Archive for the ‘2021’ Category
PRETENDING
A big part of the reason I’ve had trouble focusing is that it’s been a terrible year for me, quite easily the worst of my life. Started with my father dying in February. And over the course of the year I lost three of my oldest best friends. One to a cult, one to a bottle, and one betrayed me. More on them later. Add two failed romances, one of which got me briefly questioning my sanity, and it was a fun fun year. Oh, I’ve driven about 16000 Kilometres (10000) since July as well, I have stayed in a lot of motel rooms. In the background, Covid continues to rage due to the sterling efforts of the anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers. And of course Trump and the evangelical GOP continue their efforts to finish what they started January 6th, installing Trump in the White House in defiance of the law of the land. This is a good take on that mess: America witnessed a coup attempt. Now it’s sleep-walking into another disaster | Rebecca Solnit
On the plus side, lots of reflection about myself, my friends, and the world. So lots to blog about. And there is a certain amount of thread weaving it all together, leading to changes in how I think about a lot of things. And a good place to start is my stay in New York state, about 30 miles north of the city itself. I stayed there with an old friend from High School. First quality time I’d spent with him in decades, we’d always kept in touch and met every few years for a meal or something, so we had a lot of catching up to do. The thing of relevance though is the sad part. Yes dear reader, I spent three months watching my old friend … pretend to be sober. I mean that quite literally, he is physically dependent on alcohol and can only go 6-8 hours without a drink. So he’s drunk all day every day.
Made me wonder though, I mean there probably are a lot of people pretending things that just aren’t so. I guess it is a coping strategy, if not a very effective one. Which brings me to the other old friend, whom I’ve lost to a cult. Him and tens of millions of others are pretending Trump won the 2020 election. These people actually believe that Trump was cheated out of the win, and Biden’s rule is an unconstitutional tyranny. Huge numbers of them, I’ve met some, for them it’s a fact that Trump won the election but fraud stole it from him. And like 9/11 Truthers, the fact that there is zero evidence for their belief doesn’t phase them a bit.
And then there’s the God delusion. It’s reached epic narcissistic heights. IE the Evangelical right has absolutely convinced themselves that their invisible superfriend is real, and world events are seen through that lens. Like this guy for example: Shane Vaughn Declares That COVID-19 Is ‘The Forerunner of the Antichrist’. He says: God sent us Covid because too many Americans were hating on Trump. <blinks> Imagine, thinking there is an all powerful supernatural being who is going to unleash a global plague killing millions because some Americans don’t like Mr Trump. No need to imagine, Mr Vaugn thinks so and no doubt countless of his followers do so as well.
So yes, the common theme here is … the freaking country has gone insane. As above, so below. I’m not the only one who feels this way: Is America experiencing mass psychosis? It makes sense, a culture is an organism, and cultures have gone mad in human history. And not just delusional, stupid as well. Unable to debate in any meaningful way. Unable to argue or make a point.
Cue the Lauren Boebert quote above. Where to even start, there’s just layers of stupid here. More than half the country is reasonably tolerant, progressive, liberal. We don’t care who gets married as long as they are consenting adults, and we’ll respect whatever gender you are. Obama was elected twice, the Dems keep winning the popular vote. So no, some 20% minority isn’t the progressive cause, we’re the majority actually. And we’re not trying to indoctrinate anyone, we just want to live in a pluralistic nation where everyone’s beliefs are respected. You know, freedom, the thing the right claims to support. I tried to talk about this quote to a Boebert fan, and she couldn’t make an argument to save her life. Just kept throwing out irrelevant right wing talking points and calling my replies stupid.
And no one is claiming history is wrong, we just want it to be more inclusive. Like I said, there’s so much wrong with the quote I could write a book. And Mrs Boebert thinks she’s making sense, and so do her followers. Wow, just wow. And being a reasonably self aware human, I have to wonder, maybe the world hasn’t gone mad, maybe it’s me? I’ll have to think on this. Stay safe gentle reader, especially midwestern Americans, sounds like a hell of a storm is rolling in.
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Lauren Boebert tweet. Claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law, pretty sure her twitter posts are public record.)
AMERICA, THE FALL OF
I’m sorry I haven’t posted for a while. Personal issues on the one hand, and crushing dismay about the current situation in America on the other. For the third time this century I am filled with foreboding for what the future holds for America, knowing that we are headed down a dark path that’s not going to end well. The first was the aftermath of 9/11 and the launching of the “War on Terror.” I knew it was to unleash global violence and terror on a hitherto unknown scale. I tried to drink my way through the invasion of Iraq, but soon realised there wasn’t enough liquor in the world to make the horror go away. And it hasn’t, hundreds of thousands of dead innocents, millions displaced, entire nations turned into failed states and terrorist havens, trillions of dollars wasted, hundreds of thousands of American vets dead or scarred physically/mentally … and it just keeps going on like some cosmic juggernaut of blood and failure.
And then came Covid. I knew it was going to change everything, especially in a US that was especially ill prepared to deal with a global pandemic. And it certainly has, hundreds of thousands dead, our society torn apart, and the rich richer than ever. Third or fourth worst mass death event in US history. Almost everyone has lost someone they knew, I lost my dad. With no end in sight, though half of Americans are still in denial about it. And/or actively resisting efforts to fight it. Which leads us to number three …
Number three is the fact that maybe a third of the country has lost their minds and is living in a fantasy world completely detached from reality. Granted this has been happening more and more since the news turned into infotainment in the 1980s, but since Trump got elected the trend has significantly increased. QAnon is a great example. It’s been four years since the mysterious “Q” began posting messages about the imminent arrest of Hillary Clinton. No arrest yet, but the Q theories are more believed than ever: QAnon Is 4 Years Old and Believers Are Still Waiting for Hillary Clinton’s Arrest. And since Trump’s election defeat in November, it’s gotten vastly worse. His followers actually believe that the election was stolen from him and that the Biden administration is wielding some sort of Satanic/communist/socialist tyranny in America.
