Media isn't reporting Helene hit Tennessee too

My Sunday movie was Heartstopper season 3, episodes 4-6. I’ll write about the plot, which could be a spoiler. Then I’ll write about my thoughts on what I saw. At the end of episode 3 Charlie admitted he needed help with an eating disorder. So episode 4 is about the start of treatment. But there are delays and his mood gets worse. Charlie does get into a residential program for two months. We see that time first through Nick’s eyes. He’s lonely without his boyfriend, especially at Halloween. Then we see the two months through Charlie’s eyes, working with a therapist, getting a care package from friends, and a visit from family and Nick. In episode 5 Charlie is home in time for Christmas. And it is his first big test. His extended family is there – including the people that are invited out of obligation. And some of them pull out the mental illness stereotypes. After a while Charlie escapes to Nick’s house because Nick doesn’t treat him as mentally ill. Nick is doing a good job incorporating all that his aunt taught him about how to be supportive. In episode 6 it is now spring. Charlie’s therapy is progressing well and his relationship with Nick deepens. Part of that is Charlie has more mental space to devote to his love. Ellie is doing well in art school and her art is getting noticed. She is offered a radio interview. The host wants to draw her into the controversies of being trans. Then the story shifts to Charlie’s 16th birthday party. Now my thoughts: This circle of friends is quite supportive in all the right ways. When I was a teen I didn’t know how to be supportive like that. Perhaps the author used the stories as a guide to teens in how to be supportive. Through the first two seasons most of the emotions were pretty happy. The actors had it rather easy. In season three we see much more difficult situations. And I can see the actors are quite good. The characters are supposed to be 15 and 16 but act more like they’re older than 18, and I’m sure the actors are well into their 20s. There is way too much alcohol for kids who are 16 (probably too much for kids who are 18). And it wasn’t just Charlie’s birthday party – there was too much alcohol at the Halloween party, which Nick attended alone, and at the New Year’s Eve party when Charlie was 15. For characters and intended audience this young I wish the book author and show writers had come up with a different way for them to party. Observers have noticed that over the last few months people have been leaving the nasty guy’s rallies before they were over. Kos of Daily Kos reported his campaign has found a way to make them stay. And, of course, it didn’t turn out well. The nasty guy held a rally in the desert in Coachella, California. This is the town of the famous music festival that draws a quarter million fans. But the nasty guy didn’t use that venue. He held it at a private ranch. A question I won’t bother answering: With California absolutely going for Harris why is the nasty guy wasting campaign time there? But onward. For this rally attendees parked in three designated locations and shuttled to the venue by bus. Some started showing up at 6am. The rally ended at 7pm, meaning the crowd, limited to 15K, had spent the day in the hot sun. Well after 10pm thousands of people were still waiting for buses to take them back to their cars. At the venue there is no longer food or water or restroom facilities. A walk to the parking lot would take two hours and many elderly can’t walk that far. Some said the busses ran out of fuel. Even if they did Kos showed several gas stations just a couple miles from the site. Kos said the crowd response got weird. Some posting about the situation blamed the mayor, who had nothing to do with the event. Others posted and felt they had to delete the posts because they were “causing drama” – they were making the nasty guy look bad and devotees objected. Kos wrote:

Having stranded thousands in the hot desert, Trump and his campaign can’t even be bothered to issue an apology to their own people. They were used, abused, and tossed aside.

But they didn’t leave the rally early. Oliver Willis of Kos reported:

On Saturday, federal agencies were forced to move employees assisting with hurricane recovery efforts in North Carolina following reports of a militia threat against the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The incident follows days of Donald Trump and his allies in conservative media promoting lies about Hurricane Helene and the federal response. ... “FEMA has advised all federal responders Rutherford County, NC, to stand down and evacuate the county immediately,” the Post quoted from the email, adding that recipients were advised that the National Guard “had come across x2 trucks of armed militia saying there were out hunting FEMA” and that the agency was “coordinating the evacuation of all assigned personnel in that county.”

