The incredibly paternalistic idea that charity has to come in the form of things

I didn’t download Michigan COVID data today. Because of the holiday the state did not update their data on Friday. Though I don’t have actual numbers from what I’ve seen on other sites the number of cases in Michigan has jumped again, by quite a bit. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was on Michigan Radio saying no preventative measures are being considered right now. Besides nearly all the people getting sick are unvaccinated. Even though I’m annoyed with those who refuse to get vaccinated, there are some people who can’t. And Whitmer seems to forget that. The big COVID news is the announcement of the omicron variant that has been identified in South Africa and neighboring countries. Cases have also been found in Israel, Hong Kong, and today in Germany and Italy. Physician Ashish Jha tweeted we don’t know much about the omicron variant yet, though he says there are three things to focus on:

What are those three to pay attention to? Is it more transmissible than current strain (Delta)? Does it cause more severe disease? And does have it more immune escape (will it render prior infections or vaccines less effective)?

His answers to those questions are: It has taken off quickly in South Africa and looks to be a rapid takeover to be the dominant strain. But that can be a data anomaly with South African case numbers so low. We don’t know yet whether it causes more severe disease. This variant has several changes to the spike protein, the part of the virus that helps it enter cells. So there is concern that it may impact effectiveness of vaccines. But it won’t render vaccines or testing useless. Beyond that it is too soon to know. In the meantime ignore those who spread fear and those who downplay the severity. And get vaccinated (I got my third dose on Wednesday). Mark Sumner of Daily Kos, who has been reporting on the virus for close to two years, discussed the omicron variant in a lot of detail. For much of Sumner’s post he calls the variant “nu” because that would be the next letter in the Greek alphabet. But that would be confused with “new” said the World Health Organization, so that is skipped. As is “xi” because it is the same as the name of the premier of China, so it is a cultural connection best avoided. Landing on omicron means after delta, variants epsilon, zeta, eta, theta, iota, kappa, lambda, and mu have already appeared and thankfully didn’t amount to much. Or the names were seen as too similar. Sumner reported: Some countries have closed their borders to flights from southern Africa. Pfizer/BioNTech are studying the effectiveness of their vaccine on this variant. If effectiveness is low they will quickly develop a new vaccine to handle it, perhaps in 100 days. Leah McElrath tweeted that because of inadequate genomic sequencing in the US we don’t know whether omicron is already here. We should assume it is. So go back to basics: Get vaccinated/boosted. Mask up indoors and in crowded outdoor settings. And don’t freak out when the media freaks out as it starts reporting cases. In a second tweet McElrath discussed public safety theater – the government doing things that make us think we are safer when those things do very little. This is part of the announcement that people from southern Africa are banned from entering the US though citizens can return. But the virus doesn’t know nationality and all incoming people should be tested and quarantined, including citizens. Stephanie Nolen, a global health reported for the New York Times tweeted a thread about flying from Johannesburg to Amsterdam as Europe went into a panic and started restricting entry. Once in Amsterdam her plane sat on the tarmac for more than four hours (after an 11 hour flight) before authorities sent a bus to take them to a hall somewhere where they waited another two hours to get tested. Several positive cases (made worse by being confined?). And around her a lot of people without masks. She was told verbally she was negative, but without it on paper she can’t get on her next flight. Dr. Ellie Murray, a professor of epidemiology, tweeted a thread about what “endemic” means. There are four ways we can handle a pandemic. We can go for extinction of the pathogen. It is the hardest option but means we could completely forget about the disease. We haven’t managed to do it yet for any pathogen. We can go for global eradication. That’s almost as hard and everyone but researchers can forget about the disease. We’ve done it with smallpox and have almost done it with polio. We can go for local eradication. Still hard. Most of us can forget about the disease because public health officials monitor it. An example is measles. The remaining option is a continually occurring disease, one that is endemic. It’s easier in the short term, hardest in the long term. The term endemic means “Controlled at or below an ‘acceptable’ level.” If the disease is really bad “acceptable” would be quite low, close to elimination. If one person shows up with the plague, public health jumps into action. If the disease is quite mild the acceptable level can be high. Up to 80% of US adults have the virus that causes cold sores, but very little is done. “Endemic” does not mean harmless. We as a society and world have to choose what is acceptable. And public health officials are always monitoring the disease. Some people say we don’t worry about the flu. Actually, the common citizen doesn’t worry about the flu, but public health people are constantly monitoring it and citizens don’t see when they switch from monitoring to taking action. We can choose to use a great deal of effort to eliminate the disease or choose to constantly deal with it. And if the latter we choose what “acceptable” means. Sumner also reported that since the loss of smell and taste is a common symptom of COVID we are facing a tragedy. Sure, a million people who can’t smell is a much less tragedy than nearly 800,000 dead. But still a tragedy Doctors are finding the loss of smell can last longer than first thought. That one million is people who have lost their sense of smell for at least six months. There are a lot of delights with being able to smell – great food, perfume, and coffee (tea in my case). But smell also protects us from spoiled food, a fire, or a gas leak. People who can’t smell face a tasteless diet and may become disinterested in food, leading to malnutrition (a harsh way to lose weight). A loss of smell also leads to isolation and depression and a link to memories that smells can trigger. Joan McCarter of Kos reported there is a growing trend in world wide non profits that for people in need the best solution is to give them money. It is the smartest, most humane way to do it. Some US charities are figuring out the same thing. McCarter discussed a report on NPR that talked to Michael Wilkerson who was given money. He spent it on clothes, pay off debt, and make modifications to his home. McCarter wrote:

He was trusted to know what he needed to spend the money on, respected as a grown-ass responsible human being who could make choices about what he needed in his life. “I know when I don't have cash on hand, I don't feel worthy,” he told NPR. “It’s like whatever was looming over me when I didn’t have the cash, as soon as cash came, that cloud went away.”

McCarter concluded:

The incredibly paternalistic idea that charity has to come in the form of things—of cans of food, of coats, of whatever—is archaic and insulting, based on the idea that poor people are poor because they make bad decisions and can’t be trusted to make their own choices. Outside of natural disasters, where stuff like generators and building supplies and potable water and food is needed and welcome, it makes far more sense to give people the dignity of cash assistance. The dignity of a hand up allows them to make decisions for themselves.

Melissa Chadburn, writing for Capital & Main, a Kos partner, discussed the same thing – the city of Compton, California has started a universal basic income program (UBI – in this case it is basic income, though not universal across the city). In addition to profiling a couple people helped by the program, Chadburn wrote:

Unlike with traditional American public safety nets, there is no means testing, no work requirements. UBI recipients don’t have to disclose the backgrounds of people they live with. Funds are given as money rather than paid in kind as vouchers for food, transportation, or housing. With its 94,000 residents, the city has a deep well of seasoned community organizers who have long fought for improved education, fewer liquor stores, and more quality jobs. More than 1 in every 5 residents lives below the poverty line. ... There is nothing new about UBI, which was discussed in the United States back when George Washington was president. Founding Father Thomas Paine, struck by societal inequities, argued “every person, rich or poor,” should receive payments “to prevent invidious distinctions.” Paine proposed a solution in his 1797 Agrarian Justice pamphlet, suggesting £15 be paid to every “citizen” when they turned 21, followed by another £10 per year after they turned 50. ... Today, many cities and counties are working to remedy the ongoing economic effects of the pandemic, as well as longer-term inequities, through pilot guaranteed income programs. In California alone, at least 10 cities have implemented a guaranteed income for some residents.

One of the profiles show that many times once recipients get their lives in order they find a way to pay it forward. Brandi Buchman of Kos reported on the verdict in a murder case with a good outcome. A white jury in Georgia convicted three white men for the murder of a black man. That’s remarkable. The black man was Ahmaud Arbery and the white men are Travis McMichael, his father Greg McMichael, and their friend William Bryan. Bryan filmed the deed and it was that which convinced the jury the action was murder and not self defense. I’ll let you read the rest yourself.

