The Things They Say

Imagine that President Biden is making a campaign speech. In the midst of the speech, he could be talking about almost anything: the need to repair and improve our infrastructure, the challenges posed by climate change, the high cost of health care.

It doesn't matter what he's talking about, because, suddenly, he mentions a well-known movie character. "The late, great, Forrest Gump," he says. "Have you heard of him, Forrest Gump? He's got that box of chocolates. If you sit next to him, he'll start telling you about a box of chocolates. Forrest Gump. Don't sit next to him or you'll hear a long story about his mother and the chocolates. Forrest Gump, incredible." And then he goes on with the speech.

If this happened, people would be all over social media, claiming that this is all the proof we need that the man has completely lost his mind, that he's obviously been senile for most of his life, and he's out of touch with reality. The mainstream media, pretending to be neutral, would put it in the form of questions: "Does he have a medical problem? Is it time for him to stop campaigning? Will his party tell him to step down?" They'd claim, "Alarms are going off in Washington as the president's strange remarks have his team struggling to explain what's going on," and so on.

Yet, oddly enough, when donald trump repeatedly digresses into ramblings about his beloved movie character, Hannibal Lecter, hardly an eyebrow is raised. For years, the lord and master of the Republican Party has made many very strange public statements. The news media rarely comment, and never suggest that his bloviations about indoor plumbing, batteries, wind turbines, or imaginary history are signs of mental deterioration.

The double standard is real. The question is why. Why do the news media, who were threatened and vilified by trump and treated kindly by the President, want to undermine the President's re-election campaign?

This vile T-shirt, promoting the lynching of reporters, was popularized by trump supporters after trump imitated Hitler and labeled the news "The enemy of the people." Maybe trump's threats against their lives has made reporters too terrified to tell the truth. Yet that would seem a good reason for them to prefer a President who has not incited violence against them.

"With regard to the forest, when trees fall down, after a short period of time, about 18 months, they become very dry, they become really like a matchstick. And they get up, y’know there’s no more water pouring through, and they become very very, uh, they just explode, they can explode."
- donald trump, September 14, 2020

"These millions and millions of people that are coming from prisons, coming from prisons and jails, you know there is a slight difference okay. They're coming from prisons and jails, mental institutions and insane asylums like Silence of the Lamb, the press always says why does he ramble about si- Silence of the Lamb, the late great Hannibal Lecter, he'd like to have you over for dinner, do you ever, don't do it, if he suggests I'd like to have you for dinner, don't go. But these are the people, these are the people that are coming into our country."
- donald trump, June 28, 2024.

“No water in your faucets. You ever try buying a new home and you turn on. You want to wash your hair or you wanna wash your hands. You turn on the water and it goes drip, drip the soap. You can't get it off your hand. So you keep it running for about 10 times longer. You trying, the worst is your hair. I have this beautiful luxuriant hair and I put stuff on. I put it in lather. I like lots of lather because I like it to come out extremely dry because it seems to be slightly thicker that way. And I lather up and then you turn on this crazy shower and the thing drip, drip and you say I'm gonna be here for 45 minutes. What? There's so much water. You don't know what to do with it. You know, it's called rain. It rains a lot in certain places. But, now their idea, you know, did you see the other day? They just, I opened it up and they closed it again. I opened it, they close it, washing machines to wash your dishes. There is a problem. They don't want you to have any water. They want no water.”
- donald trump, June 22, 2024

"Millions of people from places unknown, from countries unknown, who don't speak languages. We have languages coming into our country, we have nobody that even speaks those languages. They're truly foreign languages, nobody speaks them."
- donald trump, Feb. 28, 2024

 

The World is Never Enough

This story is a smaller version of what has been happening and is still happening throughout our country and the world.

A wealthy couple living in a very nice house above Camden Harbor in Maine noticed that their potential ocean view was blocked by their neighbor's big, beautiful trees. They decided to poison the trees. The plan worked, and the trees died.

In the meantime, the herbicide they use leached into a nearby park and contaminated the town's only public beach. The product that was used, Tebuthiuron, does not break down, so it continues killing plants for years. The only way to get rid of it is to remove the soil (tons of soil) or to try waiting for it to be diluted over time. The couple ended up paying a $1.5 million settlement to the tree owner and around $214,000 in fines and fees related to the environmental damage. They haven't been jailed, and apparently are still members of the Yacht Club. And they got the view they wanted.

It seems like just another story of people with too much money and a sense of entitlement arrogantly taking whatever they want with no regard for anyone or anything else. The same thing happens on a much larger scale, too, and it affects everyone. Big corporations do this to us regularly. By "big corporations" I mean the greedy, short-sighted rich people who run them. Assisted by corrupt politicians, they eagerly poison our air and water and contaminate our soil, just so they can make more money.

Like the tree poisoner who didn't care that marine life would be killed for years to come as long as he could get a little more pleasure from his mansion, the oligarchs and robber barons are willing to destroy the future in exchange for the temporary gratification of acquiring more and more paper profits. A CEO might be able to buy another $20 million yacht or another private jet, while workers and their children can't afford the drugs the oncologist prescribed. It's not just that they have so much while others have so little. It's that they are never satisfied, and getting more, always more, requires them to take away the very little those others have.

Read the orginal story here: Poisoned trees

Read about another pollutors' triumph here: Court supports pollution

Update: Here is a long article fromVanity Fair.

 

A Question Answered

You may have noticed Magadonians saying things like, "I don't care if trump is a pedophile who sells nuclear secrets to to Russia, I'm still gonna vote for him because it'll make libruls cry."

They have many variations on that theme, but it all boils down to, "It's okay if trump ruins the country, because that will ruin the lives of those nasty liberals, and that will make me happy." They may or may not realize that if trump ruins people's lives, their lives will be among the ruined, but they don't care. Their hatred of "the left" is so powerful, they will give anything, risk anything, sacrifice their grandchildren if necessary, just to punish liberals for existing.

And that is the answer to the question, "Why do they vote against their own best interests?" They do it because it's against your best interests, too.

 

Real Life

My high school friend Colleen sometimes imagined that, if her mother, Maggie, had married a different man, she (Colleen) would have had a better life.

I thought that if Maggie had married someone else, Colleen would not exist.

