NINE MONTHS AND COUNTING. . .

My name it ain’t nothin’, my age it means less/The country I come from is called the Midwest/I was taught and brought up there, all the laws to abide/And that the land that I lived in, had God on its side. —Bob Dylan, from With God on our Side, 1964

Sometime around a year ago, probably in a fit of madness, I decided to start a blog.  Now, 9 months and thirteen posts later, maybe it’s time to reflect back on the issues that’ve appeared on these pages.

What’s changed?  What’s better? What’s worse.  What’s going on?

So far, we’ve talked about the grave threat posed to America—by Americans, as seen through the eyes of the Chinese Communist party.  We’ve looked at our shocking politicization and lack of response to the COVID pandemic.

We’ve tried to sort out the impossible to define boogie-man called critical race theory, and understand why it’s being used to demean education, and most of all, keep power in the hands of far-right hypocrites.

We’ve talked about the impact of guns on our society, and how America continues to mutate toward a culture of “everybody should carry a gun everywhere” even as the body count keeps growing.

We’ve confronted the emotionally charged issue of abortion, and the double standard placed on women in America—especially poor women.  We’ve seen how simply “banning” it will accomplish nothing.

And finally, around Christmas, we’ve had an imaginary letter from Jesus, wondering, among other things, how we’ve managed to screw up our world so badly.

So where does all of this stand now?

America

America, where are you now?/Don’t you care about your sons and daughters?/Don’t you know we need you now/We can’t fight alone against this Monster.—Steppenwolf, from America/Monster, 1969

As inflation rages throughout the world, refugees pour out of war-torn nations, and critical midterm elections approach, our country only sinks deeper into what has become “the American way”—self-righteous finger pointing, a refusal to take responsibility, and a rush to embrace extremism and hatred for anyone with whom we disagree. 

All of this folds up into the people we’re likely to put into office.  Will this election finally bring some level heads into government, or will it usher in even more extremists as democracy spirals out of control?

Will Elon “I’m rich so I don’t have to care” Musk’s purchase of Twitter lead us to completely abandon legitimate news sources in favor of the anonymous grunts, taunts, lies, and threats that are the core of what can only loosely be described as “social” media?

Or will we finally drop the façade of even calling it social media, and just call it what it’s become—antisocial media?

One thing is still true since I wrote my first post.  As America becomes ever more immersed in its own cultural and religious wars, our enemies celebrate.  And our allies despair. 

This will not end well for democracy.

Oh, and one more thing.  That election that was just held in France, the one where neither candidate really resonated with the French people?  It had the lowest voter turnout in over twenty years—72% of French voters. 

Compare that to our country, where the 2020 election drew record numbers of Americans to the polls.  A whopping 66%.

Read into that whatever you’d like.  But it’s not great press for American democracy.

COVID

As you and I are standing, at the dawn of a new century/Little Europes have sprung everywhere, as anyone can see/But there on the horizon is the possibility/That some bug from out of Africa might come for you and me/Destroying everything in its path from sea to shining sea/Just like the Great Nations of Europe in the sixteenth century. –Randy Newman, The Great Nations of Europe, 2003.

The numbers are pretty straightforward—over a million Americans have died from the virus.  Even this count is probably low.  Considering the additional unexplained deaths in this country, the actual number is at least a hundred thousand more.  But hey, we’re America.  We don’t worry about math, right?

Millions of Americans still refuse to wear masks, get vaccinated, or even acknowledge the virus’s threat because they place their own egos over the health of their neighbors.  Quacks still profit from pushing phony remedies, and amoral politicians continue to equate simple public health measures with Orwellian mind control.

Recently, a trio of economists with no public health experience tried to “prove” that mandatory public health measures had no significant impact on COVID.  They released a “working paper” that was heralded by the right-wing media as the “Johns Hopkins Study.”

In reality, it had nothing to do with the Johns Hopkins Schools of Medicine and Public Health, both highly regarded institutions.  But apparently the authors thought they could get more milage out of the paper if they could infer a connection based on a loose affiliation one of them had with the Hopkins School of Arts and Sciences.

To describe the multiple flaws in this study would take all day, but I’ll try to be brief.  The authors cherry picked their data, included studies that agreed with them and excluded studies that didn’t.  They refused to include extensive scientific research that already proved the value of interventions such as masks.

