Happy Birthday, JD!
Whether it’s a celebration for one …
Or a celebration with a few friends …
Be assured that all of us here will be joining in the singing of …
Aug 012023
Aug 012023
Glenn Kirschner – Regarding the indictments of Trump and company, Georgia DA Fani Willis says, “We’re ready to go.”
The Lincoln Project – The GOP is Racist
MSNBC – Trump braces for Jan. 6 indictment as Capitol officer blasts him as ‘a hitman’ – Inside w/Jen Psaki
Puppet Regime – MBS: A Barbie girl living in a Saudi world
Squirrel Visits His Rescuer Every Day For Years
Beau – Let’s talk about AMOC amok, currents, dates, and water….
Aug 012023
Yesterday, as I had predicted, I slept in hard. And woke up feeling pretty good, both physically and attitude-wise. Today is a new month, and I already have all the cartoons checked – Of the 31 TC had for this month in 2015, 29 are usable, and I have already made the other two. On to September!
Cartoon –
Short Takes –
Wonkette – DA Fani Willis Said The Fun Will Begin In August. Guess What Month Starts Tomorrow, Donald Trump?
Quote – Just as last week’s indictments were coming down, news was coming out of Atlanta that they were starting to put up barricades around the courthouse. Why? Because it’s Fuck Around And Find Out Summer! Plus, Willis had already said the fun was going to start in August. Now, there are a couple more fun new developments on that front…. And speaking of Fani Willis, she talked to reporters this weekend, and here is what she said:
Click through for article. It is Substack, so click on “continue reading” when it pops up, scrolling down first if necessary. I figure if we must have news involving TFG, we may as well have a little fun with it. Also, Substack videos can be weird, so I made a rough transcript of the one near the end: “First, [I made] a commitment to the American people but most importantly the citizens of Fulton County that we are going to be making some big decisions over the election investigation and that I would do that before September First 2023. [With what we’ve] accomplished over the last two and a half years, we’re ready to go.”
Common Dreams – What Florida Students Could Learn From PragerU Kids
Quote – A cartoon Booker T. Washington distorting the history of the Civil War. A narrator explaining that embracing climate denialism is akin to participating in the Warsaw Uprising. An instructional video telling girls that conforming to gender stereotypes is a great way to embrace their femininity. A dramatization of the supposedly civilizing, benevolent era of British colonial rule in India. These are just some of the episodes of PragerU Kids—an offshoot of right-wing propaganda organization PragerU—that Florida has just approved for use in its public school classrooms, reflecting and potentially accelerating the state’s hard conservative turn.
Click through for details. The title does not mean what I first thought it meant, which would have been something like, “PragerU kids may be baby MAGAts, but there is still something positivie to be learned from them.” Instead, it means something more like “Horrible things that Florida could be learning from PragerU propaganda if someone doesn’t put a stop to it.” You mey remember during the Vietnam war we mocked the remark “We had to destroy the village to save it.” But – if one thinks, not of the people of Florida en masse but of Floridas educational structure – this may be a time when that is actually true.
Food For Thought
Jul 312023
Glenn Kirschner – Trump indicted again; CNN defamation suit dismissed; Georgia preparing to indict. SO MUCH LOSING!
The Lincoln Project – DeSantis Trade School
This ad, made by Eric Swalwell, is only on TwitterX by itself. I have cut evrything before it starts, but I don’t have edit privileges to cut after it stops.
MSNBC – Swalwell – “We’re going to call you a creep.”
Farron Balanced – Biblical Plagues Descend Upon Republican Controlled Florida
When Everyone Else Gave Up On This Pittie, This Guy Didn’t (“This Guy” – Luke – may be the real Wizard of Oz.)
Beau – Let’s talk about Alabama and SCOTUS….
Jul 312023
Yesterday, I got to see Virgil, and we got to play cribbage. The cards were still elderly and not in good shape,but Virgil managed to get three triple runs of three, and one quadruple run of three, and I managed to get a couple of quadruple runs of three, over the course of the afternoon. I also got a hand which consisted of only 3s, 6s, and 9s (IIRC it was one 9, one 6 and three 3s – it was a beast to count but a nice score.) Lona, Virgil loved the photo you sent for him (the same one you put in a comment ast weel. He is allowed to tape a few things up on the wall and it is now one of them. Thank you so much! And of course he returns everyone’s greetings. My main computer has been dragging all day,so I was late getting out the newsletter, and even later posting this. I had to run CCleaner – once in the “Health Check” mode and once in the regular cleanup mode just to keep going. And I think I forwarded the letter for the Substack I am using today out yesterday by mistake. So if you get that, check to see where the quotes fit. At least today is Monday, and I’ll be sleeping in hard.
