It Seemed Like a Simple Question. The Answer Was Not So Easy to Find.

There's been a lot of talk (hysterical shrieking is probably more like it) about the imagined problems of homosexual people, the imagined influence they would have particularly on minors, and now more specifically about "drag shows," and the imagined influence they would have on minors.

The idea, presumably, and often explicitly, is that homosexual people, sometimes supposedly parading around in clothes characteristic of the gender the homosexual people are not, would not only influence minors (to become homosexual themselves -- and it's never explained what's wrong with homosexuality), but would in some sense prey on heterosexual minors, so they could either convert them to homosexuality, or just molest them.  The presumption is that homosexual people are not content, and satisfied with each other, and they want to conscript heterosexual people to become homosexual.  No reason is given.

So, I have to confess that I have an impression about sex crimes, or abuse, or what we used to call molestation.  I haven't studied it.  I just think I have been aware of a trend, at least among the anecdotes we all hear and read.  My impression is that most molestation, or sexual abuse, is heterosexual.  And I got curious enough to look it up.

It's not easy to find.  There are several or many sources that track the gender of person most likely to be molested (female), but almost none I could find that characterize the predators.  Who preys on these girls?  Other females (demonstrating the danger of homosexuals in contact with minors)?  Or males (demonstrating the danger of heterosexuals in contact with minors)?

I typed into Bing "percentage of sexual crimes that are heterosexual," and I found this: The proportions of heterosexual and homosexual pedophiles among sex offenders against children: an exploratory study - PubMed (nih.gov)  Over 30 years old, I know.

If you look at the abstract (summary of the findings of the paper), you will see that heterosexual molestation/abuse is 11 times more common than homosexual abuse.  So, if we're concerned about anyone sexually corrupting or taking advantage of our children, we're far more worried about people of the other gender from our children than we are about people of the same gender.  We have simply (and wrongly) invented the idea that our children, or we, have anything to fear from homosexual people.

In another paper (2015MediaPacketInsertsFINAL508.pdf (nsvrc.org) it was said that "96% of people who sexually abuse children are male," and "91% of the victims of sexual assault and rape are female."  This appears overwhelmingly to suggest that the problem, or the cause, of sexual mistreatment of any kind is heterosexual, and that the specific pattern is males mistreating females.

But even if we irrationally (with respect to these studies) wanted to tell ourselves not only that homosexual people are in any sense sexually dangerous or predatory to our children, but more specifically that "drag shows" were corrupting and seductive, we have a problem (at least regarding the "drag shows").  I myself am not interested in "drag shows," and I don't attend them.  (I've seen examples of them in movies like "The Rose," "Connie and Carla," "The Crying Game," and "The Birdcage.")  But it is my general impression that they commonly take place in bars and other such venues.  Minors are not allowed in bars.  So "drag shows" are no danger to minors.

But if we stick to the studies, and if we further imagine that childhood experience greatly influences adult behavior and choices (GUILTY!!), we would be on much more solid ground if we wanted to shield our children from anything that looks like a heterosexual display.  Or even interaction.  We're talking here about co-ed schools, teachers who are of different gender from some of the students, sports events where females might root for males, or vice versa, proms (or dating people of the other gender before -- or even after?; or ever? -- age 18), or any of a wide number of opportunities for people of one gender to impress, and have an effect on, or be in the presence of, people of the other gender.  I have a female friend who refuses to be treated by male doctors.  I can't convince her that all doctors are alike, because they're doctors.  They're not different, because of their personal genders.  Is she right, because a male doctor will molest her?  Or is she counterintuitively wrong, because if "drag shows" can seduce minors into being homosexual, then maybe being evaluated and treated by a doctor of the same gender as the patient can lead the patient to become homosexual?  (Again, setting aside anyone's opinion of what's wrong with homosexuality.)  Or are we only worried about male doctors treating female patients if the male doctors are dressed as females?  If we (wrongly) think homosexuality is caused by things like looking at homosexuals (assuming that we tell ourselves that all transvestites are homosexual), and males should not be able to see other males dressed as females (because that's where our problem exists -- or is it?  Do we not want males to be in the presence of other males dressed as females, or we don't want them to be in the presence of females, at least for the sake of the females, or we're not worried about males at all, and they can attend "drag shows," because it's females who get molested?), shouldn't we also decide that we wouldn't want our children to grow up to be clowns, so they shouldn't go to circuses?  Or we wouldn't want them to be politicians, because politicians, as everyone knows, are corrupt, so they shouldn't learn about civics or American history in school?  And if they ask us who George Washington or Abraham Lincoln or FDR or JFK or Donald Trump or Joe Biden is, we could shrug our shoulders, and give them a mindless expression.

The whole crusade against "drag shows" is irrational and wholly ill-conceived.  It's rancid meat for hungry dogs, but it has no actual meaning.  And it does not in any way address the asserted concern.

Bizarrely, and Disturbingly, Captivating to Watch

You know how people talk about somehow feeling compelled to look at an accident scene, maybe with a visible corpse, or pieces of one, when they're passing by, and they also feel like they don't want to see it.  It's like that.