Never asks why an orphan-crushing machine exists

I had a pleasant Thanksgiving Day. Sister and Niece came for a few hours. Most of the time we talked, first while Niece created her potato dish, then while we ate. The day was definitely better than the solitary meal of a year ago. Over the last few days I’ve learned more about the original Thanksgiving, one of our national founding myths. This year marks the 400th anniversary of that first one. The actual day may have happened as our myth says – the Wampanoag tribe of natives were a friendly bunch. But after that ... April Siese of Daily Kos delved into some of history. The Thanksgiving celebration in 1637 was to honor colonial soldiers who massacred 700 Pequot tribe members. William Bradford, the colony governor was highly racist, declaring in a journal that God delighted in seeing the natives succumb to the diseases the colonists brought. So modern native tribes use the day as a National Day of Mourning. They march through historic Plymouth and put a white sheet over the statue of Bradford. Another event is held at Alcatraz Island. An Unthanksgiving Day ceremony is held the third Thursday of November. Audie Cornish of NPR spoke with Anita Peters, a leader of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe of southeastern Massachusetts, and Paula Peters, a historian and cousin to Anita. Some of the things Paula mentioned were the missionaries forcing Christianity on the natives and sending their children to residential schools where they were mistreated and murdered. Their land was taken. Their problems are ignored – missing native women don’t make the news like missing white women do. Yes, we can celebrate Thanksgiving – and acknowledge the real story. Matthew Korfhage of USA Today discussed the history of pumpkin pie in America, which is unknown elsewhere in the world. The story begins with New England abolitionists writing stories that contrasted pumpkin farms with the immoral plantations of the South. So eating pumpkin pie was identity politics. Pumpkin wasn’t all that well liked by the early colonists. It grew fast and offered sustenance, but wasn’t tasty. It served well as feed for farm animals. City dwellers only saw pumpkins in trips to get back to nature – so it gained a noble air of nostalgic connection to the land. With a shift of Thanksgiving as a celebration of autumn abundance pumpkin pie joined cranberry and turkey on the table. The abolitionists elevated the meal to be more godly than whatever Southerners ate. When Lincoln declared the first Thanksgiving in 1863 those in the South declared it a political ploy of Northerners telling them how to live. Pumpkin pie was seen as too Yankee and Southerners refused to eat it. Only after Reconstruction did Southern states embrace Thanksgiving as a way to show they were really American. But they didn’t embrace pumpkin pie until mass marketed pumpkin pie filling came along after 1940. Even then pumpkin pie had to compete with sweet potato pie. Because slaves from Africa and their descendants did most of the cooking they used the yam they knew from Africa, soon substituting the similar colored sweet potato. The dessert I shared with Sister and Niece was chocolate non dairy cheezecake. No pie. Mark Sumner of Kos discussed inflation and the misinformation about it from the New York Times and CNN. First, yes, there is inflation. Prices for consumer goods are higher. However ... Sumner shows several examples of reporters from CNN or NYT listening to everyday citizens complaining about rising prices. It is understandable that citizens might get current and historical prices wrong, such as saying a gallon of milk used to be $1.99 and is now $2.79 – the last time milk was $1.99 a gallon was in 1994. But it is bad reporting to pass on those numbers as truthful representations of current inflation and not offering corrections. In addition, both CNN and NYT discuss the price rises, but don’t mention families are still much better off because of the child tax credit payments they get. Another example is comparing the price of gas now to the prices last year, which were the lowest prices since 2008. Along with that CNN claims gas in some areas of the country has climbed to $7.59 a gallon. Which any website with a nationwide look at gas prices easily shows as false. Sumner repeated his Big Two points, and concluded:

* It treats the exceptional as if it’s average. * It passes along gross exaggerations without correction. In both cases, CNN and the Times avoid directly making false claims themselves. They just let the people they’re interviewing make those claims, and let them go uncorrected. Which makes you wonder how many interviews they went through until they came up with someone who gave them the kind of scare quotes they wanted.

SemDem of the Kos community is annoyed with CNN for a different reason. The network has a regular segment of “The Good Stuff” in which a person performs a heartwarming deed. These include: Home Depot employees building a walker for a two-year-old boy. Fellow teachers donating sick days to a colleague with a daughter with cancer. A 13-year-old granted a Make-A-Wish to feed the homeless of his town for a year. Heartwarming, right? SemDem wrote:

None of these are heartwarming stories. They are sick. Please tell me how the wealthiest nation in the world allows children to starve or tells a mother of a sick child it can’t be bothered to pay for a f**king $100 walker? So I’m supposed to be happy that a teacher had to choose between making a living and his dying child? F**k you! Billionaires got 54% richer during the pandemic—getting an excess of 4 trillion dollars. Why the hell is anyone begging for food or the minimum baseline of health care? Are we that morally bankrupt? Is our plan to feed homeless vets really going to depend on sick children giving up their charity wishes because our government can’t be bothered? I might have to live in this dystopia, CNN, but don’t f**king tell me I should “feel good” about it.

SemDem then quoted a tweet from Anosognosiogenesis that captures the situation well:

Every heartwarming human interest story in America is like “he raised $20,000 to keep 200 orphans from being crushed in the orphan-crushing machine” and then never asks why an orphan-crushing machine exists or why you’d need to pay to prevent it from being used.

As for NYT, Leah McElrath quoted a tweet from their feed that said:

Kyle Rittenhouse’s acquittal has reinvigorated support on the right for armed responses to racial justice protests. To paramilitary groups, Rittenhouse verdict means vindication.

McElrath responded:

Inexcusable framing by @nytimes. I’d say it’s f---ing unbelievable, except they’ve been headed down the road to this moment for a while.

One can seek a “self-defense situation” and be cheered as a hero

Kyle Rittenhouse is the kid who at age 17 went from his home in Illinois to Kenosha, Wisconsin during a race riot to help militia groups protect property. Rittenhouse killed two men and injured a third. A jury acquitted him of murder. In what I’ve been reading (and will soon share with you) one aspect of these deaths is important. While the riot (much more than a protest) was in response to police shooting a black man, Rittenhouse’s victims were white men protesting the treatment of a black man. Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Daily Kos, quoted Adam Serwer of The Atlantic with the title Of Course Kyle Rittenhouse Was Acquitted.

In state after state, they have helped elect politicians who, in turn, have created a permissive legal regime for the carry and use of firearms, rules that go far beyond how courts originally understood the concept of self-defense. These laws have made it difficult to convict any gun owner who knowingly puts themselves in circumstances where they are likely to use their weapon—that is, anyone who goes looking for a fight. It should come as no surprise then, that Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges ...

NPR hose Leila Fadel talked to Odette Yousef, who covers domestic extremism for NPR. The right and far right celebrated this verdict. They’re calling for statues of the boy be erected and even calling for November 19 (the day of acquittal) to be a federal holiday named Kyle Rittenhouse Day. But there are darker aspects of that celebration. Since they claim that Rittenhouse was demonized by the media and because they claim that Jews control the media (they don’t), the anti-Semitic messaging has increased. In addition they believe this verdict gives them permission to take back the streets they claim they had “lost” during the George Floyd protests. It also shows them the need to get their allies into local office – such as the judge in this case who was clearly on the side of the defense. David Neiwert of Kos puts it a lot more strongly. Those on the far right ...

demand that more Americans follow his footsteps—urging the likeminded to take to the street now to begin using guns to “be like Kyle.” They have even appropriated his name for their future plans, voiced in numerous celebratory threads: Any leftist protester shot by a right-wing “patriot” henceforth will have been “Rittenhoused.” As we forecasted, the acquittal is now a beacon-like green light granting permission to violent right-wing extremists to openly wage the kind of “civil war” against “the left”—which ranges from liberal Democrats like Joe Biden to the “antifa” bogeyman they have concocted—that they have been fantasizing about for the past decade. In the words of Charlie Kirk’s interlocutor, it’s the signal that now they “get to use the guns.” The bloodlust has been palpable. Online trolls celebrated that “it’s Open Season on pedo-commies” and boasted that the verdict means “there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Those on the right are saying (and Neiwert gives lots of examples of them saying it) that they can seek out the things Rittenhouse was accused of doing and they won’t face serious consequences for it. One can seek a “self-defense situation” and be cheered as a hero for it. In another pundit roundup, Georgia Logothetis quoted Paul Waldman of the Washington Post:

But there’s another possible effect of this verdict: It could change the face of political protest in America. As they share their glee over Rittenhouse’s acquittal, conservatives may now decide that carrying guns — especially military-style rifles — is itself a powerful form of protest that can be used to intimidate both their political opponents and officeholders. Carrying guns openly is, perhaps more than anything else, a kind of speech. It’s meant to communicate a clear message: I may decide to kill you.

Adrian Florido of NPR spoke to several protest organizers around the country. Many are worried. They know the goal is to scare them out of protesting. But they say they will continue. And they will consider and adopt ways to keep their people safe, both while organizing an event and during an event. That includes hiring a security team. Erin Healy, national director for Showing Up for Racial Justice, organizes white people to become protest allies. They do that because police and vigilantes are less aggressive when there are white people in the crowd (though the Rittenhouse victims were white). Healy also said that in the last few days many new people have found her organization and signed up. Colin Kaepernick tweeted:

We just witnessed a system built on white supremacy validate the terroristic acts of a white supremacist. This only further validates the need to abolish our current system. White supremacy cannot be reformed.

