Earthquakes don’t kill people, badly built buildings do

My friend and debate partner responded to yesterday’s post as part of our ongoing debate about whether music can change the world. In that debate I had included a quote from Maya Angelou:

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

I had also talked again about the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra made up of Israelis and Arabs. My friend wrote:

I made a point of praising music's capability to convey emotion as one of its strengths, and I do value that. But notice that Angelou only claims that "people will never forget how you made them feel". There is no claim that said emotion(s) lead those feeling people to change their behavior. If music is to change the world to the degree we are discussing, it must change behavior in large numbers of people. I don't credit music with that, although I do seek music out and care about it. To return briefly to the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, I do not doubt that it has a great effect on those who participate in it and I'm happy it exists. But I doubt that it changes even its participants -- instead, I think appreciation for this politically charged music-making is a prerequisite for becoming a participant. These are people who are being the change they wish to create -- essential in creating change. But changing the world was our subject. Everything I know about Israel / Palestine says that the world around these musicians is not listening very much and, sadly, not changing. Instead, the Us vs Them cultures on both sides grow steadily more bitter. The Middle East is riven with "honor" cultures where people never forget and are committed to revenge. The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra is not to blame for that, but it is also not an effective agent of change.

All excellent points. I confirm that my friend is an avid music lover, though of tastes different from mine, so we don’t attend events together. I’ll go back to one of the responses in my post from last Saturday that started this debate. Can music change the world? Hasn’t yet. And I’ll set this debate aside. Hunter of Daily Kos discussed a report by Asawin Suebsaeng and Patrick Reis of Rolling Stone saying the nasty guy has been talking in campaign meetings about expanding the federal death penalty to apply to less serious crimes and then turning the executions into flashy televised shows featuring the firing squad, hanging, and maybe even the guillotine. The nasty guy had wanted to do this during his firs term but was dissuaded by staff. No doubt they knew most Americans would be horrified. Most. But those in his base who shrug at an attempted coup would love to see such spectacles. On the one hand this is a reminder that the nasty guy is a stupid, malignant boor. On the other, he appears to be completely serious about it. Hunter concluded:

Trump's admiration for murderous authoritarian regimes remains quite real. His base's enthusiasm for maximum cruelty, whether it is aimed at refugees or schoolchildren, protestors or criminals, has only grown. A very large chunk of Donald Trump's base consists of Americans who like the idea of watching other Americans be executed on television. These are people who frothed for the capture of lawmakers during an attempted coup; there is no depth to which they will not willingly sink, so long as they have a leader willing to point the way. Trump is a sociopathic and seditionist would-be dictator, but the Republican base loves him for it. This malignant, poisonous presence could very well decide to turn "flashier state murders" into a major campaign theme so that he can bellow that all the other Republican contenders are too "soft."

Mark Sumner of Kos, in discussing the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria, noted that the city of Erzin had no major damage and no deaths. Osmaniye and Iskenderun on either side of Erzin were heavily damaged and many died. The mayor of Erzin explained:

Earthquakes don’t kill people, badly built buildings do. Not a single building collapsed in Erzin, Hatay, perhaps because the Mayor never signed off on unsafe or “kaçak” buildings. Residents were angry at him, he says. But he was saving their lives.

Erzin has a history of mayors that insisted on adhering to the earthquake resistant building codes. In other cities most of the buildings that collapsed were because of corruption. The builders did not build them according to earthquake codes. And that corruption goes all the way to Turkish President Erdogan. Sumner quoted NPR, which said Erdogan bragged about his zoning amnesty. He allowed contracts to ignore building codes that would make houses and offices more resistant to earthquakes. Then he gave amnesty to the unscrupulous builders. Sumner added:

As anger over both the response and the unsafe building increases, it’s very much worth noting that the area most affected by this quake is also the area that gave the heaviest support to Erdogan in the last election. Erdogan won that election with 52.6% of the national vote, but he carried those same areas around Osmaniye and Iskenderun and Erzin with over 70% of the local vote. Anger toward his government isn’t just growing, it’s growing in the area of Turkey he needs most to win reelection. That election is coming soon. A “snap” presidential election is scheduled for June 23. That election was already considered to be competitive. Now it will be taking place against the background of fallen cities and videos of Erdogan bragging about how he allowed contractors to skimp on safety.

