The Swastika on the Ball Field

A few weeks ago there was a post on a neighborhood social media board that a swastika was drawn in the dirt of the baseball field near my house.  It was likely kids who were out being mischievous that morning (including vandalizing some sprinkler heads).  I don't know if they were caught for either offense.  What was interesting is that there was a great deal of discussion about this that didn't center on the fact it was a symbol of hate.  One person posted a long and factual statement about the history of the symbol which was used in many cultures and still used today.  Before the Nazis corrupted it was a symbol of hope, joy and other positive messages in India, the Middle East and among Native people in North America.  You will see it adorning old churches and even synagogues going back centuries and when I was a kid the Frederic Remington Art Memorial  has Remington's studio recreated in the building.  The museum was in my home town and we visited often on school trips.  I will never forget seeing the set of silverware that include the swastika with other symbols prominently displayed.  I asked about them and heard the story of items, but the symbol still felt uncomfortable.  Other people thought we need to teach more about the Holocaust.  But there were some who wrote it off as ignorance, as no big deal.  Saying they probably didn't understand what they were doing.  

That attitude of allowing ignorance being an excuse for hateful gestures is problematic.  In recent weeks we have seen football players and a national television host promote virulent anti-Semitic diatribes in public forums.  Ignorance was of course was the excuse.  One football player, DeSean Jackson, met with a Holocaust survivor and has accepted and invitation to travel to Auschwitz to learn.  He offered a sincere apology and maybe just maybe with better understand the history he so easily diminished and that the tropes that rolled off his tongue without hesitation were wrong.  Maybe.  

There are those who see that there are members of the African American community have a blind spot to the history of other oppressed groups and that Jews have been a target of resentment by Black America, especially among Black Nationalist leaders and Black Muslim leaders, like Louis Farrakhan.  Jemele Hill, a former ESPN commentator and a staff writer for The Atlantic writing about Jackson says: 

"Regardless of what happens with Jackson, the unfortunate truth is that some Black Americans have shown a certain cultural blindspot about Jews. Stereotypical and hurtful tropes about Jews are widely accepted in the African American community," Hill wrote. "As a kid, I heard elders in my family say in passing that Jewish people were consumed with making money, and that they 'owned everything.' My relatives never dwelled on the subject, and nothing about their tone indicated that they thought anything they were saying was anti-Semitic—not that a lack of awareness would be any excuse. This also doesn’t mean that my family—or other African Americans—are more or less anti-Semitic than others in America, but experiencing the pain of discrimination and stereotyping didn’t prevent them from spreading harmful stereotypes about another group."

Hill herself had a moment of antisemitism when she used the idea of Hitler in a joke about the Celtics when at ESPN.  She, like Jackson, took the time during the response to not get defensive, writing in the same Op-Ed that she now cringes at the thought of the lack of empathy for the Jews because it wasn't her and notes that if someone made a joke about slavery then she would have similar reaction.  

Since Jackson's words because public we have also seen another black celebrity, Nick Cannon, say similar things.  He has since apologized, such that it was, and I hope he too will take time to learn or more importantly unlearn what he thinks he knows about Jews.  Too often what is taught both informally within a culture and sometimes in formal settings can be quite hateful.  Not that Jews are the only victims but more often then not, like the Swastika in the ball field, when Jews are attacked it is more easily forgiven.  Nick Cannon will still keep his job.  Jackson is seen as a role model for admitting ignorance and so many others, well, their message doesn't make the news.  This week on Rachel Maddow's television show, Mary Trump, niece of the President and writer of a family secrets book, revealed the President comfortably used antisemitic and racist language among friends and family.  (It is not in the book this was in response to a question).  There are already voices saying that it was common in his generation.  

And that is the problem.  The normalcy of certain types of language and thinking makes it harder to confront.  When Mel Gibson has is epic meltdown so many years ago that was an antisemitic rant, well within the line of who he is as a person by all accounts, he was vilified.  He is now seen again as a top actor and director in Hollywood (that he ironically said was run by the Jews).  We cannot and should not accept this in our diverse culture.  Allowing a pass to people because Jews currently aren't as oppressed as other minority groups in this country is dangerous and we know this because synagogue around the country have to post guards for security.  In Poway and Pittsburgh people repeating the same tropes that Jackson and Cannon expressed shot Jews at worship.  I know, because as a Jewish professional I have to read reports of what is going on around the world when Jews are attacked.  I know because I get phone calls from colleagues asking me how to discuss the graffiti spray painted on the gravestones in the Jewish cemetery.  

People talk about the horror of cancel culture which I am not sure exists.  Antisemitic ideology is no longer seen as disgusting but as a political position both on the right and the left.  American Nazis comfortable march in communities (as is their right) often preaching violence as they march.  Leftist groups verbally attack Jewish organizations who would be allies and some leaders like Farrakhan continue to avoid criticism from political leaders when they should be shunned.  

 As culture when we let any kind of hate and ignorant be written off we let the disease fester.  We will be better if we not only shine a light on this but totally purge it.  It might take a lot of education, there may be some who will never learn, but we must try.  We must stand up.  As I write this the country mourns the death John Lewis and C T Vivian, two icons of the Civil Rights movement who did just that.  They stood up to hate and ignorance their whole lives.  If you posted something this weekend to mourn their loss then it is up to you to make sure the Good Trouble you choose to engage in includes everyone.  Let's cut out the disease of hate.  