Jen Sorensen of Kos Comics showed a few tips of future protests, such as avoid eye contact with those on the side of the street holding guns. Last Saturday Cat Brooks of Kos Prism wrote “Putting white men on trial doesn’t equal justice for Black people.” Examples are three cases going on at the time of this post. First is the Rittenhouse trial that ended in acquittal. Second is the trial of the killers of Ahmaud Arbery, which concluded today with – amazingly – verdicts of guilty for all three men. Third is the civil trial of 14 white supremacist organizations that caused damage and death at their Charlottesville rally in 2017 – which yesterday declared the supremacist groups must pay $25 million in fines. Though two of the three produced justice outcomes after this story was posted Brooks has a few points to make.

None of these—or any of the other egregious actions we’ve witnessed in these trials—are outside the bounds of American justice. They are, however, way out of bounds of anything that anyone with a moral compass would define as justice. They are certainly a clear and deafening message to Black people that this system doesn’t work for us—whether we are in the defendant’s chair or the victim’s casket. These institutions were not built to be just or fair, and certainly not to be equitable. They were built to uphold race-based capitalism, white supremacy, and white male dominance. They were built to control, regulate, and normalize violence and oppression against Black bodies. To hold sacred the vision of America’s slaveholding Founding Fathers and ensure a status quo of oppression is the everlasting legacy of this nation. Ironically, if we Black people demand the courts live up to their own standards, we are in essence demanding the courts continue to funnel Black bodies into jails, prisons, and graveyards.

Matt Glassman tweeted:

Rittenhouse is an idiot, not a hero. Allowing 17YOs to open carry AR-15s is bad law. And the justice system is often miserable to non-whites. But idiots operating under bad laws still deserve just trials based on law; denying them that doesn't improve anything for anyone. Luckily, civil trials can---and, in this case likely will---find fault, too. Bad laws can be changed. And the justice system can be improved. All worthy avenues given this outcome, and all better than seeking a criminal conviction that matches moral desert but not law.

Jessica Sutherland of Kos quoted Amber Ruffin:

White people have been getting away with murder since time began. I don’t care about that. I care about you. And I can’t believe I have to say this, but you matter. You matter. Every time one of these verdicts come out, it’s easy to feel like you don’t, but I’m here to tell you that you do, you matter. You matter so much, that the second you start to get a sense that you do, a man will grab a gun he shouldn’t have in the first place, and travel all the way to another state just to quiet you. That’s the power you have. So don’t forget it.

Watching earth from space

My Sunday movie was The Wonderful: Stories From the Space Station. It’s a documentary about some of the astronauts who spent time on the International Space Station. We heard from Bill Shepard and one of his Russian colleagues from the first mission; a few other Americans, male and female; one from Japan; one from Italy; one from England; and another from Russia. They each told how they became interested in space, what they had to do to get in to the astronaut corps, and then some of their experiences once an astronaut and on the ISS. We also heard from the husband and son of one of the female astronauts and from a woman who was barred from being an astronaut, so became an astronaut trainer. There was, of course, a lot of cool images of the station and of the earth as seen from the station. Some of the stories: Frank Culbertson was on the station during then 9/11 attacks. He and his colleagues were able to take photos of the smoke plume rising from lower Manhattan. Ken Bowersox was on the station when the Columbia shuttle broke up on reentry in 2003. So how were they to come home at the end of their mission? The second Russian we heard from was the son of the Star City commander. His parents didn’t know he applied until his father saw his name in the interview schedule. The ISS story began in 1963 when President John Kennedy went before the United Nations and proposed the US and USSR cooperate in space. He was assassinated a couple weeks later, so this effort didn’t happen until the 1990s. The ISS is pretty cool in that components were developed by 15 countries and these pieces didn’t touch each other until they were assembled in space – and they fit and worked together! International cooperation is possible. While I enjoyed the movie and would recommend it to space geeks, there were some aspects I didn’t like: There were a lot of images that had nothing to do with space or the story of a particular astronaut, which I thought padded the movie. It was over two hours. I would have much preferred more images of actual life on the ISS (see the title). For nearly every astronaut we watched their takeoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. After the first two I wanted to see the station, not another launch. Only one or two astronauts in this film took off from Cape Canaveral. Several of the images of earth from space were shown two and three times. With the ISS now up there over 20 years I thought they wouldn’t need to repeat any images. Aldous Pennyfarthing of Daily Kos reported that when Glenn Youngkin campaigned for governor of Virginia he carefully walked a fine line between thinly veiled racism and keeping the nasty guy an arm’s length away. He appealed to the racists while keeping the suburban voters who grew to dislike the nasty guy. And it worked. He’s not yet in office and already there is trouble. Youngkin said he would not attempt to block local vaccine and mask mandates. He also hired a staffer “with pronouns” – someone connected enough to the LGBTQ community to know to make transgender people comfortable by declaring which pronouns they prefer. That means the MAGA crowd is declaring him to be RINO – Republican in name only – and insufficiently loyal to their cause. And they have buyer’s remorse. Dartagnan of the Kos community reported there are several lawsuits against the rules requiring all companies with 100 or more employees have all workers fully vaccinated or have regular testing. The Fifth Circuit put a stay on those rules. The various state lawsuits were combined. But so many states sued, the question is which circuit will hear the case? So they held a lottery and the Sixth Circuit will hear the case. Not that it matters because the case will go to the Supremes. What is of interest is the stakes involved. It involves the “non-delegation” doctrine, something I’ve mentioned a couple years back. For decades the precedent has been Congress can delegate rule making authority to federal agencies. Congress defines broad outlines, the agencies fill in the details. This is good because Congress does not have the time, interest, or expertise to write rules for workplace safety or environmental cleanliness. The non-delegation doctrine would prevent agencies from creating rules. Congress would have to specify every detail of every rule. At least Neil Gorsuch of the Supremes has said he’s in favor of the non-delegation doctrine and may be looking for a test case to put it into effect. Conservatives (and their corporate backers) don’t like the “regulatory state.” And this would be a way to get rid of it. But it is that “regulatory state” that protects the environment, the consumer, and the worker from predatory practices of corporations.

We do not let other humans suffer alone

Michigan’s COVID data, based on numbers from yesterday, are bad. The peak in new cases per day in the past week is 9198. I think the peaks usually happen on Mondays because data doesn’t get reported on Sunday. This new peak is 48% higher than the 6191 new cases from seven days before. It is also 40% higher than the 6580 cases from three days before. This peak number is likely to be revised. And the revised number will still be bad. Even more troubling this past week’s peak is 10% higher than the peaks in April, at 8378, and in November a year ago, at 8337. The deaths per day in the week before last hit 60 and above three times. This is below the death per day of last April, though not by much. The data for this past week is still being gathered. All I hear from state officials is they are monitoring the situation very closely. No new mitigation measures are being considered at this time. Our government – state and federal – is failing us, beaten by Republicans. Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos reported that Republican donors are furious at the Republican members who voted for the first big infrastructure bill. That’s 13 in the House and 19 in the Senate. Many of the members helped negotiate the deal. Wrote Eleveld:

Again, infrastructure is a bill supported by nearly two-thirds of the American people, but Republicans have become such a bona fide cult that making common cause with Democrats to benefit the country is grounds for expulsion.

Donors being furious means that members are getting death threats (though I can’t say the threats are coming from the donors).

Indeed, the House GOP campaign chief, Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, simply shrugged off the death threats some of his colleagues have endured since they cast a vote for the bill. "Unfortunately, in the world we're in right now, we all get death threats, no matter what the issue is," Emmer told CNN this week. Get used to it, America. Death threats are the new norm, courtesy of the Grand Old Party.

I see no recognition (and, alas, didn’t expect any) from Emmer or anyone else in the Republican Party that their actions and those of the nasty guy has greatly increased the death threats against public officials. There is also no mention of how they might change what they’re doing to reduce the death threats. Perhaps they didn’t expect the threats to be made against themselves? The Build Back Better human infrastructure bill is on its way to the Senate. It includes money so that low income families can afford child care. Laura Clawson of Kos reported that religious child care providers are howling about being left out (as Republicans claim). Wrote Clawson:

So it’s not that religious child care providers couldn’t take federal subsidies under the Build Back Better proposal. It’s that they couldn’t do that while also discriminating against staff or families and their children for any reason attributed to faith.