So I fear our near 250 year experiment in constitutional democracy is nearing its end. Trump is no Julius Caesar except in his own mind, but like Caesar, he is determined to bring down the republic and install himself as emperor. I think he will succeed, and it’s not going to be pretty. The GOP is doing everything in its power to get rid of the officials that opposed Trump’s baseless stolen election claims, disenfranchising poor and minority voters, and passing laws allowing GOP controlled state legislatures to overturn election results they don’t like. So I think the GOP will regain control of congress in 2022, and Trump will be back in the White House, effectively as president for life, in 2024.
I have no idea what is actually going to transpire, but the GOP isn’t playing by the rules anymore. (No one ever does once they convince themselves God is on their side.) Or more accurately, they are going to make up their own rules and play by them. No one knew exactly what the rise of Hitler was going to lead to, but plenty of people guessed it wasn’t going to end well. I’m starting to think that partitioning the country may well happen. Widespread violence is not out of the question. When Trump came to power there were already comparisons to Hitler. At the time I said they were overblown, Hitler was having his political enemies rounded up and killed the first year he was in office. That didn’t happen in 2017, Trump’s first year in office. It may well happen in 2025, Trump’s second first year in office. Some are certainly calling for it.
Future historians will no doubt spend centuries analyzing the rise and fall of the greatest empire ever known. And no doubt ultimately they will never know for sure. Hundreds of competing theories about the fall of the Roman Empire still exist, over 1500 years of debate has yet to come to a consensus. Well, other than “It was a lot of things.” The next few years are going to be a sheetshow in America. I hope I’m wrong. Stay safe everyone.
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: A section of “The Garden of Earthly Delights”. Credit: Heironymous Bosch c1450-1516)
COLONIAL BIAS ILLUSTRATED, SPACE STATIONS, SPACE SUITS, AND ELECTION NEWS OF THE DAY
A group of stone camel carvings in Saudi Arabia has turned out to be far older than anyone guessed. When scientists first examined them, they were thought to be about 2000 years old. A recent study puts them at 7000-8000 years old: Saudi Arabia camel carvings dated to prehistoric era This makes them about twice as old as Stonehenge or the pyramids at Giza. Quite the mystery, at this point there’s no real idea why people went to so much trouble, I mean this took a lot of work to carve these into cliff sides. The camel was domesticated right around the time they were carved, but that still doesn’t lead anywhere except into speculation. More images of them can be seen here: 2,000-Year-Old Rock Carvings of Camels Discovered in Saudi Arabia
Note that last headline: 2,000-Year-Old Rock Carvings of Camels Discovered in Saudi Arabia. And in the BBC article linked above it also says these carvings were discovered in a remote area of Saudi Arabia in 2018. In fact, pretty much every link I can find about them repeats the claim that they were discovered in 2018. Then look at the image above. An image that dates from 2018. What’s in the background? Buildings, roads, and a cultivated field in the upper left. So how the hell were they only discovered in 2018? It’s not like they were buried or hidden in some way, they are right there in plain sight. Obviously lots of people knew about them.
So really, the carvings were discovered by western science in 2018. I know, it may seem like quibbling over semantics, but words matter. They are in fact how our world view is constructed. Saying the carvings were only discovered by the western world, IE white people, in a not so subtle way implies that the brown people living there didn’t matter. It’s the same linguistic trick as saying Columbus discovered the New World, even though people were waiting for him on the beach. And in his day those people didn’t matter, they were simply another resource for Europeans to exploit. An attitude that continued on for centuries, for example the 19th century US Supreme Court ruled that Indians couldn’t own land.
I’m not saying this bias is conscious, but like all sorts of language biases, it’s what people learned growing up. Ageism, sexism, ableism are also woven into our language. Colonialism is no different. And I think learning to spot these sorts of biases can really help one see the world more clearly. At least for those who want to do so. A small minority from my experience. Oh well, enough for today’s self improvement lesson, on to science!
The ISS is nearing the end of its expected lifetime: The Aging ISS | NeuroLogica Blog. About 20-30 years is about it for things in space. Space is an uncompromisingly harsh environment, everywhere on Earth is a gentle paradise in comparison. So does this mean that giant space stations (not to mention the coming space hotels) will have to be rebuilt at fabulous expense every few decades? No, there’s a nifty solution that is almost certainly the wave of the future. Giant space structures will be built out of modules (well, they already are,) but built in such a way that each module is easily replaceable. That way one doesn’t have to rebuild from scratch, one just replaces individual modules. Leads to interesting philosophical situations, like with the USS Constitution. Launched in 1797, it’s the oldest commissioned ship in the US Navy, still (technically) in service today. However, since it was launched, about 80% of it has been replaced, only 20% is original to 1797. Presumably it will eventually get to 100%, will it still be the same ship? I leave that for the philosophers to debate.
Speaking of new things in space, efforts are being made to design the next generation of space suits. Wait, didn’t we have working space suits in the 1960s, when the astronauts went to the Moon? Yes, yes we did. They were also incredibly clumsy and uncomfortable, and wore out in a few days. And not a whole lot of progress has been made since. It may look easy in Hollywood movies, reality is harder. Just spacesuit gloves for example. They have to be very stiff so they don’t just balloon out and be unusable, but still be moveable. Which means they are stiff and hard to manipulate, so that astronauts fingers will be torn up after a few hours use. Some astronauts even have their fingernails removed before space missions to avoid tearing them off in space suits! They don’t mention that in The Right Stuff. Or maybe they do, I never saw the movie. Anyhow, NASA is on the job: New Spacesuits | NeuroLogica Blog.