Also, American Republicans want to get rid of government oversight. In a Ukraine update from last weekend Sumner reported the hottest area of fighting right now isn’t Bakhmut, the city that Russia has been trying to take for months (it is still in Ukrainian hands). The hottest area is Vuhledar. Unlike Bakhmut, Vuhledar actually has some strategic value – taking it would protect fragile Russian supply lines. The assault on Vuhledar and Bakhmut and other areas is not going in Russia’s favor. Sumner wrote:

Four days ago, it was big news when Ukraine reported 1,030 Russian soldiers killed in a day, with most of those losses taking place near Vuhledar or Bakhmut. That marked Tuesday as the biggest day for Russian losses since the invasion began. Then Russia lost over 900 more on Wednesday, and 900 more on Thursday as another catastrophic advance at Vuhledar was followed by that failure at Kreminna. The Friday number was something of a decline, with “only” 750 Russian troops eliminated — a rate that, if it continued, would still see more than 270,000 losses in a year. But then the astoundingly foolish assault on Avdiivka combined with more bad decisions at all of the above, and the end result is that on Saturday the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported that Russia had lost an absolutely staggering 1,140 men in one day. There are estimates that Russia now has 320,000 troops in Ukraine. If they keep falling at the rate they were lost this week, all of them will be dead before the end of the year. It’s worth noting that those Russian losses haven’t come in the form we’ve become familiar with after watching months of activity near Bakhmut — small companies of men sent across fields or along streets between ruined buildings with little to no armor support. All week long the losses have come in the form of entire armored units blasted to smithereens along roadways. In part this has come because Russia has done what Ukraine refused to do: attempt to assault fortified positions in conditions that meant armor was restricted to traveling along a few narrow roadways. In part it’s because Russia seems to be replicating with its armored forces the tactics that it had “mastered” with infantry — if at first everyone gets killed, just send more. The result of this is that each of these days has come not just with astounding losses of men, but almost equally staggering losses of equipment. Since Tuesday, Ukrainian forces have destroyed 36 Russian tanks. Twenty five tanks were lost in two days. These are unsustainable levels of loss.

That prompted Sumner to chart out how quickly Russia is losing tanks compared to how quickly they can build new ones. At his computed rate they may have only 37% in working order at the end of the year. Sumner reminded us Ukraine cannot build its own tanks – an important manufacturing site was in Crimea and captured in 2014. So all of Ukraine’s tanks come from the West – and from Russia through battleground captures. Charles Johnson tweeted a page from “The KGB’s Magical War for ‘Peace’” by John Barron. It was written some time in the Soviet era. Johnson highlighted a paragraph that is a quote from Maj. Stanislav Aleksandrovich Levchenko, who fled the KGB and came to America. The quote is about how the KGB distorted reality (something Putin, a former KGB person, still does). Here’s part of it:

Almost everybody wants peace and fears war. Therefore, by every conceivable means, the KGB plans and coordinates campaigns to persuade the public that whatever America does endangers peace and that whatever the Soviet Union proposes furthers peace. To be for America is to be for war; to be for the Soviets is to be for peace. That’s the art of Active Measures, a sort of made-in-Moscow black magic. It is tragic to see how well it works.

Charles Jay of the Kos community told the story of Vladimir Romanenko, age 24. He had been working for the Russian propaganda site Komsomolskaya Pravda (KP). He had become disillusioned with the war and its propaganda. So as the one year anniversary of the start of the war approaches, he posted a series of ten articles on KP. For example, one was titled “The Russian Federation committed crimes in Bucha, Izyum, and Hostomel.” Of course, the articles were removed within ten minutes. Romanenko is physically safe. When the mobilization was announced in September he left Russia, even though media workers wouldn’t be called up. He won’t say in which country he is living. He had been working remotely and is now, of course, out of a job. There was another mass shooting in Michigan, this one on the Michigan State University campus. It happened on Monday. In a report on Tuesday Aysha Qamar of Kos discussed what had been learned by then. Qamar reported that Jackie Matthews is a senior at MSU. She had been a student at Sandy Hook Elementary when fellow students were gunned down. She said “The fact that this is the second mass shooting that I have now lived through is incomprehensible.” There is also a student described as having “witnessed the shooting” who is wearing an Oxford Strong shirt. The shooting at Oxford was only 15 months ago. Qamar included a quote by Dan Hodges:

In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.

That’s an important insight, but maybe it isn’t over. Since Tuesday Michigan Radio has reported on vigils on campus and rallies at the state Capitol, just a few miles from campus. There Democrats, now in control of the legislature and governor’s office, vow they will have bills to curb a bit of the violence. Rick Pluta reported:

House Democratic leaders said bills are still being finalized. But they said the legislation will almost certainly include universal background checks, red-flag rules that would allow guns to be taken from people who are deemed a threat to themselves or others, and a requirement that guns be locked up when not in use. Governor Gretchen Whitmer says she is ready to sign the bills.

Those laws will help, but won’t be enough. David Horsley of the Seattle Times tweeted a cartoon of a family lying on the ground as bullets zip overhead. The mother says, “I don’t know what to call this, but it isn’t freedom!” To that Amy Mader replied:

Exactly! Those bullets have the freedom to pierce human flesh but I can't go to the movies, concerts, bars, school, college, church, grocery shopping, etc. Guns in Walmart, guns in target, guns in Starbucks. Can't piss off a driver, might have a gun.