Yeah, the important aspect of their faith they want to protect is the ability to discriminate. From a post last Monday Joan McCarter of Kos discussed Joe Manchin’s current objection to the Build Back Better bill is because it will contribute to inflation. McCarter pointed to several economists who dispute what Manchin is claiming. Then McCarter turned to that inflation. She quoted a Wall Street Journal report that some of the biggest corporations are making inflation happen on purpose. Since many consumers are now resigned to price rises these corporations are raising their prices by more than what would be necessary to cover their own rising costs. Nearly two thirds of US publicly traded corporations have fatter profit margins this year than they did in 2019. What is driving inflation is corporate greed. One way out of that is to raise taxes on corporations. Another is with the kinds of investments in the BBB. Kyle Rittenhouse is the 17 year old (at the time) who went to Kenosha, Wisconsin to help white people protect local businesses during protests following the death of a black person. He ended up killing two white men and wounding a third. As the jury at his trial started deliberating whether he was guilty of murder or some lesser charge, I thought he probably wouldn’t be convicted of murder, but surely there would be an appropriate lesser charge. He wasn’t old enough to buy the gun he was toting. I doubt he had been properly trained in its use, including the proper way to keep from shooting people. What was this kid doing with that gun? The jury announced he was acquitted of all charges, the murder charges and whatever the lesser ones were. I’ll let your look elsewhere for details. Instead, I’ll let Leah McElrath explore another side of the aftermath. In one thread she quoted Imani Perry:

This case is a reminder that throughout US history white people, who reject white supremacist thinking, have been subject to white supremacist violence.

And replied:

Here @imaniperry perfectly describes how rage against “race traitors” is part of the systemic dynamics of white supremacy.

Then she quoted Olayemi Olurin:

Verdicts like the Rittenhouse case are meant to discourage white people from being allies in the fight against racism. It’s how the system tells them if they choose to be an ally, they are in danger and won’t be protected. It’s meant to scare people into slowing the movement.

And replied:

Exactly, @msolurin. The system of white supremacy and those who are its foot soldiers target white people engaged in anti-racism purposefully to try to keep non-white people isolated.

A quote from Renée Graham:

Perhaps more white people will now recognize that white supremacy is an existential threat to their lives, too.

McElrath replied:

And even when it doesn’t threaten our lives, it robs us of our humanity to the extent that we invest ourselves in its defense.

And a quote from Hannah Drake:

And please know this verdict was a message to White people, White people that dare defend Black lives. This verdict was a message to you.

And replied:

This verdict was a judicial manifestation of the particular rage felt under white supremacy toward those perceived as “race traitors.”

In a second thread McElrath wrote:

We are feeling anger because we feel love for one another. Our challenge now is to act out of that love. Love is not just a feeling. Love is a verb. Acting from a place of love rather than hatred distinguishes antifascists from those we fight. This is a call to action: action from a place of shared humanity and solidarity rather than perceived superiority and divisiveness. Love as a verb is not sentimental. It is constant, fierce, protective, and—often—self-sacrificing. Why am I talking about love? Because things are going to get worse. Rooting our actions in love enables us to fight for a lifetime without becoming the abyss into which we stare. I am humbled to know many courageous people around the world who fight from a place of love and who have sacrificed for the greater good.

McElrath then linked to a thread by Linda Tirado. Here’s part of it:

But it all comes to this: When they warn us, when they tell us what they’ll do to us for what they consider betraying the race We have to laugh at them. Because they are Lilliputians and they know that they’re dying out and they are terrified of a level playing field. And if they do hurt you, which is a non-zero chance Wake up in the hospital and laugh at them some more because they failed again. The point, the whole entire point Is that we do not let other humans suffer alone. Not when we can stand with them and in front of them. Not when we could help shoulder the burden and the risk. Black lives matter, to borrow a phrase, and we with faith in humanity know that. It is important on days like today to stand and be counted. So that those who are threatened by white supremacy, those who have no choice but to fight or die, know that they do not face this alone. And so that those who would uphold white supremacy see white faces against them.

Politics of revenge are exactly what the base craves

Yesterday evening the House was getting ready to vote on the Build Back Better Bill – the human infrastructure bill. Then Republican leader Kevin McCarthy used his prerogative as head of his party to talk as long as he wanted. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reported that turned out to be eight hours. When I heard that McCarthy spoke I thought there might be some phrase I could rebut in this here blog. But no go. Sumner explained:

The result was a speech where “rambling” would doesn’t begin to cover the incoherent and disconnected claims, stitched together by occasional arm waving and table-pounding designed to show that McCarthy is just as angry, vindictive, and nonsensical as Trump. As Rep. Jaime Raskin reported mid-way through this event, McCarthy managed to speak for over four hours without producing “a single memorable phrase, original insight, or even a joke.” And then he did it for four more hours. Which makes it even more … is there a word that means something is remarkable for being absolutely unremarkable?

So, no text to dissect. Instead, we can enjoy the tweets from Democratic members as they sat through it all, gathered together by Dfh1 of the Kos community. From Adam Schiff:

If you took the worst orator in the world Gave him the worst speech in the world And made him read it for the longest time in the world That would be a lot like listening to Kevin McCarthy tonight. Except, probably better.

Andrew Solender of Axios wrote about one quotable line and the reaction it got:

"Nobody elected Joe Biden to be FDR," McCarthy says in his floor speech. "I did!" one Democrat pipes up. "Me too!" says another.

That first Democrat has been identified as Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. Sumner quoted Eddie Vale who noted that instead of Democrats passing the bill in the evening McCarthy’s performance meant it was passed the next morning “at a much better time for press coverage.” Frank Pedraza commented on the post by Dfh1:

Trump has ripped McCarthy’s spine and keeps it in his closet at Morgue-a-Lago. Kevin takes comfort in knowing that the former [guy] has his back.

Alas, McCarthy can demonstrate he’s a big bag of wind, yet remain a threat to the country and democracy. Laura Clawson of Kos discussed the censure of Rep. Paul Gosar, mentioned yesterday, and McCarthy’s response:

The fact that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy not only opposed the censure of one of his members for blasting out a depiction, however fictional, of himself murdering a coworker and attacking the president of the United States, but threatened retribution against Democrats if and when Republicans take the majority in the House, shows the extent of the problem. McCarthy wasn’t just voting against the censure of his member—he was saying that the censure was so illegitimate as to justify him in planning, well ahead of time, to exact retribution against Democrats. “You censured our guy and removed him from committees for the murder-fantasy video, so we’re going to do the same to your members for … whatever.”

Kerry Eleveld of Kos added more:

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy made it exceedingly clear on Tuesday that he not only won't hold his caucus accountable for making violent threats against other members of Congress, but he will actively seek revenge against anyone who insists on the accountability he refuses to provide. ... But these GOP threats of retribution are all par for the course now. The party is effectively filled with a bunch of lawless gang members who foment violence, flout the law, and trample the Constitution, and when anyone threatens to rein them in, the GOP's knee-jerk responses are promises of revenge. ... The game is all about training their voters to believe they have been slighted and disrespected, that Democrats have committed an unforgivable abuse of power, and that Republicans will make them pay for it. That is the GOP platform, and Republicans keep running that play over and over again because their low-information voters aren't capable of seeing past it. In fact, the GOP's politics of revenge are exactly what the base craves—it's among their main reasons for living, breathing, and voting. ... But this is the kind of punitive and twisted leadership Republicans are promising as they eye a potential takeover of Congress next year. They are putting forward no policy solutions for the American people or aspirational bills they hope to enact. Instead what they’re offering is plain and simple: It is the politics of revenge. And that is very clearly exactly what GOP base voters want.

Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer who discussed a scenario that might play out in the late winter of 2023:

There’s a climate of disbelief in the nation’s capitol as the GOP-dominated House of Representatives wraps up debate over the impeachment of Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., 46th president of the United States. It was little more than five months since the Republicans gained 43 House seats in the 2022 midterms, many in newly gerrymandered seats, and since the incoming chair of House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, started studying a menu of equally off-the-wall options — Hunter Biden’s laptop, the Afghanistan withdrawal, or something unprecedented about the president’s mental acuity — for Biden impeachment hearings. In the end, Jordan and his colleagues — including the radical QAnon conspiracy theorists who’d replaced GOP moderates Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger — decided that the pretext didn’t even matter that much.

Dworkin also quoted Greg Sargent of the Washington Post:

In much of our discourse, Trump-backed GOP primary challenges to sitting Republicans tend to be cast mainly as retaliation for personal disloyalty to the former president. There’s something to that, but the full truth appears to be darker. What this really suggests is that large swaths of Republican voters appear to want to elect people to office who would have been willing to overturn the election on Trump’s behalf, and will be willing to overturn a loss in the future.

Leah McElrath tweeted a quote from an article in The Atlantic about the risk of bipartisanship undermining democracy:

“Biden’s…emphasis on his ability to cooperate with Republicans has stirred concerns…he is obscuring the threat mounting against democratic institutions…More Republicans appear to be radicalizing by the week and Biden is making the GOP seem normal.”

Rebekah Sager of Kos reported that just a few hours before Julius Jones was to be executed in Oklahoma, Governor Stitt commuted his sentence from death to life in prison without parole. That should have been clemency because there is evidence that Jones did not commit the murder for which he was convicted. I’ll let you wade into the details. One reason for mentioning this is to quote a tweet by Leah McEnrath. She quoted a tweet from Marc Lamont Hill:

And please believe that Governor Stitt knew he was going to commute the sentence yesterday. Still, he had Julius Jones undergo all the rituals and rites of execution. This is part of the cruelty and perversion of an immoral state with unmerited power to decide who lives and dies.

