Personal – Page 123 – Politics Plus

Open Thread July 14, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 142023

Yesterday, the Screen Actors Guild announced a strike – its first in 43 years. This also means the motin picture undustry will have two unions on strike at the same time, which has not happened for even longer – 20 years longer, to be precise. The actors (and other personalities) have issues of their own, but they are also supportive of the Writers, who were already on strike. I wish them, and all unions, well.

Cartoon – 14 0714Cartoon.jpg

Short Takes –

Robert Reich – It’s time to declare victory in the inflation fight
Quote – The consumer price index was at 3% for the month of June, compared to the year before. This is a significant improvement from the May figure, which was 4%. And a major improvement from last year’s peak of 9.1% in June. The last time inflation neared 3% was in March 2021. So will the Fed please now declare victory? Yes, I know, the Fed has an inflation target of 2%, and some Fed officials have recently signaled they’re likely to raise interest rates again at their July 25-26 meeting. But it’s time to stop, because higher rates will slow the economy — and a slower economy will hurt lower-wage workers.
Click through for full argument. No contradiction from me.

HuffPost – Why We Need More Close Interracial Friendships (And Why We’re Bad At Them)
Quote – Developing cross-racial friendships is even more difficult in adulthood. Outside of maybe bonding with a co-worker of a different race, we mostly adhere to our geographic segregation and stay socially segregated, too. The barrier to befriending someone is even higher when the person of color thinks their otherwise friendly white co-worker or neighbor is closed off to learning about what it means to be white in a race-conscious society. “It’s possible to learn some of that in the context of a cross-racial friendship, but it’s easier to become friends with a person of color if some of that work has already been done,” Daniel Tatum said.
Click through for details. I could wish this wasn’t accurate. But I can’t deny any of it. A lot of steps went into developing my relationship with my BFF, but I have not forgotten the very first step – we were co-workers, yes, and one day she said something, I forget what, and I replied, “Oh, fo’ shizzle.”

Food For Thought

Open Thread July 13, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:07 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 132023

Yesterday, The Conversation’s newsletter included an article about what doesn’t work to prtect people from mosquitos – and what does – and if so, how long. If you live where there are mosquitos (and, thanks to climate change, every year there are more places which do) you might want to give it a look.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

The Daily Beast – GOP Lawmaker Banned From Wikipedia After Self-Editing Spree-
Quote – According to open source Wikipedia records, the edits were all made in 2021, while Lawler was serving as a New York assemblyman. Beyond authoring his self-made jump to his alma mater’s notable alumni, he made several more straightforward changes to his Wikipedia page. Lawler added electoral statistics from his victory in 2020 over a Democratic assembly incumbent, buffed up his resume to note that he “serves as the Ranker of the Government Operations Committee and as a member of the Aging, Banks, Education, and Housing Committees,” and changed his name on the page in one instance from “Mike Lawler” to “Michael V. Lawler.” The “V,” of course, is for Vincent.
Click through for details. I try to donate to Wikipedia yearly, since I use it so much. I think I’ll send them a little extra. Policing isn’t free.

The New Yorker – Reinventing the E.R. for America’s Mental-Health Crisis
Quote – It’s hard to imagine a less therapeutic environment for a person in crisis than an emergency department: crowded and windowless rooms; harsh fluorescent lights; the ceaseless ping of alarms; this patient retching, that one screaming. And yet, for every eight patients who present at an emergency department, one is there for a behavioral crisis such as psychosis, suicidality, mania, aggression, or substance use. Often these conditions have a years-long history and can’t be treated quickly or straightforwardly, in the way that a broken bone or a knife wound might be. In some cases, showing up at an E.R. can make things worse; patients who pose a danger to themselves or others may be sedated or kept in isolation, even tethered to bedside rails so that they cannot move…. The mental-health unit where Mitlyng works is one of only a few dozen Empath units, short for Emergency Psychiatry Assessment, Treatment, and Healing. Such units, which were invented about a decade ago, vary in size, staffing, and design, but the core concept is that, instead of leaving patients to languish in an emergency room, caregivers offer them a calm communal environment where they can receive a comprehensive evaluation, start therapy, and, if needed, receive medication.
Click through for article. It’s jaw-dropping how simple the concept is… and also how badly it is needed everywhere. The author has hospital ER experience themself, incidentally.

