Non Coronavirus news 3/16/2020

                     Non Coronavirus News, 3/16

Lots going on. Many of these occurrences are the kind of things that make one scratch their head.

        Amidst all the Trump bravado and self-aggrandizing rhetoric re: “The world’s strongest economy” is this sobering fact: According to Bankrate, an NYC financial services company, about 60% of US adults are unable to afford an unexpected $1000 debt, such as auto repair, an ER visit, or any other of the myriad financial “gotchas” which we all know exist.

        Is this due to “too low” minimum wages? Certainly, this is valid in many cases, yes. However, the article which brings this to the fore goes on to deal with the fact that many younger adults are “coping” with this unexpected (or unplanned for) debt by ….wait for it… selling their sneaker collections. If you have no liquid savings but do have 25 pairs of “vintage” sneakers, then you also have financial priorities issues.

       The article details the tribulations of one LA hair stylist who “unexpectedly” (riiight) found that she owed $9,000 in unpaid back taxes. Am I the only one who thinks she was scamming the IRS and got caught? Can you say "undeclared tips?" 

       She dealt with the issue by selling 12 pairs of sneakers which, apparently were worth enough to cover the entire bill. It seems that some of these pairs of kicks, all with around $15.00 worth of material contained in them, have fans who have lost all sense of proportion and will pay lots of scratch for them. One pair of this young lady’s canvas and rubber wonders, a pair of “Nike Air Force 1 Low Off-White MCA University Blues” which originally retailed at a merely outrageous $150, are now selling on some secondary market sites at a ludicrous $1500! 

       More pathetic is that the actual cost of these shoes today, covering Chinese labor at 25 cents per hour, materials (much of it now recycled), and most of all shipping, is about $27.00. For the math challenged this is equates to a 550% profit at point of sale! Of course, this is before they become “collectable” and the price skyrockets.   In summary, yes, it’s a systemic and societal problem when most of us have little or no savings. It’s simply sheer stupidity when the reason you don’t is sneaker addiction.

        Another piece of good news today it the passage of a bill in Arizona, hardly a bastion of environmental concern, which allows an individual to keep totally private any information related to endangered species on their private property. This means not even the EPA or any other government agency, can protect an unreported endangered population on their property. In simpler terms this means that if an Arizona rancher discovers a Jaguar on his largely empty 2000 acres, he can shoot it for that rug he always wanted for the bedroom

       Meanwhile, halfway around the globe, The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, who basked in the praise of Donald Trump in late February, continues turning a relatively blind eye to religious persecution by his Hindu majority of, not only Muslims, but steadily intensifying violence toward nominally Hindu journalists, truthfully reporting on said sectarian violence. 

       For about the last 15 years, reporters in India have become more and more characterized and demonized by Hindu nationalists as “the enemy” for what has been factual reporting on steadily increasing sectarian violence. Mohandas Gandhi, father of Indian independence and prototypical non-violence advocate would be shamed by what his co-religionists have become. What does Donald Trump, also a media critic, have to say?

        "India gives hope to all of humanity. It is one of the most amazing nations anywhere in the world. It has become an economic power in the past 70 years. It will soon be home to the biggest middle class anywhere in the world and its potential is extreme."

        "It (India's growth) is more important because you have done it as a democratic, peaceful and tolerant country," (really?) President Trump said. He said, "There is a difference between a nation that rises by coercion and one that rises by setting its people free -- that is India."

        One can barely wait for a Modi speech to cite “The Fake News” as bearing responsibility for attacks on Muslims and Hindu reporters.

       Nationally, a vigilant Salem Oregon, Girl Scout is responsible for the nabbing of a hapless, and apparently not very capable, counterfeiter. When the man paid for his box of “Tagalongs” with a $20 bill, the young lady noticed that not only the color tint was “off,” but the bill was smaller than other 20s and the paper “felt funny.” Her mother agreed and called the police who, subsequently,  arrested the man who had gone on into the Walmart (where else?)

       This isn’t from today’s paper, but was reported in late January (yeah, I just missed it). Here’s the January 10, 2020 Trump quote: “AOC knows nothing. Poor student, poor everything, and then she comes, and she talks about the Green New Deal and all these poor fools say, 'Oh, isn't it wonderful? Isn't it wonderful?'”

        While there are issues, which I have previously addressed, on the Green New Deal, and on which I diametrically disagree with Miss Ocasio-Cortez, her academic creds aren’t among them.  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was not a "poor" student. She graduated Cum Laude from Boston University in 2011 with a double major in international relations and economics, placing her in the top 30 percent of her graduating class. Note that this is much better than the Trump bachelor’s in economics which is devoid of any distinction. 

         As a high school student, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez won second place in the microbiology category at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. At the same point in his life, Trump was in an elite military school playing sports, bullying classmates and courageously dealing with imaginary bone spurs.

By the Numbers

By the Numbers 

       As we approach the serious general election hoo-hah which will surely follow primary season, it seems germane to the decision-making process to evaluate the current administration in the light of campaign statements and promises. We know the current president is a prevaricator. Some of his lies have degrees of nuance and are debatable. Some, however, are numerically absolute and what follows are discussions related to three of those.

“Who else could take 16 vacations, play over 100 rounds of golf and hold over 300 fundraisers while serving as POTUS besides @BarackObama?” (Trump Tweet)

"I love golf, but if I were in the White House, I don't think I'd ever see Turnberry again," he said in February 2016, referring to the famous course he owns in Scotland. "I don't think I'd ever see Doral again," he added, referring to the famous course he owns in Miami. "I don't ever think I'd see anything — I just want to stay in the White House and work my ass off, make great deals, right? Who's gonna leave?" (Trump interview NBC, August 2016)

       Based on the above, one might expect a workaholic Trump ethic, reflected by greatly reduced operation of Air Force One, as the President remains at home, immersed in presidential stuff. Not so much as it turns out.