Maggie grew up in a small town in Ireland, and told Colleen many nostalgic stories of her youth. There had been a charming boy who used to walk her home from school, even though, as she later realized, it was two miles out of his way. Colleen saw that boy (Davy) as her potential father. Young Maggie had had other ideas. As soon as she could, she sailed to New York, where she met and married the handsome sailor who eventually became Colleen's father.

Born when her parents had been married nearly twenty years and her mother was turning forty, Colleen often suspected she wan't really a wanted child. She dreamed of a livelier existence in Ireland, perhaps with playful siblings, and a dad who didn't spend so much time sitting in his easy chair, reading the paper, while the grandfather clock ticked away the days. Her name would be Kate.

If that alternate universe existed, I imagine Davy spent his evenings at the pub while Maggie sat at home, listening to the clock tick. Colleen/Kate would have found small-town life as stifling as her mother had and she, too, would have escaped.

In the current universe, Colleen and I were roommates for a while after high school, but we had too many differences, and we soon parted. She moved from California to Oregon to Florida to New York. I don't know whether she ever found what she was looking for. She never married. In her fifties, she finally changed her name, but not to Kate. She became Eileen, and took her mother's maiden name. At fifty-five, she died of a heart attack.

 

A Free President

If the Supreme Court decides that Presidents and ex-Presidents have full immunity for any crimes committed while in office, it would lead to some exciting scenarios.

Imagine a vengeance-crazed chief executive, racing through the White House corridors with a deer rifle, hunting down terrified staff members and visiting Senators. Later, the President boldly robs Fort Knox, loading a stolen limo with gold bars. When the limo driver hesitates, the President shoots him and forces one of the Mint Police to drive.

On low-crime days, he just jaywalks, sprays graffiti on the Lincoln Memorial, and orders fast food without paying.

 

More Teachers With Guns

I've written about teachers and guns before, but it's a topic that just won't go away. As Tennessee passed a law allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons on campus, people on social media reacted:

At my university, there was a math professor who got fired after repeatedly urinating on another math professor's office door. I can only imagine the scenario if the two of them had guns.

On another occasion, there was a student in one of my classes who got very angry at the professor, and they started arguing. The student was a tall, muscular young man; Prof was middle aged and flabby. Student was intimidating, looming over Prof and getting really loud. Prof stood his ground, but from my front row seat, I could see he was afraid. I hate to think what would have happened if Prof was armed and felt the need to defend himself, or if Student was armed and felt the need to eliminate what he sincerely saw as someone treating him wrong. Fortunately, the confrontation ended peacefully when another student intervened verbally, inspiring the angry student to leave the room.

Finding the Perfect Soulmate

Not long ago I read an article by a young man who had been amazed when he learned that many people from his grandparents' generation had simply chosen spouses who lived nearby, rather than conducting extensive searches for ideal soulmates.

The author of the article was convinced that these old folks had missed out on something important. Nearly everyone he knew was using dating apps to seek the perfect mate, and they were willing to spend a lot of time and travel great distances to find exactly the right person.

Rather than "settle" for the cute girl who just happened to live next door, these guys had very specific lists of what they wanted. Details were important. For example, the profile of a beautiful young woman with an impressive list of interesting and desirable attributes was quickly rejected just because she was a fan of the wrong baseball team.

The sense I got from this article and from others I have read is that many people think they can find true love only with someone whose personality is a near-clone of themselves. The ideal partners will not only have a similar sense of humor, but will have identical taste in food, art, music, and sports. From the very beginning, they'll be able to finish each other's sentences. There will be no disagreement, no disappointment, no discontent, because they will always be on the same page.

It is pretty exciting to discover that both of you can quote all the dialogue from The Princess Bride, take your coffee with triple soy milk and no sugar, enjoy mountain biking, want a pet iguana, have a secret crush on Edith Piaf, and hate green Skittles. And when you both spontaneously recite the same quote from the Dalai Lama at the same time, there is a spark, and the deal is sealed. Nobody else in the world could be such a perfect match. It's destiny.

Five, ten, fifteen years later, it's not unusual for those magical soulmates to find themselves no longer on the same page. One of them spends too much money on useless junk. The other one is a tightwad. They can't agree on whether to have another baby. One of them is lazy, and the other is a control freak. Somebody spends too many nights working late. Somebody gets drunk at parties and flirts. One of them screams a lot, and the other refuses to talk. Neither one can understand how someone who once seemed so perfect turned into this unpleasant stranger. They both want out.

In the meantime, the old guy who married the girl next door has been happily married for sixty years.

Grandpa didn't choose that girl just because she happened to be conveniently close - although that helped. Their families knew each other; they'd lived in the same neighborhood for years, maybe for more than one generation. He and she went to the same schools, knew the same friends, watched each other grow up. He knew who she was before their first date.

Maybe her favorite color was purple and his was green. Maybe she liked chocolate and he preferred butterscotch. The details didn't matter. What mattered was that they shared the same basic values.

Her ice cream preference wasn't important. What was important was that she was kind-hearted and honest. The music he played on the car radio was trivial. What mattered was that he worked hard and she could trust him. They forged a powerful bond, not by seeing the same movie ten times, but by holding hands all night as they watched over their sick baby.

They cared about their kids, and about each other's families. They had plans for the future. They could talk to each other about what was on their minds. Sometimes they argued, but they always made up. They had a few ongoing disagreements, but nothing that kept them from working together to build a life that meant something to both of them.

They might not have thought of themselves as soulmates. But over time, that is what they became.

_{reposted by permission}

 

Your Children's Future Health Care

Imagine that you're in your seventh or eighth month of pregnancy and you go into labor. It's frightening, because you know this is too soon.

You rush to the hospital. Fortunately, you don't live in a neglected rural area where there are no hospitals and you're lucky enough to get there on a day when they aren't overcrowded, at a time when the nurses aren't in the middle of a shift change, on a day that's not a holiday. You get seen right away by the best obstetrical team in the region. Your baby is born very prematurely, weighing less than two pounds. She's alive!

Your tiny child is given the best available treatment, and spends many weeks in the NICU. There are several close calls, but the great doctors and nurses are heroic, and your baby survives, despite being very weak and sick. Finally, she's strong enough to come home. You have a long list of special instructions for her care and feeding. Fortunately, there are no major emergencies. The hospital expenses were huge, but you were lucky enough to have a good health plan that covered almost everything.

