Life and the campaign go on and we ignore them at our peril. So here are three ads and an opinion from Beau.
Meidas Touch – This has titles in Spanish built in, but you can turn on the ones in English (I did before copying the code, so they may already be on. If they are, you can turn them off if you like.)
Ruth Bader Ginsburg helped shape the modern era of women’s rights – even before she went on the Supreme Court
Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg paying a courtesy call on Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., left, and Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., in June 1993, before her confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court. AP/Marcy Nighswander
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on Friday, the Supreme Court announced.
Chief Justice John Roberts said in a statement that “Our nation has lost a jurist of historic stature.”
Even before her appointment, she had reshaped American law. When he nominated Ginsburg to the Supreme Court, President Bill Clinton compared her legal work on behalf of women to the epochal work of Thurgood Marshall on behalf of African-Americans.
The comparison was entirely appropriate: As Marshall oversaw the legal strategy that culminated in Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 case that outlawed segregated schools, Ginsburg coordinated a similar effort against sex discrimination.
Decades before she joined the court, Ginsburg’s work as an attorney in the 1970s fundamentally changed the Supreme Court’s approach to women’s rights, and the modern skepticism about sex-based policies stems in no small way from her lawyering. Ginsburg’s work helped to change the way we all think about women – and men, for that matter.
I’m a legal scholar who studies social reform movements and I served as a law clerk to Ginsburg when she was an appeals court judge. In my opinion – as remarkable as Marshall’s work on behalf of African-Americans was – in some ways Ginsburg faced more daunting prospects when she started.
Thurgood Marshall, in 1955, when he was the chief counsel for the NAACP. AP/Marty Lederhandler
Starting at zero
When Marshall began challenging segregation in the 1930s, the Supreme Court had rejected some forms of racial discrimination even though it had upheld segregation.
When Ginsburg started her work in the 1960s, the Supreme Court had never invalidated any type of sex-based rule. Worse, it had rejected every challenge to laws that treated women worse than men.
For instance, in 1873, the court allowed Illinois authorities to ban Myra Bradwell from becoming a lawyer because she was a woman. Justice Joseph P. Bradley, widely viewed as a progressive, wrote that women were too fragile to be lawyers: “The paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fulfil the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator.”
And in 1908, the court upheld an Oregon law that limited the number of hours that women – but not men – could work. The opinion relied heavily on a famous brief submitted by Louis Brandeis to support the notion that women needed protection to avoid harming their reproductive function.
As late as 1961, the court upheld a Florida law that for all practical purposes kept women from serving on juries because they were “the center of the home and family life” and therefore need not incur the burden of jury service.
Challenging paternalistic notions
Ginsburg followed Marshall’s approach to promote women’s rights – despite some important differences between segregation and gender discrimination.
Segregation rested on the racist notion that Black people were less than fully human and deserved to be treated like animals. Gender discrimination reflected paternalistic notions of female frailty. Those notions placed women on a pedestal – but also denied them opportunities.
Either way, though, Black Americans and women got the short end of the stick.
Ginsburg started with a seemingly inconsequential case. Reed v. Reed challenged an Idaho law requiring probate courts to appoint men to administer estates, even if there were a qualified woman who could perform that task.
Sally and Cecil Reed, the long-divorced parents of a teenage son who committed suicide while in his father’s custody, both applied to administer the boy’s tiny estate.
The probate judge appointed the father as required by state law. Sally Reed appealed the case all the way to the Supreme Court.
Ginsburg did not argue the case, but wrote the brief that persuaded a unanimous court in 1971 to invalidate the state’s preference for males. As the court’s decision stated, that preference was “the very kind of arbitrary legislative choice forbidden by the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.”
Two years later, Ginsburg won in her first appearance before the Supreme Court. She appeared on behalf of Air Force Lt. Sharron Frontiero. Frontiero was required by federal law to prove that her husband, Joseph, was dependent on her for at least half his economic support in order to qualify for housing, medical and dental benefits.
If Joseph Frontiero had been the soldier, the couple would have automatically qualified for those benefits. Ginsburg argued that sex-based classifications such as the one Sharron Frontiero challenged should be treated the same as the now-discredited race-based policies.
By an 8–1 vote, the court in Frontiero v. Richardson agreed that this sex-based rule was unconstitutional. But the justices could not agree on the legal test to use for evaluating the constitutionality of sex-based policies.