       Re the first “tweet”: As it turns out (bearing in mind that Trump complained about 8 years of Obama golf and vacations):
Comparing the two, week for week, at the 160-week point:

160 weeks: Obama golf outings 82, Trump 200

Where: Trump: only private clubs, flying to most of them

Obama: 62% military courses (drive to many of them,) 20% private, 18% public.

Days Trump has spent at Mar a Lago: 127. Cost of flights to Mar a Lago (30 so far): over $59,110,000

Days Trump has spent at Bedminster (NJ): 75. Cost of flights to Bedminster (23 so far): $18,375,500

Trump has visited his clubs once every 4.7 days since his inauguration! Projected visits to golf clubs in four years: 314.  Projected visits in eight years: 628

Vacations: Obama 16 total (8 years), Trump 27 (3.3 years)
Cost of vacation travel: Barack Obama: 2009-2017 $96 million, Bush 43: $140 million, Clinton: $128 million, Trump less than 4 years: well over $80 million, excluding travel for “Rallies”, which are not specifically campaign spending, but for which we pay for AF One at $27,000 per hour! The takeaway here: Surprise! Trump is a blatant liar.

       All the above pales into insignificance when compared to the excesses of two other Trump pre-election fables. No, I am not referring to the “wall” since it was a measly $5 billion lie.

       First: Let’s consider the effects of the promises to take on China with “port taxes” which, as someone subsequently told him are actually known to real economists as “tariffs.” The vast majority of these same economists, none of which, apparently, Trump consulted, advised against the imposition of such tariffs. The result:

       “Altogether, the president’s tariffs are projected to increase nationwide consumer costs by nearly $78 billion annually.” (American Action Forum research, Feb. 5, 2020)
       Note that the above figure is simply an estimate of what we, as consumers, will pay because US importers have to pay tariffs and pass that increase on to us. This equates to just about $831 per US household in 2020.

       However, that’s not the only impact of tariffs. Nations on which we place tariffs, will retaliate (and have done) by refusing our exports in favor of other producers/nations. This has slammed American farmers, especially those who produce soybeans and wheat. The Trump administration, which has criticized government aid to individuals in need, such as food stamps, has responded by massive payments to farmers disadvantaged by his ill-advised tariffs.

       It's an enormous amount of money, more than the cost of bailing out the auto industry during the financial crisis of 2008. The auto industry bailout was fiercely debated and criticized in Congress, but the USDA created this new program out of thin air, under the veil of a USDA program called the Commodity Credit Corp. Many people (but not Trump or Agriculture Secretary “Sonny” Perdue) have raised questions about whether using the Commodity Credit Corp. for this new purpose is even legal. This relief is simply payouts, which were not previously funded by Congress, to farmers hurt by Trump policy. 

       How much, you ask? This year, in addition to Congressionally approved welfare to American farmers, $28 billion in extra “charity” will be funneled to soybean (and other commodity) farmers to somewhat assuage the effects of tariffs. The decision to start the trade war was costly and, by tapping the federal Treasury, the Trump administration is avoiding the political fallout from that decision.

      As noted, payments are quite generous, but apparently, they are less that rigorously managed. According to several analyses by independent economists, the USDA is paying farmers roughly twice as much as the actual harm that they suffered from the trade war. Since payments are based on potential production, the larger the farm, the larger the payments. Thousands of farmers got more than $100,000 each!

       According to an NPR analysis of USDA records of payments made through July 2019, 100,000 individuals collected just over 70% of the money. Many of these are assets of major agribusinesses. Some are members of Congress. In summary, (per the non-profit Environmental Working Group) $38 million of last year's trade relief went to people who don’t even work on farms. Even with the non-budgeted deficit increasing farm charity, Trump's aid payments aren't saving everyone. Farm bankruptcies are up 24% compared to the year before, according to the American Farm Bureau.

      Additionally, Trump is wrong (aka lying) when he claims that China is paying the tariffs. The cost of the tariff comes directly out of the bank account of an American importer when the good arrives at the port. As of the end of 2019, US companies have paid $46 billion more in tariffs than they would have without Trump's tariffs.

       The third world class lie: "We're not a rich country. We're a debtor nation...We've got to get rid of the $19 trillion in debt," "I think I could do it fairly quickly...I would say over a period of eight years," Trump said this to a The Washington Post reporter in April 2016, several months before the election. He suggested he would do so by renegotiating trade deals and creating trade surpluses. (discussed and debunked above). The reality is that, three years into his presidency, the deficit is 68 percent higher than when he started. Had Trump inherited a disaster of the proportions that Barack Obama did, this might be understandable, but the reality is far different.

       The first Obama term was beset by the housing bubble collapse, bank and insurer bailout, and resulted in significant deficits. Previous deficits from 2001-2011 were attributable to the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy, accompanied by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which were almost identical to the decrease in tax revenue, and increases in Medicare, Medicaid and resultant higher national debt service. These totaled $11.7 trillion, of which only $0.9 trillion was Obama stimulus, but for which Republicans castigated him exclusively. 2009 was the high, with deficit totaling 9.8% of GNP. By 2014, the deficit was down to 2.7% of GNP, 2.4% in 2015, and 3.1% in 2016.

       Self-proclaimed deficit “hawk” Trump has since run deficits of 3.4%, 3.8%, 4.6%, and 4.8%, with 2021 projected at 4.1% of GNP. All these have been incurred with what Trump touts as “The strongest economy ever.” There is an explanation. Trump has a cavalier attitude about the nation’s debt load similar to his corporation’s debt. During the campaign, he said the nation could "borrow knowing that if the economy crashed, you could make a deal.” (Again, with the “deal”, bullshit.) He further stated, “The United States will never default because you can print the money." This is in accordance with the relatively controversial school of Economic thought known as Modern Monetary Theory.