One last quick item in the news. The GOP’s effort to recall California Governor Newsom failed spectacularly. He in fact won by more of a margin than Biden defeated Trump. Interesting indeed because of two things. First, the Governor had enraged pretty much all sensible people by repeatedly violating Covid restrictions he had put in place, hypocrisy on that level has destroyed more than one political career. Secondly, Trump supported the recall! Some are saying this may be the beginning of the end for Trumpism: A clear repudiation: Larry Elder’s mammoth defeat may signal the death rattle of Trumpism. It’s possible. I mean there’s no doubt Trump and his supporters will make utterly unfounded accusations of voter fraud, but maybe it’s becoming clearer to a lot of people that Trump’s endless lies about voter fraud are in fact just that, lies. “We were cheated!” gets old in any context when it’s all the losers have, from sports to politics and everywhere in between.
We’ll see. Fun times in America. Another one or two 9/11 posts are in the works. Hope all are having a good week. Stay safe gentle reader.
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image:Camel carvings in Saudi Arabia. Credit: Haaretz? Claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law, not being used for profit, only image available that illustrates my contention in the post, and Haaretz is paywalled now so I couldn’t even find the attribution. Sigh.)
AFTER THE DELUGE
Well, I didn’t expect flash flood and tornado(!) warnings in NYC while visiting, I thought tornado warnings were an Iowa thing. No tornadoes here in NYC fortunately, but yes, they did have one in New Jersey. Yeesh. I spent much of my childhood in New Jersey, I sure don’t remember tornadoes ever being an issue. Above is a normally busy freeway near where I am staying in NYC. The car in the center was trapped by flooding in front and behind. Behind two partially submerged cars are visible. These folks got to walk home through pouring rain, heaviest rain ever recorded in NYC. More than 40 people dead in the US northeast, hell of a storm.
This of course was the tail end of Hurricane Ida. Killed more people in the northeast than it did on the gulf coast. More people living here, less prepared for this kind of extreme weather event, though that’s just my speculation. What’s not speculation is the huge increase in extreme weather events over the past fifty years: Climate and weather related disasters surge five-fold over 50 years, but early warnings save lives – WMO report. What would save even more lives is if nations took serious measures to combat global warming, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. International cooperation for international good is only a fantasy no matter what governments say.
Covid really made this clear. There’s a great article in the New York Times about it. Since it’s paywalled, I’ll sum it up. Basically it points out that to date there has essentially been no international cooperation in fighting a global pandemic, and essentially every nation including the world’s richest nations only took care of their own, leaving the rest of the world to fend for itself. Well, almost none. The one thing they did do was cooperate to make sure the international finance system kept running smoothly, so while most people on Earth suffered from Covid one way tother, the rich continued to get richer.
In other words, when Reagan once speculated that humanity would pull together in the face of an alien threat, he was laughably naive. Covid is most definitely a global alien threat, and humanity is most definitely not pulling together to face it. Even crazier, the cost to do so would be trivial and easily affordable, and the cost of not doing so will be staggering. This bodes very ill for future global threats, in fact by letting Covid run rampant, there’s a good chance it will mutate into a much more terrible threat. Fun times. Read the article if one can: Opinion | What if the Coronavirus Crisis Was Just a Trial Run?
And the global media isn’t helping. Most of it’s not really even journalism anymore, just clickbait infotainment. When not actually repackaged government/corporate propaganda. Critical thinking not welcome. In this vein, I came across an article on the Today site. I’m not familiar with the site, but superficially it appears to be a “legitimate” news and information site, not some sort of Onion knock-off. They are reviewing a documentary from the History Channel: History Channel doc reveals key discovery in Bermuda Triangle. First of all, the idea that a legitimate news site would take the History Channel seriously is bad enough, but here’s the first two paragraphs:
“It’s a mystery that has endured for 76 years in a fabled area that many sailors and aviators have long said contains supernatural forces we don’t understand.
On Dec. 5, 1945, 14 airmen flying five World War II torpedo bombers called Avengers took off from Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale on a routine training mission over the Bermuda Triangle and were never seen again. The U.S. Navy even sent a Martin Mariner search plane out at the time to find the missing aircraft, and that plane and it’s crew of 13 also disappeared.”
Um, how to say this, all bollocks? The only mystery is why anyone thinks there’s a mystery. Millions of people including countless aviators and sailors travel through the Bermuda Triangle every single day without giving it a second thought, let alone invoking supernatural hogwash. The disappearance of Flight 19 was well investigated and well understood at the time, and only became a “mystery” in the 1960s when an author invented “The Bermuda Triangle” and simply made up all sorts of details about Flight 19 to make its loss seem spooky. Ending up with a blatant lie, the Martin Mariner caught fire, crashed, and exploded shortly after takeoff. The Martin Mariner’s not-so-affectionate nickname was “The Flying Gas Tank,” so catching fire and exploding was a not uncommon occurrence. No cause of the fire and explosion was ever determined, but this was 1945 and the black box wouldn’t be invented for another decade. There’s no reason to assume anything supernatural occurred, it was just another plane crash in an era where planes were nowhere near as safe as they are today.