Then McElrath added:

Agree. Pushing the announcement until mere hours before execution was scheduled is purposeful cruelty. I’m grateful the decision was made, but the cruelty inherent in the timing and the inclusion of a denial of Jones’ rights to be considered for parole or pardon are undeniable.

Stella Levantesi and Giulio Corsi, writing for DeSmog discussed four major scare tactics climate deniers are using to stop climate action. These tactics were found through an analysis of 300,000 tweets posted since after the Paris climate summit in January 2016. Efforts used to be aimed at undermining the science. Now they’re aimed at attacking solutions, creating fear, and the usual misinformation to polarize people. 1. Doomsday scenarios, in which global economic systems are wrecked by climate change policies. Of course this obscures the global economic systems that are already being wrecked by climate change. These scenarios include the possibility of energy blackouts and shortages. 2. Claims that climate policies aren’t really about fixing the climate but about being a Trojan Horse that would turn America and the world into communist or socialist regimes. 3. Efforts to reduce the methane released by cows are interpreted to mean they will “take away America’s burgers” and force us all to be vegan, then reclaim all that unused pasture land and use it for low-income housing. 4. The full-on conspiracy theories, such as governments manipulating the weather. Learn about this strategy so you can neutralize it. Michael Harriot posted a long thread about Alabama having the deadliest prisons in America. They’re overcrowded, some of them five times capacity. There is a lot of violence between inmates (mostly black) and a lot more violence from the guards (mostly white). They’re terrible at protecting inmates from COVID. And they want to use $400 million of COVID relief money to build prisons – instead of releasing non-violent offenders or training guards, or spending the money on education or health care.

Will the Biden Administration give our money to a racist, corrupt, violent organization to LITERALLY continue slavery? Have you ever MET America?

Maggie Koerth, writing for The Fuller Project, told the story of Roberta Steele to explain why there is a shortage of people to drive school buses. The short version is the title: “Would You Manage 70 Children And a 15-Ton Vehicle for $18 An Hour?” Shortages existed before the pandemic, though are more severe now. The pay at $18 an hour seems decent (fast food workers are fighting for $15), but it is only four hours a day, nine months a year. And because of shortages drivers are covering more routes and not getting bathroom breaks. And some routes aren’t being covered, stressing parents in long lines of cars at schools. Marissa Higgins of Kos reported that Ronna Romney McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee announced an effort to recruit LGBTQ voters. The effort would be in partnership with Log Cabin Republicans, who are LGBTQ conservatives who try to be a part of a party that keeps kicking them. But McDaniel got a great deal of pushback and had to clarify the effort wasn’t about giving LGBTQ people a safe space in the party. Certainly not. She just wants their votes. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, included a cool video on how the COVID vaccines work. This video was made by the Vaccine Makers Project. And in last Friday’s post Bill quoted some late night commentary:

Aaron Rodgers says he's an independent thinker who doesn’t want to be told what to do with his body. You ever notice how all the 'independent thinkers' are doing the exact same thing? “I'm an independent thinker—what are my thoughts, Joe Rogan?” —Trevor Noah

Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that Julia “Hurricane” Hawkins set a couple records at a track and field event. First, she set the world for the 100-meter dash for her age group. Second, she defined that age group as 105+. Her time was just under one minute, three seconds. Not as good as the forty second record she set at age 100.

Implicitly endorsing threats and acts of violence

This morning Michigan Radio host Doug Trabou talked to Elizabeth Hertel, head of Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services. Michigan is now the national leader in new COVID cases per day at about 7000. So what is the government going to do about it? Trabou specifically said in previous high case rates Michigan went into lockdown – closed schools, stopped sports and indoor gatherings, mandate masks, and all those other things that were ordered back in March and April 2020. Are we going to mandate that now? Hertel didn’t directly answer, instead promoting (nor requiring) masks and saying it is good to be vaccinated. I was disappointed in the wimpy response. However, I don’t think Hertel is only to blame. Over the last 19 months the Republican controlled Michigan legislature, with the help of the state Supreme Court, has taken away the governor’s ability to call for and sustain actions to deal with a public health emergency. Hertel didn’t answer Trabou’s question because she wasn’t allowed to. One advantage of living in the Detroit area is being able to listen to Canadian radio. I prefer the CBC classical program in the early afternoon over the Detroit classical station. It also means I hear five minutes of Canadian news during those hours. Over the last few days that news has said a lot about the flooding in southern British Columbia. An “atmospheric river” dumped huge amounts of rain, causing mudslides and washing out roads and bridges. Because of the mountains in the area there are already many towns with just one road through them, a road that is now closed. That means no way to restock grocery stores. Railroads are also closed so no trains from Vancouver to the rest of Canada. Pakalolo of the Daily Kos community reported on the floods and included pictures. Pakalolo also included an explanation of an atmospheric river. This is a band of water vapor, maybe up to 300 miles wide, that acts like a pipe transporting moisture out of the tropics. The amount of water can be up to 15 times the flow rate of the Mississippi River. Over land it causes extreme rain or snow. This particular river’s moisture came from near Hawaii. Rivers from that area are known as a “Pineapple Express.” Climate change means these rivers are bigger and more often. The damage of this particular atmospheric river were made worse by last summer’s extreme heat dome (days of 120F) and fires that closed roads and railroads. Which meant the ground cover was gone, resulting in more and bigger mudslides. Some of the first news I heard about these floods were that a stretch of road was blocked by two mudslides and the people between them couldn’t go anywhere. Some of these towns will be isolated for a while. In many places roads being washed away means they’re gone – somewhere at the bottom of the valley. An opinion piece in last Sunday’s Detroit Free Press quoted a tweet from Robert Reich, a professor at Berkeley and a former Secretary of Labor. I didn’t find the article on the Freep, so I went looking for the tweet. Of course, I found several more of Reich’s tweets to quote. I’m starting with the tweet that prompted my hunt:

We do not have a “labor shortage." Here’s what we do have: -A living wage shortage -A child care shortage -A hazard pay shortage -A health care shortage

And the rest – One:

Reminder: The system enabled Elon Musk to rake in $36.2 billion in a single day last month. Don't buy into the myth that we can’t afford to invest in American families.

Two:

The ratio of CEO-to-worker pay was 21-to-1 in 1965 and 61-to-1 in 1989. Today it's 351-to-1. Talk about "inflation."

Three:

The real freeloaders in this country are the rich, not the poor. The United States literally has a yacht tax deduction.

Four:

If you oppose the biggest piece of anti-poverty legislation in decades, are you really pro-life?

New Progress responded with an image showing Universal Basic Income as much more muscular than anything else in reducing poverty. Another responded with George Carlin’s comments on being “pro-life.” I’ve posted this before (years ago) so I’ll only quote the end:

Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them up to be dead soldiers. They’re not “pro-life.” You know what they are? They’re anti-woman. Simple as it gets.

Back to Reich – Five.

Can someone please explain why @Sen_JoeManchin or anyone else worries about the bogus inflationary impact of the $1.75 trillion Build Back Better Act, which is fully paid for by the rich, and not about the real inflationary impact of $8 trillion in military spending?

More on that below. A week ago Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona posted a video on social media depicting his fantasy of the murder of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking Biden. On Tuesday the House debated, then voted on a bill to censure Gosar and strip him of committee assignments. It passed 223-207, which got maybe two Republican votes. Brandi Buchman of Kos reported on the censure vote, including liveblogging the floor debate. Gosar claimed the video, now taken down, was a joke. Tom Cole (R-OK) said Gosar did nothing wrong because he did not “intend” for the video to foment violence. Maybe Gosar didn’t “intend” that outcome but there are enough rabid fans out there who would be glad to act on it whether Gosar intended that or not. That’s just one reason why the video is bad. Pelosi condemned Gosar. It is not acceptable to depict killing a colleague. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy ranted against Democrats trying to destroy the institution of the House. Project much? AOC spoke after McCarthy. She condemned him for his inability to condemn Gosar. It is good Gosar was censured. But he wasn’t expelled. Even Gosar’s siblings called for his expulsion for his “sociopathic fantasies.” I got a fundraising email (from Robert Reich and Move On) that after the censure vote Gosar reposted the video. Leah McElrath tweeted:

Republican officials have—so far—relied primarily on stochastic terrorism to create the violence they desire. (Although there is evidence they’ve also engaged support like funding and Capitol tours…) Nonetheless, we would be naive to imagine that will always be the case. ... Today’s censure of Gosar was critically important and about far more than a single animated video. I am heartened @SpeakerPelosi took this action, and I am appreciative of all the lawmakers who are increasing their own risk by speaking out.

