Music Friday: "Everyday People"

I was hanging out at our hotel last night, and basically there was a conversation beginning that was bordering on racist talk about the "Blacks." The conversation was started by two rednecks from Louisiana. 

Because I knew how the conversation might progress, I just left rather than listen to a bunch of dumb white people talk nonsense. 

And all this comes this week when the musical genius who was Sly Stone died. 

Here's to a brighter vision of accepting everyday people.

 

Random Notes from a Crank

I was naughty this past week and didn't provide a Music Friday post. Bad blogger...

Jennier Rubin has a good op-ed piece in The Washington Post that should be read to figure out what extreme right-wingers and FauxNews is up to: "The GOP Is No Longer a Party. It's a Movement to Impose White Christian Nationalism." 

Here's a significant ¶ to read: "In a real sense, the MAGA response is an effort to conserve power and to counteract the sense of a shared fate with Americans who historically have been marginalized. The right now defines itself not with policies but with its angry tone, its malicious labeling and insults (e.g., "groomer," "woke"), and its targeting of LGBTQ youths and dehumanization of immigrants. Right-wingers' attempt to cast their opponents as sick, dangerous and -- above all -- not "real Americans" is as critical to securing power as voter suppression."

Who the hell is using the term "groomer." That's sick. 

The rhetorical dark arts that the right wing uses reminds of one of the better books I've in the past couple of years: America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States by Erika Lee. 

Check Your Head by the Beastie Boys turned 30 this year. I would argue that it is the group's best album. 

NPR has a feature on the album: "Why Beastie Boys' Check Your Head Album Still Matters 30 Years Later." 

Random Notes from a Crank

 I'm trying to catch up on my public affairs magazine reading. 

Here are some factoids from the last three months of "Harper's Indexes":

• Percentage decrease in the number of flu cases in the United States this season: 99
• Factor by which U.S. police officers are more likely to use force against left-wing protesters than right-wing protesters: 3.4
• Percentage of Black Lives Matter protests during which the police used force against protesters: 5
• Of Stop the Steal protests during which police did so: 1
• Percentage of Americans who identified as Republicans and Democrats, respectively, at the outset of 2020: 47, 45
• At the end of 2020: 39, 50
• Number of U.S. members of Congress who are not affiliated with a religion: 1
• Portion of the American population that is not: 1/4
• Percentage of 2020 Trump voters who feel more loyal to Trump than to the Republican Party: 54
• Who would support a Trump party over the Republican Party: 46
• Minimum number of identified long-term effects from contracting COVID-19: 55
• Factor by which a solar farm was more expensive to build and maintain than a coal plant in 2009: 3.2
• By which a coal plant is more expensive to build and maintain than a solar farm today: 2.2
• Estimated number of Earths that humanity would require to sustain its current level of resource consumption: 1.6
• Year in which humanity  is expected to require two Earths: 2030
• Number of U.S. state legislatures that are considering new voting restrictions: 47
• Number of such bills being considered: 361
• Percentage of Democratic or Democratic-leaning voters who are "extremely concerned" about Trump supporters: 82
• Who are "extremely concerned" about voter suppression: 53
• Percentage of U.S. electric-car owners who are concerned about being able to charge their vehicles on the road: 47
• Portion of U.S. electric-car charging outlets that are in California: 1/3
• That support only Tesla vehicles: 1/5
• Minimum number of state governments that are funding efforts to modify the weather with cloud seeding: 6

Usually when I provide the stats and figures from the Harper's Index, I just leave them as for readers to ponder for themselves. But for this post since it's three-months worth of numbers and percentages, I thought I'd comment on some of them. 

With the drop of flu cases, it's clear that masks work, people. That's why people in certain countries in Asia wear masks during flu season. 

In response to the "Blue Lives Matter" crowd, it seems that the police feel conservative lives matter more. 

I hesitantly take the party affiliation changes from the start of 2020 to the end as a good sign. The Republican Party has lost any sense of a moral and/or philosophical compass with people's irrational support of Moscow Don. 

That long-term effects figure should be a part of PSAs about getting the COVID-19 vaccine. 

We need to build more solar farms and electric-car charging outlets. 

Back to the GOP, they want to restrict voting access because doing so helps them. But will it? I wonder if these ridiculous bills like the one in Georgia will only motivate people to vote. That's my hope. 

Music Friday: "Killing in the Name"

Times they are a-changin'. Hopefully. 

