Go ahead and use these gerrymandered maps

I stayed up last evening to watch the Olympic men’s free figure skating program. This time I had one browser window showing NBC and another showing CBC, both on mute (though the constantly changing images were a bit annoying). I decided I would go with the network that got to the figure skating first. That was CBC, so I had Canadian commentary. The first two skaters were shown at 9:45. Then starting about 10:30 they showed the last dozen (the better ones). The program finished about 12:30. Below the CBC logo, always on the screen, was an indication what I was seeing was live. I wasn’t sure what to make of that. Then I frequently saw a big digital clock on the wall of the skating venue and it’s minute numbers seemed to consistently match the time on my computer. So I checked a timezone map. Beijing is 13 hours ahead. So 10:00 pm in Detroit is 11:00 am tomorrow in Beijing. So what I was seeing on Wednesday evening in Detroit wasn’t tape delayed from Wednesday evening in Beijing but was happening live Thursday morning. That’s why it was on so late. One of the things I look for in figure skating is how well the contestant moves to the music. Those that aren’t so high in the standing tend to skate and there’s music playing and the two have little to do with each other. However, the better they are the more their movements fit the music. The gold medalist, Nathan Chen of USA, very much moved to the music, and it was wonderful. Maybe 16 years ago a quadruple jump in figure skating wasn’t a thing. At one Olympics a couple contestants tried to be the first to land a quad in competition. In these games it is rare for a male contestant not to do a quad. And one tried to be the first to land a particular type of jump that would require four and a half rotations. He didn’t fall over on landing, though there was debate about whether he got in enough rotations to count. I finished the book The Ghost and Charlie Muir by Felice Stevens. I’m sure the title is meant to bring to mind the movie The Ghost and Mrs. Muir from 1947 in which a young widow moves into a seaside cottage, finds it is haunted by an old sea captain, and falls in love with him. The book I read does have a ghost, but Charlie doesn’t fall in love with her. Charlie grew up in a series of foster homes and, now in his 20s and definitely gay, learns he is the only living relative of a deceased great-great-aunt and inherits her house. Which has a ghost. His new neighbor is Ian, who thinks he’s straight, though he finds Charlie’s kisses to be pretty hot. The ghost works to get these young men together in spite of Charlie’s trust issues and Ian’s protestations of orientation. Along the way she tells the story of her brother Eddie, who lived in Ian’s house and was part of his ancestral family, and Robert, who had lived in Charlie’s house and was related to him. Robert and Eddie were gay lovers but, in the time of WWI, could not reveal their love. This book was a recent recommendation of the Lambda Literary Awards. There are several categories of awards, this one fits into Gay Romance, and there are usually several books in each category each year. I’ve had another roundabout adventure finding another medical specialist, this one for physical therapy. This time it wasn’t in trying to verify the doctor was in my insurance network (I didn’t even try). It was trying to find this specialty at a nearby health system facility. When my primary care doc made the referral she gave me the phone number for facility A in the New Center area of Detroit, 16 miles away. I was hoping for a specialist only 4-8 miles from home. When I called a couple days ago I asked for that. I was given two phone numbers. I called the number for facility B, 4 miles away. Sorry, they can’t help. They do vision rehabilitation – learning to navigate the world as vision is failing. They don’t do PT. I looked up the number for facility C 8 miles from home where I had gone for PT before. Through the central number I got the number for PT and called. They aren’t equipped for the treatment I need and gave me the number for facility D, also 8 miles from home. That number was for the neurology department at facility D. That person gave me the number for the PT department in facility D. Which turned out to be the phone number for PT department in facility C. I called and was given another number. I called and got an appointment for Monday to see Dr L in facility D. Yeah, that soon! Today I got a reminder email for my appointment with Dr. M at facility E, 18 miles away. It was for the same time as my appointment with Dr. L. I called that number. The receptionist agreed that was too far. She connected me to a central scheduling desk. That person couldn’t see how Monday’s appointment got so mixed up. He also said Dr. L doesn’t work out of facility D. So I scheduled an appointment with a different Dr. M at facility D in two weeks. I could have gotten something a week earlier if I would take an appointment for 7:45 am. Nope, not for me. Why is this so hard? This was definitely customer disservice. I usually listen to CBC Radio out of Windsor, Ontario for three hours on weekdays. Their host is much better than the classical music host in Detroit. Canadian radio is one of the nice things about living in Detroit. Their hourly news programs have included two weeks of reports of a trucker protest that started in Ottawa. They are protesting the requirement that they must be vaccinated or every time they come back across the border from the US they must quarantine. Most truckers got vaccinated. These protests are by the small minority who refused. Over those two weeks they’ve barricaded central Ottawa, bringing it to a standstill, and tooted their horns at all hours, much to the annoyance of the residents. The protests have expanded, first to the Ambassador Bridge connecting Detroit to Windsor. Now Michigan Radio has been giving updates, such as this one. The trucks have blocked one direction of traffic (I think allowing Canada to USA). That blockade has been active for several days. This one is a big deal because Canada and America are each other’s biggest trading partners and a quarter of that trade goes across the Ambassador Bridge. A big chunk of the Detroit – Windsor trade is parts for the auto industry, which is now beginning to reduce shifts at assembly plants because they can’t get parts. The Port Huron – Sarnia crossing is just a couple hours away, though I’ve heard that’s also been blocked. As, I believe, has the commercial crossing at Niagara. I’ve also heard a crossing between North Dakota and Manitoba has been blocked. Hunter of Daily Kos wrote about the pile of lies these blockade are drawing out of the American far right. The conclusion is these truckers are a small group, maybe several thousand. Most Canadians and most Americans have been vaccinated and want to keep trade and commerce running. This is a damaging prptest, but not widespread. I’ve heard the truckers are getting a lot of American far right assistance and there are stories of Confederate flags being spotted in Ottawa. Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, quoted a few pundits commenting on the blockades. There’s even a picture of a few trucks at the top of the post. One of those quotes is of a tweet by Brendan Nyhan:

Far-right extremists routinely adopt tactics used by counterparts in other countries. US needs to get ready for this trucker convoy tactic before a major American city is paralyzed like Ottawa.

The Republican legislature in Alabama created new redistricting maps that reduced the number of the states majority black Congressional districts from two to a more gerrymandered one. Various groups sued and a lower court required the legislature to redraw the maps to create two majority black districts, as set out by the Voting Rights Act. Republicans took their case to the Supreme Court. Joan McCarter of Kos reported the Court, using the shadow docket, said yeah, that’s an interesting case we should put on our docket – sometime next term. In the meantime, Alabama, go ahead and use these gerrymandered maps for 2022 and we might ask you to redraw them in time for 2024. The shadow docket means the Court is making a decision without public debate and without a fully reasoned written and signed decision. For this order Kagan wrote a furious dissent. Kavanaugh dismissed her complaints. This decision essentially gutted the rest of the VRA. Go ahead and do racial gerrymandering all you want. This is a position so extreme that Roberts, who got the gutting process started in 2013, sided with the dissent. Wrote McCarter:

Passing the voting rights and elections reform bills already passed by the House in the Senate is one partial remedy, in that it would restore the VRA and add new protections including ending racial gerrymandering. But that’s clearly not enough, because the illegitimate Trumpian majority on the Supreme Court will be there to strike down whatever protections Congress passes. The only solution is to expand and reform the Supreme Court. President Joe Biden and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi have to do everything in their power to make that happen. What's the point of having control of the House, the Senate, and the White House, along with the biggest bully pulpit in the world, if you won't use it to secure the future of democracy?