I own a DVD copy of Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine."  I know I saw it once after I bought it, and I might have seen it once before that.  I watched it again yesterday.

It goes deeper than I remembered it.  It's an intense and unflinching exploration of the guns in America problem.  And the problem, as Moore crystalizes it, is not the guns.  It's the Americans.  Where the gun advocates say "guns don't kill people; people do," they're right.  People who more than anyone else in the world think they should kill people kill people.  (Clearly, you wouldn't want to give such easy access to guns to such murderous people, but Moore leaves that logic to you to figure out.  In fact, he talks about his own earlier years, and what an award-winning crack shot he was, and how he is or had been a lifelong member of the NRA.)

I know Moore is a well-known left winger.  I wouldn't argue with anyone who says he is.  But as I watched, I couldn't find anything that didn't seem to be an accepted, and specified, fact.  If you know Moore's style, he doesn't argue with people, and he's frankly very polite and deferential.  He's soft-spoken and even-tempered.  He's just focused.  And you can't really argue with his focus.  In my opinion, he doesn't say one word that anyone would consider untrue.

He's not at all in this documentary the only person to say so -- he's not even the main person to say so -- but we have a problem.  It's a big problem.  We are dramatically obsessed with killing each other, with guns.  This documentary was made in 2002.  At the time, the country with the second highest rate of gun murders had around 300 the previous year.  At that time, we had over 11,000.  We're way off the charts, and it's gotten much worse since then.

The thesis Moore seemed to uncover is that we're overwhelmed by fear.  Moore produced documentation that fear, like sex, sells --  so the various media are constantly telling us what they encourage to imagine is threatening -- and our fixation on finding things to fear leads us to counterattack.  Or, as some might experience it, protect ourselves.  But from what?  The bogeymen we invent, or that are invented for us?

What most commentators in this documentary concluded was that we wrongly imagine that African-Americans are a pervasive threat, and shows like "Cops" are always focusing on African-Americans who are apprehended, and manhandled, by the police.  And it's not just African-American people.  There was even a segment on "Africanized" bees, which it seems don't actually exist, or never came to this country.  I read an article one time that said that all of our anti-drug laws were stimulated by fear, insecurity, and inadequacy feelings by Caucasians regarding people who are not Caucasian.  Michael Moore and his sources are not the only ones who have concluded this.  One caricaturish and ridiculous to the point of being comical (not for the victims of it) example is the difference in sentencing depending on whether a drug crime involves powdered cocaine, which was more common in Caucasian communities, and crack cocaine, which was more common in African-American communities.

Anyway, that was Moore's thesis: that artificial fear motivates excessive gun violence in this country.  What we are fed to fear is whatever is easiest to sell.

As I said, I own a copy of this DVD.  If you still have a DVD player, as I do, you're welcome to borrow it.  I would just like it back.

Don't Take MY Word For It.

How hate has become the GOP's main political weapon (msn.com)

At first, I was going to excerpt early parts of this article.  But as I read, I realized there was almost none of it I shouldn't excerpt.  So you can read it for yourselves.  And you should.

This comes from an online publication called "Raw Story."  As best I can tell, it is decidedly left wing.  But I couldn't find anything in this article that didn't seem "fair and balanced," that wasn't based on agreed history, that wasn't a quote, and, for what it's worth, the author took into account dynamics of human nature (and even animal behavior, although he didn't call it that) that were 100% accurate.

For what it's also worth, the author mentions that his father "referred to himself as an 'Eisenhower Republican.'"  The author does not reveal his own political affiliation, and frankly, in view of the discussion he presents, it doesn't matter.  Eisenhower would, of course, be written off as a "RINO" today.  And frankly, not having been aware enough of these matters back then (I was too young), I don't know what made Eisenhower a Republican then.  The article states he was concerned about, or opposed to, McCarthy, who was a Republican of the type we see today.  For all I know, maybe McCarthy planted the seeds of today's Reps/cons, although he certainly had adequate support from a lot of people, including elected people, back then.

And as the author also summarizes, there's no difference between McCarthy, today's Reps/cons, and any other autocrats, demagogues, and hate-mongers.

I don't know how much of this attitude characterized Dems in the past.  It seems starkly clear that Lincoln would not be part of the "Party of Lincoln" today.  He'd resign as many of the less unbalanced ones are now doing.  And Reps and Dems, as is common among groups of people who have what they consider territories, have done a strange dance, so that today's Reps espouse what past Dems used to espouse.  (I'm thinking here about "states' rights," and how all the people who used to be southern Dems are now Reps.)  They just switch agendas, so they can continue to disagree with each other.  That's no doubt a somewhat more subtle reflection of the "hate" Thom Hartmann describes in this article.  Hate is not only more powerful than love, as Hartmann puts it, but it's more powerful than common sense or rational thinking.