Freddie Mercury, No Pants and Wear the Mask

I had would could be the silliest discussion this week about wearing a mask to continue to slow the spread of Covid-19.  The person who said we shouldn't wear one kept harping on the fact that a typical cloth mask has a weave that allows the tiny virus particles to get through and since there is evidence that the particles can be airborne a mask is useless.  People keep using the analogy of trying to stop a mosquito with a  chain link fence.  But that is not a good analogy because while it is true that some virus will get through the mask and may become airborne in those cases, a large quantity of the virus is in spittle and other expectorants that are stopped by a mask, even a simple cloth mask and do not spread as much.  Think about it like a shower curtain.  The shower curtain, when utilized properly, will keep the water from splashing out onto the floor of the bathroom.  Is it perfect, no, especially when someone turns into Freddie Mercury in the shower doing the entire song with  movement, using a Trader Joe's shampoo bottle for a microphone (best kind of bottle so I am told) and swinging your arms around sending waves of water over the top of the curtain.  It also allows the steam to float out and condense on the mirror that you have to rub away to truly see what all God gave you....okay back to masks.  

Without the shower curtain, the bathroom would become a swamp in due time because regardless of your actions in the shower it will block a significant amount of moisture from getting through but not all.  That doesn't mean it is ineffective, the argument that because masks don't stop all virus it is useless is illogical on its face.  People are looking for any excuse to attack mask instructions because of politics.  Someone wrote that it was one step closer to being put in cattle cars and taken to the ovens.  While remarkably offensive it also makes no sense because if wearing a mask for public health is a way to begin a Holocaust why didn't we see it when laws were passed that required shoes and shirts in many public indoor spaces for health reasons?  

One thing we have learned during this pandemic is that a surprising number of people don't like to wear pants.  I don't just mean the remarkable and subversive nature of women's workout apparel becoming office and even formal wear, I mean going completely without pants.  When co-workers only see you from the chest up in a little box who knows what is going on down there.  That is unless your child coming running into the room and asks why you aren't wearing pants or worse cut themselves and you get up to  help showing that the print on the underwear you chose that day has faded.   But here is the thing, we expect to wear pants in many situations.  It is not tyranny to require you to do that and it may not even be public health at stake but it is an agreed upon norm that we embrace.  Masks, like shirts, shoes and pants are not a fascist mile marker, they are one club in the bag to help keep this virus at bay until we can better destroy or live with it.  Masks save lives.  We have research to prove it.  It is time we start acting like adults who until very recently didn't think about all the times during the day there were cultural norms and rules we follow unquestioned or at least most of us try to follow.  

Masks will be part of who we are for the time being.  Wear them when you are around others who you might infect.  Wear them when you go to the grocery or get take out.  Wear them when you really need to talk up close with a neighbor or friend you don't share living quarters with.  Wear them for the sake of those who will not survive the virus.  Wear them because it is the right thing to do.  

Oh and when you are dancing in the shower singing Freddie's part think about the words......

Turned away from it all like a blind man

Sat on a fence but it don't work

Keep coming up with love but it's so slashed and torn

Why, why, why?

Love, love, love, love, love

Insanity laughs under pressure we're breaking

Can't we give ourselves one more chance?

Why can't we give love that one more chance?

Why can't we give love, give love, give love, give love

Give love, give love, give love, give love, give love?

Let's make sure we give love a chance, love calls us to wear the mask.  

The Mandela Effect and Conspiratorial Thinking

The Mandela Effect is a paranormal and conspiratorial concept that suggests that things in our history are being changed either by a glitch in existence or a nefarious reason yet to be identified.   It was coined by Fiona Broome in 2010 and has since exploded on the internet.  It boils down to being a collective misremembering of some item or event that now seems different.  This ranges from song lyrics, movie lines and how things are spelled to world events.   Broome is a paranormal researcher and writer who was struck by the number of people she encountered who remembered Nelson Mandela dying in prison in the 1980s when in fact he lived until 2013 and became President of South Africa after the end of Apartheid.  The 80s were a significant time in the global Anti-Apartheid movement and many people became aware of the history of South Africa's racial policies and the oppression of the native population.  There were leaders who died in prison in the 70s and 80s, one of which Steven Biko, became famous in part through a song by Peter Gabriel.  I has a small role in the anti-apartheid movement when I was in college in the 80s and I know one of the chants was Free Nelson Mandela which is the closing of the song Sun City released in 1985 by Artists United Against Apartheid.  But one can understand remembering this differently.  News has a way of being a flash in the pan and has the 80s gave way to the 90s the growing internet meant that information overload was common.  

Memory is not a static thing.  We construct our memories because frankly we construct all of our perceptions.  We filter out much of the stimulus in our world and focus on what is either important at the moment or unusual.  Driving home from work you probably would not recall all the squirrels you saw running across or near the road but if it were a turtle or a vulture you may pay more attention.  But even the retelling of a memory creates not only an opportunity to remember it differently than it happened but when you remember something from your past, you are a different person with more experiences so you perceive your own memory differently.  This is why eye witness testimony can be so flawed.  Time, retelling and other people's perspective of an event can change your memory of it.  A famous experiment had people count the number of times a handful of people bounced a ball to each other.  While keeping track of all the balls the subjects didn't notice a person in a gorilla suit walk into the scene, wave and walk out.  Once people were told of the gorilla it was easy to see.  However, watching knowing about the gorilla has other surprises.  Click the link and see what you miss.  