       Trump seems to view the nation’s debt as he does personal debt. In 2016, a Fortune magazine analysis revealed Trump's businesses were $1.11 billion in debt. (although no more recent data is available, it is almost certainly higher today.) That debt includes $846 million owed on five properties, including Trump Tower, 40 Wall Street, and 1290 Avenue of the Americas in New York. It also includes the Trump Hotel in Washington D.C. and 555 California Street in San Francisco. But the income generated by these properties pays their annual interest payment. In the business world, Trump's debt is reasonable. Carrying debt is simply business as usual. For a nation, however, increasing debt means that every year more revenue goes, not to current concerns, but to simply covering the ever increasing interest on the money we owe others, which, in our case, means Japan, Saudi Arabia, China and ourselves.

       Historically, deficits have been counter-cyclical (meaning they move in the opposite direction of the economy) and are largely temporary. Today's deficits are an aberration, unfortunately: both pro-cyclical (“strong economy – high deficit”) and permanent. Running large deficits when the economy is already strong, as we are seeing in the Trump years, means that any boost provided to the economy will be temporary, and may eventually put unnecessary upward pressure on inflation and interest rates. Hint – this means tending toward recession!

       Running permanent deficits means that they will increasingly hurt investment and growth over time. They cannot simply be waited out. Our current US rising deficits are largely driven by the increasing cost of interest and health and retirement programs, which are caused by rising health care prices and an aging population which is a higher percentage of the whole (boomers) and longer lived. Yet even with these factors, deficits were on course to decline over the next couple years before Congress enacted fiscally irresponsible tax cuts and spending hikes.

       We should know better. Reagan spurred a recession with tax cuts on the wealthy. Bush 43 did it with an unnecessary war and more tax cuts. Obama was elected after a record housing bubble collapse from 2007, bottoming out in 2011, and triggering an accompanying recession over the same period.

       Trump’s recorded response to concerns expressed to him over his "booming economy" high deficits? The controversy came to a head in early 2017. Senior officials offered Trump charts and graphics laying out the numbers and showing a “hockey stick” (huge rise) spike in the national debt in the not-too-distant future. Trump, noting that the data suggested the debt would reach a critical mass only after his possible second term in office, responded, “Yeah, but I won’t be here,” according to a source who was in the room when Trump made this comment during discussions on the debt.

This, then, is the problem, huh?

       

On Morality, Science and Religion

            

      On Morality, Science and Religion

        One of the most pernicious and divisive effects of many religions is that they tend to separate concepts of morality from the reality of human and animal suffering. Religion allows people to imagine that their concerns are moral when they have nothing to do with suffering or its alleviation. In point of fact, religion allows people to imagine that their concerns are moral when they are highly immoral—that is, when pressing these concerns inflicts unnecessary and appalling suffering on innocent human beings.

        This explains in large manner why many professing Christians evidence more concern and expend more "moral" energy opposing abortion than fighting genocide. It explains why some are more concerned about human embryos than about the lifesaving promise of stem-cell research. And it explains why many can preach against condom use in sub-Saharan Africa while millions die from AIDS there each year. They believe that their religious concerns about sex have something to do with morality. And yet, efforts to limit and define the sexual behavior of consenting adults are rarely geared toward the relief of human suffering. In fact, relieving suffering seems to rank farther down the list of priorities. The principal concern appears to be that the creator of the universe will take offense at something people do while naked. This prudery contributes daily and in huge measure to the surplus of human misery.

        Consider human papillomavirus (HPV), one of, if not the,  most common sexually transmitted disease in the United States. HPV infects over half the American population and causes nearly five thousand women to die each year from cervical cancer; the Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that more than two hundred thousand die worldwide. We now have a vaccine for HPV that has been shown to be both safe and effective. The vaccine produced 100 percent immunity in the six thousand women who received it as part of a clinical trial, yet Christian conservatives in our government resisted a vaccination program on the grounds that HPV is a valuable impediment to premarital sex. These pious men and women want to preserve cervical cancer as an incentive toward abstinence, even if it sacrifices the lives of thousands of women each year.

        There is nothing wrong with encouraging teens to abstain from having sex. But, in truth and beyond any doubt, we know that teaching (and preaching) abstinence alone is not a good way to curb teen pregnancy or the spread of sexually transmitted disease. In fact, kids who are taught abstinence alone are less likely to use contraceptives when they do have sex, as many of them inevitably will. One study found that teen "virginity pledges" postpone intercourse for eighteen months on average—while, in the meantime, these virgin teens were more likely than their peers to engage in oral and anal sex. American teenagers engage in about as much sex as teenagers in the rest of the developed world, but American girls are four to five times more likely to become pregnant, to have a baby, or to get an abortion. Young Americans are also far more likely to be infected by HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. The rate of gonorrhea among American teens is seventy times higher than it is among their peers in the Netherlands and France. The fact that 30 percent of our sex-education programs teach abstinence only (at a cost of more than $200 million a year) surely has something to do with this.

        The problem is that many monotheistic believers are not principally concerned about teen pregnancy and the spread of disease. That is, they are not worried about the suffering caused by sex; they're worried specifically about sex itself. 

       Reginald Finger, an Evangelical member of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices who served on the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices from 2003 to 2006, stated categorically  that he would consider opposing an HIV vaccine—thereby condemning millions of men and women to die unnecessarily from AIDS each year—because such a vaccine would encourage premarital sex by making it less risky. This sort of doctrinal rigidity transforms religious beliefs to genuinely lethal public policy. Fortunately, the “good doctor” no longer is a government employee but remains active with “Christian” Medical and Dental Associations both locally and nationally, continuing to work toward his vision of a closer connection between Christian medicine and Christian higher education. Apparently, this includes a side order of “Let ‘em die!”

