Yaks to Hacks

A Smile and a Grimace

        Words we seldom hear in America – “A local man and his dog were charged by Yaks.” It seems this guy in Massachusetts, one Mike Tierney, who had been raising Alpacas on his farm in Westfield, decided that Yaks were potentially tastier and more “fun” to have on his farm, so he dumped the camelids and bought three yaks. Yaks are tall, rangy and wild Asian (originally) cattle with long menacing horns and can reach half a ton on the hoof. Had his fence been stronger, there would be no story, but…..

        Todd Steglinski, 42, and his German shepherd, Sarah, were hiking on the Bear Hole Reservoir Trail several miles from the Yaks original locale at dusk. As Steglinski tells it, he spotted three large black animals drinking at the dam below. He assumed they were black bears, but when he and Sarah got closer, he realized he was wrong. At this point, curious readers might ask themselves why any sane individual hiking in the woods unarmed, seeing what appeared to be adult bears, would approach them.  

       Afterward this genius (Steglinski) told police and wildlife personnel, “It’s not a deer or raccoon or anything,” (Really? How could you tell? It might have been three 1000-pound racoons, right?)  “How often do you see yaks out in the middle of the woods?” One yak, which Steglinski described as “a nice big cuddly cow” (except gargantuan), began to advance toward him and Sarah.

        According to Steglinsky, his dog, seemingly not much brighter than her owner, also had no fear. “Sarah went up to it. She went nose to nose with it. It gave her a gentle head butt,” Steglinski recalls. Then the yak snorted, put its head down, and charged. Steglinski decided it was probably time to go and turned to leave. By then, the other two yaks had joined the alpha yak. Steglinski started to run; so did the yaks; fortunately, all involved lost interest before anyone was hurt. The next day, Mr. Tierney, notified that his critters were astray, and assisted by animal control personnel, corralled the Yaks and returned them to the farm, where, hopefully, he is engaged in mending his fences. Apparently, all it took was for the owner to bang on a grain bucket with a scoop until they followed him into a barn.

On a more somber note

        Iran tested an unarmed intermediate range missile yesterday. The test and the flight path were entirely within the borders of the country. This would not be newsworthy if not for the fact that we (the USA) have decided that we don’t want them to do it and told them so. I am a 26-year Cold War veteran, but where do we get off deciding what another nation may do inside its own borders with no harm to anyone? I am reminded that, justified or not, we as the only nation ever to use a nuclear weapon against humans, have decided that only we and selected allies are humane and righteous enough to possess such capabilities.

        We just sat by, several days earlier, apparently mute, when (nuclear capable) North Korea launched two similar missiles into the Sea of Japan, calling them a “solemn warning” that South Korea should cease joint military exercises with the US. The Trump administration was mute on the matter. Apparently, someone, clearly a foreign policy guru, has decided that Iran is dangerous and cannot be allowed to pursue anything we don’t like, even on their own soil, but the fat little Trump wannabee in Pyongyang is trustworthy.  

        When this sort of thing occurs, as it too frequently does, I can’t help thinking that, to some in the USA, the concept of national sovereignty only applies to us and our friends, of whom we have fewer than we did four years ago. I state this last based on several weeks in Europe travelling with persons from all over the world, from the Philippines, New Zealand and Australia to Slovakia, Canada, and the UK. Generally educated persons all, the common denominator was their almost universal conviction that the current President of the United States is a bully and not really very bright. Sad, that.

The Last Words

        There is one person who, if they walked in front of my car, would make me involuntarily hit the accelerator. That individual is Senate Majority Leader and moral vacuum, Mitch McConnell. If one looks up in the OED the term “political hack” there is a picture of this waste of skin. Faced with a Democratic majority in the House, he has dedicated the past two years to blatant obstructionism. The best and most egregious evidence for this assertion has been his constant shameless effort to refuse to even consider (or allow to be considered) HR 1. (note this is merely one of almost 150 Bills McConnell has tabled (barred from debate) in less than two years!) 

        The focus of his bill is to reform several areas of government where there are consistent and troubling ethics issues. “Why”, you say, “How could anyone argue with improving ethics in government?”  Here’s how: (I have, to some extent, abbreviated it by areas of focus.”  

Campaign finance

Public financing of campaigns: The federal government would provide a voluntary 6-1 match for candidates for president and Congress, which means for every dollar a candidate raises from small donations, the federal government would match it six times over. The maximum small donation that could be matched would be capped at $200.

Support for a constitutional amendment to end Citizens United.

Passing the DISCLOSE Act. This would require Super PACs and “dark money” political organizations to make their donors public. You know, like honesty?

Passing the Honest Ads Act, which would require Facebook and Twitter to disclose the source of money for political ads on their platforms and share how much money was spent.

Disclosing any political spending by government contractors and slowing the flow of foreign money into the elections by targeting shell companies.

Restructuring the Federal Election Commission to have five commissioners instead of the current four, in order to break political gridlock.

Prohibiting any coordination between candidates and Super PACs.

Opposing these provisions (McConnell does) means support for the buying of elections by unidentified persons organizations or even foreign interests. Wow, could that happen?  

Ethics

Requiring the president and vice president to disclose 10 years of his or her tax returns. Candidates for president and vice president would be required to do the same.

