canyonwalker: I'm holding a 3-foot-tall giant cheese grater - Let's make America grate again! (politics)
I'm going through the ballot propositions on the ballot here in the 2024 general election. See part 1 of this series for a few links on how props work and my thoughts about Props 2 & 3. Here are my thoughts on the next few.

Prop 4: Bond for Safe Drinking Water, Wildfire Prevention, and Protecting Land from Climate Risks: Yes.

Like Prop 2 this is a bond issue already passed by the legislature that now needs to go to voters for final approval. Yes, that's the clumsy process for borrowing money in California, forced upon us by anti-tax activists years ago. Those same anti-tax activists also oppose virtually every single bond measure as a matter of course. They say we should fund the projects from the current budget instead of borrowing against the future. Except they also oppose funding major projects as current-year expenses. It's like they don't think we should be able to have nice things— or that we should have them but somehow not pay for them.

Climate change is real and getting worse. This bond is worthwhile because its funding helps California mitigate some of the most dangerous impacts, such as increased wildfire risks. It also directs 40% of its funding to low-income communities, which generally are most vulnerable to climate change as they lack the resources to ward against risks and recover from harm after it occurs. Vote YES on 4.

Prop 5: Allow Bonds for Affordable Housing & Public Infrastructure to Pass with Just 55% Approval: Yes.

Part of the anti-tax crusaders' legacy in California is that not only does borrowing through public bonds require public approval after being passed by the legislature but that it must win a two-thirds supermajority of the public vote. Even in deep blue California it's rare that you can get 2/3 of the electorate to agree on anything. And that's doubly true nowadays when Republican voters live in news echo chambers of conspiracy theories and outright lies.

Anyway, over the years voters have passed constitutional amendments relaxing the vote requirement from 66.67% to just 55% for certain categories of bonds. This new constitutional amendment adds two more categories to the 55% threshold rule: bonds for affordable housing and public infrastructure. The virtually unattainable two-thirds threshold is why we're decades behind where we should be in things like building public transit. Vote YES on this one so the state and our localities are about to get more stuff done.

Prop 6: Eliminate Forced Labor in Prisons: Yes.

This proposition is a legislative constitutional amendment— meaning it's been passed by the State Assembly and Senate and must now go to voters for approval. What's at issue here is that prisons in California are allowed to force inmates to work. It's involuntary servitude. That's what the official title of the measure calls it: involuntary servitude. But some would even call it slavery.

In fact, some do call it slavery. The League of Pissed Off Voters, a progressive group in San Francisco, labels this "Abolish Slavery in CA Prisons". As always, they write vigorously and colorfully. For that reason alone I read and consider all of their opinions even though I don't always agree with them. As far as calling this slavery, though, they're... not wrong. Inmates can be forced to work on pain of punishment. It's allowed in our state constitution as a literal exception to the "NO SLAVERY" rule that been in there since California became a state.

I'm choosing to use the term forced labor here because it makes comparison easier. Type a question like, "Which countries have forced labor in prisons" into your favorite search engine and you'll see interesting answers. According to Walk Free, an Australian human rights group, only 17 countries still practice forced labor in prisons. A glance at which countries those are shows the US keeping poor company. Among the others on the list are Russia, China, North Korea, and Myanmar; all countries with terrible civil rights records.

Look, I get it that "prisoners' rights" is not always a compelling political issue. Prisoners committed crimes against individuals and society, and they should pay. But this is a question about what we want our prisons to be. Is incarceration just a matter of locking people up, or can they also be punished further by being required to work for literal pennies an hour? And understand that this work is not just mild stuff like sweeping floors to keep the cell block clean. Convicts labor built the beuatiful Highway 1 on the Pacific coast years ago, and convicts today serve on crews battling wildfires. And they get paid pennies an hour for risking their lives.

BTW, this measure will not change the fact that when convicts do work, they are paid literal pennies an hour. The measure will only make it so that they can't be coerced, on threat of additional punishment, to work for pennies an hour. Yes, it would be ideal to fix the rate of pay issue, as well. But doing that would make this an expensive measure, one that would attract all kinds of opposition (from anti-tax activists and voters) focused on its dollar cost. Removing the coercion to work is a partial victory for inmates' civil rights that we can achieve right now.

canyonwalker: Cthulhu voted - touch screen! (i voted)
I'm starting a short series of blog posts about the ballot propositions on my ballot this year. "Props", as we call them for short, are often thought of as a California thing, though they're part of the process in a number of other states as well. It's worth taking a close look at props each cycle because they can be complex; more complex, say, than choosing whether to vote for Candidate A or Candidate B.