Then McElrath quoted a tweet from Sen. Mazie Hirono, who spoke out:

I never thought I’d see the day where almost the entire Republican party refused to condemn death threats against a member of Congress. They truly are the party of insurrectionists, rioters and vigilantes and believe the rule of law doesn't apply to them.

It is on this day of the censure that the nasty guy endorsed Gosar, though his race is not competitive. That prompted McElrath to respond:

Trump’s supporters understand what he means, and we need to acknowledge it as well: With this unnecessary action at this particular time, Trump is implicitly endorsing threats and acts of violence by Republican lawmakers against Democrats.

Laura Clawson of Kos reported two true things. Yes, inflation is real and high. Also, there is a lot of good economic stories the news media isn’t reporting.

You know what else hasn’t gotten that kind of prominent coverage? The federal minimum wage being stuck at $7.25 an hour for more than a decade. If you want something that will erode people’s buying power, that right there is a factor for millions. It’s not unreasonable for people to freak out about higher prices, especially combined with the stress of more than 18 months of a life-altering global pandemic, plus headlines about supply chain problems that could create scarcities and further raise prices. But when the media puts its thumb on the scale, breathlessly reporting about one set of problems while barely covering either other problems (the ones, like the minimum wage, that point directly to progressive policy solutions) or the good economic news that is also available and true right now, the media is responsible for creating or at least heightening people’s fears. ... We see it when media coverage of rising fossil fuel prices isn’t accompanied by reporting on the possible benefits of investment in green energy, or when media coverage of food prices doesn’t take into account how climate change is fueling droughts and/or floods that hit farming areas and make food more expensive. Inflation is both a reality and a story the media chooses to tell over other stories. It’s an easy story for them to tell. But “531,000 new jobs in October” is also an easy story. “Child poverty drops by 29% in one month thanks to expanded child tax credit” is an easy story. The media makes choices. It has to be accountable for them.

Clawson also reported that now that the bipartisan infrastructure bill has been signed, Republicans that voted against it are taking credit for it. One to do so is Rep. Gary Palmer of Alabama. He bragged about the funding that will be coming to the Birmingham Northern Beltline. A Palmer spokeswoman said he would have voted for it as a stand-alone bill, but didn’t vote for the waste in the total bill. Sure. What other member would have voted for the Birmingham Northern Beltline if the bill didn’t also have something for them? That’s why all these projects are put in one bill. Joan McCarter of Kos reported Biden, Harris, and others in his administration are on the road touting this infrastructure law and reminding citizens which party provided the majority of the votes. As for the companion bill for human infrastructure McCarter reported that Sen. Joe Manchin is still standing in the way. This time he’s worried about inflation, even though economists are saying it will lower inflation, not raise it. Republicans listening to Manchin are gleeful. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida declared the inflation issue “a gold mine.” Which prompted Chuck Schumer to tweet:

“A Gold Mine" That's how Senator Rick Scott talks about Americans struggling with rising costs Republicans don’t have solutions for families But they see political gold in exploiting their struggles We're working to pass Build Back Better to lower costs and support families

Not blogging for several days, then working to get out a big post yesterday, means I missed something important – I started writing this blog 14 years ago yesterday. In that time I’ve written 4759 posts (the count includes yesterday’s post). This is where I would add the count of different topic tags I’ve used. But I see Blogger doesn’t tell me that anymore. I can list the topics I’ve written about the most, though I wonder at times how accurate it is. The top topics, with the number of times I’ve used that tag, are: GOP (798) though it seems to have been at this number for a while Gay marriage / Marriage Equality (691), I changed tags after realizing the second is better Personal (414) the nasty guy (369) Gay Acceptance (295) Michigan (294), this has gone up a lot in the last two years. Fundamentalism (287) Supreme Court (285) Bigotry (259), there are a lot of related tags not counted here Corporate Takeover (258) Coronavirus (254), a tag that didn’t exist two years ago Racism (227) Rigged Elections (227), also a big rise in the last two years Conservatism (224) Authoritarian Rule (220) Barack Obama (217) Building Community (203)

Must be nice to have a choice

My Sunday movie was Swan Song. It is the story of Pat, a gay former hairdresser living in a home for old people (Retirement home? Nursing home?) near farms outside Sandusky, Ohio. It’s a rather basic place and Pat is bored. His boredom is interrupted by an estate agent saying the town’s premier matron, Rita Parker Sloan, has died and her will specifies he is to do her hair for her funeral. One problem – when Pat’s protege Dee Dee struck out on her own (across the street) she took Rita with her. So Pat refuses. But the boredom is too much. So Pat heads into Sandusky. He doesn’t have a car or cash, so he walks. Once outside the home he becomes his queenly self. He mourns his partner David, who died 20 years before. He visits his former house and former place of business. He tries to get the beauty products he used to use. He encounters former customers, who praise him, and Dee Dee. He visits the bar where he used to perform. Along the way he has conversations with those who have passed before. And he sees how gay life has changed – there are gay dads playing with their kids. I enjoyed this one. It’s a sweet story. Pat is based on a real person, Pat Pitsenbarger, who used to be a hairdresser in Sandusky. I’m not sure whether this incident actually happened. The movie was directed by Todd Stephens, who grew up in Sandusky. Being a gay kid was tough in that town. It was also tough when Stephens made his first movie there. He had to be careful to say nothing about the gay characters. This time Sandusky was flying pride flags and was delighted to have a gay movie shot in their town. Of course, I heard about this movie in Between the Lines, Michigan’s LGBTQ newspaper. I visited my aunt and uncle who live 20 miles south of Sandusky, A cousin was there too. I was a bit surprised when they said they had already seen it and enjoyed it. Then again, my aunt and uncle have two gay grandsons. Over the last few days Brother sent me a translated marriage record for an ancestor about eight generations back. The marriage took place in a little village in Baden, Germany. A note on the record said the groom’s father was part of the Waldensian community. Neither Brother nor I had heard of this group. So he went searching and found a Wikipedia page on them. The Waldensians were (and still are) a group that in the 12th century rejected some of the teachings of the Catholic Church, essentially creating their own Reformation. The Church responded by excommunicating them in 1215 – three hundred years before Martin Luther. Of course, over the centuries they were persecuted, including a couple massacres. About 1685 French King Louis XIV revoked freedom of religion and Waldensians who didn’t convert to Catholicism resettled in Germany, which is how my German ancestor was named Pierre. Some of their beliefs (which I paraphrased and agree with): Relics were just bones. Holy water is just water. Prayer was just as effectual in a church as in a barn. A pilgrimage serves only to spend one’s money. One doesn’t have to approach God through a priest. Purgatory doesn’t exist. The Pope is the Antichrist. Yeah, the last one won’t get you many political or religious friends. Once Martin Luther and Protestantism came along the Waldensians joined in, though tending towards Calvinism. There are now Waldensian communities in Italy, France, Germany, Uruguay, and United States. There is a Waldensian Presbyterian Church in Valdese, NC. Ten days ago, when I reported Michigan’s COVID data the most recent peak at that time was 5721 new cases in a day. That was a big increase from the weeks leading up to it. I wrote the number would likely be revised. And, in last Saturday’s data, it was, down to 5106. Late last week Michigan Radio reportrd a big increase in COVID cases, big enough that hospitals are full again. They’re full partly because this rise in cases has been over four months so there were already a lot of cases needing hospital care. There were also a lot of patients who had been putting off care for other things and were now sicker for it. The previous big rises were over 5 weeks. The state reported a lot of cases were tallied on one day and will likely be redistributed. So Michigan Radio reported the daily counts as averaged over a week – which I don’t compute. That peak in one more week of data will be revised, though at the moment it shows 6942 new cases in one day. In the week before this past week the peak in deaths per day was 55. The peak the week before was revised to 60. My graphing program reports it now has data for 623 days. In the last day or so Michigan Radio has reported that Michigan is now the leader in new cases per day per capita. Not a distinction I want my state to earn. Joan McCarter of Daily Kos reported Moscow Mitch wrote an op-ed that appeared in the Washington Post decrying the possibility of Democrats expanding the Supreme Court. Yeah, the court for which he engineered to steal a couple seats to give a 6-3 majority ready to dismantle abortion rights, minority rights, and perhaps even democracy. That Mitch. Of course, his reasons are bogus. WaPo should never have printed it. Democrats should just ignore it. The COP26 climate summit has ended. Around 200 countries signed the final document. Alas, at the last minute India forced a change – a “phase out” of coal became a “phase down.” Even beyond that the document is not at all as strong as climate activists wanted. Leah McElrath tweeted videos and comments about the close of the conference. The conference president Alok Sharma said at the end of the event (as tweeted by McElrath):

“I apologize for the way this process has unfolded…I also understand the deep disappointment, but…it is also vital that we protect this package…” Then he cries.