End rant. Well, I’ve got more links, but I guess that’s enough for now. I also had an epiphany a week ago that completely changed my worldview. Still processing it all, but I suppose it’s worth writing about at some point. It caused me to lose all desire to drink for one thing, which in and of itself is a very strange feeling. Life, you grow and then you die. Though frankly the growth part seems optional for many people. C’est la vie. Have a great weekend everyone.
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Freeway near NYC. Credit and Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.)
“THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES” PLUS THE 2021 NONSENSE CONTINUES
I saw a classic movie the other night: “The Best Years of Our Lives” It was a 1946 movie about three servicemen returning from World War Two and the difficulties they had re-adjusting to civilian life. Surprisingly, to me at least, it was quite watchable. I find it fascinating how some old movies become pretty much unwatchable after even a few decades, while others become timeless classics. Partly personal preference I am sure, but I am sure there are other factors at play. It was also interesting in that the movie took a very honest look at what we now call PTSD, these three veterans had serious issues. I’m sort of stuck on the idea that prior to 1980 or so most movies portrayed an idealised “Father Knows Best” view of American culture, so it was refreshing to see one with a more honest take. Unfortunately they all worked out their problems in the end and lived happily ever after, which is a far cry from the realities of PTSD.
Still, a movie I really enjoyed. As did the people at the time, it was a wildly popular movie, and won nine academy awards. Including the first time a non professional actor won an academy award, Harold Russel; and the only time a performer won two awards for the same performance, Harold Russell again. I guess it’s a good thing that a movie about people dealing with personal demons was so popular, even if the demons were unrealistically vanquished. It’s Hollywood, happy endings are what they are all about. Hey, even I, who recently lost all faith in humanity, liked it.
In politics: The utter ridiculousness of calls for Joe Biden to resign. It really is transcendentally absurd. 13 Americans die, and the GOP falls all over themselves claiming Biden is unfit to lead and should resign. Were there calls for Roosevelt to resign after Pearl Harbor? Reagan to resign after the Beirut Barracks bombing? Trump after Covid killed hundreds of thousands of Americans? Bush to resign after 9/11? Maybe, but not by mainstream leaders of the opposition party. This really shows just how out of touch with reality the GOP has gotten, because they refuse to accept Biden as the elected president, that somehow that translates into he’s unfit to lead. Give me a break. And whatever criticism one wants to aim at Biden, he successfully pulled off one of the greatest airborne evacuations in history, over 150,000 people evacuated in two weeks.
Not surprising, manufactured outrage is all the GOP has. They’ve been spreading a story that Biden repeatedly checked his watch during the ceremony as the US dead from Kabul were unloaded. No, he didn’t: Did Biden Check Watch 13 Times During Transfer of Fallen Soldiers? In fact he may once have glanced at his watch, though that isn’t even clear. No worries though, Fox News replayed the video at half speed to exaggerate the glance and make it appear more than it was: Fox News manipulates its own video to spread allegation that Biden looked at his watch during transfer of fallen troops. Kind of like how the British during World War Two edited a film of Hitler to make it look like he was dancing a little jig after the surrender of France. Of course Britain was at war with Germany at the time and making Hitler look bad was a very reasonable propaganda exercise. Um, is Fox News at war with America? Apparently, if they are happy to alter a film to make Biden look bad. Nonsense like this not only destroys the mainstream media’s credibility, it’s a big factor in tearing America apart and making it ungovernable. And Fox News isn’t the only one, but they led the way.
Sigh. A good article about China, Taiwan, and the US. More accurately, just how nation states are adamant about not letting provinces secede. The US paid a terrible price preventing the Confederacy from seceding, and if anything the Chinese are even more adamant that Taiwan is a part of China. For the US to go to war with China to prevent it reunifying with Taiwan is utter folly. Still, nations have gotten into stupid wars for no good reason throughout history, just hoping this doesn’t turn into one of those wars. Good read: American Civil War and the Lesson for China and Taiwan.
And then some of today’s truly whacked nonsense. A man who no doubt thinks of himself as a patriot and a Christian calls for tens of millions of Americans to be literally starved into supporting Trump’s “Stop the Steal” lies: ‘You Get Nothing’: Josh Bernstein Calls for Democratic Voters to Be Starved Until Biden Resigns. This would of course include millions of innocent children, not to mention millions of Trump supporters. This is called “collective punishment,” and is a human rights violation and war crime of the first order, something only the most hideous authoritarian governments do. (cough) Nazis (cough.) And unlike the Nazi’s who would massacre villages for supporting insurgents, he’s talking about collective punishment for people exercising their right to vote. And once again I apologize for my prior claims that comparing Trumpism to Nazism was overblown, I was wrong.
And for dessert: Christian Preacher: If Trump Isn’t Reinstated, Your Wives May Be Raped. The title pretty much speaks for itself. Thoughts and prayers to those impacted by Ida. And I am doing something about it, I write about Global Warming constantly to fight the fossil fuel industry lies that are making the consequences of Global Warming far worse than they needed to be. Hope all are having a good week, stay safe and dry everyone.
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: The Hitler jig photo, taken at the surrender of France to Germany on 22 June 1940. It was from a film that was altered to make Hitler dance a little jig, but I couldn’t find that online. Credit: Unknown, likely Public Domain under US copyright law, claimed as Fair Use in any case.)
COVIDIOCY RAGES ON
Covid rages on. I was feeling maybe it was odd to post yet again about Covid, then I realized that’s BS thinking. The Covid pandemic the worst mass death event of my life, the third or fourth worst mass death event in US history, killing more than a thousand people a day still. World War Two only killed about 200 people a day, Vietnam only about 10 per day, and those were top daily news for the duration. That a huge number of Americans and their chosen media/political spokespeople want to pretend Covid is no big deal or it’s almost over is their fantasy, no need to let it infect my thinking.