Neda Ulaby of NPR reported that an art gallery in Washington DC is displaying the work of Stephanie Mercedes. The art is bells cast from bullet casings and parts of old guns that she has melted down. She makes bells with the metal because they carry spiritual significance across cultures and they are tolled for mourning. She is gay and Latina and the project was inspired by the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. Many of these bells are not beautiful and some look like the weapons they used to be. Joan McCarter of Kos reported the White House has released a fact sheet on the federal budget and Republican hypocrisy. McCarter included this WH tweet that sums it up:

President Biden’s budget will cut the deficit by around $2 trillion over 10 years. Congressional Republicans are backing plans that will add more than $3 trillion to the debt over 10 years.

In a speech on Tuesday Biden said he told McCarthy they should meet to compare budgets, compare what gets spent where, what gets cuts, and who does and doesn’t get taxed. But McCarthy won’t raise taxes and just wants to cut. McCarter laid out why the budget will increase by $3 trillion under Republican plans.

It’s all true, and Biden proceeded to lay it all out in his speech, and the White House backed it up in that fact sheet: The $114 billion they would add to the debt in their bill to protect wealthy tax cheats (the first bill they passed this year); the $159 billion they’d add to the debt by repealing reforms that lower prescription drug costs from Medicare; trying to repeal corporate tax increases to the tune of $269 billion in debt increases; and their insistence that the Trump tax cuts continue, “a $2.7 trillion debt increase that would give the top 0.1% (with incomes over $4 million per year) a $175,000 annual tax cut, over 2.5 times a typical family’s annual income.”

McCarter titled the piece using the phrase “GOP deficit peacocks” which seems to be quite accurate. CameronProf of the Kos community echoed a story from Outsports that reported Jakub Jankto has come out as gay. He is the first active men’s player in international football (what we call soccer) to come out. His Czech team is fully supportive, as is UEFA, European football’s governing body.

America’s Chernobyl

My Sunday movie was No Straight Lines, The Rise of Queer Comics, a documentary by Independent Lens on PBS. I had known about this film for quite a while and had it in my list of films to watch, but I could not find which streaming service it was on. That’s because it was released only a month ago. The story started with the age of censorship. The first gay and lesbian comics were underground. For a while they had to create their own ways to publish. Then in the 1990s every state had its own LGBT newspaper and suddenly they had a big new market, enough to consider syndication. This was a golden time. But with the rise of the internet and those big shopping websites the publishing landscape dried up. Some authors turned to do it yourself zines. Many eventually turned to webcomics and graphic novels. The movie featured one I knew – Alison Bechdel – and another four I hadn’t. Howard Cruse submitted cartoons to an independent newspaper and the editor asked him to be the editor of Gay Comix. That featured his own stuff plus whoever else wanted to contribute. Cruse created Wendel – a gay young man falling in love with another. Wendel had never been closeted, but his boyfriend was. He also created Stuck Rubber Baby, a graphic novel about being gay in the South. Mary Wings started writing Come Out Comix in 1973. Rupert Kinnard, a black man, developed the Brown Bomber, a black and gay superhero. Jennifer Camper drew sexy comics for dykes. She also drew the AIDS epidemic because she was living through it and it was claiming people she knew. There were also appearances by another 17 queer comics, most of whom I hadn’t heard of before, though I had heard (and posted about) Maia Kobabe. Most of these are part of the younger generations. All of then were drawing art about their lives. Looks like I’ll have many new books to check out and perhaps buy. I watched this film on the PBS website, where they say it is free until mid April. Alas, it was not a smooth viewing experience. There was a short pause in the film about every five seconds. A movie that was 1:15 took about 1:30 to get through. I considered not watching because of it. I did shut down my browser and restart to eliminate as many background tasks from other pages as I could. It didn’t help. After No Straight Lines there was a ten minute documentary titled Senior Prom. This is a prom at a senior center where many of the residents are LGBTQ. Some of them weren’t allowed to attend their high school prom in the way they wanted, others went as part of a straight couple. So this was a chance to have a prom they way they wanted. One of them said they want the youngsters to know that LGBTQ relationships can last. My friend and debate partner has been doing his debate thing, which is good. In my previous post I included a variation on a Maya Angelou quote:

When someone shows you over and over and over again that they are a traitor, believe them.

My friend wondered about the original. I found it on AZ Quotes of Angelou, about a third of the way down the page:

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. People know themselves much better than you do. That's why it's important to stop expecting them to be something other than who they are.

I had heard the first sentence before, without the last three words. In that previous post I also discussed whether music can change the world. My friend offered a “no” and added:

I think that some uses of language – impactful, meaningful messages – can and do change the world. The U.S. Constitution is one example; I think I could offer many others. But music as a messaging language is too abstract and imprecise, too open to varying interpretation by diverse listeners, to provide a message that changes the world. Each listener has a different version of the language heard in music. That's not a weakness – it is that abstraction that makes music valuable as a conveyor of emotion.

