Their power is in broad daylight with total opacity

I’ve heard the term “redpill” before but didn’t really know what it meant. It comes from the 1999 movie The Matrix which I haven’t seen. At some point Neo, a main character, must choose between a red pill and confront reality or a blue pill and remain ignorant of reality. Kos of Daily Kos says there is now a black pill, though he doesn’t say where the term originated.

Unlike the blue pill, which means choosing ignorance, or the red pill, which means confronting reality, the black pill means giving up entirely. The problems are too big, the system is too broken, and nothing anyone does will make a difference.

The people who are figuratively taking the black pill are young men. The manosphere got these men to vote for the nasty guy in 2024. But the nasty guy hasn’t tried to keep them happy. Sure, he’s ranted against the supposed discrimination of white men and he and his team have posted racist memes, but that doesn’t pay the rent.

Bloomberg reports that more than 700,000 women have entered the workforce since Trump returned to office, compared with just 65,000 men. Construction employment has grown, but other male-dominated industries—including manufacturing, mining, transportation, and warehousing—have shed jobs. Meanwhile, inflation continues to squeeze household budgets, mortgage rates have pushed homeownership further out of reach, and gasoline prices remain roughly 37% higher than when Trump returned to office.

When they do get a job their economic mobility is lower. These young men are questioning their future. The MAGA movement was never about improving people’s lives – except himself, his family, and his cronies. MAGA was about hating others but with terms so vague the vice nasty can’t define them. These young men are discovering the nasty guy never intended to help them and he’s not delivering the revenge they want. What’s left is “living in their parents’ basements, gambling on sports, playing video games, vaping, and watching porn.” Kos will be happy if they don’t commit violence and don’t vote. I have a bit more compassion than that and will vote for people who have a goal of making life better for everyone, including those young men who have taken the black pill. Alix Breeden of Kos also wrote about young people, those trying to make the world better by running for office. Many face a problem – their online pasts are being put on display as campaign fodder. Breeden is a Millennial and is sure there is something in nearly young person’s social media that is worth talking about. That means some young people will decide they can never run for office. Others, such as Chris Gallant, 37 and running for Congress, are advocating for leniency. If the comments aren’t illegal, the writer should acknowledge that was in their history and doesn’t represent who they are now and should receive grace. Maybe this can be a breakthrough moment in understanding we’re all human and messing up is relatable. And a young candidate can refuse to be ashamed of their past. Lisa Needham of Kos reported we used to have a functioning Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to work with state election officials to secure voting infrastructure form attacks. But, like a lot of government, it’s been gutted. But it still asked to do a few things. CISA was supposed to secretly hack election machines and report findings to the White House. The purpose wasn’t to warn the voting machine companies, but to give the nasty guy a way to manipulate elections for Republicans. The command is in the past tense because the employees capable of this sort of hacking were laid off by DOGE.

Where CISA used to work in collaboration with the states, advising them on cybersecurity needs, it’s now just another part of Trump’s push to wreck elections. “Our number one risk at this point is the federal government,” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold told Politico.

In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Marta Peirano of El País in English talking about how AI could disrupt our election. They could manipulate vote counts, though this remains least likely. They could cyberattack election facilities. And the most likely scenario is a deluge of disinformation campaigns where AI agents try to convince us that voting systems have been compromised and a large-scale fraud operation is underway. Already AI has been used to create fake document alleging fraud and to create videos of people tampering with ballot boxes, of the FBI inspecting boxes, of investigating voter registration groups, of corroborating conspiracy theories. Major AI companies say they have appropriate safeguards. But...

Big tech platforms concentrate unprecedented influence and access because they have replaced much of the traditional political infrastructure. They fund candidates and distribute their campaigns opaquely and selectively, but they are also the public square and the private communications system. They monitor all the public spaces where citizens debate, complain and express support or outrage. They are the main tool of power but also the means by which civil movements and the opposition coordinate and communicate. They distribute propaganda and journalism alike. Their alliance with the Trump administration in the age of artificial intelligence expands their power as surely as their large data centers do—broad daylight and total opacity.

