Yesterday, Talking Points Memo shared a link to an opinion piece on what has happened to Ken Buck – a topic which has had my brain running around in circles for a few months. The explanation is not completely satisfying, but it’s the most convincing I have seen. If anyone else cares (and I certainly wouldn’t blame you if you don’t), here’s the link. It is on Substack so there will be a popup to click. Since this was from Substack, and I had noted two other Substack articles – all from very different -authors – I decided to just go ahead and use all of them on the same day. So do remember the popups, and that when the screen darkens slightly, you may have to scroll down.
And today Margaret Atwood is getting a pacemaker. I realize what I’m about to share may have limited interest (although many of us were interested, to put it mildly, in The Handmaid’s Tale) but if even one person is interested, I think I should share it, because my sharing is the only way you are going to find it. On September 30, Ms. Atwood joined the Theater of War at the Toronto International Festival of Authors for a program “Patient and Impatient Griselda” which included both a dramatic reading – with professional actors – of Boccacio’s story Patient Griselda, and then Ms. Atwood reading her own story Impatient Griselda, narrated to a group of humans in quarantine by an alien which looks like an octopus. A complete video is now available here. Ms. Atwood starts at 34:01 (and I’ve set the YouTube link to start there), and when she finishes there is a lengthy group discussion, you dont need to continue. In case you haven’t guessed, all this is in aid of a domestic violence project.
Finally, Tom Emmer dropped out of the race for Speaker barelly four hours after he won the nomination. He is the majority whip so at least has a tiny bit of experience – which is more than the rest of them do. Sigh. But by 8:30 mountain hehad been replaced by Mike Johnson.
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Wonkette – Dollar General’s Creepy Pre-Employment Medical Exams Cost Them $1 Million
Quote – According to the lawsuit, the medical examination included the “taking of vital signs, the completion of a drug test, a vision test, a medical and health history questionnaire, a review of current medications, and a physical examination, including, in some instances, genital examination of job applicants.” It is hard to imagine what job, other than “porn star,” a genital examination might be necessary for, but God help us all if it’s “working at a Dollar General warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama.” Click through for details. Creepy is certainly the mot juste. I can’t help wondering who they think they are. (The Dollar General stores are creepy to me, too
Robert Reich – Thirty years later
Quote – I was in the White House Rose Garden in September 1993, when Bill Clinton hosted the now iconic handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat after they signed the Israeli-PLO peace accord. We were so optimistic, 30 years ago. Coincidentally, last night I had a reunion with about 60 members of my top team at the Department of Labor to mark 30 years since we came together. They’d been assistant secretaries, deputy assistant secretaries, other political appointees, and senior career professionals. Click through for article. They must have been quite a team. And yet – “we couldn’t stop the storm.” I know – I feel it too – it makes one want to wash one’s hands of the entire human race sometimes.
Glenn Kirschner – In NY fraud trial, Trump prepares to make mean faces at former lawyer turned witness Michael Cohen
The Lincoln Project – Appeasement
PBS – Amanpour & Company – Historian Heather Cox Richardson: GOP “Has Become an Extremist Faction”
It’s all good, but I cut off some at the beginning that I thought was more fammiliar to make it more watchable length-wise, and get straight to the nitty-gritty.
Liberal Redneck – Liberal Redneck – RFK Jr. Runs as Independent (ad in middle – ignore or skip)
Giant Dogs Get New Baby Brother To Look After
Beau – Let’s talk about Trump being worried about another candidate….
Yesterday being a holiday, the courts and everything else were closed, and in any case all eyes were on the Middle East. In that connection, I would say only that, just because a person belongs to a group which has actually, historically, been victimized (as opposed to, say, MAGAts, who who do a lot of whining but are no more victims than, oh, say American police union members) does not mean a person cannot be a jerk. Well, also, that pointing out that something a person is doing is morally questionable at best is not the same thing as calling that person an unmitigated moral degenerate. Screaming insults and accusations does not a conversation make. If I knew how to say that so that a substantial majority of humans would actually hear it, I definitely would. But I don’t. I do want to mention that Pat B.’s family has sustained a loss, and I don’t know, nor does she, how long she will be MIA, but it will be a while.