Cartoon –
Short Takes –
Letters from an Americn – July 29, 2023 (Saturday)
Quote – I had intended to write about Bacon’s Rebellion today, since on this date in 1676, Nathaniel Bacon published the Declaration of the People of Virginia, outlining the rebels’ demands —and, let’s be honest, also because I am giddy with relief at finishing the final stages of the new book and eager to be doing actual history again—but President Joe Biden gave a surprisingly interesting talk in Freeport, Maine, yesterday that hit my in-box today just as I was sitting down to write about Bacon…. As he spoke informally to a small audience, he seemed to hit what he sees as the major themes of his presidency so far. The talk included an interesting twist…. “We’re seeing changes… across the world in fundamental ways. And so, we better get going on what we’re going to do about it, both in foreign policy and domestic policy.” … If I were writing a history of the Biden administration 150 years from now, I would call out this informal talk as an articulation of a vision of American leadership, … So I guess I got to write about history today, after all.
Click through for full column. Yes, it’s long. But it’s possible to skim it and then go back to particular points. And if it’s going to be important in 150 years – it’s important now.
The Hill – Here are the Republicans who have met requirements for the first debate
Quote – But before candidates can get on the Aug. 23 debate stage, they must first qualify by meeting several requirements set by the Republican National Committee (RNC). Candidates need at least 40,000 unique donors to their principal presidential campaign committee, including at least 200 from 20 or more states and territories each. The presidential contenders also must be polling at 1 percent or higher in at least three authorized national polls — or at 1 percent or higher in two national polls together with one “early state poll” from two separate “carve out” states recognized by the RNC: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. Perhaps the most contentious requirement is the RNC’s ask that candidates sign a loyalty pledge to support whomever becomes the eventual Republican nominee.
Click through for those who have, and a few that have not. I’m almost sorry that Pence hasn’t made it (at least not yet) I have a couple of barrettes, each with a fly on it, and that would be an occasion to wear one or the other.
Food For Thought
Jul 302023
Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
I’m sure I don’t need to preach to anyone here that we need to regulate guns. And I know that is not going to happen in my lifetime – at least, not to the extent it needs to be done. I think it is possible that at some point in the future, when enough children who have lived through seeing their classmates shattered into smithereens by guns reach voting age, that we may get some effective legislation. But that day is not today. In the meantime, we need to find workarounds. This article is about one such workaround which, while nowhere near a solution, may help to provide some mitigation.
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A 1-minute gun safety video helped preteen children be more careful around real guns – new research
M-Production/iStock via Getty Images Plus
Brad Bushman, The Ohio State University and Sophie L. Kjaervik, The Ohio State University
The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.
The big idea
Children who watched a 1-minute-long gun safety video were more cautious when they found a real handgun hidden in a drawer in our lab compared to children who watched a car safety video, according to our randomized clinical trial published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. We observed this difference even though children saw the gun safety video a week earlier at home and even after they had watched scenes from a violent movie in our lab.
We tested 226 children ages 8 to 12. By the flip of a coin, children watched either a gun safety video or car safety video alone at home. Both safety videos featured The Ohio State University Chief of Police in full uniform. Younger children tend to respect authority figures, especially those in uniform.
Then a week later, pairs of kids – who were friends or siblings, for example – came to our lab at Ohio State to participate in what we told them was a study about what children do for entertainment.
First, the child volunteers watched scenes from a PG-rated violent movie. After 20 minutes, they went to a playroom furnished with toys and games like Lego and checkers. The room also contained a file cabinet with two disabled 9 mm handguns hidden in the bottom drawer. We told the kids they could play with any of the toys and games in the room and then left them alone. A hidden camera videotaped the children’s behavior.
By the end of 20 minutes, 96% of the children had found the guns. Children are naturally curious, and adults often underestimate their ability to find guns hidden in the home.
Kids who saw the gun safety video (compared to the car safety video) were more likely to tell an adult (33.9% of kids vs. 10.6% of kids), less likely to touch a gun (39.3% vs. 67.3%) and held it for less time if they did touch it (42.0 seconds vs. 99.9 seconds). They were also less likely to pull the trigger (8.9% vs. 29.8%), and pulled the trigger fewer times if they did pull it (4.2 vs. 7.2).
Risk factors that raised the likelihood of engaging in unsafe behavior around the guns included being male, watching age-inappropriate PG-13 and R-rated movies, and interest in guns, as reported by parents.
We also identified several protective factors that made children less likely to engage in unsafe behavior around the guns. One was previous exposure to gun safety material in a course or video. Another was having guns in the home, which makes sense because surveys find that parents with guns are more likely to talk to their children about gun safety than parents without guns. Finally, having negative attitudes about guns, like believing they’re not cool or fun, made kids less likely to engage in unsafe behavior in our study.