Examples some people use for  the Mandela Effect are people believing that the comedian Sinbad starred in a movie called Shazam where he played a wizard, he didn't; that the Berenstain Bears were Berenstein Bears, they weren't; and Darth Vader said "Luke, I'm your father", he didn't.  While all irrelevant to life in general many will put up quite a fight defending their memory even when you can prove they are wrong.  Even more so are those that seek out these so-called glitches in reality sometimes finding them when there is no debate, one Youtuber, All Time Scary, has made a little cottage industry of this.  One of the silliest is from the movie E.T.   When learning to speak English, the alien character fumbles over a variety of words taught to him by Elliot and his siblings.  He learns the name they use for him,  E.T., and the words home and phone.  At first E.T. says "E.T. Home Phone" and when corrected for syntax by the kids it becomes the iconic "E.T. phone home".  Because it was the most often repeated line of the movie we forget his first vocalization.  That doesn't mean it was added or changed.  It means we remember what created as a memory.

None of this is important except that when people start to believe their memories are being tampered with there can be a problem.  We are living at a time when the leaders of our nation and several others are basically telling people what they know to be true is not.  There is a wide-ranging movement of conspiracy theorists who create outrageous stories to attack political opponents and insist that any evidence to the contrary is part of the grand conspiracy.  Birtherism, which propelled the current President into the political sphere in a real way, for example.  Time after time evidence was produced to show President Obama was born in Hawaii, but if you can believe that somehow an entire movie can be made to disappear, then why couldn't it also create a fake past?  Believing conspiracies has gone from a group debating how the CIA and the Mob worked together to kill JFK to elaborate discussions of pedophile rings that brought a man with an AR-15 into a local family pizza place in Washington DC demanding to see the non-existent basement.  While we can laugh at people who believe their past was altered by some outside forces because they don't remember something correctly, that soft minded thinking can also lead to some terrible outcomes in the real world.    

The current administration has for a long time made public statements that are completely and utterly false.  One spokesperson said that they were "Alternative Facts".  As if reality is a point of view.  This week for example, as spikes in at least 30 states in cases of Covid-19 that caused some states to roll back their reopening efforts, both the President and the Vice-President stated we are doing great.  That reopening is moving forward well.  It leads so many to believe that this virus crisis is over.  It isn't and it is getting worse.  This is life and death for many.  This is one example of many where the President states things that are so far from reality that it is hard to understand how that can be allowed to fly but there is a group of people who will always believe him.  

People will always want to remember what fits their narrative, but what is troubling is when evidence is produced to prove them wrong when they are the evidence is ignored.  Someone recently told me that a message from the CDC that was on the news has been scrubbed from the internet because it didn't fit the agenda of someone or something.  The Mandela Effect may seem silly, and fun.  But in the end when people can believe their memories can be scrubbed from the world they can believe their worldview is being manipulated.  That is scary.  

President Mandela did not die in the 80s.  Sinbad didn't do a wizard movie.  No one is changing movie lines.  And no one is erasing from the internet things you want to believe.   So in the end, don't think your memory is a video recording,  if challenged research and be willing to accept you are wrong, and please, if you go out, wear a mask. 

Whose History is Black History

Many years ago I attended a lecture called Whose History is Black History.  One of the things that struck me was when the speaker said something surprising to me about Crispus Attucks.  As I recall she said that many schools in the country, in Black neighborhoods are named for him but he fought for the wrong side in the Revolutionary War.  You see the thesis of the talk was that so much of American History's view of African Americans was from a White perspective.  She went on to say that there were many more people of African descent who fought for the British and many of them went free after the war.  At the same time George Washington didn't want black people in the Continental Army.  It is ironic that one of Washington's slaves from Mount Vernon was one of the men who joined the British, after the war was free.  Harry Washington went to Nova Scotia with many more freed people from the colonies and later moving on the Sierra Leone, where he used not only the agricultural knowledge he learned in Mount Vernon to produce more crop, he led a revolution about the British company and leadership that he was working for based on what he learned from the American revolutionaries.  

i think it is important to think about this. The speaker was saying that we don't learn enough about black history in this country because we don't listen to black people who write it, we read history books written by white people.   In the last few months a lot of white Americans learned about parts of our history that didn't make those textbooks.  It took an HBO series about a DC comic adaptation to inform many people of the attack on Tulsa, OK's Black Wall Street where literal bombs were dropped on a section of an American city to destroy the business district of the highest concentration of black wealth in the country.  It was a racist attack that people were never fully held accountable for.   There was also a significant number of people who never heard of Juneteenth.  Both of these stories which are important to American history for many reasons are often ignored because they are relegated to what is called Black History.  But today those artificial boundaries should come down and I think they will.  But there is still such push back.  The President was amazed to learn about Juneteenth.  That is criminal level ignorance, not only because he had planned to schedule his rally on that date but that the rally would be in Tulsa.  What is also funny is that every year the White House mentioned Juneteenth in a message to the nation.  He just never seemed to care about it enough to learn until it became a problem for him.  And that is the issue with how we have dealt with the segregate history in this country.  Important dates, events and people are moved out of view in favor of a more generic and white view of the country.  It has led to systematic racism and a long standing ignorance of the vast importance people of color have brought to the develop of our nation.  I believe we have met a new milestone and we will not go back. 