Officially the US death toll is approaching seven hundred thousand. That’s nearly one American in every five hundred dead. Most of us have lost a friend or loved one to Covid. Unofficially, and in reality, the death toll is around one million dead. That’s because a lot of Covid deaths go unreported, and more importantly, the strain on a health care system overwhelmed with Covid patients means people die because they couldn’t get treatment, this fellow being a good example: Veteran Dies Of Treatable Issue Because ICU Beds Are Filled With COVID Cases. One million dead Americans. How can that not be the top of the news while the pandemic is still raging? Beats me, I chalk it up to a normal human impulse to pretend everything is fine, especially when urged on by their political and religious leaders to think everything is fine.
In many ways it comes down to people not wanting to listen to the experiences of others. This is a fine take on it, including the terrible price paid by so many public Covid and vaccine deniers (Spoiler, they died of Covid:) Leonard Pitts Jr.: The wisdom of experience is a priceless gift … that many spurn. Or as a young friend once put it: “Never give advice. Fools won’t heed it and the wise don’t need it.” She was paraphrasing Ben Franklin, a wise man if there ever was one. A couple other cases just for fun: Texas GOP Official Mocked COVID Five Days Before He Died of Virus and QAnon conspiracist dies from COVID-19 he called a hoax to the very end.
On the plus side, Covid deniers and anti-vaxxers are dropping like flies. At this point I have zero sympathy for people who die of Covid because they refused to get vaccinated or otherwise take precautions against Covid. Covid is getting more dangerous: New strain in deadly delta variant surfaces after 53,000-person festival: report. Sadly a lot of people who were taking precautions are dying now, have since the beginning, since the anti-vaxxers and their ilk make the situation worse for everyone, especially when in positions of power: Florida police departments rocked by 29 COVID deaths as DeSantis bungles pandemic response. Basically as Covid mutates into more dangerous forms America’s Anti-Vaxxers Are Getting More Dangerous.
And frankly some people are getting tired of it: It’s time to listen to the ‘adults’ and ignore those who refuse the COVID vaccines: national security expert. I’m certainly tired of it. Mandatory measures to protect public health are perfectly reasonable. It’s kinda the whole effing point of civilization. The rest of the world is getting tired of it too: Covid: EU recommends new travel restrictions for US as cases rise. Sadly while many US states are doing everything they can to fight Covid, some aren’t, and Covid deaths will continue. One has to wonder where we’d be if concerted national efforts to fight Covid had been launched from the get go, at the very least a lot fewer Americans would be dead.
It’s just weird living in a country where rampant stupidity is the norm in some quarters: Shane Vaughn Claims COVID-19 Vaccines Don’t Work Because The US Is Under God’s Judgment. First of all, the vaccines work just fine. The vast majority of people catching Covid in the USA now were unvaccinated. Secondly, what is it with Evangelicals and their obsession with what consenting adults do with their genitals? Frankly it’s a perverted obsession, especially the idea that some sort of “supreme being” is also concerned about it. One would think any sort of loving God would be concerned about murder, rape, and children being molested; not gay people having sex.
Speaking of imagining a God concerned about weird things: ‘Get a Brain’: Hank Kunneman Warns of Dire Consequences if Trump Is Not Reinstated. Um, not even sure where to start. Trump, the most unpopular president in modern times, lost his reelection bid. Not debatable, but that doesn’t stop Trump and his supporters continuing his “the election was stolen” lie. I think that’s one of the things I most hate about Trump, he’s completely normalized politicians lying through their teeth. Like this whopper: Lindsey Graham: ‘Whose decision was it to pull all of the troops out… I just don’t know’. Of course he knows, it was Trump that signed the deal with the Taliban to pull all US troops out of Afghanistan.
The theory that I died in my fall two and a half years ago and the ever increasing ignorance, stupidity, lies, death, and confusion since is just some sort of Donny Darko madness in my dying brain seems more credible all the time. What can I say, dark depressing times both in the nation at large and what’s left of my personal life. Fun times. Have a great week and stay safe everyone, especially those in Louisiana.
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Used without permission, claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. Credit: This Is Fine creator explains the timelessness of his meme.)
TAHLEQUAH AND THE STATE OF THE UNION
Here I am in beautiful Tahlequah Oklahoma. This is the gravesite of Mr Ed of 1960s TV fame. He was a horse of course. His real name was Bamboo Harvester. I think horse names are drawn from a hat, but to all his fans he will be forever Mr Ed. His grave is in a back yard, and not well kept up, but at least someone left flowers. And he is surrounded by woods, meadows, songbirds, and wildflowers. A pretty nice place to spend eternity. And it’s possible I may spend a big chunk of my remaining living eternity around here myself.
So I am on vacation. I had to flee Iowa. Drove to Oregon, was underwhelmed by the town I arrived at. Drove to Tahlequah, like what I see, and will be here for a few more days seeing the sites. Soon I will visit the only Civil War battle site where whites were in the minority on both sides! Tahlequah is where the Cherokee were brought to after the Trail of Tears, and it’s been the heart of the Cherokee nation since then. Lovely country. Lovely cats.
This is Luna. First time in 20 years a cat has bonded with me. Follows me around. Waits for me at the door. Suffers from CLS as one can tell from the picture. That’s a common but little known feline ailment: Collapsible Leg Syndrome. There is no known cure, but fortunately there is a highly effective treatment: Vigorously rub the belly. Luna obviously wants me to stick around. That may have been her mom’s plan all along. Invite me to Oklahoma, where I will fall in love with the beautiful country and her cats and stay forever. Her plan may work, especially since mom is the cat’s pajamas herself.