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Wonkette (Substack) – NYTimes Compares Conservatives Annoyed By Unhoused People To Parents Of Trans Kids Being Denied Healthcare
Quote – It’s lovely that they are happy, that they feel safer, and that they are not annoying the good people of Portland with their bullshit. Couldn’t be happier for them! But they’re also entirely ridiculous. Troy is a rural town with a population of 15,000, while Portland is a bustling metropolis with a population of about 641,000. Obviously there would be more crime there. There would also be less crime in any town in Oregon with a population of 15,000, owing to the fact that there are just fewer people to do any crime. That’s just math. In fact, it would likely be a lot more safe, as Missouri has the ninth highest violent crime rate in the nation, while Oregon ranks 36th. Troy is an exurb of St. Louis, the city with the highest crime rate in the United States. Portland? Portland has the 62nd highest crime rate of any city in the United States, even with all them liberal policies what so frightened the Huckinses. Oh, and St. Louis only has about a third of the population of Portland. Click through for article. Today’s FFT is from this article, and IMO summarizes it well.
Thomas Zimmer (also Substack – sorry) – Why America’s Elites Love to Decry “Polarization”
Quote – In the final third of the book, Klein himself emphasizes that we are not looking at a radicalization on both sides of the political spectrum. He emphasizes the difference between the Right, entirely focused on the interests and sensibilities of white conservatives, and a Democratic coalition that is much more diverse – ideologically, racially and ethnically, and in terms of cultural sensibilities: “Sorting has made Democrats more diverse and Republicans more homogeneous. As a result, appealing to Democrats requires appealing to a lot of different kinds of people with different interests.” (p. 230) As a matter of fact, Klein sees Democrats as extremely resistant to political extremism due to this heterogeneity of their supporters: “Democrats,” the author argues, “have an immune system of diversity and democracy.” (Why We’re Polarized, p. 229) Click through for full argument. While I certainly feel polarized, in that I feel that MAGA lunacy is the polar opposite of my beliefs, he’s right. True polarization requires both sides to be “the same” but in opposite directions. And both sides are not the same. Not in any way.
Yesterday, I saw Virgil (who returns all greetings, spoken and unspoken.) We played Scrabble, getting very liberal, even multilingual, especially the last game. But it’s all in fun. After I got home and posted my safe note, I was listening to tha radio and heard something I certainly never dreaned it was possible, and I’m not 100% positive how it was done. I heard four snare drum rolls (2 sets of 2) played by a classical guitarist, on the classical guitar. It was in an orchestral piece, transcribed for guitar, which starts with a little fanfare of two drum roll and then repeats it later. It was a piece I’m familiar with, so though they didn’t sound exactly like drum rolls, I recognized immediately what they were meant for. No transcription ever sounds exactly like the orchestral piece anyway, so I thought they were pretty darned good. My best guess is that he knocked or slapped the guitar through the open strings – but that’s quite a feat , since the parts of the strings that are directly over the sound box of the guitar are mostly over the sound hole.
I apologize for not making a graphic for Indigenoua People’s Day. The reason was that – there are so many tribes – all over the Americas – and every single one of them has rich cultural traditions and images – and every single tribe also survived over 2000 years by living sustainably. Even just in my corner of the United States there are multiple tribes with multiple traditions. And I didn’t want to leave anyone out, nor did I want to fall back on stereotypes, many of which are not even respectful. So I’ll just wish you a happy indigenous people’s day and leave it at that.
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TeenVogue – The Supreme Court Must Protect Domestic Violence Survivors By Overturning the Rahimi Decision
Quote – When I was a young girl living in South Carolina, my mother, Patricia Ann, was shot and killed by an abusive dating partner. He murdered her in front of my three younger sisters — who were 10, 11, and 12 at the time — with an sawed-off shotgun. He was a convicted felon who should never have had access to the firearm he used to take our mother away from us forever. My sisters and I are grown now, but we still feel her absence every single day…. The Fifth Circuit’s decision in Rahimi is putting domestic violence survivors living in the Fifth Circuit in danger right now. I know firsthand that this is not an abstract exercise. If the decision is not reversed, domestic violence survivors face the prospect that their abusers can arm themselves immediately. This ruling is a potential death sentence for countless women and families. Click through for article. If you had the idea that TeenVogue was a shallow, ditsy publication all about clothes, makeup, and maybe a little sex, hold that thought – for when you are around MAGAts. For the sake of democracy, never let them find out how woke it is. It is stepping in where schools and scared parents fear to tread – has actually been doing so for some time.