Stopping members of Congress from using taxpayer money to settle sexual harassment or discrimination cases.

Giving the Office of Government Ethics the power to do more oversight and enforcement and put in stricter lobbying registration requirements. These include more oversight into foreign agents by the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Again, opposing these provisions (McConnell does) means that transparency in government must be considered hazardous to continued reelection.

Voting rights

Creating new national automatic voter registration that asks voters to opt out, rather than opt in, ensuring more people will be signed up to vote. Early voting, same-day voter registration, and online voter registration would also be promoted.

Making Election Day a holiday for federal employees and encouraging private sector businesses to do the same, requiring poll workers to provide a week’s notice if poll sites are changed, and making colleges and universities a voter registration agency (in addition to the DMV, etc.), among other updates.

Ending partisan gerrymandering in federal elections and prohibiting voter roll purging.

Beefing up election security, including requiring the director of national intelligence to do regular checks on foreign threats.

Recruiting and training more poll workers ahead of the 2020 election to cut down on long lines at the polls.

Note that all these provisions are threatening to high roller, big spender, forces (aka Republican establishment) which have grossly skewed the impact of entitled and wealthy individuals and their corporations on the election process. These changes would serve to enfranchise persons, disproportionately marginalized, by allowing all Americans equal opportunity to participate in the process of selecting (hopefully) leaders. But then, this explains why Mitch McConnell opposes it, doesn’t it?  ?  He characterizes this package as a “Power grab.”  He’s right. Power to the People he despises – Ordinary Americans.

Arks to Quarks

       I Saw an article today regarding the discovery by a California college student of a Triceratops skull. That made me wonder, as I periodically do, about what, if any, thought process takes place in the relative vacuum in Ken Ham’s ears. Ham, in case you missed it, is the Australian born guru behind the Noah’s Ark experience in Kentucky. His Wikipedia page says: “Kenneth Alfred Ham is an Australian Christian fundamentalist, young Earth creationist and apologist, living in the United States. He is the president of Answers in Genesis, a creationist apologetics organization that operates the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter.”

Now that we know who and what we’re dealing with, let’s analyze what Mr. Ham believes and how he displays it.

First, there is a small diorama in the “Creation Museum” which shows some sort of reptilian raptor chasing a human. How’s that for a start?  Then there are the (prehistoric??) steel pipe railings in the animal areas of the Ark. All this, hokey and implausible as it is, pales beside the truly obvious questions (and real-world answers) which make Ham’s charade simply a scam preying on the ignorant and ingenuous. 

I am pretty sure Ham has at least heard of Alfred Wegener or his theory, now proven as fact, of Continental Drift, also known as Plate Tectonics, Wegener was pooh-poohed when he proposed that the continents are, and have for millions of years been, in motion. Part of this was the assertion that initially the continents were one large land mass which later spilt into the continents. Less than 100 years later, however, such is not the case. Explaining earthquakes and borne out by new land formation in such places as the Atlantic off Iceland and Hawaii, along with continued increasing heights in the Himalayas,  no credible academic today disputes this reality. Sadly, for Ken Ham, (especially with respect to his ludicrous “young Earth” and Human/dinosaur interaction) allegation) this also means that one of two scenarios must have existed to validate his claims. 

Either: 1) The world and all there is on or in it was “created” as it is, with the continents located as they are, or,
           2) continental drift occurred after “Noah’s Flood” (around 4000 years per Mr. Ham. Let’s consider each case and the problems associated with fitting Ham’s assertions to ether.

1) Earth created as it is today: That would imply that evolution, which Ham denies, instead must be valid, since Ham maintains that the flood exterminated all life except that on the Ark. If the world was created as it is today, numerous species would have been exterminated which neither Noah nor Superman could have managed to get to the Ark. Jaguars love to swim but crossing 2500 miles of Atlantic Ocean to get to the Mid-East might have been a bit too much. The same is true, of course for Black Bears, Grizzlies, Pumas, Capybaras, Tapirs and all those other uniquely New World animals, which, per Ham, would have been eradicated if not on the Ark, which time and distance would have made impossible. The fact that these other animals exist in the Americas and not in any other place would mean that either they “evolved” here, which of course Ken Ham denies, or alternately, that Ham and the Genesis Flood/Ark story, are full of shit.     

2) Continental drift occurred after “The Flood.”   If that were true, then those same animals unique to the western hemisphere would have to have evolved (there’s that word again) from the Ark’s passengers. This, of course fails to explain almost everything we categorically know to be true, beginning with the most persuasive argument for evolution and Continental drift, which is that we find fossil remains of various species in some places but not anywhere else. While some of these are obviously similar, they have “grown apart” by separation. T-Rex is uniquely found in the Americas (as is the Triceratops, which inspired this rant), as the most direct example. 
Additionally, no human remains are found in any strata of the earth remotely close to the same age as Dinosaurs. More significantly, if any event sufficient to kill all the large reptiles befell the Earth, what are the chances humans would have survived it? And finally, if as Ham maintains, humans coexisted with dinosaurs, what happened to them (dinosaurs) after the flood subsided?