In world news:
How’s that for a segue? Times are not good: MIT Predicted in 1972 That Society Will Collapse This Century. New Research Shows We’re on Schedule. That’s the big picture. Lots of little just-as-ugly pictures. The “stop the Steal” insanity continues in the US. Hearings have started on the January 6th insurrection. The GOP (with a few rational exceptions) is trying to pretend it was just a boisterous but peaceful protest. And that it was the Democrats’ fault. All codswaddle.
Speaking of codswaddle, Mike Lindell continues to claim that on August 13th Biden and Harris will resign after Lindell presents his proof of the election steal. Apparently unaware that if Biden and Harris did resign (please, please Trump supporters, do hold your breath,) Nancy Pelosi would be sworn in as president, not Trump. Yeah, I have a hard time with people who still support Trump. His lies about winning the election are just that, lies. And the January 6th insurrection was a treasonous Trump incited attempt to overturn a free and fair election. Trump is the only president in modern times never to even hit a 50% approval rating, he was a terribly unpopular president, and it’s no surprise he lost the election. His hordes of still loyal followers are misguided, sorry my fellow Trump loving Americans, your boy is lying to you.
But no, I don’t want right wingers destroyed, I just want them to have universal health care, a living wage, affordable college education, and bodily autonomy. What a monster I am for thinking Americans deserve as good a deal as the residents of the rest of the developed world. Yes, we’d have to cut our beyond bloated war budget and raise taxes on the rich, but neither would be a problem for America.
One last meme:
I agree, sums it up nicely. Real faith respects all life, political or performative faith kills to get votes. Pretty sure God appreciates the guys on the left, not the God poser on the right.
Stay safe and cool everyone. “Satan called, he wants his weather bacK” pretty much sums it up. #FelesRegula
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Images: Top and second: Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved. Bottom two, found on Facebook, attribution in images, shared without permission, claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law.)
ONWARD THROUGH THE FOG
Oh boy, getting ready to move so blogging has been a low priority. I would have moved already, but I needed to have a storage space for my stuff built first. LOL. Yes, every storage space near me was full with a waiting list. Then I found one that was in the process of building a new building so I rented a storage space that hasn’t been built yet. Fortunately they are making good progress, a few days ago it was just a concrete slab, drove by yesterday and the building was nearly complete. I can only hope they are working through the weekend. Looking forward to hitting the road.
Stuff keeps on happening in the bizarre imaginary world modern America has turned into in front of my horrified gaze. One of them is illustrated above: Mike Lindell made an insane election conspiracy diagram that has to be seen to be believed. It’s bizarre to say the least, looks like something a deeply unmedicated schizophrenic would come up with. (No ableism intended, just couldn’t think of a better way of saying it.) And then there’s this: Trump Supporters Insist Far-Fetched 7-Point Plan Will Get Him Back In Office. At least this one has the benefit of being easy to understand. The first three steps are fantasy, so I wouldn’t hold my breath. Save the date though, August 13 is when Trump claims he’ll be back in the oval office.
In other American news, statues of Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson are being taken down in Charlottesville, North Carolina: Charlottesville set to remove Robert E Lee statue that sparked rally. These were two “heroes” of the Confederacy, so they never should have been installed on public property in the first place. These were men who took up arms against their nation because they wanted to keep human beings as (rapeable) property. Hardly people to memorialize. That’s the lost cause myth though, the idea that the Confederacy was some sort of noble state’s right cause crushed by northern aggression. It’s high time all glorification of the Confederacy was removed from public spaces, so this is progress.
A good article that looks into the history of the religious right’s opposition to social change of any sort, linking the Scopes monkey trial to today’s attacks on Critical Race Theory: Experts beware: America may be headed for a Scopes moment. The main takeaway, it’s a long article, is that the religious right always wildly misrepresents things like Evolution and Critical Race Theory in their attacks upon them. Worth a read. Oh, and my observation, gee, the very same people who insist that creationism should be taught in schools so children can understand the controversy … don’t think that CRT should be taught for the same reason? Basically the bottom line is the religious right only want their narrow interpretation of history taught in schools, they’d dump the teaching of evolution in a heartbeat if they could do so.
Basically America isn’t a modern civilized educated country. And it’s not just the religious right: QuestionPro Survey Finds Two-Thirds of Americans Believe in UFOs. No surprise since even the Pentagon has gotten on the UFO train: The Pentagon Lies About UFOs – But Not Always For The Reasons You’d Expect (Updated). There’s as much evidence for aliens on Earth as there is for the existence of angels and demons. People still believe in them too: Did a Demon Appear at Biden’s Speech? And ‘Prophet’ Claims Biden Has Demonic ‘Serpent Eyes,’ Defends Trump’s Election Win. Even the BBC is promoting nonsense these days:The BBC Indulges in Bizarre Pseudohistorical Stonehenge Speculation. Sigh.
In foreign news, a group of foreign mercenaries made their way into Haiti and murdered the country’s acting president in his home: Haiti president’s assassination: What we know so far. A nightmarish event for one of the world’s poorest and most long suffering nations. I wish I had an answer, but I do know that death squads and political assassinations are the epitome of evil. The two Americans involved should be flown back to the USA, and executed on the tarmac on live TV. Alas the world’s rulers for the most part have no problem with death squads so long as they’re killing the people they want killed. If killing people solved problems the world would be a paradise. Sadly I don’t see it stopping anytime soon, in the USA at least the peace and antiwar movement has been so sidelined and delegitimized by the powers that be that it might as well not even exist.