He added that it isn’t only language that can change the world – actions can too. An example of that is the attack on Pearl Harbor. I reply that one shouldn’t discount the emotional power of music. Adding music to the language increases its emotional impact. That’s exactly what opera is all about. As for changing the world, which has more impact, the words “We shall overcome” or the Civil Rights song “We shall overcome?” I’m sure many in my generation and older probably now have going through their head. And I think that is an example of music that changed (or at least helped change) the country. Did that song by itself bring about the successes of the Civil Rights movement? Of course not. It also needed Martin Luther King’s soaring words of his “I Have a Dream” speech and the many marches and sit-ins and bus boycotts. But voices raised in singing “We shall overcome” added an emotional impact of determination that certainly helped the cause. My friend is skeptical about the music of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra I had mentioned that placed Israelis and Arabs side by side. My friend said it wasn’t the music,

it was the particular community created to make that music. A cooperative effort at governing likely would have a better chance of creating change.

I agree that a community was built as the Israelis and Arabs played together. However, I believe that community was strengthened through the emotional impact of the music and that the players were creating a thing of beauty together. Designing a cooperative government doesn’t have the emotional impact and beauty, even though it may have greater lasting consequences. Skeptical about emotional impact? Another Angelou quote I saw while scanning for the one above:

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

An Israeli feeling joy and other positive emotions with an Arab sitting beside him definitely helps. The Michigan COVID data, updated yesterday, show the peaks in new cases per day over the last few weeks as: 870, 889, 813, and 760. We’re still in a plateau, though heading in the right direction. As for deaths per day, this data takes much longer to post. The last two weeks show numbers 12 and lower. But three weeks before then is a day now reporting 37 deaths. Michel Martin of NPR spoke to journalist Josiah Daniels about the “He Gets Us’ ad campaign that has been around for at least a year and ran some of its ads during the Super Bowl. Here’s the narration of one of the ads:

A rebel took to the streets. He recruited others to join him. They roamed the hood and challenged authority. Community leaders feared them. Religious leaders abhorred them. We have to get them off the streets, they said. But they weren't part of a gang spreading hate and terror. They were spreading love.

Yes, it’s talking about Jesus. From this bit of text it sounds like a fairly accurate description of Jesus as I understand him. Martin said:

It's a riveting series of ads that place the biblical figure into current newsworthy situations, like being a refugee or isolated loner or condemned prisoner. And they all end with the line, he gets us, all of us.

Daniels said the ads resonated with him. But then he became skeptical, especially when one ad compared Jesus being crucified with being “canceled.” Being killed is not the same as having to deal with the consequences of something one has said or done. Most of the donors to this campaign are anonymous, though one has spoken out. That person is the co-founder of Hobby Lobby, the arts and crafts supplier. And that person is now a billionaire. He was behind the legal fight that went all the way to the Supremes that ruled companies don’t have to provide contraception care if it goes against their religious beliefs. The ad agency has also created spots for those who oppose LGBTQ rights. Daniels said:

For me, I think that it's a little bit of a situation where your treasure is, there, your heart will be also. ... they are telling us in no uncertain terms that while on the one hand, their messaging might be that Jesus accepts everybody, they are working with groups who certainly do not accept everybody. And so that makes me extremely suspicious.

One purpose of the campaign seems to be to redefine Jesus because he’s been damaged by Christian hypocrisy. Yet it is Christian hypocrisy that is paying for this campaign. Want to rebrand Jesus? Then make tangible commitments and steps to do the things Jesus did, such as include and take care of the marginalized and to promote social justice. When Jesus says whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me, it is both a theological and political statement. Rebekah Sager of Daily Kos added more detail. That Hobby Lobby co-founder is David Green and he declared his support for the campaign during a visit to the Glen Beck show. The budget for the Super Bowl campaign was $20 million. And that prompted Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to tweet:

Something tells me Jesus would *not* spend millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads to make fascism look benign

The Critical Mind of the Kos community included some of the lines and images of the ads. This post also explores the hypocrisy then asks are these ads to promote the Biblical Jesus or the contemporary, hateful, conservative Jesus? There isn’t enough info to answer that question. Or this one: Who are these ads for?

Will ads that say “Jesus gets us” convince atheists to become religious? Are they intended to switch non-Christian believers to Christianity? Or are they directed at current Christians to deepen their faith and make them less likely to bolt?

Those who leave Christianity usually do so because of how badly they were treated. These ads are unlikely to bring them back. And is it worth spending $1 billion (the price of the whole campaign) to get them back or to try to convert people of other faiths?

