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Open Thread for February 24, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:53 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 242022

Greetings from the Deep Freeze! Yesterday, our overnight low was -4°F with a windchill of -7°F. Tuesday night it was -10°F with a wind chill of -24°F. It is expected to warm up today to a high of +22°F. There is very little snow on the ground – it’s just cold. By this time next week we should have a couple of days of highs in the 60’s before it goes down again. Never a dull moment. I did finish up my haircut … such as it is LOL.

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Short Takes –

Cal Matters – Meth, a mother, and a stillbirth: Imprisoned mom wants her ‘manslaughter’ case reopened
Quote – Since her guilty plea, Perez’s story has drawn national attention for her rare plea to manslaughter of a fetus – a charge that doesn’t exist in California law. Abortion rights advocates believe her case has broad implications for abortion access in California, potentially opening the door to criminal prosecutions of people seeking to terminate pregnancies. (Emphasis mine.)
Click through for details. This would not surprise me in many states. It does surprise me in California. And, with everything else going on, it scares me.

HuffPost – Rick Scott Releases Far-Right Plan For GOP Senate Majority
Quote – Scott’s plan starts off with requiring children to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at school and disallowing teachers from portraying American history in a negative light, following state GOP legislatures in their efforts to ban the teaching of critical race theory. “Public schools will teach our children to love America because, while not perfect, it is exceptional, it is good, and it is a beacon of freedom in an often-dark world,” it says.
Click through for more. Mother Jones also covered this, calling it a “fever dream.” The only good thing I see about it is that it should be very helpful in getting Democrats to turn out. (If they can use imaginary fears, surely we can use real ones.)

Black History – Wikipedia – Charles R. Drew
Quote – He spent time doing research at Columbia’s Presbyterian Hospital and wrote a doctoral thesis, “Banked Blood: A Study on Blood Preservation,” based on an exhaustive study of blood preservation techniques. It was through this blood preservation research where Drew realized blood plasma was able to be preserved, two months, longer through de-liquification, or the separation of liquid blood from the cells. When ready for use the plasma would then be able to return to its original state via reconstitution.
Click through for bio. If you have ever had a transfusion, or had a loved one who has, you are in debt to Drew for his work. And so, of course, are thousands if not millions of others.

Food For Thought:

Open Thread for February 23, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:10 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 232022

Yesterday, I cut a little more hair. I’m getting closer. And also knit a little.

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Press Run – Durham’s Corrupt ‘Spying’ Investigation — Ken Starr II
Quote – In the ABC News report, it wasn’t until the ninth paragraph that that network spelled out, “nowhere in Durham’s filing does he state that lawyers for the Clinton campaign paid a tech company to “infiltrate” servers belonging to Trump Tower and later the White House.” That crucial debunking should have been found in the first paragraph, if not the headline.
Click through to Crooks and Liars (which reprinted it) if you can’t get through to the primary source. Boehlert is right. What ever the media is doing, it isn’t journalism. It’s time to stop pussyfooting and start knocking things off tables.

Colorado Public Radio – Who Is The Alliance Defending Freedom, The Legal Team Behind Masterpiece Cakeshop?
Quote – Critics and liberal legal organizations say Alliance’s approach — and burst of enormous success over the past decade — is changing the landscape of case law in this area. They worry they are turning the First Amendment’s guarantee for religious freedom into a justification to discriminate. [Scott] Levin[, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League], worries … that the shield of religious freedom has been turned on its head, and is now used “as a sword to try to influence, to make sure that I conform to the beliefs of ADF.”
Click through. I still maintain that it is time – long past time – for authentic Christians to start “witnessing” (I hate the term, but these people – you have to use their anguage if you want to get through to them) Acts 10 to fundamentalists. God may be “the same yesterday, today, and forever” – but humans are not. Humans are capable of learning. Just because a truth is new to one person or one group, does not mean it hasn’t always been true.

Black History (new chapter): Mother Jines – Ahmaud Arbery’s Killers Found Guilty of Hate Crimes
Quote – The three men who chased, cornered, and gunned down Ahmaud Arbery were convicted of a federal hate crime today. Gregory McMichael, Travis McMichael, and William “Roddie” Bryan had already been convicted in Georgia on state-level charges of murder, but today’s decision establishes for the legal record that they killed Arbery because he was Black and ensures that the defendants would still have to serve significant amounts of prison time if their murder convictions were overturned on appeal.
Click through for story. Clearly, thought and planning went into both the state and federal prosecutions of this crime.

Food For Thought:

Open Thread for February 22, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:17 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 222022

Today is Twos-day: whether you write it 2/22/2022 or 22/2/2022 or 2022/2/22, it’s more twos than we can expect to see for 200 years (and I for one do not expect to be around.) And, to top it off, it’s also Tuesday. And, yesterday, it was a slow news day. So I just posted two short takes (and two videos on that thread) and took the rest of the day off. If Ukraine explodes, it will have to wait until Wednesday. (Not that you won’t hear about it elsewhere.)