Oh well, since messed up North America appears to be today’s default theme, a good article on the North American heat wave: The North American Heatwave | NeuroLogica Blog. While one can never say with certainty whether a weather event is related to global warming, the odds that an event this extreme would have occurred without global warming are vanishingly small. The well funded denier lobby will continue their work though, and global warming will continue to pick up steam.
Lastly, some good news from Florida’s Surfside condo collapse. First though, I saw an observation about this terrible event that I thought was right on the money, paraphrased: “The surfside condo didn’t collapse because of terrorism or some natural disaster, it collapsed because of shoddy construction and maintenance, internal rot basically. In so many ways a metaphor for modern America.” Yerp, our infrastructure, education, and health care is the embarrassment of the developed world, but our military could blow up the world a dozen times over! Couldn’t defeat the Taliban … but I digress.
Yes, the good news, a Surfside condo survivor was found! His name is Binx. He’s a cat: Cat missing in Surfside condo collapse found alive; death toll climbs to 79. He lived on the ninth floor and it’s not exactly clear how he escaped with his life, as he was just found in the vicinity of the ruins. May well have jumped to safety, cats can and do survive falls from great heights. Must be nice knowing you don’t need no freaking ladder or landing pad or parachute, just jump!
Hope all are having a good weekend. Next post, Afghanistan. Looks like America’s role in this sheetshow is finally over. Stay safe and cool everyone.
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: The Pillow Guy’s whiteboard about how Trump is still president. Used without permission, but claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. Hell, I’m sharing his wisdom with the world, people will see this illustration and flock to Trump’s defense! How could he object?)
HEAR THAT POPPING SOUND IN THE DISTANCE? THAT’S EVANGELICAL’S HEADS EXPLODING …
Because: Nevada pageant winner to become 1st transgender Miss USA contestant Saw this posted on Facebook, the outrage in some comments was, sadly, predictable. Something that quite literally has zero effect on them or society is somehow personally enraging to them. The nation and world has all sorts of terrible ongoing problems that are most definitely impacting everyone’s lives in negative ways … but they are outraged because a Miss USA contestant was born with male genitals. Go figure.
Might have linked this before, but it’s worth another look: Why Biden’s American election meddling comments in Geneva were such a bad look Basically Biden lectured Putin on election interference, claiming it made Russia look bad. Apparently Biden was utterly oblivious to the fact that it’s the USA that is the world’s number one meddler in foreign elections. Pot calls kettle black in other words.
A good article about France hopefully coming to grips with sexual abuse and pedophilia: Omerta in France. France has a long proud history of romance and seduction, but a lot of it is actually pretty nasty.
Another one from the trending “I’m going to change the facts to fit my narrative” file: Horses in Pre-Columbian America. Horses became extinct in North America something like ten thousand years ago, and didn’t return until the European conquest began after 1492. However, three modern groups are disputing that. One is some native groups, basically based on oral traditions, and the fact that they aren’t comfortable with the idea that the horse, which was such a central part of plains indian culture, originated with the European invaders. Hey, I can understand that. Second, by wild horse aficionados who want wild horses to get protected status, which is only granted to native species, not invasive species. Their hearts are in a good place. Lastly, the LDS Church. Because … the Book of Mormon written in the 19th century clearly claims there were horses in the New World in Biblical times. And of course since they claim it was written by God or such, it must be true. Right.
They’re all wrong of course. Well, wrong so far as current science understands it. Scientists do make mistakes though, that’s why scientific research is ongoing: It’s OK to be Wrong | NeuroLogica Blog. There was some thinking in the mid 19th century that science was on the verge of discovering everything there was to know and soon humans would have God’s creation all figured out. Ah, the folly of youth. Interestingly enough science is now able to find DNA in soil layers and determine what animals were around when the soil was deposited: All the major players spent time in the Denisovan cave. This is actually going to revolutionize archeology and paleontology. Not to mention putting the final nail in the coffin of such imaginary animals as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster.
Speaking of imaginary creatures, the much awaited Pentagon report of UFOs came out. Oh, wait, they’re UAPs now because UFOs have such a bad name. Of course the report contained absolutely nothing new, because UFOs are one big nothingburger. Great for scaring up defense dollars though: UFO Report Provides No New Information But Plenty Of Fodder For Cold Warrior Policymakers. I know some will say, but reliable people have seen them! Um, when someone sees something in the sky the human eye cannot determine how big it is, how far away it is, or how fast it is moving. Then there’s the fact that UFOs have only been reported in modern times in regions with a history of UFO sightings, no one has ever hit one, none have ever crashed, and no one has gotten a good picture of one.
When I was younger people would say, no one ever got a picture of a car crash either! Well, decades later, we have lots of car crash pictures, still no UFO, Bigfoot, or Nessie pics. And of course SETI has come up with absolutely nada, and they’ve tried a lot of promising approaches. If alien intelligent life is ever discovered, I will of course be thrilled, but right now the overwhelming evidence is that UFOs are mythological, sociological, and psychological constructs like ghosts and angels.
Getting more random here: ‘Dragon man’ claimed as new species of ancient human but doubts remain. Long story short, during WW2 Chinese laborers found a weird skull, didn’t want the Japanese occupiers to know about it, and it was hidden until just recently. And lo and behold it’s one of the most unusual ancient skulls ever found and some are claiming it’s a new human lineage like Denosovians or Neanderthals. Yeah, one skull, no context, no DNA. Let’s not get carried away, maybe it was a Denosovian Andre the Giant. Neat find, and our understanding of just how complicated the human lineage is grows all the time, but we are not going to be rewriting textbooks on the basis of one skull.