New York Times article about the Wiesenfeld case, which refers to Ginsburg as ‘a woman lawyer.’ New York Times
Strategy: Represent men
In 1974, Ginsburg suffered her only loss in the Supreme Court, in a case that she entered at the last minute.
Mel Kahn, a Florida widower, asked for the property tax exemption that state law allowed only to widows. The Florida courts ruled against him.
Ginsburg, working with the national ACLU, stepped in after the local affiliate brought the case to the Supreme Court. But a closely divided court upheld the exemption as compensation for women who had suffered economic discrimination over the years.
Despite the unfavorable result, the Kahn case showed an important aspect of Ginsburg’s approach: her willingness to work on behalf of men challenging gender discrimination. She reasoned that rigid attitudes about sex roles could harm everyone and that the all-male Supreme Court might more easily get the point in cases involving male plaintiffs.
She turned out to be correct, just not in the Kahn case.
Ginsburg represented widower Stephen Wiesenfeld in challenging a Social Security Act provision that provided parental benefits only to widows with minor children.
Wiesenfeld’s wife had died in childbirth, so he was denied benefits even though he faced all of the challenges of single parenthood that a mother would have faced. The Supreme Court gave Wiesenfeld and Ginsburg a win in 1975, unanimously ruling that sex-based distinction unconstitutional.
And two years later, Ginsburg successfully represented Leon Goldfarb in his challenge to another sex-based provision of the Social Security Act: Widows automatically received survivor’s benefits on the death of their husbands. But widowers could receive such benefits only if the men could prove that they were financially dependent on their wives’ earnings.
Ginsburg also wrote an influential brief in Craig v. Boren, the 1976 case that established the current standard for evaluating the constitutionality of sex-based laws.
Like Wiesenfeld and Goldfarb, the challengers in the Craig case were men. Their claim seemed trivial: They objected to an Oklahoma law that allowed women to buy low-alcohol beer at age 18 but required men to be 21 to buy the same product.
But this deceptively simple case illustrated the vices of sex stereotypes: Aggressive men (and boys) drink and drive, women (and girls) are demure passengers. And those stereotypes affected everyone’s behavior, including the enforcement decisions of police officers.
Under the standard delineated by the justices in the Boren case, such a law can be justified only if it is substantially related to an important governmental interest.
Among the few laws that satisfied this test was a California law that punished sex with an underage female but not with an underage male as a way to reduce the risk of teen pregnancy.
These are only some of the Supreme Court cases in which Ginsburg played a prominent part as a lawyer. She handled many lower-court cases as well. She had plenty of help along the way, but everyone recognized her as the key strategist.
In the century before Ginsburg won the Reed case, the Supreme Court never met a gender classification that it didn’t like. Since then, sex-based policies usually have been struck down.
I believe President Clinton was absolutely right in comparing Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s efforts to those of Thurgood Marshall, and in appointing her to the Supreme Court.
I have tried to eliminate duplications arising from the fact that organizations go in together on petitions, but it’s impossible to do that perfectly. However, except for Care2 (which will tell you if you have already signed), it probably doesn’t make much difference if we sign the same one multiple times.
It’s another tired painful day here in the CatBox. I still have no news on getting my stent. I wanted to do more today, but I overslept, and I’m just not feeling up to it. I’m afraid you guys may be carrying the ball until I get my stent and recover more of my strength. Tonight is a WWWendy night. Oh God, it’s Monday!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 2:53 (average 4:21). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Aprominent [sic] psychiatrist who spent years studying Nazi Germany has called for mental health professionals to speak out about President Trump’s “falsification of reality” ahead of the election, warning that his attacks on the truth echo those of the Nazis.
Lifton told Salon that the book and a Yale conference on the topic began the movement of “psychologists and psychiatrists speaking out against Trump.”
“I spoke about what I called malignant normality that was being imposed on us, and the need to be witnessing professionals who told the truth and oppose the malignant normality,” he said in an interview last week.
Lifton said that Trump’s supporters and enablers exhibit the same “cult-like behavior” that he has studied, adding that the current administration has “Trumpified” every part of the federal government, in much the same way that the German government was “Nazified” under Adolf Hitler.
What other pattern would Republicans follow? I called GW Bush, aka Nincompoop Nazi, the Fuhrer of the 4th Reich. Republicans planned to make him permanent, but when their policies caused the economy to collapse, they abandoned Bush to let Obama inherit their damage and blame him for it. Now they have chosen Trump* as Fuhrer. That he’s a Nazi goes without saying. Being a Nazi a prerequisite to become Fuhrer of the Republican Reich! RESIST!!
