I Fear We Won't be Growing Up

Growth is good? In most of the world economic growth is the magic elixir that everyone strives for, lots and lots of growth. Endless growth. Growth gained by using energy to turn resources into garbage. More energy, more cars, more TVs, more and more and more. Especially more CO2 emissions. Growth. Too bad that growth will doom us. Or has.  Source

Me? I think we've already crossed the Rubicon on climate change. Things are irreversible, and the generations behind us are the ones who are really going to have to suffer.  

Boston is the Rest of Us

 Boston is going bananas with preparation for next Monday's marathon. But you know what I think? Two things: first, there won't be any bombs in Boston at the marathon ever again; it was a one-time event, like 9/11, like Pearl Harbor, and the murder of Archduke Frances Ferdinand. And second, all this police presence and spy cameras everywhere, and agents lurking and who knows what else? That's all about how the "terrorists have won." (Remember when Bush was all about stopping that ever happening?)

Don't doubt for a minute that the terrorists have won. We're a nation gripped in terror. We're ruled by it. We've sacrificed just about everything precious on the promise of being kept safe: our civil liberties, our privacy rights, our freedom to be live normally. (You get inspected going into a ballpark!) We're a police/national security state, folks. Get used to it.

So all those hot-and-cold running cops, spys, and scared-to-death people in Boston? They're just the rest of us.

Deserved

The Pulitzers were announced yesterday. And both the Washington Post and The Guardian newspapers won the award for public service. Although I've not actually encountered any yet, I am positive there are screeches of anguish arising from the right about honoring newspapers who dared reveal CIA secrets passed on to them by that "traitor" Edward Snowden. God, what is wrong with people? The government is going through everything we say, sign, keep, look at, read, and keeping this information all to their spooky selves . . . and it wasn't a public service to expose this to the light? Are you kidding? Snowden is looking at 30 years in prison--no way in hell he'll ever be found innocent--if he ever sets foot back in his country again. That's the price you pay for speaking out. Public service ain't free.

But those papers deserved the Pulitzer . . . and Snowden oughta be getting some kind of medal too.

Powderfinger's Back

Hey! I have returned. And back on the job of observing this insane world.

I've been on a little pleasure jaunt down to Texas. Family, baseball, good food, great music concert, old friend Frank Vicari--we go back to the 5th grade--who graciously put Stu and me up at his place for two nights in Dallas. What could be finer than all that? The Arcade Fire concert was dynamite, the biggest adventure trying to find a place to eat "on the way." We ended up at a literal trailer cookery called "Pollo Regio," where the pollo was muy bueno, but the general appointments and atmosphere left something to be desired. But the music was great, even though it was a really long trek from car to venue, which was a huge outdoor amphitheater called the 360. Susan and I had to ride a rickshaw bike and we rode the parking lot shuttle back. I really was bothered by the fact that walking any distance bothered the hell out of my left leg. I'm hoping it's still post-op stuff going on--one of the aneurisms was in the artery feeding the left leg--but I don't know. Whenever there's anything like this, you're always thinking: "Uh oh, are we going into permanent deterioration mode on this part of the body now?"

Wonderful time at the ballpark. Cousin Christine who took marvelous care of me on Sunday got to see her team, the Astros, beat the Rangers on Saturday, 6-5 in 10 innings. The game the night before, which went 12 innings and ended in a 1-0 Ranger win was a classic. Great game. Christine wanted me to meet her Aunt Kathryn and Uncle George on her mom's side. Actually Aunt Kathryn and I had met at her sister Leah's wedding who knows how many eons ago. But it was a real hoot. I think we sat there nearly two hours just having laughs and great conversation.

A lot more: the joy of spending time with two of my kids. My dear Susan. Always Susan. I even enjoyed the Amtrak train from Ft. Worth back here to Norman. A comfortable and reasonably on-time ride. 

Lookin' Good . . .

Verbatim from one of my favorite blogs, "Some Assembly Required."

More Is Less: Research suggests that vegetarian diets lead to generally poorer health, a poorer quality of life and a higher need for health care. The vegetarian diet also seems to carry elevated risks of cancer, allergies and mental health disorders. But you'll look fit and trim and still feel superior to the rest of us.

Love it!

Nothing but Chaff

My little sister Mary Ellen just recently found a job after being unemployed for 14 months. I don't need to tell you that if you're 56 years old this is a long time, a real long time. I sure worried about her, and I think she worried a whole lot more than she let on. But she's a trooper. When the good fortune of a job finally came along--not in the kind of work she had been doing for 20 years either--she just took it in stride. She's happy with the new work, and I cannot tell you how relieved I am for her. Because I know the real story. People like my sister are nothing but chaff in the current economy, and they are likely to stay that way for a very long time.

The facts of the case, her case being a precise fit, are that since 2007, the number of people who have been unemployed for more than 27 weeks is up 191 percent. That, folks, translates to a bit fewer than 4 million people.