The country is being forced to face the systemic racism that is part of our past there is outrage.  Outrage that Confederate monuments put up to intimidate black people during the Jim Crow era are coming down.  Outrage that companies who have had racist icons for products are changing their company image.  Outrage that companies are looking to better understand who they have benefited from that racism and undo their past sins.  And outrage, at the highest levels of government, that a sports league may have been wrong to punish those who tried to race the very issue that has set this sea change in motion.  

All people have trouble facing their own sins.  We work to justify, look to deflect, and sometimes just ignore or worse blame others.  We as a nation can no longer do that.  We must learn what we don't know of our past, listen to those telling us what is wrong right now and work together to bring about a future where we are all truly distinct and together.  Western culture is not a monochromatic one and really never has been.  We are a tapestry but we have allowed some of the threads to be hidden, let's bring them out into the daylight and where they are frayed or broken, let's fix them.  One way is to learn.  Many people more educated than I have taken the time to write about what was left out of the history books, or set aside out of context for a few sessions in February.  Social media and by extension several informative websites have been filling in the gaps in our knowledge sharing first person stories of today's plights and of a history that is richer than you can imagine.  Look for them.  Educate yourself.  Expand your knowledge base.  You will be surprised and delighted and maybe even a little angry about what your formal education lacked.  But you will be a better person and we will be a better nation.  Bigotry of all forms is a disease and knowledge and experience is the medicine that fights it.  Take your medicine. 

   

Despite The Fact the GOP Doesn't Think So, There is Racism in the US

 This morning while driving to my office I heard a quote from Jalen Rose, former NBA star and current analyst for ESPN.  He said, "I Wish America Loved Black People as Much as They Love Black Culture".  That reminded me of something that happened more than 30 years ago.   In 1986 the movie Soul Man came out.  The movie was the story of an entitled rich high school graduate whose parents decide not to pay for his college education after he got into Harvard University.  So he takes tanning pills to pass as African American to obtain a dedicated scholarship.  This comedy was supposed to be an anti-racist attempt to create a conversation.  It didn't, it was bad, it was poorly written and poorly executed.  One of the lines of the movie as the main character C. Thomas Howell is talking to a friend about his plan says "It's the Cosby generation, America loves Black People".   A critic of the movie at the time wrote in an op-ed that I truly wish I could find, "America doesn't love Black people, America loves to be entertained by Black people".  That was true then and is true today.  

As we have seen with protests rise up to police killing of unarmed black people we have seen probably the most controversial figure Colin Kapernick berated that he is paid to play football not protest.  When others like NBA superstar Lebron James called out political leaders over issues of racism, he was told to shut up and dribble.  When the cast of Hamilton took a post-show talk opportunity to speak to the Vice-President in attendance calls for them to stick to the script were heard. In NASCAR, driver Bubba Wallace, the only full-time driver in the premier series has asked to have the Confederate flag banned from racing.  People told him that he doesn't belong in NASCAR with that attitude.   African Americans have been told many times to not speak up just go along and that is how you get along.  Now we are seeing that silence is not an option.  

Systemic racism exists, it is difficult to root out, it has killed people.  Watching a man die for eight minutes on camera has lit a fire  and people are responding.  We as a nation must face fully the reality of our past and if we are going to embrace those who bring us joy and excitement through art, music, sports and drama and if we are going to benefit from those who invent the items that make us safer, healthier, and make our lives better.  If we are going to learn from those who discover and uncover new things about our world and the universe we all live in we must acknowledge not only their achievements but their humanity.  It is not simply okay to not be racist.  (BTW we are probably all a little racist in our own way, even if not aware)  We must strive to fight racism when we see it, we must not make it normalized in private conversations and public displays.  We must find a way to learn where we fail and try to do better.  

I am not saying we have to be perfect tomorrow.  We all grew up in a culture that taught us directly or indirectly to carry prejudice.  Making mistakes is how we learn to be better.  There are people in the streets and they are angry.  Listen to the words they are saying and not focus on the fires and looting.  Think about where in your life you encounter people who are different from you and how you can engage in meaningful connections where appropriate.  READ  ASK QUESTIONS  BE COMFORTABLE WITH DISCOMFORT.   Remember everyone is a work in progress.  The important thing is where we put our energy into where the progress will take us.  George Floyd is dead because 4 human beings didn't think it was worth listening to his cries for help as he lay dying.  We can all start there, if you listen closely there are many cries for help.  We must find a way to respond. 

All Lives Matter

Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington DC has won the gold medal in Trump trolling.  Thursday night she got volunteers to paint BLACK LIVES MATTER across 16th Street near the White House.  The letters are as tall as the street is wide and easily seen both driving down the street or as the helicopter takes the President to Andrews when he travels on Air Force One.  Of course the message has been met with the typical response from the right wing saying ALL LIVES MATTER.  I really don't know if those who say it are so caught up in their own bias to not understand how offensive that is or if they really don't want to have a light shone on the on-going systemic racism that permeates our culture and in the last few years has found a voice in the highest seats of power. 