Why it matters
In 2020 in the U.S., guns killed more people ages 1 through 19 than any other cause, including motor vehicle crashes, drug overdoses and poisoning. And the rate of gun-related deaths among U.S. children has been increasing for about a decade. Gun deaths among U.S. children under 18 increased from 1,732 in 2019 to 2,590 in 2021.
Gun safety videos might be a relatively simple but effective option to help decrease these gun-related deaths and injuries.
What still isn’t known
Participants in this study watched the safety video about a week before they came to our lab. Future longitudinal research is needed to establish how long the protective effects of firearm safety videos might last.
To see if our results apply in other situations, future research should also be conducted in a more naturalistic setting – like the home – and with children of a variety of ages and from geographical locations beyond Ohio.
What other research is being done
Other research on children and gun safety primarily focuses on access to guns and responsible, safe and secure gun storage. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that gun owners store their firearms unloaded, locked up and separate from ammunition.
This article has been updated to clarify the ages of those included in the statistics about gun-related deaths.
Brad Bushman, Professor of Communication, The Ohio State University and Sophie L. Kjaervik, Ph.D. Candidate in Communication, The Ohio State University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, even with the education provided by one gun safety video, I find the results to be unnerving. But it does make it clear that kids in general are not receiving gun education of the kind that is needed in order to identify guns irresponsibly stored (and therefore the most likely ro be irresponsibly used.) It’s not a solution. But it could be a helpful workaround.
The Furies and I will be back.
Jul 302023
This particular essay may not be up to my normal quality, but I’ve been feeling like [bleep] all weekend and had to get this out.
Democracy is not dying in darkness – it is being brutally murdered in broad daylight. And members of the general public are too busy playing Candy Crush on their phones to notice, or care.
Everywhere you look, democracy is in dire peril. This is not paranoia, but an inconvenient truth. Here in the USA, millions are conspiring to destroy the very foundations of this country. Book bans, restrictions on what children learn, squelching voting rights, chipping away at reproductive freedom – these are just a few of the ways people are demolishing liberty. India, the planet’s largest democracy by population, is suffering attacks on its system. Pro-fascism organizations are on the March, sometimes literally, across Europe.
In Atlanta, the local and state government are doing all they can to squelch protests against the proposed law enforcement training complex known as Cop City. People raising money to bail out those arrested for taking part in peaceful protests were themselves arrested. A petition calling for the general public to vote on whether or not to build the complex is being called into question, and city leaders are scratching for ways to invalidate it. This may sound like an isolated, local incident, but it is symptomatic of the many things wrong with our country.
Recently, the Knesset, the parliament of Israel, removed the power of review from Israeli courts on grounds of “reasonability” in light of the country’s basic laws. The measure passed 64-0 in the 120-seat body, with the far right-wing coalition of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu unanimously in favor and the opposition having left the chamber in protest.
The result? Utter chaos. Hundreds of thousands of protesters filled the streets of every major Israeli city, sometimes blocking major routes. Police reacted with brutality, attacking demonstrators, pounding them with water cannons and even throwing burning wooden planks at them. Large numbers of military reservists have threatened to resign or refuse to show up for periodic training. About a week ago 10,000 reservists threatened to go AWOL, and before that 1,400 officers in the reserves, including 400 fighter jet pilots, claimed they would do the same. Israeli business are fleeing the country, taking with them expertise and money, and the Israeli stock market went into a tailspin.
Everywhere, it seems, right-wingers are advancing, destroying human rights, crushing opposition, turning back the clock. How is this happening? Is there a cabal of the ultra-rich backing them? Or has one right-wing movement in one country encouraged and emboldened others?
However, those who believe in freedom and justice are far from helpless. We have the power of the ballot box, the peaceful protest, the petition, the e-mail, the letter to the editor. And we don’t have to get the direct support of huge mobs – only a small percentage of the population has to get active. As Margaret Mead said, never doubt that a small number of thoughtful, committed people can change the world – indeed, it is the oniy thing that has. It took only a small number of thoughtful, committed people to gain women the right to vote, or to rid the US of the vile Jim Crow system, or to set India free.
Let us hope that is all we need to save democracy, not just in the U.S., but elsewhere.
Jul 302023
Glenn Kirschner – New indictment shows criminal cover-up: Trump co-conspirator says “boss” wants “servers deleted”
The Lincoln Project – Barbie Freakout
Long, but it’s Lawrence – and he has lots to say.
MSNBC – Lawrence: We now know who the star witness in the Trump docs case will be
Farron Balanced – Jack Smith Just Flipped A Crucial Trump Ally
This Cleftie Kitten Is A Teeny-Tiny Superhero
Beau – Let’s talk about the imagery and legacy of Jan 6….