and a doormat. She’s always there to help out. She is treated like dirt by her richer, “best friend,” Veronica. As best I can tell, Veronica and the others mostly like Archie because Betty does. To some extent Veronica also likes to annoy her rich dad, who is portrayed as confident and proud, except when dealing with his spoiled daughter. This is old-time humor that you’ll also see in Spongebob, or (going further back) Balzac’s “Pere Goriot“.

Veronica bosses her dad around but also makes his life worthwhile, it seems. I assume he once had a wife that he loved. Now he’s got a white-haired companion, a butler, and some rich friends. The love-of-his-life is his daughter, it seems, and she is dating a free-loading cad. Veronica’s rival Betty comes from the same stable, modest backroad as Archie, but. Archie prefers life at Veronica’s house. The food is better, and there is a pool. Mr Lodge barely tolerates Archie and friends. The butler, Smithers, is less excitable, but not as tolerant.

The school also has two psychopaths, Midge and Moose, a dangerous pair. Moose Mason is a football player, dumb or brain damaged, and violently jealous of Midge. Midge, of course, flirts with everyone, and does it in front of Moose. The result is that Moose beats up any boys who respond, much to Midge’s delight. They are a sick and dangerous pair, but very realistic. Jughead, the only normal person in the comic, dislikes the pair, and dislikes both Veronica and Reggie. Jughead has a dog, and a little sister “Jellybean,” who he adores. he also has, to his chagrin, a female stalker, “Big” Ethel. She’s ugly and chases Jughead; Jughead avoids her. Jughead seems to like Archie, though, and is always loyal to him; it’s another of Jughead’s good traits. He’s always pointing Archie to Betty, as a good friend would. Meanwhile, Moose-the-homicidal is protected by “Coach Kleats,” a highly flawed character who’s obsessed with winning, and seems to have been hit in the head one time too many.

A bit more about Jughead (he got his own spinoff comic for a while). Jughead is a classic humor character from antiquity. He’s the Harlequin, the semi-loyal servant: poor, clever, resourceful, and always hungry. He’s the bird man of The Magic Flute. He’s Figaro, and the servant in Don Giovani. He’s Harlie Quinn in Batman. A harlequin makes his own clothes from patchwork, and true to type, Jughead is seen, virtually always wearing a sort-of crown, a “whoopee cap” of his own construction. Because Jughead is poor and lazy, everyone thinks him stupid, but he’s the only one clever enough to size up Midge and Veronica. Jughead’s crown is appropriate since he’s his own master. Archie comics were banned in Saudi Arabia because the Saudis took offense at the concept of a self-crowned king. It’s an unusual concept. In Riverdale, Jughead is a tortured poet who still wears a handmade crown for no obvious reason.

All these relationships had a surreal character. The relationships are funny because they are more real than reality. They also presented a simpler form of humor in that the lowly usually win, while the high and talented usually lose. Reggie commonly loses, as does Weatherbee. Then things began to change in the 2000’s when two token black characters were added: a top scholar/athlete, Chuck Clayton, and his dad, Floyd (or Harry) a wise, athletic, co-coach. These are characters without major flaws, and as such they are not funny. If a writer feels he must include a character like this, a writer should use him as a straight-man, Zeppo Marx for example. And even Zeppo Marx is presented as having a horrible flaw. In Marx Bros. movies, Zeppo is presented as being Groucho’s son. Comedy is built on flawed characters like this, who succeed, and on arrogant ones who fail. With the Claytons, you’re left wondering what comedy do they bring to the situation. Also, why do these individuals tolerate crazy Moose on the team?

In 2010, the writers added an openly gay character, Kevin Keller. A nice fellow, with no flaws who everyone likes. Really? Is there a teenager so comfortable with himself? Are there no homophobes anywhere in this school? By 2012, Kevin has grown up and is an anti-gun senator. Archie dies taking an assassin’s bullet for him. That’s heroic, and it solves some other ugly problems, but it killed the series. You don’t want an unhappy ending for a comedy. For a hint of what to do, consult Shakespeare.