In the comments exlrrp posted a meme that fits with I wrote about yesterday. It shows Lt. Uhura of Star Trek saying, “Captain, it’s just a message on repeat asking if we disavow the Muslim Brotherhood.” Another meme posted by exlrrp is based on the nasty guy wanting to rename New Mexico as “New America.” Officials in New Mexico expressed their displeasure with that request, though they are pleased it is something he can’t do. The meme references MapQuest, the map company that did not rename Lake Ontario (who knew wearing a tourist shirt with that name would be an act of resistance?). Here’s the meme:

Instead of renaming New Mexico to “New America”, maybe we should rename Washington DC to “New Moscow.” Are you listening MapQuest?

The ease and comfort in which he spouts his racism

My Sunday movie was Love & Vodka. I attended the premier of the movie as the closing film of the Cinetopia Film Festival in Ann Arbor. Yeah, I actually sat in a movie theater, something I’ve done little of in the last four year. The movie is so new that perhaps it isn’t quite done, or maybe it’s just that the post production team, who scrambled to get it done, haven’t been fully paid yet. This is the story of Bobby and Katya and is based on real life. The two meet when he nearly bumps into her. They like each other right off, but Katya is going home to Ukraine the next day. They message each other over the next year. Katya then challenges Bobby if you want to take this further come visit me. And he takes the gamble. A good chunk of the movie is Bobby in Ukraine visiting the family at their dacha and making one cultural gaffe after another, yet falling in love with Katya. The vodka comes in at a pivotal scene where various toasts prompt Bobby to drink too much of it. This story of a lover making a mess in a foreign culture has been told many times. I enjoyed the movie but I don’t think any of the actors will be getting Oscars. I heard about this movie only last Friday (I hadn’t heard Cinetopia was in progress) in an episode of Stateside on Michigan Public (the last twenty minutes or so here). Host April Bear talked to director Heidi Philipsen-Meissner, associate producer Amber Galkin, and Zach Bradley, the actor who played Bobby. After the movie was shown those same people and several more came on stage to talk of the experience and answer questions. The original Bobby Fox is known as RJ Fox and teaches film at a high school in Ann Arbor. His experience in Ukraine was in 2001. He published a book with the same name in 2015. Heidi Philipsen-Meissner’s son was in Fox’s class and the teacher knew the mother was a movie producer. He had written a screenplay based on the events of the book and asked her to look at it. She was intrigued. First, there were lots of rewrites. Then a pandemic. Then a war. Then an actor’s strike. So a lot had to change, including more rewrites to take the war into account. Bradley talked about joining the cast about four days before shooting started. The Ukraine part of the story could not be shot there. So the pine forests of northern Michigan were substituted for the forest around the family dacha. And the Midland – Bay City – Saginaw airport got Bobby from Michigan to Kyiv (the outside for the departing scene, the inside for the arrival). Associate producer Amber Galkin was got the job because she was a link to the Ukrainian community in Michigan. She was able to verify the cultural details, supply actors from her community who still spoke Ukrainian, and to go through the script and replace all the Russian words with Ukrainian – when Fox visited in 2001 the region he was in did speak Russian, but would not do so now. They even debated whether the word “vodka” was too Russian, but decided it now had international use. I knew before watching that the movie was shot in Michigan, not Ukraine. When Bobby and Katya are sitting in the forest and we hear the birds singing I thought of a bird specialist. He had said that a movie set in the Black Forest of Germany was ruined when he heard the birdcall of an American bird that is not seen in Europe. So as I heard the birds in this movie was I hearing Ukrainian birds added to the soundtrack or was I hearing Michigan birds? I doubt they went through the effort of recording Ukrainian birds. Adrian Florido of NPR talked to Jill Lepore, professor of US History at Harvard about the US Constitution. It was adopted on June 21, 1788 when New Hampshire was the ninth state to ratify it. So it is 236 years old. As the document that governs the government it had a lot of tremendously important innovations for the time. But even a document that important needs to be able to change, to be amended. The last meaningful amendment was 50 years ago. It hasn’t been amended since then because of polarization. It must get two-thirds approval in both houses of Congress. Then three-quarters of the states must ratify it. In a Congress known for doing nothing getting enough votes is not going to happen. When the amendment procedure was written that wasn’t considered a high bar. There are three ways to change fundamental law. First, we can amend the Constitution. Second, we can convince the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution differently. Third, revolution. Option 1 is impossible. Option 2 isn’t working because this particular Supreme Court is working to restore the original document, shed all the interpretations that have made life better. And option 3: “The danger of having an unamendable Constitution is that the risk of insurrection rises. ... Amendment was meant to be the remedy against insurrection.” A way to look at America’s Constitutional problems is to study all the proposed amendments that didn’t pass, even ideas that were proposed that didn’t get as far as actual amendment language. Constitutional scholars rarely look at all that. If the Constitution is going to be adapted only through the Supreme Court, “we really need a richer, fuller past.” Also on NPR Hawaii Public Radio's Savannah Harriman-Pote talked about the lawsuit a dozen young plaintiffs brought against the state over climate change. A while back I wrote about a similar case in Montana which, like other states fought against the suit as hard as it could. Last summer a Montana judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, saying the state must consider climate impacts when issuing permits for fossil fuel projects. The government appealed. In Hawaii the outcome is different – Governor Josh Green agreed with the plaintiffs. Harriman-Pote said:

Under the settlement, the state has agreed to develop a comprehensive plan to reduce carbon emissions from transportation, which is the largest source of climate pollution in Hawaii. It also agreed to create a special council of young people to advise on the process, including some of the plaintiffs.

Alas, there are only two or three other states that have environmental rights in their state constitution, making this sort of suit possible. A few days ago I wrote about the silly claim that America needed to abandon clean energy initiatives because the power needs of computers to run AI is so high. Mark Sumner, in this week’s 7 Stories for Daily Kos, wrote about why the claim is so silly – solar power and corresponding battery storage is getting so cheap and expanding so fast we can cover the power needs of AI. The amount of electricity generated by solar passed nuclear and oil about 2017. This year it passed the capacity of hydro. Within a year it will pass the capacity of gas and coal. Back at the beginning of June Jennifer Gerson, in an article for The 19th posted on Kos, wrote that a few mass shootings prompted state changes in law. The shootings were in East Lansing and Oxford, Michigan; Buffalo, New York; Lewiston, Maine; and Albuquerque, New Mexico. The common piece in those five shootings is that their governors are all women and they made gun safety a priority. They are Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Kathy Hochul of New York, Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, and Janet Mills of Maine. Gun laws used to be the third-rail of politics. They aren’t so much anymore. Yeah, the laws they passed – secure storage, background checks, removing guns from dangerous people, banning guns from parks and playgrounds – are a big help, but not enough to end the menace. Much more needs to be done. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Tyler Austin Harper of The Atlantic who wrote about vandals at Stonehenge who protested the lack of movement on environmental issues. The paint was easily removed, so there was no harm. The videos of the act got more than 30 million views and lots of outrage. A bit of what Harper said:

But the protest left me frustrated: yet another example of environmental activism that produces more rancor over its means than focus on its message.

Much better, wrote Harper, was sneaking onto Stanstead Airport outside London and spray-painting two private jets. The owners were rich people whose use of private jets mean they are much more responsible for climate change than the rest of us. Down in the comments are several interesting cartoons and memes. Jesse Duquette posted a cartoon with the caption “Louisiana.” It shows Jesus in a red cap saying to his disciples, “Forty-seventh in education? Just put my Dad’s weird rules up all over the place and pretend you’re helping.” Hil.i.am suggests the large, legible display of the commandments required for every classroom be shown in the original Hebrew. Make it Stop has a meme with the words:

Posting the Ten Commandments in Louisiana Public Schools should open the doors for also posting the Five Pillars of Islam, the Five Precepts of Buddhism, the 613 Jewish Mitzvot, the Rastafarian Commandments, the Dharma of Hinduism, the Five Principles of Shinto, and the Disasporic Religion of Haitian Vodou, to mention but a few of the over 6,000 estimated religions practiced on earth.

Rambler797 include a couple videos about Project 2025. The first was posted by TrumpFile, who wrote,

Here's Trump alluding to the fact that Project 2025 will end free and fair elections. “In four years you don't have to vote, ok. In four years don't vote, I don't care... We'll have it all straightened out so it'll be much different.”

The second one was posted by TrumpsTaxes:

Project 2025, straight from the horse’s mouth (President of the Heritage Foundation). Note the ease and comfort in which he spouts the racism, misogyny and conspiracy theories that will be central to policy in a 2nd Trump term. Wake up, folks.