We have here an individual and, sadly, numerous others so desperate to cling to a fiction which allows for the possibility of miraculous events in place of relying on their own evolution given intellect for guidance. If all who suffered (just monetarily in this case) as a result were fools like those who go the see the Ark Experience (less than half of Ham’s pre-opening estimates, by the way) that would be unfortunate, but self-inflicted. However, when those naïfs with their messianic zeal tell those of us with functioning brains that we must not only “respect” their beliefs but legislate them unto the entire body politic, that is another matter. These people, sadly, cannot differentiate between respecting their right to believe, and the drivel to which they apply it and attempt to inflict upon others.   

Preferential treatment

        It is, to me, simply astounding that pharmacies (or some less legal outlet in Sumter County) received and, apparently, dispensed, either oxy or hydrocodone to the tune of 39.2 pills for every single resident of the county. Can we now stop hypothesizing about why there’s an opioid epidemic?

        Of course, compared to Mingo County, West, (by Gawd-uh) Virginia, that’s a pittance, as the hillbillies, apparently in great pain, gobbled down more than 200 pills per capita per year (203.5 to be specific). These aren’t being manufactured in some back-yard lab like Meth or smuggled in, like Fentanyl or Cocaine, but are manufactured by “reputable” drug companies, who have profited greatly by the misery of others, while lobbying Congress. While every so often we see a doctor chastised for running a pill mill, they are too frequently simply slapped on the wrist in the form of being prohibited from prescribing opioids, and then, sometimes only for a specified period of time. In like manner, the manufacturers, semi-isolated from culpability by simply claiming to fill a “legitimate demand for prescribed medication,” keep on pumping out pills.  

         This sort of half-hearted punishment of doctors (excluding recent long overdue questioning of the manufacturers’ massive marketing schemes) is symbolic of a greater ill. We, or should I say the criminal justice system, look at similar crimes through different lenses based on race, social standing and “class.” There is no better evidence of this than the disparate punishments, or lack thereof, meted out to persons accused of sexual assault. The instant a crime’s consequences are evaluated by the desire not to “ruin a promising young man’s life” for raping an unconscious girl behind a dumpster, the system has broken. When consequences to the perpetrator take precedence over equal standing before the law, we are in trouble. This has been documented ad infinitum along racial and class lines and I won’t repeat what has, sadly, become common knowledge, since drug abuse and prescribing abuse are the topic du jour.   

        One example of the “Our kind of people” tolerance offered doctors, is the case of a pill mill with offices in Central and South Florida. Richard McMillan operated a Florida pain clinic company which benefited as millions of oxycodone pills were prescribed and sold to customers who traveled from Ohio, Kentucky and other states. Examination of the financials revealed that these "pill mills" run by McMillan took in about $10 million in just over one year before raids closed the illegal enterprise. Federal Drug Enforcement Administration officials calculated that the clinics, including locations near Orlando and Jacksonville, sold more than 2 million oxycodone pills to customers before the crackdown.

        The scam was typical of such operations, in that McMillan, neither an MD nor a pharmacist, simply created the methodology and the physical venues. Customers usually paid $200 or $300 in cash or with credit payments to see doctors on staff. Oxycodone pills, sold for $5 or $6 each, and were dispensed from an in-house pharmacy, prosecutors said. After listening to tearful remarks from McMillan's friends about his unselfish nature, and reading letters expressing love from his two children, the judge imposed a 35-year prison sentence along with an order to pay $600,000 in fines. Now the rest of the story. What of the “doctors” knowingly prescribing the opioids after five minutes or less? How many licenses were revoked? What of the dispensing Pharmacists? How many licenses were revoked? How much jail time? The hesitance of judges to punish physicians is shameful and is classism at its worst. An individual facing jail time for “possession with intent to sell” of a banned substance gets no such consideration unless, of course, they are socially “connected.” To be specific, a private individual convicted of offering to sell 100 oxycodone tablets would almost certainly incur jail time. A licensed physician dispensing 1000 of them per day to persons he or she knows, or should know, are addicts, faces no consequences in almost all instances.

        Any objective look at who and how many individuals are incarcerated in America on drug charges alone reveals the same data skew. So, yes, let’s hold manufacturers accountable, let’s hold non-medically qualified pill mill operator/predators like Richard McMillan, accountable. Finally, let’s cut through the bullshit of “good old boy” bias in punishment for doctors who took an oath to “do no harm” and then prescribe, apparently with little consequence, the mountain of pills which addicts crave. Of course, with an individual in the US Senate who was, at a minimum, “involved” in allegations of $8 billion in Medicare fraud, and escaped “Scott free,” maybe Florida isn’t on the moral high ground, huh?   

  

A Concentration Camp by any other name......?

       One of those “where did this come from” popups on my e-mail is a site called “Poll King” which generally asks political opinion questions and displays the answers by political persuasion and gender. Today’s question was “Is it ‘Fair’ (what a squishy term, huh?) to compare Border Detention Centers to Concentration Camps?”  In addition to the gross overuse of capital letters the question begs the issue that anything can be compared to anything else, though it be a ludicrous comparison.

         Those points aside, however, let’s endeavor to educate ourselves a bit. The modern term “concentration camp” is viscerally perceived by most of those of us with a conscience as something akin to the horrors of German labor and death camps of WW II. There is little doubt in my mind that the average individual believes that the term and the concept began there. Not so. IN truth, there have been some version of "concentration camps as long as victors have forced losers, civilian and/or military, to labor for them."  So, what is a concentration camp by definition? 