Or is this campaign focused on wavering Christians who like Jesus’ message but hate the institutional bigotry of some denominations? The changing religious demographics of America support the last position. ... However, looking at how Christianity—especially the well-funded kind backed by zealots with an agenda—has operated over the last 100 years in America, the smart money would bet this is a Trojan Horse. Even the well-intentioned person of faith often succumbs to the howling of the mob. Especially if they attend mega-churches packed with ululating congregations, whipped into a righteous frenzy by a money-mad sociopath bent on buying a bigger house. To all the people of modest faith who try to live charitable lives as your savior wanted, I wish you well. And I hope that you stay true to your values. Especially if this “He gets us” campaign is a duplicitous cover for the usual sanctimonious bigotry of the rapine opportunist. Because God knows America should not be even more religiously execrable than it is already.

A train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio about ten days ago. The news stories told of the toxic chemicals onboard and that townspeople were evacuated. Unicorn Riot tweeted a ten minute video that discusses the how toxic the contents are. I didn’t watch the video, though did read through his thread. And that thread talks about how dangerous the chemicals are, how disastrous this is – and how it seems authorities are letting people back way too soon. The thread also talks about a “hot box detector” should have triggered the train to stop, but didn’t. It also mentions that the exhausted and overworked railroad workers were forced by Congress and Biden into a contract in December, a contract that sided with owners making huge profits. Those profits could have been spent on safety upgrades, but weren’t. There are dead animals and fish in the area and towns and cities along the Ohio River now need to monitor their water for these poisonous chemicals. This week’s Gaslit Nation episode was mostly about the East Palestine mess. This is the regular episode, so the hour of audio should be accessible. Hosts Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa don’t hold back. I thought I could listen while putting groceries away and doing general cleaning, but I had to stop every fifteen minutes or so to take notes. Andrea, whose family is from Ukraine and visited frequently in her childhood, calls this America’s Chernobyl. Yes, they say, it is that bad. Effects may extend fifty miles around the town – an area that includes Pittsburgh – and may last decades. The train company, Norfolk Southern, allowed this to happen because the safety mandates imposed by the Obama administration were weakened by the nasty guy. Some rich guys wanted to save money by reducing regulations (which also reduced safety) and his administration was happy to comply. It is these weakened safety regulations, even more than impending fascism, that will be the most harmful legacy of the nasty guy. These weakened safety regulations means we’re being ruled by American Oligarchs who have corrupted our political system. Chalupa said that much of the time after Ukraine became independent of the Soviet Union their country suffered under oligarch corruption. They are dismantling that corruption, but it has taken sacrifices by many people. Do we want to sacrifice a generation of Americans to root out our corruption, or will national leadership make that easier? We know Republicans thrive on that corruption and have no intention of ending it. But Kendzior and Chalupa look at the currently Democratic leadership and see no sign of them doing anything about it. There is so little effort to end corruption that Kendzior wishes Bernie Sanders would run against Biden in the primaries. Sanders isn’t great, but at least he talks about corruption. Many times Democrats get a pass for ignoring corruption because they can say, “Hey, it’s us or fascism,” an easy choice for many people. But people are watching this inaction (which seems to include a media silence on this train wreck) and concluding Democrats are no better than Republicans. Come election time they’re likely to sit out. And in Pennsylvania – very much affected by this disaster – that could make a big difference in who wins. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is one who has been slow to respond. I did a web search of him today. In the first page is a link to a story by the New York Post dated two days ago (more than a week after the wreck) with the title “Pete Buttigieg slammed for silence on Ohio train derailment.” And one a day later by Newsweek titled “Pete Buttigieg breaks silence after criticism over Ohio train derailment.” (I didn’t read either story.) Kendzior and Chalupa say that if Buttigieg doesn’t come down hard on the rail company it is a sign he has sold out. Biden and Buttigieg can show they haven’t sold out by first stopping the news blackout and being much more transparent about what is going on. Then they need to reinstitute the weakened safety regulations. Rail companies used the pandemic to cut staff and create what they call “precision scheduling.” When the railroad union contracts were before Congress last December the consequence of precision scheduling we heard about was that workers didn’t get sick leave or many other days off. However, another big consequence was they no longer had sufficient staff for adequate safety checks. Workers also say rail companies are now making the trains too long, making “hotbox” detection impossible to spot. During that time Biden could have sided with the workers – and didn’t. Yes, rail workers are saying this disaster could have been prevented if train crews were adequately staffed and allowed to do proper safety checks. Instead, the rail companies made whopping profits. Several times Chalupa referred to the genocidal corporate class. We need to be protected from those genocidal intentions and the people who should be doing that aren’t. Chalupa told us about Cop City. It’s a proposed area outside of Atlanta where a large area of forest will be flattened and $90 million will be spent on facilities where cops can live out their fantasies through war games. A big question is: Why do cops need to play war games? One person has already been killed protesting the destruction of the forest. Chalupa mentioned this for an important reason: A hefty chunk of the money comes from Norfolk Southern. Time for a grin or two. I’ve written many times about articles hiding in my browser tabs sometimes for many months. I don’t think I’ve ever had more than 175 tabs active at once. Even so I appreciate this Wumo cartoon. And this Candorville cartoon succinctly summarizes a lot of what those towards the top of the social hierarchy believe, which means it is a lot of what this blog is about. The Minnesota Department of Transportation has announced the names bestowed on its 2023 class of snowplows. The names include “Sleetwood Mac,” “Clearopathra,” and “Han Snowlo.”