Well, aren't these people being taken care of, you say? Nope.

In Washington, the plight of the long-term jobless has largely faded from the policy conversation. At the moment, the federal government offers virtually no help to the 3.8 million Americans who have been out of work for more than six months. The maximum duration of unemployment insurance payments fell from as long as 73 weeks to 26 weeks in most states in January.

A jobless aid bill is expected to win final approval from the Democrat-controlled Senate early next week, but it is not expected to pass the Republican-controlled House as currently constructed. Source

Gish Gallop Lies

You can look it up in the Urban Dictionary. The Gish Gallop is a technique that “involves spewing so much bullshit in such a short span on that your opponent can’t address let alone counter all of it.” And this was the wonderful intro to piece I just read about the five things the right lies most shamelessly and most repeatedly about. They practice the Gish Gallop technique on all the rest of us. Constantly. You can probably guess what the five lies are, or at least come close. But to spare you having to scratch your head on the last one, I'll list them for you here.

1. Creationism - Just check out this amazing list of the falsehoods creationists have foisted upon us, and you'll be astonished. These are the people the Gish Gallop was named for.
2. Denial of Climate Change - Check this compilation of over 160 arguments made by the climate change deniers and why they are wrong.
3. The Affordable Care Act - Large lies, small lies, but all of them numerous and unrelenting.
4. Contraception Mandate - Kind of a subsection to the above, but large enough for its own category. Here's a list of a dozen major myths concerning this provision of the ACA.
5. Gun Safety - "The gun lobby is dishonest to its core."

Revisiting Insanity

It's something we revisit often. In fact, it's getting to be an almost daily occurrence. News comes of something that's no surprise: some nut with a gun blows three people away, hurts a bunch more, and then kills himself at Ft. Hood, Texas. Yes, that's act II there. The first was worst, but now we've really stirred the pot and the crazies are out in force with their "solutions" and "explanations." We don't have to go any further than Fox news, do we?

Those geniuses, the "fair and balanced" joke that more Americans get their news from than any other source . . . well, it didn't take them long to discover the cause of the shooting. You guessed it: Obama. Why? Well, because everybody at Ft Hood is prevented by government policy--policy made by Bill Clinton and left in place by Obama--from walking around armed.

The people at Fox heartily approved of these sentiments voiced by the "Gateway Pundit," an infamous right-wing blogger who obviously has it all figured out:

‘The Obama administration is responsible for this mass shooting. They witnessed this before, they didn’t learn a thing. Gun-free zones are death zones. It is time to stand up to the lunacy.’" 

Got that? Policy that creates gun-free zones is lunacy. Obviously, the word means nothing anymore.

 Source

Who's on Welfare?

Well, let's have a look. I know the answer to the question, and I've known it for a long time because I've made it a point to be informed. Which 90 percent of the time means: if the masses believe it, don't even begin to think it's true. What's my sidebar quote say, the words of wisdom from Seneca: "Avoid whatever is approved of by the mob."? Well, it could just have well have said "Don't believe anything the mob believes."

Point of fact. The whole question of government assistance to those evil poor people. We all know about how they're bilking the rest of us honest, hard-working citizens, and living on our initiative and energy. Right?

Well, that's never been true, but it's never been not embraced by the vast majority of mallet-heads in this society.

Here's a video that talks about that and a lot more. If you want to get spun up on the latest thinking about the consequences of policy. Have a look.



And then share with your kids and friends.

No April Fools Joke Today

Amazing world we live in. I am cursed. I don't have a one track mind. I find just a universe of things interesting . . . including the universe, of course. But this time the story is pretty earthbound. So much in fact, that it's lain buried under the earth for hundreds of years until just recently. Here's the gist of it:

Twenty-five skeletons were uncovered in London’s Charterhouse Square in Farringdon during Crossrail construction works in March 2013. It provided the first evidence of the location of London’s first Black Death emergency burial ground established in 1348.

As a historian, anything like this trips my trigger. And I keep hoping that the archeologists will get better and better at finding old stuff and unearthing it so we can learn more about where we've come from. (What I really wish is that the bottom of the ocean could be scoured for all the treasure of knowledge that lies there. But we're a long way from that.)

Here's a couple pictures that'll give you a real good idea of what this dig looks like.

Remarkable Find

Closer Look

Apparently this burial ground is of great historical importance to London, so a huge amount of research has been done on the skeletons. From their teeth, scientists have found "traces of the DNA of the Yersinia pestis bacterium." This was the bug responsible for the Black Death. They have also determined that the burials occurred in two phases: 1348-50 and in the early to mid-1400s.

The site of the burial is just outside the city walls, and the site is named after the Charterhouse that was built next to the burial site to pray for the dead that were buried there. That former monastery is still there, largely hidden behind high walls, and you can book occasional tours to have a look around inside.

Amazing.

Source: Here