Willis also reported Jake Tapper, host of The Lead on CNN, did a segment on the definition of fascism and that the nasty guy fit that description. Tapper quoted Merriam-Webster:

a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition

Tapper’s evidence included: + Declaring there is “the enemy from within” and that he said he would consider using the US military or National Guard to go after opponents. + Gen. Mark Milley, who had been chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the nasty guy, was quoted in Bob Woodward’s interview of saying the nasty guy was “fascist to the core.” + The Capitol attack. + His verbal attacks on FEMA leading to threats of physical attacks. In the comments of a pundit roundup is a meme posted by Ridin’ With Kamala: “All I want for Christmas is to never hear his voice again.” In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted David Faris of Slate, who would like to get rid of the Electoral College. The EC is bad in more than distorting democracy, but also the distribution of federal aid and even distorting news.

While it appears the Biden administration is treating the impact of this season’s hurricanes as it should, the media’s focus on the almost unfathomable catastrophe in the western mountains of swing state North Carolina is a stark contrast to the near-total absence of attention to what’s going on just over the state line in deep-red Tennessee—complete with the obligatory analyses of how the hurricane’s aftermath might impact the outcome in the Tar Heel State. As for the electoral impact of Helene in Tennessee, no one is asking and no one cares. That kind of coverage disparity is an almost inevitable consequence of swing-state mania, and we shouldn’t be surprised when it seeps into policy decisions.

Down in the comments are several cartoons noting Columbus Day. In the comments of another pundit roundup are several cartoons making the repurposing of Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples Day. Mark Fiore posted one of his cartoons from two years ago. It shows a girl writing a poem for class:

In 1492 Columbus Sailed the ocean blue. He tortured & killed the people he found, Brought slavery & genocide all the world around. An inept explorer who left thousands dead, it’s why we celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day instead.

A meme posted by Hugh Jim Bissell shows a native chief saying, “Let me get this straight. You’re afraid of refugees coming to America, killing you, and taking your property?” Bissel also posted a meme showing the Capitol attack and saying, “Catching people sneaking across the border won’t make us safer when these people are already here.” Sharon Lerner and Andy Kroll, in an article for ProPublica posted on Kos, reported:

Three investigators for the Heritage Foundation have deluged federal agencies with thousands of Freedom of Information Act requests over the past year, requesting a wide range of information on government employees, including communications that could be seen as a political liability by conservatives. Among the documents they’ve sought are lists of agency personnel and messages sent by individual government workers that mention, among other things, “climate equity,” “voting” or “SOGIE,” an acronym for sexual orientation, gender identity and expression. The Heritage team filed these requests even as the think tank’s Project 2025 was promoting a controversial plan to remove job protections for tens of thousands of career civil servants so they could be identified and fired if Donald Trump wins the presidential election.

There may be as many as 50,000 requests submitted over the past two years. They are asking for calendar dumps, team messages that include the designated phrases, and communications with civil rights and voting rights groups. The requests, which sometimes “come in at a rate of one a second,” do indeed interfere with the ability to do the regular job. Gumming up government functions may be a secondary goal. The primary goal is to identify the government employees that should be purged if the nasty guy gets back in the Oval Office and begins to implement Project 2025, giving him space to install loyalists throughout the government. Michael Harriot, in a thread now in Threadreader, wrote about the importance of black barbershops. They’re a combination of church, political headquarters, secret hideout, and gathering spot. They are one of “the most important, most revolutionary institutions in Black history.” Their history is as old as America. When a slave was about to be sold they needed cleaning up. A white barber wouldn’t do it, so they hired a black “barber boy.” They could earn enough to buy their freedom and open their own business. The barbershop was one of the few places where black people could talk freely without white people around. Black barbers were held in high esteem, which meant they could fund and be a part of the Underground Railroad. Having a barber in the effort meant a slave’s appearance could be altered before they were passed along the route. Black barbers also taught black people how to read. They could also become quite rich and important to a community. In the early 1880s Philadelphia was at the center of the Abolition movement. Black people built schools and the first HBCUs. The AME church was founded there. There was also an abolitionist newspaper. When a delegate was chosen fot the first National Negro Convention they didn’t send a leader of any of those institutions, they sent a black barber, Joseph Cassey, who was also the second richest man in the city. He had funded some of those institutions. Also during that time a black man was the barber to the president (which one is not named). He is reported to have influence over his customer. A network of barbers organized a National Slave Revolt. By 1860 they had 42,000 people trained and ready. The revolt didn’t happen because the Civil War happened instead. Barbers were instrumental during the Civil Rights era. If you are trying to influence the black community or want to get elected you need to visit a black barbershop.