The fact is that I myself don't disagree with some of the planks in the Rep/con platform (although I do disagree with them about the two supposedly most salient ones -- low taxes, especially to benefit the people who already have the most money, and government small enough, as Grover Norquist wisecracks, to drown in a bathtub).  And the couple of areas where I agree have no business being part of  the platform.  I agree because I think Dems are sometimes wrong, and sometimes go too far.  I don't agree because I'm filled with hate for things I can't even be bothered to think through.

But the point of the article is that today's Republican Party is essentially morally meaningless and bankrupt, and it uses as its central unifying factor "hate."  The appeal is to the most primitive of human characteristics: uses and thems; identification of an enemy or bogeyman.  The article explains some of the psychological and group dynamic factors that make that strategy work, as it has worked in other settings and at other times.

To give one example that I mentioned recently in another post, I sign a number of petitions about various things, if I agree with them.  Sometimes, the recipients of the petitions are Florida US Senators.  Although I most commonly get brief and unenlightening boilerplate pablum from Marco Rubio (as a response), I sometimes get a significantly longer discussion.  But the discussion is a mention of what bills Rubio has introduced about the subject at hand, and his people (whoever writes these responses) NEVER fail to criticize Democrats.  It's as if disagreeing with Democrats -- Rubio seems incapable of not disagreeing with Democrats, about anything (his response could just address the issue at hand, which has nothing to do with Democrats, instead of gratuitously and pathetically taking irrelevant swipes as Democrats, or Jor Biden) -- is an important or critical factor in his decision-making.  It's as if hatred of Democrats is the oxygen Rubio breathes, and upon which he depends to stay alive.

As another example of this problem, many Americans, and most certainly and concertedly Republicans, were, and still are, militantly anti-Communist.  They see, or allege, Communism where it's not clear it exists.  But if they're given a choice between confronting Vladimir Putin, who was a very active USSR/Communist functionary, and now as much of a Russian dictator as Stalin was, and who is pursuing an alliance with Xi Jin-Ping (that Chinese Communist leader),or taking any position that will disagree with Democrats, and especially Joe Biden, they reflexly, mindlessly, magnetically, rush to the latter.  Their blind hatred of Democrats prevents them from thinking straight, or even in any remotely consistent way adhering to their own agenda.

So, I suggest you read this article, and I'm afraid I'm left with no other conclusion than to ask you to "read [it] and weep."  It's very sad.  We've fallen a very long way from Hartmann's father's "Eisenhower Republican."  And we've become increasingly, and desperately, dysfunctional because of the fall.

I'm Always Interested in a Good and Logical Argument. If It's Good and Logical.

George Santos releases bold statement pushing back against calls for his resignation (msn.com)

I get it.  Santos argues that he should remain in office, because "[he] was elected by the people."  On the surface of it, that's certainly as should be.  In my opinion, Marjorie Greene, Lauren Boebert, Ron DeSantis, Marco Rubio, and Rick Scott should remain in office, because they were elected by the people.  Donald Trump was a different story, because he was never elected by the people, but he got in the first time on the technicality known as the Electoral College.  The problem here is that "[he]" -- George Santos -- was not elected by the people.  Some imaginary person invented by George Santos was elected by the people.

And Santos adds, with his now characteristic lack of what Tulsi Gabbard calls "shame," that we don't want "lying," or specifically, according to Santos, that we don't want him to lie.  I agree with him.

When he uses euphemisms, like that he only "embellished" -- made up things that were not remotely true -- but didn't lie, he really makes the situation worse.

To more clearly understand the hole Santos has dug for himself, when he alleges that "the people" elected "[him]," "the people" have tried to tell him otherwise.  Not only do his House of Representatives colleagues want him out, but even the people who voted for "[him]" want him out.

One way of understanding Santos' argument, which started possibly before Santos was born, and soared into the stratosphere with Trump, is what Lee McIntyre in this linked article calls "Post-Truth."  Such a concept is completely mind-boggling, like "alternate facts," and it leads to an expectation that nothing is real, and nothing has to be real.  You just have to say whatever you want, and that becomes the new framework.   "Post-Truth" technically means after truth, and it very clearly implies that we're no longer dealing with truth.  Perhaps we no longer feel a commitment to it.  Santos can say he graduated from any college(s) or university(ies), that he worked for anyone, that's he's also a self-taught brain surgeon, that he invented the light bulb, or whatever he wants.  He calls these assertions..."embellishments."  They're not strictly and technically specifically correct in the usual understood sense, but if he thinks them, then they can feel sort of true to him, which makes them true.  Unless he's just lying, which he reassures us he's opposed to doing.  Unless that's a lie, too.  Once you unhook yourself from the truth, or any responsibility to it, there's no place you can't go.

Oddly, McIntyre says that the scarier thing than lying is getting away with it.  McIntyre needs to do a bit more research.  Getting away with lies is very old news.  If all the snake oil salesmen weren't long dead, he could ask them.