Well, a few more links, but tomorrow! Or whenever. Interesting time in my life indeed. So the pics above! Both were taken in the 1930s. The one on the left is a group of Soviet Young Pioneers. Kinda Stalin’s equivalent of Hitler Youth. On the right, a Mickey Mouse Club meeting. The similarities and differences are telling. Even by the thirties American youth were living in a fantasy world.
So final nice story and segue. During Kristallnacht, a Jewish family was in their home as a mob came up the street burning and looting Jewish homes. Just before it got there, their 17 year old neighbor ran into their house wearing his Hitler Youth uniform. When the mob arrived he yelled out of an upstairs window that the home had been sold to a good German family, and the Jews were gone. Saving their home and valuables, and ultimately saving their lives as it left them with the resources to flee Germany before the war.
Stay cool and safe everyone. #getvaccienatedcovid19 #FelesRegula
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Described in text, both are Public Domain images to the best of my knowledge.)
CANADIAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS FOR CHILDREN, CRITICAL RACE THEORY, WW2 TRUTHERS, HISTORY, AND OTHER NEWS OF THE WEEK
Fun headline recently: Canada: 751 unmarked graves found at residential school. This is the second such mass grave found in recent months, 215 graves were found earlier. Residential schools were government funded church run schools where native children were forcibly relocated in order to convert them into good little English speaking Canadians. The schools were expressly for the purpose of wiping out native culture and “assimilating” natives. The schools were by all accounts horrible places, with children dying regularly of disease and abuse, and then buried in unmarked graves. Apologists like to claim they are ‘unmarked graves’ not ‘mass graves.’ Whether you kill people all at once and shove them into a pit, or kill them periodically and shove them into individual pits makes no difference, it’s still a mass grave.
Horrors of the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries? Nope, the last residential school closed in 1996. Growing up in Canada I was exposed to a lot of racist attitudes towards natives, but I never imagined things like this existed. Now at least it’s coming out, but my image of Canada as some sort of positive force in the world is now finally and completely shattered. And the Canadian government’s more or less tepid response confirms it. This should be investigated and prosecuted with all the vigor of any gross human rights crime, but it won’t be. Baby steps I guess, it is good that things like this and the Tulsa race massacre are getting dragged out of the shadows, but we’ve got a long way to go.
In the US this is particularly the case, with the GOP and religious right fervently opposing even discussion of these sorts of crimes or the removal of monuments to criminals. That’s what the whole hysteria over Critical Race Theory is all about, preventing even discussion and education about the role that race played and plays in American. The evangelical right does this by pretending that CRT is about teaching white people that they are bad or guilty because of the color of their skin. And by pretending that removing statues of Civil War traitors is somehow erasing history. No, it’s about unwhitewashing history so people can understand and move on together. I mean, the paranoia in some quarters is frightening. Nick Fuentes: Making Juneteenth A Federal Holiday Is ‘About Furthering The Genocide Of White People’
It’s why I write, but I feel more pessimistic all the time both globally and nationally. Nationally it’s a mess. Biden is like Bush 41 was to Reagan, he’s an uninspiring copy of Obama. He’s basically undone a few of Trump’s more egregious nonsense, but otherwise it’s already clear he’s not going to rock the boat. And yet Biden is being portrayed as some sort of secret commie who is destroying America. Some of this stuff is just crazy: OAN Host Calls for Execution of Anyone Who Stole the Election and Tucker Carlson: Critical race theory will lead to the genocide of white Americans. These aren’t fringe people either.
So I guess I will try to get past my dismay and writer’s block by commenting on the news. George Floyd’s murderer got sentenced to 22 years. I’ve heard progressives claim he got off too lightly, conservatives outraged it was so much. I’m just glad there was a trial, there should be a trial pretty much every time a cop kills someone. My way of thinking has always been, would it be OK if the killer was a civilian? And all too often the answer is “Sheet no.” Qualified immunity needs to end, cops should be trained to not kill people. Bidens is adding more cops so, problem fixed? Snort.
A terrible building collapse in Miami. There’s actually footage of it going down, which I won’t link to because it’s too horrible. It’s clear from the video, they did not all die quickly in their sleep. How did this happen? Safe to say the Swiss cheese model will unravel it all. A chain of events happened, and they all lined up like symbols on a slot machine. God rest their souls, and my heart goes out to friends and family, I can’t imagine. Hopefully after investigation we will learn something from this tragedy that will save lives down the road.
Like the Victoria Hall Disaster in 1883. 1500 kids were in a theatre to watch a magic show, and after the show hundreds of kids in the balconies tried to rush down to the bottom floor where candy was being tossed to the children (very few adults were present.) The stair down was blocked by a door bolted almost closed with an opening only big enough for one child. Likely to facilitate ticket collection. Long story short, there was a crush in the stairwell, and nearly 200 children died. A nightmare remembered to this day. On the plus side, a child in the town became so determined to prevent it from ever happening again, he eventually invented the first “push bar” door openers. The handles we have in almost every public building in the world, especially on exit doors, just push on the bar from inside and the door opens. This invention has saved thousands and thousands of lives.
Maybe there’s some really smart kid somewhere now so horrified by the state of the world that they are determined to fix it. And they will come up with a solution, a global push bar of sorts. A man can dream. Hope all are having a good weekend. #getvaccienatedcovid19 #FelesRegula
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Photographic proof that World War Two was faked! Hell, if you’re gonna deny the holocaust, why not go whole hog? Actually, no, modern reenactment of the Battle of Osuchy, one of the largest battles between Polish partisans and Nazi troops during WW2. Will there be Trump rally reenactors someday? Credit: Adam Niedźwiecki, used legally: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.)
Doug's Darkworld 