They drew their conclusions based on information from over a year ago, when earlier variants had primarily hit the northeast, which quickly mandated masking, social distancing, etc.  Many southern states smugly pointed to their early “success” in stopping the virus without such mandates.  It was data from this time period that the study used to reach its conclusions.

But then the Delta variant slammed the country.  Its deadly impact was most pronounced in the South, where death rates skyrocketed and overwhelmed hospital ICUs from Miami to Houston.  These data weren’t included in the study.

But the downright goofiest aspect of the study was how it defined everyone’s favorite hot-button term, “lockdown.”  According to the authors, this meant any nonpharmacological intervention.

That’s right—the conclusions were based on the assumption that being required to wear a mask in a grocery store was no different from being told you can’t go to work.  No wonder their findings made no sense.

Johns Hopkins University quickly disavowed the study, the Vice-Dean of its world recognized School of Public Health saying, among other things, “To reach their conclusion that ‘lockdowns’ had a small effect on mortality, the authors redefined the term ‘lockdown’ and disregarded many peer-reviewed studies. The working paper did not include new data, and serious questions have already been raised about its methodology.”

Dr. Seth Flaxman from Oxford University perhaps said it best when he described the study this way: “It’s as if we wanted to know whether smoking causes cancer, so we asked a bunch of new smokers: did you have cancer the day before you started smoking?  And what about the day after?  If we did this, obviously we’d incorrectly conclude smoking is unrelated to cancer. . .”  

The study was so flawed that eventually even FOX News stopped talking about it.  But unfortunately, its damage to America’s health lives on.

After a year of wrestling with the virus, and watching life expectancy fall in country after country (it was down by nearly two years in the U.S.), much of the world got a reprieve as life expectancy once again started to rise.

But not for us.  In America, life expectancy in 2021 fell yet again.  Not that long ago, U.S. life expectancy was pushing 80 years. Today, the average American can expect to live to age 76.6.

What will it be next year?  And the next?  And when the next pandemic hits?  Who knows?

One thing is certain.  As states cut back on public health programs, shackle their health departments, scapegoat public health workers, and water down science with politics, American health care will only worsen.

And just for the record, an analysis by the Peterson Institute revealed that 234,000 American deaths could have been prevented through adequate vaccinations. 

234,000 lives.  Let that sink in for a moment.

Critical Race Theory and Education

The history books tell it, they tell it so well/How the cavalries charged and the Indians fell/The cavalries charged and the Indians died/Ah, the country was young then, with God on its side. —Bob Dylan, from With God on our Side, 1964

For millions of Americans, not much has changed when it comes to CRT.  They’ve never seen it, they can’t define it, they just know they hate it.  And predictably, law after law has been passed outlawing it. 

How to enforce a law that’s based on how someone “feels” about their race?  Who knows?  How does a teacher know how a discussion of history will make a student “feel?”  When do you fire a teacher?  When do you arrest one?

Of course, this kind of “I have to protect my poor little Johnny from you evil teachers” has evolved into issues of sexuality, too.  Laws prohibiting discussion of LGBT issues have also been implemented across the country.  

Books that even I read in the 1950s and 60s, for God’s sake, have been banned from libraries.  In the state of Florida, over 50 Math books were banned because they used racial examples that stuck in the craw of Florida censors.

Math?   Really?  Apparently in Florida, whether you actually learn math is less important than whether you have your racial feelings hurt.  And protecting students from some ill-defined “CRT” is more important than whether or not they actually learn any math, or just remain stupid.

Sorry, but I get very emotional when it comes to the subject of book banning.  The Nazis burned books.  Dictatorships from communism to fascism banned books to stay in power.  They all knew that books carried something far more powerful than bullets.

They carried ideas.

My mother and father were the first in their respective families to graduate from High School.  My mother went to college.  For my father, higher education was only a dream.

But they both shared a belief that reading was key to moving forward in life.  They encouraged me to read anything and everything I could get my hands on.  Even if they disagreed with it, even if they didn’t like it, even if it really upset them, they simply couldn’t bring themselves to tell me not to read.  Instead, they trusted that I was smart enough to use the wisdom they had taught me to evaluate what I read.