From YouTube (a blast of past protest): Crosby Stills Nash – Carry On / Questions
Love that guitar in Questions! Ah… the memories! Protest like the 60s! RESIST!!
No ads today. just a retrospective on the life of Ruth Bader Ginsberg – including one from SNL – and some new petitions.
I have to say that a whole lot of “wypipo,” even now, are not aware of who the notorious B.I.G. is and therefore do not know whence the nickname comes. I find that a bit embarrassing myself.
It’s another sick painful day, here in the CatBox. I slept most of yesterday afternoon and last night. Nevertheless, I overslept this morning. WWWendy retuned greetings. This is my only article today, but I think it’s a good one. I hope to publish an article on SCOTUS/SCROTUS (Supreme Court/Republican anti-Constitutional VD) tomorrow, which will be busy, because Diana is coming to check in on me. Today is a Holy Day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb, and I shall meditate as my Broncos travel to Pittsburg where the Stealers will try to steal their victory. I love you guys so much that I’m giving up part of my worship to finish this. May the Holy Ellipsoid Orb bless you all.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:48 (average 6:17). To do it, click here. How did you do?
US Cases: 6,971,365 US Deaths: 203,880 Plus thousands of Trump’s* GOP plague murders Republicans are hiding from us
Short Takes:
From NY Times: Letters sent in recent days to the White House and to local law enforcement agencies in Texas contained the lethal substance ricin, and investigators are trying to determine whether other envelopes with the toxin were sent through the postal system, a law enforcement official briefed on the matter said on Saturday.
Investigators believe that the letters were sent from Canada and have identified a woman as a suspect, the official said.
The letter to the White House, which was addressed to President Trump, was intercepted, as were the letters to a detention facility and a sheriff’s office in Texas.
The envelope to the White House was caught at the final off-site processing facility where mail is screened before being sent to the White House mail room, according to a second law enforcement official. The Postal Service irradiates mail that is addressed to the White House and other federal agencies in the Washington area, and the mail is sorted in a facility that samples the air for suspicious substances.
I say with confidence that the woman in Canada who did this was NOT our Sasquatch! As much as knowing that Trump* was playing sizzle-checkers with his perv-pal Jeff Epstein, accomplishing his physical demise is God’s job. Ours is limited to accomplishing his political demise. I suspect this may be a false-flag, perpetrated by Republicane to paint Democrats as violent criminals or to give Resident Bone Spurs* an excuse to declare war on Canada. However, I condemn all who approve, support, and take part in such acts. It wrong, no matter who does it. RESIST!!
From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Who is Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s Front-Runner For Ginsburg’s Seat?
I think Republicans are most likely to go for confirmation in the “lame duck” Senate. If they make it appear that the left are winning this battle prior to the election, it could make Democrats feel overconfident. At the same time, this would send millions of desperate Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians (the exact opposite of real authentic Christians) scurrying to the polls in an attempt to kill Roe v. Wade. These pro-death hypocrites think the right to life begins at conception and ends at birth. After the election, GOP Senators can goose-step with their Fuhrer* and BBMMM with nothing left to lose. RESIST!!
From YouTube (a blast of past protest): Emerson, Lake & Palmer – Lucky Man
Before I started looking, I decided I would post no videos today except one which were about Ruth Bader Ginsburg and/or the Supreme Court. I expect it will surprise no one that that was not difficult.
It’s another tired painful day here in the CatBox. I called Evelyn’s office, and she is referring me to a surgeon to place an esophageal stent. I hope to know more about the timing on Monday. WWWendy should be here in less than an hour, and after my destinking, I’ll go back to bed. This is my only article today. I’ll try to do more tomorrow. Have a great weekend.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:25 (average 4:59). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
Not everywhere in the United States is experiencing wildfires this year – yet. But just because you cannot see it or even smell it does not mean it is not dangerous to you – and I don’t mean just indirectly. We need to be aware as much as we can.
================================================================
What’s in wildfire smoke, and why is it so bad for your lungs?
The health impact of wildfire exposure depends in part on the fire itself and how much smoke a person breathes in, how often and for how long. AP Photos/Noah Berger
If I dare to give the coronavirus credit for anything, I would say it has made people more conscious of the air they breathe.
A friend texted me recently after going for a jog in the foothills near Boise, Idaho, writing: “My lungs are burning … explain what’s happening!!!”
A wildfire was burning to the east of town – one of hundreds of fires that were sending smoke and ash through communities in hot, dry western states. As an environmental toxicologist, I research how air pollution, particularly wood smoke, impacts human health and disease.