As time goes by, your daughter still has some health issues, but she keeps getting stronger, and by the time she is ten years old, you would never guess she was a preemie. One day when she's 15, she falls off her bike and breaks her leg. This is a fairly normal problem, so you are shocked when your health plan refuses to pay for her treatment, because she has reached her "lifetime limit". It's not easy, but you manage to pay the bill.

You start looking around for a new health care plan, but you find out that your daughter can't get coverage because she has "pre-existing conditions."

"Wait a minute," you say, "I thought pre-existing conditions don't matter because of the Affordable Care Act."

The insurance agent replies, "Don't you remember? The ACA was repealed by the Republican majority in Congress back in 2028, right after the Supreme Court installed trump as President For Life. We can now exclude anyone who's ever been sick. In fact, we are about to declare that being female is a pre-existing condition. Your daughter will never have health care coverage. Even if she somehow lives to be 85 - the new retirement age - she won't be eligible for Medicare, since it was privatized and operates under our rules. Sorry." He's not sorry.

 

What is Contraception?

“Conception,” as it relates to pregnancy, is not a medical term. It has become customary to use this term to refer to fertilization, the coming together of egg and sperm. Some people use “conception” to mean the beginning of a pregnancy.

Fertilization by itself does not constitute pregnancy. For a pregnancy to exist, the fertilized egg must implant itself in the lining of the uterus. It is not unusual for fertilized eggs to pass out of a woman’s body without implanting.

Contraception is any method that is used to prevent pregnancy. Contraception is sometimes referred to as “birth control”. Some well-known contraceptives are condoms and birth control pills.

Barrier methods of contraception prevent the sperm from reaching the egg, so fertilization cannot occur. These include condoms, diaphragms, cervical caps, sponges, and spermicides.

Hormonal methods of contraception use medication to prevent ovulation. That means that they stop eggs from being released. These include pills, injections, patches, and implants.

An intrauterine device (typically called an IUD) is a device that is placed inside the uterus. IUDs use hormones or copper to prevent sperm from fertilizing eggs.

Emergency contraception, sometimes called “the morning after pill”, can be used after unprotected sex has occurred. This is a hormonal method that delays or prevents ovulation: no egg is released. Some people confuse emergency contraception with abortion, but they are not the same. An “abortion pill” is used to end a pregnancy, whereas emergency contraception prevents pregnancy. They are NOT the same medication.

Behavioral methods of birth control include “withdrawal,” whereby the man withdraws his penis from the vagina before ejaculation; and “fertility awareness,” also known as the “rhythm method,” whereby a couple attempts to avoid intercourse during the days the woman is most likely to be fertile.

Sterilization is a permanent form of contraception, that removes a person’s ability to produce a pregnancy. Methods of sterilization include vasectomy for men and tubal ligation (sometimes called “tying the tubes”) for women. In some cases, these methods can be surgically reversed. A woman who has undergone hysterectomy (removal of the uterus) cannot get pregnant. This is not reversible.

Note that there are some additional methods of contraception not mentioned here. See the links at the end for more detailed information.

Abortion is not a method of contraception. Abortion ends an existing pregnancy, whereas contraception prevents pregnancy.

Some people believe that it is wrong for women to engage in sexual intercourse for pleasure or love, but that they should have sex only for the purpose of getting pregnant. These people oppose the use of contraception, and advise women to remain celibate if they don’t want pregnancy. Thousands of years of human history demonstrate that this is an unrealistic idea.

Article from Medical News Today explaining conception: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/conception

Article from Cleveland Clinic explaining birth control: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/11427-birth-control-options

Article from WebMD on the history of contraception: https://www.webmd.com/sex/birth-control/ss/slideshow-birth-control-history

Article from History on reproductive rights in the U.S.: https://www.history.com/news/reproductive-rights-timeline

 

Freedom?

I grew up in a region known for being politically and socially conservative. The churches displayed American flags inside the sanctuary. We pledged allegiance in school every morning. People talked a lot about patriotism and freedom, especially freedom as in, "America, land of the free." Freedom meant that we could choose any religion (or no religion), that we could read (or write) any books we wanted, that we could listen to (or perform) the music we liked, and enjoy (or create) whatever artworks we chose. It meant we were free to choose where to live, whether or not to marry, how many children to have (including none), what kind of career to pursue, what clothes to wear, what food to eat, etc.

A saying that was popular in that time and place was, "Your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins," meaning that we were free to do what we wanted, as long as we didn't interfere with someone else's freedom to do what they wanted. We were taught to "tolerate" the existence of other religions and people whose way of thinking or way of living was different from ours. "Freedom" was a concept that applied to everyone.

Today, those ideas seem to have changed within the "conservative" community. Many people now define freedom as not tolerating those who are different They seem to believe that the existence of someone whose beliefs or choices are different is an affront to their own beliefs and choices. They want to swing their not-always-metaphorical fists squarely into the noses of those whose very being offends them. They will not feel free until everyone else complies.

 

Abortion, Miscarriage, Birth: Don't Be Confused

"Abortion" is a word used to indicate the expulsion or removal of the contents of the uterus in early pregnancy. Historically, "spontaneous abortion" was the term used when this happened naturally or due to a medical condition, and "induced abortion" referred to performing an abortion intentionally. At some time during the 20th century, it became customary to call a spontaneous abortion a miscarriage, and to refer to an induced abortion simply as an abortion. No matter what terminology is used, this is a situation in which a pregnancy ends without a birth.

Birth is the process by which an infant is expelled from the uterus. This may occur when a pregnant woman undergoes "labor", a series of contractions that enable her to push the infant out. It may also occur surgically, in a process called "Caesarian section", typically shortened to "C-section", during which the surgeon cuts open the uterus and extracts the infant. In some cases, doctors may determine that it is necessary to induce labor medically rather than wait for it to occur naturally. Once a birth occurs, the pregnancy is over.

In recent times, some people have invented the term "post birth abortion" to refer to something that is physically impossible. Abortion ends a pregnancy, as does birth. Once a pregnancy has ended, there cannot be an abortion, just as there cannot be an additional birth.