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The Nib – Breathless
Quote – When I moved to Calcutta for college, the second largest and one of the most poluted cities in India, I could not see the stars any more. And I could not breathe. One night I stayed up coughing till the sun rose. The following week I was diagnosed with asthma.
Click through for graphic article. I have been somewhat vaguely aware of how much fighting climate change as an individual depends on having money and health and other privilege. But this brings it home in ways no other medium has done for me.

Black History Month – The New Yorker – Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Quote – Perhaps his most important and lasting role has been as a teacher and an institution builder. Gates arrived at Harvard in 1991, and he swiftly recruited an extraordinary concentration of Black scholarship—William Julius Wilson, Cornel West, Lawrence D. Bobo, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Suzanne Blier, and others—all while reinvigorating the W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute, which is now part of the Hutchins Center. Gates proved a dynamo of both intellectual energy and fund-raising finesse.
Click through for full interview. Skip is sometimes called “the Black Ken Burns,” and certainly no one has any better right to tht title. But he is also so much more.

Food For Thought:

Open Thread for February 21, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 212022

Yesterday, I worked on cutting my hair – not for appearance particularly, but to prevent it from landing in my eyes, or (in soe ways worse) in my mouth. I made progress … but it’s still a work in progress.

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engadget – QAnon founder may have been identified thanks to machine learning
Quote – With help from machine learning software, computer scientists may have unmasked the identity of Q, the founder of the QAnon movement. In a sprawling report published on Saturday, The New York Times shared the findings of two independent teams of forensic linguists who claim they’ve identified Paul Furber, a South African software developer who was one of the first to draw attention to the conspiracy theory, as the original writer behind Q. They say Arizona congressional candidate Ron Watkins also wrote under the pseudonym.
Click through for more. This story made the New York Times, but I didn’t have a gift link to read it there. This was the best I could find.

The Conversation – Physics abd psychology of cats – an (improbable) conversation
Quote – We’ve had cats as pets for, like, 14,000 years. And in 14,000 years, the cats have told us that they want to live with us, and that they would like a comfortable bed, and they want food, and they want us to snuggle with them. In other words, the cats have really communicated all of their interests and needs such that we’re running around doing whatever they have in mind. So they’re doing a very good job.
Click through. You may remember I mentioned that a webinar was scheduled with the IgNobel Prize paople on this subject. It was held, and it was taped in full. And a snippet of it has been transcribed here, with a link to the full video (with CC).

Black History – Wikipedia – Bessie Coleman
Quote – She was the first African-American woman and first Native American to hold a pilot license. She earned her license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale on June 15, 1921, and was the first Black person to earn an international pilot’s license…. She then became a high-profile pilot in notoriously dangerous air shows in the United States. She was popularly known as Queen Bess and Brave Bessie, and hoped to start a school for African-American fliers. Coleman died in a plane crash in 1926. Her pioneering role was an inspiration to early pilots and to the African-American and Native American communities.
Click thrugh for article. These days, Earhart gets all the attention as a pioneering aviatrix, yet Coleman actually preceded her. (And Earhart did not have to travel to France – twice – to get her flight instruction.) In their own day, during the overlap of their careers, they were about equally prominent.

Food For Thought:

Open Thread for February 20, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:34 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 202022

Yesterday, the opera radio broadcast was “Boris Godunov” by Mussorgsky. The title role is for basses what the role of “Norma” is for sopranos – the pinnacle which everyone wants to reach but few can. Having just written about Ryan Speedo Green, and notoced that one of his teachers said his voive is still growing and will be growing for years, I wondered whether one day he would sing this. He was actually in this production in a supporting role. That gave me a smile.

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Crooks and Liars – ‘Freedom Convoy’ Leader Pat King Arrested While On Facebook Live
Quote – He was told he was being arrested for counselling to commit the offence of mischief, counselling to obstruct police and counselling to commit the offence of disobeying a court order. King told the officer he would like to call his lawyer. “I have the right to a lawyer?” he asked, to which the police officer responded: “Of course you do.”
Click through. Police in the United States should watch this to learn how it’s supposed to be done. (And I love Canada’s use of he term “counselling” where we would say “inciting.’