It would be inclusive and right to say that someone should have "fact-"checked Santos' extensive profusion (is that redundant?) of lies a long time ago.  The media and journalists in his area of New York should have been more on the case, and the people who voted for him (and now regret it, and want him out) should have been at least a little more surprised, and maybe skeptical (that such a young and unheard-of guy claimed such impressive accomplishments).  And that's not wrong.  A lot of people fell down on the job.  Which they shouldn't have.  But none of that excuses Santos from coming up with all this insane nonsense.  That was his choice.  There are people in jail right now, like that Holmes woman from California, for doing exactly what George Santos did, although for a different purpose.  It's certainly fair to say that Santos might be on the path to joining them, but even that fact, and whatever realization of it he permits himself, hasn't stopped him, or even led him to resign (which it seems the vast majority of people keep telling him they want him to do).  Rep Robert Garcia (D {I know}-- Calif) says "nobody wants him in DC."  If you can consider that to be other than partisan, it's a hell of a statement.  (Maybe Ted Cruz wants Santos there, because now, Cruz is the second most unpopular elected person in DC.)  I haven't seen any evidence that it's not true, except, of course, that Santos wants himself in DC.  My guess is that that tenacious desire is going to cost him big.

I said, in the title, that I'm always interested in a good and logical argument, but Santos isn't giving me anything to work with.

I Sort of Wish I Ever Knew That Level of Gymnastics. Although I Would Have Used It Better.

In 1989, I bought a Miami Herald cartoon from Jim Morin.  The short character on the left was a little African-American kid who had a list of "Budget Cuts," including "Education," "Child Care," "Dropout Prevention," and "Prenatal Care for Poor."  On the right was a larger character wearing a name tag that said "Gov Bob [Maritnez]," holding a sign that said "Protect the Unborn," and thumbing the little kid away, with a caption that said "Get Lost!! You've Already Been Born."  1989 was 34 years ago, but the dynamic, and the message, are the same.

 Here's a spin that's so twisted that it would only be fair to call it a twist:  Okla. lawmaker says Bible endorses corporal punishment of disabled children (msn.com)

So, in Oklahoma, they oppose abortion, but once you're born, it's open season on you, and they love capital punishment.  And kids?  Have at 'em!  You can knock 'em around anywhere you like, including in school.  Who cares if they're intellectually impaired, and "probably don't understand why they're receiving corporal punishment?"  The purpose of this is not for the kids' betterment.  It's to provide an outlet for sadistic and enraged teachers.  It's easier than shooting fish in a barrel, because you don't need a barrel full of fish.

And in the red state of Oklahoma, they do not, contrary to what they would otherwise like to allege, leave matters like rearing children to the families.  No, the school system wants to take a "whack" at it themselves.  

This level of gymnastics of the state legislature had to overcome what the legislator who introduced the bill thought was bipartisan support, and school board "rules" that were technically not "laws" (against committing battery against school students).

The legislator who introduced this bill for consideration cited a call from a US Marshal who complained that his autistic daughter got spanked three times in a day for not doing her math correctly.  Never mind the United Nations, which considers corporal punishment of children to be a human rights violation, or the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association, which believe beating on children at school actually causes academic, emotional, and behavioral problems.  We're not talking science here.  We're talking one of the bibles, although it's left unclear which one.  "'God's' word," other legislators said, "is higher than all the so-called experts."  They offered a few "quotes" of "god's" words, to make clear what "god" thinks.  Or thought.  Or is said in varying places to have opined.

The legislator who introduced this bill is himself a "minister," and he doesn't fully disagree with the idea of committing battery on children in school.  He was just proposing to restrict battery on the "disabled" ones.  And as a "minister," he knows all about the bible(s).  The Old Testament, for example, has, according to this minister, "about 4000 laws."  Well, it's 613, but there's no need to quibble with a real expert, like a minister.  And this minister said what might be the most important thing about this matter: "Why don't we follow all the Old Testament laws?  [Doesn't he know that the New Testament dismissed almost all of them?] There's about 4000 of them, and one of them is to not allow [we'll overlook the split infinitive: you know, we're talking Oklahoma here] wives to wear jewelry, or [to] stone your child if they're disobedient.  Why don't we do that?  Because we pick and choose what we want to follow."  

Truer words, it is said, were never spoken, by anyone.  It's an extremely rare person who takes religion seriously, even if they claim to believe in it, and even if they claim to honor it.  It's a badge.  It's cultural.  It's a fun jumping off point for most people.  If anyone thinks I'm not a believer, they should talk to the alleged believers.  Like that "minister."  At least I admit there's no such thing as "god," and religion is fake.

Well, the imagined "bipartisan support" this Oklahoma legislator was expecting, just to protect "disabled" kids, fell apart in a hurry, and his proposed bill didn't pass.  To be fair to the Oklahoma legislature, there were more votes in favor (45) of the bill than votes against it (43), but it needed 51 to pass.  So, if you have young'uns, and you move to Oklahoma, just know you're not the only one disciplining them.  And if you don't think children should be hit, or you don't like the discipline they get in school, that's your problem.