There are many metaphors for what All Lives Matter sounds like.  The most often cited one is that it is like complaining that the fire department is spraying water on the neighbor's house which is on fire and not yours which isn't.  However for me the more important metaphor is more like someone who sees food being brought to the home a family where a parent has died screaming "All Parents Die".  It is myopic at best, hateful at worst.  

The phrase Black Lives Matter grows from the idea that for too long black people were seen as second class both in perception and in some cases law.  The list of unarmed black people killed by police is too long and too often historically the consequence of those killings were minimized by a system that shared a view that black people were somehow inferior.  The idea that black people have to be careful performing everyday activities because of their skin color.  The fact that black parents need give what is called "The Talk" to their children is something that should make us all angry.  No group should have to worry at this level.  

Another argument made by people is that black on black crime kills far more young black men than the police do.  That is true.  But the difference is that when ordinary people kill each other there is no implicit or explicit societal support.  But police who kill are doing it in our name.  Police are hired by us as a community to act to protect and serve.  Holding a knee on the neck of man until he dies is not protecting or serving anyone.   

The latest attacks on the protests is that George Floyd, the murder victim that sparked them, was a felon and had drugs in his system.  Virtually every time a person is killed by police who is either in custody or unarmed there is a torrent of people who either make up or highlight a criminal past.  Let me be clear, a society should be judged by how the authorities in charge treat the worst of us.  Convicted or simply arrested, when in the hands of an agent of the government people should be treated with dignity.  Police must show restraint when encountering the public and it shouldn't matter if the person is an innocent charity worker or a ruthless killer.  The reason is that when you give police or others in power the ability to harm those they are charged to serve the line of where it stops is difficult to find.  We have seen in the last week police step outside of what most police think is appropriate behavior, egged on by the President who once called for them to rough up people when arresting them.  From college students pulled from their cars because they get stuck in traffic, to a woman who was beaten with batons after she pulled away from an officer who was groping her, to an old man who approached heavily armed police to be pushed to the ground causing him to bleed from his ears, and then at least one officer wouldn't allow a comrade to help him, each time the actions of officers, which is against policy and procedure, should never be tolerated.  Those were the ones caught on video, what else might be going on. 

The country is reaching a point where we have to define who we are as a people.  The justice that is part of the narrative of our nation's mythology must be upheld.  That means we all have to be seen as equal before the law, that means that government officials charged with maintaining order should be held to a higher standard and it means that we must do better in electing people that understand that and don't retreat to partisan nonsense and speak truth to power, even if that power is the leader of your own party.  If you truly mean that All Lives Matter, then you too should be in the streets, calling your elected officials, looking for reform when needed and elevating those who are striving for justice.   The Book the President so awkwardly held up in front of the church charges us with the words "Justice, justice you shall pursue", it is a call to action.  Pursue justice today, because if we don't then perhaps it will get to far away to find for a long time.

Remember Why People are Angry

I can't give credit to the creator of this meme but would love to, it addresses a few things.  This of course was a response to the destruction in the cities across this country in response to the killing of George Floyd and so many others by police when lethal force was not only not necessary, but criminal.  Some have argued that this is not the same thing.  That Jesus wasn't destroying public property just cleaning up the Holy Temple.  I would argue in a way some of this graffiti that we see on monuments around the country is similar.  

While I claim no expertise over the Christian Bible, what Jesus did in the Temple with the commercialism was to destroy not only the acts of the merchants but the symbolism of what it meant. Jerusalem, at the time, was in turmoil and his anger did in fact boil over because of it. The Temple itself was a symbol to many of an oppressive society as it seemed to be in cooperation with Rome. So if one defiled the Temple merchants that was an act of revolution against the powers in charge. The statues that venerate a history that some find is one of oppression would make symbolic targets. Jesus' attack was on the establishment the merchants were a symbol. 

Now, of course, this is wrong and there is some indication that some of the worst of the vandalism and looting that took place was less about anger at oppression and more from radical extremists both on the right and the left.  In my experience with protests over the years there is always an element who thinks destruction is the necessary.  Many times the issue being protested is not relevant to them.  In fact many times they derail the message of the protesters, I believe that this is happening here. White supremacists have called for more violence in the streets to reach their goal of a race war.  Many anarchists have been using these tactics to sow discontent not in positions of government but in government itself.  People who destroy and deface public and private property should be arrested, should be held responsible and should pay the price.  But we are more and more seeing the broad brush being used to paint all protesters with the same stripe.  That is dangerous, last night in Washington the President of the United States ordered a street cleared for a photo op and tear gas was used to move people off public property where they were legally and non-violently calling for change.  One police department that was there from a county surrounding DC has said they can no longer, in good faith, participate in this kind of crowd control.  I wonder how many of those peaceful protesters will give up their non-violent stance now out of anger when met with violence of the authorities. 

The idea that people could get so angry that they smash windows, vandalize statues and symbols of power etc. can easily be understood by anyone who ever punched a wall because they were just so fed up with something. The something that some people are dealing with is decades of being seen as black before being seen as citizens.  That being black in this country means you grow up skeptical of police not in community with them.  Recently on Twitter a man ask African Americans "When was the first time a police officer pulled a gun on you?"   Not if that happened, not the only time, the question assumed that it happened and that there was more than once for a number of people.  People responded from every station and age of life with answers, some as young as 10 years old.  This is a horrible reality and I see no real end in sight.  This isn't about more training, this isn't about black communities cleaning up their streets, this isn't about using the military for law and order.  This is about a change on hearts and minds of people who carry weapons to protect and serve who shouldn't.  Police have a difficult job, they should be paid well to do it, but they must be held to a high standard and bad individuals and the system that allows they to flourish must be purged.  It won't be easy but if we are going to survive as a republic with "Liberty and Justice for All" it must be done.  We can do it.  