Letters from an American – February 18, 2022
Friday is supposed to be a slow news day, but Heather cites four stpries, any one of which could be fron page news:
1. Yes, there was classified information in the documents Trump** took to Mar-a-Lago. And that’s not all.
2. Fake special counselJohn Durham alleges that RWNJ frenzy caused by hs reporting is not his problem.
3. In addition to the Humpty Dumpty – 1984 lawsuits, another Judge (Amir P. Mehta) declined to dismiss three other lawsuits against Trump** et al filed by member do Congress for conspiring to obstruct them in the performance of their duties.
Finally, President Biden’s address on Ukraine prompted political scientist (and journalist) David Rothkopf to point out that, in this address, Biden was speaking as the leader of the free world – and that ““It has been a long time since a U.S. president filled that role.” Sadly, the speech also made it clear that the president is pretty sure Russia will attack Ukraine.
Click through for details. Her letters are long-ish, but this one is unusually juicy.

Black History – Wikipedia – James Armistead Lafayette
Quote – In 1781, after getting his enslaver’s consent, Armistead volunteered to join the army under Lafayette. Lafayette utilized Armistead as a spy, with the latter posing as a runaway slave. Armistead joined the camp of Brigadier General Benedict Arnold, the turncoat who was leading some British forces in the area. Pretending to be a spy for them allowed Armistead to gain Arnold’s confidence to the extent that Arnold used him to guide British troops through local roads. After Arnold departed north in the spring of 1781, James went to the camp of Lord Charles Cornwallis and continued his work. He moved frequently between British camps where the officers would speak openly about their strategies in front of him.
Click through for everything we know about him. I wish it were more. I would have loved to quote the entire sections on “Emancipation” and “Later Life” but then it would not have been a short take. At least he was appreciated in his lifetime.

Food For Thought:

Open Thread for February 19 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:39 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 192022

Yesterday, I watched Ari Melber Claire McKaskill, and a third person discuss a judge calling Trump’s lawyers arguments Humpty-Dumpty-esque for over 14 minutes – and NOT ONE of them mentioned what the judge must have meant by that. It’s clearly a reference (and they did mention Alice in Wonderland) to Through the Looking Glas where Humpty Dumpty said, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.” As Alice pointed out, it doesn’t work that way (though he was not convinced and babblrd on about how he was paying them to do his bidding.) It’s quite a conversation – and it is exactly like Trump** and Trump** lawyers. But they all seemed to think the judge was alluding to Humpty Dumpty’s fall. I think not. Anyway, I also got my groceries in and mostly put away. The frozen and refrigerated stuff immediately, of course, but the rest could wait longer (for me to be rested between trips.) I didn’t receive everything – but at least there were no substitutions.

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Mother Jones – My Family Lost Our Farm During Japanese Incarceration. I Went Searching for What Remains.
Quote – The anti-Japanese sentiment that allowed for such a drastic action to take place did not spring up suddenly after Pearl Harbor, but had been simmering for decades, stoked by white labor and business groups resentful of Japanese workers and farmers. Japanese Americans who were forced off their land lost property worth an estimated $3.7 billion in today’s dollars, and $7.7 billion worth of income.
Click through. Today is the day. The eightieth anniversary of that executive order. And, yes, it was racism, but specifically the fear aspect of racism. Who benefits from keeping people in fear? Certainly not the people who are terrified.

HuffPost – Child Poverty Spiked After Tax Credit Expired, Early Research Suggests
Quote – Democrats failed to extend a credit late last year, due to the opposition of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). The last monthly check was paid out to parents on Dec. 15. After this tax season, the credit will return to its previous $2,000 level and parents with no income will no longer be eligible. Manchin told colleagues and constituents he thought parents wasted the money on drugs. Though he avoided taking a clear public position on the policy, he suggested it should have a “work requirement.”
Click through for details/ I would file this under “No shit, Sherlock.” And it really frosts me when people, especially in the media, say “Congress” when what they should be saying is “Republicans” (and, in this case, a DINO.)

CBS News – Ryan Speedo Green: From juvenile delinquency to opera stardom
Quote – As a 12-year-old in Virginia, Ryan Speedo Green was the author of an impressive rap sheet. He was so violent he was banished to a class for delinquents. And when he couldn’t be contained there, he was sent to a juvenile lockup. Those who knew the boy with the unusual name, could see that the child was writing a tragedy. Now, as a man, tragedy has become the dominant theme in his life, but in a way that no one could have imagined.
Click through for bio. Or, if you’re in a hurry, click here for this video from September 28, 2016, the night before he opened the season at the Met (hanky alert). I just didn’t want to ley the month go by without sharing this remarkable story.

Food For Thought:

Open Thread for February 18 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:49 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 182022

Yesterday, I actually finished one of the “buttonhole neckline” sweaters I’ve been working o. Sorry no picture yet. I’m not fluent in photography. But I do remember that has been requested and will be working on it. I found a brand new Rocky Mountain Mike parody (based on Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline”) – it’ll be in Saturday’s video thread.- And, I placed a grocery order to be delivered today.