Wallgreens: Two Strikes, and You're Out

Many people want children.  And that's great.  No one wants as many children as they could possibly have.  And that's fine.  It makes a lot of sense.  There aren't families where the adult female is "barefoot and pregnant" most of the time, and the families have 20 or more children.  Pregnancy is either easy or it's almost impossible.  People strategize as to how to be intimate, which more or less everyone wants, and not have a pregnancy result from the intimacy.  Most of the strategizing involves how to avoid pregnancy.  Some of it involves how to...undo a pregnancy that resulted when no one wanted it.  I have a little more insight into the (personal) religious reasons why someone would object to undoing a pregnancy than I have into the political reasons someone would object, unless they're actually the same reasons.  But then, we're stuck with the problem of why someone would want to live in a country that Constitutionally guarantees "separation of church and state," when they actually don't want church and state to be separate.  I wonder how that conversation would go.

A year or more ago, Walgreens got into the news because some pregnant woman, whose fetus had died in utero, presented a prescription (presumably from an obstetrician/gynecologist), and the medication prescribed would have expelled the dead fetus.  The pharmacist on duty queried the woman as to whether or not she was pregnant -- technically, she was -- and based on his personal religious beliefs, he refused to fill the prescription, because it would have cause what he decided to interpret as an abortion.  (Duh.  That was the whole point.  And an abortion of what?)  The articles I read at the time were unclear as to how this was resolved -- whether some other pharmacist on duty at that Walgreens filled the prescription, on the basis of not having the same and equally rigid and mindless religious beliefs, whether the woman went to a different Walgreens, whether she went to another drug store, or what.

Now, Walgreens is in the news again -- and the focus of a number of petitions I'm asked to sign -- for refusing to dispense mifepristone, colloquially known as the "abortion pill" -- in states in which Walgreens fears it would be sued for dispensing this medication, likewise presumably prescribed by an OB/GYN doctor.  (But they'll dispense it in states in which they don't have reason to think they'll be sued.)

But here's the thing about Walgreens.  It has chosen to be a large chain of drug stores.  It sells other products, too, but it's mainly a drug store.  It's job as a drug store is to dispense drugs prescribed by doctors.  Walgreens is not a religion, and it's not a political party.  It's not a shoe store, or a chain of electrical contractors.  It could be any of those, but it has chosen to be a drug store.  "It doesn't take a rocket scientist," as they say, to conclude what Walgreens should do with a prescription issued by a doctor.

There was a time when Alcoholics Anonymous militantly urged its members not only not to drink alcohol, or abuse other substances, but not to take medications prescribed by a psychiatrist.  They viewed those medications as intending to change how patients felt.  And if you're going to take something to change how you feel, then it's not a far cry, according to AA, to drinking, or shooting heroin.  (AA has abandoned that ill-conceived crusade.)  And I wouldn't rule out the possibility that some Walgreens employees, or even pharmacists, had been active alcoholics, and were perhaps even still AA members.  But they would have no business refusing to fill prescriptions written by psychiatrists, because they themselves might not have wanted to take these medications, for AA's then "reasoning."

I had reduced my patronage of Walgreens over the matter of the woman carrying the dead fetus.  I'm completely done with them now.  I saw an article as recently as yesterday indicating that Walgreens is already feeling the results of its cowardice, and perhaps rethinking its role and purpose in society and American commerce and "health care."  It's unclear to me today if I would ever again buy anything from Walgreens.  But we'll see how this further evolves, if it does.

I Don't Believe in the Inferences About Astrological Signs, Either.

Everybody's different.  It's true that all people born in the same general place at about the same time (decade, century, millennium) are influenced by many of the same prevailing trends, but it would be a mistake to assume that all of these people are in any sense the same, in their beliefs, for example.

So, here's an article:  Women’s rights have gone ‘too far’, say majority of Gen Z and millennials, study shows (msn.com)

For your information (or perhaps for mine), "baby boomers" are considered to be people born from 1946 to 1964 (the "boom" in families and childbirth after WWII), "Generation X," whatever that's supposed to imply, is people born from 1965 to 1980, "Millennials" are people born from 1981 to 1996, and "Generation Z" is people born from 1997 to 2012.  Most of these, except "baby boomers," are 15-year intervals.  And these "majorities" were very small, and not consistent: men thought women's rights had gone too far by a little.  Women though women's rights had not gone too far by significantly more.

There are two things of interest in this Pew poll.  One is that it's just people's opinions, and it doesn't include much about why people feel this way.  But the other thing, on the other hand, is that some people did reveal that they're now afraid to speak in favor of women's rights, because they're afraid of the response: "reprisals," for example.  (Not because they don't really feel this way!)  But none of this gives us any sense as to whether women's rights is a good thing or a bad thing, and if the latter, what's wrong with women's rights.  Women's rights certainly shouldn't be a problem for women.  If they have more/equal rights, they're now in a position to exercise them.  If they have more rights than they want, they don't have to exercise them.

