Dictator chic, a public display of power

A week ago Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos wrote about Chris Christie’s campaign kickoff. He’s now entered the race for the Republican candidate for president. Much of that kickoff was an attack on the nasty guy. Well, first he attacked the Pandemic Prince and Princess (who have made themselves rather scarce as Daddy’s legal troubles increase). Christie said the only reason they got $2 billion from the Saudis was because they were sitting next to the nasty guy for four years. Christie said the nasty guy would eliminate the national debt in eight years. He added $3 trillion in four. Christie said the nasty guy would end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours – by handing the country to Putin. As for politics Christie said of Biden, “He wouldn't be in office if it wasn't for Trump.” And...

Christie also added a touch of humor at his own expense, but not without a jab at Trump first. "Beware of the leader in this country, who you have handed leadership to, who has never made a mistake, who has never done anything wrong, who when something goes wrong it's always someone else's fault, and who has never lost," Christie said, then paused as the crowd giggled at his oblique reference to Trump's persistent election fraud lies. "I've lost," Christie continued earnestly, before pointing around the room and dropping a pitch-perfect delivery: "You people did that to me in 2016."

Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, included a chart created by the Associated Press of the 37 indictments against the nasty guy. The first 31 are the willful retention of national defense documents. Then there is one each of conspiracy to obstruct justice, concealing documents in a federal investigation, withholding a document, a scheme to conceal, corruptly concealing a document, and false statements. Kos of Kos reported since the indictment there has been a big increase in right wing social media calling for armed resistance to protect their cult leader. Kos included a chart of the deaths by ideology since the 9/11 attacks. Those numbers look quite low. Maybe they represent killings where the ideology is known? What the chart shows is far right ideology has killed more than any other category, even higher than jihadists. And the number killed by far left ideology: 1. Kos included a statement by Kari Lake, who ran for governor of Arizona, lost by only 17K votes, and took quite a while to run out of court cases. Lake said:

If you want to get to Trump, you’re going to have to go through me, and 75 million Americans just like me. And most of us are card carrying members of the NRA. That’s not a threat, that’s a public service announcement.

Others refer to “rPOTUS” as in the “real president of the United State” as in not Joe Biden. They are also calling for armed insurrection. Laura Clawson of Kos also wrote about MAGA sympathizers talking about violence. Well, the arraignment happened and there was a crowd outside the courthouse with both protesters and supporters. And there was no violence. So were these reports of impending violence there to keep us on edge for some reason? Or is the threat still out there, but as single people or small cells rather than a large crowd? With the number of mass shootings we’re dealing with, would we be able to see a difference if these cells shoot someone? An AP article posted on Kos has a timeline of the whole thing, including what the nasty guy and his minions did and what the various government people did in response. One detail caught my attention – there were originally 80 boxes of documents. I’m pretty sure the government hasn’t gotten them all yet. Tristan Snell, a lawyer who had prosecuted Trump University, tweeted a list of all of America’s former presidents and the number of felony counts against them. All have a zero beside their name, except the nasty guy who has 71. There are two former presidents with asterisks. Nixon was pardoned before he could be indicted and Harding died before he could be. As for Clinton and Andrew Johnson, they were impeached, not indicted. So out of 45 former presidents 42 of them served crime free. Jen tweeted a cartoon by Mike Luckovich. The nasty guy says to a golf buddy, “I wanna discuss Hunter Biden’s laptop. Pull up a box...” Chris Evans, a black woman, tweeted a short video of herself dancing on her way to the courthouse to volunteer for jury duty when the nasty guy’s trial comes up. She wasn’t the only one offering their services. Yes, I know how likely she will be dismissed from the jury. Monty Wolverton tweeted a cartoon of what would have happened if the FBI hadn’t raided Mar-a-Lago. There would be a big sign out front:

The Donald’s Emporium New & Used, Foreign & Domestic Top Secret Documents Top quality secrets at reasonable prices! Trade-ins accepted!

In my father’s house the small bathroom off the master bedroom was jokingly referred to as the library. My dad usually had a few magazines, maybe a book or two, so he could read while he sat. Sometimes when I visited I also took some time to sit in the library and read whatever Dad had there. Dad wasn’t the only one. I have reading material in my own bathroom. I’ve seen magazine racks designed for the bathroom and books with short sections the could be read in one sitting. I mention that because the nasty guy’s indictment includes a photo of boxes stacked in a bathroom with more hidden behind a tacky shower curtain. And, of course, there are now lots of memes about the presidential library with people sitting there reading. That includes one by commenter exlrrp in one of Chitown Kev’s pundit roundup for Kos that includes a Saudi as one of the readers. This set of memes includes a dialog between the nasty guy and Biden with the words:

I want to see Biden in prison. Why does Trump think I would visit him in prison?

Clawson also wrote about what that photo of the bathroom says about the nasty guy. Of course, the post includes the photo.

The details of the bathroom have drawn attention, too. We’re looking at a chandelier worthy of a formal dining room, a crystal (or crystal-like) wall sconce, marble floors and sink, the edge of an ornate gilded mirror frame … and a cheap-looking shower curtain on a tension rod, which appears to be hiding more stacks of boxes. That’s the shower curtain and tension rod you get when you’ve moved into a new rental apartment and, realizing there’s no shower curtain, run to Target so you can wash off the sweat and dust of having unloaded your own Uhaul.

Peter York published a book about the design and décor of the homes of 16 despots – Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic, Romania’s Nicolae Ceausescu, Libya’s Muammar Qadhafi, and others. York says the nasty guy’s style fits right in.

In dictator chic, York writes, “There is no subtlety or understatement, let alone irony.” A dictator’s house is not a home meant for private living, but a public display of power. The Mar-a-Lago bathroom is an attempt at dictator chic that fails on the aesthetic merits—that shower curtain!—while the fact that it was where his staff ultimately resorted to storing documents in their attempts to find space for all the things he was hiding from the government shows the limits of his efforts to be an authoritarian leader in the United States. It makes visible the fact that Trump is a wannabe on multiple levels.

Caroline Orr Bueno, a social behavior scientist, tweeted a thread that fits the nasty guy:

Today is a good day to learn about DARVO, an acronym that “describes the typical response of a guilty person when they’ve been accused of bad behavior.” It stands for: Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender. It’s also a form of abuse. One of the aspects of DARVO that makes it so uniquely sadistic and harmful is that the tactics not only inflict (further) psychological harm on the victim, but they also often undermine victims’ support systems — leaving them both traumatized *and* isolated.

Bueno then describes some of the tactics the attacker may use to undermine the victim’s support network.

It was supposed to defang the Freedom Caucus

When writing about the Tony Awards yesterday I missed a couple things. One of the award recipients said, “When your child tells you who they are, believe them.” And one of the short videos introducing a show or an actor featured a black woman saying something like this: I’ve just been to the doctor and tested negative for patience. Walter Einenkel of Daily Kos reported that the restaurant chain Cracker Barrel is being targeted by the MAGA crowd for a boycott. Yeah, the same Cracker barrel that was sued for discriminatory practices nearly 20 years ago and sold Duck Dynasty merch 10 years ago. Their travesty? A photo of the rocking chairs on a restaurant’s porch painted in rainbow colors. So the MAGA crowd will have to eat elsewhere. One tiny problem. Of the top ten fast food chains – McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Subway, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Chick-Fil-A, Pizza Hut, Panera, Wendy’s, and Burger King – all of them have some sort of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion statement. Wrote Einenkel:

The good news for bigots is that fast food is generally unhealthy and shouldn’t be eaten too frequently. The bad news is that if you plan on holding another insurrection or driving cross-country to support your suspected criminal former president, there are going to be a lot of places you cannot eat. Like, most of them. Better start looking at the 7-Eleven menu. Oh no!!!!!

They have a DEI statement too! I thought the debt limit bill was supposed to defang the far right House Freedom Caucus. I’m not surprised it didn’t. Wednesday last week Joan McCarter of Kos wrote that the HFC rebelled by defeating a “rule” vote, a procedural vote that lays out the terms of debate on a bill. And it’s a silly bill – one that would prevent the Biden administration from adding further regulations to gas stoves. The last time a rule vote failed was 21 years ago. Yeah, this is their payback for feeling betrayed by that debit limit bill McCarthy negotiated with Biden, the one that got more Democratic votes than Republican. Well, fine, if the Republican controlled House doesn’t want to do anything, the less trouble they can get into. Except there are some thing that must pass. Like the 2024 budget. And the Farm Bill that comes up every five years. And Ukraine will likely need more aid. In one attempt to appease them McCarthy said he’ll next turn to tax cuts – and we can be sure they won’t be tax custs for those who aren’t rich. It’s rather strange that the HFC can’t tell a consistent story why they voted no. Various members say different things. I won’t bother sorting through their blather. On Thursday McCarter reported the rebels held firm and on Wednesday night McCarthy adjourned the House until Monday. The rebels are saying McCarthy had promised them certain things. Steve Scalise, the Republican Majority Leader says he knows nothing about those promises. Feuding within the party ensued. Yesterday afternoon – the Monday the House was to return to business – McCarter posted again. The House will try to proceed with business that doesn’t need rule votes. Then McCarter explained what may be ahead. If those budget bills don’t get passed – and with 32 legislative days before they’re due on October 1 passage is higly unlikely – on January 1 there will be cuts to everything – including defense and veterans care, the areas Republicans most want to protect. And we could be back to where we were a month ago with the debt limit bill. McCarter reported on a couple rulings out of the Supreme Court. In the first, the Court told Alabama they had to redraw Congressional district maps to add a second black majority district. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaigh joined the liberals. That means they didn’t gut the last bit of the Voting Rights Act that Roberts has been shredding bit by bit since he got on the Court. The second case preserves the right of Medicaid beneficiaries to sue in federal court when they believe their rights are violated by state officials. This one was decided, amazingly, 7-2. It may be more consequential than the first. Can it be that the high level or criticism aimed at Roberts over the last few years is causing him to show restraint? Is he starting to worry about his legacy? Good to know the pressure campaign is working. We still need to reform the Court. Michael Harriot tweeted a thread about the top ten imaginary black people. Here are some of them. 10. Many white people say they have a black best friend. Why don’t black people say they have a white bestie? Perhaps all these white people have the same black friend, and it’s Clarence Thomas? 7. Blacks are accused of not caring about education. Could be because they’ve been denied equal education? 4. If blacks are the real racists where are all the black on white massacres or lynchings? 2. Police justify being brutal to prevent blacks from attacking them. But more cops are killed by whites than by blacks. 1. The charge is black people are so dumb. But Harriot wonders how white people know what is better for black people than 80% of black people. Biden tweeted a photo of a pride flag hanging from the south side of the White House. David Hayward tweeted a cartoon of Jesus and a rainbow sheep dancing, but are the only ones on the dance floor. Hayward added “Life is so much more fun when we let everyone on the dance floor.”