What, you’re against transparency?

NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (the weather people in our government) has a National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). Hunter of Daily Kos reported that the NCEI tallied the financial (and only financial) costs of 2021’s climate disasters. In this report a “disaster” is an event resulting in $1 billion or more in damages. There were 20 of them in 2021. The damage of these 20 events is $145 billion. This is the cost of not trying to do something about climate change. Over the next ten years $1.5 trillion is the lower bound of what climate disasters will cost. Compare that to the $1.7 trillion cost of the BBB bill (spread over ten years and not yet passed by the Senate because a few key senators think it is too big). And the three-quarter trillion defense budget for this year alone. Laura Clawson of Kos reported on the current efforts of Christopher Rufo. He’s the guy that turned Critical Race Theory from an obscure term used in graduate schools into the latest boogeyman threatening elementary schools. The current effort is the word “transparency.” He plans to attach the word to a requirement that schools post all curriculum materials on the internet so that parents can inspect and object. Of course, we know what conservative agitators will encourage parents to object to. And what conservative parents demand will take the choice out of the hands of progressive parents or require teachers to have a personalized curricula for each student with a meddlesome parent. And when progressives cry foul Rufo has a ready answer. What, you’re against transparency? What is the school board trying to hide? And there is no way to prove the board is hiding nothing. Clawson also reported on a new education bill in Indiana that is against teaching “divisive” concepts. Matt Bockenfeld, a history teacher, went to a committee hearing and spoke against the bill.

For example, it’s the second semester of U.S. history, so we're learning about the rise of fascism and the rise of Nazism right now. And I'm just not neutral on the political ideology of fascism. We condemn it, and we condemn it in full, and I tell my students the purpose, in a democracy, of understanding the traits of fascism is so that we can recognize it and we can combat it. Of course, we're neutral on political issues of the day. We don't stand up and say who we voted for or anything like that. But we're not neutral on Nazism. We take a stand in the classroom against it, and it matters that we do.

Clawson wrote about State Senator Scott Baldwin, one of the co-authors of the bill:

Baldwin took exception to that. “I have no problem with the education system providing instruction on the existence of” Nazism, fascism, or Marxism, he said. “I believe that we've gone too far when we take a position on those isms ... We need to be impartial.” Impartial. About Nazis. ... Taken as a whole, this bill is an instrument of intimidation aimed at schools and teachers, to prevent the teaching of anything that any parent objects to. Any white parent, anyway. ... This is about intimidating teachers, about making their jobs more difficult. About dismantling public education as a public good that serves all children. That it’s using bigotry as its cover is all too appropriate.

The only people who demand we be impartial about Nazis are people who want to do what Nazis did. Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, in his freshman term in the House, is right up there with Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene as the people most eager to support the nasty guy and bring on fascism. Hunter of Kos listed the evidence and wrote:

A group of 11 North Carolinians who definitely do not want a forever-lying fascism fetishist representing them have now filed a challenge to Cawthorn's 2022 candidacy, and the challenge centers Cawthorn's support for the attempted nullification of a U.S. election. The 14th Amendment of the Constitution, ratified immediately after the Civil War, bars those who mount an "insurrection" against the government from candidacy for federal office—and there's a solid case to be made that Cawthorn's personal actions to promote and abet the Jan. 6 insurrection fall squarely in the definition of "insurrection" the amendment (and over a century’s worth of court decisions) have spelled out. So if we're going to follow the Constitution, Cawthorn can't serve. And if he can't serve, he's not allowed to run.

Sounds like a very fine lawsuit. It is disappointing that citizens groups are having to bring the suits. Realistically, the various NC state boards and agencies – this is a Republican controlled state – are not going to keep Cawthorn from running again. But there’s enough evidence in the suit it can’t be dismissed. The suit asks for the right to issue subpoenas and to depose Cawthorn. Hunter wrote:

"We look forward to questioning him under oath," attorney Ron Fein noted to the Associated Press. And that is probably the catch they're most fishing for here. Not just State Board of Elections hearings on their challenge, but an opportunity to get Cawthorn on the record once and for all either supporting or distancing himself from the plot to erase an election. If he sticks to his guns even under oath, it's solid evidence that he intended "insurrection" according to the 14th Amendment's framework. If he doesn't ... Donald Trump will be mad at him. Very, very mad.