        In the more recent era, VP Mike Pence, now Coronavirus-czar, then Indiana governor, took much the same tack during an HIV crisis in Indiana, nixing the idea of needle exchanges to minimize the spread of HIV among addicts. His attitude distills down to the same “I’m morally superior to these poor folks, let ‘em die.”

       The Pence approach to HPV vaccines was similar. He publicly reprimanded the state health commissioner for speaking about the HPV vaccine at Indiana’s National Coalition Conference, later demanding that  all public-health employees submit their presentations about vaccines to his office for approval prior to any speaking engagement. Then he prohibited the release of a document by the Indiana Cancer Consortium that included information on cervical cancer, the only known cause of which is HPV.

        Qualms about embryonic stem-cell research are similarly obscene and ill-intentioned.  Factually, stem-cell research is one of the most promising developments in the last century of medicine. It offers, and continues to promise, therapeutic break-throughs for every disease or injury process that human beings suffer—for the simple reason that embryonic stem cells can become any tissue in the human body. This research may also be essential for our understanding of cancer, along with a wide variety of developmental disorders. In fact, it is difficult, nay, almost impossible to exaggerate the promise of stem-cell research. It is true, of course, that research on embryonic stem cells entails the destruction of three-day-old human embryos. This is what worries those who oppose such research.

        Consider the details. A three-day-old human embryo is a collection of 150 cells called a blastocyst. There are, solely for the sake of comparison, more than 100,000 cells in the brain of a fly. The human embryos that are destroyed in stem-cell research do not have brains, or even neurons. Consequently, there is no reason to believe they can suffer their destruction in any way at all. By contrast, in this context, when a person's brain has died, we currently deem it perfectly acceptable to harvest his organs (provided he has donated them for this purpose) and bury him in the ground. If it is acceptable to treat a person whose brain has died as something less than a human being, it should be acceptable to treat a blastocyst as such. If you are concerned about suffering in this universe, killing a fly should present you with greater moral difficulties than killing a human blastocyst.

        Perhaps you think, as some profess to believe, that the crucial difference between a fly and a human blastocyst is to be found in the latter's potential to become a fully developed human being. But, considering recent advances in genetic engineering (cloning), essentially every cell in your body is a potential human being. Every time you scratch your nose, you (theoretically) commit a Holocaust of potential human beings. This is a fact. The argument from a cell's potential is devoid of merit. This leaves one with “But I believe…..!”  And you have every right to those beliefs, just as many of the rest of us have the right to be unaffected by them.

        But let us assume, for the sake of discussion, that every three-day-old human embryo has a soul worthy of our moral concern. Embryos at this stage occasionally split, becoming separate people (identical twins). Is this a case of one soul splitting into two? If this and similar issues are troubling, then don't have an abortion. That’s your personal choice. However, don't ever, ever, benefit from any medical advances "stemming" from stem cell research. Of course, that’s another issue, since in the former you’re simply arbitrarily dictating the behaviors and restraints imposed on others with no real-world consequence to yourself, while the latter is your life!

       For political evangelicals, their statement of faith is written first by their political ideology and only a distant second by what the Bible says. Evangelicals are more likely to be Republicans than Democrats, and their religious beliefs can be interpreted to support conservative views on climate change. “As a Christian, I believe that there is a creator in God who is much bigger than us,” Republican congressman Tim Walberg said in 2017. “And I’m confident that, if there’s a real problem, he can take care of it.” This “do nothing and hope for the best” attitude has already failed numerous groups of true believers hoping for divine intervention over two millennia. Six million Jewish lives are a lasting monument to the fallacious nature of this approach.

        The nice thing about living in a free society is that we all should have the right to do or not do what we find morally acceptable or repugnant so long as it doesn't injure or impose our strictures on others who don't share our particular world view. The problem is that there are those who would impose their framework of morality upon us all because they have all the answers and feel duty bound to force us to do as they say. The human consequence  of this thinking has spawned the Inquisition, the Crusades, The 911 attacks, lynchings across the South, The genocidal attempts of Columbus, Hitler, Stalin, Milosovic, caging of immigrant children, et al.

      Feeling love and caring for others should be one of the greatest sources of our own happiness; it entails a very deep concern for both the happiness and suffering of those we love. Our own search for happiness, therefore, provides a rationale for self-sacrifice and self-denial. There is no question that there are times when making enormous sacrifices for the good of others is essential for one's own deeper well-being. Nothing has to be believed on insufficient evidence for people to form bonds of this sort. At various points in the Gospels, Jesus message is interpreted as “love can transform human life.” This is hardly unique to Christianity. We need not believe that an itinerant apocalyptic Arab preacher was born of a virgin or will be returning to earth as a superhero to take these teachings to heart.

     In summary, the next time you want to legislate your version of morality to the entire body politic, consider that those whose beliefs differ from yours have as much right to disbelieve (and more proof) than you do.

In Response

In response: 

       This was written in response to an op-ed by one Alyssa Ahlgren. I will e-mail her the link to this blog post, hence the references to “you” and “your column.” She is a relatively new and self-styles as an “ambassador” for “Turning point USA” which is a conservative organization.

       The column was titled “How to be a Socialist in America” and, as one might guess from the title, was Hard Right in tone. She also, in this piece, cites one Dr. Thomas Sowell as a “great economist and thinker.” While acknowledging Dr Sowell’s creds as an economist but disagreeing with many of his social science talking points, I would point out that he is one of a tiny handful of African American PhDs who have apparently forgotten where they came from and believes, or has said he believes, that racism is of no economic consequence in America today.

       Ms. Alhgren: As to your marginally plagiarized (from Dr Sowell) claim that "the only people advocating for socialism are those who have never lived under it" there are four letters you ought to know - OECD. That is, The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development - an intergovernmental economic organization with 36 member countries, founded in 1961 by the US, France and others to stimulate economic progress and world trade.