George Monbiot, columnist for the Guardian, described it as “This pathetic, limp rag of a document...” Greta Thunberg tweeted something she’s said before:

The #COP26 is over. Here’s a brief summary: Blah, blah, blah. But the real work continues outside these halls. And we will never give up, ever. ... Unless we achieve immediate, drastic, unprecedented, annual emission cuts at the source then that means we’re failing when it comes to this climate crisis. “Small steps in the right direction”, “making some progress” or “winning slowly” equals loosing.

After the climate deal was reached Danielle Kurtzleben of NPR spoke to Cassie Flynn, a climate advisor to the UN Development Program. If all the national pledges to reduce emissions are added up it would keep the temperature to a 2.5 degree rise – but we need it to keep it to 1.5 degrees. The Glasgow event finalized the Paris Agreement Rulebook (Paris was the previous conference). One thing the rulebook does is to standardize the rules when countries make their pledges. The most complicated issues were worked out. Back at the Paris event poor countries asked rich countries for $100 billion a year to fund changes to a low carbon future. But $100B isn’t enough and by 2020 rich countries were only giving $80B. The gap is starting to close. The biggest challenge is time. There is a better understanding the crisis is already happening. The urgency is growing. But see above about “making some progress.” I’ve flown in an airplane a lot over my long life – a brother who lived in Seattle, another who lived in Austin with children still there, cousins in St. Louis (90 minutes in the air plus airport time beats 10 hours in a car), several trips to and around Europe, a trip to Israel and Egypt, various conferences related to work and church including a several year partnership requiring travel to Albuquerque, and handbell events in Canada, Japan, Korea, and Australia. Whenever possible I get a window seat. I enjoy looking out at the land below and as I come back to Detroit I see how long it takes before I figure out where I am over the metro area. Usually not long. So it is annoying when Haricot Blue of the Kos community wrote:

Simple question: Is the climate emergency real, or isn’t it? If you believe it’s real — if you agree with U.N. Secretary General Antonion Guterres that the science proves beyond any doubt that we are “digging our own graves” (and our children’s) — then it’s time to stop flying. I wish I had better news. ... The climate emergency means that there is no ethical justification for boarding a flight that is not necessary (I won’t define “necessary” but I think we can all make reasonable appraisals). No carbon "offset" will take the tons of CO2 each flight generates out of the environment – and in any case we need to be pulling carbon out of the atmosphere, not merely “offsetting” it. No donation to a charitable cause will undo the damage your flight causes to the hope of keeping the planet’s heating below 1.5 degrees Celsius. ...The plain fact is that when you get on the plane, you dump the CO2 and other climate-impacting particulates into the environment in massive quantities. It's just science. Of course, we would already be flying less if the actual costs to the environment and human health and life were priced into the ticket. That would put frequent air travel out of reach for most of us anyway.

At the bottom of the post are links to the statistics that Blue used. I suppose with Brother no longer there I don’t need to visit Seattle again. If I don’t want to drive and worry about charging stations (no electric car – yet), I can use Amtrak to get to St. Louis in 12 hours and get to nephews in Austin in 36. And, I suppose, I can leave out the international handbell events – I have seen quite a bit of the world – and stick to the American ones. But Brother is currently living in Germany. And Amtrak doesn’t get me there. Walter Einenkel of Kos reminded us for a couple months the conservative news outlets were full of the terrors of Critical Race Theory being taught to children. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia was one of the loud voices. Now that Youngkin has been elected governor of that sate those overwrought stories have ... vanished. A Washington Post story about the phenomenon included a chart showing the number of mentions of CRT related to schools over the last year. That chart is included in Einenkel’s post. He wrote:

The Post created an easy-to-read graph to visualize how ultra-right-wing propaganda works to lather up their potential voting base. One thing you will notice is that, by screaming as loudly and as uniformly as they do, the right-wing-o-sphere can create a rising tide of BS that pulls up traditional media mentions of the bogus stories, as well. ... The constant refrain from the right-wing in the country these days is to sow as much dissent and the perception of chaos, which gives voters anxiety that things are changing too fast. For every reactionary bigot who is terrified that their child or grandchild will be taught some strange version of history titled “White people are the devil,” the rest are primarily nervous that they don’t understand what exactly is happening and want things to remain closer to the same, even if that means growing inequality and an exacerbation of all of the things that are actually stressing their communities out. This doesn’t mean that these make-em-up culture wars end, of course. It just means that the hyped-up tenor on right-wing media settles back down to a simmer.

Jared Holt, who researches domestic extremism, referenced the same chart and tweeted:

This pattern happens over and over again. Migrant caravans, racial justice run amok, communism creeping to America… they are election games. The people running the show don’t believe a damn word of it. They just know how to sell.

Laura Clawson of Kos discussed a new poll done by WaPo/ABC News that asked the question how much should public schools teach about the history of racism? Clawson wrote:

A majority of Republicans said it should be taught not so much or not at all. That’s not an objection to critical race theory even in its most expansive definition. That’s an objection to kids learning that, possibly within their parents’ lifetimes but definitely within their grandparents’ lifetimes, the U.S. had explicitly racist laws that have continuing effects today.

Yeah, that’s the history of slavery, Jim Crow laws where black people were killed for voting, and the civil rights era and its heroes. “Republicans do not want children knowing that history.” This will be another story that pops up every election cycle. Democrats need to learn how to push back. Leonard Pitts, in an opinion piece printed in the Detroit Free Press this past Sunday, wrote about young kids who experienced racism, some as young as 5. He then discussed a tweet from CBS News asking, “How young is too young to teach kids about race?” Pitts said the real question being asked was “How young is too young to teach white kids about race?” Pitts’ reply: “Must be nice to have a choice.” In another editorial in the Freep the week before Pitts wrote about Laura Murphy, a white woman in Fairfax County, VA, and her son Blake. She said the book Beloved by Toni Morrison gave Blake nightmares. Since 2013 Murphy has been trying to get the book banned. Beloved, which I’ve read and it does contain some harrowing details, is a novelization of the story of Margaret Garner. Garner was a slave who had fled to freedom with her three children. As the slave catchers closed in Garner killed her daughter and tried to kill the other two. She did not want her children to grow up as slaves where they would be “murdered by piecemeal.” I’ve seen Margaret Garner the opera. Yeah, it was intense, but it made her actions understandable. Morrison’s book considers what would happen of the ghost of that dead child came back to haunt the mother who kept her out of slavery by killing her. Along the way there is a depiction of black culture of the 1850s and ’60s in the free state of Ohio. The book won the Pulitzer Prize and in 2006 was named the best American novel in the previous 25 years. Pitts wrote:

One wishes they’d muster even a fraction of that urgency to confront, say, school shootings, which posed a greater threat to Murphy’s son than anything Toni Morrison ever wrote. The only thing she ever posed was a challenge to his understanding of the world and his place in it. Which is something great literature is supposed to do. But then for some of us, some nightmares simply matter more than others. Apparently, the one Blake Murphy had is more important than the one Toni Morrison wrote and the one Margaret Garner lived. It also seems to be more important than the nightmare America is now enduring, one of misguided priorities, misapplied resources and the misplaced anger of those who see “their” country changing and cannot handle it.

Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Steve Vladeck of MSNBC. The topic is Steve Bannon, nasty guy crony, who has been indicted on contempt of Congress for not appearing and testifying about what he knew leading up to the Capitol attack.

But whatever happens in Bannon’s criminal case — he is reportedly expected to appear in court next week — what the indictment really underscores is how dependent Congress has become on the executive branch to carry out even the most basic aspects of its oversight function and how dangerous that dependency can be when the oversight is directed toward, or even near, the executive. If the Biden administration really wants to make congressional subpoenas effective broadly, it should not just indict in the obvious cases like Bannon's; it should support statutory reforms like the Protect Our Democracy Act — which includes provisions to make it easier for Congress to enforce its own subpoenas.

Dworkin also quoted a tweet from Ben Collins of NBC News, though I ended up going to the original thread:

There is, finally, good news from the anti-vaccine beat. It’s wrapped in some bad news. The good: Mandates are working. Anti-vaxxers are exhausted, giving in and getting the shot. The bad: They’re running home to “detox” in weird ways, hoping to “undo” it. Antivaxxers on Facebook/TikTok are begging for advice on how to “detox” loved ones who got the shot. They caved to mandates and want help from influencers. Some say they’re doomed to death, infertility, or government tracking. But others have “remedies.” On TikTok, anti-vaxxers have rallied around influencer Carrie Madej, who claims she can “detoxx the vaxx.” Her solution? A bath with baking soda for “radiation” and epsom salt for “poisons.” Then, she says, add Borax to clean out “nanotechnologies.” (Don’t do this.) When Madej talks about “nanotechnologies,” she’s referencing the “liquified computing systems” she falsely believes are in the vaccines. ... Some antivaxxers who are caving to mandates are immediately racing back to their houses to try to “uninject” the vaccine. Some are using syringes or snakebite kits. Others are slicing the injection site and then self-administering cupping therapy. This also does not work.