It's not our business to be telling actors who they are

My Sunday viewing wasn’t a movie, instead I watched the Tony Awards, a celebration of the best of Broadway. This year was a bit different. The Tony organization negotiated a deal with the Writers Guild of America, currently on strike which shut down many TV and movie productions. The deal was the ceremony would not use a script and the WGA would not picket. That was better than canceling the ceremony. The WGA felt the stage actors needed to be honored. So instead of an opening monologue or song there was an opening dance, and a pretty cool dance taking advantage of their new location in the gilded United Palace in Washington Heights. It also meant presenters were not announced. Their names appeared on the screen above the stage and when they got to the microphone they introduced themselves. Instead of telling a joke (Nathan Lane was one of a few exceptions) they got down to the business of announcing the award, listing the nominees (usually with a short scene on the screen), and naming the recipient. That meant the show ended on time. There was only one place where I thought this didn’t work. There were lifetime achievement awards for John Kander and Joel Grey. While the screen showed scenes from their work there were two dancers on stage. While nicely done, there was no mention of why these two deserved lifetime achievement awards. A bit reason to watch is to get a sense of shows I might want to see if they ever came to Detroit. And a few do. The idea of & Juliet does sound intriguing – what if Juliet doesn’t kill herself when she sees the body of Romeo? But the scene played during the ceremony was so into spectacle that it was a turnoff. A couple that do look intriguing: There’s Kimberly Akimbo, the story of a girl with an aging syndrome so that by the time she reaches 16 she looks 70. The actress, Victoria Clark, who won for Best Leading Actress in a Musical and said she’s definitely older than 65, looked like she was having a lot of fun playing a high school girl encountering first love. The other is Leopoldstadt a new Tom Stoppard play about a big Jewish family in Vienna from about 1899 to 1938. Here’s an article about the opening last October that talks about why Stoppard wrote the play. Brandon Uranowitz, who won for Best Featured Actor for Leopoldstadt, talked about how the show resonates today.

We are seeing a lot of those tiny seemingly little inconsequential things [that happen in the play] happening right now. It's a clarion call to pay attention to those seemingly inconsequential things that accumulate and lead to mass devastation.

A big thing going on during this Tony Award show was the celebration of identity. Towards the beginning of the show Michael Arden won Best Director for Parade. During a part of his acceptance speech the sound cut out and when it came back the audience was cheering wildly. Today I learned it was to cut out foul language. When he was growing up he had been called a slur for gay men and now he’s a “[slur] with a Tony.” Later Alex Newell won for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for their role in Shucked (a musical about corn? Who knew?). Yes, Newell is nonbinary and was in a sparkling gold dress as they accepted the award and thanked the show producers and the Tony organization for considering nonbinary actors. Newell is the first nonbinary actor to win a Tony. Shortly after that J. Harrison Ghee won for Best Leading Actor for their role in Some Like It Hot. Ghee is also nonbinary. When that show did one of its numbers for the ceremony I wondered about Ghee. I noticed this tall person in a dress and wondered: Male or female? Perhaps neither or both. Some Like It Hot is a musical version of the 1959 movie starring Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis who escape the mob by dressing as women and joining an all female jazz band. I’ve heard trans people say this concept is outdated. But the new musical has a different ending – living as a woman actually feels pretty good. In that case a nonbinary actor would be quite appropriate. Both Newell and Ghee presented as female with lovely gowns. I wondered how they ended up in the male Best Actor categories. That got me to an NPR article by Jeff Lunden about where nonbinary actors fit. Newell said that although the role they play is female, the word “actor” is not gendered and that is their profession. As for Ghee the character is first male, then female. The award category was less of a concern. I found there is a third player in this story – Justin David Sullivan, who is nonbinary and plays May in & Juliet. Sullivan declined to be considered for a Tony because that would have required them to choose a gender, and they felt they couldn’t do it. Lunden reported several theater awards have chosen to have nongendered performance awards. They include Washington's Helen Hayes Awards, Chicago's Jeff Awards, and New York's Drama Desk

David Barbour, co-president of the Drama Desk Awards, said for years they had nongendered performance categories, until they realized more men than women were taking home honors. At that point, they switched to gendered categories — but this year, they switched back. "It really became evident to us that there were a number of performances by nonbinary performers who were very likely going to be in the mix when the nominations came out," said Barbour. "And it's not our business to be telling actors who they are. We're not in the business of defining them."

All states have been ecocidal

As I settled into retirement and could live anywhere I considered the question. East Coast? Hurricanes. Texas? The same (and that it’s Texas). West Coast? Fires. West in general? Drought. Might as well stay right here in Michigan. Far from hurricanes. Tornado Alley seems to have shifted south. With the Great Lakes around us the chance of drought is lower, as is the chance of fire. After a wet spring, June has been dry (though thankfully not blazing hot – I’ve been able to keep both furnace and AC off for a while). I’ve heard the whole summer might be dry. And there have been lots of fires in northern Michigan (as in north of a line from Saginaw to Muskegon). Mark Sumner of Daily Kos wrote that Republicans like to say we’re not in a climate crisis, what you see around us is just weather. All that smoke from Canada fires that turned New York’s skies orange – just weather.

When the climate changes, forests relocate over generations—long, slow tree generations. The individual trees can’t pack up and move. In the face of rising temperatures and shifting rainfall, forests become stressed. Stressed forests have more debris. More dead branches. More standing deadwood. Stressed forests burn. That’s what people in the northeast are inhaling this week, the soot of forests who couldn’t respond fast enough to deal with what we’ve put them through. The remains of trees who couldn’t get away.

Then Sumner included photos of Australia in 2020, California in 2021, and now in New York. He doesn’t have photos of fires in Siberia (burning again this year), and fires in Africa last year that burned 4 million square kilometers. We would not have paid attention to Canada’s fires if their smoke didn’t stink up the National Mall.

Eventually, these forests will stop burning. Because they’ll stop being forests.

Peter Gelderloos responded to a tweet about the shrinking (and maybe vanishing) Arctic summer ice:

Also, anarchists: scientists, stop addressing yourselves to the State. All states have been ecocidal. They are taking you for a ride. Lend your resources and platforms to those of us risking our lives to stop this machine. For decades, they haven't listened and now it's too late.

Then he linked to a few of his books that look interesting. There is Worshiping Power with a description of “We need to stop thinking of the State as a potential vehicle for emancipation. From its origins, the State has never been anything other than a tool to accumulate power.” A second is The Solutions are Already Here, Strategies for Ecological Revolution from Below – “International governmental responses to the climate emergency are structurally incapable of solving the crisis. But there is hope.” And, since I believe nonviolence is important to disrupt the social hierarchy because violence enforces a hierarchy so one needs to be nonviolent to avoid replacing one hierarchy with another... The third books is The Failure of Nonviolence – “Nonviolent campaigns around the world have helped oppressive regimes change their masks, and have helped police to limit the growth of rebellious social movements.” Some day I may actually buy and read them. Kos of Kos discussed the question of who blew up the dam in Ukraine that flooded Kherson. There is talk that Ukraine did it to sweep away the Russian soldiers on the south side of the river. But Ukraine wasn’t going to hit those defenses anyway and their economic and ecological costs are way too high for them to consider it. Did Russia let the dam fail through incompetence? Or was it intentional? Kos believes it was incompetence. Because Crimea just lost its source of drinking water, though Crimea still has a supply that will last for quite a while. Crimea could be easy to isolate. Take out the Karch Bridge (already damaged) and sever the land bridge by liberating a swath to Mariupol and Crimea could be liberated without invading. In another update Sumner reported that Ukraine is pushing hard against Russian forces on the front north of Melitopol and Mariupol. They seem to be significant attacks with actual gains in territory. The casualties and equipment loss appear to be worth it. And from a post from yesterday afternoon Kos reported that the long awaited counteroffensive is indeed underway. Western equipment is showing up along the front disabled, though unlike Soviet era tanks disabled is not the same as destroyed and the crew inside is quite likely still alive. But this is going to be hard. Russia has had a long time to build up its defenses and the area being attacked has the most elaborate defenses. But it is also the area with the most strategic value. Kos describes how well dug in. There are five lines of defense. It appears Ukraine has gotten through the first one. Only four more of the first set to go, and they won’t be easier. The nasty guy has been indicted for the crimes of illegally keeping documents and improperly handling classified documents. There are 38 counts in all. Several news sources lay out the list. Sumner mentions the charges, then looks at the details, including the various places the boxes were stored around Mar-a-Lago. Such as on the stage of the ballroom in view of guests at various functions (was he showing them off?).

