Random Notes from a Crank

In the October issue of The Atlantic there's a short article by Jeffrey Goldberg based on his interviews with former Secretary of Defense James Mattis: "The Man Who Couldn't Take It Anymore." Like the author, I wish Mattis would speak out more. 

The anonymous author who wrote an op-ed column a while back about the unhinged, racist, intellectually dubious, and easily influenced nature of Moscow Don has published a book: "Book by Anonymous Describes Trump as Cruel, Inept, and a Danger to the Nation." 

It's a narrative that should seriously concern any American citizen. In one of the early ¶s of the article, it paints a chilling but not surprising portrait comparing Moscow Don to "a twelve-year old in an air traffic control tower, pushing button of government indiscriminately, indifferent to the planes skidding across the runway and the flight frantically diverting away from the airpot." 

I've compiled a bunch of metrics and stats from past Harper's Indexes dating all the way back from May:

• Factor by which users of marijuana edibles are more likely to require emergency care than marijuana smokers: 33
• Percentage of U.S. adults who admit to shopping while drunk: 26
• Average amount of those adults spend annually on purchases made while drunk: $736
• Estimated value of drunk shopping to the U.S. economy each year: $39,400,000,000
• Number of U.S. counties in which a full-time worker making minimum wage can afford a one-bedroom apartment: 22
• Percentage by which a same-sex couple is more likely to be denied a home loan than other couples: 73
• Estimated percentage of New York City police officers who have received tickets for speeding tickets for speeding and running red lights: 59
• Of New York City drivers in general: 36
• Percentage of Republican or Republican-leaning whites who are bothered by hearing a non-English language in public: 47
• Of Democratic or Democratic-leaning whites: 18
• Factor by which more migrants with criminal records are apprehended at the Canadian rather than the Mexican border: 3
• Percentage chance that a U.S. woman who is denied an abortion will be in poverty six months later: 61
• Factor by which more Americans died in school shootings than in combat last year: 3
• Rank of Candid among countries resettling the most refugees in 2018: 1
• Minimum number of years for which the United States previously held that distinction: 59
• Number of U.S. state that require permits for children's lemonade stands: 34
• Estimated number of active police officers who use racist, bigoted, or violent language on Facebook: 20
• Of retired police officers: 45
• Percentage by which the federal minimum wage is worth les today than it was in 1968: 31
• Number of years for which the federal minimum wage has remained unadjusted: 10
• Number of U.S. representatives and senators who are naturalized American citizens: 14
• Number of those who are Democrats: 14
• Number of think tanks in the United States: 1,872
• Factor by which this figure has increased since 1980: 2
• Percentage of American adults who think the Iraq War was not worth fighting: 62
• Of veterans: 64
• Portion of violent protest movements seeking regime change from 1900 to 2014 that were successful: 1/4
• Of nonviolent protest movements: 1/2
• Rank of Brazil among countries with the highest amount of annual forest depletion: 2
• Rank of Russia: 1
• Minimum number of Afghan civilians killed this year by the Afghan military and international forces: 577
• By the Taliban: 423
• Average number of times per week Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is mentioned on Fox News: 42
• On CNN: 14
• Number of states whose Supreme Court benches are all white: 24
• Number of those states in which at least a quarter of the population consists of people of color: 8
• Minimum number of U.S. universities that have offered courses related to the marijuana industry: 14
• Rank of subscription television services among the forty-six major U.S. industries in terms of customer satisfaction: 46
• Of breweries: 1

Some initial thoughts based on all that data...

Thank the Gods for beer. 

Prejudice against same-sex couples is quite alive. 

Arguments for a much higher minimum wage have some ammunition. 

As much as people want to talk about the "thin blue line," to think there are not problems with policing in this country is foolishness. The tickets for NYC cops is somewhat jejune but not an aberration. People in power can easily abuse that power. 

The GOP has become a nativist party that has become obsessed with painting Democrats as socialists. 

Legalized marijuana has its challenges.