Frankly, I’m glad my parents aren’t alive today to see the ignorance, hatred, and bitterness on full display at American school board meetings.  Screaming, raging, and publicly threatening teachers and school officials in full view of their own children—don’t these people realize they’re teaching their kids a far more dangerous lesson than anything that could be found in the books they want banned?  One day those children will be responsible for the success or failure of our nation.  How can they possibly succeed if the most important lesson they remember is their parents screaming at everyone they disagreed with?

America was established by human beings.  It’s been run by human beings for over two hundred years.  And human beings sometimes screw up.

Our country has done some incredible things we should be enormously proud of.  We’ve also done some awful things for which we should be ashamed.  America can’t grow and prosper if we don’t fully acknowledge both.  And all of this needs to be taught in school and elsewhere.

Oh, and if you’re someone who’s still convinced that books that upset you need to be banned, here’s something to consider.  There’s an extremely popular book that’s being openly promoted throughout the country that vividly describes scenes of brutality, murder, torture, rape, and incest. 

It’s called The Bible.  Do you want to ban it, too?

Guns

Oh, see the fire is sweepin’/Our very streets today/Burns like a red coal carpet/Mad bull has lost its way/War, children, It’s just a shot away, It’s just a shot away/War, children, It’s just a shot away, It’s just a shot away. —Mick Jagger, from Gimme Shelter by the Rolling Stones, 1969

Mortality rates for American young people just took an ominous turn, so I’ll give it to you straight.  If you are a young parent in this country today, your child is now more likely to die from a gunshot wound than any other cause.

That’s right.  More than auto accidents.  More than overdoses.  More than cancer, leukemia, lung disease and heart defects combined.   

Last year, 45,222 Americans died as result of a gunshot.  That’s a 25% increase in barely five years.  Gun murders, suicides, and mass shootings (what the FBI calls “active shooter incidents”) are all on the rise.

Knowing precisely how many people own guns is impossible, but from what evidence we have available, as gun ownership rates go up, so do homicides.  No, this doesn’t prove cause and effect, but it should be enough to give even hardened gun-worshipers pause.

And to take the obvious even a step further, consider that gun fatality rates correlate with a state’s political leanings.  “Red” republican states with looser gun laws tend to have higher fatality rates, with “blue” democratic states tracking in the opposite direction.  You can check it out here  Stats of the States – Firearm Mortality (cdc.gov) , but suffice it to say New Mexico is the only non-red state in the top 10 fatality states.  Nebraska is the only red state in the bottom 10.

And to be sure, paranoia doesn’t help.  Since the outbreak of COVID, new gun purchases have soared by 7.5 million, with a disproportionate number of women and minorities arming themselves.  Some of those purchasers may be safer.  And if current trends continue, many others will wind up killing themselves or a loved one.

Many states are moving toward ending all regulations on gun ownership.  The Nebraska Unicameral barely defeated a bill to do just that.  No permit, no training required, no restrictions, no worries.  How many will die from all of this is an open question.

Time will tell.

Abortion

But you never ask questions, when God’s on your side. . .—Dylan, 1964

Since my post on this topic, a much shorter (and somewhat sanitized version—it omitted the testicle reference) appeared in the Omaha World-Herald.  Otherwise, the only significant change in this issue is the ongoing “race to the bottom” as right-wing states pass increasingly restrictive laws in an attempt to outdo each other in proving who is the “toughest” on abortion.

In Texas, this hasn’t had much effect.  Abortions haven’t gone down; rather, women have gone out of state or obtained them medically.  Outside of weaponizing postal employees, it’s hard to know how this will change.

But as the geography of legal abortion availability changes, so does availability.  Texas again takes the cake for outrageous legal action by filing an attempted murder case against a woman who attempted a self-induced abortion.  I’m sure she won’t be the last.

In the meantime, Texas, the state with the highest number of uninsured people in the country, will continue to squander its resources deputizing every self-righteous zealot they can find to go out and try to collect a bounty on someone seeking an abortion.  And throughout the country, others will flee to safer states, a process that some have likened to the Underground Railroad of the early 1800s.

All in all, I still think my testicle bounty proposal is best.

But let’s leave Texas alone for a moment.  I have an award I’ll soon be giving to America’s Dumbest State, and for the record, it’s not Texas.  Stay tuned for an upcoming post.

In the meantime, let’s get a final thought from Jesus. . .