Food For Thought

Open Thread July 12, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 5:50 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 122023

Yesterday, two legal things happened with Trump**, and both Heather Cox Richardson and Joyce Vance addressed both. The first was Trump**’s motion to postpone the documents case trial indefinitely. This is both very Trump** and very ridiculaous (not that there’s much difference), and Glenn (and other legiti,ate attorneys) will tear it to shreds, though it won’t be in today’s Thread. Secondly – for background, the DOJ defended Trump** in E Jean Carroll’s original defamation case – it did so because he was President when he made the original defamatory remarks, and there might have been just the remotest chance that he was acting as President when he made them. But the new defamatory remarks he made last year – he wasn’t, thank God, President then, so no defense from DOJ. He’ll have to get his own lawyers, Honestly, I don’t know whether having DOJ defense the first time around even helped. I think if I had been on the jury, every time I looked at the defense table, those DOJ lawyers would have reminded me that our nation hadd been so misfortunate as to have this lunatic as President – which would not have inclined me to show him an atom of mercy.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

PolitiZoom – Why The Democrats Are Already More Strongly Positioned Than The GOP For 2024
Quote – In 2018, 2020, and 2022, non professional Democratic House candidates out fundraised deeply entrenched GOP incumbents by 4-5 to 1. Mostly by talking in living rooms and kitchens, grocery stores and Starbucks, and holding town halls where they actually listened to constituent concerns, and answered not in political bullsh*t, but in real life solutions. Little wonder they rocked like Bob Seger with Hollywood Nights. And the Democrats, not only the upstart contenders, but even the DNC seem to have gotten the memo.
Click through for opinion. Let me remind you that Murfster has vision issues (I can’t remember now whether it’s glaucoma, cataracts, both, or something else) and really is not able to prrofread to his own satisfaction, let alone anyone else’s. He’s still intelligent, though, and I hope he’s correct here.

The Daily Beast – GOP Board Whipped Up Homeless Hate. Then a Man Was Murdered
Quote – In January, the Board of Commissioners in Flathead County, Montana, proclaimed that the homeless had become a big problem in the little town of Kalispell due to charitable efforts to shelter and feed them. “Providing homeless infrastructure has the predictable consequence of attracting more homeless individuals,” read a preposterous letter signed by the three members, all Republicans. “When a low-barrier shelter opened in our community, we saw a dramatic increase.” The letter progressed from icy hearted to paranoid.
Click through for story. But that’s not how they’d tell it. After all, we are the violent ones coming to get them. Yeah. Right.

Food For Thought

Open Thread July 11, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:01 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 112023

Yesterday, I managed to solve the New Yorker’s “Name Drop” on the first clue without even an opera being involved. Succeed or fail, when you get to the answer, the quiz will say something snarky, which today for me was “The world needs more trivia heroes like you.” It got a chuckle out of me. I do have some trivia knwledge, but it’s very specialized, and I am absolutely no “trivia hero.” ALso yesterday I learned – and I’m sorry – from Beau that “Captain Kori”‘s pirate ship has left the dock. If that means nothing to you, you should probably ignore it. But if you do recognize the name and want more information, here it is. I won’t be putting it in the video thread.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Raw Story (via Archive Today) – Opinion | Neuroscientist sounds the alarm on the right wing, the GOP and the ‘contagious sociopaths’ who live among us
Quote – One cannot talk about contagious sociopathy without considering righteousness – a term describing the phenomenon by which malicious acts – including harming and killing others – are justified as long as the bad actor can consider the ‘victims’ to be an enemy. This is a bedrock of the Trump and MAGA attacks on the Left and any that criticize or oppose them. I have written and said it before and I will do so again: The contagious spread of sociopathy has provided us with potential and actual leaders who embody the worst that humanity has to offer according to moral, legal, religious/spiritual, and societal norms…and they continue to run on this platform.
Click through for full opinion. If you thought thatBandy Lee and Mary L. Trump were sounding “Fire!” at the three-alrm level … how many alarms is this!

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution – Grand jurors who will consider Trump charges to be selected Tuesday
Quote – Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who oversaw the special purpose grand jury, will preside over Tuesday’s selection of the two grand juries for this term of court. Each panel will have 23 grand jurors, plus three alternates. One panel will meet Mondays and Tuesdays, the other Thursdays and Fridays. Both will work in secret and are expected to decide whether to hand up indictments in hundreds of cases. It is unclear which one will consider the much-anticipated election-meddling case.
Click through for details including procedural details. I appreciate those, since knowing them helps make sense of the process for us on the outside of it.