 Definition of concentration camp: “A place where large numbers of people (such as prisoners of war, political prisoners, refugees, or the members of an ethnic or religious minority) are detained or confined under armed guard.”  Obviously, the Border Detention centers meet this definition.    

        The term (not the concept as we shall see) was actually born in Cuba, and in Spanish, (reconcentración). It stems from the Spanish attempting to keep Cuban rebels under control. There was no “death camp” concept, yet many non combatants died of disease and hunger. Civilians were forced, on penalty of death, to move into these encampments, and within a year the island held tens of thousands of dead or dying reconcentrados, who were lionized as martyrs in U.S. newspapers. No mass executions were necessary; horrific living conditions and lack of food eventually took the lives of some 150,000 people.

        The sad fact is that after Spain surrendered to US forces, the camps weren’t immediately disestablished. Huh? Remember, the Spanish American war was also fought in the Philippines. By the end of 1901, U.S. generals fighting in the most recalcitrant regions of the islands had likewise turned to concentration camps. This was simply because the Filipinos had the audacity to claim their freedom not only from Spain, but from foreign domination. The US Army recorded this turn officially as an “orderly application of measured tactics”, but what developed was far from that. On seeing one camp, one senior Army officer wrote, “It seems way out of the world without a sight of the sea, in fact, more like some suburb of hell.”

       By 1900, however, that other “progressive and humane” nation - Great Britain, had instituted camps in South Africa. Aimed at first to control rebellious Dutch-descended settler farmers during the Boer War, they yielded results similar to Spanish (Cuban) and American (Philippines) camps. In 1900,  the British began relocating more than 200,000 civilians, mostly women and children, behind barbed wire into bell tents or improvised huts. Again, the idea of punishing civilians evoked horror among those who saw themselves as representatives of a civilized nation. “When is a war not a war?” asked British Member of Parliament Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman in June 1901. His answer?  “When it is carried on by methods of barbarism in South Africa.” As in Cuba and The Philippines, far more people died in the camps than in combat. Polluted water supplies, lack of food, and infectious diseases ended up killing tens of thousands of detainees. While the reports of the treatment of European descendants in this manner shocked many if not most of the British public, far less concern was evidenced for conditions in British camps for black Africans who had even more squalid living conditions and, at times, only half the rations allotted to white detainees.

        Lest we minimize American use of the concept of forced relocation and physical concentration (because we’re the “good guys”) it is essential to recall the “internment” (concentration) of US citizens of Japanese descent during WW II. Enough has been said about this, so let’s back up to the last half of the 19^th century to another concentration camp, this time on the Lakota Pine Ridge “reservation.”  The difference between reservation and concentration camp at the time was largely a matter of spelling.  The circumstances are largely irrelevant, but the result bears repetition. Approximately 300 men, women, and children of the Lakota were killed and 51 were wounded (4 men and 47 women and children, some of whom died later). While Congress (in 1990) formally apologized and denounced the actions of the US Army, the sickening fact is that 20 Medals of Honor were awarded to soldiers who received them for actions during the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, when hundreds of Native Americans were killed by U.S. cavalry soldiers. This is the nation’s highest military honor bestowed on men using Hotchkiss machine guns to indiscriminately kill women and children.

Mass grave at wounded knee. Look familiar?

        A concentration camp, by definition, is exactly what the Border Detention Centers are. How bad they are is a matter of degree, not definition.

        By the way the poll results on the original question show, disappointingly, that 78.5% of our countrymen and women apparently don’t know the difference between summer camp and involuntary confinement. Of the Democrats who responded, 61% think the camps are concentration camps, while a disturbing 95 % of Republicans think they’re just fine.

News commentary, 7/9/2019

Sitting here, listening to the Doobies on Sirius XM and reflecting on the funny, odd and downright stupid from the daily rag.

        The Tour de France is underway. Who cares?

        In what might best be termed as a bad retail decision, a young local man advertised several used Jet Skis for sale at a good price. When two prospective purchasers showed up to inspect the merch, they were presented, not with watercraft, but with an automatic pistol. He ordered the two men to the ground preparatory, one assumes, to robbing them, while failing to realize that they were off duty sheriff’s deputies. Both drew their concealed weapons and shots ensued. The felonious vendor was non fatally wounded and currently resides, sans bail, in the county lockup on multiple charges. Karma’s a bitch, huh?

       In a shout out to the persistence of age and conditioning, a local man age 69, competing in an International Powerlifting Federation World Classic competition in Sweden, won his age bracket with a dead lift of 529 pounds. That’s no typo, 529 pounds! This ordinary looking guy picked up the equivalent of several large NFL lineman. Holy crap!

        Most newspapers have advice (agony) columns, some of which tend to the maudlin, and some of which provide downright bad advice, but we seem to have an exception. Today’s long letter was from an individual (male) who cites all the reasons he has to be content with his life as he nears retirement age. Happily married, their daughter completing college this year and financially secure, his complaint is that he heard, from friends, some news regarding another friend and fraternity brother, with whom he lost touch after college.

        Apparently, the friend had become successful, starting an electronics company, which he recently sold for $15 million. He also has six children and a nice house, a mansion, the writer says, and seems to have accomplished a dream career. So? So, the writer is envious and almost angry at his successful friend, not for any real slight, but simply for his success.