It could not be more ridiculous if the whole affair were titled “Laurel and Hardy meet the FBI.”

You young people may need to look up the comedy team of Laurel and Hardy. Through all that shifting of boxes hither and yon through the estate it seems like 34 boxes are missing. Why haven’t Trump’s other properties been searched?

Also, this isn’t just 100 years of potential penalties: It’s more like 380 years. It’s hard to see anyone, no matter their previous address, walking away from this without spending some time with some pretty strict limits on their range of travel. Evidence-wise, Trump and Nauta are on the well-done side of cooked gooses. Whether any attorney—or any judge—can get them out of this seems doubtful. Some of those who have rushed to endorse Trump following his indictment need to whip out their reading glasses and take a close look, because this stuff is very hard to dismiss.

Sumner explained the types of charges. He also added a timeline of events, why the nasty guy’s keeping the documents is a violation of the Presidential Records Act, and what it means that so many of the documents are classified. When Sumner wrote that it was doubtful any judge could get him out of this he linked to another of his articles reporting that the judge for the cases has been chosen – Aileen Cannon. It seems the nasty guy may have won the judge lottery.

That would be the same Trump-appointed, Trump-serving Cannon who completely overlooked existing law to appoint a “special master” to help Trump keep documents from being reviewed by the Department of Justice. The same Cannon who supported the most ridiculous claims from Trump’s third-rate legal team. The same Cannon who, when the special master made reasonable demands on Trump’s team, overruled the judge she had appointed to give Trump gift after gift in rulings so ridiculous even right-wing pundits seemed shocked. It would be the same Cannon whose actions in this case were absolutely shredded in a ruling from the 11th Circuit that tossed out everything she had done, except the two months of stalling she achieved for Trump. Now Cannon gets a chance to show her gratitude to Trump again with an appointment that seems like a cruel joke on the nation.

Yesterday I wrote about the death of Pat Robertson and the damage he did through his Christian Broadcasting Network. Now for a couple cartoons. One by Bill Bramhall, cartoonist for New York Daily News. It shows Robertson arriving in heaven where there is a big rainbow over the entrance and a sign saying “All are welcome.” Robertson says, “You gotta be kidding me.” The other is by Ann Telnaes of the Washington Post. It was published when Robertson’s buddy Jerry Falwell died. A woman at a reception window tells Falwell, “No, it’s not a mistake Rev. Falwell – there is no heaven and reincarnation is your only option. You can come back as a liberal, feminist, or homosexual.”

Showed how his beliefs were built upon hate and misinformation

Hunter of Daily Kos reported it isn’t easy writing an obituary for Pat Robertson. And yes, an obituary is appropriate – Robertson died at the age of 93. It isn’t easy because by cultural convention obituaries tread lightly on the worst things a person has done. Thankfully, Hunter didn’t follow that convention. Hunter did note there are no real claims that Robertson was a deeply spiritual man. Which is accurate, because though his Christian Broadcasting Network he was a political voice. So let’s look at the damage. Robertson was the one who turned television into a weapon. After 9/11 he and Jerry Falwell used Robertson’s 700 Club to blame the attack on a long list of progressives, including LGBT people. Robertson also laid blame on Haiti after its 2010 earthquake.

He was a political figure through and through and through. God's enemies were conservatism's enemies were Republicanism's enemies, and that was all there was to it. So when a disaster struck, there was never talk that it was because God was angry at the greed of those who had cut poverty programs to give private jet owners slightly better tax treatment. God never smote those who pressed for less aid to poor children, or towns that treated immigrants with contempt. And when hurricanes hit places where hurricanes usually hit, it was never because God had gotten good and tired of a state's racist gerrymanderings or gun policies. Conservatism's enemies were all the same to him; he could not be bothered to suss out any difference.

Robertson was a bully who as fully in support of keeping straight white Christian men at the top of the social hierarchy. Even worse, he claimed his bullying was at God’s direction. LA Knightlock tweeted a cartoon (creator not identified) with the caption “Freedom of Religion in action.” It shows a person wearing a shirt saying “God loves me not you” and cramming a Bible into the mouth of another.. Mike Luckovich posted a cartoon on Kos showing Jesus at the Last Supper. A bit of explanation for my non Christian readers. This is his Passover meal, his last meal before he was arrested, tried, and executed. In the original scene in the Bible Jesus says one of his twelve disciples will betray him, telling authorities a place where they can arrest Jesus. In Luckovich’s version Jesus says:

By your cruelty to LGBTQ+ members, one of you will betray me...

David Hayward tweeted a cartoon showing Jesus saying, “Let’s go love everybody!” and the disciples all thinking “Everybody??” Well, look at that, something not at all surprising... Charles Jay of the Kos community reported Harlan Crow, the sugar daddy for Justice Clarence Thomas, has also been making strategic buys of members of Congress. Crow and colleagues donated to Sens, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, the big blocks of Biden’s progressive agenda in the Senate. He also donated to the Unbreakable Nine, Democratic members of the House who were instrumental in sinking Biden’s Build Back Better bill. SemDem of the Kos community discussed New College in Florida and why that appears to be a particular target of DeathSantis. I’ve mentioned the way DeathSantis has been attacking everything that has even a hint of “woke” about it, including education. SemDem also documents how much DeathSantis is doing this for white supremacists. This is his base. And he has been doing a lot. He has banned teaching about race and LGBTQ issues with laws vague enough that teachers self-censure. That came with book bans. Voters approved a measure to restore voting rights to felons, yet the policy repeatedly gets roadblocks (hint: most ex-felons are black). He threatened public universities that have anything associated with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), which is an attack on marginalized communities. A moment now for another Luckovich cartoon. At a press conference there is this exchange between DeathSantis and a reporter:

I’m waging a war on woke because woke is broke and I will make woke croak, no joke... But my question was about climate change...

Back to SemDem’s story. In addition to all that, there have been actual Nazi rallies, complete with swastikas. When asked about it DeathSantis deflects the question. But New College has been under particular attack. He installed six of his cronies on the board, people who had no education experience. They ousted the president. The new prez, a DeathSantis guy, is now being paid close to triple what the last prez got. The board abolished programs that supported minorities, and denied tenure to progressive professors (and since New College is progressive…). Why? It all revolves around Derek Black. He’s the son of Don Black, the grand wizard of the KKK and founder of Stormfront (the website that radicalized Dylan Roof, who murdered nine black victims in a South Carolina Church). Derek is also the son of David Duke. Derek grew up in this stuff and was nicknamed “the heir,” destined to inherit his dad’s empire. And he was all for it, giving speeches just as fiery as his dadn’s. The lad popularized the term “white genocide,” a term that implied if minorities outnumbered whites, “white culture” would be destroyed. Derek wanted to go to college to study medieval history in the belief it would prove European superiority. He convinced his parents to let him go to New College, where one can design their own plan of study in whatever one wants. Yeah, the supremacist heir chose the progressive school. Derek tried to hide his beliefs, but a quick search told other students who he was. They demanded his expulsion. The college refused. A progressive Jewish organization invited Derek to their weekly Shabbat services. Being otherwise isolated, he accepted the offer. And just by being friendly with him he saw the terrible things he had said about Jews weren’t true. Allison Gornick, a fellow student and a Jew who once refused to be in the same room with him, decided to talk to him.

They had similar interests, which they bonded over, and eventually she confronted him about his ideology. She went through point by point to demonstrate how his beliefs were built upon hate and misinformation. She would send academic studies to refute his many beliefs that minorities were inferior due to everything from IQ scores to crime. Through the fights, they forged a strong friendship, and eventually, a romance. ... In 2013, Derek sent a letter to the Southern Poverty Law Center that rocked the white supremacist movement to the core, and outraged the hate communities in Florida. The key phrase was this: “I do not believe advocacy against ‘oppression of whites’ exists in any form but an entrenched desire to preserve white power at the expense of others. I am sorry for the damage done by my actions and my past endorsement of white nationalism.” The diversity of the college and their willingness to challenge his ingrained beliefs wound up saving him from a lifetime of hatred. But suddenly his complete denunciation of white supremacy was the top discussion on hate radio and hate chat sites. Instantly, his father banished him from his home. The callers to his radio program were beside themselves with rage. The man they had groomed to be their leader had been “brainwashed” by the libs at New College. Derek, for his part, did not disagree that New College changed him. ... The attack on New College is not just another piece of fodder on DeSantis’ culture war, or another attempt to “own the libs.” It was a deliberate assault on an institution that wounded the white supremacist movement.

Forms of evil all so dark that it’s hard to distinguish a shade

In a Ukraine update from ten days ago (yes, I’ll get to what happened yesterday), Kos of Daily Kos discussed Russia’s two fiercest critics of the war who are also two of its worst people. One isYevgeny Progozhin, head of the bloody attack on Bakhmut. The other is Igor Girkin, leader of the fake “rebellion” that launched the Russian invasion of Donbas. He’s also indicted in The Hague for downing Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, killing 298. The two are now feuding. About them Kos wrote:

It’s unfathomable that they both have survived as long as they have given the fierceness of their criticisms, but they have two advantages. First, they approach their criticism from the nationalist right—Russia isn’t brutal enough, not aggressive enough, doesn’t kill enough. Criticism from the pacifist left is instant jail. The other is they never criticize Russian dictator Vladimir Putin himself. Everyone else can be at fault, but the buck never stops with the Big Guy.

In a post from about a week ago Kos described what has to happen when Ukraine attacks defended and dug in Russian positions. I’ll let you read how difficult that may be In a post almost from a week ago Mark Sumner of Kos wrote that before the war Bakhmut, along with Soledar to the north, made most of its money through its salt mines. Now that Russia has taken over the city those mines are a good place for Russia to store munitions. That’s certainly better than in above ground depots that Ukraine is very good at shelling.