A typical pregnancy is expected to last about 280 days (40 weeks). An infant born at 39-40 weeks is "full term". An infant born earlier than 37 weeks is considered "premature" or "preterm". Babies born very prematurely are likely to have health problems. The earlier the birth, the greater the risk of severe problems or death. At 28 weeks, a birth is extremely preterm. Successful birth before 28 weeks is not viable; this will be considered a miscarriage.

We now know that more than 30% of pregnancies end in miscarriage, most so early that the woman may not even realize she was pregnant. In some cases of miscarriage, the contents of the uterus are not fully expelled. To avoid infection or other health risks, medical treatment is needed to remove all the tissue. This may involved a procedure called dilation and curettage (D&C) or dilation and extraction (D&E). Sometimes medication is used. Occasionally, some people get confused and think that the treatment following a miscarriage is the same as an abortion. It is not. A miscarriage ends the pregnancy; at that point an abortion is impossible.

Click this link to see the March of Dimes explanation of miscarriage.

Click this link to see the Britannica explanation of birth.

Click this link to see an NIH discussion of termnology.

 

Blah blah blah

Some people wonder why trump's followers accept his incoherent, nonsensical speeches. It's because they can't distinguish between intelligent speech and the ravings of a lunatic.

Perhaps you've had the experience of trying to explain something of moderate complexity to a person like that. They tend to just stare dully or else they snap, "Speak English!" because they don't know the words you are using. To them, complex sentences and words of three or more syllables are impossible to understand. So they don't expect to be able to make sense of a leader's speeches.

When trump's speeches veer off into word salad, they can't tell the difference, since, for them, most English discourse is like a secret code. All he has to do is use occasional baby talk, make smug faces, and throw in a few buzzwords -- border, babies, Christian, communists, Democrats, unfair, veterans -- and they think he's on their side. They really can't tell when he is incoherent. And even when he speaks in complete sentences that follow each other, they don't notice how ridiculous his claims are, because they lack critical thinking skills and don't have the broader knowledge needed to evaluate such statements.

 

America is Already Great

Whenever I walk around in an American supermarket, I am nearly overwhelmed by the abundance. I can choose from a truly amazing selection of fruit and vegetables, meats, canned goods of every kind, snacks and treats. Thanks to refrigeration and modern transportation, I have access to products from all over the country, and all over the world. Look how many varieties of milk there are! Try to count all the flavors of yogurt! The breakfast cereal aisle is astonishing. And there is a special deli section where salads, main dishes, and casseroles have been prepared for people to take home. There are beautiful pastries and fancy cakes in the bakery. There are also departments for housewares, beauty products, health supplies, and more. How lucky we are! ^@realrkwest
 

It Will Happen to You

Maybe you don't care if Republicans pass laws that let county clerks refuse marriage licenses to gay couples, because you're not gay, don't know many gay people, and tend to think being gay is kind of icky. And maybe you won't care when they decide to extend refusal to interracial couples, because you're a little more comfortable when people "stick with their own kind." But eventually, it will reach you or someone you actually care about.

They could decide to refuse marriage to couples of different religious backgrounds. Or they might decide you can't remarry if your first spouse is still alive. Remember, they won't actually pass a law that says adulterers can't marry their mistresses or that infertile women can't marry. They'll leave it up to the "conscience" and "sincere beliefs" of the county clerk, who attends a church you've never heard of but nevertheless gets to tell you their church controls your life.

And maybe you really don't care if a restaurant refuses to serve Black people, because you're not Black, and you'd rather just be around people who look like you.

Sooner or later, there will be something about you that someone else doesn't like, and you'll be the one who can't shop, can't eat out, can't get married, can't rent an apartment, can't get a good job, can't live a full life being respected as a human being. Be ready to comply.

 

I've Looked At Arsenic From Both Sides Now

Imagine there are two or three people who, for unknown reasons, think arsenic is good food for babies. In the meantime, there are at least 99,763 chemists, 1,567,984 doctors, 258,000 professors of chemistry, and 701,422 nutritionists who know that arsenic is poisonous. The pro-arsenic guys are very busy, writing letters, making podcasts, self-publishing books, and posting all over social media about how great arsenic is. They manage to convince another eight people to join them. One works in a health food store.

The online arguments get the attention of a news network, which decides to explore "both sides of the arsenic issue". Out of the roughly 2,628,169 experts who know that arsenic is poison, they invite one doctor, and out of the twelve arsenic lovers, they invite the store clerk. The interview with these two makes it look as though the pro-arsenic and anti-arsenic groups are equal.

After a few of these interviews, more viewers start to think that maybe arsenic isn't so bad after all. Conspiracy theories arise, claiming that "they" don't want you to have access to healthy, clean arsenic because "it's all about control." More people become convinced, and even a few of the anti-arsenic experts (who are disgruntled because they couldn't get tenure) change sides.

The controversy heats up on social media, fueled by people who claim their children died or suffered permanent brain damage because they were denied access to arsenic. When shown evidence that arsenic sickens and kills, they call it fake news and come up with documents purporting to show that anti-arsenic studies were falsified. One of their doctors writes a book claiming that pharmaceutical companies want to suppress arsenic because it's a natural substance and not profitable.

By now, hospitalizations for arsenic poisoning have tripled. The pro-arsenic faction claims the statistics have been manipulated; all those people got sick or died for other reasons. Many people are afraid to go to Thanksgiving dinner because they suspect Grandma will slip some arsenic into the turkey. Others refuse to attend because their hosts have declared the kitchen an arsenic-free zone. A few mass poisonings occur at church picnics and political rallies. The people most likely to succumb to arsenic poisoning are the elderly, infants, and people with pre-existing conditions. The arsenic lovers say those people were weak and would have died anyway. Portable arsenic test kits become popular. Restaurants lose business. Politicians claim that immigrants are bringing arsenic across the border. China is blamed.

The news media continue both-sidesing the issue.

 

Work Until You Die?

Think about the people who want to raise the retirement age. What kind of jobs do they have? Most have what I call think-talk jobs, jobs that require very little physical exertion, but rely on talking about situations, thinking about problems, attending meetings, applying learned information to situations, reading documents, occasionally writing documents, expressing opinions.