Anarchy Andrews deals with his cool, pot-smoking father, Fred.

Turning now to my favorite spin-off, the underground comic, Anarchie. It’s the same batch of teenagers, more or less, navigating the same issues, but theirs is an ideal, socialist world where the revolution has won. In this world, everyone has plenty, drugs are legal, and there is no sexism, agism, racism, or shape-ism. This is a color-blind world where black and white live together, and where the gay fellow would fit right in, if anyone thought to draw them in. There is no work, but even without that pressure, and the old problems, everything isn’t great for the kids. There is still school, and Weatherby still hates Archie. The kids still have to deal with parents, even when the parents have turned-on to drugs and act cool. It’s good comedy, an up-ending of the social expectations. Most teens of my day seemed to think that socialism would solve all their problems.

noexit2
Jughead in the socialist future is a broken druggie, but still something of his own man.

For those who have not seen it, how would you expect the Archie to relate to a perfect socialist world. The answer is not well. His father smokes dope, but that doesn’t help. He’s also into recycling and yoga (yuck). Archie remains the same love stuck, philanderer disinterested in most everything else but girls. His friend, Jughead fares far worse, he’s a pock-marked, druggie, a far more likely outcome than Riverdale’s where Jughead is a tortured poet. Without societal pressures and a normal family, Jughead becomes an anarchis’s anarchist. A ruined misfit surrounded in the workers’ paradise. Jughead (now called “Ludehead” still has his crown, and is still his own person, after a fashion, but there is little room for that in a socialist utopia where all are equal.

Robert Buxbaum, August 6, 2019. In previous essays I talked about the humor of superman, and about the practical wisdom of Gomez Adams.

Kindness and Cholera in California

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California likely leads the nation in socially activist government kindness. It also leads the nation in homelessness, chronic homelessness, and homeless veterans. The US Council on Homelessnesses estimates that, on any given day, 129,972 Californians are homeless, including 6,702 family households, and 10,836 veterans; 34,332 people are listed among “the chronic homeless”. That is, Californians with a disability who have been continuously homeless for one year or cumulatively homeless for 12 months in the past three years. No other state comes close to these numbers. The vast majority of these homeless are in the richer areas of two rich California cities: Los Angeles and San Francisco (mostly Los Angeles). Along with the homeless in these cities, there’s been a rise in 3rd world diseases: cholera, typhoid, typhus, etc. I’d like to explore the relationship between the policies of these cities and the rise of homelessness and disease. And I’d like to suggest a few cures, mostly involving sanitation. 

A homeless encampment in LosAngeles

Most of the US homeless do not live in camps or on the streets. The better off US homelessness find it is a temporary situation. They survive living in hotels or homeless shelters, or they “couch-serf,” with family or friends. They tend to take part time jobs, or collect unemployment, and they eventually find a permanent residence. For the chronic homeless things are a lot grimmer, especially in California. The chronic unemployed do not get unemployment insurance, and California’s work rules tend to mean there are no part time jobs, and there is not even a viable can and bottle return system in California, so the homeless are denied even this source of income*. There is welfare and SSI, but you have to be somewhat stable to sign up and collect. The result is that California’s chronic homeless tend to live in squalor strewn tent cities, supported by food handouts.

Californians provide generous food handouts, but there is inadequate sewage, or trash collection, and limited access to clean water. Many of the chronic homeless are drug-dependent or mentally ill, and though they might  benefit from religion-based missions, Los Angeles has pushed the missions to the edges of the cities, away from the homeless. The excess food and lack of trash collection tends to breed rats and disease, and as in the middle ages, the rats help spread the diseases. 

Total homelessness by state, 2018; California leads the nation. The better off among these individuals do not live on the streets, but in hotels or homeless shelters. For most, this is a short term situation. The rest, about 20%, are chronically homeless. About half of these live on the streets without adequate sewage and water. Many are drug-dependent.