So Russia finally has a safe spot to keep their valuables. Except they don’t. Because while the mines may be extensive, the number of entrances is very limited. A few precision-guided weapons directed at locations like, say, 48.602302N, 38.036391E would mean that all the supplies Russia packed into those tunnels would become inaccessible. Those supplies would also stay nice, dry, and ready until Ukraine moved into the area and cleared those entrances.

Tim Mak used to work for NPR and is now a freelance journalist in Ukraine, sometimes posting on Kos. Mak told the story of Oleksandr Selyverstov, an engineer at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant when Russia took it over. Selyverstov was able to escape what became horrible working conditions. He now works at the Chernobyl Museum in Kyiv. He calls it the scariest museum he’s ever been to.

And there’s a new exhibit there, on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Oleksandr paused to look at a photo of the reactor where he once worked. He said 99.9 percent of the preconditions for a nuclear disaster were present at the Zaporizhzhia plant, that safety precautions had become lax, and that with some small miscalculation or mistake, untold numbers of people could suffer – his biggest fear.

The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant sits beside a good size reservoir created by a dam across the Dnipro River. The plant uses reservoir water to cool the reactor. Sumner reported that dam has been breached, flooding downriver villages and the city of Kherson. The reservoir is draining, though it seems for now the power plant won’t face difficulties. But, beyond the concerns of the plant, the dam breach has huge consequences. There’s flooding, loss of drinking water (including to Crimea), destruction of natural habitat, loss of water for Ukraine’s vitally important grain exports, loss of electricity generated at the dam, loss of bridges and other infrastructure, loss of all the animals in the Kazkova Dibrova Zoo (in Kherson? near the dam?) because Russia didn’t care to evacuate them, exposure of mines planted in the water, and much more. The damage will be enormous. Many of these effects will last years. As to why the dam failed, Sumner wrote that Russia has controlled the dam for almost a year. All the hydropower and sluicegate controls are on the Russian side. A big contributor to the failure is Russia’s mismanagement of the dam, first letting the water level get too low, then keeping it too high. By June 1 water was sloshing over the dam and damaging the roadway there. By June 3 a section of the roadway was gone. By June 6 the disaster was underway. Because the road was gone there was no way for Ukraine to access dam controls. Only Russia could do things like open the sluice gates to reduce the water level and perhaps protect the dam. So the dam failed because of mismanagement and neglect? Sumner wrote:

However, other footage seems to indicate that an explosion did occur—a conclusion supported by those text messages from locals and other reports of a loud explosion at just the time of the dam failure. Ukrainian officials are criticizing media for downplaying the damage and failing to definitively pin the explosion on Russia. There are reports of the explosion at the dam being heard 80 km away, which would not be the case in even the most catastrophic collapse. Kakhovka Dam was deliberately destroyed by an explosion that targeted the power plant and control structures, as well as breaking the structural integrity of the dam. That explosion is what locals in the area reported at 1:20 in the morning. The incomprehensible noise that came after has only gotten worse as the breach in the dam has continued to widen and water has poured down into the lower Dnipro basin. The deliberate destruction of a dam in order to flood civilian areas is a war crime—another to add to the thick stack of such crimes Russia has accumulated over the course of its illegal, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. It’s hard to say if it’s worse than the destruction of Mariupol, or the mass graves at Bucha and Izyum, or the torture chambers found in basements across formerly Russian-occupied regions, or the deliberate bombing of hospitals and shelters. Such forms of evil are all so dark that it’s hard to distinguish a shade.

My birth certificate also says I weighed seven pounds, but things change

My peformance group played a concert late Sunday afternoon. After that Sister, Niece, and I went out for supper. So there was no Sunday movie. I finished the book The Passing Playbook by Isaac Fitzsimons. It is a young adult novel. Spencer is a trans boy starting his sophomore year in high school. He’s at a new school, a private progressive school, because of The Incident at his previous school which showed how unsafe he was there. Spencer very much wants to pass as as a boy and not deal with others knowing he’s trans and disapproving. Spencer also wants to play soccer – on the boy’s team. He’s quite good and also good at watching the other team to uncover their weaknesses. His parents are wonderful and he’s already on the hormone treatment, so he looks like a boy. He doesn’t want to change in the same room as the other boys but quickly figures out he only need face his locker – the other boys aren’t looking (showering isn’t discussed). There’s a big problem – his birth certificate says female and he lives in Ohio, a state that refuses to let him change it. Towards the end of the book he says a great line, “My birth certificate also says I weighed seven pounds, but things change.” The other big problem of the book is that Spencer is friends with and also falling for the team’s vice captain, a boy named Justice. His family is so devoutly religious the other children are named Noble, Piety, and Steadfast. He’s at the progressive school only because he has a soccer scholarship. Spencer is afraid of what Justice will say or do when he finds out Spencer is trans. The cover of the book shows a black boy and a white boy discussing soccer plays. Which one is Spencer? In the first third of the book race is mentioned only twice – this character is white and that one is black. I wondered why race was important in describing those two and not any of the others. Only after a third of the story goes by do we learn Spencer is biracial. Other than that minor annoyance I enjoyed the story. It was a fairly quick read, taking about a week for 300 pages. Laura Clawson of Daily Kos welcomed us to Pride Month. She noted that marriage equality and anti-discrimination laws have strong majority support. Alas, the highest profile stories are about hatred. Clawson lists a few, but certainly not all, recent stories. There is the storm over Bud Light using a trans influencer. Target moving or removing its Pride displays because of threats of violence to its employees. A pride event in Bozeman, Montana was disrupted by supremacists. St. Cloud, Florida canceled its pride event because they felt they coudn’t keep participants safe. Republican controlled states are passing laws banning LGBTQ issues and drag shows. Proud Boys have disrupted more than 160 drag events in the last 18 months – even as there are hundreds more stories, including in red states, that demonstrate our progress.

Parents of toddlers are often told about “extinction bursts,” in which, as they try to move their child past a problem behavior, it gets worse. The child frantically clings to the pacifier or cries extra hard when their parents don’t come to their crib the moment they start crying. That’s the Proud Boys and their fellow bigots right now. Marriage equality is widely accepted. Employment and housing discrimination are widely opposed. Drag brunches and story hours are popular events. And the bigots can’t stand it. Instead of a screaming toddler, though, Pride events and drag events face angry, potentially armed adults—a much bigger problem.

An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported a federal judge – appointed by the nasty guy – ruled Tennessee’s law placing strict limits on drag shows is unconstitutional. First, the law is a violation of free speech. The Supremes have said the even explicit speech is protected. Second, it is too vague. The law doesn’t use the word “drag.” It uses the phrase “adult-oriented performances that are harmful to minors.” That word “harmful” can mean whatever the complainer or arresting officer wants it to mean. In a pundit roundup posted ten days ago, Chitown Kev of Kos, quoted Beth Hawkins of the education blog The 74 talking about laws targeting LGBTQ people.

It’s no surprise that queer students in Republican-dominated states where these laws have passed are profoundly impacted. But less visible is the dramatic effect the steady drumbeat of headlines has had on youth in places with even strong anti-discrimination laws. Newly released data from the advocacy groups GLSEN and The Trevor Project show increases in hostility, victimization and discrimination experienced by students in blue states as well as red. ... In California — where the first gay couples married in 2008 and schools began teaching LGBTQ history a decade ago — a statewide survey of students found that the number who reported hearing homophobic remarks from adults in school rose from 12% in 2019 to 49% in 2021. That’s an increase of 408%.

Bruce Plante tweeted a cartoon of Biden playing the trunk of an elephant like a violin. Yeah, this didn’t take long. Biden got Republicans to pledge they would not include Social Security and Medicare in their hostage taking over the debt limit. Joan McCarter of Kos reported the ink was barely dry on that deal when McCarthy announced “a commission to explore mandatory spending cuts. In other words: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.” I’m not the only one to notice the rhetoric carefully discusses the “need” to reduce spending without talking about the national deficit or debt or why spending needs to be reduced. Republicans are very aware the other way to reduce the deficit and debt is to raise taxes on the rich. McCarter included a tweet by Steven Rattner that has a chart showing the contribution of the various tax cuts and their extensions since 2002. The data is from American Progress, as is the quote:

If not for the Bush tax cuts and their extensions—as well as the Trump tax cuts—revenues would be on track to keep pace with spending indefinitely, and the debt ratio... would be declining,

McCarter noted we’ve been here before – the last time there was a Democratic president. So perhaps this time Democrats don’t play the game and not participate in a commission whose purpose is to recommend policies that hurt all but the rich. McCarter added: “When are we going to get a commission to study tax hikes?” Another Associated Press article posted on Kos ten days ago reported Republican lawmakers in various states they control are pushing a solution to the labor shortage – roll back labor laws that protect teens. After describing the states trying to loosen protective laws the article said:

Teen workers are more likely to accept low pay and less likely to unionize or push for better working conditions, said Maki, of the Child Labor Coalition, a Washington-based advocacy network. “There are employers that benefit from having kind of docile teen workers,” Maki said, adding that teens are easy targets for industries that rely on vulnerable populations such as immigrants and the formerly incarcerated to fill dangerous jobs.

Meteor Blades of Kos discussed the subject again this past weekend. Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa had signed a bill that reduced several protections in the state’s child labor laws. Blades discussed how his grandfather and grandpa’s brother worked in coal mines as slate boys when they were preteens. Then Blades wrote about the history of federal child labor laws. Children and teens didn’t get protections until the Great Depression, and only then because adults needed the few jobs there were. Yes, the new state laws violate federal laws.