       Like most far right apologists, you would have readers believe that there is either Socialism or Capitalism and nothing in between. That is, as the vast majority of OECD nations prove, blatantly false. I'm sure that, by your definition, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the UK and, in fact, most of Western/Central Europe (all OECD members) are Socialist. but wait...they all have "regulated" market economies. What you are apparently denying is that by almost every metric known, they all are, in the majority, far "happier" (a hazy term admittedly) than the US.

       Any recent survey of OECD health care consumer satisfaction and other societal metrics bears that statement out. People advocating for the current Republican regime have become so adept at speaking from both sides of their mouths as to make fact indistinguishable from fiction. Your column simply furthers the truth of that statement. 

       Socialism also happens to be the system (if there truly still is one, absent the cult of Putin) in Russia, yet our President cozies up to the Russians because of the hope that someday he'll get to build a hotel there. Out of the other side of his mouth he echoes the charges that Cuba is Satan incarnate. Why don't you examine the history of Russia and then explain how we should make nice with them and continue shunning Cuba? I would agree that Fidel Castro did bad things to those who disagreed with him however, he's also been deceased for two years and was out of power for 6 years prior to his death. What we are doing now is punishing a people who, allowed to interact with a market system, might well transition to a similar system, blending their socialist system with market principles.

       What is consistently overlooked by those of the Far Right is that Isaac Newton was correct, and his laws of motion valid, in far more areas than ever he theorized. His Third Law states that "For every action (force) in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction." The use of "force in nature”, while probably not even considered by Newton as having applicability outside planetary objects and gravity, is relevant to almost every social interaction as well.

       This is especially true, while also denied by some, in economic practices. One quick example: Those on the Far Right in England, in 1773, would have undoubtedly supported and affirmed the absolute right of the Parliament to enact legislation which included a reduced tax on tea while boosting sales by allowing a monopoly on tea importation to the American colonies by the failing British East India company. Coincidentally (or, actually, not) many MPs were invested in said company. This was legislation aimed at saving one company at the expense of a much wider population segment. This is not as far removed from today’s anti-regulatory efforts as it might seem at first. We know, or should know, how that turned out in December of that year. Think “Boston tea party.”

       At the core of this, resides the Free Market Capitalist “nugget of philosophy” which has been stated in various ways but boils down to, “Some of us are better than others and deserving of government support of our “betterness.”

       John D. Rockefeller believed that, so did Jay Gould, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and J.P Morgan. So, today, do the Koch brothers and Donald Trump. The Obama Administration put in place regulations aimed at providing cleaner water for many Americans. The Trump administration, trumpeting “excessive government regulation” has removed most of these protections, not in the interest of the bulk of those affected, but in the interest of those for whom relaxed restrictions on dumping have the effect of improving profit margin.

       Those who trumpet Socialism and really mean “Communism” would have us believe that any efforts to create a fair (not level, but “fair”) playing field are Socialism. They acknowledge no degree or limit, because fear and misinformation are their stock in trade. To take a real world and objective look at “what if?” Consider what America would look like if there were: No Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, Food stamps. If there were only private turnpikes. If all mineral resources were the exclusive property of those who “owned” the land. Consider the effects of a truly “free market” system without any restrictions on price gouging, monopoly or trusts such as the Sherman Act. And finally, what if your electrical utility could simply charge whatever they wished? No worries, they can’t, because in “socialist’ (small "s") fashion, Public Utilities Commissions oversee them and regulate (there’s that word again) prices.

       Another singularly important Obama era accomplishment was the Dodd-Frank Act which, simply put, places strict regulations on lenders and banks in an effort to protect consumers and prevent another all-out economic recession. Donald Trump has done all in his power to debase and reverse this legislation, not because doing so is good for most Americans, because it isn’t, but because it limits abuses of financial markets and predatory lending practices.

       Finally, while many Republican lawmakers oppose most government regulations, and all will rail against “socialism” in the upcoming election cycle,  fourteen Republicans currently in Congress received or have received farm subsidies…a total of $7.2 million over recent years. Apparently not all “socialist” ideas are bad, huh?

Limbaugh Said What?

“The coronavirus is the common cold, folks.”

       With this statement, Rush Limbaugh reaffirms his position within the sordid ranks of world class liars. He is, to be fair, simply echoing the sentiment of Pence, Trump and those others who have politicized and are continuing to politicize the widening world outbreak of coronavirus. On the other hand, an actual doctor, neurosurgeon and CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, put it in an actual medical perspective: "This is a brand-new virus. I think what Rush Limbaugh is referring to is the idea that it is from a family of coronaviruses. That is the family name of these viruses, and some of them in the past have caused systems that were more consistent with the common cold. But it’s also been the same family of viruses that caused SARS, that caused MERS."

       Lest we should view Limbaugh’s pettifogging as unprecedented, we must only go back about a century to 1918 to see that it is not. In early 1918, World War I was raging and both sides viewed the end as being in in sight. Germany, now on the defensive, largely due to the entry a year earlier, in 1917, of the United States, had morale problems, as by the end of the year, on the battlefields of France in spring 1918, war-weary and battered allied armies enthusiastically greeted fresh American troops arriving, as many as of 10,000 a day, at French and British ports.

       In the USA, while Woodrow Wilson had achieved his goal of entering the war for various reasons, political and fiscal, there was still some significant anti-war sentiment. The last straw, or at least the most publicized and anger inducing series of events, was Germany’s declaration on 31 January 1917 that its U-boats would target neutral shipping in designated warzones. By March of that year, five American flagged merchant freighters had been torpedoed, engendering the national outrage which preceded Wilson’s declaration which Congress approved, unanimously in the Senate and by 350 to 1 vote in the House.

