Extremism is a powerful drug

RO37 of Daily Kos posted a Ukraine update. Much of it gets into uninteresting details. Then he gets into maple syrup. At least as a comparison. Canada has a Global Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve. Canada controls enough syrup to set global pricing. They do it through the reserve. In great maple years they replenish the reserve. In lean maple years they release from the reserve. That keeps the global price stable. But in the last few years they have been only tapping the reserve. Prices will look stable as long as the reserve lasts. But once it is close to gone prices will quickly change. In the same way after the invasion of Normandy in WWII the Allies could keep supplying fresh troops. Germany could not. Once Germany ran out of troops the Allies went from heavy fighting over every kilometer to swift progress. And in the same way Ukraine has lots of troops in reserve and Russia’s reserves are almost depleted. Ukraine’s progress is slow now. It should speed up soon. Mark Sumner of Kos wrote about heat in the Atlantic Ocean. Over many years the heat of the warming planet has been sequestered in the world’s oceans. The first chart shows a steady rise in ocean temperature since a bit before 1990. Now ocean heat is at record levels and some of it is being released. Some of it shows up in high sea surface temperatures, which have been setting records for this time of year since March. Arctic sea ice isn’t quite at its lowest extent, but it is close to the record. The less ice there is the faster temperatures rise. Also, this is the first June in which two tropical storms, Bret and Cindy, are active at the same time (neither is expected to cause any damage).

Temperatures that were regarded as relatively safe can actually trigger an ecosystem collapse when additional stress factors are considered. Droughts can be more severe. Storms more powerful. Water chemistry can change as warmer water holds less dissolved oxygen needed for breathing as well as less of the minerals needed to build shells and bones. We are seeing one of those additional stress factors: erratic and unusual events. Ecosystems we expected to remain stable for decades are much closer to a total unraveling than we expected. As the study in Nature noted, when all the factors are considered, some of these systems that were thought to be stable through the next century are likely to fall apart in our lifetimes, with the time to failure shorted by 38% to 81%.

At the end of last week Lauren Clawson of Kos wrote there is fighting within the extremist House Freedom Caucus. Various members want to boot out others for backsliding on their extremism.

Extremism is a powerful drug. And these people are so awful that infighting was probably inevitable the moment Republicans had power. It's a virtuous (from Democrats’ point of view) circle: Republican disarray begets failure begets more disarray.

This reminds me of a video I saw over the weekend. I didn’t link to it because it was part of a post I didn’t comment on. The video showed a Ukrainian soldier sitting on what might be the tailgate of a truck. In his lap is a tablet with the news of the coup attempt blaring. As he watches he grabs popcorn from the several large bins around him. To mark Pride Month SemDem of the Kos community recounted the history of advertising to LGBTQ people. Back in the 1970s and 80s what little advertising that mentioned LGBTQ people was to attack us. The 70s were just after Stonewall when same-sex relationships were still illegal. In the 80s there was AIDS and Reagan doing all he could to laugh at it or ignore it. The early advertising showing us in a positive light was by us: Gran Fury, the marketing arm of ACT UP, and for us: Ads encouraging safe sex as they showed same-sex couples. The first corporate ads to target us were part of the “sin” market – alcohol and tobacco – because the religious right was not a part of their customer base and offered no threat of boycott. So Absolut Vodka issued an LGBTQ friendly ad in 1981. About 1990 Subaru started targeting lesbians in Portland, Oregon and Northampton, Massachusetts. I love their tagline: “It’s not a choice, it’s just how we’re built.” It was about then marketing research showed that we’re more likely to travel and have higher incomes, an affluent and untapped market. In 1996 IKEA showed two men shopping for a dining room table. They suffered a boycott and a New York store had to be evacuated because of a bomb threat. Yet, they thrived. And lots of companies followed. And protests fizzled. The dam broke when the Supremes upheld the Marriage Equality Act of 2015. There was even a commercial by Gillette featuring a trans boy’s first shave, being taught by his father. (My own father used an electric shaver and he didn’t teach me how to use it.) LGBTQ friendly ads are now so common that our community denounces the “corporatizing of Pride” and “rainbow washing.” A backlash had limited success in 2019. Even today as some places reduce their LGBTQ visibility after threats of violence, those on the right are running out of allies. This post includes many of those groundbreaking ads, either as embedded or as links. Garth German tweeted a cartoon of the Pride flag with the words, “A reminder that this started, not as a parade, but as a protest.” MacLeod Cartoons tweeted one of a woman in lab coat with an elephant replying:

The oceans are warming much faster than even the most pessimistic models! So you’re saying the real threat is trans teenagers?

Massimo, an astronautics engineer, tweeted a minute long video of the home of artist Dante Dentoni. He had replaced part of one wall with LEGO. Within the LEGO are several hidden rooms, each one showing a small scene, such as the audience in an auditorium, an alien abduction, a nature scene, and a couple more.