Of note, women's rights in Britain (that's where this poll was taken) are referred to as "progress."  On the surface of it, this sounds like a good thing.  And the only complaint specified is that "38% of [British people] feel that men are [now] expected to do too much to support equality."  This is a very interesting complaint.  The men were presumably not complaining when women had fewer rights, and less equality, but they're complaining once they're essentially asked to make equal room for women.  The article doesn't say the men feel that they're at some sort of comparative disadvantage at the moment, but that could underlie their complaint.  Why, in effect, should they have to work hard to provide rights and equality for women, when a woman's equal place in society could be seen as at a cost to the men?  It's competition they didn't have before.

And this reflects precisely a complaint made by some Americans, regarding African-Americans.  The way the complaining Caucasian Americans put it, they feel like there's racism against them, the Caucasian Americans, because of the elevation of African-Americans.  They don't understand how wrong they are in how right they are.  Yes, of course elevating African-Americans, sometimes at a preferential cost to Caucasian Americans, feels to them like a disadvantage, or like a form of prejudice.  But none of them were complaining when the shoe was on the other foot, and African-Americans were (and in many respects still are) placed at every possible disadvantage, in favor of Caucasian Americans.  If you take any situation that is badly out of balance, and you rebalance it, so it's fair, of course the former beneficiaries of the imbalance are going to think they've been treated unfairly.

A few years ago, GableStage put on a play called "Admissions."  It was about two high school friends, one Caucasian American, and the other African-American, who apply for admission to the same college.  I doubt any college or university is so unpopular that it can accept everyone who applies for admission, and this one couldn't, either.  It seems to me it might have been Ivy League.  So, they accepted the African-American and not his Caucasian American friend, because the African-American was...African-American.  The punchline is pretty obvious.  Caucasian Americans, or men, weren't complaining when African-Americans, or women, were boxed out for racial or gender reasons.  And the correction is going to leave the Caucasian Americans, or men, feeling as if they've been treated unfairly.  Which, in a sense, they have.  But they haven't been treated badly.  They just didn't get preferential treatment any more!  The attempt to rebalance what was out of balance, which represents what one Briton called "progress," is going to withdraw from someone an unfair advantage they got accustomed to having.  To rebalance what has long been imbalanced is going to give someone else preferential treatment.  You kind of have to see the big picture, and realize that that's OK.  It's at your expense this time, instead of being at the expense of women, or African-Americans?  Yeah, it is.  Were you complaining before?  If you think you have a basis for complaint now --that not everyone is treated the same -- you should have complained before, right?

How Impolite. How Ungrateful.

Kevin McCarthy (secretly?) gave extreme amounts of video recordings from 1/6/21 to Tucker Carlson.  It's beyond my ability to guess why on earth McCarthy would have done that.  But Carlson and his lackeys pored over the tapes, and they extracted a couple of very short segments that seemed to show people who were not government officials milling around in the Capitol building.  And during those very short segments, it appeared as if none of these people was doing anything wrong (apart from the fact that they were there, unauthorized, and not part of a tour).  Carlson did admit that some people that day were "hooligans," but he suggested that most were just these well-behaved and curious visitors.

A year or so ago, someone else excusing the 1/6 events said the non-government intruders were basically...tourists.  And that person didn't say anyone was a "hooligan," or causing any trouble.

You kind of had to be in your own orbit not to recognize, and be overwhelmed by, the violence of the intrusion, and the destruction done that day.  Neither Carlson nor anyone else who offered to excuse this has explained how some people wound up dead.

But the question is this.  If all these intrigued, perhaps appreciative, people were there, immersing themselves in the splendor that is the US government in its Capitol, where were the electeds?  There must have been members of the House of Representatives and Senators in the building.  They had a big and important meeting scheduled that day.  The Vice President was in that building (he led the meeting), and he was shown being whisked away.  It's unclear if he knew about the "Hang Mike Pence" signs outside, but if he did, he must have misunderstood them to have been hostile, and to have meant there was any possibility of danger to him.  Pence might have not have realized that "Hang Mike Pence" is affectionate and appreciative, sort of like "Bless His Heart."   The President had just given a speech there, and was very close by, for hours.  Why were they all scurrying away, escorted by Capitol police?  Why didn't the President hurry right back, to bask among the crowd of people who were no doubt there to bask in his presence?  He was only a few minutes away.  He wasn't busy with anything else.  He was watching all of this unfold on TV.  Every one of these electeds should have come right down, to mingle with their constituents -- these visitors and tourists -- to thank them for the confidence they had in them, the support they showed by voting for them, and the income.  (They do cash the checks, right?)

In fact, all the Supreme Cout Justices could have popped over, too.  And even Tucker Carlson.  Maybe someone would have broken out wine and cheese, and passed hors d'oeuvres.  You don't get a gathering like that every day.