The first major outbreaks of the homeless camps appeared in Los Angeles in August and September of 2017. They reappeared in 2018, and by late summer, rates were roughly double 2017’s. This year, 2019, looks like it could be a real disaster. The first case of a typhoid infected police officer showed up in May. By June there were six police officers with typhoid, and that suggests record numbers are brewing among the homeless.

To see why sanitation is an important part of the cure, it’s worth noting that typhoid is a disease of unclean hands, and a relative of botulism. It is spread by people who go to the bathroom and then handle food without washing their hands first. The homeless camps do not, by and large, have hand washing stations. and forced hygiene is prohibited. Los Angeles has set up porta-potties, with no easy hand washing. The result is typhoid epidemic that’s even affecting the police (six policemen in June!).

rate od disease spread.
R-naught, reproduction number for some diseases, CDC.

Historically, the worst outbreaks of typhoid were spread by food workers. This was the case with “typhoid Mary of the early 20th century.” My guess is that some of the police who got typhoid, got it while trying to feed the needy. If so, this fellow could become another Typhoid Mary. Ideally, you’d want shelters and washing stations where the homeless are. You’d also want to pickup the dirtier among the homeless for forced washing and an occasional night in a homeless shelter. This is considered inhumane in Los Angeles, but they do things like this in New York, or they did.

Typhus is another major disease of the California homeless camps. It is related to typhoid but spread by rodents and their fleas. Infected rodents are attracted to the homeless camps by the excess food. When the rodents die, their infected fleas jump to the nearest warm body. Sometimes that’s a person, sometimes another animal. In a nastier city, like New York, the police come by and take away old food, dead animals, and dirty clothing; in Los Angeles they don’t. They believe the homeless have significant squatters rights. California’s kindness here results in typhus.

Reproduction number and generation time for some diseases.

The last of the major diseases of the homeless camps is cholera. It’s different from the others in that it is not dependent on squalor, just poor health. Cholera is an airborne disease, spread by coughing and sneezing. In California’s camps, the crazy and sick dwell close to each other and close to healthy tourists. Cholera outbreaks are a predictable result. And they can easily spread beyond the camps to your home town, and if that happens a national plague could spread really fast.

I’d discussed R-naught as a measure of contagiousness some months ago, comparing it to the reproductive number of an atom bomb design, but there is more to understanding a disease outbreak. R-naught refers merely to the number of people that each infected person will infect before getting cured or dying. An R-naught greater than one means the disease will spread, but to understand the rate of spread you also need the generation time. That’s the average time between when the host becomes infected, and when he or she infects others. The chart above shows that, for cholera, r-naught is about 10, and the latency period is short, about 9 days. Without a serious change in California’s treatment of the homeless, each cholera case in June will result in over 100 cases in July, and well over 10,000 in August. Cholera is somewhat contained in the camps, but once an outbreak leaves the camps, we could have a pandemic. Cholera is currently 80% curable by antibiotics, so a pandemic would be deadly.

Hygiene is the normal way to prevent all these outbreaks. To stop typhoid, make bathrooms available, with washing stations, and temporary shelters, ideally these should be run by the religious groups: the Salvation Army, the Catholic Church, “Loaves and Fishes”, etc. To prevent typhus, clean the encampments on a regular basis, removing food, clothing, feces and moving squatters. For cholera, provide healthcare and temporary shelters where people will get clean water, clean food, and a bed. Allow the homeless to work at menial jobs by relaxing worker hiring and pay requirements. A high minimum wage is a killer that nearly destroyed Detroit. Allow a business to hire the homeless to sweep the street for $2/hour or for a sandwich, but make a condition that they wash their hands, and throw out the leftovers. I suspect that a lot of the problems of Puerto Rico are caused by a too-high minimum wage by the way. There will always be poor among you, says the Bible, but there doesn’t have to be typhoid among the poor, says Dr. Robert Buxbaum.

