The Commentariat -- July 18, 2021
Afternoon Update:
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Somini Sengupta of the New York Times: "Some of Europe's richest countries lay in disarray this weekend, as raging rivers burst through their banks in Germany and Belgium, submerging towns, slamming parked cars against trees and leaving Europeans shellshocked at the intensity of the destruction. Only days before in the Northwestern United States, a region famed for its cool, foggy weather, hundreds had died of heat. In Canada, wildfire had burned a village off the map. Moscow reeled from record temperatures. And this weekend the northern Rocky Mountains were bracing for yet another heat wave, as wildfires spread across 12 states in the American West. The extreme weather disasters across Europe and North America have driven home two essential facts of science and history: The world as a whole is neither prepared to slow down climate change, nor live with it. The week's events have now ravaged some of the world's wealthiest nations, whose affluence has been enabled by more than a century of burning coal, oil and gas -- activities that pumped the greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that are warming the world." ~~~
~~~ Don't Think All This Evidence Will Faze Climate-Change Deniers. They Blame the Libs. Joshua Partlow of the Washington Post: "... many [residents] ... in a ribbon of conservative towns and backwoods settlements along the southern edge of the Bootleg Fire [in southern Oregon] have chosen to stay home, despite the urging by authorities to evacuate.... Among the small towns that have been threatened by the Bootleg Fire -- Sprague River, Beatty, Bly -- there is little talk of global warming. Instead, residents vent about the federal government's water policies and forest management. They blame liberal environmentalists for hobbling the logging industry and Mexican marijuana farmers for sucking up the area's water." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Turns out the reason Donald Trump knew he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue & his followers would stick with him is that he would lie about it & they would believe him. CCTV footage notwithstanding, Trumpbots would blame liberal New Yorkers for the murder-in-plain-sight. These people have no reasoning ability & they definitely can't handle the truth.
Maureen Dowd of the New York Times notices that Mark Zuckerberg, Ivanka Trump, & Bill Barr, among others, are trying to hide their feet of clay. MB: At least Ivanka is doing so in very nice shoes.
Natalie Kitroeff & Michael Crowley of the New York Times: "Through [Jovenel] Moïse's time [as president of Haiti], the United States backed his increasingly autocratic rule, viewing it as the easiest way of maintaining stability in a troubled country that barely figured into the priorities of successive administrations in Washington, current and former officials say. Even as Haiti spiraled into violence and political upheaval, they say, few in the Trump administration took seriously Mr. Moïse's repeated warnings that he faced plots against his life. And as warnings of his authoritarianism intensified, the Biden administration kept up its public support for Mr. Moïse's claim to power, even after Haiti's Parliament emptied out in the absence of elections and Mr. Moïse ruled by decree.... In interviews with more than a dozen current and former officials, a common refrain emerged: Washington bore part of the blame, after brushing off or paying little attention to clear warnings that Haiti was lurching toward mayhem...." ~~~
~~~ Marie: You may brush aside this article as another of those "Michael Crowley thinks about something" pieces, but I have little doubt that Crowley & Kitroeff are essentially right. Decade after decade, the U.S. decides the convenience of backing dictators should best the inconvenience of turning a cold shoulder to said dictators. We think we give our major-power enemies -- Russia & China -- a foothold when we demand accountable governments, but it's a shortsighted convenience that inevitably becomes disastrously inconvenient. When you're giving massive amounts of aid to a poor country like Haiti, it's not that hard to demand free & fair elections & other human rights, even if -- in the face of Republican policies -- that is somewhat hypocritical.
Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: Julie K. "Brown's book [about the Jeffrey Epstein case,] which comes out on Tuesday, is about a mind-blowing case of plutocratic corruption, full of noirish subplots that may never be fully understood. But it's also about the slow strangulation of local and regional newspapers. Reading it, I kept thinking of all the malfeasance likely to go unexposed as many once-formidable newspapers outside of New York and Washington either shrink or disappear altogether." MB: Goldberg & Brown are both awfully good at getting at the story behind the story.
Me and @mattgaetz are still having a rally to show all Americans how to stand up against tyrants and bullies using our great First Amendment! -- Marjorie Taylor Greene, in a tweet
Her & @mattgaetz apparently do not stand up for common English-language grammar. -- Marie Burns ~~
~~~ CBS News Los Angeles: Matt Gaetz & Marjorie Taylor Greene had to cancel their "America First" rally in Southern California after a third planned venue backed out hours before the scheduled event.