Rage provided this anthem way back in '92. Still relevant. 

Musing of the Moment: The Thin Blue Line American Flag

The Marshall Project has a good read about the Thin Blue Line flag entitled "The Short, Fraught History of the Think Blue Line Flag." 

I get that being a police officer, if done correctly, is one hell of a tough profession. I understand. 

But to deny that there is systemic racism is happening is ridiculous. The first real viral video is the one of Rodney King getting hit fifty times while scads of LA cops sit around and watch the four officers beat the hell out of him. 

The past few weeks' events have created an awakening about systemic racism. That's good. 

But I have no respect or need for a doctored flag that has the stars and stripes in black and white with a thin blue line. 

To my mind, it's being used as a new Confederate flag.

Random Notes from a Crank

I'm not surprised by the report that Jake Fromm texted folks that guns should be expensive and only "elite white people" should have them: "Jake Fromm Apologizes..."

I would imagine the reaction of police officers would be quite different if the groups protesting over George Floyd were packing handguns and rifles like the protesters who went to statehouses over two weeks ago at Moscow Don's egging on. 

Some people think the 2nd Amendment only applies to certain people. 

Regardless, those folks are not a "well-regulated militia," a key phrase in one of the most poorly worded sentences in the English language. The early Republic relied on militias because the founders were wary of large standing armies. Militias were also used to quell slave rebellions. 

As we've seen via social media, how can people still be upset over people taking knees during the national anthem? 

Read "Colin Kaepernick Was Right, and Pro Athletes Won't Stand Down." 

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. 

Random Notes from a Crank

Of all of the op-ed writers out there, Greg Sargent of The Washington Post is one of the strongest ones writing right now. Check out these two fine columns for your edification:

• "The Big, Ugly Lie at the Core of Trump's Latest Surrender" 
• "Trump Just Denied His Attacks Are Racist. He Only Confirmed the Worst"

Today I was reminded of this fine scene from Blazing Saddles. 

HARUMPH. 

Random Notes from a Crank

Apparently people have a different view of some pretty simple concepts and terms such as these: 

• Collusion
• Obstruction
• Guilty
• Treason
• Lies
• Criminal activity

If a Democrat like Bill Clinton or whomever would have done what Moscow Don and his campaign and his administration did, the GOP and their handlers/propagandists at FoxNews would be going ape-shit. 

I am so tired of white supremacists.

Yet I'm reading the Henry Louis Gate's Jr. book about the Reconstruction and the "Redemption" period that instituted Jim Crow. It's like picking a psychological and intellectual scab.

When I'm done with that fine book, I will move on to read K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches by Tyler Kepner. I am especially intrigued by the the sinker, which is a pitch I'm trying to get my pitchers on my baseball teams to try out. If thrown correctly, sinkers induce lots of ground balls. 

Random Notes from a Crank

The other day I was at an establishment getting my car's oil changed. An older gentleman was there, and he had on a hat that said "Cold War Veteran." I respect veterans. I have all kinds of veterans in my family in fact. But if a person lived during the Cold War, aren't they too Cold War veterans in a sense? 

As a recent article relates, battling global warming will also save loads of money: "By Getting Serious about Limiting Global Warming, the World Could Save Itself More than $20 Trillion." 

I've never figured out why people get so angry about people speaking something other than English in the USA. As another recent articles informs us: "Spanish Still Polarizing in US."  With Moscow Don's idiocy about the wall and Mexicans and other immigrants, such English-only nonsense is only getting worse, unfortunately.

Random Notes from a Crank

Ta-Nehisi Coates is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers. "My President Was Black" is fitting take on President Obama. And as Coates deftly analyzes, "Pointing to citizens who voted for both Obama and Trump does not disprove racism; it evinces it. To secure the White House, Obama needed to be a Harvard-trained lawyer with decade of political experience and an incredible gift for speaking to cross-sections of the country; Donald Trump needed only money and white bluster."

Here's yet another reason why we should start calling the president-elect "Moscow Don": "Experts Say Trump's 'Policies' Dovetail with What Vladimir Put Would Like for Russia." 

I was on Amazon yesterday contemplating whether I wanted to buy a package of 1000 moist towelettes for thirteen bucks. Those things are helpful. 

I made some tater tot casserole this weekend. It was outstanding. 

I keep forgetting to do a "Sunday Hangover" post about the national championship. It's a difficult game to write about. For me at least.