But one big problem in the federal government are departments and agencies under-budgeted and under-staffed when it comes to enforcement of existing laws. Like the Environmental Protection Agency, which is now under the gun to complete faster environmental reviews of energy projects, the Department of Labor needs more staff to investigate and penalize violators.

Blades concluded:

Many people argue that having a part-time job is a fine, life-enhancing experience for youths. That can be true. But they are not going to get that from working six hours a night during the school year on the line at a meat-packing plant any more than those slate boys could from risking their fingers and lives on coal conveyors. A serious federal approach to life-enhancing child labor would be to amply fund apprenticeship programs that would provide on-the-job training and education with reasonable pay and modest working hours to allow children to still be children.

Another reason why teens should be protected from abusive labor is poor families may be desperate for the money a teen might be able to bring home. But that likely means the teen isn’t getting educated, trapping him in poverty through his life. Phil Hands of the Wisconsin State Journal tweeted a cartoon showing a cafe with the owners saying

If we don’t get more help, I’m not sure our business will survive. Where on earth are we going to find more workers?

Right next to the cafe is the US border wall with thousands of people on the other side of it. Last Saturday Eric Deggans of NPR talked to Maureen Ryan, who wrote about the toxic culture behind the hit TV show Lost for Vanity Fair and also wrote the book Burn It Down: Power, Complicity And A Call For Change in Hollywood about the ongoing toxic culture there. On the show, the “showrunners Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof created an atmosphere where racism and bullying were tolerated and encouraged on the set.” Here are a few of Ryan’s comments:

It's similar to things you still see going on in the comedy world, which is the attitude with comments and maybe even actions that are racist or sexist, homophobic, transphobic. Oh, this is me being edgy. But those edgy comments are really meant to make the people of color in the room, the women of color in the room, the LGBTQIA people in the room - make them aware that they don't have power, and the people making the offensive comment have the power. ... I think that there's an unspoken rule in some people's head - that person is too nice to be truly creative. That person is to considerate to be a genius - which is a horrifying unexamined assumption that I think that a lot of people maybe don't even know that they have in the audience or in the executive suite. This is a thing that I come across time and again, that some people are not seen as incredible geniuses or absolutely undeniable creators that people must give a big contract to unless they are consistently doing things to other people and to productions as a whole that are damaging or unprofessional or just garden-variety crappy. ... If I had to describe my book in one word, the word would be exploitation. People are being exploited routinely, and the exploitation can come in the form of coercive acts from their boss, bullying, racism, toxicity, homophobia, transphobia. They are not paid enough.

I heard that bit about creativity being judged by how crappy a person acts and I thought the money people aren’t funding projects based on whether the person is creative, they’re funding based on whether the person supports the power hierarchy. Isabella Delseny-Ernest tweeted a cartoon that’s been hiding in my browser tabs since November and was shared as part of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The cartoon is without words. It shows (I think) a male politician, a male businessman, and a male police officer in the standard see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil poses. Above them is a woman with her hands also at her face, one against a bruised eye, the other wiping a tear.

Stop listening to conservatives telling you that masculinity is in crisis

In an episode of The New York Times’ “Matter of Opinion” podcast Ross Douthat discussed the crisis of masculinity in America. Hunter of Daily Kos wrote his response a week ago.

There is no "crisis of masculinity" in America. It does not exist. It is made up, just as it has been made up at every other point in history including 1.) when women were allowed to vote, 2.) when women began to enter the "workforce" in slightly larger numbers than in the decade before that, or 3.) when women were able to open bank accounts without their husbands' permissions. There are wonderful old-timey comics featuring sad-sack men in dresses crying about their fate when those other historical trends poked at their fragile emotions. ... The problem is that conservative men are big gigantic whining babies about everything, whimpering to themselves whenever any event happens in the world that does not revolve around them and their own personal desires. The "crisis" is that liberal men have taken all the masculinity for themselves while conservative men work themselves up into crying, flag-waving tantrums whenever cartoon candy mascots show up with less sexy footwear than they had been hoping for. ... When a liberal man learns that his wife has gotten a raise and now makes more money than he does, he's happy about her success and the extra money. He doesn't go off and whine in a corner about well, the real problem nowadays is that nobody hires based on upper body strength.

Then Paul Waldman of the Washington Post added his voice, here quoted by Chitown Kev in a pundit roundup for Kos. Waldman referred to the book Manhood by Sen. Josh Hawley, which was released recently and roundly panned.

Like most of the crisis-of-masculinity-mongers, Hawley has little in the way of practical recommendations to fix this supposed problem. But if American men are really overcome by such anxiety, here’s a solution: Stop listening to conservatives telling you that masculinity is in crisis. The manliest thing one can do might be to stop caring about masculinity altogether. That’s not to deny that men face some genuine problems, especially when it comes to educational achievement — even as they still dominate almost every facet of public life, from politics to religion to business.

Waldman added that conservative pundits are preying on men feeling anxious about a rapidly changing world. Waldman says the issue is centuries old. Kev corrects him – the issue is at least two millennia old. Sophocles has an example of it in Antigone and it is a central theme in Lysistrata by Aristophanes. Signe Wilkinson tweeted a cartoon showing a female pharmacist in front of a wall of condoms with the description

Man up, Republicans and take personal responsibility! Instead of passing nanny state laws banning abortion, make it unnecessary. A Prophylactic Solution.

Michael Harriot tweeted a thread taking on the claim that insanity is repeating the same thing and expecting different results. Some of Harriot’s replies: Do you really want to take your heart medication only once? If you go to the gym and lift weights you don’t get stronger ... unless you do it every day. Civil rights protesters didn’t make it across the Edmund Pettus Bridge until the third try. The Montgomery Bus Boycott would have failed if it lasted only one day. Part of Harriot’s thread is in response to Ice Cube posting a Contract with Black America. Good stuff. But none of the ideas are new – some have been around for 90 years – and they haven’t been implemented because they weren’t explained to black people adequately. They haven’t been implemented because there has always been a racist party, though that has switched a few times in history. It’s amazing that racist white people always know which party that is. Mary McLeod Bethune was part of Franklin Roosevelt’s Black Cabinet. She got things done because she was able to organize persistent protests, to the point FDR became scared not to implement her goals. One of those was an executive order banning discrimination in the defense industry. Millions of blacks got jobs. And that’s the reason why black people started supporting Democrats in 1944. The Civil Rights bills didn’t get passed because of one protest. It took many over many years. So when a person says we need to just vote harder, they’re missing a great deal. Yes, vote. And also protest in as many ways possible, repeated for as long as it takes. The debit limit bill passed the Senate 63-36. That drama is over for a couple years. By then let’s hope we can elect enough same people they can eliminate this threat – though there was a chance in 2021 and they didn’t take it. Joan McCarter of Kos wrote about the good, the bad, and the ugly of the bill to raise the debt limit. The good: It diluted the power of the Freedom Caucus. McCarthy owes them nothing. McCarthy does owe Hakeem Jeffries and the Democrats for getting the bill over the finish line. The bad: Even though loud voices proclaimed hostage taking is not regular order, it now is. The debt limit will be reached on January 1, 2025, which means it isn’t in play for the election, but the lame duck Congress will have to do something – unless Biden is able to challenge the constitutionality of the law before then. Some destructive Republican talking points were given fresh wind. These are that work requirements for food benefits are good, the IRS is the enemy, and the deficit is more important than policy and can be addressed only through cuts. The ugly: Sen. Joe Manchin’s pet project of an oil pipeline from West Virginia to the Virginia coast was included with provisions preventing court challenges and over the objections of Virginia members of Congress. It was included at a time when nobody nowhere should be building oil infrastructure.

You need to be our ally also when it’s hard

I finished the book Diary of an Apprentice Astronaut by Samantha Cristoforetti. She is Italian and a member of of the European Space Agency. Though she is fluent in five languages, including Russian and English, she wrote the book in Italian for an Italian publisher. It was translated by Jill Founston. As the title says, this book is scenes in the life of becoming an astronaut. She discusses the application process in 2009, including what she felt she had to accomplish even before applying. Then there is five years of training. That took up the first half of the book. The second half is about her 200 days on the International Space Station. Decades ago I read a story about a couple guys on a spaceship. They had to fly close to a star, yet the environment in their ship was too cold. On arriving at their destination they complained of inadequate controls. The were told the controls existed. They hadn’t used them because they didn’t know about them. That’s not how it works in real life. Not at all. She and her classmates, then crewmates when she is assigned to a flight, have to learn about the Soyuz rocket that will take her up and bring her down, the various modules in the station, and both the Russian and American space suits and learn it all in intimate detail. They have to know how each thing is supposed to work and how to deal with dozens of ways each might fail. They learn how to work in space suits in the neutral buoyancy tank in Houston. They learn how to control the robot arm at the European Astronaut Center in Cologne, Germany. They learn about the Russian rockets and suits in Star City outside of Moscow. Then off to Japan to learn about the Japanese module on the station. She talks about slow orbits – making circles around the globe in months rather than minutes. Finally, she’s off to Baikonur as part of the backup crew, then as part of her turn to fly. It’s all fascinating, though at times I felt there was too much detail. This part of the book isn’t just the training. She talks about her fellow astronauts from around the world and what they did in their off time. She also describes the traditions – such as each three person crew planting a tree (though I don’t remember if that’s at Star City or Baikonur) and the huge breakfast spread before they set off for the rocket that no one actually eats. In the second half she describes the ascent in November 2014, her stay on the station, and then descent in June 2015. Though there’s descriptions of what she does on the station, there is also a lot of contemplation of what it all means to her, especially her feelings watching earth pass by when she’s in the cupola. Mentioned in an author interview at the end of the book Cristoforetti went back to the ISS in the spring of 2022 for a second six month mission. If one is a space geek this is a book to read. For the rest of us it’s still a pretty good story. In that author interview there is discussion that the job of astronaut is still overwhelmingly male. But she doesn’t want to describe the process as a woman battling sexism. In her case, going through the ESA there weer 2000 applicants and one out of every six was a woman. And she was the one woman selected for a class of six. That seems fair. But being an assertive woman should not need to be a qualification to be an astronaut. She said.