What's to fear from visitors and tourists?  Every government official from both major parties seemed to think this was a dangerous situation.  At least they acted as if they thought that.  And so did the Capitol police.  How could they all have so completely misunderstood?  I bet all those visitors and tourists were disappointed not to have had the opportunity to shake a hand or get an autograph.  Presumably, that's what they were there for.  Is that what happened?  Did they get frustrated because they didn't get to meet their heroes, every one of whom was skulking away, as if it wouldn't have been a pleasure and great fun to interact with the public?   They would have had all day: a quick vote to certify an election, the result of which was that the majority of voters got what they wanted (we love that!), and it's party time.  What a foolishly missed, and patriotic, opportunity for all.

More About Abortion

This is clearly a topic that will never go away as a point of often passionate contention.  It's a curiosity of the American people and their twisted and non-representative government, likely worth mentioning, that most Americans favor abortion access, while local, state, and sometimes federal governments manage to compose themselves of people who don't favor abortion access.  So these governments rule against what their constituents want.  I suppose they find some way to sleep at night, taking money from people in order to frustrate or disappoint them, or ruin their lives.

In any event, the anti-abortion crowd like to sensationalize and provoke the issue by alleging that people who favor abortion access approve of abortion up to the moment of birth.  These anti-abortionists never make clear whence they get this conclusion.  But let's take a look at their assertion.  And let's keep in mind that by definition, people who get abortions are pregnant, and don't want to be.  No one should have any trouble presupposing that people who don't want to be pregnant have a good reason not to want to be pregnant, and they have done something to try to prevent themselves from getting pregnant.  Whether anyone looking back on it would say that whatever these people did to try to prevent pregnancy was or wasn't most likely to succeed is another matter.  If you want to know which method of contraception is 100% guaranteed to prevent pregnancy (apart from abstinence, and assuming the woman who intended to be abstinent didn't get raped), the answer is none.

So, two people are sexually active together.  They did whatever they thought they should do to prevent pregnancy (pregnancy is not only rare compared to the number of episodes of sexual intimacy, but it's very much not desired the vast majority of the times), but pregnancy occurs.  How does a woman know she's pregnant?  The first clue is that she misses a menstrual period.  Technically, the first time that happens is about two weeks after insemination, but if she's not regular anyway, then she really doesn't know this --that she missed a menstrual period -- for sure for maybe three weeks after insemination.  Or more, depending on how irregular she commonly is.

The woman did not want to get pregnant, and her male partner probably didn't want this, either, but now, she is (or, in more politically correct parlance, they are).  Maybe she, and both of them, now have something to think about.  So we tack on some more weeks, for them to think about it, talk to each other, talk to family members or others, or whatever.

With this new, and previously unwanted, development, let's suppose they get attached to the idea of a new and unexpected, and unwanted, family, and they take a very deep breath, and decide to change their lives.  They might very well, however, have concerns about the health of the fetus.  It's a common and perfectly reasonable precaution to get an amniocentesis.  But you don't get that the day it occurs to you, so we tack on at least a couple or few more weeks.  During this time, our couple are of course still making sure they feel willing to do this thing they thought they protected themselves from having to do.

So the question is, when do the people who get abortions get them?  Is it, as the anti-abortionists say, any time, right up to the moment of birth?

Abortion in the U.S.: What the data says | Pew Research Center.  (That, of course, is wrong usage, because the word data is plural.  The singular is datum.  So it should have been "What the data say.)

Ninety-three percent of abortions occur during the first trimester (about 13-14 weeks).  I don't think anyone would argue with me if I said that was the vast, vast, vast majority of them.  And that's how long it takes to find out you're pregnant, get a pregnancy test or wait one more month, to be sure (if you're not regular anyway), think about it, talk to the important people in your life, and get an amniocentesis.  Six percent more occurred from weeks 14 to 20.  Would it be fair to say that 99% is essentially all of them?  (I've never heard of anyone getting an abortion at the moment of birth.  I don't believe it happens.  I think the anti-abortionists made this up.  I doubt anyone gets a third trimester abortion, and few or none other than early in the second trimester.  I do, however, have a friend who was pregnant years ago, and the fetus died in utero in about the seventh or eighth month.  I'm not an obstetrician, and I had no part of the advising or decision-making.  But the decision was to wait longer, for who knows what reason, and induce birth in about the ninth month.  But that was an already dead fetus, and I can't imagine anyone would be mischievous enough to call that maneuver a very late abortion.)

And if you want to know who gets an abortion, that Pew article talks about girls as young as 13.  Most abortions (57%) occur in women in their 20s.  And this was in 2020.  We're talking about women who were in college, graduate school, very likely not married or in stable relationships, and for whom the responsibility of a new baby would have been life-ruining.  At least not then.  Or maybe not ever.  Do they like physical intimacy?  Of course!  They're human.  But that doesn't mean they have to want children.

And I still say two things: 1) if your reason for opposing abortion is religious, and personal, you should, on the one hand, understand that your personal beliefs don't apply to everyone else, and on the other hand, if you think there's such a thing as "god," etc, then it's very possible you also think there's such a thing as the "devil."  If you do, then who do you think put that fetus in that 13 year old girl, or some 20-something whose life and ambitions will be ruined by having to trade it all in for motherhood, and welfare?  And 2) "If You Don't Believe in Abortion, Don't Have One."  If you want to complicate this, let me tell you it's not that complicated.  I think we talked about this.  You're not "pro-life."  If you're anti-abortion, it's overwhelmingly likely you're not opposed to capital punishment, nor to the shocking profusion of deadly weapons in private hands, way, way, way too many of which get used to assassinate other and commonly innocent people.

