Politics Plus

Yesterday, it was reasonably quiet. I had already managed to list all the days in May I needed to make cartoons for (11 of them), and made the first five, taking me up through mid month. So I figured it was time to work on the other six, for which I had chosen events, but not started on the actual construction.  And, by golly, I managed to finish all of them.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

The Conversation – How burying the dead keeps the living human
Quote – Humans have always cared for their dead – so much that archaeologists often consider mortuary rites among the traits that distinguish Homo sapiens from other species. In other words, it is a fundamental part of being human. Humans’ close relatives also showed concern for the dead. The Neanderthals practiced burials, and other extinct hominids probably did too. Even chimpanzees appear to grieve over deceased relatives. But no other species goes to such extraordinary lengths to care for its dead.
Click through – At least since Helen Steiner Rice’s work began to appear on sympathy cards (remember her?) I’ve had a pet peeve about the “Don’t cry for me” people. That sentiment is so controlling. The death may be theirs, but the grieving is mine, and I need to do what I need to do. (As morbid as this sounds, sitting down and having a chat with a funeral director, not at a time of grief but just a normal chat, about what he or she thinks about the purpose of funerals and other mortuary customs are for can be illuminating.)

Democtratic Underground and Time Magazine – Inside Zelensky’s World
Quote – The nights are the hardest, when he lies there on his cot, the whine of the air-raid sirens in his ears and his phone still buzzing beside him. Its screen makes his face look like a ghost in the dark, his eyes scanning messages he didn’t have a chance to read during the day. Some from his wife and kids, many from his advisers, a few from his troops, surrounded in their bunkers, asking him again and again for more weapons to break the Russian siege. Inside his own bunker, the President has a habit of staring at his daily agenda even when the day is over. He lies awake and wonders whether he missed something, forgot someone. “It’s pointless,” Volodymyr Zelensky told me at the presidential compound in Kyiv, just outside the office where he sometimes sleeps. “It’s the same agenda. I see it’s over for today. But I look at it several times and sense that something is wrong.” It’s not anxiety that keeps his eyes from closing. “It’s my conscience bothering me.”
Click through to DU for an excerpt. Or click through to Time for the full article. Part of the screen is covered at Time, but enough isn’t that it is readable.

Letters from an American April 28, 2022
Quote – It has been hard for me to see the historical outlines of the present-day attack on American democracy clearly. But this morning, as I was reading a piece in Vox by foreign affairs specialist Zack Beauchamp, describing Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s path in Florida as an attempt to follow in the footsteps of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, the penny dropped…. Trump’s type of family autocracy is hard to replicate right now, and our history has given us the knowledge and tools to defend democracy in the face of the ideology of states’ rights. But the rise of “illiberal democracy” or “soft fascism” is new to us, and the first step toward rolling it back is recognizing that it is different from Trump’s autocracy or states’ rights, and that its poison is spreading in the United States.
Click through. Yeah. Whether we like it or nor, if we are going to fight something and win, it behooves us to know and understand what it is we are fighting.

Food For Thought

Yesterday, sadly, I got an email cancelling my visit to Virgil. He has been transferred to a different facility. I called that facility and found out that my credentials are still fine, what the visiting hours are, the email address to schedule visits, and a couple of other things. I won’t be able to see him tomorrow but there shouldn’t be any delay to get back on schedule. I’ll still have to do some driving today to keep the battery charged, but it won’t take as long as a visit would. In other news, the radio opera was Porgy and Bess by George and Ira Gershwin from the book and play Porgy by DuBose (and Dorothy) Heyward, who, though white, was – were – respected by Langston Hughes and others of the Harlem Renaissance. The play and the opera were among the earliest representations of black people as real people on stage. The Gershwin Brothers stipulated that Porgy and Bess should never be perfirmed unless the cast was all black (except the cops, who only have short speaking roles – and, frankly, are not depicted as real human beings.) The premier of this production is available through the Met’s streaming service, with almost the same cast as this performance, and I have seen it a couple of times. But I was delighted to hear a little bit of jazzy improv from the same cast members who previously played it straight. I think the Gershwins would have approved.

Cartoon

Short Takes –

Daily Kos (Jeremy Rodden) – WTF is PragerU and why is it all over my children’s YouTube videos suddenly? (An exploration).
Quote – It is particularly alarming that this organization is making animated short videos and clearly deliberately targeting children with their advertisements. It’s like if Joe Camel (the old mascot for Camel cigarettes, for those younger readers out there) was repackaged for the white nationalist and anti-science agenda. It made me wonder exactly who these guys are and why they’re suddenly flooding our children with ads with anti-climate change, anti-COVID19 mitigation, and white nationalist stances about white erasure and the like. So who are they?
Click through for details. This is not addressed only to parents of children, but also to grandparents, great-grandparents, guardians, educators, bebysitters – anyone who needs to know about it.

The Guardian – Prosecutor drops all charges against Pamela Moses, jailed over voting error
Quote – The central issue in her case was whether she had known she was ineligible to vote when a probation officer filled out and signed a form indicating she was done with probation for a 2015 felony conviction and eligible to cast a ballot. Even though the probation officer admitted he had made a mistake, and Moses said she had no idea she was ineligible to vote, prosecutors said she knew she was ineligible and had deceived him. Moses stood in the lobby of the probation office while the officer went to his office to research her case for about an hour, he said at trial.
Click through for story – If I’m not mistaken, this is the best possible outcome at tis point. The award of a new trial voids the conviction, and then the charges being dropped puts an end to the matter. This is better than a pardon, which, if accepted, would imply guilt.

The Hill – Disney government dissolution bill signed by DeSantis
Quote – The law would eliminate the Reedy Creek Improvement District, as the 55-year-old Disney government is known, as well as a handful of other similar districts by June 2023. The measure does allow for the districts to be reestablished, leaving an avenue to renegotiate the future of the deal that allows the company to provide services such as zoning, fire protection, utilities and infrastructure.
Click through for more. There is a lot of both information and speculation out on this – Beau even touches on it (not in today’s thread, but in tomorrow’s.) It seems to me very like Putin in Ukraine – very different consequences, but both men are, in the words of the old saying, cutting off their noses to spite their faces. Just mean and petty little men.

Food For Thought