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Letters from an American – February 16, 2022
Quote – Parker’s Washington Post story showing the Freedom Convoys as the expression of a radical fringe was an important reality check to the breathless stories from the American right hailing the Freedom Convoys as a popular movement. The story that former secretary of state Hillary Clinton allegedly spied on then-candidate Trump’s campaign in 2016 illustrates the importance of the sort of reality-based corrective the Washington Post published about the Canadian truckers.
Click through for both stories. We may never be able to reach loony-tunes RWNJs, but it’s still important – maybe even more important – for sane people to have access to the truth.

The 19th – How Ketanji Brown Jackson’s pursuit of success as a lawyer and parent got her a potential Supreme Court nod
Quote – After another stint in private practice, Jackson was nominated by then-President Barack Obama to serve in a full-time capacity on his Sentencing Commission. She was confirmed to that post in 2010. It was the first of three times that she has gone through a Senate confirmation process. “This for me was an opportunity of a lifetime, and it was well worth enduring what I can only say was the extremely nerve-wracking nomination and confirmation process,” she said at the University of Georgia. “I actually taught myself to knit as a way to channel my nervous energy during that time. If anybody wants a scarf, I’m your source.”
Click through for details. It is far from certain who will actually be nominated, but she is a top contender, and has ahown good judgment (pun intended) in some of the 1/6 trials. Not only that, she has a sense of humor.

NBC News – Scientists have possibly cured HIV in a woman for the first time
Quote – An American research team reported that it has possibly cured HIV in a woman for the first time. Building on past successes, as well as failures, in the HIV-cure research field, these scientists used a cutting-edge stem cell transplant method that they expect will expand the pool of people who could receive similar treatment to several dozen annually. Their patient stepped into a rarified [sic] club that includes three men whom scientists have cured, or very likely cured, of HIV. Researchers also know of two women whose own immune systems have, quite extraordinarily, apparently vanquished the virus.
Click through for story, including caution from Dr. Fauci. We have ONE cure from this treatment. It’s definitle hopeful, but at best hopefully definite.

Footnote: Tuesday I featured Rober Smalls. Turns out Keith Knight (“Ye Olde Gentleman Cartoonist”) is a big fan of his.

Food For Thought:

Open Thread for February 17 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:57 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 172022

Yesterday, I scanned my vaccination card now that I have the booster, and filed it on my portable hard drive, replacing the previous upload. I also emailed a copy to the prison so that I don’t have to bring it along and possibly lose it when I am allowed to visit again. I’ve been having trouble lately keeping track of small objects and even a few larger ones, so I’m a bit extra careful just now. The webpage ws updated today, but it still says th moratorium is until March 1, and I frankly don’t think it’s likely to end sooner – it’s more likely to get extended again.

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HuffPost – Sandy Hook Families Win $73 Million In Lawsuit Against Remington Arms
Quote – Remington Arms has agreed to settle liability claims from nine families whose loved ones were killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. The settlement agreement, announced Tuesday in a court filing, is the first time in the U.S. that a gun manufacturer has been held liable for a mass shooting.
Click through for this story. There is a lot more to it than money, as it also involves Remington giving up documents related to marketing.

Colorado Public Radio – The Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters’ election security controversy, explained
Quote – There’s a general consensus on the basic facts of what happened in May, although the Secretary of State and Tina Peters disagree about whether the actions violated any laws or Colorado’s election rules. On May 17 [2021], deputy clerk Belinda Knisley asked Mesa’s IT department to turn off security cameras in the Mesa County elections office, and leave them off until August 1. Peters says state law does not require nonstop video monitoring.
Click through for a clear and concise narrative. This article was followed by the bad news that Tina Peters will not seek reelection in Mesa County, but instead will run for Secretary of State. There is expected to be a crowded Republica primary – but, if she is allowed into it ans wins the nimination, the current Secretary of State, who is runing for reelection herself, will be between a rock and a hard place – Strike Peters from the ballot as she deserves, and face accusations of corruption? Or not? I personally think Jena Griswold can beat Peters – but she shouldn’t have to.

The 19th – Anti-‘woke’ bills could affect LGBTQ+ sensitivity training for eldercare, advocates worry
Quote – Last week, the Florida legislature advanced the Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees, or Stop WOKE, Act. It’s one of two state-level bills — the other is in Tennessee — that would address diversity training for private companies and nonprofit employees. Most similar legislation, including some already passed in Florida, has a narrower focus, such as banning LGBTQ books from school libraries or restricting what teachers can talk about. Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the Stop WOKE legislation at a December rally.
Click through for details of the issue. I saw a meme recently with the imaginary conversation: “R: What ever happened to civility? D: You called it political correctness and mocked it.” I think an addition is needed, to wit “R: What ever happened to democracy?” D: “You called it woke and destroyed it.”

Food For Thought:

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