Drew Sheneman posted a cartoon of a man looking at his basement’s damage because... “There’s three feet of climate change hoax in my basement!” And way down in the comments in among the artwork Onomastic I recently discovered is posting every day is this:

I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight. – Malcolm X

In another pundit roundup are more good cartoons and memes. Bill Bramhall showed a classroom where the Ten Commandments are posted beside the ten points of an active shooter drill. exlrrp posted a couple memes. The first shows Jesus comforting the nasty guy: “Don’t worry, you’ll enjoy Hell. There’s people just like you there.” The second says, “Republicans want to impose the Ten Commandments on schoolchildren, but not on their candidate.” Way down in the comments is a post by Billy Goat Tavern on June 23:

On this date in 1944, the Republican Convention began at the Chicago Stadium. Billy “Goat” Sianis put up his famous “No Republican’s Allowed” sign, causing his bar to be filled with Republicans demanding to be served and leading to Billy’s most profitable day ever.

Tuesday was the hottest day in 125,000 years

It’s been seven weeks since I last looked at Michigan’s COVID data. And, good news! Since the beginning of May the number of new cases per day has been steadily decreasing. The last few peaks have been 279, 227, 241, 156, 189, 126, and 117 last week. Compared to the numbers I had been reporting these are small. Since last week’s peak new cases per day has been less than 100. For seven weeks the number of deaths per day has been in the single digits. I’ve downloaded Michigan’s data 136 times over three years. The data now shows that I can stop. On Wednesday Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reported that Tuesday was the hottest day in recorded history at a world average of 17.18C (62.92F). Since this is a world average and half the world is in mid winter and the average includes Greenland and Antarctica, this is toasty. This breaks a record that goes all the way back to – Monday. That day’s average was 17.01C. The previous record was set back in August 2016 at 16.92C. This is early July and August tends to be hotter. I think I read that we’ve been recording temperatures around the globe for only 44 years. However, we’ve been keeping temperature data in some places since the 18th century and data from tree rings, ice cores, and isotopes in shells of ocean creatures extends our temperature understanding back 125,000 years. So, yeah, Tuesday was the hottest day in 125,000 years. Sumner has various charts to explain why Tuesday’s record won’t stand for long. Temperatures will still go up. But we’re not doomed. Back in 2000 New Mexico got all of its electricity from burning fossil fuels. Now it is 34%. The state now has a permanent Office of Renewable Energy. They’re ahead of schedule to have 100% of the state’s power needs come from renewables by 2045. In their 2023 legislative session they needed only eight days for their latest bill to push into a renewable future. It passed along party lines. Vote for Democrats. Today an Associated Press article posted on Kos reported that Wednesday’s global average temperature matched Tuesday’s record. A contributor to the record is the mild winter in Antarctica. It’s been 10-20C (18-36F) warmer than the 1979-2000 average. This threatens the regions wildlife and is driving ice melt that raises sea level. Another AP story reported Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights have been collecting signatures to put an abortion rights amendment to the Ohio constitution on the November ballot. They need 413.4K signatures. Today they turned in over 700K. The proposed amendment is similar to the one approved in neighboring Michigan last year. The number of signatures gathered and the number needed to be gathered were similar to what happened in Michigan. There is one big hurdle ahead. There is an amendment on the August ballot (I think the only thing on the ballot) that would raise the vote threshold for amendments from 50% to 60%. Abortion rights amendments in other states have passed with over 55% of the vote, but under 60%. Yes, this Ohio special election is intentionally at a time when most people don’t bother to vote. RO37 of the Kos community posted a Ukraine update. In with all the technical stuff is a description of how mine clearing works. It is difficult and careful work – a crew doesn’t want to miss one that might explode later – and involves what are known as mine plows. A big reason why this is slow work is because the minefields Russia laid down tend to be a few kilometers front to back and clearing needs to be done 8-10 kilometers side to side so following vehicles aren’t clumped together as easy targets. Sumner reported that the usual 3:1 offensive rule doesn’t apply in Ukraine’s attack. The 3:1 rule means an army attacking a well fortified position needs three times the personnel and equipment than the defenders. Ukraine doesn’t have that and is still making progress. Sumner explains that 3:1 ratio is important so that the attackers can withstand losses and not lose unit cohesion. But the defender’s losses can also lead to the loss of unit cohesion and that appears to be one of Russia’s problems. There’s a big reasons why the 3:1 ratio doesn’t apply: It’s has to do wit that bit about a well fortified position. Russia has repeatedly not stayed in its trenches and bunkers, but instead has come out in the open to engage Ukraine fighters. So Ukraine is making progress. Some Independence Day cartoons posted by Denise Oliver Velez in the comments of a pundit roundup on Kos: Andrew Fraser drew a cartoon of the Founding Fathers. One leans over his computer and looks back at his colleagues and says, “If I post this on King George’s wall, you’re all going to like it, right?” David Horsy of the Seattle Times drew one of two people tugging on opposite corners of an American flag and both saying, “Mine!” Dave Whamond drew a cartoon of the Supreme Court Library. Roberts says, “Has anyone seen our book on judicial ethics?” Alito, standing next to Thomas, says, “I think we banned that one along with the ones about honor, integrity, prestige, and legitimacy.” Hunter of Kos discussed the latest in flying cars, the thing that we’ve been hoping for of as one of the great things to come in the future, but hasn’t actually arrived in the last 100 years. Alef, a company owned by Elon Musk, has announced their Model A has received its Special Airworthiness Certification. And maybe you can buy one for $300K in 2025. Hunter says it is all a really bad idea. First, this is more of a flying golf cart. It’s not a car because cars have lots of mandated safety features. Hmm... I recall that just recently a submersible company ran into trouble when it skimped on safety. Personal flying vehicles haven’t appears because, as Hunter wrote, “after a hundred years of dreaming about flying cars nobody has ever, ever been able to explain why a future of individually piloted hovercars would in any way work out.” If one is stuck in traffic and could get out of a traffic jam by levitating, why would one not fly everywhere? The drawbacks are the noise (the sound of eight lawnmowers?), the road debris kicked up at takeoff, the power lines one forgot to check for, and everyone else trying to fly at the same time. Commenters add given how good people are at keeping their cars maintained, they’re not going to be any better at maintaining flying golf carts. And when it stalls out one drops from the sky in a crash. And hitting cars or houses below.