These think-talk jobs are held by Congresspeople, business executives, bankers, some TV personalities, and others whose work is mostly not physical. As long as people retain their mental faculties (and sometimes even when they don't), they can continue doing this kind of work well into old age. People with this kind of work often consider it a big part of their personal identity, and are therefore not interested in retiring. All or most of the people they know do the same kind of work; their contact with other kinds of workers tends to be superficial. It is easy for them to imagine a world in which no one retires before age 80, and maybe not even then.

Compare them to people who have body-using jobs: Construction workers, gardeners, janitors, garbage collectors, farmers, warehouse workers, food servers, and many others. Some jobs that may not look physically demanding really are, because they require the worker to stand for hours. Think of grocery cashiers, hairdressers, department store clerks, and others who are on their feet all day.

People lose strength and stamina as they age. A person at 65, even if healthy, is not as strong as they were at 45. Physically demanding jobs can be hard on the body over time and are often not practical for older people. Yet the people with think-talk jobs often fail to understand the challenges of body-using jobs. A lot of these people ignore the fact that older people are often let go by their employers, sometimes because they are at a higher pay grade, sometimes because they are physically outperformed by younger workers. It is very difficult for people over 50 to get hired anywhere (although it sometimes happens), and it is a rare employer indeed who wants to hire someone over 65.

If we imagine that every person who reaches age 65 has the option of keeping their current job or getting a new one, we are kidding ourselves. Besides, having 75-year-olds on the roof laying shingles or operating a steam press all day doesn't seem like a good idea. Who would feel good about making a great-grandmother clean public restrooms until the day she drops dead from exhaustion? People who have paid into Social Security or some other retirement plan for decades deserve the chance to finally relax and get what they paid for.

 

Other People's Problems

The worst problem you have is the worst problem you have.

If someone is crying over a hangnail, it is easy to say their problem is meaningless when compared to the guy whose arm was blown off. At the same time, it is not right to get into the habit of dismissing and invalidating other people's experiences or demanding that they can't have a feeling or a reaction to something unless it meets certain standards.

There are people who think it is silly to grieve the death of a pet, because it is not a human being. There are people whose first reaction to anything someone else worries or complains about is to sneer at "first world problems". Some people seem to think that if they don't know anyone with a particular problem, that problem doesn't really exist. And there are those who minimize everything that happens to others because "it could have been worse". Imagining a worse scenario doesn't magically make this one acceptable.

If there were a truly objective scale for measuring tragedy, it might show that the worst thing that ever happened to my neighbor isn't nearly as bad as the thing that happened to me. But it is still the worst thing that ever happened to him, and he has the right to see it that way. His experience is just as real as mine.

 

They Want it All, And They'll Take it From You

The oligarchs have more wealth than they can possibly use, and even if they never made another dime, they, their children, their grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren would still be incomprehensibly wealthy.

They can have anything they want or need: Big houses, big vacation houses, spare apartments in cities around the world, nice cars, designer clothes, the best food cooked by private chefs, whatever medical care they need at top hospitals with famous doctors, multiple yachts, private hunting ranches, hairdressers who travel with them on their private jets, secret bunkers (underground mansions) in case of nuclear war, their own private security force, private schools and top-notch universities for their kids, lawyers on retainer, ownership of TV stations, newspapers, and tech companies, and the hired help needed to acquire and maintain all their possessions. In summary, they have everything. ^@themrswest

Yet, somehow, that isn't enough. Not only do they constantly want more, they want to make sure that everyone else has nothing. They crave a world where they have absolutely everything, whether they need it or not: All the power, all the means of production, all the necessities, all the luxuries. And they want that world to be populated by impoverished serfs who have nothing and live short lives of sickness and pain. Why? I truly don't know why. It's very hard to get into a mindset where other people's misery is perceived as making your life better. But there it is.

Link: The Koch brothers' political activism and its damage to America - "The Kochs' Ayn Rand–inspired hellscape has yet to completely come to fruition, but the ideas the duo promoted are now part of the regular discourse—and have been for a while."

Link: While the Planet Burns: Billionaires Are Busy Hunkering Down for the Apocalypse - "Many of the wealthiest people in the world have decided that Earth is a Titanic heading for an iceberg. As a result, they have decided to create luxury lifeboats for themselves."

Link: The Koch Brothers Are Even Worse Than You Think - "Koch was found guilty of criminal conduct in many cases.... The workplace is becoming more dangerous under this constant pressure to produce profits."

Link: Robbing the poor to pay the rich - "Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor is increasingly popular as we leave the 20th century, especially in this country"

 

Rallies

There are people who think that holding rallies with enthusiastic crowds somehow proves that a candidate is great in some way. Yet we know that evil dictators throughout history have had big rallies. All kinds of charlatans, crooks, fraudsters, and destroyers started with rallies, tent meetings, well-attended lectures, and parades. It is obvious to mention Mussolini and Hitler, or even Jim Jones, well-known examples of people who used rallies and mass meetings to lure followers into belief systems that would prove disastrous.

A hundred years ago, Benito Mussolini used to travel across Italy, holding huge rallies for fans of his Fascist Party. In October 1922, speaking to a crowd of around 40,000, he urged his followers to march on Rome. Fascist militias began driving toward the capital.

Elected officials wanted to declare a state of emergency and defend the city. The poorly-trained militias probably would have lost any battle with the military, but the King refused to declare martial law. Government officials resigned in protest. The King decided to accept the Fascists, and made Mussolini prime minister.

Mussolini soon became a total dictator, rescinding civil rights, replacing the press with propaganda, and invading Corfu and Ethiopia. Mussolini's career inspired Adolf Hitler, and eventually Italy was aligned with Nazi Germany in World War II. At least 8,500 Italians were murdered in the Holocaust. ^@realrkwest

In 1943, the King, who had had enough, convinced Mussolini's close associates to turn against him, and he was arrested. He escaped and attempted to set up a new government, but in 1945 he realized that defeat was near, and tried to flee the country. He was recognized and shot. A crowd mutilated his corpse and hung it up in the public square. It was eventually buried in an unmarked grave.

 

Do We Need a Dictator to Just Step in and Fix Things?

Dictatorship does not lead to prosperity for the average citizen.