        There are many ways the response could have gone, from “quit complaining” to “What a whiner you are.”  The advice columnist chose instead to lead her response with a quote from Theodore Roosevelt - “Comparison is the thief of joy.” 

        I was struck, as I reflected on this simple thought, by the incredible scope of applicability inherent therein. All advertising seems to be aimed at creating emotional response somewhat akin to this same sentiment. “Here it is, some have it and, if you don’t, you’ve been societally disadvantaged.” $60,000 cars, $150 sneakers, $700 phones, $100,000 college educations, etc., all “deserved” but missing the other variables, personal responsibility, effort, and ability. The first two require individual effort and character while  the last sadly, as humans, is beyond our control for the most part.

         We all "deserve," until we prove differently by bad actions,  the basic benefits of life in our society - healthcare, affordable medications, enough to eat, adequate housing, etc. The first two are in dire need of remediation by federal action, but the last two, the basic creature comforts, are within the grasp of the vast majority of us – should we choose to use whatever talents we have in whatever manner is best suited to them. Advertising, however, and as in the letter referred to above, envy, are aimed at feeding the green-eyed monster within by convincing us that simply being happy, secure and comfortable isn’t enough, if someone else is better off.       

        Living in Florida carries with it the sad fact that one will periodically see the state legislature, controlled by Republicans debate and, sadly from time to time, enact legislation which seems so wrong headed it makes one wonder as to the sense of reason.  This, too frequently revolves around the twin Florida Republican concepts that “All development is good” and “It’s not an issue until it becomes a problem.” (there are others, like legislated voter suppression, but today we’ll deal with these two.)

        The article in question is headlined “Activists (a curse word in Tallahassee) and State (as if activists aren’t part of the “state”) Differ on How to Fight Algae.” This makes it sound as if there are two methods and there are simply some scientific differences of opinion on which works best.

       It is worthy of note that this is a “State” concern only because of its potential impact on tourism, the Holy Grail of all things Florida, since red tide and blue-green algae blooms fouled beaches across the state and resulted in a spate of marine animal deaths as a result. For detailed analysis of how we got here (algae blooms) and what might be done, see my two blog entries below from two years ago.    

https://bubblehead1026.blogspot.com/2016/07/how-it-happened.html

https://bubblehead1026.blogspot.com/2016/07/so-what-can-be-done.html

        Regarding today’s column, however, the dreaded environmental activists’ position is that the levels of allowable pollutants should be set by law to prevent recurrence of the incredible blooms spurred by nutrients and warm weather, one controllable, one not so much. The state legislature, however, instead seems to feel that instead of limiting what contributors (like Big Sugar, etc.) can puke into our waters, new limits should simply be used as guidelines for declaring a public health emergency, rather than a tool to prevent such disasters. This is analogous to choosing to allow the gas leak if it hasn’t yet caused an explosion. Wow! And we pay these guys.

        Finally, we have the incredible spectacle of a high school Principal who has been “reassigned.” This is “Edu babble” for “Relegated to an admin position outside the school setting because he fucked up, but, while we throw teachers under the bus daily, we rarely fire an administrator, since that would admit we erred in his appointment.” Seen it numerous times.

       This guy in Palm Beach County actually said, in response to a parent’s query regarding teaching the Holocaust,  that he “couldn’t acknowledge the Holocaust as a factual, historical event because I am not in a position to do so as a school district employee.” By this bastardized illogic, I was out of line to discuss it in AP US history, I guess. He added the real clincher, that, “not all students' parents believe that the Holocaust happened!”

        I am reminded of the following: "When I found the first camp like that, I think I never was so angry in my life. The bestiality displayed there was not merely piled up bodies of people that had starved to death, but to follow out the road and see where they tried to evacuate them so they could still work, you could see where they sprawled on the road. You could go to their burial pits and see horrors that really, I wouldn't even want to begin to describe. I think people ought to know about such things. It explains something of my attitude toward the German war criminal. I believe he must be punished, and I will hold out for that forever."

  Dwight D. Eisenhower- Press conference, 6/18/45 [DDE's Pre-Presidential Papers, Principal File, Box 156]

   It was Eisenhower who ordered Army photographers to detail, the horrors uncovered, sequentially, as camps were liberated. Anticipating a time when Nazi atrocities might be denied, General Eisenhower also ordered the filming and photographing of camps as they were liberated.  Members of the U.S. Army Signal Corps recorded approximately 80,000 feet of moving film, together with still photographs.

       Within months after the war in Europe, about 6,000 feet of that film footage was excerpted to create a one-hour documentary called “Nazi Concentration Camp”.  Prosecutors used the film, which is graphically gruesome, to prove that Nazi leaders, on trial at Nuremberg, had perpetrated unbelievably heinous crimes against humanity.

        Thomas Dodd, one of the U.S. prosecutors, introduced the film into evidence on the 29th of November, 1945.  When the lights came up, after the trial film was screened, people had a new understanding of what the words “concentration camp” really meant.

       Eisenhower wanted to be in as many pictures as possible to prove the death camps really existed. He was sometimes accompanied by Generals Bradley and Patton. Patton became physically ill more than once at several sites of the worst carnage. In the face of such overwhelming physical and documentary evidence, allowing schools to be less than candid in approaching this extreme example of man’s inhumanity to man is. in itself, academically dishonest and bordering on criminal, not to mention irresponsible. 