The Second Amendment has failed, is failing, will fail, is a failure

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos wrote:

States like Texas, Tennessee, and Iowa are using the record gun violence as an excuse to … make sure there are more guns. The Second Amendment is a failure. If it was intended to provide Americans with some level of personal protection, it has failed. If it was intended to provide a national stability, it has failed. If it was intended to prevent crime, it has absolutely failed. It has failed, is failing, will fail, is a failure. And any reasonable people would admit this and work diligently to revise the model of firearm availability in the United States, seeking a way to walk back from a system that is bringing unbelievable levels of violence and death. There is no point on which the widespread presence of firearms had made life in America in any sense better than in other democratic nations that do not allow their states to be overrun with a plague of gun violence. For those who insist that the only solution is still more weapons—I am sorry you are afraid, and sorry that we let things get to this point. But it’s time to make things better, not worse. And the only way to make things better is by having fewer guns. Guns don’t create freedom. They promote gun violence, and absolutely nothing else.

I see another aspect of the story. The primary purpose of a gun (outside of hunting) is to enforce a social hierarchy. Hierarchy enforcement is highly important for many citizens of a country created on a social hierarchy so strong those at the bottom were enslaved or displaced. Laura Clawson of Kos wrote that:

Republicans are planning to use crime—translation: racist dog whistles—as a major part of their message for the 2022 midterm elections, NBC News reports.

They’ll emphasis the cry to defund police as a public safety issue. Meaning it will be radically misrepresented. Black Lives Matter will be accused as being a source of violence, never mind the facts.

As Republicans gear up to run on a crime-crime-crime-we-are-the-party-that-can-prevent-crime (psst, crime means Black people) platform, there were more than 400 shootings in the United States over the Fourth of July weekend, with at least 150 people killed. Republicans continue to fiercely oppose even the most minor tweaks to gun laws as part of reducing the crime they claim to think is such an enormous problem. Republicans want you to be afraid of a stereotypical racist dog whistle of a criminal, but they want to keep hands in the guns of men who stalk and abuse women they’re dating. The fear they want you to feel doesn’t extend to action on school shootings. Until recently, Republicans even blocked funding for research into gun violence to promote a better understanding of, and better solutions to, the problem. The Republican plan is all about supporting the same old police tactics and blaming the groups of people Republicans blame for everything, rather than considering what would actually work. They hope to ride that to victory in 2022.

Kerry Eleveld noted a number of Republican candidates for 2022 are campaigning on the Big Lie.

The entire party is now overrun with candidates peddling the Big Lie as a path to higher office and, in some cases, more control over the elections themselves. Voting for any Republican now, regardless of what their personal beliefs may be, is tantamount to handing over control of government to an entire party living in an alternative reality.