For example, under Mussolini (Italy 1925 - 1945), both imports and exports decreased, and unemployment increased.

Mussolini established bureaucracies and appointed many officials, but very little was ever accomplished. He was mostly concerned with making sure the newspapers reported what he wanted them to say. There were food shortages throughout the country. The national debt skyrocketed. Mussolini's spending on infrastructure and public works was extravagant. Banks and big corporations were given government support. Interest rates went up. In many cases, the rich got richer, but in the meantime, workers got poorer.

Italy was hit hard by the Great Depression of the 1930s. Eventually, the state took over ownership of the banks and most industries. Mussolini focused on increasing his own political power, rather than providing assistance to citizens.

Mussolini was eventually killed by an angry mob.

Nicolae Ceaușescu (Romania 1967-1989) used a secret police force for mass surveillance and suppression of civil rights. He controlled the media.

In an attempt to increase the population, he outlawed all abortions and contraception. This led to the proliferation of overcrowded, dirty orphanages; many neglected and abused children from these institutions had lifelong physical and mental health problems. Thousands of women died from illegal abortions.

Ceaușescu's policy of moving from an agricultural economy to an industrial economy seemed successful at first, but led to unemployment, food shortages, and an energy crisis. Without electricity, people died of the cold in their homes. Prices were high while wages were low. Ceaușescu spent money on big projects and personal luxuries while citizens were freezing and starving.

When anti-government protests began, he ordered the military to fire upon protesters, causing many injuries and deaths. Violent protests spread across the country, and the military defected. Ceaușescu and his wife tried to flee, but they were captured, tried, convicted, and executed. The country was left with a very weak economy that still has not recovered.

Under Hitler (Germany 1933-1945), hourly wages were very low, while most people worked more hours, creating the illusion that individual income had increased.

Germany increased military spending until it became the majority of the economy. Hitler believed that war was the best way for a country to make progress. Prisoners of war and inmates from concentration camps were used as slave labor to support corporations. By 1944, slave labor made up 1/4 of the work force. Even so, unemployment was low. The government used price controls to avoid inflation, and also introduced wage and rent controls.

The military buildup was financed largely through deficit spending. The national debt was enormous. Industries that had been state-owned were privatized, yet subjected to a great deal of government control. Business leaders were expected to fund the Nazi party, and in return, benefited from policies that froze wages and provided slave labor. Profits for big businesses increased, and tax policies were designed to benefit wealthy people. Real wages decreased substantially. Workers could not strike, and could not change jobs without the current employer's consent.

During World War II, imports were harder to get. Rationing was implemented. The government took the property of wealthy Jews and plundered whatever it could in the countries it invaded. Wartime destruction and the British blockade led to the collapse of supply chains. People in occupied territories were used as slave labor, and their children were killed. As the war progressed, Allied bombs destroyed factories and cities. There were catastrophic food and fuel shortages. As defeat loomed, Hitler committed suicide.

Is Miscarriage a Crime?

We know that many pregnancies end naturally in spontaneous abortion, aka miscarriage, before the pregnancy is known or even suspected. A typical scenario: Your period is a week or two late (if you are normally irregular, you probably won't notice). Then when it finally comes, it may seem a little heavier than usual. The blood that is discharged will be disposed of on a tampon or pad. Even if you suspect this was a miscarriage (most women don't), you will likely not consider having a funeral for your tampon.

In another common scenario, you realize you are pregnant, and may have already received prenatal care. Then one day, you experience cramps, bleeding, and an urge to push (similar in feeling to a difficult bowel movement). Most women go into the bathroom at this point, where they are likely to bleed onto the floor, in the bathtub, or into the toilet. A few will save the bloody mess to be analyzed by a medical lab, but most will just clean it up, washing everything down the drain or flushing it down the toilet. In some cases, it may be necessary to have a "D&C" procedure to remove tissue that was not expelled. The flushed or removed material is not perceived as a "body" or a "corpse".

Many Republicans now want to arrest women for doing the normal thing during and after a miscarriage. Simply seeking medical help during a miscarriage is often viewed with suspicion, or treated as a potential crime. Medical providers report being afraid to treat women undergoing miscarriage, because state laws will lead to accusations of performing an illegal abortion.

• This woman is being prosecuted because she flushed blood and tissue: https://theblackwallsttimes.com/2023/12/08/miscarriage/

• In Alabama, women risk bleeding to death because doctors will not help them when they miscarry: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/05/roe-dobbs-abortion-ban-reproductive-medicine-alabama.html

• This woman spent 19 days having a miscarriage because doctors refused to help her: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/idaho-woman-shares-19-day-miscarriage-tiktok-states/story?id=96363578

• A woman with a cancerous condition was told to go sit in the parking lot and wait for a heart attack: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/04/25/1171851775/oklahoma-woman-abortion-ban-study-shows-confusion-at-hospitals

 

Free Speech

In London's Hyde Park, there is an area known as Speaker's Corner, where, by tradition and the law, people are free to make speeches and express themselves.

I have been there a few times. Speakers sometimes stand on boxes or ladders to make themselves more visible. The confident ones just stand on the ground. Some people want to preach religion; others talk politics. Some people try out their stand-up comedy. Some just talk randomly about whatever pops into their heads. Not everyone attracts an audience, and not every audience is respectful. The speakers have the right to speak; the hearers have the right to disagree or walk away.

And that is pretty much what free speech is and isn't. You can say whatever you like, and you can't compel anyone to pay attention to you, nor can you require those who do pay attention to agree with you.

 

Please Control Our Lives

Browsing through social media, it is alarming to see how many people want to give up voting rights and a representative government in favor of a dictatorship.

Like the people who supported Mussolini because "he made the trains run on time," many of these people seem to think dictators will provide them with amenities like cleaner streets, and these things are, in their minds, worth giving up basic freedoms. Other dictator fans imagine that the dictator will share their world view and religion, and will create a society that enforces those ideas on the entire population. They think it's a good idea that dissenters might be imprisoned, expelled from the country, or executed.

It never occurs to them that (a) the dictator will not actually do what they imagine, (b) historically, dictatorships do not create prosperity for average citizens, (c) someday, the tables will turn and the former in-group will become the out-group.

 

Should Religion Run the Government?