In the meantime there will be anger.  Black people are dying at the hands of their government.  I will never know what that is like, I will never be able to fully grasp the anger.  My skin tone and standing gives me a great deal of immunity to the horror some have to face.   All I can do is try to help find a way to repair the broken world. And looking to the Bible, Jesus, Moses, Nehemiah, Judith and Tamar all acted out of anger to change people's minds. I do wonder where they would have been on Saturday night..  

It Is Only A Mask

I have gone out more in the last two weeks than in the previous two months and quite frankly I think I need another break.  I had to pick up a prescription at Kroger, so I decided why not grab a few things we need while there.  So as I walked down a handful of aisles I found about half the people not wearing masks and the most interesting thing was a mother with her child.  The child having her mouth on the shopping cart handle.  Now this isn't a good idea in the best of times but in a pandemic I would think this is a risk not worth taking if I knew better, she didn't, but some are doing things just as bad and should know better.   

I thought a lot about that child this week as I watched people outraged by being asked to wear a mask to enter into private businesses.  It seems this child's actions would be suited for a small child but it reminds me of the actions of many adults I have seen and heard of on the internet.  Only the child's innocent abandon and mouthing of the cart can be excused.  Those who seem to be trying to suggest that they don't need to follow public safety rules can't.  They are horrible people and a threat to many.  The current rate of escalation and nonsense is disturbing and I fear could lead to some serious results. 

I don't understand the anger of those asked to wear a mask into a store.  Some have taken to coughing or even spitting on the employee who asked them to put one on.  This is criminal assault and I hope some District Attorney brings a charge of attempted murder on these people or at least assault with a deadly weapon.  I truly believe their lives should be made miserable for doing stuff like this.  It is sickening.  I also wonder how this would play out if the person being spit on is armed in a stand your ground state.  

One thing I keep hearing is that forcing a mask on someone in a store violates your rights.  This is pure nonsense.  Requirements to enter both private and public buildings that restrict your actions are almost never a violation of your rights.  Private businesses for sure can require all kinds of things from dress codes to appropriate language.  Public buildings make you surrender weapons.  In the case of masks, it is no real difference to requiring shirts and shoes because this is a public health issue.  Your right to go shirtless as well as without a mask extends right up the property of the business.  Then the public good and the property rights come into play.

Some people argue that if a baker has to serve gay people (or a lunch counter black people) then how can they require a mask.  This is not a fair comparison.  Denying a public accommodation because of a trait of a group of people violates the law.  Requiring a behavior is not the same thing.  Again, blatant discrimination is different from maintaining health and safety standards in a public setting.  

There are those arguing that wearing a masks gives them some kind of toxic build-up of CO2.  Cloth and disposable surgical masks won't do this and any CO2 build up would be mild.  Since once away from people you can remove the mask, except for those doing long shifts in hospitals the idea that a mask will make you sick in nonsense.  Some claim a respiratory problem makes wearing masks difficult, well I would suggest staying home since you have the very comorbidity that will likely mean if you get Covid 19 you will at least be in the hospital for months, if not the morgue.

There are more and more videos of people either saying that the Americans with Disabilities Acts (ADA) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) laws requires stores to let people in without a mask and cannot ask what medical condition they have.  First the ADA requires appropriate accommodations, offering to shop for a person who says they can't wear a mask meets that standard.  As does curbside pick up and ordering online.  While it is not always clear what ADA requires, I do know that it doesn't require that every public place do what the customer asks.  For example, people with PTSD can't stop public fireworks displays nor gun shots in plays.  Besides, like noted earlier, someone with a serious enough breathing condition to make a mask dangerous probably shouldn't put themselves at risk.  As for HIPAA, that is simply a garbage argument.  HIPAA doesn't apply here at a grocery store.  I don't think I can go into just how dumb this argument is, so I won't.  What I can say is that it is dangerous to many people to try to use these two important laws in a weaponized fashion because of one's own arrogance and ignorance.  The ADA has opened the world to many people with disabilities that had been shut out.  Nonsense claims like this that could result in frivolous lawsuits could have businesses simply not looking to comply if everything that people want is challenged.  HIPAA is a law that has saved people because it keeps people with access to sensitive information about a medical condition from getting to people who can use it to harm others.  Making these kinds of claims muddies the water and makes it less likely that people will support such laws and their needed renewals in the future.  

Finally, there are those who keep saying that wearing a mask makes you a sheep and scared.  I am not sure how to say this but wearing a mask is not about protecting myself.  I do other things, like washing my hands, avoiding touching my face, avoiding large crowds, and following guidelines even as they change.  I wear a mask because I could have a disease that is deadly to many people and not know it.  A mask, while not perfect, does create an additional barrier to the virus reaching another person.  You wear a mask to inhibit the spread of the disease.  It may not be perfect but for the person standing next to you who might have a lung issue or diabetes the fact that your mask may stop enough virus to not infect them could save their life.  And one more thing, yes exposure to bacteria and viruses do give your body an opportunity to create anti-bodies to fight future infection.  People who say they want to build up their immunity basically saying they want to get exposed to the disease.  So I suggest if that is what they want to volunteer at a hospital then isolate yourself for a while until the virus has run its course.  If you live then we can test to see if your theory worked.  But not wearing a mask isn't there to protect you so your argument is silly.  