Joan McCarter of Kos showed a map from the U.S. Drought Monitor that shows all of Utah, most of Nevada, and significant chunks of Arizona, New Mexico, and California as Exceptional Drought or Extreme Drought. McCarter and her sources say “drought” isn’t the right word. It implies the condition is temporary. A better word is “aridification,” meaning a transformation to a drier environment. Less snow and its runoff that keeps the rivers flowing, rain that is fleeting, which means not enough water for irrigation. Our produce will get more expensive. Mark Sumner listed a few civilizations that ended because of drought. The Chaco Canyon and related sites of Pueblo people learned to manage water, until there wasn’t enough water to manage. The Aztecs, the Sumerians, and the Akkadians all fell because of drought. Even much of the civil war in modern Syria was because of drought – the 11 million people who have left Syria aren’t war refugees, they’re climate refugees. And it looks like the West will be hit again. It won’t just be fountains turned off and lawns not watered. It will be the loss of irrigated agriculture and no electricity generated by Hoover Dam. Sumner wrote, “The word for this is: unsustainable.” This looks more like climate change than a weather phenomenon. And there are people, like Moscow Mitch, ready to turn the crisis into a political opportunity, no matter the increased misery. In response to Sumner’s post JekyllnHyde included a cartoon of a climate summit. The speaker has bullet points such as sustainability, green jobs, livable cities, clean water and air, and healthy children. Someone in the audience says, “What if it’s a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?” McCarter showed the Drought Monitor map of the West. Sumner showed a map of the whole country. In spite of the thunderstorms that have been passing through here (some today) the Lower Peninsula of Michigan is colored abnormally dry and moderate drought with a couple touches of severe drought. Kos community member bluedogsd visited Lake Powell, Arizona in August 2020 and June 2021. The lake is part of the Colorado River, which is the most important water source in the West. They included photos to show the water level of the lake had gone down 30 feet in ten months. A favorite swimming area was now blocked by a 20 foot cliff. There is no more water entering the river in 2021. The snow melt for this year is done. The lake level can only go lower. Nathan Rott of NPR reported that the deadliest fire in American history was not in the West. It was the Peshtigo fire in Wisconsin. It was on the same day as the Great Chicago Fire and a few places in Michigan on October 8, 1871. Everywhere can be hit with a drought so bad it can feed a fire. In another post Joan McCarter discussed the plans in Congress to do something about climate change. We know it has to be a Democrat only bill. We also know ExxonMobil has been donating to Democrats and encouraging them to weaken or eliminate the climate action parts of the Democrat’s bill. I heard a segment on NPR about various media outlets issuing a subscription weather service. One can now get weather info for free. Would customers pay? Some said yes to be able to listen to their favorite weatherman. Leah McElrath added a bit more as she quoted and linked to an article in the New York Times:

“Murdoch is set to debut Fox Weather, a 24-hour streaming channel that promises to do for seven-day forecasts what Fox has done for American politics.” In other words: Fox Weather will create an alternate reality to obfuscate the impact of global warming.

Hunter of Kos discussed a study by the Othering & Belonging Institute at the University of California at Berkeley. They looked at American cities with more than 200,000 residents and determined 80% of them are more segregated in 2019 than they were in 1990. Instead of looking at cities as a whole, the study looked at much smaller census tracts. City wide data may indicate the city is integrated, but the census tract data says there are separate white and black enclaves. Some of the findings Hunter reported: 83 percent of neighborhoods that were given poor ratings (or "redlined") in the 1930s by a

federal mortgage policy were as of 2010 highly segregated communities of color. The most segregated regions are the Midwest and mid-Atlantic, followed by the West Coast. Southern states have lower overall levels of segregation, and the Mountain West and Plains states have the least. Segregated Black neighborhoods have fully three times the poverty rate of segregated white neighborhoods.