History shows us what happens when the church is allowed to direct the government. A Protestant government persecuted Catholics, a Catholic government persecuted Protestants. They all persecuted Jews. Then you've got all the churchy people who burned or hanged people for being "witches", often using torture to force false confessions from them. And all the religion-controlled governments today who treat women as slaves who can't even show their faces in public.

People who want religion to control government always imagine it will be their version of religion. They are genuinely surprised when it is turned against them, for not being orthodox enough, for being denounced by a neighbor, for using the wrong word, for being a bit eccentric, for being an unmarried woman with property someone would like to seize, for having the wrong ancestors, for laughing at the wrong time, etc.

Think about the ongoing problems with sexual abuse in churches, and how the church authorities protected the offenders and concealed the truth. Now imagine how that would play out if the churches controlled the government. We already see judges who give shockingly light sentences to preachers and youth pastors who committed terrible abuses against children and teens. If the churches were in charge, would they ever bother to prosecute their monsters?
 

Their Feelings Will Become Law

Abortion is such an emotional, polarizing issue that it's not surprising Republicans decided to use it as a wedge to open the door for them to just take over the country. They have a segment of the population that is so blinded by outrage over the issue, they will support anything that is done. Any violation of human rights is seen as justified in pursuit of what they believe is a righteous crusade.

The same people who screeched that asking about vaccinations violated medical privacy rights have no problem with scrutinizing the medical records of pregnant women, just in case they might contemplate an abortion. People who describe themselves as "pro life" really don't care if a woman's life is endangered - or ended - by an ectopic pregnancy or by complications of a miscarriage, as long as the doctors and nurses who refuse to help her are thoroughly intimidated by the threat of being accused of performing an abortion.

People who want the freedom to go anywhere in public with a rifle on their shoulder or a pistol in their pocket, don't object to laws that restrict the freedom of women to drive across town, just to make sure those women can't get abortions. Overwhelmed by powerful feelings, they see any kind of violation, restriction, or harm to women as completely justified by the massive importance of this one, all-consuming issue.

It never occurs to them that this sets a precedent. They don't foresee a time (coming sooner than we think) when other important issues will be the justification for violations and restrictions against everyone, including them. If we become indifferent to the oppression of women, how hard will it be to become indifferent to all oppression? If they can seize her medical records, why can't they seize yours? If they can prevent her from leaving town, just in case she might do something forbidden, why can't they prevent you from leaving town, just in case you might do some forbidden thing?

If they can refuse to abide by an election because of their opposition to abortion, why can't they refuse to abide by an election because of their opposition to gambling, or guns, or books?

These things matter! They are upsetting! Our strong feelings exempt us from obeying the law!

 

The Prosperity Gospel

When I was a child, I heard a version of the prosperity gospel that was a bit different from the way it's promoted today. The basic idea was that a good-hearted person who generously helped others was rewarded materially so that he could share his fortune, using his resources to lift others out of poverty.

The protagonist in the story was a man who had given his last $10 to help someone who was even worse off than he was. That act of self-sacrifice led to his getting a good job, where he rose through the ranks by working hard. Whenever he got an increase in salary, he used most of his money to feed, clothe and shelter unemployed and homeless people, no strings attached. As he got richer and richer, he gave away more and more money.

This was not a story about a man with multiple mansions and a private jet, whose conspicuous wealth was supposedly a sign that God considered him morally superior. It was a story about a man whom God trusted to help those with the greatest need.

It's sad how twisted that story has become.

 

Ugh

This was something I wrote back in October 2016. It's old, but it still feels relevant.

Back when Donald Trump famously remarked that his followers were so "loyal" that even if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue, they'd still vote for him, I partly suspected that he had found a subtle way to marvel at how stupid his followers were. Of course, I soon came to realize that Trump is not, in any way, capable of subtlety.

This morning I watched an excerpt of a news program where a reporter was talking to Trump supporters. Most of these people were as un-subtle as it gets. They didn't admire Trump for his grasp of foreign policy (do they even know what that is?) or his knowledge of the Constitution and how government works (they don't know those things, either). They didn't admire him for his ability to build coalitions within the party, his honesty, his morality, his charm, or even his good looks and physical fitness. They admired him because he is "strong" - and by strong, they meant loud and aggressive. That's what they like. They like bullies.

All the people talking to the reporter (including the women) were loud talkers, the kind of people you don't want sitting near you in a restaurant.The men were particularly obnoxious. In one case I was a bit concerned that one of the men might physically attack the petite female reporter, as he began to try to intimidate her with his looming stance and aggressive comments. She moved away, keeping an eye on him just in case. (That's the kind of behavior Trump supporters see as good debate skills.)

Trump supporters don't care about his racism, his sexism, his hypocrisy, his dishonesty, his possible criminality, his disloyalty, his ignorance, his crudeness, his impossible ideas, his overall obnoxiousness. All they care about is his loud voice. That makes him "strong", and by golly you gotta be strong to be a leader. Ugh.

And while there are some people who finally, finally, are moving away from Trump because at long last they have seen that he has no redeeming qualities, there is a core group that actually admires and identifies with the very things that make him a monster. Those people will never change. If he actually does shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue, they will still vote for him. I'd say, go ahead and vote for him, because if he wins you will get what you deserve. But the problem is that if he wins, it won't be only those who voted for him who pay the price. We will all suffer. I don't deserve that. The good people of America and the world don't deserve that.

 

Hoarding

My Mom, as a young married woman, noticed when visiting her Mother - my Grandma - that Grandma kept junk mail. Mom complained to Grandma, who denied that it was junk. When Grandma wasn't looking, Mom threw the junk mail away. But Grandma found it in the trash and retrieved it. So Mom sneakily took the junk mail and threw it away at her own house.

Forty years later, I realized that Mom was a hoarder. She kept old papers and useless junk that piled up all over her house and made it look like a garbage dump. I couldn't get her to part with anything. I complained, and she said she wasn't so bad compared to her own Mother, and then told me the story about the junk mail.

"But you save junk mail!" I protested. "No I don't," she claimed. I turned to a box on the floor and reached inside, exposing a handful of Grandma's ancient junk mail, carefully preserved along with dead relatives' bank statements from closed accounts at banks that no longer existed, postcards from the vacations of long-forgotten people with indecipherable handwriting, clothing still in the original packages, and the occasional spoon.