Look, we are a free country, but we have always had restrictions on our freedom for the greater good.  We are in a worldwide crisis and the United States appears to be at the bottom of working to control it.  That can change.  Wear a mask, don't gather in large crowds, stay home when you can, enjoy the outdoors with physical distancing and for the love of God listen to the doctors not a President that looks into an eclipse and thinks scientific facts have two sides.  Save a life.  Humanity deserves it. 

 

 

 

Nature Abhors A Vacuum

Tonight across many networks the high school graduates of 2020 are being celebrated by members of the entertainment industry culminating in a speech from former President Barack Obama.  First proposed on Twitter a few weeks ago this came together because of the work of Lebron James and many others.  The show spoke to the class who for the last few weeks had to give up what is likely the most fun of anyone's high school years.  The celebration gives hope to a group of students whose plans for their immediate future were blown away by Covid-19 and the uncertain nature it brings.  So entertainers and others came together to give a special moment to these students.  That is a remarkable thing.  But it should have never had to happen. 

I am not saying that it should have happened.  I am watching it and listening to the former President give great advice and a pep talk to kids who I know are struggling to fully grasp what is going on.  I am saying that if we had a real leader in this country this could have been organized by our leaders. 

Imagine if the current President has said to his team to create a program like this.  Imagine if this President had the empathy to see just how devastating the last few months has been for these kids and made an effort to sooth their fear and celebrate their accomplishments.  Imagine if we could trust this President not to make a speech like this about him, playing the victim, pointing a finger and lying to the youth of America. We can't because the leader of this country does not seem to care about the average American.  But even worse, his team doesn't seem to have the ability to fill in for him. 

His entire vision of America seems to be "what can you do for me" more than what he can do to make the country better.  Just the other day he said something to the effect that testing is bad because it helps us discover cases and we don't want our case numbers to go up.  Why?  Because it makes him look bad.  He has said as much. 

The lack of leadership in this country created a vacuum that had to be filled by a former President and a basketball star.  It is sick.  While I am glad the the former President is willing to put himself out there, besides what some in the GOP are telling him, and challenge the failure of the current administration.  I am more proud that he realized that the countries future is hurting and he offered to help them feel a little better.  We may look back at our own senior year and think how trivial our thoughts were, but in the moment everything was huge.  In the moment, everything was the most important thing that ever happened.  President Obama knows that, President Trump doesn't even care to find out.  

Tonight we were treated to a celebration and I am happy that it happened, but it reminded me the current President is a failure as a leader and a sympathetic human being.  That is depressing.  

  

Lebensunwertes Leben: The Call of the Right Wing

Life Unworthy of Life was a slogan used by the Nazi regime to identify those who them deemed not suited to live and use up resources in the new society they were building.  Far more sinister than even the Untermensch appellation which deemed some as subhuman, it did not even see those they classified ad Lebensunwertes Leben as useful as slaves to their war machine.  In what may be the most evil propaganda efforts in history, the German government convinced many people to kill or have killed loved ones who were mentally ill, had debilitating diseases or just were considered inferior.  There is even a film made of a great pianist who is diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis who commits suicide for the good of the state.  Later the killings became compulsory and as the country became more comfortable with death for the greater good of the country we see the Shoah (Holocaust) as the last step.  It started with the idea that some people need to be sacrificed in order for the state to survive and thrive.  

This bone-chilling idea took hold in the modern country of Germany in the middle of the 20th century because it made sense to many who felt they were betrayed by previous government actions after World War I and the notion that outside forces were driving Germany into a perpetual depression and using its systems to support people who were not adding to greatness of the nation.  Terms like useless eaters were used to describe large numbers of human beings.  Sometimes this notion even stretched to include people who were elderly and frail.  People who could no longer work or fight for the country.  Germany created a vision that made some people should not be saved, and in fact should be gotten rid of to allow the country to grow.  

That idea seems to have returned in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.  Not in Germany, not in a developing nation, but right here in the United States.  Several members of the political right have stated publicly either through their own media outlets or through social media that they think the elderly and by extension anyone with a condition that could be exacerbated by the virus should be willing to die to protect the economy.  Dan Patrick, the Lieutenant Governor of Texas said that he and those in his age bracket would be willing to die to avoid passing on debt to their grandchildren.  I have heard others say such things.  I haven't seen the polling data but everyone I know over 65 is willing to stay at home and not risk death because.......they love their grandchildren and want to spend as much time with them as they can.  

Ben Shapiro, a person who voices a lot of the right wing talking points in smug podcasts and through fringe media said this:  "If somebody who is 81 dies of COVID-19, that is not the same thing as somebody who is 30 dying of COVID-19...If grandma dies in a nursing home at age 81, that's tragic and it's terrible, also the life expectancy in the United States is 80".  For Ben it appears that it fine for an 81 year old to die of this terrible and painful disease for a chance to go out to eat or get a haircut.  They say it is to keep the economy intact and I already pointed out the hypocrisy of this position while maintaining women shouldn't be allow to get abortions to protect their economic security.  But this hypocrisy goes even further.  When the ACA, commonly referred to as Obamacare, had a provision for end of life therapy being covered the right wing noise machine and their noise makers in Congress called these death panels.  Ben was always on right wing shows saying it was an attempt to ration care for the elderly and the infirm and called it evil.  Now they say things like an 81 year old should be thankful for the years, one more than expected, and should just leave the stage. 