Biden may be trying to do something about this segregation. He’s up against racists intent on sabotaging whatever programs he comes up with. Sam Deutsch tweeted two images. One is the states colored by whether they met the goal of getting at least one dose of the vaccine into 70% of adults. The other is the states colored by which presidential candidate they voted for in the 2020 election. The patterns of color are quite similar. McElrath tweeted a map of China. Inside it are outlines of various other countries sized according to their population. It shows that the 1.44 billion people of China is more than the populations of South America, USA and Canada, Europe (excluding Russia), Australia, and New Zealand combined. China is similar in size to India at 1.38 billion, and to all of Africa at 1.34 billion. Marissa Higgins of Kos told the story of Stephanie Robertson of Paris, Arkansas. She displayed a rainbow flag outside her home during Pride Month. On July 2 she found a note, written in a child’s hand. It said:

Hello this is probably kind of weird but I walk past your house everyday and I’ve noticed your flag and I’m glad to know there is at least one ally in this little town —from a young LGBTQ+ person

Robertson’s son Levi tweeted an image of the note. Several people responded, praising the child and Robertson. One of those responses was from Mafhoney:

I am often asked "Why be so vocal when you could lose friends and create enemies. This right here is why. YOU NEVER KNOW WHO NEEDS YOUR VOICE. YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT COMFORT AND AID YOU CAN GIVE TO A STRANGER SO THEY FEEL LESS ALONE. HERO OF THE DAY.

Great place to live

To my sister: You and your partner have been talking about leaving Michigan. A place to consider is Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is a beautiful area (I've visited), the state has marriage equality, and the city just elected a gay mayor, Javier Gonzales. One of his opponents, Patti Bushee, is a lesbian. She and another lesbian, Signe Lindell, are two of eight members of the City Council. It sounds like a great place to live.

Whether Santa Fe is affordable is another matter.



The New York Times has a cool video showing how much the snow has persisted on the ground in the city this winter. It has been "stubborn." Then it has a few charts showing the depth of snow on the ground over the last several years. This year may not have record snowfalls, but it is right up there on how long that snow has stuck around.

It's Freaking Utah!

Another big Christmas gift. Though a ruling wasn't expected until next month, federal district court judge Robert Shelby has declared Utah's ban on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional. He agreed that marriage is defined and regulated by the states, as Utah asserted (which was their way of telling the feds to butt out). But such laws still have to comply with the national constitution.

Dozens of gay couples in Utah dashed to county clerk's offices and Salt Lake City mayor Ralph Becker was available to conduct ceremonies. State Senator Jim Dabakis was one of those who quickly married his partner. The clerk's office closed at 7:00 so the line was cut off at 5:00 -- with 75 couples in it.

Shelby did not stay the ruling pending appeal. The state Governor and Attorney General have now filed the appeal with the 10th Circuit Court, but apparently did not file a stay at the same time. A commenter named Cowboy, a resident of Utah, noticed something important. The ruling was issued on a Friday afternoon before a holiday. It could be January 4th before a stay could be issued. And only someone truly hateful (alas, they exist) would want to undo all the marriages that could happen in the meantime.

One reason why filing a stay might take a while is that "Utah’s elected Attorney General John Swallow resigned last month in the wake of multiple corruption investigations." The acting AG, Brian Tarbet, wants to make sure he gets all the details right.

This little bit is so delicious! Shelby pulled Justice Antonin Scalia's dissent in last summer's Windsor case that struck down DOMA and used it against him. Scalia wrote:

In my opinion, however, the view that this Court will take of state prohibition of same-sex marriage is indicated beyond mistaking by today’s opinion. As I have said, the real rationale of today’s opinion . . . is that DOMA is motivated by “bare. . . desire to harm” couples in same-sex marriages. How easy it is, indeed how inevitable, to reach the same conclusion with regard to state laws denying same-sex couples marital status.

Scalia was warning that if the Supremes strike down DOMA it will provide rationale to strike down state same-sex marriage bans, so we shouldn't strike down DOMA. Shelby said, yep, striking down DOMA provides rationale to strike down same-sex marriage bans. Thanks, Tony.

Shelby, already called an activist judge overriding the will of the people, was nominated by Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, one of the conservative Republicans.

Rachel Maddow contrasts the Uganda story with the Utah story. She also wonders if this decision is different from all the previous ones because "it's freaking Utah!" Or is it because this is the first federal ruling after last summer's Supreme ruling which shows a successful way to attack those 30 marriage protection amendments. The video is 14 minutes. She notes that the bill in Uganda and the law in Russia were driven by Fundie American anti-gay lobbyists.

Timothy Kincaid of Box Turtle Bulletin had to update his map of what states have marriage equality. He had added New Mexico just the day before. A commenter adds that not being able to keep this kind of map up-to-date is a delightful problem to have.

