Activism is the best antidote to hopelessness

I’m halfway between for a couple weeks. I had cataract surgery for one eye yesterday morning and surgery for the other is scheduled for two weeks from then. Yeah, that means one eye does better without the glasses and the other better with. Right now I’m working with my glasses off and I taped a card over the unfixed eye. I was anxious about seeing medical instruments coming straight at my eye. That’s not what I experienced. Part of it is they don’t come straight at the eye. What I saw were red and teal blobs floating in a white space and then the doctor saying all done now. In printing out tax forms (yes, I used snail mail) I ran out of black ink. Two stores didn’t have my model of cartridge. Thankfully, a third did. I don’t print much, so don’t use much ink. Long ago I saw that if I hadn’t printed something in the last week (which was usual) I had better clean the ink nozzles before printing. I’m sure for the color cartridges I have used more ink in cleaning than in printing. And when I do print it is rarely in yellow. My color cartridges are sold in sets of three. I installed a yellow cartridge back at the start of the year and with the packet I just bought I now have two yellow cartridges in reserve. My Sunday movie was Roald Dahl’s Matilda, the Musical. Yeah, Roald Dahl wrote the book, the story was turned into a movie in 1998, then came a musical, and this 2022 film was created from the musical. A summary of the story: It is a child’s revenge fantasy, getting back at all the cruel adults. In Matilda’s case it starts with her parents who don’t really want her and are unethical in their striving to get ahead. Matilda’s education is through the bookmobile and the woman who runs it is an adult who understands her. But someone realizes Matilda should be in school and isn’t, so off she goes. Her teacher, Miss Honey, is sweet. But the whole school is terrorized by the headmistress Agatha Trunchbull (played quite well by Emma Thompson). So a good chunk of the movie is establishing how cruel she is. Then Matilda leads the revenge. Dartagnan of the Daily Kos community complained about the choice of words used by Kara Scannell of CNN. Scannell had said the nasty guy indictment put the American political system “into uncharted waters.” Dartagnan said that’s rich coming from a network that had hyped the nasty guy to get him into office. And they’re ignoring the uncharted waters of actively soliciting help from Russia to get into office. Of campaigning on racism and urging rally attendees to beat up journalists. Of creating a policy of kidnapping migrant children. Of trying to extort a foreign leader to invent dirt on an opponent. Of badly botching the pandemic response. Of lying about the 2020 election results. Of inciting a coup. Those, and many more, are also “uncharted waters.” wruckungroink of the Kos community wrote that he’s been waiting for the indictment for 55 years. Back in 1968 Nixon, still a private citizen, could have been indicted for interfering in US diplomacy (a violation of the Logan Act, and thus treason) when he urged the South Vietnamese to back out of a peace deal, preventing Hubert Humphrey from winning. And President Johnson didn’t go public because the revelation would be so shocking it would shake the foundations of the nation. wruckungroink quoted an article from Common Dreams (I think):

Here’s where it starts: “The American people are made of spun glass. So delicate and fragile! If we were to tell the truth and hold lawbreakers accountable, why, it would be ‘inimical to our country’s best interests.”

And Republicans learned they could get away with crimes. That led Reagan, also a private citizen at the time, to spread the word, trusting it would get to Iran, that if they released the hostages after Carter lost the election Reagan would give them a better deal. Then there was Iran-Contra. Bush II almost encouraging the torture of prisoners, a war crime, and Obama was reluctant to look into it. And now this, with lots of commentary about whether it would tear the country apart. wruckungroink says, yes we can take it! And taking it is a whole lot better than destroying the idea that no one is above the law. Mark Sumner of Kos discussed the actual statement of fact associated with the 34 charges against the nasty guy. He notes the description of crimes implies they were done to cover up a conspiracy, but there is no actual charge of conspiracy. That prompts the question: Why? There is a footnote that says the description does no contain all the relevant facts. Is that enough to answer the question? Stonekettle tweeted:

The people who politized everything from bathrooms to ice cream and who have spent the better part of a decade threatening to lock up their political enemies without trial now on TV complaining about how charges against an obvious criminal are "political" is some goddamn irony indeed.

These voices spent many years saying the nasty guy is different, that the rules don’t apply to him, that he’s special. And when indicted he’ll again get special treatment (like no mug shot). The people who don’t get special treatment are those beaten by police, or are innocent bystanders when police spray bullets. Fox News won’t speculate that he “looks like a thug.” No, the nasty guy will make millions (already has) for showing up in court.

