Month: June 2020

Photos of readers

June 30, 2020 • 2:45 pm

This is the last photo in the tank, so this feature will have to stop, least temporarily, until readers submit their photos (limit two), with a brief description. Ideally they would show you doing something during lockdown, but it need not be that. Interesting photos of your life are fine.  If you have a cat, that could be in there, too.

Today we feature reader Wayne Hoskisson, whose notes are indented:

One photo is political so it may be a good choice. But it is important to me.

The first photo is me on a trail about one mile from my doorstep in mid April. Some years I will walk in this area nearly weekly. I live in rural SE Utah so it is easy finding some place with zero socializing.

The second photograph was taken in Sept., 2017. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Mark Maryboy, a long time Navajo leader in SE Utah, are standing on a highway with the Bears Ears Buttes in the background. Sen. Durbin has long been the lead Senator for protecting public lands in Utah. Mark Maryboy was one of those instrumental in developing a proposal that resulted in Pres. Obama designating the Bears Ears National Monument on Dec. 28, 2016. Pres. Trump reduced the Bears Ears National Monument by 81% on Dec. 4, 2017. I was fortunate to be asked to accompany Sen. Durbin on his visit to the Bears Ears.

Supreme Court hands victory to Right and religion, compelling taxpayer to fund religious schools in Montana. Roberts votes with majority.

June 30, 2020 • 1:45 pm

I haven’t read the decision, so I’ll just leave this in passing. But save your approbation for Chief Justice Roberts, for he joined the court’s 5-4 majority, and wrote the opinion that tax money could be used to support religious schools. The Montana Supreme Court had previously struck down a voucher scheme for school funding because that scheme would have given financial aid to religious schools, violating the Constitution. Religious people brought an appeal, requesting funding for private schools that included religious ones (the bulk of Montana’s private schools). Now the Supremes have ruled that the scheme was indeed Constitutional, and Montana can go ahead and tax people, with some of the money going to vouchers for religious schools.

Here’s the summary from SCOTUSblog (click on screenshot):

The first link below goes to the entire opinion:

Judgment: Reversed and remanded, 5-4, in an opinion by Chief Justice Roberts on June 30, 2020. Justice Thomas filed a concurring opinion, in which Justice Gorsuch joined. Justice Alito filed a concurring opinion. Justice Gorsuch filed a concurring opinion. Justice Ginsburg filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Kagan joined. Justice Breyer filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Kagan joined as to Part I. Justice Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion.

From the Freedom from Religion Foundation, which filed an amicus brief:

In Espinoza v. Montana Dept. of Revenue, the Supreme Court overturned a ruling by the Montana Supreme Court, which held that a neo-voucher school funding scheme violates the “No Aid” to religion clause of the state Constitution. The state court struck down the entire neo-voucher scheme as it applied to all private education, religious and secular. Nearly 90 percent of Montana’s private schools are affiliated with religion. Christian parents, represented by the pro-voucher Institute of Justice, appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to declare that No Aid clauses violate the federal Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts, illogically ruled that religious schools were indeed being singled out.

“A state need not subsidize private education,” the majority judgment states. “But once a state decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.”

The absurdity of the majority decision is laid bare in a dissenting opinion. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined by Justice Elena Kagan, points out that the Montana Supreme Court had made no distinction between religious and nonreligious schools.

“Because Montana’s Supreme Court did not make such a decision — its judgment put all private school parents in the same boat — this court had no occasion to address the matter,” the dissent states. It adds: “The state court struck the program in full. In doing so, the court never made religious schools ineligible for an otherwise available benefit, and it never decided that the Free Exercise Clause would allow that outcome.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor has a stinging dissent of her own.

“Today’s ruling is perverse,” she writes. “Without any need or power to do so, the court appears to require a state to reinstate a tax-credit program that the Constitution did not demand in the first place. [The court] rejects the Religion Clauses’ balanced values in favor of a new theory of free exercise, and it does so only by setting aside well-established judicial constraints.”

To show the absurdity of this ruling, which reinstated the voucher system including religious schools when it didn’t have to reinstate anything, reader Tom cited this paragraph from Gorsuch’s and Thomas’s concurring opinion.

Seriously? “Properly understood, the Establishment Clause does not prohibit States from favoring religion”? The Establishment Clause was put into place to prevent the government from promoting religion and favoring one religion over another. This ruling clearly uses government funds to promote religion in religious schools, and it favors Catholics, who surely run the bulk of Montana’s religious schools.