In this map two states stand out. One is Pennsylvania. Someone noted it is possible to take Amtrak from Washington, DC to Boston (or Portland, ME) and Philadelphia is the only stop where same-sex marriage is illegal. They're working on it. The other state is Arizona, surrounded by Calif, New Mexico, Utah with equality and Nevada and Colorado who have all the rights without the word "marriage." But don't expect a change in Arizona soon.

In related news, the GOP in New Mexico are considering a marriage protection amendment. Gov. Susana Martinez, also GOP, said efforts are better spent elsewhere, such as with education and the economy. She could have added that though New Mexico didn't have a marriage protection amendment the ruling was written as if there was one -- meaning the state Supremes have already ruled it unconstitutional.

New Mexico!

The state's Supreme Court, by unanimous decision, has said same-sex couples may marry. Starting now. A few months ago individual counties in New Mexico began declaring (some by court order) that they would offer marriage equality. The various county clerks got together to ask their highest court to clarify the issue. And now it is clear. NM will be the 17th state (though it takes effect in NM before it does in Illinois).

Ari Ezra Waldman, who writes the law column for the blog Towleroad, was succinct:

Regular readers of Towleroad's law column already know the basics: The constitution--in this case, a state constitution--guarantees equal protection of the law. Denying marriage licenses to certain individuals simply because of their sex or sexual orientation is unequal treatment that the state has to justify. Because the LGBT community has long been a victim of institutionalized and insidious discrimination, the state has a high burden to meet, a burden we call "intermediate scrutiny." The supposed justification that restricting marriage to opposite sex couples prevents accidental children out of wedlock is no justification for discrimination because marriage has never had anything to do with raising children. Because the state cannot meets its burden, the discrimination is unconstitutional. Gays can marry.

It is remarkable that this legal narrative has become so simple, so obvious, so matter-of-fact that we can summarize it in a paragraph and move on.

Waldman expands on all that. He notes that the ruling by the national Supremes and the cases that led up to it make a case like this pretty much a formula.

In this case the only reason that was given why New Mexico should prohibit marriage equality is "responsible procreation." Waldman wrote:

The only real argument for treating same-sex and opposite-sex couples differently when it came to marriage was that keeping marriage an exclusive right of heterosexuals advanced the state goal of encouraging "responsible procreation." That is, that because opposite-sex couples are the only ones that could accidentally have children, they need marriage to keep children inside the marital union.

That, of course, is preposterous on many levels. And the New Mexico Supreme Court agreed. Marriage, the justices said, had never been associated or dependent upon child rearing or procreation. And banning an entire group of marrying would, in any event, do nothing to encourage an entirely different group to marry.

Timothy Kincaid has a map that shows our progress at the end of the year. In this year the count of states with marriage equality has jumped from 9 to 17. And don't forget DC.

Two people who are spouses

Lots of stuff already packed and I don't leave until 2:15 tomorrow afternoon, so…

New Mexico is looking better. A second county will be issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. This time it is Santa Fe County and it is by order of a district court. It's that equal rights thing.



The venerable Oxford English Dictionary has expanded the definition of marriage. It now reads:

"The relationship between two people who are husband and wife, or a similar relationship between people of the same sex."

Is it timely because same-sex marriage will begin in England next year? Or is it behind the times because the Netherlands started marrying same-sex couples a dozen years ago? And why are we defined in terms of a straight relationship? Why not use the neutral "The relationship between two people who are spouses."?

At least they made the change.

Marriage equality around the world

Norway and Sweden have marriage equality. Finland doesn't. Earlier this month a marriage equality bill came before a committee in the Finnish Parliament (I think) and was voted down. Apparently, if 50,000 Finns sign a petition they can force a bill to the floor of the Parliament. They hit that target -- in one day. Demand was so high it crashed the website collecting names.



David Coss, Mayor of Santa Fe, New Mexico saw that the state's marriage law is gender neutral -- it doesn't say "one man and one woman." So Coss is introducing a resolution to the City Council to declare marriage equality legal in the state and county clerks better get cracking in issuing marriage licenses to gay couples.

Geraldine Salazar, the Santa Fe County clerk, appreciates the enthusiasm of Mr. Coss, but will wait for a ruling from the state Attorney General.

If it were only so easy in Michigan.



Here's the current map of marriage equality around the world. There are signs (as above) that this version will be obsolete soon.