Then there is Jacob Wohl, a young man who is going to prison for securities fraud and who has paid people to lie about affairs with many people including Dr. Fauci was talking about the Corona virus death toll being about 1 percent.  "So what if we lose 400,000 people?  That 200,000 elderly and the other 200,000 are the bottom of society.  You have to clean out the barn. If it's real it is a good thing, for God's sake."  This is the spirit of Lebensunwertes Leben.  The Nazi idea that some must be killed for greater good of the nation.  He says it is a good thing that 400,000 people die.  

 If only they were the only voices, but more and more we hear it on radio, the internet and on at least one major television news station.  People are dying because of the incompetence of the President, and now voices are saying that is it a good thing that they are.  Covid-19 will kill people, lots of them.  Staying home and physical distancing will lower the number of deaths because we won't overwhelm the healthcare system.  We will buy time to find a real treatment and save lives.  We will eventually get to a time when it can be dealt with by treatment and/or vaccine.  But until then we shouldn't have to choose to kill people because someone can't get their hair colored or a massage or enough beef.  That is not just nonsense, it is a call we have heard before, it creates the idea that some human beings are not worthy to fight for them to live.  That is not a direction as a culture we should feel comfortable going.  That is not something we should give voice.  

 

Covid-19 May 1

So I watched 1984 last night in part thinking about dystopian societies can be really much worse that what we have today.  Watching Winston Smith's rewriting history in his cubicle at the Ministry of Truth makes you think of the press office in our current White House and the President.  It seems like many times in the last week we have heard things from the podium and on TV shows that contradict things we have on film.  It is hard to not see the comparison.  Today the new Press Secretary who is so unqualified for this job in a real administration when asked if she would lie to the press, stated emphatically she wouldn't and less than two minutes later lied.  It was this kind of news this week that made me want to write something funny to get our minds off of the complete and utter cluster that is the Executive Branch of this government.  You know like describing your Zoom (Room) 101.   But then I saw this. 








These were taken at a anti-lockdown rally in Illinois.  They should not be confused with the fake posters circulating from a Pittsburgh rally earlier.  Every indication is that these are real.  IN fact I believe a news agency spoke with the woman with the Arbeit Macht Frei one who explained "I am not racist, I have Jewish friends".  So here we are.  One person using a slogan that was meant to taunt so many as they marched to their deaths at the hands of a tyrannical government and the other protester likening a Jewish Governor to Hitler.  Both of which are disgusting on many many levels. 

First, a rule of thumb.  Being asked to stay home, to slow the spread of a disease which is literally killing people at an alarming rate, does not equate with being dragged from your home, your property seized, your clothes, shoes and gold fillings in your teeth surrendered and then put into a gas chamber to be killed, or made to dig a ditch that would become your grave.  In fact the government is providing resources to help all who are struggling during this time. 

 Secondly, carrying Nazi symbols and slogans will not win most people to your cause.  Most Americans are in favor of the measures directed at keeping people safer from the virus and if you want to convince people to change their minds you might want to use for your model something that isn't so hated. 

Now, the point of the shutdowns was to slow the spread of the virus, in part, to not overwhelm the healthcare system.  This is a highly virulent, and for a percentage of those that get it, a disease that is highly destructive, requiring intensive care and a great deal of equipment that could not handle the numbers.  Staying at home, limiting contact between people and of course making large crowds forbidden has done its job in many places.  But we aren't over the hump in those places and every rally will make it less likely that we can loosen up the restrictions.  Many people who are going to these rallies say that the models were wrong and it is not that contagious.  But it was the very things they are arguing to end that made the numbers smaller in many places.  Think of it this way. 

Imagine you are living on street that for a long time was fairly quiet but started to get busier.  At the corner there are a series of near miss accidents and then a big one that kills a family.  A four-way stop is added.  It backs up traffic, it makes people have to leave earlier for work or be late.  It slows you down getting home.  It is a nuances.  It makes life more difficult and when there is extra traffic it is infuriating by reason.  But no more accident occur.  So people start to protest the stop signs.  Instead of asking for a round-about or a traffic light they want to be free to go back like it was.  They argue that there was only one deadly accident and they are adults and work it out on their own.  This is a good analogy to what these people are asking.  They aren't looking for a way to balance safety and freedom, they just seem angry that their vision of freedom is being curtailed.  Science, facts and danger to anyone and everyone is not relevant because they don't believe them.  That is the scary thing and the President of the United States appears to have their backs.

I think this pandemic sucks on many levels.  I go out rarely,  I can't get all the things I want, I have less money for fun things, my vacation is on hold.  There are days I am scared for myself and Dianne and for so many other people.   But the alternative to staying home, missing out on fun and even some things that we might have thought essential, is not nearly as bad as being a Jew in the 1930s and 40s in large parts of Europe.  That is just privileged ignorance at the highest level. Knock it off.