*California has a very strict can and bottle return law where — everything is supposed to be recycled– but there are very few recycling centers, and most stores refuse to take returns. This is a problem in big government states: it’s so much easier to mandate things than to achieve them.

July 30, 2019. I ran for water commissioner in Oakland county, Michigan, 2016. If there is interest, I’ll run again. One of my big issues is clean water. Oakland could use some help in this regard.

The electoral college favors small, big, and swing states, punishes Alabama and Massachusetts.

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As of this month, the District of Columbia has joined 15 states in a pact to would end the electoral college choice of president. These 15 include New York, California, and a growing list of solid-blue (Democratic party) states. They claim the electoral must go as it robed them of the presidency perhaps five times: 2016, 2000, 1888, 1876, and perhaps 1824. They would like to replace the electoral college by plurality of popular vote, as in Mexico and much of South America.

All the big blue states and some small blue states have joined a compact to end the electoral college. As of 2019, they are 70% of the way to achieving this.

As it happens, I had to speak on this topic in High School in New York. I for the merits of the old system beyond the obvious: that it’s historical and works. One merit I found, somewhat historical, is that It was part of a great compromise that allowed the US to form. Smaller states would not have joined the union without it, fearing that the federal government would ignore or plunder them without it. Remove the vote advantage that the electoral college provides them, and the small states might have the right to leave. Federal abuse of the rural provinces is seen, in my opinion in Canada, where the large liberal provinces of Ontario and Quebec plunder and ignore the prairie provinces of oil and mineral wealth.

Several of the founding federalists (Jay, Hamilton, Washington, Madison) noted that this sort of federal republic election might bind “the people” to the president more tightly than a plurality election. The voter, it was noted, might never meet the president nor visit Washington, nor even know all the issues, but he could was represented by an elector who he trusted, he would have more faith in the result. Locals would certainly know who the elector favored, but they would accept a change if he could justify it because of some new information or circumstance, if a candidate died, for example, or if the country was otherwise deadlocked, as in 1800 or 1824.

Historically speaking, most electors vote their states and with their previously stated (or sworn) declaration, but sometimes they switch. In, 2016 ten electors switched from their state’s choice. Sven were Democrats who voted against Hillary Clinton, and three were Republicans. Electors who do this are called either “faithless electors” or “Hamilton electors,” depending on whether they voted for you or against you. Hamilton had argued for electors who would “vote their conscience” in Federalist Paper No. 68.  One might say these electors threw away their shot, as Hamilton did not. Still, they showed that elector voting is not just symbolic.

Federalist theory aside, it seems to me that the current system empowers both large and small states inordinately, and swing states, while disempowering Alabama and Massachussetts. Change the system and might change the outcome in unexpected ways.

That the current system favors Rhode Island is obvious. RI has barely enough population for 1 congressman, and gets three electors. Alabama, with 7 congressmen, gets 9 electors. Rhode Islanders thus get 2.4 times the vote power of Alabamans.

It’s less obvious that Alabama and Massachussetts are disfavored compared to New Yorkers and Californians. But Alabama is solid red, while New York and California are only sort of blue. They are majority Democrat, with enough Republicans to have had Republican governors occasionally in recent history. Because the electoral college awards all of New York’s votes to the winner, a small number Democrat advantage controls many electors.

In 2016, of those who voted for major party candidates in New York, 53% voted for the Democrat, and 47% Republican. This slight difference, 6%, swung all of NY’s 27 electors to Ms Clinton. If a popular vote are to replace the electoral college, New York would only have the net effect of the 6% difference; that’s about 1 million net votes. By contrast, Alabama is about 1/3 the population of New York, but 75% Republican. Currently its impact is only 1/3 of New York’s despite having a net of 2.5 million more R voters. Without the college, Alabama would have 2.5 times the impact of NY. This impact might be balanced by Massachusetts, but at the very least candidates would campaign in these states– states that are currently ignored. Given how red and blue these states are, it is quite possible that the Republican will be more conservative than current, and the Democrat more liberal, and third party candidates would have a field day as is common in Mexico and South America.