If Cawthorn distances himself can we get him for perjury? I agree with Hunter: More of this, please. Georgia Logothetis, in a pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Herman Wolf, writing for The Nation about the filibuster. In the push to get voting rights bills passed, the filibuster is back in the center of the debate. Wrote wolf:

A mere procedural rule should not be able to add a supermajority precondition to consideration or passage of proposed electoral legislation. That would amount to allowing that rule to become a de facto amendment of the Constitution. Throughout the Constitution and our history—indeed in every democracy—legislative outcomes are based on majority rule. When a supermajority is deemed necessary, it is specifically provided for, as with treaties, amendments, and impeachment convictions in our country. A supermajority prerequisite to consideration of all legislation is especially anomalous and, in fact, astonishing, given the framers’ intense hostility to supermajorities and to the minority rule they produce.

Democracy Docket, a platform for information about voting rights and democracy, tweeted about a way Senator Schumer might bypass the filibuster to get voting rights bills passed. I’ll summarize and let you read the details. When the House and Senate pass different versions of a bill it goes to a reconciliation committee. “Once the bill has been sent between chambers three times, the motion to proceed CANNOT be filibustered in the Senate.” The plan is to take a bill where this has happened and replace the bill’s entire language with the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, quickly pass it in the House, and forward it to the Senate. In the Senate it goes straight to floor debate. Yeah, Republicans will try to pile on amendments to gut it. But this could be a way to get it done. David Roberts tweeted that legislation tends to be progressive. An active government is a tool for change. A conservative, one who benefits from the status quo power dynamics, wants government to leave things alone. Some lawmakers complain that without the filibuster, without bipartisan solutions, policy would whiplash back and forth. But once progressive policies are enacted, people like the help they get, and the policies become hard to undo (see: “Keep your hands off my Medicare!”). Conservatives know from their view it is much better to make sure such policies never get enacted.

Making normal legislation impossible, especially w/ an obscure & mostly hidden procedural quirk like the filibuster, is ideal for the GOP. It makes Dems look feckless & gov't look dysfunctional. It causes general f***-the-system angst *that benefits conservatives*. Anyway, yeah: the filibuster is for people who don't want government to do things and know that in a true one-person-one-vote democracy, government would do a bunch of things. So they need to prevent too much democracy. Everything else around this debate is noise.

So Sen. Joe Manchin and his colleagues who insist on maintaining the filibuster are acting like conservatives who don’t want the government to help people, who do want the government to protect their position in the current power dynamic. David Rothkopf, who is on the board of contributors of USA Today, tweeted:

People make a mistake in talking about the Democratic and Republican caucuses in the Senate or describing the Senate as being split 50-50. There is a pro-democracy caucus and an anti-democracy caucus and they are split 48-52.

Buc Nasty replied:

Correction, there is a pro white supremacy caucus and anti white supremacy caucus and they are split 48-52.

An update on my COVID experience. I’m feeling good. No sore throat, no reaching for tissues. Now that I’m over symptoms it is good to get a confirmation test. I waited until afternoon so I could combine that trip with going to the mall for a walk, then get groceries. When I called the clinic I had been to before they were out of tests for the day. I went to the mall and grocery store anyway. And kept my mask on. I had heard that omicron infects the upper respiratory tract – the throat and nose – and tends to not burrow into the lungs so much. Which is what I just experienced. That allows it to spread more quickly while causing less severe illness and less death. That prompted Peter Hotez, professor of pediatric molecular virology, to tweet:

My view? Omicron like the upper respiratory CoVs will not induce lasting immunity. Assuming this wave subsides in February we might get lucky and have an uneventful spring. But then a new variant will emerge from unvaccinated LMICs and sweep across the American South in summer

Commenter David Finton says “LMICs” means “Low/Middle Income Countries.” Leah McElrath tweeted a thread about education during the pandemic. There isn’t just “lost learning” because of students out of school or dealing with remote learning. Even if education is going well the grades students are getting now may not reflect ability. She concluded:

We are failing our children—literally and figuratively—by pretending the pandemic is a mere logistical issue rather than a collective trauma. The failure to respond proportionally to this event is IN ITSELF compounding the trauma experienced by children, parents, and teachers.

Derik Chica, an award winning teacher, tweeted:

I’ve been in non-stop calls with students. Guess what their #1 mental health concern is? It’s not in-person learning… They, and their families, are getting COVID. They are trying to focus on school and their graduation plans despite being bedridden with sickness. They need to focus on their health and rest. They want to do well in school. This is causing stress. ... Catching COVID causes mental health chaos. Opening schools without significant investment in safety is going to amplify this and we are not prepared.