        By this principal’s standards, one supposes that Evolution, climate change, most genetics, human origins, much biology, sex ed, historical accuracy of the Bible, Jim Crowism, etc. are also off the table. Let’s bring back public flogging as a punishment for blatant stupidity in those who should know better.   

News Musings 08/07/2019

Newspaper Musings

       Of course, it’s soccer! The US women’s team vs the world, and the Ladies kicked ass. Of course, some will bemoan their complaints re: compensation, without doing a shred of research. Here’s some data (remember facts and data? It’s my stock in trade.)

·       In the year following the 2015 World Cup win, women’s games generated $1.9 million more than the men’s games. And in recent years, the men’s revenue tally also includes the fees that opposing teams pay in order to play the United States. If both teams played 20 friendlies in a year, a top-tier women’s national team player would earn $164,320 less, or “38% of the compensation of a similarly situated MNT player.”

·              Some, men, primarily, may point out that the MLS draws more fans, ergo more gate receipts than the women’s league. That’s apples and oranges. We’re speaking of just the income earned by representing the nation in international competition.

·              With a World Cup win, the max earnings for a USWNT player is $200,000, while a USMNT player could earn $1.1 million with a title. That’s 5 times as much, for the math challenged!

·       In what must surely be one of the more galling slaps in the face, USMNT players are compensated $99 per diem while travelling, while USWNT player rate is $75 daily. In an environment where “equal pay for equal work” has become a mantra for many, the USWNT players are smacked in the face with “less pay for more and better work.” Doesn’t seem quite right, does it?

        In lighter news: A hearse was pulled over in Las Vegas recently, by a Nevada state patrolman, for driving in the HOV (2 or more passengers) lane. The patrolman, who noticed that the operator was apparently the sole occupant, instructed said driver that the corpse in the coffin didn’t count, as HOV refers to “living passengers only.”  It would be interesting to see how a judge ruled in the matter!

        I note with a mixture of anticipation and foreboding, that Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter have reunited, 30 years after their most recent collaboration, to make a third Bill and Ted movie. If Reeves is trying to break out of the recent “John Wick” character mode, this should definitely do it. I loved the first one and liked the second one. I mean, after all, where else would you find dialogue like “You killed Ted, you medieval dickweed,” a band like Wyld Stallyns, or a super-hot stepmom like Missy??

      

         Having said that, this will, at a minimum put the test to the old adage, “You can’t go home again.”  We will see. I don’t think there’s a lot of middle ground here. I predict this will either become another cult classic or simply a terribly bad idea.

       Finally, just because I ponder things like this: What would be our (the US’s) reaction to Iran dictating to us how much we could be allowed to enrich Uranium? I mean after all; we are the only nation in the world to ever actually use a nuclear weapon on a human population. We also have sufficient seaborne nuclear capability in just one submarine to essentially eradicate all of Iran’s population centers from the globe within 20 minutes of any offensive use of such weaponry against us.

       

        In typical bully fashion, the current administration withdrew from the Obama administration’s negotiated agreement with Europe and Iran. There still has been no concrete reason given for that action which, combined with ramped up sanctions on oil sales, pushes Iran farther into economic woes which fuel the anger of a civilian population, which truth told, would probably love to join the rest of the world as a free nation, but are constrained and limited by a theocratic government. We seem to believe we have the only world franchise on the safe and sane use of nuclear weapons, economic restraint, etc. How odd that we only seem to apply them to weaker nations. We have more to fear from Russia, yet, “non-collusion” protestations notwithstanding, we seem to allow them far more leeway than Iran. 

       There are several facts in play here: With all the Trump bullshit, what’s really going on is far simpler and monumentally less threatening than it’s being “spun” to be.    

       “Enrichment” means in layman’s terms, processing natural Uranium as it exists to increase the amount of the fissionable isotope in a sample. After being mined and processed down to pure, elemental, Uranium, the amount of the fissionable isotope, U235, constitutes just .7% of the sample! That is grossly insufficient for “weapons grade” nuclear material. It is also grossly insufficient for civilian electrical power generation plants using Nuclear energy as the heat source.  

       Typically, "weapons grade" is defined as around 90% enriched Uranium, that is, a sample where 90% of the whole is U²³⁵. The level of enrichment Iran was allowed under “the agreement” was 3.67% enriched. All their 20% enriched material was sold to Russia. That level — 3.67% — is far below what's needed for developing weapons.  More importantly for Iran, it’s also insufficient for the operation of Iran’s only nuclear power plant, the Bushehr plant, bought from Russia, which requires fuel with a concentration of about 5%. Without increasing enrichment above the 3,67% specified in the agreement, now defunct because Trump backed the US out,  Iran, already facing economic sanctions imposed, primarily, by the US, is facing a constant need to repurchase their own Uranium back from Russia at 5% concentration to keep producing electricity.

        The statement regarding increasing enrichment was not about weapons grade fissionable material, but about becoming self- sufficient in producing fuel for their domestic electrical production facility.  Iran's deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, made the announcement at a news conference in Iran. Araghchi said Iran would start enriching uranium to provide fuel for the Bushehr power plant, which requires fuel with a concentration of about 5%. There is very little difference between 3.7% and 5% enrichment, other than that it frees Iran from the expense of repurchasing their own Uranium from Russia in the face of already oppressive economic sanctions.