“They can legislate as they wish”.  There goes the First Amendment, and the noise you hear is the toppling of the long-established but recently-eroding wall between church and state. This is a really, really bad, and importantly bad, decision.  It moves us closer to the theocracy that Trump and his supporters want.

Reddit bans “hate speech” but only against certain groups

June 30, 2020 • 10:45 am

As I’ve said before, I think one can make a reasonable case for designating certain crimes as “hate crimes”. For if groups like Jews, blacks, or gays are targeted repeatedly for their identity alone, then increasing the penalties for such crimes, if you can establish the reasons for the crime, will act as a deterrent beyond the normal deterrents of the law.

Hate speech, though, is a different matter, for it often falls under the First Amendment, and, even when it doesn’t it’s always a slippery concept. While it’s fairly easy to define a hate crime (you need a motive and a victim), hate speech is notoriously hard to pin down. I’ve written about this many times before, emphasizing that one person’s free speech—speech intended to provoke discussion—is another person’s hate speech. I’ll mention Steve Bannon, Milo Yiannopoulos, Christina Hoff Sommers, Charles Murray, Louis Farrakhan, and others whose speech has been deemed not just hate speech, but speech that should be banned, and certainly not heard. While the courts can adjudicate hate crimes, who would you choose to adjudicate hate speech? (Hitchens was famous for asking that question.)

Well, Reddit has taken it upon itself to adjudicate the speech on its platform according to new guidelines given below (click on screenshot). I’ve put their guidelines below, indented. (Emphasis is mine.)

Rule 1: Remember the human. Reddit is a place for creating community and belonging, not for attacking marginalized or vulnerable groups of people. Everyone has a right to use Reddit free of harassment, bullying, and threats of violence. Communities and people that incite violence or that promote hate based on identity or vulnerability will be banned.

Marginalized or vulnerable groups include, but are not limited to, groups based on their actual and perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, immigration status, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, pregnancy, or disability. These include victims of a major violent event and their families.

While the rule on hate protects such groups, it does not protect all groups or all forms of identity. For example, the rule does not protect groups of people who are in the majority or who promote such attacks of hate.

Some examples of hateful activities that would violate the rule:

  • Subreddit community dedicated to mocking people with physical disabilities.
  • Post describing a racial minority as sub-human and inferior to the racial majority.
  • Comment arguing that rape of women should be acceptable and not a crime.
  • Meme declaring that it is sickening that people of color have the right to vote.

Additionally, when evaluating the activity of a community or an individual user, we consider both the context as well as the pattern of behavior.

Of course Reddit has the right to regulate speech on its site as it sees fit; it’s a private organization. The First Amendment doesn’t apply there, though I always think private organizations should adhere to the courts’ interpretations of the First Amendment as far as possible. What is troublesome here is that while groups are protected on the basis of “race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, immigration status, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, pregnancy, or disability”, these rules don’t apply if a group is “in the majority”. I’m not sure what that means, unless it refers specifically to white people or women (who outnumber men).

And if that’s what it means, does that mean that it’s okay to denigrate white people, like Louis Farrakhan does with his hateful diatribes against both whites and Jews? Is it okay to denigrate women because they comprise 50.8% of the U.S. population. (It needn’t be added that, of course, denigrating men will still be okay.) If Reddit is in Israel, is it okay to go after Jews?

My point here is that although Reddit can ban hate speech, why should there be exceptions about who can be hated without sanction based solely on their numerical predominance? Bigotry and hate are bigotry and hate, no matter who the target. Note that “posts describing a racial MAJORITY as sub-human and inferior to the racial MINORITY” would be fine under reddit’s rules. In fact, that’s just what Farrakhan does, but is that okay?

If you’re going to ban hatred of people for belonging to groups, it should apply to all groups, not just minorities.

Here’s Maajid Nawaz on his LBC show, who apparently shares similar views on the “inconsistent application” of social-media censorship. (Click on screenshot to hear his exercised but reasonable argument.):

 

h/t: Ben, Malgorzata

NYT op-ed warns against canceling newspaper subscriptions, even though we have many reasons to cancel that paper

June 30, 2020 • 9:00 am

In general, I support good journalism. For many years I subscribed to the New York Times paper version, looking forward to the daily dollop of doings on my doorstep. Then I stopped for a while, and then subscribed electronically (I still do). I recently added a subscription to the Washington Post. But as they said in the old days, “By God, sir, things have gone too damn far.”