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, added his snark:

What utter nonsense. The only alternative therapy that actually works to remove the vaccine from your system is wedging candy corn under your fingernails while singing Puccini on top of your car while stopped at a green light in the middle of a busy intersection at rush hour. Somebody post that on TikTok. And then get the results on video. For legitimate medical research purposes, you understand.

Bill in Portland gave a jeer to the nasty guy immediately appealing the ruling he must allow the National Archives to hand over documents about the Capitol attack. This was something I wrote about a couple days ago. Then Bill wrote – and I like his ending better:

So what happens now is, we wait three weeks to get a ruling. Then the ruling is appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court sides with Trump and then throws Biden in jail for having the gall to cross God's Chosen One. Kamala Harris becomes president and chooses Hillary as her vice president. Kamala resigns "to spend more time with my family," Hillary becomes president, chooses Kamala as her vice president, who accepts because "Eh, that was enough time to spend with my family." Then Hillary pardons Biden, expands the Supreme Court with 18 new liberals, give or take, brings Manchin and Sinema into line with a baseball bat ("My little friend"), and passes a $290 trillion Build Back Better Bill, resulting in Democratic supermajorities in all the elections forever. Mmmm…I love the smell of 11-dimensional chess in the evening.

Aysha Qamar of Kos reported that Sesame Street is introducing its first Asian Muppet during its Thanksgiving Day special. The new character is Ji-Young, a Korean American.

If you’re not sure, don’t share

I wrote about the HBO series We’re Here. The three drag queen hosts go into a town and help three locals prepare to be part of a drag show. Along the way they deal with coming out and acceptance. This past Monday was an episode I didn’t watch but very much would have wanted to. The city was Evansville, Indiana and one of the participating locals was Pastor Craig Duke of Newburgh United Methodist Church. Duke isn’t LGBTQ, but his daughter is. Yeah, doing drag was way out of his comfort zone. However, he said:

If you want to involve people different than yourself in your ministry, you have to go to where people different than you are. The invitation to be part of the show allowed me that.

Preparation for the show also provided a spiritual connection with Duke’s “drag mother” Eureka O’Hara that benefited both of them. Religion News Service has an article about Duke and the show. Since I didn’t watch last Monday I’d have to subscribe to HBOMax to see it. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reported US District Court Judge Lee Yeakel in Austin ruled Texas Gov. Greg Abbot’s ban on mask mandates violates federal law. The reasoning is through the Americans with Disabilities Act – students with special health issues are at higher risk of illness and death from the virus and masks work. If a higher court doesn’t overturn it, the reasoning behind the ruling could be applied to several other states with Republican governors. One thing the new governor of Virginia campaigned on was that certain books should be removed from schools. That guy isn’t in office yet. So I guess the Spotsylvania County School Board is using his election as permission to do what they’ve wanted to do for a while. Laura Clawson of Kos reported the board voted unanimously to remove “sexually explicit” books from school libraries and to consider what else might be “objectionable.” One board member wants to throw the books in a fire, complaining the schools would rather kids read gay pornography than about Christ. Yeah, we know the definition of “sexually explicit” will be interpreted to mean anything having to do with LGBTQ – two guys kissing would be “sexually explicit” and a guy kissing a girl would not. Clawson also reported that Texas Gov. Abbott is all in for banning books in schools, though he seems to be having a hard time finding the proper state agency willing to do the deed. Clawson also wrote about the need for school libraries to stock books about LGBTQ youth. These kids frequently must look outside their home for understanding about who they are. Today was to be the last day of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. News reports today say it has gone into overtime to produce an agreeable final statement. April Siese of Kos reported yesterday morning UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wasn’t hopeful that whatever is produced will be enough. Siese reported:

Guterres warned of a worst-case scenario of a watered-down agreement being adopted for the sake of adoption. According to Guterres, the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is “on life support.” “When you are on the verge of the abyss, it’s not important to discuss what will be your fourth or fifth step,” Guterres told AP. “What’s important to discuss is what will be your first step. Because if your first step is the wrong step, you will not have the chance to do a search to make a second or third one.”

Mark Sumner of Kos reported the Department of Health and Human Services under Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, has created a document and toolkit to help people combat disinformation. The document (which I looked at) explains the reasoning. It then has a page on what individuals and families can do, what educators can do, what health professionals, journalists, tech platforms, researchers, funding foundations, and governments can do. I also looked at the toolkit. Some of its sections: Common types of health misinformation, such as sites that look professional or mimic news sites, quotes taken out of context, cherry-picked stats, misleading graphs, old images recirculated as recent, and videos edited to change the meaning. Why we want to share info, including helping the people we care about or seeking explanations that make sense of events. Understanding why people create harmful information, including doing it deliberately, make money off it, fool people for the fun of it, support a person or cause, and share so friends have as much info as possible. A comic strip about why people might seek out information that might be misleading. A big reason is to deal with a serious illness. This strip points out ways a person might be directed to misinformation. How to talk about misinformation with loved ones – listen to their fears and the wider issue, not on the specifics of the false claim. Empathize, then point to credible sources. Don’t shame. Types of disinformation tactics, such as using the logo of a credible source, using visual cues such as a stethoscope around the neck, using rare terms so web searches won’t include results to debunk the claim, say “this happened to me” which is harder to fact-check. And a misinformation checklist: did you check the CDC, a credible health care professional, a credible webpage, the site’s “About Us” page? If you’re not sure, don’t share. Clawson reported earlier this week that NPR obtained recordings of internal NRA deliberations on how to proceed after the Columbine school shooting in 1999. The decisions made that day have been used since. What prompted the discussion was that the NRA’s national convention was just days away in nearby Denver. If they canceled the event they would be seen as running away, which meant accepting responsibility for Columbine. But if they stayed the must appear to be deferential in honoring the dead. The media would be swarming the exhibit hall looking for kids fondling guns. But if the exhibit hall closed the media would focus on the actual meeting with the wackos dressed like hillbillies and idiots. They complained that the media was looking for a villain for political gain.

At that convention, the NRA laid the course it has followed ever since following mass shootings: Attack the media and insist that it’s disrespectful to the people murdered by guns to discuss the role of guns in their murders. ... And because the NRA was committed to ensuring that there would be lots of fresh graves for decades to come, that message has gotten a regular workout. But back then in 1999, with 13 dead at Columbine, they knew just how bad it looked for them, and how important it was to get the right message to get people to look past the gun lobby’s role in that mass killing.

Sumner wrote an essay for Kos about the state of American retail. His own family owned three clothing stores in a small town. In addition to supplying jobs to the community they brought traveling salesmen to town, which also brought in their travel expenses. Then Walmart arrived. The small town’s downtown cycled through candy shops, diners, specialty coffee, and anything else that wasn’t cheaper in the behemoth at the edge of town. Then the downtown became empty. He remembers back in 1981 the opening of a small shopping center in St. Louis that soon grew into a huge mall with four anchor stores. Malls peaked about 1990. By the 2000s malls began to close and by the 2010s their closures took out big retail chains – K-Mart, Sears, Borders, and many more. Ghost malls and empty megastores are a thing. Some became public parks, others became antique malls, many more stand empty. Online sales barely registered in 2000, rose to 4% of consumer sales in 2010, and 9% in 2015. The pandemic prompted a jump to 15%. I lived through the Just in Time model sweeping the auto industry. I wasn’t involved in manufacturing, though I had to watch a video or two so I knew what it was. Sumner says JIT meant not keeping inventory on hand. It also meant experienced, flexible workers were let go. Focus shifted to management and their pay began to rise. The goal was the plan with the fewest and cheapest workers. Problems were addressed by management. This concentrated wealth in the hands of the few. FedEx went with the leanest workforce. UPS didn’t. FedEx had to hire contractors to handle staffing shortages and they cost more than the workers who were let go. UPS made almost $2 billion more on nearly identical sales. But over the last four decades MBA programs have been teaching the lean staffing system where the lack of worker knowledge wasn’t seen as a detriment. Companies with such leadership couldn’t face the pandemic and online competition. Companies that valued workers, including Costco, were more flexible and durable in a crisis Sumner concluded:

None of these realities were created by the pandemic. If the advantage that e-commerce holds over the “brick and mortar” world got another big underscore during the last two difficult years, so did the advantages of companies that are able to retain experienced workers. Still, don’t expect most CEOs to read much into that second advantage. After all, Costco had revenues of almost $200B in the last year and the CEO isn’t even a billionaire. Clearly they’re doing it wrong.

I’ve been seeing this online ad for a t-shirt modeled by a guy with a white beard that seems appropriate for me (though I won’t buy it): “Built in the Fifties, Original and Unrestored, Some parts still in working order.”