        If one had a sense of history, one might reflect on the series of escalating economic pressures on Japan, by the USA leading up to the Pearl Harbor attacks. On July 2, 1940, Roosevelt signed the Export Control Act, authorizing the President to license or prohibit the export of essential defense materials.” Under this authority, on July 31, exports of aviation motor fuels and lubricants and No. 1 heavy melting iron and steel scrap were restricted. Next, in a move aimed specifically at Japan, Roosevelt slapped an embargo, effective October 16, “on all exports of scrap iron and steel to destinations other than Britain and the nations of the Western Hemisphere.” Finally, on July 26, 1941, Roosevelt “froze” Japanese assets in the United States, thus bringing commercial relations between the nations to an effective end. One-week later Roosevelt embargoed the export of such grades of oil as still were in commercial flow to Japan.”] The British and the Dutch followed suit, embargoing exports to Japan from their colonies in southeast Asia. Anyone besides me see any parallels?

Off The Rails Once More

Another Walter Williams Derailment

       In what may be the most desperate attempt at tokenism in US newspaper journalism, The Villages Daily Sun sports two columns by persons of color. That, alone, could be a good thing, if it wasn’t always the same two persons. I have written at length about one of them, the thoroughly despicable Michelle Malkin. Remember her? She’s the anchor baby, born here to Filipino parents on temporary work visas, who hates birthright citizenship, immigrants and, all things to the left of Joe McCarthy. One example – Japanese internment was an unqualified “good thing!”

        Today’s column is her (Malkin’s) usual drivel and unworthy of further commentary. The other columnist today, however, is the almost always wrong (and this is no exception) Dr. Walter Williams. Like his idol, Dr. Thomas Sowell, a Black economics professor, Williams may well have expertise, to the extent that it is possible to do so, in his academic field of economics. Admittedly one of  the “softest” of the “Soft Sciences” a group which includes sociology, psychology, and the non-reproducible data areas, economics is a field where, as an example, we have a president with a non-honors bachelor’s degree at odds with PhDs in the field over such issues of tariffs, monetary theory, and Federal reserve interest rates. Both claim to be right, and while the rest of us pay the price of their uncertainty we’re forced into a “wait and see” situation. In Chemistry, Na+Cl always yields salt. In Economics, bullshit added to bloviation frequently yields uncertainty. Soft science!

        Where the good doctor goes astray is when he waxes eloquent in areas unrelated to his field of expertise or, even worse, draws demonstrably wrong conclusions from what may sound like reasonable assertions of fact. This usually takes the form of making a statement which has an element of fact, and then drawing conclusions which fit his conservative mindset rather than logic. As an example of how this works, let’s draw on an analogous, simple,  Malkin example: In a column last year, she lauded John Roebling, designer and builder of the Brooklyn Bridge as a great engineer and risk taker (true!) She then concluded that the bridge itself was a monument to private enterprise and personal capital risk, stating that it was built by Roebling with his and other’s private money. Sadly, that belies the reality, which it that the “Great Bridge” (the title of David McCullough’s terrific book on the subject) was built almost entirely with the proceeds of “public” money, that is, bonds sold by the boroughs of Brooklyn and Manhattan, who actually “owned” the bridge after its completion. We see that today in the, all too familiar, Trump method of beginning with a statement that is, perhaps, speckled with a grain of truth and then departs reason into fantasy and outright lies. (Colonial airports, Fort McHenry during the revolution, six new steel mills?)

        But on to today’s fiasco. Dr. Williams, in a column entitled “The Assault on Western Civilization Continues” correctly identifies an issue on which he and I are in total agreement. He bemoans the fact that many universities no longer require a course in United States history as a core curriculum study. This, he asserts has resulted in a current group of grads who are, and surveys substantiate this, woefully ignorant of our history. His conclusion, however, is that this is driven strictly by “the left,” his own personal term for anything with which he disagrees, and that removing this requirement is typical of Leftist regimes. Really? In fact, leftist regimes historically haven’t removed history, they’ve rewritten it and made it (the “new truth” required reading (Mao’s Little Red Book, Stalinist rewrites and North Korean school texts.)

       In fact, concentrating on revisionist history, while it is certain that some US history books are being rewritten every day to include things previously omitted in the aim of including all our history, not just the White parts, Williams cites the current lack of requirement as leaving students as “Easy prey to charlatans, quacks and liars who wish to downgrade our founders and the American achievement.” This is a bit troubling, since much revisionism of US history has revolved around “re-humanizing” the founders, such as Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Washington, et all, who while bright men (and slave owners) all, were also acting in what they viewed as their own self-interest. Were they humans with human failings? Of course. Did many of them own Dr. Williams ancestors? Sure did! In fact, much revisionism in US History has originated in places like Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, where curricula and texts are being sanitized for such “unpleasantries” as lynching, post war race riots, the civil rights movement or factual treatment of the Vietnam war. The theory in these places, coincidentally, bastions of the Christian conservatism Williams apparently adores, seems to be “If we did it, it was right, so there!”  