In this NYT op-ed, Margaret Renkl mounts a vigorous but (to me) unconvincing argument that we need to keep supporting newspapers no matter what they do. Renkl is a continuing opinion writer for the paper as well as an author; she lives in Tennessee.

Renkl begins by defending The Tennessean, Nashville’s daily morning paper, calling its journalists “heroes.” And indeed, the paper, progressive in a conservative state, has a history of fighting for civil rights and for diligent coverage of local news. Now the paper is bleeding money and jobs, and has, according to Renkl, become “a shadow of its former self.”

That’s true of many local papers. As Renkl reports, 7800 journalists lost their jobs this year, and papers are disappearing or becoming moribund right and left. The Chicago Tribune, once my city’s flagship paper, is thin and barely worth reading, and don’t even mention its rival the Chicago Sun-Times. The pandemic isn’t helping matters.

Of course the NYT has a self-serving interest in Renkl’s message. While digital subscriptions have topped 5 million, a record, overall profit has dropped by 15%, largely due to a decline in ad revenue.

Still, Renkl defends the need to describe even in light of recent turmoil at the paper.

As the “first rough draft of history,” journalism will always be prone to mistakes, no matter how assiduously reporters and editors try to prevent them. But canceling your newspaper subscription because of one ad, no matter how hideous — or because of one deeply offensive headline, or one flagrantly dangerous op-ed — will not cure journalism of what ails it.

The only thing canceling your subscription to a newspaper will do is hasten the death of journalism itself. It will leave your community with even fewer full-time reporters to tell you what local leaders were up to while you weren’t paying attention. It will leave you with a far poorer understanding of the place where you live.

I do worry about hastening the death of journalism, for the good journalists at the Times will have a hard time finding other jobs, and it would be sad if the Times and the other once-great American paper, the Washington Post, went belly-up, or turned into versions of the Chicago Tribune or (more likely) HuffPost. And yes, I still subscribe, but only to read the increasingly fewer pieces of good journalism.  I did try to cancel my subscription when I decided the paper had become too woke, but they lured me back with a $4/month digital offer. I still feel like somewhat of a hypocrite.

Where Renkl’s argument becomes unconvincing is her claim that “canceling your newspaper subscription because of one ad, no matter how hideous — or because of one deeply offensive headline, or one flagrantly dangerous op-ed — will not cure journalism of what ails it.” Then how do we cure journalism—in particular the Times’s increasing wokeness and bleeding of opinion into its journalism? What alternative do we have? Stick with the Titanic as it goes down?

Most important, with the Times it’s NOT just one ad or one op-ed, and the op-ed mentioned, by Republican Senator Tom Cotton, was not flagrantly dangerous—a gross misrepresentation if there was one.  The Times is afflicted with a bad case of Wokeism, and it’s manifested in many ways. What do we do about a paper that:

Publishes an op-ed about sending the military in to stop violent protests (not all protests)—and then apologizes for it after defending it?

Fires the opinion editor James Bennet for “mishandling” Cotton’s op-ed?

Has a staff that claimed Cotton’s editorial endangered the black writers at the paper, a palpable falsehood?

Increasingly shows a bleeding of opinion into the news? The Times is becoming not “The News Fit to Print”, but an ideological rag converging on HuffPost.

Prints op-eds that are nearly all from the Leftist point of view, most from the lefter part of the Left? I read op-eds because I want to hear a variety of voices—I want to be made to think and re-examine my views. That function of the paper is disappearing rapidly.

Fires tech writer Quinn Norton for hateful tweets but keeps on Sarah Jeong, who also emitted hateful tweets, because, after all, Jeong is a Writer of Color who was simply answering Twitter hate with ginned-up hate that wasn’t serious?

Publishes and backs the 1619 Project, a historically dubious enterprise with an express ideological purpose: to propagandize readers and school children with Critical Race Theory?

And, to cite just the latest offense, publishes a puerile video explaining why, since the National Basketball Association is socialistic in equalizing good players among teams, the U.S. should also be socialistic?

These are just a few of the things that irritate me about the New York Times, and make me constantly question why I should continue subscribing. For are we supposed to support journalism that is increasingly deviating from the kind of journalism that made the paper famous? I would never pay the HuffPost for its boilerplate views and ideology, so why should I pay the New York Times?

Proprietors’ wildlife photos and videos: Tuesday duck report

June 30, 2020 • 7:45 am

UPDATE: Feeding everyone at the pond this morning, we could count only six ducklings with Dorothy. We found no stragglers, heard no peeping of lost babies, and could find no bodies. It’s pretty clear that one has vanished, and I suspect predation (perhaps raccoons or Cooper’s hawks). I am heartbroken.