Stephen L. Carter, who once clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall, reminisces about the justice in a New York Times Magazine essay.
The Pandemic, Ctd.
Arkansas. Andrew DeMillo of the AP: Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) has been taking road trips around the state to try to talk vaccine deniers into getting the vaccine. "His message: Listen to your own doctors and medical professionals, not conspiracy theories.... The approach is different from that of other Republicans who are portraying health leaders as adversaries.... Just 35% of Arkansas' population is fully vaccinated." ~~~
~~~ Sharon LaFraniere of the New York Times: "While much of the nation tiptoes toward normalcy, the coronavirus is again swamping hospitals in places like Mountain Home, [Arkansas,] a city of fewer than 13,000 people not far from the Missouri border. A principal reason, health officials say, is the emergence of the new, far more contagious variant called Delta, which now accounts for more than half of new infections in the United States.... Hospitalizations [in Arkansas] have quadrupled since mid-May. More than a third of patients are in intensive care. Deaths, a lagging indicator, are also expected to rise, health officials said.... Even health care workers have balked. Statewide, only about 40 percent are vaccinated...." MB: These stories treat vaccine deniers as if they're normal people with reasonable concerns. They are not.
California. Max Hauptman of the Washington Post: "The Los Angeles County Sheriff announced that his department will not enforce a reinstated mask mandate, saying it is not backed by guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Scheduled to into effect Saturday night, the mandate requires all residents, regardless of vaccination status, to wear masks indoors. Sheriff Alex Villanueva said that while the Los Angeles County Department of Health could enforce the order, 'the underfunded/defunded Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department will not expend our limited resources and instead ask for voluntary compliance.' Villanueva also encouraged the county Board of Supervisors and law enforcement to 'establish mandates that are both achievable and supported by science.'... Los Angeles County confirmed 1,902 new coronavirus cases Friday.... Public health officials continue to express concern about community transmission among unvaccinated populations, as well as breakthrough cases of infection, noting that in Los Angeles County there have been a total of 4,122 cases reported among vaccinated people as of July 13." Emphasis added.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Saturday are here.
Beyond the Beltway
Texas. J. L. Cook of the Root: "... on Friday, the state Senate voted 18-4 to pass Senate Bill 3, which drops requirements for teachers to include lessons on Cesar Chavez, Susan B. Anthony, the history of Native Americans, the writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. and other figures and documents in their curriculums. This comes after Gov. Greg Abbott previously signed a bill that banned teachers from discussing critical race theory and the 1619 Project, while also dictating how they should teach about current events in their classrooms. The idea behind this new bill is to more explicitly define what can and can't be taught. The story is a recap of a Bloomberg story, which is subscriber-firewalled.
Way Beyond
Austria. BBC News: "The US government is investigating a series of health incidents in the Austrian capital Vienna involving its diplomats and other administration staff. More than 20 officials have reported symptoms similar to Havana Syndrome - a mystery brain illness - since President Joe Biden took office in January. The syndrome is unexplained, but US scientists say it is most probably caused by directed microwave radiation. It was first found in Cuba in 2016-17. US and Canadian diplomats in Havana complained of symptoms ranging from dizziness, loss of balance, hearing loss and anxiety to something they described as 'cognitive fog'."
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Reader Comments (9)
Douthat, sermonizing on education on behalf of the I’d rather not know nuttin' party.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/17/opinion/sunday/conservatives-education.html?
Ken, delivering his own sermon (seemed only fair) to Douthat:
"Douthat assumes there are two educations, liberal and conservative.
Insofar as education has always served two purposes, those of preserving and transmitting established knowledge and culture and of questioning what we think we know by encouraging critical and creative thinking, he's right.
But to imply as he does, that there are liberal and conservative facts, and that because liberal schools somehow teach the wrong lessons, both "sides" somehow deserve equal support and sway in our educational institutions is balderdash.
There is a reason that schools tend toward the liberal. To the degree that education successfully expands and opens minds it always will. It is this tendency that discomforts conservatives, who wedded as they are to traditional thoughts and values would prefer that things remain as they are or were in some imagined Edenic time, and that minds remained closed.
This is not to say that liberals never get hide-bound themselves. They do and are not wholly immune to the inquisition impulse or to tossing out some fine babies with what they see as bathwater.
But the fundamental liberal tendency is in the other direction, toward open-minded questioning of the past and eager exploration of new ideas--in all academic disciplines, from the hard and soft sciences to philosophy and the humanities.
Without that impulse there would be no progress.