There should be a nice opportunity here, and both Democrats and Republicans are squandering it.  The Republicans who want to outlaw abortion completely, or limit it to six weeks, despite what their constituents want, simply have their heads "where the sun don't shine."  But considering the reality of it, the Republicans who propose a limit of 15 weeks are offering an extremely fair and reasonable proposal, and Democrats are fools for not making this as bipartisan as it should be, and as populist as it is.  This is what people want.  It's what they actually do.

I Actually Don't Know What "Woke" Means.

I'm sort of a stickler about language.  My offspring lovingly (I hope) call me the "grammar Nazi."

"Woke" is a verb, sort of, and it's the past tense of wake.  But it's sort of a sloppy usage, and the better way to say it is awakened.  Awoke isn't awful.  Although it can also be an adjective, but not a correct one, and the way to say that is awake.  I awakened or awoke someone, and they're awake.  That sounds like an advantage.

But "woke" has been perverted into a word with a meaning that really doesn't...mean anything.  It's used as a criticism of or insult to liberals.  As best I can tell, making my best effort to read between the lines, "woke" sort of means...well...liberal.  It's very nonspecific.  Conservatives use the word "woke" to mean any of a range of things, like being anti-racist, or opposed to police brutality, or permissive of personal choice regarding sexual preference, or permissive of personal choice about abortion, or almost anything for which liberals advocate.  I'm leaving aside entirely why conservatives don't advocate for the same things, since none of this affects them in any way.  But for whatever are their reasons, they don't advocate for those things (that most Americans want), and they call anyone who does advocate for them  "woke."

This past weekend, I visited friends who spend most of the winter on the Gulf Coast of Florida.  They're right on the coast, or on the western intracoastal (but with easy access to the Gulf), and they're so close to the water that they have a sailboat within very short walking distance of their apartment.  We met up at about dinner time Friday, I was there all day Saturday, and I left late Sunday morning.  Not that you have any reason to care, but we had a wonderful time together.  Except for one problem.  As it turns out, there's apparently an overwhelming algae bloom right now.  The term "red tide" was mentioned, but the water looked to me to be green.  The wife, who's very familiar with how the surroundings are supposed to look, said it looked a little brown to her.  And here's what happens when the algae is out of control.  Everyone coughs, even though you don't see anything that looks like a fog.  People who probably wouldn't otherwise wear masks wear them.  Fishermen don't catch any fish, because all the fish are dead.  (The algae sucks up all the oxygen, so the fish can't breathe, and the result is a "dead zone.")  If you go for a ride in your boat (we did), you soon enough just want to go back home, between the coughing and the extensive distribution of dead fish floating on the water.

I would be the first to admit that I had close to the dimmest possible view of Ron DeSantis when he first ran.  He presented himself as a MAGA and Trump sycophant, which indicated that he was really stupid.  (It's not clear to me how an Ivy League educated person can be that stupid, or how someone who doesn't have a head injury, dementia, or other brain disease, can get stupider over time, but he has.)  However, I must admit that when DeSantis first ran, I was frankly impressed that he claimed to take a great interest in Florida waterways, streams, and the Ocean and the Gulf, and he alleged that he was going to protect them.

So, here's how algae blooms and dead zones occur.  Those in the agriculture industry load massive amounts of fertilizer on various plants, trees, and groves, that fertilizer eventually washes into waterways and makes its way to places like the Gulf and the Ocean, it supercharges the algae, which massively overgrows, sucking up all the oxygen, and nothing else can grow.  So if DeSantis claimed he was going to do one thing in the interest of this state, he didn't do it.  It's actually gone the other way.

I was listening on the radio to stories about the various ways Reps/cons want to prioritize "business" above everything else, and that's what they're doing.  As my friend said, instead of DeSantis doing anything to protect the state of Florida and the people who live here, he dedicates himself single-mindedly to denigrating Democrats.

And DeSantis isn't the only one.  I get petitions all day, every day.  I sign many of them.  The ones that are directed to Florida's US Senators and our area's US Representative commonly result in some sort of boilerplate reply.  The replies that come from Rick Scott and Fredericka Wilson are devoid of content.  Many of the ones that come from Marco Rubio also lack content.  But some of Rubio's responses do have content.  And the content is always the same: he's offered a bill about just that matter, and the Democrats are terrible.  He can't even reply about any issue without trashing Democrats.

Well, I still don't know what "woke" means, except it seems to be some mindless mantra that comes from conservatives, and is intended somehow to suggest some unspecified insult to liberals.  I think if conservatives had an actual agenda, they'd communicate that instead.  At least I'm back home now, so I'm not coughing from algae fumes any more.  It would be nice to have a governor who gave a shit.