Proposed division of California into three states, all Democrat-leaning. Supposedly this will increase the voting power of the state by providing 4 more electors and 4 more senators.

California has petitioned for a different change to the electoral system — one that should empower the Democrats and Californians, or so the theory goes. On the ballot in 2016 was bill that would divide California into three sub-states. Between them, California would have six senators and four more electors. The proposer of the bill claims that he engineered the division, shown at right, so skillful that all three parts would stay Democrat controlled. Some people are worried, though. California is not totally blue. Once you split the state, there is more than three times the chance that one sub-state will go red. If so, the state’s effect would be reduced by 2/3 in a close election. At the last moment of 2016 the resolution was removed from the ballot.

Turning now to voter turnout, it seems to me that a change in the electoral college would change this as well. Currently, about half of all voters stay home, perhaps because their state’s effect on the presidential choice is fore-ordained. Also, a lot of fringe candidates don’t try as they don’t see themselves winning 50+% of the electoral college. If you change how we elect the president we are sure find a new assortment of voters and a much wider assortment of candidates at the final gate, as in Mexico. Democrats seem to believe that more Democrats will show up, and that they’ll vote mainstream D, but I suspect otherwise. I can not even claim the alternatives will be more fair.

In terms of fairness, Marie de Condorcet showed that the plurality system will not be fair if there are more than two candidates. It will be more interesting though. If changes to the electoral college system comes up in your state, be sure to tell your congressperson what you think.

Robert Buxbaum, July 22, 2019.

The free press isn’t

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Newspapers remain the primary source for verified news. Facts presumed to be sifted to avoid bias, while opinions and context is presumed to be that of the reporter whose name appears as the byline. We may look to other media sources for confirmation and fact-checking: news magazines, Snopes, and Facebook. Since 2016 these sources have been unanimous in their agreement about the dangers of biassed news. Republicans, including the president have claimed that the left-media spreads “fake news”, against him, while Democrats claim that Trump and the Russians have been spreading pro-Trump, fake news, While Trump and the Republicans claim that the left-media spreads fake news. In an environment like this, it’s worthwhile to point out that the left-wing and right-wing press is owned by a very few rich people, and none of it is free of their influence. An example of this is the following compilation of many stations praising their news independence: CBS, ABC, NBC, and FOX, praising their independence in exactly the same words.

It costs quite a lot to buy a newspaper or television station, and a lot more to keep it running. Often these are money-losing ventures, and as a result, the major newspapers tend to be owned by a few mega-rich individuals who have social or political axes to grind. As the video above shows, one main axe they have is convincing you of their own independence and reliability. The Sinclair news service, owned by the Smith news family came up with the text, and all the independent journalists read it in as convincing a voice as they could muster. This is not to say. that all the news is this bad or that the mega rich don’t provide a service by providing us the news, but it’s worth noting that they extract a fee by controlling what is said, and making sure that the news you see fits their agendas – agendas that are often obvious and open to the general view.

Perhaps the most prominent voice on the right is Rupert Murdoch who owns The New York Post, and The Wall Street Journal. He used to own Fox too, and is still the majority controller and guiding voice, but Fox is now owned by Disney who also owns ABC. Murdoch uses his many media outlets to make money and promote conservative and Republican causes. You might expect him to support Trump, but he has a person feud with him that boils up in the Post’s cover pages. Disney’s ABC tends to present news on the left, but as in the compilation above, left and right journalists have no problem parroting the same words. Here is another, older compilation, more journalistl saying the same thing in the same words, e.g. playing up the Conan O’Brian show.

Another media master is Ted Turner. He tends to own media outlets on the left including CNN. Turner manages to make CNN, and his other properties profitable, in part by courting controversy. His wife for a time was Jane Fonda, otherwise known as Hanoi Jane.