And it is largely thanks to those liberal schools that we have made as much of it as we have."
Good news this morning:
The Seattle father of the seven- and five-year-old boys who have been with us for a week responded to the above post with this comment:
"I would add that another purpose of conservative education is to reinforce guilt-free white dominant power."
Smart boy we raised.
That's one aspect of the good news.
The other? He'll be here in a few hours to pick up his kids.
@Ken: Kid power–-love it! And I appreciated your response to "both sides" Do-nut––strongly agree with your response.
Two other important reads this morning were Michelle Goldberg's and the long piece on Thurgood Marshell.
When M.B. mentioned that we give large amounts of $$$ to Haiti, I looked it up: $ 13 billion while Canada give some millions along with the Red Cross. So yes––why are we subsidizing countries that are run by dictators who make life hell for their people?
I've been reading about the fates of atoms and galaxies––their origins and how they are closely intertwined; I understand about a fourth of it. However I certainly understood the prognosis that some scientists have offered and they all seem certain about this:
The Universe will end. It simply cannot persist unchanged forever. It has been expanding since its birth about 13.8 billion years ago. This of course will not occur until maybe 5 billion yrs. from now. So in the meantime we best knuckle up and do everything we can to make this planet livable because the rate we are going its fate looks pretty dismal. Given that, those that insist this is all in God's hands may discover this imaginary deity don't give a fig. Here's an answer to their prayers: Become a Pastafarian! With belly full and promises made, you, too, can believe in another crazy scheme to embrace and deliver to all who are stupid enough to "eat it up!"
https://www.spaghettimonster.org/about/
Hope the air is staying clean enough for you and yours, Ken. It is an amazing, smokey day in flyover land today. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/07/17/bootleg-fire-oregon-heat-wave/?commentID=be29d606-5cba-46f5-991e-9fc3a9c125c3. I read these articles and wonder how much of the negative and insulting comments are driven by FSB & MSS to sow dissension in a half blue state like Oregon. I smile a bit when I think of Ammon Bundy as a Chinese agent.
OK, 5 BILLION years! At first I read 5 million and was worried, but relieved when I re-read it correctly.
Whew! That was close!
If you have a few minutes, please read this rather confessional account by a media consultant who has had a long connection with the outrageously hypocritical and dangerous pig, Ken Starr. The guy who tore tirelessly after Clinton for a single extra-marital encounter is himself guilty of a year’s long adulterous affair with the writer of this piece, who also recalls a disturbing and frightening screamfest directed at her by none other than Starr’s protégée, none other than the salacious, lying drunk, Rape Boy Bart O’Kavanaugh, who now passes judgment on the rest of us from his crapper on the Supreme Court.
There’s too much to properly condense, so read it, if you’re of a mind.
More evidence that these holy rollers who wish to assault the rest of us with their dirty moralizing are nothing but lying, hypocritical power-mad assholes.
The Party of Traitors in a soiled, depraved nutshell.
https://medium.com/@judihershman/ken-starr-brett-kavanaugh-jeffrey-epstein-and-me-ba2dbf77b0da
Had the time to read it, Akhilleus. Still waiting for the grandchildren's parents to rescue us.
About Hershman:
They're all twisted. Including Judi who was/is apparently also topped off with an unhealthy dose of missionary zeal.
Have to wonder, as always, why it took her so long to see the obvious, and if she would now feel the same urge to confess if women had not been the serial victims...
I somehow believe that the predatory behavior of the rich class she hangs around with still doesn't bother her a whit.
They are all creeps in the name of God.
He must be so proud!
Wow! I, too, just read about Judie's liaison with Mr. Starr Dimples Dufus and the Irish liar who Fatty put on the S.C. through hook and crookedness. I give Judi some credit here––she spilled the beans even though late in the day––maybe her God got to her in the dark shadows of the night or maybe she's just really pissed and wishes retribution for actions that clearly show the faces of "The Party of Traitors in a soiled, depraved nutshell." It's certainly a story worth telling tonight around that American supper table while feasting on fishy tales about putrid males and those whose secrets prevented progress.
The Fat Fascist is whining about the “rise in crime”. Seriously? Isn’t this like Jeffrey Epstein complaining about statutory rape? Like TuKKKer KKKarlson complaining about shoddy and mendacious “journalism”? Like Lindsey Graham complaining about sycophantic pond scum? Trump getting into high dudgeon over criminal activity is like the Treasonous Turtle crying about anti-democratic hyper partisan scheming.