Food For Thought

Open Thread July 10, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:13 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 102023

Yesterday, our Mitch had a photo of a sunset over Tampa Bay picked up by Axios and used in their local newsletter. Congratulatons, Mitch! While we’re speaking of Florida, I think my favoride nickname for her Governor is still Ron DeSaster, but Steve Schmidt just came up with a grest contender – “The Tallahassee Mussolini.” Also, I learned that Wonkette is moving to Substack.

Cartoon – 10 0710Cartoon.jpg

Short Takes –

Salon – Ecosystem collapse could occur “surprisingly quickly,” study finds
Quote – Yet humanity may not need to wait until the late 21st Century for climate change to bring about real-world apocalyptic conditions. This will especially be so if ecosystems undergo abrupt changes after too many extreme weather events occur, one after another after another. According to a new study in the scientific journal Nature Sustainability, that scenario might indeed occur sooner rather than later…. “We show that the combination of additional stresses and/or the inclusion of noise [such as variables like El Niño] brings ecosystem collapses substantially closer to today by ~38–81%,” Willcock explained. “We also show that, if you were focused on just one stress – because it was easier to measure, for example – the ecosystem collapse may occur at stress levels you thought were safe (i.e. due to the pressure of the stresses you are not observing).”
Click through for more information. I won’t say what I’m thinking, lest it sound like a sick joke.

Letters from an American – July 8, 2023
Quote – Reacting to that nomination, Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) recognized the importance of the Fourteenth Amendment to equality: “Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is—and is often the only—protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy….”
Click through for the letter, Heather puts it all together – from the Dred Scott decision , the 3th and 14th amendments, through originalism, and Ted Kennedy being prescient about Rbert Bork. (Does anyone besides me find it very expressive that “borked” now means broken, non-functioning, messed up?)

Food For Thought

Open Thread July 9, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:07 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 092023

Yesterday, the radio opera was “Il Proscrotti” by Saverio Mercadante, an opera I had never heard of. Don’t look so astonished – there are plenty of operas i have not heard of, just as there are plenty of plays and books I have never heard of. I doubt anyone could be aware of everything that exists in even the smallest category. In this case, the reason is that it was written and premiered in 1842, enjoyed one performance, and was not performed again until 2022 (and that is the version we heard a live recording of today.) It’s set in Scotland during the Protectorate (Cromwell’s regime), and is one of those tales where a husband is presumed dead, and his wife decides, or is encouraged, or is forced, to remarry, and then he shows up. Culture is full of them. In this case, it’s complicated by the original husband being a royalist whereas the replacement is a puritan. (I really do not get why Christian talibans through the ages – and there have been many – want people to have no food or heathcare or fun. The Romans were smarter – they knew that “Bread and circuses” were key to keeping the populace compliant.) Mercadante I have heard of – He wrote a number of operas, including a version of “Francesca da Rimini.” Rachmaninoff wrote one too, although the Zandonai one is much more popular.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Huff Post – Top Oklahoma School Official Says Teachers Can Talk About Race Massacre — If They’re Careful About The Race Part
Quote – Teaching kids about the Tulsa Race Massacre is completely fine, according to Oklahoma school Superintendent Ryan Walters. Teachers just need to make sure no one is “made to feel bad” about it…. “I would never tell a kid that because of your race, because of the color of your skin, or your gender or anything like that, you are less of a person or are inherently racist. That doesn’t mean you don’t judge the actions of individuals,” Walters said. “Oh, you can. Absolutely, historically, you should. ‘This was right. This was wrong. They did this for this reason.’ But to say it was inherent in that because of their skin is where I say that is critical race theory. You’re saying that race defines a person.”
Click through for the rest, if you can stand to. You cannot make this stuff up.

The 19th – House Republicans are baking abortion restrictions into spending bills — and avoiding public votes
Quote – The policies backed by House Republicans are wide-ranging. One provision would ban the Department of Defense from covering paid leave or travel costs for service members and their families who need to seek fertility treatments or abortions outside where they are stationed – a measure that disproportionately impacts Black people, who are overrepresented in the military. Another provision would reverse a decision by the Food and Drug Administration that allowed pharmacies to distribute mifepristone — one of the drugs used in medication abortions — via telehealth and allowed certain pharmacies to dispense the pill to patients with a prescription.
Click through for the story. The subtitle of the piece is “Democratic leaders say they will act as a “firewall” on reproductive rights even during looming negotiations to fund the government.” Sowe can continue to breathe.