Colorado Public Radio – Colorado’s Black history — and future — go on display in a new unlikely center of Black culture: Boulder
Quote – [A] new exhibit at the Museum of Boulder, called “Proclaiming Colorado’s Black History,” gives the community and the state another chance to reflect on the past, celebrate the accomplishments of those who have persevered, and create joy for the future. The exhibit opened Sept. 29, and the museum plans to have it on display for two years. It comes shortly after a documentary released in 2022 called “This Is [Not] Who We Are,” which explores “the gap between Boulder’s progressive self-image and the lived experiences of its Black citizens,” and the opening of the university’s new Center for African and African-American Studies, which is meant in part to help build community…. Adrian Miller, the lead curator of the new Museum of Boulder exhibit… is conscious of the specific cultural moment when this exhibit is opening, three years after massive protests for racial justice, and amidst a celebration of Black culture in Boulder centered around the football coach. Click through for story and some pictures. CPR calls Boulder “unlikely” on the basis that Boulder is like 90% white and only 1% black. But the thing is, the main University of Colorado is there. And one of the things Republicans hate about education, especially higher education, is that academics tend not to shy away from research, from finding out truth, and then from sharing that truth. My only issue with this being in Boulder is hoping that fact doesn’t turn out to limit access.
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 don’t think much about scalping, not even in the colloquial sense of demanding exorbitant prices, and getting them because the goods in question are not available elsewhere. So I suspect that most people don’t think much about scalping either. But, since tomorrow is Indigenous Peoples Day, and scalping is associaed with indegenous people in the Americas, I thought it a good opportunity to bring up some real, unsanitized history in hope of helping to set the record straight.
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Indigenous Peoples Day offers a reminder of Native American history − including the scalping they endured at the hands of Colonists
The first encounters between European settlers and Native Americans are captured on a wood engraving in this 1888 image. DigitalVision Vectors
I am a scholar of Colonial-Indigenous relations and think that officially recognizing Indigenous Peoples Day – and, more broadly, Native Americans’ history and survival – is important.
Yet, Indigenous Peoples Day and Columbus Day should also serve as a reminder of the violent past endured by Indigenous communities in North America.
This past – complete with settlers’ brutal tactics of violence – is often ignored in the U.S.
My research on New England examines the important role that settlers’ wars against Native Americans played in their colonization of the region.
This warfare often targeted Native American women and children and was often encouraged through scalp bounties – meaning people or local governments offering money in exchange for a Native American’s scalp.
Understanding scalping
Scalping describes the forceful removal of the human scalp with hair attached. The violent act is usually performed with a knife, but it can also be done by other means. Someone can scalp victims who are already dead, but there are also examples of people being scalped while they are still alive.
In several Indigenous cultures in North America, scalping was part of human trophy taking, which involves claiming human body parts as a war trophy. Scalps were taken during warfare as displays of military prowess or for ceremonial purposes. But just because scalping was practiced by some Native American societies, it does not mean that it was practiced by all.
Eyewitness accounts, histories and even art and popular films about the American West have perpetuated the false idea that scalping is a uniquely indigenous practice.
White settlers’ wide use of scalping against Indigenous peoples is far less acknowledged and understood. In fact, Colonists’ use of scalping against Native American people likely accelerated this practice.
Various European American colonizers also scalped Native American people from at least the 17th through the 19th centuries. It was a way to provide proof that someone killed a Native American person. Several North American colonial powers, from the British to the Spanish empires, paid bounties to people who turned in scalps of killed Native Americans.
Scalp bounties in New England and California
Colonies, territories and states in what is now the U.S. used scalp bounties widely from the 17th through the 19th centuries.
Colonial governments in New England issued over 60 scalp bounties from the 1680s through the 1750s, typically during various conflicts between Colonists and Native Americans.
Massachusetts made the widest use of scalp bounties among the New England Colonies in the 1700s.
Massachusetts’ lieutenant governor issued one of the most notorious scalp bounty declarations in 1775. This declaration, called the Spencer Phips Proclamation of 1755, provides a glimpse into how this brutal system worked.
“For every scalp of such Female Indian or male Indian under the Age of Twelve Years, that shall be killed and brought in as Evidence of their being killed …, Twenty Pounds,” the declaration reads.
This reward was a large amount of money for Colonists, equivalent to more than 5,000 pounds, or US$12,000 in today’s currency. The scalp of a male Native American could fetch two and a half times this amount.
In the Colonial era, such violence was normalized by anti-Native American sentiment and a sense of racial superiority among Colonists.
And the violent trend was long-standing. As several historians point out, violence against and scalping of Native Americans also played a significant role in the conquest of California in 1846.
One historian has called California “the murder state” in the 1800s, as the scalping and massacres of Native Americans accompanied white settlers’ taking Native American land. State and federal officials, as well as several businesses, supported this genocide by paying bounties to scalp hunters.
From a contemporary perspective, the United Nations would consider the targeted killing of Indigenous women and children to be genocide.