Willingness to struggle against prejudice can’t be the most important requirement for this profession – truly important requirements are a passion for aviation or medicine, engineering, and natural sciences, for example. Curiosity integrity, empathy, resilience, self-awareness: Those are the things that really count.

The only drawback to the book I see is how little Cristoforetti talks about her personal life. Yes, she deserves her privacy in whatever way she defines it. However, as launch approaches she starts mentioning Lionel. I figured out this must be her husband, but she didn’t actually say so. And she doesn’t give any indication of when in those five hectic years she had time to date or have a wedding ceremony. The bill to avert a government default passed the House yesterday evening with more Democrats voting for it than Republicans. Joan McCarter of Daily Kos reported some Republicans grouse that they were told such a bill would never come to the floor. At the bottom of this post is a cartoon I’ve seen several times now. It is by Mike Luckovich. A guy labeled GOP is playing poker with Joe. Joe has stacks of chips and all the guy’s clothes. The guy says, “He’s not a bad card player despite the severe cognitive decline...” The bill is on a fast track in the Senate. Laura Clawson of Kos wrote on Tuesday that Republicans are crumbing. Back in January the Freedom Caucus extracted several concessions to allow McCarthy to be Speaker. One of them was he would hold firm on the debt limit. Another was that any singer member could call for a vote to oust McCarthy from the job. The Freedom Caucus is furious with McCarthy for not being firm enough and for promoting a bill that got more Democrat votes than Republican. With that in mind this is the time for them to kick McCarthy from his perch. But it doesn’t look like there will be an attempt to oust him. The reason is simple. No other Republican wants the job. This cartoon by Ed Wexler demonstrates the Freedom Caucus fury. A new study from the Earth Commission was published Wednesday in the journal Nature. This group is made of international scientists. They looked at eight aspects of life on earth: climate, air pollution, fertilizer contamination of water, groundwater supply, fresh surface water, the unbuilt natural world, the overall natural world, and the human built environment. Seven of those are already in the danger zone. The eighth, air pollution, is on its way there with some places already in the danger area.

If planet Earth just got an annual check-up, similar to a person's physical, “our doctor would say that the Earth is really quite sick right now and it is sick in terms of many different areas or systems and this sickness is also affecting the people living on Earth,” Earth Commission co-chair Joyeeta Gupta, a professor of environment at the University of Amsterdam, said at a press conference.

The situation isn’t terminal. The planet can recover if we eliminate fossil fuels and we change how we treat land and water. But at the moment we’re moving in the wrong direction. The big difference in this report is scientists also looked at justice.

The justice part includes fairness between young and old generations, different nations and even different species. Frequently, it applies to conditions that harm people more than the planet. ... “Sustainability and justice are inseparable,” said Stanford environmental studies chief Chris Field, who wasn’t part of the research.

Happy Pride Month! Of course, I’ve seen the list of pride festivals around the Detroit area and some elsewhere in Michigan. I rarely go and don’t plan to this year. I’m glad they exist, but there isn’t much beyond the entertainment and the type of music and the drag shows just aren’t my thing. Kos of Kos discussed why snowflake conservatives will have a tough Pride Month. He started with a photo of a giant pride flag being pulled over the lawn at a home game of the Nashville Soccer Club. Yup, Nashville. As in Tennessee. Kos began with stats from Civiqs. The question “Do you think it should be legal or not legal for same-sex couples to marry” was asked over the years. Back in the Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that our marriages must be legal 54% agreed and 38% didn’t. Now 68% agree and 24% don’t. And while 64% favor laws and policies that would protect transgender people from discrimination, only 10% oppose. That’s a fringe position.

Conservatives are out of step with the mainstream, and this coming Pride Month will certainly shove it in their face. Given how much these snowflakes are already struggling to cope, this coming month will prove particularly brutal for them.

Kos then showed thee is a rainbow version of the NFL logo and of every NFL team logo. I guess a few people aren’t going to be watching football anymore. An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported that not everything is going smoothly for us.

Following Target’s announcement last week that it removed products and relocated Pride displays to the back of certain stores in the South, activists in the LGBTQ+ community are calling for new campaigns to convince corporate leaders not to cave to anti-LGBTQ+ groups. “We need a strategy on how to deal with corporations that are experiencing enormous pressure to throw LGBTQ people under the bus,” said California state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, a member of the LGBTQ legislative caucus. “We need to send a clear message to corporate America that if you’re our ally — if you are truly our ally — you need to be our ally, not just when it’s easy but also when it’s hard,” he said. While the retailer said its actions were aimed at ensuring the safety and well-being of its employees after protesters knocked over Pride signs and confronted workers in stores, the controversy comes at a time when conflict over LGBTQ+ rights is simmering.

They have no more hostages left

My Sunday movie was Punch. It’s a New Zealand film, set in a small town. The story focuses on Jim at 17. He has been trained by his father to be a boxer from a young age. Jim is mostly OK with that but dad can be a stern taskmaster and Jim sometimes rebels. The date of Jim’s debut bout is approaching. When out training and shooting video (another passion) along the ocean Jim is stung and Whetu, the local gay kid, rescues him. Whetu, who is Maori, has a cabin near the shore to which he escapes when life in town is rough (which is most of the time). Jim and Whetu become friends and they begin to ponder what comes next in life, usually starting with getting out of this little town. Of course, there are complications along the way. There is also some homophobia to deal with, mostly directed at Whetu. And an ending I thought was quite good. I enjoyed it. Lots of debt ceiling news, most of it quite good. I begin with a bit of explanation by economist Paul Krugman with a chart of the percent of the federal government 2024 budge in broad categories – Defense 14%, health care 24%, Social Security 24%, Interest 12%, everything else 26%. He adds: “So your regular reminder that the federal govt is an insurance company with an army.” That everything else is what the fight is about. When the debt ceiling deal was announced on Friday Joan McCarter of Daily Kos called it a dud and explaining why the Republican position is based on lies. Work requirements for assistance programs don’t get people into jobs. They prompt people to go without needed food and medical care. Taking money from the IRS allows more rich people to cheat, which raises, not lowers, the deficit. On Sunday Kos of Kos wrote that the deal is actually a pretty good one. He can tell because the House Freedom Caucus, the far-right guys, are livid. Kos listed the major points of the deal, which I won’t repeat. In a second Sunday post Kos explained in more detail.

The reason Republicans are angry is that they have just neutered their chamber for the rest of this congressional term. ... This deal supersedes the appropriations process for this year and next, removing yet another hostage from the Republican Party’s toolbox. For a House caucus with dreams of austere and severe government cutbacks, this is a devastating fizzle. None of this is great for us, of course, but we lost the House to a bunch of nihilists. We were going to lose all of this and probably more in budget negotiations later this year anyway. This deal guarantees that the cuts won’t be anywhere as deep as Republicans hoped, while removing a dangerous weapon from their hands ahead of the 2024 election. We can argue that Biden shouldn’t have engaged in this battle when the 14th Amendment seems as clear as it is. But invoking it would’ve crashed the markets (they hate “uncertainty”), and that economic uncertainty would’ve lasted through the whole legal process, only to end up at an arch-conservative and hyperpartisan Supreme Court.

Kos then reviewed some of the heated conservative tweets and noted how muted the Democratic response has been. In a third post just after midnight this morning Kos noted the Democratic response is mild relief and surprise, expecting it could have been much worse. He wrote:

But as the Semafor headline noted, “The Democrats (mostly) won the debt ceiling fight.” Or as progressive journalist Josh Marshall put it, Republicans walked into a Denny’s at gunpoint, demanded money, and walked out with nothing more than breakfast. It’s okay to both be disappointed at some of the concessions, while also celebrate Biden’s major negotiating victory in a government in which Republicans, with the House, unfortunately do have a say. Many conservatives remain furious.

With the ability to hold the budget hostage Freedom Caucus members are ranting that they cannot force action on border security or demand further spending cuts. George Takei tweeted an imagined conversation between Kevin McCarthey and Joe Biden about the negotiation. Joe essentially said, let’s do the budget early. There would have been no tax increases anyway, a spending freeze anyway. So we good? In a pundit roundup for Kos and in between quotes about the deal, Greg Dworkin wrote:

I don't want to be one of those people, but pending passage, this looks like Biden played his hand well and McCarthy didn't. Oh, the Republicans get stuff, but that was inevitable. They control the House. What they've done is get a little bit and given up their leverage for the time being. That's a deal the WH will be satisfied with. They called the House Freedom Caucus bluff and said we aren't negotiating with you. We're negotiating with old fashioned institutionalists. Find me some, preferably not Speaker McCarthy, but him if we have to. We'll ignore HFC and pretend they aren't there. It's far from ideal, not "good' in the sense of good policy, but good in the sense of good politics. It went from an existential catastrophe to a "yawn - what's happening in TX, anyways?" Again, I suspect the WH is happy with that. The 14th amendment and the platinum coin had their role, but it wasn’t as a viable alternative to an old fashioned compromise that neutered the GOP House for the rest of their term (they have no more hostages left). It was a “In case of House Freedom Caucus agenda, break glass” safety feature.