WWJSN (What Would Jesus Say Now?)

Through many dark hours, I’ve been thinking about this/How Jesus Christ was betrayed by a kiss/But I can’t think for you, you’ll have to decide/Whether Judas Iscariot had God on his side. —Dylan, 1964

Hello everyone.  It’s been a while since my Christmas letter.  At that time, I was really concerned about the direction mankind was headed in.  I was also wondering if those three years I spent teaching what you people later called “Christian principles” was actually a waste of time.  You certainly didn’t seem to learn much.

Since then, you haven’t exactly done a lot to change my mind.

Politicians who don’t actually believe in me still trot me out in order to get elected.  Some clown in Minnesota tries to use me to sell pillows.  And tinhorn dictators throughout the world use me as an excuse to start wars.

So let me restate this another way.  I don’t give a damn about your politics, your flag, your prejudices, or even which church you occasionally wander in and out of!  I don’t care if you’ve memorized The Bible, your Catechism, your prayer book, or the Koran!  Most of you still couldn’t find Mathew 22:39 with a road map, much less put it into practice.

Here’s a news flash:  you’re not going to be around that long.  A few years will fly by while you’re all wrapped up in yourself, trying to get ahead, then BAM!  It’s gonna be over!  The time you could have spent making a difference will be gone. 

So maybe instead of worrying about how to lock in some kind of glorious afterlife, focus on making the world a better place for everyone else now.  That way, you’d all be a lot better off in the long run.

And one last thing.  I’m not on anybody’s “side” in a war, football game, or election.  And I have absolutely no interest in whether or not you cross yourself before you shoot a free throw, either.

See you down the road.

Jesus 

And now that I’m leavin’, I’m weary as hell/These things that I’m feelin’, ain’t no tongue can tell/My thoughts fill my head and they fall to the floor/That if God is on our side, He’ll stop the next war. —Dylan, 1964

Postscript

Just as I was preparing to hit the “send” button on this post, word leaked that the United States Supreme Court is preparing to strike down Roe v Wade, and effectively outlaw abortions in many states. Although it would be significant, I don’t think it adds nor detracts from anything I’ve written in this post, my earlier post, my World-Herald piece, or anything else, for that matter.

The fact remains that nothing a cloistered star chamber of nine upper class judges can do or say will change the realities of what millions of American women must confront on a daily basis. 

For at least five of those judges, apparently, that makes no difference.

Details at Eleven.

REFERENCES:

1. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
2. https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/delta-variant-ravaged-southern-hospitals-send-clear-visual-message-about-rates-of-vaccinated-patients/ar-AAOciCG
3. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/02/18/fact-check-working-paper-isnt-proof-lockdown-dont-work-experts-say/6749032001/
4. https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/07/health/us-life-expectancy-drops-again-2021/index.html
5. Quarter of US COVID-19 deaths could have been prevented by vaccination: analysis | The Hill
6. https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/02/14/critical-race-theory-teachers-fear-laws/
7. Map: See which states have passed critical race theory bills (nbcnews.com)
8. ‘Terrorism and hate crimes’: School boards say death threats, unruly meetings require FBI (msn.com)
9. https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/17/us/florida-math-textbooks-critical-race-theory/index.html?utm_term=16502775574143ede3f2a9238&utm_source=cnn_Five+Things+for+Monday%2C+April+18%2C+2022&utm_medium=email&bt_ee=DrnC234sBugkXAXntKRdZFwn2y1HT0%2F9K4DKBgtT6C2Hd%2BVELGgmhERD0lWAyV1z&bt_ts=1650277557416
10. Firearm purchasing during the COVID pandemic
11. Firearm Injury in the United States: Time to Confront It as the Epidemic It Has Become | Annals of Internal Medicine (acpjournals.org)
12. The Relationship Between Firearm Prevalence and Violent Crime | RAND
13. Most Women Denied Abortions by Texas Law Got Them Another Way – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
14. Texas woman arrested for murder after ‘self-induced abortion’: police | Fox News
15. The abortion underground: Groups quietly help women who have to travel to access care (nbcnews.com)
16. Midlands Voices: What will it really take to end abortion? | Columnists | omaha.com
17. With God on our Side
18. Great Nations of Europe
19. The Rolling Stones – Gimme Shelter (Official Lyric Video) – YouTube