His students are marginalized people. Opening schools for “mental health” is inequitable. Aysha Qamar of Kos reported that the US Mint is issuing new quarters honoring American Women. Similar to the quarters that honored the 50 states, then honored national parks and monuments in each state, these quarters will have George Washington on the front and one of several images on the back. The first one is already out and honors Maya Angelou. Qamar gives plenty of reasons why she is a good choice. As for the rest in this series Qamar wrote:

The other women include Dr. Sally Ride, who made history as the first American woman in space. Anna May Wong was the first Asian-American movie star, who appeared in silent films. Nina Otero Warren was a crusader for women’s equality in 1917 and became New Mexico’s first female government official. And last but not least Wilma Mankiller, the first female chief of the Cherokee Nation and any Native American nation.

I appreciate they are honoring a diverse group of worthy women.

The impossible question: Why?

Terrence Heath, who is black, recounts when he was in college his father sat him down for The Talk. Nope, not the birds and the bees. This was a full blown course in Black Man 101 -- how to conduct yourself during encounters with police when you've done nothing wrong and are still accused. That is if you want to emerge alive and unscathed. The lessons included how to be deferential and agreeable while being treated like a criminal.

But with the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin, Heath remembers what his father had to do during Jim Crow.

The old rules required Blacks to be agreeable and non-challenging when dealing with white people, even if the white person in question was wrong. No Black person could never even insinuate that a white person was wrong, lying, or had dishonorable intentions. Under no circumstances was a Black person ever to even appear to assume equality with whites.

If a white person carrying a gun will feel threatened by a black man and may shoot with very little provocation, then Jim Crow etiquette is back. Black fathers must teach their sons to act around any white person the way they used to teach their sons to act around police.

Being a Black man of almost any age in American means being constantly aware of the fear your mere presence inspires some whites, the anger that follows closely on heels of that, and the deference required of you as a result. Should it cause you to be profiled, harassed, demeaned, beaten or worse, you may just have to take it. If, that is, you want to live.

We already teach our sons to follow a similar etiquette above with police officers. We tell them to be agreeable and non-challenging, even if the police are wrong.

Must we now explain to our sons that their very presence is enough to make some people believe they are dangerous solely because they are young black men? Must we now explain to them that some white people will look for any reason to act on those feelings and beliefs?

Must we revert to teaching our sons to conform to some modern form of “Jim Crow etiquette”? Must we now revert to teaching our sons to be deferential to every bigot who may be armed, and may have just enough law on their side to start shooting based on nothing more than how they feel and what they believe?

Last fall, our oldest son got his first hoodie. It quickly became his favorite article of clothing. The moment he put it on, and pulled the hood over his face, I saw Trayvon Martin’s face. I thought of my son in Trayvon Martin’s place.

Sometime during The Talk there is a question from the student that is impossible to answer: Why?



Joshua DuBois of Newsweek writes about the national mood after the Zimmerman acquittal. On the black side it is mothers asking in fear "Can they really just kill our kids?" And on the white side is another fear:

It’s a view that has sympathy for the Martin family, but at the end of the day also has sympathy for George Zimmerman: You know, sue me, but a tall, hooded black man that I’ve never seen before in my neighborhood is maybe a little frightening. And I don’t know what happened next between Zimmerman and Trayvon. But if, God forbid, I, or my husband, or my wife, is ever in that situation, I might like the right to ... Most would shudder to finish the sentence.

So how do we lessen the fear? DuBois has profiles of a couple people trying to do just that. The first is Russell Moore. He is the new head of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. This is the denomination that fought hard to maintain slavery and Jim Crow and filled the ranks of the Klan. So, yeah, having a white guy in the leadership of that organization talking about how to heal the fear between the races is a really big deal. "Moore has made it a personal goal to understand the manifestations of racism in the American soul and root it out."

Moore says we are having two different conversations about race. Blacks tend to discuss it in broad terms. But they should be discussing being afraid their son will be the next Trayvon.

Whites tend to discuss the specifics -- how that particular black man frightens me. But they don't see the historical context. Whites don't see that blacks place Trayvon Martin alongside Medgar Evars. There needs to be a conversation and it needs to be at the local level and done with preparation.

Congressman John Lewis, who was beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, felt ill when the verdict was announced. He adds:

You know, here is the key: to be made whole, we have to forgive George Zimmerman. We have to forgive those who believe that what he did was right. … Once we forgive, we can encourage the majority population to walk in our shoes—the shoes of a black mother, a black father, a black son, a black daughter. But first, we have to forgive.

Maya Angelou responds with hope:

Look at the people who are protesting! Look at the people who are standing up for their rights. These aren’t just black people or white people—these are right people. These crowds, some of them are 50, 60 percent white.

John Oliver is Jon Stewart's summer replacement at the Daily Show. He does a great six minute rant about the Zimmerman acquittal and the craziness of Florida law. A choice tidbit:

According to current Florida law you can get a gun, follow an unarmed minor, call the police, have them explicitly tell you to stop following [the minor] and choose to ignore that, keep following the minor, get into a confrontation with them, and if at any point during that process you get scared you can shoot the minor to death, and the state of Florida will say, "Well, look: you did what you could."