       At this juncture, The US and its allies needed morale to remain high and Germany, fading fast by early 1918, needed morale to remain as high as possible. Both sides would see the involvement of an enemy which threatened them both and for which neither had a military solution.

       History sometimes “unfairly” tags persons places and even (in this case) diseases with a national moniker which is less that justified. Russian dressing isn’t “Russian,” it was invented in New Hampshire. So it was, with the “Spanish Flu” in 1918.

      In the spring of 1918, a new strain of influenza hit military camps in Europe on both sides of World War I. This (epidemics in military camps) was not a “new” phenomenon. Pneumonia, typhoid, diarrhea/dysentery, and malaria were all prevalent and epidemic at times during the Civil war, especially in encampments of new recruits. Altogether, two-thirds of the approximately 660,000 US Civil War deaths of soldiers on both sides were caused by uncontrolled infectious diseases, and several major campaigns were either abandoned or delayed by such outbreaks. While treatments for the Civil War illnesses were vastly improved, since 1865, there was no preparation even possible for what was soon to be labeled the “Spanish Flu.”

       This new strain of flu affected soldiers significantly, but with relatively few fatalities on the first go-round. This should be of no real surprise, as today, flu is more dangerous to the elderly or those already in poor health

       Even so, Britain, France, Germany and other European governments kept it (this first outbreak) a secret. They didn’t want to hand the other side a potential advantage. Spain, on the other hand, was a neutral country in the war. Consequently, when the disease hit there, the government and newspapers reported it accurately. Even the Spanish King Alfonso, a healthy 32-year-old, got sick, but recovered.

       Months later, however, a bigger and much deadlier wave swept across the globe. Since it seemed like it had started in Spain, even though it hadn’t, and because the Spanish told the truth, the new plague was called the “Spanish flu.” Even so, Britain, France, Germany and other European governments still kept it secret.

       Subsequent world events are well described by John M. Barry in “The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History.” He describes it thus: “When the second wave of Spanish flu hit globally, “there was outright censorship” in Europe. In the United States, they didn’t quite do that, but there was intense pressure not to say anything negative.”

       Since US entry into the War, news about the war had been carefully controlled and selectively rationed by the wartime Committee on Public Information (CPI), an independent federal agency whose architect, publicist Arthur Bullard, once said, “The force of an idea lies in its inspirational value. It matters very little if it is true or false.” The “Committee” was, in essence, a national propaganda agency. Oddly enough, (and unrelated to the topic at hand) Bullard was also a closet socialist and admirer and chronicler of the Amana Society.

       Under Bullard’s aegis, The CPI wrote and released thousands of positive stories about the war effort, and newspapers often republished them verbatim. Consequently, when the Spanish flu spread across the United States in the fall of 1918, both the government and the media continued the same “Candide” strategy “to keep morale up.”

       Unlike the barrage of White House bloviation we are currently experiencing, Woodrow Wilson made or specifically endorsed, no public statements. His Surgeon General observed that there was “no cause for alarm” if proper precautions were observed.” Another top health official, Author Barry says, dismissed it as “ordinary influenza by another name.”

       But it wasn’t. The Spanish flu had a mortality rate of 2 percent — much higher than seasonal influenza strains, and similar to some early estimates about the coronavirus. It also differed in who died. Seasonal flu tends to be worst among the very young and very old. The Spanish flu was deadliest in young adults - You know, like soldiers crowded into military camps? (Note, this has not been, or so we’ve been told) the case with Coronavirus.)

        In the main, most, if not all,+ local media followed the government’s lead and censored bad news related to the epidemic. news. This had the effect of making matter worse.

       In Philadelphia, for a specific example, local officials were planning the largest parade in the city’s history. Shortly before this event, about 300 returning soldiers started spreading the virus in the city. Mr. Barry recounts, “Basically every doctor, they were telling reporters the parade shouldn’t happen. The reporters were writing the stories; editors were killing them,” he said. “The Philadelphia papers wouldn’t print anything about it.”

       The parade was held in spite of the suppressed warnings and, 48 hours later, Spanish flu slammed the city. Even after schools were closed and public gatherings were banned, city officials continued claiming it was “Not a public health measure,” and there was, “No cause for alarm.” (One can almost hear the chubby policeman in South Park reciting “Nothing to see here!”)

       By the time the epidemic had run its course, Philadelphia had become one of the hardest hit areas of the country. Bodies of the dead lay in their beds and, in some cases even on the streets for days; many if not most, eventually ending up in mass graves. More than 12,500 residents died, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer’s estimate. The flu can kill tens of millions of people. In 1918, that’s exactly what it did.


    Army camp in US set up as Flu hospital, 1918

       If a newspaper reported the truth, the government threatened it. The Jefferson County Union in Wisconsin warned about the seriousness of the flu on Sept. 27, 1918, less than 2 months before the armistice, which stopped the guns in France, Within days, an Army general began prosecution against the paper under a wartime sedition act, claiming it had “depressed morale.”

       The world-wide pandemic continued raged through October of 1918, and most Americans came to see that the “blind reassurances” coming from local and national officials were simply untrue. This predictable crisis of credibility led to wild rumors about bogus cures and unnecessary precautions, Author Barry says, and we are seeing them today in social media and even broadcast media. The disgraced, and epically loathsome, Jim Bakker is even huckstering a brand of colloidal silver which he has previously claimed “cures all venereal diseases” as a sure “corona virus killer.” Note: colloidal silver has no value, medicinal or otherwise, except to the seller.

       The Spanish flu ultimately killed about 50 million people worldwide, including 675,000 people in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even President Wilson caught it, in the middle of negotiations to end the Great War. This outbreak (coronavirus) isn’t the Spanish Flu, by any means, but the present White House response is making the truth harder to discern.