Food For Thought

Open Thread July 8, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:05 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 082023

Yesterday, I received an e-mail with a little video of Jamie Raskin announcing that his cancer is in total remission. Now that’s something to break out a little bubbly for! I also received a note (email) from Pat advising me she has out-of-town family visiting, so will probably not be around this weekend (so don’t worry.) I also received a grocery order. Most of it was there, But there was one substitution, and it was a bad one (which common sense should have prevented. So I had to file a refund claim for that. I got it all in and the shulder was still better after doing so than it was the previous day, so that’s a win. It’s still a work in progress, but I;m liking the progress.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Politico – Biden’s hydrogen bombshell leaves Europe in the dust
Quote – European leaders have devoted tens of billions of dollars toward encouraging production of hydrogen, a clean-burning fuel that advocates say will create jobs and help fight climate change. But now, many of those jobs will be going to the United States instead. The clean energy subsidies that undergird President Joe Biden’s climate agenda have just prompted one Norwegian manufacturer to choose Michigan, not Europe, as the site of a nearly $500 million factory that will produce the equipment needed to extract hydrogen from water. And other European-based companies are being tempted to follow suit, people involved in the continent’s hydrogen efforts say — making the universe’s most abundant substance the latest focus of the transatlantic trade battle on green energy.
Click through for details. I wish no ill to Europe, but I cannot help feeling that this is so cool.

National Public Radio – Researchers found a rare octopus nursery off the coast of Costa Rica
Quote – Scientists working off the coast of Costa Rica say they’ve discovered the world’s third known octopus nursery…. According to a press release, researchers witnessed Muusoctopus eggs hatch. They said it demonstrated that the area, known as the Dorado Outcrop, was hospitable to young octopuses… Scientists said the discovery also indicated that some deep-sea octopus species brood their eggs in low-temperature hydrothermal vents, such as the one where the nursery was discovered, where fluid heated in the Earth’s crust is released on the seafloor — like hot springs.
Click through for story. I cannot bring myself to be surprised that octopuses have discoverd this and made use of it for child care – they are so doggoned smart! But I am charmed by it. The octopuses in this story are neither South Asian nor mimics, but I couldn’t resist the chart below.

Food For Thought

Open Thread July 7, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:01 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 072023

Yesterday, I came across a post about “Moms for Liberty,” specifically about what they should really be called, since they are anything but “for Liberty.” Nameless found the name “Klanned Kaernhood,” which is one of the terms in this post – but there are several more. Many more – this post only lists the “Top Ten.” (I kind of like “Crackpots with Crockpots” myself, but they are all clever.) Also, the shoulder continued to feel better

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

The 19th Explains: Why child marriage is still legal in 80% of U.S. states
Quote – “For some reason, most Americans do not realize that these abuses are happening,” [Fraidy] Reiss [the founder of Unchained at Last] said. “Most Americans agree that forced marriage and child marriage are terrible and heartbreaking. They imagine this happening on the other side of the world, and I wish there was something we could do to show them it’s happening here, too, largely because we have outdated, archaic and dangerous laws that need to be updated.” Nearly 300,000 minors — the vast majority of them girls — were legally married in the United States between 2000 and 2018, according to a 2021 study. Child marriage is defined as any marriage where at least one of the parties is under the age of 18. It was legal in all 50 states until 2018. Ten states have since passed bans to end the practice.
Click through for details. She’s right – most people don’t know. 300,000 may be a huge number, but compared to 300 milliom, it’s a tenth of a percent, and what’s more, spread out over 18 years, the chances of any given person being aware of one incident are not high. But that doesn’t make it unimportant. It shouldn’t happen to anyone.

Democratic Underground – Today in Gay History: Thank a gay man for your freedom!
Quote – Washington knew of a great general, the Baron von Steuben. Europe knew about this guy too: he’d been run out of every decent country on the Continent for being very gay, and he was about to be executed for it. The colonists cut a deal with them: let him go, give him to us and you’ll never see him again. They were okay with that. Von Steuben came to the United States and freaked out about how bad Washington’s army was. They were even doing stupid shit like putting latrines next to the mess hall. Von Steuben wrote “Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States,” which became known as the Blue Book and was used until 1812. He organized a company of 100 men to serve as trainers for the rest of the Army. And he fixed the latrine situation right away. Under his guidance the Army turned itself around.
Click through for the history. Obviously this essay is 7 years old plus a few days late, but

I feel it should be better known.

Food For Thought

Older Entries Newer Entries