Dworkin included a tweet by Sahil Kapur, a political reporter for NBC News, responding to far right Rep. Dan Bishop:

House Republican hardliners see the debt limit not as a shared responsibility in divided government but as a weapon to wield when a Dem is president.

In a post from this afternoon Kos reported both sides are frantically spinning the deal. He also quoted Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post who discussed why the grab from last year’s big boost in funding for the IRS isn’t that big a deal. Rampell explained the IRS boost was for money to be spent over 10 years – one usually can’t hire everyone in one year. So as long as there is a quarter of that money they don’t spend in the next two years, no problem. Dave Whamond tweeted a cartoon of news reporters asking an elephant and getting his reply:

You wan to cut Social Security, end Medicare, stop same sex marriage, ban books, control what history we learn, take away LGBTQ+ rights, control what gender we are, take away a woman’s right to choose … But what are you actually for? Freedom

Beyond the irony, as I’ve mentioned before freedom for them is the freedom to oppress. John Darkow of the Columbia Missourian tweeted a cartoon:

[Poor person holding a bowl:] More please. [McCarthy:] Sorry, but we have to make sacrifices so we can pay for the Trump tax cuts! [Rich man holding a bag of money:] Hurry up! This is getting heavy!

Mark Sumner of Kos wrote about the season for book murder.

A book that can’t be read is a dead book. It doesn’t matter if that book is locked away in a storage locker or reduced to a pile of ashes any more than it matters if a person is buried or cremated. Dead is dead. A book is a tool for moving ideas between two minds—not just ideas, but perspectives, empathy, and understanding. We cannot see through someone else’s eyes … except that we can with books. They are the defining instrument of civilization. Repressing them is the defining act of barbarism. Those who murder books always have their reasons. They are always the same reasons. In May 1933, several thousand people gathered in Berlin’s Opera Square. They brought with them books—25,000 of them—from authors such as Ernest Hemingway, Helen Keller, Jack London, and Albert Einstein. At the end of the evening, they piled the books into a great mound, and then—with a band playing the background and universal applause—they burned them. As the flames roared up, the crowd heard a speech from German Minister of Enlightenment Joseph Goebbels. The era of critical race theory is now at an end, Goebbels told them. Then he shouted that the flames would put an end to wokeness. Actually, Goebbels didn’t mention CRT. He said “Jewish intellectualism.” And he didn’t say “woke.” He talked about “the Un-German Spirit." But it’s the same thing. It’s exactly the same thing. ... Book murder is about closing minds and ending opportunities. Most of all, it’s about ensuring conformity. That’s why DeSantis is out to keep the children of Florida from reading about those degenerate Jews and their anti-German depravity. Oh, sorry. I mean trans youth and wokeness. And … wait. Can you smell it? That rising smoke. And at the corners of your vision, the flickering light of torches.

Woke is just not that offensive to most people

A week ago Kos of Daily Kos reported in a Ukraine update that Russia claimed to have taken the whole of Bakhmut. Ukraine disputed that. Even so a flag ceremony was performed. But the claim doesn’t mean good news for Russia. Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner group would now pull out and leave the defense of the city and any future offense to actual Russian military. All that still leaves Ukraine in a good position on the heights west of town. As for the town, there’s just rubble. The next day Kos explained the term pyrrhic victory. The term is named after King Pyrrhus who defeated the Romans at Heraclea in 280 BC, but the victory was so costly that he knew another battle with the Romans would be a defeat. And Kos applied that to Russia taking Bakhmut:

The fight for Bakhmut did change the trajectory of the war. It fixed Russian forces in the area, stopping attempts to advance around Vuhledar, Kreminna, Svatove, and Adviika. It cost Russia around 100,000 casualties, and it depleted Russia’s ammunition stocks. ... Furthermore, Russian forces are so depleted around Bakhmut that small squad-sized Ukrainian pushes are retaking several kilometers of territory in the city’s northern and southern flanks.

A couple days ago Mark Sumner of Kos reported that Russia set two goals for the invasion.

On the day that Russian tanks rolled across the border into Ukraine, Putin set two straightforward goals in a speech to the Russian people: “de-Nazifying” and “demilitarizing” Ukraine. Essentially, that meant bringing down the Ukrainian government and destroying the Ukrainian military.

Putin has repeated those goals many times since then. But by that measure the invasion has failed. The Ukrainian government is stronger with higher domestic and international support. As for the military, Prigozhin is puzzled how Ukraine now has one of the strongest militaries in the world.

“If at the start of the special operation they had 500 tanks, hypothetically speaking,” said the Wagner leader, “now they have 5,000 tanks. If 20,000 men were able to fight before, now it’s 400,000. … F*ck knows how, but we’ve militarized Ukraine.”

I’d explain how it happened – attack a country and it’s going to beef up its military – but I doubt he’d listen. Does he not understand something so basic? Yesterday Sumner reported not much is going on. There are skirmishes along the front, but not much movement. As for Bakhmut, the daily attacks and shelling have stopped. Now that the Wagner group is gone Russia has little desire or ability to press westward from the town. The Society of Secret Library Friends tweeted another reason keeping books out of kids’ hands is a bad idea. The book that’s mentioned is on several banned books lists.

A 10-year-girl in Delaware picked up “It’s Perfectly Normal” while at the library with her mother. When they came home, she showed her mom the chapter on sexual abuse and said, “This is me.” She was being abused by her father, and it was the first time she’d spoken about it. The father was convicted, and the judge said, “There were heroes in this case. One was the child, and the other was the book.” Also a hero was the librarian who made this book available on the shelves. The author wrote “I wish we never had to talk with kids about any of these aberrant behaviors. But we have to do so because kids have a right to have accurate information that can keep them healthy and safe. They need to know how to get help to make any abusive behavior stop.”

This thread is based on a story in Bookriot with the title Sex Ed Books Don't "Groom" Kids and Teens. They Protect Them. I’m sure that implies those that banned these books don’t want kids protected. Capital and Main of the Kos community explains how the climate crisis is also a health crisis. Bugs and bacteria can adapt to a changing environment faster than humans can.

The scientific press is filled with examples of how the changing climate is opening new pathways for insects following the heat, fungi following the moisture, algal blooms proliferating in warming waters fed by phosphate-based agricultural runoff—and how all are being buffeted by the frequency of the extreme swings in temperature and rainfall.

The species of mosquito that is most responsible for transmitting some nasty diseases is expanding its range in the US. Ticks that carry Lyme disease have a longer season. Warmer temps help the proliferation of the fungus that carries Valley fever and rates are rising. Ocean warming helps spread a bacteria that infects shellfish and is easily transmitted to humans, where it causes digestive and skin ailments. And many more. In an Earth Matters report for Kos Meteor Blades discussed several interesting articles. Here’s a few of them. Stan Cox, writing for Climate Dreams reminds us technology alone cannot get us back to where we were or need to be. Even though there has been a tremendous growth in wind and solar the use of fossil fuels for generating electricity has dropped only a bit. And as we shift to electricity and need batteries for storage, our need of lithium, cobalt, and nickel is several times known reserves. That need will never end as billions of tons of batteries will die and need to be replaced. Recycling won’t solve that problem. Tara Lohan at The Relevator wrote there is now a race to plant trees. But this isn’t a silver bullet.

The World Economic Forum launched a 1 trillion trees initiative in 2020. The Bonn Challenge aims to restore 865 million acres of deforested landscapes by 2030. Individual countries have set their own targets, too, like Canada’s announcement to plant 2 billion trees in 10 years. These reforestation efforts have been spurred by the need to store more carbon to fight climate change and help create habitat for dwindling biodiversity. Planting more trees can also help reduce air pollution, prevent erosion, and provide cooling shade for everyone from city dwellers to creek-swimming salmon. Seems like a perfect solution to a lot of problems, including two of our biggest: climate change and biodiversity loss. Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as it may seem. There are a lot of ways that tree planting can go awry—especially as people aim to hit arbitrary metrics. This includes planting trees in the wrong places, like in native grasslands or wetlands. Or planting nonnative trees that take up too much water or create other dangerous conditions.

Steve Hanley at CleanTechnica reported that achieving climate justice means there should be a “polluter pays” price tag, the amount fossil fuel companies should pay to clean up the environmental harm they’ve done. Over all this should be more than $200 billion a year. Oil companies should be able to pay this easily. Saudi Aramco should pay $43 billion a year – out of profits a bit less than for times that. ExxonMobile should pay $18 billion out of a profit of $56 billion. Shell and BP together should pay close to $31 billion out of a combined profit of $68 billion. Affording it isn’t the issue. The official word is the debt ceiling won’t be hit until June 5. And it looks like most Republican members of Congress will be on Memorial Day break until then. Perhaps negotiators will do better with them out of town. On Wednesday Joan McCarter of Kos reported that McCarthy and a lot of other Republicans are shouting: It’s not our fault, don’t blame us! Alas, the Capitol Hill press corps has bought that line. It also seems Biden has bought into it as well. McCarter wrote:

House Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal put her finger on the problem of both messaging and the media on Wednesday. It’s a good lesson for the White House on how to set a narrative. A reporter asked if progressives “are ready to tank” a deal. “No, no, no,” she said. “That is exactly the problem. When the media reports this as not their fault.” “Let’s tell the truth here,” she continued. “We are not tanking anything.” That’s the message.

No word on whether that’s changed the press corps thinking and reporting. Aldous Pennyfarthing of the Kos community reported Rep. Matt Gaetz said the quiet part out loud, when referring to the Republican debt ceiling bill the House passed several days ago. Said Gaetz:

I think my conservative colleagues, for the most part, support Limit, Save, Grow, and they don’t feel like we should negotiate with our hostage.