       My point? Listen to your doctor, take sensible precautions, if and when they become necessary, and vote in November, because the current administration has, by putting Mike Pence in a position which should be held by a qualified medical expert, demonstrated their true allegiances - to the Dow Jones Industrials and their red hat, moron, cadre.

Class and advertising

        As I listen, to the extent that I can stomach it, to current  political discussions’ ebb and flow, it remains obvious that we have a huge gap between the haves and have nots in our society, not to mention the widely varying ways proposed to address (or ignore) these issues.

        American beliefs about social class, especially as portrayed by commercial advertising, are not always reflective of reality. Up to half of Americans claim to belong to the middle class, and many believe in an egalitarian society where social mobility is possible. These misperceptions, I feel, are attributable, in part, to the mass media.

       There are, today, to a greater extent than ever before, very visible examples thrown at minimum wage or even middle-class workers which serve to accentuate and exacerbate this sense of class difference. Many of these are media driven and intended for commercial purposes without any consideration of the message as it reaches less fortunate Americans.

       Examples: Every Christmas we are bombarded with automobile ads featuring couples buying not just one automobile, but one for each other. This represents, at a minimum, $70,000 in spending. I can only imagine how the average driver of a six- or seven-year-old car views this. Certainly, it must instill a sense of, “What have we done wrong?” or “How have we failed?”

        What actually triggered this essay is the current ad for Peloton, which shows the fit, young woman fitting 20 miles on the exercise bike and accompanying subscription electronic programming into her hectic daily routine. The commercial ends with the assertion that, at $58 per month it’s “for everyone.”  The $58 per month is a 3½ year commitment totaling over $2200 for the bike and access to the app. While this may seem reasonable to many of us, it’s a stretch for lower income families who have other concerns like, say, food, clothing and gas for their car.  

       Many automobile ads target perhaps a tenth of a viewing audience as potential buyers. The same is true ads for “wealth management” companies, which feature couples simply “adjusting” assets to afford college, vacation homes etc.

        So, from a historical perspective, how has this developed?  Immediately following WWII, the United States experienced an economic expansion, spurred in part by the GI Bill which (brilliantly) allowed avoidance of a post war recession.

        Additionally, with many world industrial economies in ruin, the US, untouched, was exporting worldwide. This was a boom in which in which all social classes participated. Yet, by the 1970s, this growth had stalled and began to reverse in what has been termed by some economists as “the Great U-turn.”  Beginning in the late 1970s, American society began to transition from roughly equal (on a percentage basis) real-income growth across socio-economic strata to current historic inequality in wages, earnings, and consumption.

       Real middle-class incomes declined and both inflation and recessions battered the middle class.  However, during this same stretch, the top fifth of income earners, and particularly the very top, took a greater share of income. 

       As a point of interest, this was facilitated by significant decreases in highest marginal income tax rates, from 90% (1953-1962), to 70% (1966-1980), to less than 30% (1987) and back up only slightly to around 37%. It is worthy of note that regardless of these reductions in tax rates on upper income earners, there were still recessions which, predictably, adversely affected lower income Americans far more than the top “10 percenters.”  In fact, the vaunted “Reagan tax cut” actually resulted in the “Reagan recession.”

       Perhaps the most concise and cogent statement describing the current effects and mindset of mess media advertisers comes from Gregory Mantsios’ 2007 book, “Media Magic, making Class Invisible.” His thesis: “The United States is the most highly stratified society in the industrialized world. Class distinctions operate in virtually every aspect of our lives, yet remarkably, we, as a nation, retain illusions about living in an egalitarian society. We maintain these illusions, in large part, because the media hides gross inequalities from public view. In those instances when inequalities are revealed, we are provided with messages that obscure the nature of class realities and blame the victim.”

        Analysis is of all that is inherent in that statement is the stuff for a doctoral thesis, not just this essay. Suffice it to say that, as briefly as I can manage: Advertising tends to portray upper class individuals as benevolent and sharing in most cases, and working class individuals, if they are “hard” workers as having a folksy, aw shucks “we’re here to help” attitude.

       Remember “Madge,” the manicurist, her working class status evident through her occupation and her name embroidered on her uniform, telling her client a secret: you don’t need a fancy, high priced product to soften your hands: Palmolive dishwashing soap is perfect for the job, and it just costs pennies? Madge provides valuable knowledge that the client supposedly does not and would not possess. The common sense, authenticity, and folksy wisdom of the working class is leveraged. (Of course, today, “Madge” would most likely be Asian.)

       By contrast, we almost never see non-working, “working class” persons in  commercials, reserving that coverage, instead, for Public Service spots or the nightly news. This isn’t new; even in Elizabethan times the term 'deserving' poor was used to societally segregate those in need who were unable to work because they are too old, disabled, or too sick. The 'undeserving poor' were people who don't want to work and often it is assumed that all able-bodied unemployed people fit into that category. Little has changed in the world as relates to this dilemma.

        This is compounded in the here and now by political efforts of the current administration to “brand” Republicans and Republicanism as inclusive and representing (and “protecting”) the welfare of the middle class, and working class as long as they are white, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant. The truly devious part of this tactic is that hard work matters a lot less if you’re Brown, Muslim, and/or undocumented. All this, of course, is driven by the ultimate elitist and top 1 percenter in the White House.

       Mass media in the form of Twitter and other means of mass communication have enabled the conveyance of this most deceitful of messages. Political advertising has stolen a page from commercial adverts in several ways. First, by cheap hats, tee shirts and slogans, Donald Trump’s machine has allowed lower middle and downright poor folks to feel as if they “belong” to a movement which favors them, headed by a leader who “likes” them when the inverse is true.