       Another thread of the op-ed is “The attack on the Western Civilization must begin with the attack on church and Christian values.” By implication he also apparently believes that all the founders were committed Christians. As many Christians do, he hints at several “founding fathers” who allude to some higher power when speaking of human rights and responsibilities. This undoubtedly includes Jefferson's "all men are created equal" verbiage in the Declaration of independence. I can imagine TJ's slaves muttering about "equal this, m****r f****r." Of course, Jefferson, Madison, Washington, Franklin, Adams, (Deists all) never speak of “Jesus.”

         As enlightenment era literate men (largely autodidacts as in Washington’s case) they would have been educated in the concept of “natural law,” which concept precedes Jesus by centuries, was mentioned by the Greeks and others and has parallels in Asian religions as well, but don’t tell him; his head will explode.  As one last example, Williams cites “Christian” values which in his case, I’m fairly sure means a view that belief in any higher intelligence in the universe apparently only means belief in the Christian version of God and, by inclusion - especially and specifically, a divine Jesus.

      Thomas Jefferson’s Bible, constructed by cutting, pasting and excluding some parts, tells a different story.  Jefferson's condensed composition excludes all miracles by Jesus and mentions of the supernatural, including sections of the four gospels that contain the Resurrection and other miracles, and passages that portray Jesus as divine.  In like fashion, while Washington regularly attended church while in residence at Mount Vernon, his pastor acknowledged after his death that he never, ever, took communion, choosing to leave instead.  Why? Deist, that’s why. The same thread holds true for all the others Madison, Adams, Franklin, and others.

        The concepts of the Ten Commandments are often cited as a basis for western law, as if no one else has a moral code. In fact, the principles which Moses claimed to have been delivered by “tongues of fire” (really?) were commonly cited, (Hammurabi (pre Moses) or Ashoka anyone?) exercised in parallel language and intent in numerous non-Christian cultures. Of course, they were good tools for construction of a civil law code - then. A law code based on Buddhist principles would have been equally acceptable as a civil code, but they went with what they, and more specifically, those about to be governed, knew.     

        In a final brush with fantasy we have this, “Joe Biden, criticizing sexual assault, said “This in English jurisprudence culture, a white man’s culture”, adding, “It’s got to change.”

          Now let’s be careful at this juncture. Again, there is a grain of truth, involved. I have essentially zero difficulty with the Biden quote as stated. Both parts of the statement are correct, Our laws do follow English Common Law (which law has changed and modernized markedly over time) but, in 1776, it derived from a culture of undeniable western European Caucasian racial and male gender superiority. Williams, however, then cites other parts of the world, under different legal constructs, where women are considerably more disadvantaged, mentioning such things as genital mutilation and civil restrictions. Again, demonstrably true.

        Where Williams is astonishingly wrong is his conclusion that there is only one alternative – things as they are with “Christian values” or the non-western alternatives. Of course, as an ignorant man, which he must be to conclude as he does, he omits that in the Buddhist parts of the world, women usually do not fare worse than in America. Even during the Colonial period women of the Six Nations (Iroquois Confederation) fared better than Massachusetts Bay colony wives. That, however, fails to mesh with his theory.

       I would be remiss if I failed to point out that those founders who, Williams lionizes, did or believed the following things as of 1776: women were essentially chattel, having no rights to own or manage property or to control their own money. Women could be beaten, short of fatal injury, by their husbands, raped by them, charged with witchcraft with no recourse. In fact, most unwitnessed rape was assumed to be seduction by the woman, children had no rights whatsoever. Slavery was legal in America and all English colonies. Indians could be forced to convert and live in “praying towns” or face genocidal war over land they had lived on for 10 millennia (see Pequot Wars ,1636-38), Indentured servants fared little better. Have we progressed beyond these circumstances? Of course, we have, but apparently Williams believes we risk a backslide into communism or socialism if we try to do better.  

        The assertion that there is no need for change (which for Williams is always driven by “leftists,” the term “progressive” apparently too difficult for him to spell) implies that all things under the good old Christian system are meant for the best. I am reminded of Voltaire’s satire, Candide, in which the young and naïve hero is under the tutelage of one Dr. Pangloss. As Candide's mentor and a philosopher, Pangloss is responsible for the novel's most famous idea: that all is for the best in this “best of all possible worlds.” This optimistic sentiment is the main target of Voltaire's satire. It is also apparently the concept which Walter Williams holds about things as they are.

        It seems that the concept of improving things to more evenly support civil rights or gender issues or any impetus which posits that we can do things better or more equitably is somehow impossible within the current system and  is linked in Walter Williams’ mind with “Leftist” thought, whatever that might mean to him. If recent history demonstrates anything regarding assaults on human rights in America it is that the more self- proclaimed “Christian or Judeo Christian” ethic based and uber-patriotic the effort, the more discriminatory it is likely to be. Don’t tell me that treating all citizens more fairly is leftist, tell that to the descendants of Stalin’s purges, Hitler’s genocide, ISIS’s horrors, Southern lynchings,  and the list goes on, all totalitarian, all brutal, all driven by religious and/or political doctrinarianism.

       Apparently, Dr. Williams, a Black man who bootstrapped himself to prominence, prefers the current “white man’s Christian culture” regardless of its inequities and biases. The system can be changed for the better. That isn’t revolutionary, it's just progress!