___________________________

It’s been a while since I weighed in with a duck report, so here it is. All is pretty well on Botany Pond: Honey’s 17 babies are all still there, and, on  4X/day feedings, have grown HUGE. Moreover, they’ve started flying: not huge flights, but short hops in the pond and from the bank to the pond. Their primary feathers are large and they’ll soon be flapping higher up, though when they’ll fly away for good is anybody’s guess.

Dorothy still has her seven babies, which jumped from the third-floor ledge 8 days ago. They’re eating ravenously, though I have to say that Dorothy isn’t nearly as good a mom as Honey, and doesn’t keep her brood together very well. (I spend a lot of time herding errant ducklings back to the brood, which is very stressful.) Fortunately, Honey and her Flotilla are leaving Dorothy and her brood pretty much alone, so I am cautiously optimistic.

I thought I’d show the equipment and supplies I use to keep the ducks going. The three green trash containers are full of duck food, the tan bag is what I use to bring food to the pond, there is a bag and three boxes of mealworms, as well as masks to wear to the pond, and there are four spare “duck signs” about herons, pond rules, etc. The two boxes at the far left have equipment for rescuing and sequestering orphan or removed ducklings, though I haven’t had to do that for a while. As you see, it takes a village! I spend a lot more on duck food than on Coyne food!

Honey, alone and with her brood:

Overlooking her 17 ducklings, only half of which have her genes. Honey is at left keeping watch.

Sometimes she sleeps, but not often during the day:

Here are five short videos from Jean Greenberg of the brood in action. Diving practice on June 13:

Before they flew, the ducks engaged in vigorous wing-flapping as they walked—all practice for flying.

Watch to the end to see the Big Flap:

And at last—FLIGHT, after a bit more than six weeks. Not an impressive flight, to be sure, but they’re still airborne for a short time.

And some short flights in the pond.

Honey’s gang isn’t eating as much of my vet-grade food as before; I think they’re into dabbling for pond food big time, and that’s good:

We mustn’t forget the turtles. Many of the big ones leave the pond to walk away, and, not knowing how they’ll survive, I put them back. Perhaps they’re trying to breed, and maybe I should let them be. Do any readers know about this?

I haven’t forgotten about Dorothy’s new family, but that’s a separate post. Here are three teasers (they’ve learned to use the duck ramp to come ashore).

Tuesday: Hili dialogue

June 30, 2020 • 6:30 am

Happy (?) Tuesday: June 30, 2020. It’s my younger sister’s birthday and my half-birthday (I was born on December 30, almost exactly 2.5 years before my sister Susan). Happy birthday, sis! Here’s the passport photo of my mom, Susan, and I before we went to Greece when I was five.

It’s also National Mai Tai Day (a drink in case you don’t know it), International Asteroid Day, National Meteor Day, and National Organization for Women Day (see 1966 below).

Today’s Google Doodle (click on screenshot) celebrates Marsha P. Johnson; described in a long article in Wikipedia that begins like this:

Marsha P. Johnson (August 24, 1945 – July 6, 1992) was an American gay liberation activist and self-identified drag queen. Known as an outspoken advocate for gay rights, Johnson was one of the prominent figures in the Stonewall uprising of 1969. A founding member of the Gay Liberation Front, Johnson co-founded the radical activist group Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (S.T.A.R.), alongside close friend Sylvia Rivera.  A popular figure in New York City’s gay and art scene, Johnson modeled for Andy Warhol, and performed onstage with the drag performance troupe Hot Peaches. Known for decades as a welcoming presence in the streets of Greenwich Village, Johnson was known as the “mayor of Christopher Street”. From 1987 through 1992, Johnson was an AIDS activist with ACT UP.

Johnson was found floating in the Hudson River in 1992, at the age of only 46.  Police ruled the death a suicide, but that’s not at all clear.

A photo:

News of the Day: It’s especially bad today. First, re the Russian bounties on American soldiers in Afghanistan, it’s now apparent that Trump received a written briefing about this in February, though the White House denies that he was ever briefed. There has still been no statement from the “President” about this.

The pandemic is still surging in America, and at least a dozen states have rolled back their “reopenings”.  About 43% of the deaths in the U.S. have been connected with nursing homes. We’re all in trouble.

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 126,160, an increase of about 400 over yesterday’s report.  The world death toll now stands at 504,990, an increase of about 3300 from yesterday.