       The media magic here is the lack of any apparent Republican rank and file outrage, even in the face of Trump’s pardons of several devious felons, one of which was Michael Milken who invented the junk bond market and promoted its use in hostile corporate takeovers that destroyed businesses, labor unions, and working class job security while enriching a tiny corporate elite.  No matter, the Red Hat middle class and middle-class wannabees swallow it hook line and sinker.

        Isn’t advertising truly the great American invention?      

One way or the other, not both!

       Some time ago, my beloved (and very bright) younger grandson posted (to Facebook) a picture of a 4th grade "science" test. It isn't clear whether this is from one of the (too numerous) "Home School" packages produced by religious ignoramuses, or curriculum from a "Christian School." Because of the resurgence of lunatic Evangelical conservatism and science denial under the red ball caps, and since this "test" is indicative of their mindset, I have reworked this.


      Although administered in 2013, one supposes little has changed other  than that the 4th grader should now be a graduating high school senior. Unless there has been a reality intervention, this would be one of the most scientifically illiterate grads ever. In the first place, this is a totally true/false test, which is a code for either home schooled or "Christian" school "easy A". In the second place it is rife with supposed "science" questions which were to be answered based on a Bible perspective and are devoid of scientific validity. The test is shown below.

       

       Another reader, unknown to me, then proceeded to defend this test and the discussion spiraled into a discussion of science v. religion, upon which the reader began to discuss the "brilliance" of religious thinkers and the "rational thought" which had been applied to create what we, today, properly refer to as "dogma."

       Dogma, defined, is: "A principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true." "Dogma", the movie, makes far more sense and is much funnier.

       At this point, my brother in law, an actual scientist and very bright guy, entered the conversation, made several concise, valid points, receiving a somewhat scathing rebuke from the original writer, essentially ridiculing him for using logic to show the flaws on the writer's argument. Of course, I felt compelled to respond, not that my bro needed any assistance in dealing with this mental lightweight, but, rather, because the responder's lack of civility and lucidity astounded me. What I wrote is below:

       (Name of the "other guy"), you truly exhibit the messianic zeal of the true believer. In fact, as S**** so eloquently put it, no one has ever debunked any scientific assertion with religion, yet our history is full of the opposite. His point was that Copernicus and Galileo made the observations available to them and theorized possible reasons for those observations. When those theories ran counter to dogmatic teachings of organized religion ("the Church") Galileo was persecuted, and Copernicus had conveniently expired, having waited until the end of his life to publish.

       As to your comments regarding the 2000 year old institution of Christianity and the "brilliant minded" men:  

      Superstitious adherence to a dogmatic position, unfortunately can infect even the brilliant. Isaac Newton, while brilliant , was also hyper-religious, yet believed in alchemy. As Peter Medawar states, "I cannot give any scientist of any age better advice than this: the intensity of a conviction that a hypothesis is true has no bearing over whether it is true or not."

       Let me simplify that for you. The fact that you desperately want, or have an emotional need, to "believe in" a myth makes it no more true. Yes, Jethro, the sincerity and degree of zealotry associated with any religious or pseudo-scientific belief simply has zero bearing on its being true. If simply believing made it so, many of us would have gotten that pony on our 4th or 5th Christmas.

       The contrast in these two positions is that, when additional scientific study shows a theory to be incorrect or incomplete, it is replaced by the rational thinker with the newly revealed reality. Science doesn't claim immutability. Sadly, the inverse is true of religious doctrinal belief.

       No matter how many brilliant scriptural experts analyze documents and rethink the validity of allegedly scriptural writings describing "quotes" from Jesus made when he was alone, and no matter how obvious it has become to most modern scriptologists that many of the letters attributed to the Apostle Paul weren't written by him, no matter how ludicrous it now seems that the Crusaders were a bunch of moral Christian knights who only wanted to free the "Holy land" from the Infidel, there are those of the faith who refuse to believe such things.

       Two more quotes and then I'll leave you to continue your novena for the souls of unbelievers who choose the Scientific Method over superstition:

       “One must state it plainly. Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody—not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms—had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as for comfort, reassurance and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion, and one would like to think—though the connection is not a fully demonstrable one—that this is why they seem so uninterested in sending fellow humans to hell.” - Christopher Hitchens

       The late Isaac Asimov's remark about the infantilism of pseudoscience is equally applicable to religion: 
       
       "Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and you will find a security blanket, a thumb to suck, a skirt to hold.' It is astonishing, moreover, how many people are unable to understand that 'X is comforting' does not imply 'X is true.”

       A final question for the "test" designer responsible for the drivel above: If you, as you obviously do, believe in a 6000 year old earth with coexisting species which modern science now places eons (millions of years) apart, riddle me these simple questions."

1. If, as you insist, the earth is a mere 6000 years old, then either a) Earth was all one huge land mass, therefore all the species were on one huge continent, or b) The continents were "created" as they are today, separated by vast expanses of water. (Note: Many Evangelicals now "hedge their bets", staunchly clinging to the idea that the split of the continents happened "spasmodically" as a result of the Noah Flood, in other words after creation, when all that lives or has ever lived existed in one place.)

       If a) is true, then shouldn't all present day species be present on all continents? They are not. Jaguars and Tigers (for very simple examples) are absent from Africa,Europe and Australia. So are poison dart frogs, which Noah must have handled very carefully. This implies as well, that all the species we now have, must have evolved (gasp) from the originals. There are no fossils or other pre-historic remains of jaguars, llamas, groundhogs, monk seals, pronghorned antelope or almost all Amazon rain forest basin creatures outside the new world. The same is true of tomatoes, potatoes and maize

If b) is true, that explains why T-Rex fossils are found only in North America, but leaves the question "If God created all the critters in one place and they were all coexistent with Adam and Eve, why are there so many variants which exist variously all over the world, but not in the "Holy land?" Moreover how did they, and the humans with whom you insist they coexist, get there? Did kangaroos swim to Australia with koalas on their backs?

Once again, one wonders.