Another left-leaning media empire (whatever that means) is MSNBC. It is owned by Time-Warner, also owner of The Huffington Post. Both are anti-israel, and both promote zero-tariff, Pacific-rim trade, but as seen above, MSNBC anchors will read whatever trash they are told to read, and often it’s the same stuff you’d find on Fox.

Rounding out the list of those with a complete US media empires, I include the Emir of Qatar, perhaps the richest man in the world. He operates Al Jazeera, “the most respected news site for Middle east reporting” as an influence-buying vehicle. Al Jazeera is strongly anti-fracking, anti nuclear, and anti oil (Qatar is Asia’s latest supplier of natural gas). It is strongly anti-Israel, and anti Saudi. Qatar propagandist, Jamal Khashoggi worked for AlJazeera, and was likely killed for it. They’re also reliably pro-Shia, with positive stories about Hamas, The Muslim Brotherhood, and Iran, but negative stories about Sunni Egypt and Turkey. They present news, but not unbiassed.

But you don’t have to buy a complete media empire to present your politics as unbiassed news. Jeff Bezos, founder Amazon, bought The Washington Post for $250 million (chump change to hm). For most of the past two years, the paper mostly promoted anti-tariff views, and liberal causes, like high tax rates on the rich. Amazon thrives on cheep Chinese imports, and high tax rates don’t hurt because Amazon manages to not pay any taxes on $11 billion/year profits (by clever accounting they actually get a rebate). Recently Joe Biden made the mistake of calling out Amazon for not paying on $11 billion in profits, and The Washington Post has returned the favor by bashing Biden. As for why Bezos bought the money-losing Post, he said: “It is the newspaper in the Capital City of the most important country in the world… [As such] … “it has an incredibly important role to play in this democracy.”

Moving on to The New Your Times, its editorial slant is controlled by another contestant for world’s richest man: telecom mogul, Carlos “Slim” Helú. Carlos’s views are very similar to Bezos’s, with more of an emphasis on free trade with Mexico. Steve Jobs’s widow runs “The Atlantic” for the same reasons. It’s free on line, well written and money losing. Like with the above, it seems to be a vanity project to promote her views. It’s a hobby, but sh can afford it.

Like her, Chris Hughes, Facebook’s Co-founder and Zuckerberg room-mate, bought and runs the money losing “The New Republic“. He was Facebook’s director of marketing and communications before joining the Obama campaign as it internet marketing head. The New Republic’s had a stellar reputation, back in the day. Zuckerberg himself runs a media empire, but it’s different from the above: it’s social media where people pay for placement, and where those whose views he doesn’t like get censored: put in Facebook jail. He’s gotten into trouble over it, but as a media giant, there seem to have been no consequences.

H.L. Menken on the fake news of the early – mid 20th century.

And it’s not only rich individuals who turn trusted news sources into propaganda outlets. The US CIA did this for years, and likely still do. Then there are the Russians, the Chinese, the Israelis, the British (BBC) and our very own NPRt. These sources present news that benefits them in the most positive light and scream about dangers to democracy and the world if their position is touched or their veracity is questioned. As these sources are all government funded, there is a they are unanimous supporters big governments as a cure to all ills. Closer to home, I’d like to mention that Detroit has two major papers, but only one owner. The left leaning Detroit Free Press, and the right-leaning Detroit News are owned by the same people, share a considerable staff, and generally agree on important issues. There are a dozen smaller papers in Metro Detroit; all but one is owned by one media group.

I’d like to end with a positive note. Not every reporter is in this sad grab-bag. In Detroit, Setve Neveling, “the motor-city muckraker” manages to present is independent, active news. Then there is Los Angeles’s Biotech billionaire, Patrick Soon-Shiong. He bought the LA Times in June 2018, claiming he will use it to fight fake news, “the cancer of our time.” I wish him luck. So far, I’d say, he’s made the LA Times is the best Newspaper in the US with The NY Post a close second ( love the snarky headlines).

Robert Buxbaum, July 15, 2019.