I gave my friend the short answer: The state had issued a yellow, or moderate, air quality index warning due in part to wildfires. The high temperature for the day was expected to reach 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and it was already approaching 90. That combination of high temperatures and elevated levels of particles from a fire can affect even healthy lungs. For someone with lung damage or respiratory illness, moderate levels of smoke particulate can exacerbate respiratory problems.
That’s only the start of the story of how wildfire smoke affects humans who breathe it. The rest, and how to stay healthy, is important to understand as the western wildfire season picks up.
What’s in wildfire smoke?
What exactly is in a wildfire’s smoke depends on a few key things: what’s burning – grass, brush or trees; the temperature – is it flaming or just smoldering; and the distance between the person breathing the smoke and the fire producing it.
The distance affects the ability of smoke to “age,” meaning to be acted upon by the sun and other chemicals in the air as it travels. Aging can make it more toxic. Importantly, large particles like what most people think of as ash do not typically travel that far from the fire, but small particles, or aerosols, can travel across continents.
Smoke from wildfires contains thousands of individual compounds, including carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), carbon dioxide, hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides. The most prevalent pollutant by mass is particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, roughly 50 times smaller than a grain of sand. Its prevalence is one reason health authorities issue air quality warnings using PM2.5 as the metric.
The human body is equipped with natural defense mechanisms against particles bigger than PM2.5. As I tell my students, if you have ever coughed up phlegm or blown your nose after being around a campfire and discovered black or brown mucus in the tissue, you have witnessed these mechanisms firsthand.
The really small particles bypass these defenses and disturb the air sacks where oxygen crosses over into the blood. Fortunately, we have specialized immune cells present in the air sacks called macrophages. It’s their job to seek out foreign material and remove or destroy it. However, studies have shown that repeated exposure to elevated levels of wood smoke can suppress macrophages, leading to increases in lung inflammation.
What does that mean for COVID-19 symptoms?
Dose, frequency and duration are important when it comes to smoke exposure. Short-term exposure can irritate the eyes and throat. Long-term exposure to wildfire smoke over days or weeks, or breathing in heavy smoke, can raise the risk of lung damage and may also contribute to cardiovascular problems. Considering that it is the macrophage’s job to remove foreign material – including smoke particles and pathogens – it is reasonable to make a connection between smoke exposure and risk of viral infection.
Recent evidence suggests that long-term exposure to PM2.5 may make the coronavirus more deadly. A nationwide study found that even a small increase in PM2.5 from one U.S. county to the next was associated with a large increase in the death rate from COVID-19.
Wildfire smoke pours over palm trees lining a street in Azusa, Calif., on Aug. 13, 2020. AP Images/Marcio Jose Sanchez
What can you do to stay healthy?
The advice I gave my friend who had been running while smoke was in the air applies to just about anyone downwind from a wildfire.
Stay informed about air quality by identifying local resources for air quality alerts, information about active fires, and recommendations for better health practices.
If possible, avoid being outside or doing strenuous activity, like running or cycling, when there is an air quality warning for your area.
Be aware that not all face masks protect against smoke particles. In the context of COVID-19, the best data currently suggests that a cloth mask benefits public health, especially for those around the mask wearer, but also to some extent for the person wearing the mask. However, most cloth masks will not capture small wood smoke particles. That requires an N95 mask in conjunction with fit testing for the mask and training in how to wear it. Without a proper fit, N95s do not work as well.
Establish a clean space. Some communities in western states have offered “clean spaces” programs that help people take refuge in buildings with clean air and air conditioning. However, during the pandemic, being in an enclosed space with others can create other health risks. At home, a person can create clean and cool spaces using a window air conditioner and a portable air purifier.
The EPA also advises people to avoid anything that contributes to indoor air pollutants. That includes vacuuming that can stir up pollutants, as well as burning candles, firing up gas stoves and smoking.
================================================================ Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, “can travel across continents” – I suppose there are things scarier than that, but not many, and not much. Although “can suppress macrophages” is also right up there. At least this article gives us some practical, personal advice on avoiding as much damage as possible – and you can’t do it for us; we must practice it ourselves. I think the best thing you can do for us at this point is to help inspire people to VOTE, and specifically to VOTE BLUE, no matter who, top to bottom. And then hang around for the fights which are certain to come, and help us prevail. Only then will we be able to start the real battle to prevent the end of the world as we know it.