Glad we got that cleared up. Kos reported that Republican candidate Nikki Haley took her line about wokeness being a “virus more dangerous than any pandemic” to a gathering of New England business leaders. It didn’t go over well. So Kos discussed that the skewering of wokeness that plays so well with the base is flailing with others.

The reason is simple: While they once focused on convincing the broader public about their issues with a single-minded ability to clearly define their boogeymen, their media bubble has them turning inward. They agitate themselves into a tizzy, happy to ignore an outside world that remains perplexed at the hysteria and oftentimes simply bored. Ultimately, for a party that once pretended to talk about the issues that “real America” cared about, they’ve surrendered any such pretenses. You can bet that just about every Republican disapproves of the word “liberal,” or “Joe Biden.” But when one-third of Republicans are okay with “woke,” you know you have a problem. Woke is just not that offensive to most people.

Add to that the accusation that Fox News is woke. Yeah, their employee handbook discusses that transgender people are allowed to use the restroom of their choice and other related good stuff. There is a reason why they rant about being woke. The more they rant the more likely they are to get airtime on conservative media. And that is a lot more fun than actually discussing health care or climate change. Though Republicans can’t seem to define “woke” I’ll give it a shot: Any thing or concept that interferes with the perception of able straight white Christian guys are and are naturally supposed to be at the top of the social hierarchy with the right to oppress everyone else is “woke.” Jesse Duquette tweeted a cartoon, introducing it by writing:

Rightwing death cultists would rather 8-year-olds apply tourniquets than tenderness. F--- em.

The cartoon shows one child in a pool of blood, a second child bleeding profusely, and a third trying to help the second and saying:

At least this isn’t as traumatic as having to read books about black and gay people!

Ted Littleford tweeted a cartoon of a badass dude bristling with guns and with “Second Amendment” tattooed across his belly, saying:

Why do you let morons like me decide my guns are more precious than your child?

Dave Whamond tweeted a cartoon:

[Donkey:] It’s so sad that our country is so divided! [Elephant:] No, it isn’t!

Love is simply acknowledging the full humanity of the other

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos discussed a release from the World Meteorological Organization that says the next five years will be the hottest on record (following eight years that were the eight warmest) and in those five years there will be more weather disasters. Also, we’ve been told we should not let the earth warm by 1.5C if we want to avoid big climate catastrophes, and we have a 66% chance of passing that by 2027. So far the earth has warmed by 1.1C. For the last three years the oceans have been in the La Niña pattern in which warm waters are pulled lower and the surface remains cool. But the oceans are shifting to the El Niño pattern, in which all that warm water returns to the surface. That will fuel the heat and the disasters. Sumner wrote:

There will be droughts, floods, wildfires, and economic disruptions like power plants being idled by low river levels, barge traffic halted, and livestock dying in masses from sheer heat. The climate crisis already significantly drives immigrant movements in the Americas and Europe. Those movements will increase, and as they do, they will contribute to increased political instability, not just in the nations people are forced to leave, but in the areas where they arrive. The effects of climate change and the associated disasters are a matter of local, national, and international security.

We need to prepare for this at each of those levels. And we aren’t. Pro-polluting politicians like to point out the cost of addressing climate change. Already climate disasters and lost production have been much more expensive and the costs will go up.

In any one of these El Niño years, the combination of decreased production and increased disasters amounts to something like a 2-3% downturn in the global economy. The two-year El Niño in 1982-83 meant a loss of $4.1 trillion. Another two-year cycle in 1997-98 cost $5.7 trillion. Now we’re heading into another such cycle, and there are no guarantees it will last only two years. Over the remainder of this century, the cost associated with these cycles is estimated to be $84 trillion. That’s about the same size as the entire global economy. That’s what we are already paying for not taking the steps necessary to address the climate crisis. Addressing climate change now is being fiscally responsible for the future. That price will only increase along with rising temperatures. It’s not too late to move. It’s never too late to move. But the longer we wait, the more costly it becomes.

An Associated Press article posted on Kos discussed the world’s shrinking lakes.

A close examination of nearly 2,000 of the world's largest lakes found they are losing about 5.7 trillion gallons (21.5 trillion liters) a year. That means from 1992 to 2020, the world lost the equivalent of 17 Lake Meads, America's largest reservoir, in Nevada. It's also roughly equal to how much water the United States used in an entire year in 2015. Even lakes in areas getting more rainfall are shriveling. That's because of both a thirstier atmosphere from warmer air sucking up more water in evaporation, and a thirsty society that is diverting water from lakes to agriculture, power plants and drinking supplies, according to a study in Thursday's journal Science. Authors also cited a third reason they called more natural, with water shrinking because of rainfall pattern and river runoff changes, but even that may have a climate change component. That's the main cause for Iran's Lake Urmia to lose about 277 billion gallons (1.05 trillion liters) a year, the study said.

For now, the Great Lakes around Michigan seem to be maintaining size. Another AP story on Kos reported that New York City has passed a law requiring reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by buildings starting next year. This will affect about 50K buildings. This is important because buildings are the largest source of the city’s emissions, accounting for about two-thirds. The article tells the story of machinery in the basement of one of those buildings that captures carbon dioxide, the most prevalent problematic gas, and sells it. The company that buys it, Glenwood Mason Supply, combines the CO2 with calcium in cement to create calcium carbonate, which becomes a stable part of concrete. That’s pretty cool! And definitely a help. But... Better than trying to capture emissions is no emissions. Also, many of these buildings are more than a century old and under-maintained. Switching to a better energy source is a better solution as is making them more energy efficient. But that takes time and money (though we could debate whether it is better to install carbon capture or to make these other improvements). There is also the question of whether storing CO2 is safe. A large release of CO2 replaces oxygen and lead to asphyxiation. But safer than what? Safer than natural gas? Safer than a warming climate? Yes, to both. Installing carbon capture is a good short term solution to lower emissions now on our way to something better. But it cannot be the end solution, one that permits ongoing use of fossil fuels. Jeffrey Levin tweeted a cartoon by Mike Peters from the 1970s that, alas, is still appropriate. A guy at a desk marked Big Oil says:

You want coal? We own the mines. You want oil and gas? We own the wells. You want nuclear energy? We own the uranium. You want solar power? We own the er... ah... Solar power isn’t feasible.

Othuke Umukoro tweeted the poem To the Young Who Want to Die by Gwendolyn Brooks. Here’s part of it, though the whole thing isn’t very long.

Sit down. Inhale. Exhale. The gun will wait. The lake will wait. The tall gall in the small seductive vial will wait will wait: will wait a week: will wait through April. You do not have to die this certain day.

I found the whole thing meaningful. And no, I am not depressed and I don’t want to end myself. However, if you are, in the US please call 988 to reach the crisis hotline or call the Trevor Project. Leah McElrath tweeted a thread:

I believe in love. As a verb. Love as a feeling is wonderful, but feelings change. If you think of love as a verb, you can choose how to act in a consistent way that’s not based on transient emotional states. Consistently applying love as a verb makes love into a practice, similar to prayer or meditation. What you’ll discover if you consistently practice love is that doing so sometimes upsets people. It seems that many in our culture have a belief that some people are deserving of love and others are not. Many confuse loving with approving. But that’s not what love is. At its most pure, love is simply acknowledging the full humanity of the other. Love dependent on approval incentivizes secret-keeping and shame and will ultimately render us all unloved. Loving is a choice we make for ourselves, not for the other. Love is a way of being.

David Hayward tweeted a cartoon of Jesus saying:

I said feed my sheep, not feed on them!

Rachel Martin of NPR has started a series titled Enlighten Me. The first episode, 16 minutes long, was during All Things Considered last Sunday. Martin talked to Simran Jeet Singh, who is Sikh and the author of the book The Light We Give: How Sikh Wisdom Can Transform Your Life. The book is a response to a shooting in 2012 in which a man opened fire in a Sikh Temple, killing six (a seventh died of their wounds in 2020). Singh didn’t know the victims, but recognized it as a racist attack on his faith and culture. Here are some ideas from that discussion. Don’t let fear keep you from life. Live with no fear and no hate. The hate, the anger at what someone has done to us is a natural reaction. But it’s not the only choice. The anger directed at me is not my problem unless that person can’t control their anger. Forgiveness sometimes doesn’t seem quite right. Part of that is forgiveness is expected – a church is supposed to forgive a shooter. And forgiveness may not be the solution to our suffering. An attempt to get to know the Sikh Temple shooter (who had killed himself at the scene) didn’t work Singh felt he and the shooter had nothing in common. So why did that guy kill? He talked to some kids about it and one suggested he killed because he was evil. But evil is not a Sikh concept. We are all from the same light, we are all interconnected, we have a shared sense of humanity. We are able to hurt one another when we fail to see that humanity.

Part of what I didn't expect coming out of this conversation with the kids was this way of thinking, essentially saying there's no place for judgment. There's no place for discrimination. This is a core teaching of Sikh philosophy and I realized that as I was thinking about this white supremacist, I was so judgmental of him and I had developed the same kind of supremacist thinking that I was upset at him for. I thought I was better than him as a human being. I thought I was more divine or had more light inside of me, or however you wanna describe it. I just thought I was better than him at the end of the day. ... I don't think that our ability to live in certain ways necessarily means we're better than other people. Growing up, the one thing that I found most frustrating and the biggest turnoff about religion was when people thought that they were better than you. And maybe it's because I grew up in Texas and there's a lot of that kind of judgment, the whole "holier than thou" mentality. It always rubbed me the wrong way. I never really understood why it was particularly unacceptable to me until I started to think about this very one-sided relationship, because he was dead, with this man. But in trying to see his humanity and learning that if I wanted to see him as equally divine I had to get over this assumption that just because he did horrible things means that he's a monster or he's inhuman and doesn't deserve the same kind of dignity as everyone else.