What Mom didn't know was that I had already developed the habit of taking her hoarded trash home wth me to throw out.

 

Will Real News Return?

News outlets have completely forgotten what news is, or how to find it and how to report it. They all became obsessed with trump in 2015. I believe it was Jeb Bush who said the coverage of trump in 2016 seemed to blot out the sun. Since then, whether they are allegedly conservative, allegedly liberal, or something else, they all report endlessly on 78-year-old trump's every move, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

If they aren't repeating something he said or did, they are quoting what other people said about him. If they report any story that isn't actually about trump, they find a way to slip his name into it. It's like being suffocated under an orange blanket.

Someday, the old geezer will be gone. They'll manage to keep reporting on him for a while - how he died, what others said about his death, the funeral plans, the actual funeral, the various facts that finally "come out" once he's dead, etc. And for a long time, they'll keep finding ways to relate other stories back to him. But gradually, the blanket will be lifted. A day will go by without that name being mentioned. Then two days, then a week, a month, a year.

Someday folks will realize that there are people in their 20s or 30s who don't remember trump, who don't even know who or what it was. Maybe then, the concepts of news and news reporting will be rediscovered. ^@themrskwest

 

Whose Nose Is It, Anyway?

Imagine a state government that decides to outlaw rhinoplasty and septoplasty. In other words - no nose jobs. They are under the influence of a small but vocal religious sect that opposes cosmetic surgery as being against God's will. "Your face is sacred," they insist.

Of course, it's not just about imposing one group's religious beliefs on the larger population. The government also sees changed noses as a way to evade facial recognition software and other surveillance/identification systems.

People who need nose surgery because they have breathing problems are dismissed as a tiny, meaningless minority. People whose noses are damaged in accidents or by violence are told that it's "God's will," and they should learn to love the new look.

Plastic surgeons, protesting against political interference in medical decisions, are vilified as money-grubbing demons who mutilate people for profit. People with crooked noses who travel to a state where rhinoplasty is still legal are reported to authorities and their medical records are seized. People with naturally small, straight noses are viewed with suspicion by religious zealots who harass them in public and send death threats to their homes. Protestors outside plastic surgeons' offices carry signs with graphic photos of bloody, swollen noses, and chant at everyone entering the office: "Don't break your nose! Don't break your nose!"

A couple of politicians get publicity for themselves by blocking state highway funding as a protest against government agencies that allow employees to use paid sick leave for nose surgery. The unrepaired roads contribute to an increase in traffic accidents - and more damaged noses. People who get out-of-state nose jobs are afraid to be seen with bandages on their faces, so they stay indoors or wear disguises.

People unhappy with their big, crooked noses are labeled as having "facial dysmorphic disorder" and are told they need counseling to accept themselves as they are. Parents who allow teenagers to get nose jobs are investigated by Child Protective Services. Some people go to underground practitioners who may or may not be safe. Some people become so desperate they try to fix their noses themselves, using steak knives and crochet hooks. Sometimes it works, but some people get permanent brain damage, and some bleed to death. Anyone with a nosebleed is suspected of having had an illegal nose job.

Celebrities who had nose jobs back when it was legal write books about their experiences; a few are invited to testify before Congress.

 

Privilege

It's easy to be privileged without realizing it.

When I was in high school, along with our required classes each term, we needed to choose electives. It was important to submit a request early, because they were supposedly assigned on a first-come, first-served basis. Popular choices like drama and creative writing filled up fast. I was lucky, though. Even when I submitted my requests at the last minute, I managed to get the classes I wanted. Whew!

Did I mention that my dad was a teacher at this school? No, he wasn't intervening on my behalf. It wasn't until 10 years later that it dawned on me that someone in the administration office was giving me special treatment just because I was a teacher's kid. (The son of the chemistry teacher also led a charmed life.) Seriously, I actually didn't realize I was privileged, but thought it was just the luck of the draw.

As an adult, I'm slightly less naïve. When people get defensive and claim they don't have white privilege or male privilege, or whatever special privilege they have, I wonder how they can still be as oblivious as a kid in school who thinks this is just the way life is.

 

Men in Dresses, Ladies in False Moustaches

People used to understand that dressing up in costume was just a way of being silly or entertaining. Children especially appreciate playacting and dress-up. Cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny were pictured in drag as part of humorous stories. The Three Stooges, a well-known and very popular comedy act, occasionally dressed in drag. Popular sitcoms over the decades have included story lines where characters appeared in drag. In many cases, drag performers do impersonations of entertainers they admire. Even politicians like Rudy Giuliani and donald trump have participated.

Are there drag performers whose shows include overtly sexualized material? Of course, there are some. You can examine any genre of entertainment, and find whatever it is you are looking for. There have been X-rated cartoons, but that didn't prompt a movement to criminalize all cartoons. John Wayne Gacy was a serial killer who worked as a clown, but his case didn't trigger an anti-clown movement. For decades, we have seen cases of churches providing cover for people who sexually abuse children, yet few people want to make it illegal to take a child to church.

Once again, we are seeing a loud subset of the population exercising disproportionate control over local legislation. The same people who demand that men in drag be classified as adults-only entertainment seem to have no objections to scantily-clad cheerleaders on televised sports shows. They aren't picketing church picnics to demand that priests wearing elaborate gowns be kept where innocent children can't see them. ^@themrskwest

Stand Your Ground

On the surface, the idea of "stand your ground" seems sensible. It seems right and natural to defend yourself from an attacker.

The problem is with people who defend themselves, not from an actual attacker, but from their own feelings. They say they were scared or "felt threatened". Those feelings are inside of the person who feels them, and are not the responsibility of someone else. Yet they are often used to justify killing a human being who was unarmed and behaving normally, a human being whose "threatening" behavior consisted of asking a question or getting out of a car or staying inside a car or running away or standing still.

All too often it seems that the threatening behavior consisted of having dark skin. I believe that some people do genuinely feel fear when they see a person with brown skin. Sometimes that fear becomes a terror so powerful it causes them to hallucinate. They "see" a weapon that isn't there, a threatening gesture that wasn't made. It's an irrational fear, like a phobia, and it is not reasonable to kill other people because we have phobias.