If Trump had ever even ONCE been treated like everyone else, he would have been in jail long long ago.

Walter Einenkel of Kos reported the three conservative members of the five member school board of Elizabeth, Colorado resigned. They’re upset that the progressives on the board kept bringing up the “woke” agenda. Yeah, that sounds a bit backwards. Einenkel explained:

The week before he tendered his resignation, Karcher spoke during a school board meeting about the bizarre anti-education nature of the anti-CRT and LGBTQ+ hysteria: “I am a conservative. I’m upset about [CRT] too. I don’t want it to come into the district, but I don’t want this conversation to happen week after week after week either.” Take that in. He’s basically saying he’s a racist too but that his school district has long ago sanitized its educational practices to line up with the homophobes and anti-trans conservative movement.

Meteor Blades, in an Earth Matters report for Kos, discussed another place where solar arrays can be put. People are increasingly more reluctant to take up land for solar arrays and there aren’t enough suitable rooftops (though he doesn’t mention over parking lots). Perhaps we can float arrays in reservoirs. Yeah, installations will have to be careful of causing problems in the ecosystem of the reservoir, though such covers could limit harmful algal blooms. An idea I’ve heard before that Blades mentions again is covering canals with solar panels. Implementation has begun. In this case it is all to the good as it reduces evaporation from the canals and more water gets to farmers. Blades also quoted a 30 day action plan by John Platt in The Revelator. Feeling hopeless about the climate?

That’s exactly how polluting corporations want you to feel. The more people believe their actions don’t matter, the more they find themselves rolling over and accepting the status quo. Yes, solving the climate crisis requires bold action from governments and corporations, but that doesn’t mean individuals have to sit on the sidelines.

Activism is the best antidote to hopelessness. I’ve mentioned before that trees are a great antidote to climate change because they pull carbon dioxide, the most abundant greenhouse gas, out of the atmosphere and release oxygen. Alas, we’re cutting down trees for more parking lots and in Brazil for more cattle grazing (on land that is not suited for the job). Yup That Exists tweeted photos of a city scene with an algae tank that serves as a backdrop for a bench. The tank is tall and is a pretty green color. It is an alternative to trees in an urban area. As much as I like the color I’d much rather have the trees. A second tweet reminds us algae would be good in places where trees don’t grow well – like the Sahara. Olivia Hill adds:

Okay, so, algae is WAAAAY better than trees at converting carbon into breathable, clean air. This is a thing we know, and this is a cool idea. But what I want to see is gutters with fish and aquaponic vegetables cultivated alongside every city sidewalk, every city street.

Hill mentions Japan frequently has aquaponic systems in the gutters alongside streets. She then goes into detail on how such a system would work, how much food that would produce – and that the fish would be a good source of protein. Yes, people would be needed to maintain these systems – which would be soul-affirming jobs. To keep the sun from burning the veggies add solar panels that can regulate how much light gets to the plants. Do this for every block in a city and it could produce enough veggies with a good protein supplement for a density twice that of NYC.

When I got into the sciences, I envisioned a better world and wanted to realize it. But seeing the way money and politics work, I realized I could never get my dreams enacted without: A) Making them look profitable, when they're meant to be the opposite. B) Armed revolution. But to me, this is a realistic goal. It engages the global economy because it uses a lot of PVC and other resources from afar. But it empowers the local people on both ends, giving productive work to numerous citizens and relieving the burden of food costs. ... People. A better world is possible. We can make it. But the first step, the only first step is putting our foot down and saying that we want it and we're willing to fight for it. Come on. Want a world you can be proud of because you helped make it. How cool would that be?

This sounds like a great idea! I’d keep the trees too. As is appropriate for Passover/Holy Week, in which Christians mark Jesus holding one last Passover meal with his disciples, which is called the Last Supper, Marc Murphy of the Louisville Courier-Journal tweeted:

Not his last supper. Not his first. Some of those who claim to follow him the closest think they’ve got a seat and there’s no room at that Inn.

This supper looks like artistic depictions of the Last Supper, but instead of the male disciples, the people at the table are trans kids, women, the poor, and the unhoused. David Hayward tweeted a cartoon that’s a takeoff on the parable of the lost sheep. In this one a spokesperson for the flock says, “Hold it right there! She wasn’t lost. We kicked her out!” And Jesus responds, “I know. And I found them.”