The Spencer Phips Proclamation offered a bounty for Native Americans’ scalps in 1755. The town of Spencer, Mass., is named after this Spencer Phips, the former lieutenant governor of the colony. Journal of the American Revolution
Memory and violence
Centuries later, California and Massachusetts have had different responses to their role in these sordid histories.
California has acknowledged “historic wrongdoings” and the violence committed against the Indigenous people who live in the state. In 2019, California Gov. Gavin Newsom set up a a Truth and Healing Councilto discuss and examine the state’s historical relationship with Native Americans.
In Massachusetts, state officials have largely been silent on this issue. This places Massachusetts more in line with much of the United States.
This is true even as Massachusetts, under the leadership of then-Gov. Charlie Baker, put a special emphasis on genocide education in the school curriculum.
Legacies of scalping
The legacies of violence and scalping are deeply rooted and can be observed in numerous parts of U.S. society today.
For instance, various communities, including Lovewell, Maine, and Spencer, Massachusetts, are named after scalp bounty hunters. Locals are often not aware of the history behind these names. Such town names, and the history of violence connected to them, often hide in plain sight.
But if you look closely, from the writings of early Euro-American colonizers and American literature to popular sport mascots and state and town seals, the brutality wrought upon Indigenous people remains at the forefront of U.S. culture more than five centuries after it began.
============================================================== Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, let’s do what we can to dissociate scalping from being associted only with “savages” (or maybe stop thinking of savages as different population groups from our own and instead defining it on the basis of actions only.)
Incidentally, tomorrow is also still Columbus Day too. So in tomorrow’s video thread I’ll share a video (an old one from 2019) made for Full Frontal and featuring Deb Haaland.
Yesterday, now that we’re a week into October, Wonkette posted a link to the 20 Most Haunted Places in the World (not a Substack site.) Many of them, maybe most, are quite beautiful – if I were a ghost there, I’d likely stay too. Also, here’s a link about an incident from World War II which demonstrates just how dangerous classified informmation can be in the wrong hands (and mouths.) Finally, I received an email from Eric Swalwell advertising a closeout price on a Kevin McCarthy Catnip Toy: “While Kevin’s on his way to the litter box to try and salvage the mess he’s made of the GOP, our team’s throwing Kevin the celebration he deserves: A clearance sale. Our Kevin McCatnip toys are now marked down to just $15, so you can watch your cat bat Kevin around the living room the way you’d like to!” Tomorrow, I’ll be seeing Virgil, and will post when I get home as always.
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Grist – How does climate change threaten your neighborhood? A new map has the details.
Quote – If you’ve been wondering what climate change means for your neighborhood, you’re in luck. The most detailed interactive map yet of the United States’ vulnerability to dangers such as fire, flooding, and pollution was released on Monday by the Environmental Defense Fund and Texas A&M University. The fine-grained analysis spans more than 70,000 census tracts, which roughly resemble neighborhoods, mapping out environmental risks alongside factors that make it harder for people to deal with hazards. Clicking on a report for a census tract yields details on heat, wildfire smoke, and drought, in addition to what drives vulnerability to extreme weather, such as income levels and access to health care and transportation. Click through for article and map. I see the South is expecting below-freezing temperatures this weekend, except for Florida’s peninsula, whereas I’m expecting some warming. Go figure. I actually seem to have made a pretty good choice of where to live in view of climate change – not that anywhere is perfect, of course. Literally the entire world is endangered.
Wonkette – Jimmy Carter’s Solar Panels And The Mellow Allman Brothers Climate Paradise That Could’ve Been (OK, some of that headline may not be scrupulously fact-checked.)
Quote – Reagan reversed the clean energy initiatives Carter had put in place, a far more concrete rejection of renewable energy than the symbolic removal of the panels. Solar panels would return to the White House eventually. In 2002, the National Park Service installed solar electricity and water heating systems elsewhere on the White House grounds, although the George W. Bush administration chose not to publicize that. In 2014, Barack Obama installed a photovoltaic system on the White House roof. And in 2017, Jimmy Carter installed a solar farm on 10 acres of his peanut farm; it provides about half the electricity for Plains. Carter, who’s now in hospice care at home, celebrated his birthday quietly at home with Rosalyn, his wife of 77 years, and with his children and grandchildren. I’ll assume the party was lit by solar, too. Click through for full article. In 1976 none of us who weren’t scientists were all that accurate on what the answers were – and what they weren’t – and the scientists weren’t telling – or at least, not the truth. Jimmy was trying. Ronny rejected it all. I’ll go to my grave beliebing that the 1980 Presidential election was a catastrophe and a creator of more catastrophes – and I think I”ll be correct. I’ll for sure be in good company.