Matthew and I are both feeling low today, and, as I just wrote him, “You’re not alone, though of course that’s no consolation. The saddest words I hear on the t.v. during the pandemic are, ‘We’re all in this together’.”

To cheer yourself up, read this NYT piece about the amazing way that “flying snakes” glide through the air.

Stuff that happened on June 30 includes:

  • 1859 – French acrobat Charles Blondin crosses Niagara Falls on a tightrope.

Here’s a picture of the feat. No safety rope!

If you don’t know about the “monkey retort” of Huxley, you should:

According to a letter written 30 years later to Francis Darwin, when [Thomas Henry] Huxley heard this he whispered to Brodie, “The Lord hath delivered him into mine hands”.  Huxley’s own contemporary account, in a letter to Henry Dyster on September 9, 1860, makes no mention of this remark. Huxley rose to defend Darwin’s theory, finishing his speech with the now-legendary assertion that he was not ashamed to have a monkey for his ancestor, but he would be ashamed to be connected with a man who used great gifts to obscure the truth [he was referring to Bishop Wilberforce].  Later retellings indicate that this statement had a tremendous effect on the audience, and Lady Brewster is said to have fainted. 

Reliable accounts indicate that although Huxley did respond with the “monkey” retort, the remainder of his speech was unremarkable.

Here’s the first page of the paper:

  • 1937 – The world’s first emergency telephone number, 999, is introduced in London.
  • 1966 – The National Organization for Women, the United States’ largest feminist organization, is founded.
  • 1990 – East Germany and West Germany merge their economies.
  • 2013 – Protests begin around Egypt against President Mohamed Morsi and the ruling Freedom and Justice Party, leading to their overthrow during the 2013 Egyptian coup d’état.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1817 – Joseph Dalton Hooker, English botanist and explorer (d. 1911)

Hooker, along with Huxley, was one of the participants in the Oxford Evolution Debate in 1860.

  • 1926 – Paul Berg, American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
  • 1952 – Susan Jane Coyne, Professor Ceiling Cat’s beloved sister
  • 1966 – Mike Tyson, American boxer and actor

Those who went toes up on June 30 include:

  • 1961 – Lee de Forest, American inventor, invented the audion tube (b. 1873)
  • 2001 – Chet Atkins, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (b. 1924)
  • 2003 – Buddy Hackett, American actor and comedian (b. 1924)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is bemoaning the dearth of rodents. Are they sheltering?

Hili: Can it be the effect of pandemics?
A: What?
Hili: That the mice are nowhere to be seen.
In Polish:
Hili: Czy to może być efekt pandemii?
Ja: Co?
Hili: To, że myszy nigdzie nie widać.

From Andrée we get one of the finest memes I’ve seen lately:

From reader Barry (and it’s true about the unicorns):

From Jesus of the Day. I’m pretty sure this is a real photo. (I suspect they’re catching an anesthetized bear that fell out of a tree.)

A tweet from reader Erik. Listen to that adorable little rodent (sound up!):

A surprise duck sent by two readers, Shelley and Gethyn. What a nice thing to find in the kitchen!

Tweets from Matthew. This first one shows unbelievable skill.

I fricking LOVE this hairless, water-loving cat! Be sure to watch the video of Cooper.

Can you believe it: this raptor got a SHARK! Translation: “Come on, shark, let’s go for a walk.”

So there! (I bet somebody actually said this once.)

Don’t ask me why this thing looks as it does. But it does look like a piece of jewelry.

Now this is truly stunning: preserved wing patterns millions of years old:

Photos of readers

June 29, 2020 • 2:30 pm

I’ve learned from this feature not just about the huge diversity of interests of our readers, but also about how many of them are immensely talented in their avocations. And today’s reader, Doug Keck, is one of those. Here he is with some beautiful furniture. His words are indented:

I have spent a lot of lockdown time in my woodshop.  This is a lifetime passion of mine.  I have filled several houses with furniture over the years and am currently working on my son’s house.

The table and chair were inspired by furniture that I saw at the Villa Kerylos on the French Riviera.  It was built and furnished between 1902 and 1908 by Theodore Reinach in the style of ancient Greece. The wood is koa, a Hawaiian wood now quite rare and expensive.  I bought the wood in the 1970’s when it was cheap.  These items used the last of it.  The inlays are mother of pearl and ebony.  The leather for the seat is from an elk hide jacket that my father had made from an elk he shot in about 1960.

The whirligig was just a fun little project.  It is me hand planing a board.  My current project is a teeter totter whirligig for my grandchildren.