How are propositions complex? I mean, you just vote yes or no, right? For one, there are 3 types of ballot propositions with different rules and different impacts. Two, propositions may be poorly written or purposefully deceptive, among other problems. By the way, you can't let this complexity cause you to throw your hands up in disgust and vow to vote "No" on all of them. Due to the way the different types of props work, some of them will actually block or even reverse an act of the legislature if a majority of the people vote No,

This year there are a whopping 10 statewide ballot props plus several local props in my area. I'll start with the statewide props in numerical order, outlining a few per blog.This will take several days, so it's good I'm starting now! By the way, this isn't just altruistic. This is me doing my own research and me articulating my argument for or against to be confident my reasoning is sound.

Prop 2: Bond for Public School & Community College Facilities: Yes.

For this prop as with all the others the first source of information I'm checking is the California Secretary of State's Voter Information Guide | Propositions. This measure "Authorizes $10 billion in general obligation bonds for repair, upgrade, and construction of facilities at K-12 public schools (including charter schools), community colleges, and career technical education programs, including for improvement of health and safety conditions and classroom upgrades."

Years ago, when I was younger and less sophisticated in my understand of political economics, I looked at measures like this and scoffed, "Why does the state just pay for needed work? It seems like every year there's more bonds, extending payments out 30+ years. Why not just pay today for the stuff we need, today?"

Alas, that's not the reality of how the state's budget works. It would be nice if it were, but it's not. The only choice we have is pay this way, or let our schools continue to fall apart, worse.

I like to invest in our schools. Schools are an investment in our shared future. Schools educate the next generation, who'll help support us and help govern us in the future. Schools are also an investment in our economy. Good schools equal good local economies because people and companies want to locate here.

Another thing younger-me would've scoffed at is the fact that this measure is Put on the Ballot by the Legislature, as the voter information guide notes in bold and italic. "Why didn't the legislature just... y'know... legislate... this instead of sending it to us?" younger-me sneered. And that's why it's important to understand How California Ballot Propositions Work. This bond measure had to be approved by a super-majority of the legislature first, then it also has to be approved by the voters.

You can thank the anti-tax zealots for that process, BTW. And incidentally, those same anti-tax zealots also construct the deliberately false arguments yammering about, "Why didn't the legislature just... y'know... legislate... this instead of sending it to us?" that younger-me fell for years ago.

Prop 3: Constitutional Right to Marriage: Yes.

This proposition reverses 2008's Proposition 8, which defined marriage as only being between a man and a woman. It replaces that state constitutional amendment with a new amendment permitting marriage between any two adults, regardless of race or gender.

"How is this necessary?" critics of the measure ask. "Federal courts ruled Prop 8 unconstitutional in 2013." Yes, but consider what happened in 2022 with the US Supreme Court's Dobbs decision overturning nearly 50 years of jurisprudence under Roe v. Wade. We're just one case away from the far-right supermajority overturning the previous court's ruling and restoring California's ridiculous Prop 8. Our constitutional rights cannot be trusted to the interpretation of reactionary ideologues. We need to protect our liberties by putting them in plain text.

Note that this initiative is also tagged Put on the Ballot by the Legislature. Again, that is not an indication that the legislature is passing the buck. This is a Legislative Constitutional Amendment. It's already gone through the full process of being written and approved by both the Assembly and the state senate, and now it must be approved by a majority of the voters, too.

Edited to add: The list starts at 2 because that's the first prop this year.

Edit 2Read about Props 4, 5, and 6 in my next blog.


canyonwalker: Sullivan, a male golden eagle at UC Davis Raptor Center (Golden Eagle)
Two weeks ago the Republican majority in Congress elected "MAGA Mike" Johnson as Speaker of the House. That sobriquet isn't my invention, by the way. It was used first by fellow Republican (and attention-seeking clown) Matt Gaetz in praising his colleague's strong Trumpist credentials in the hours after he was elected speaker. Since then it's been picked up widely by opinion writers— and probably more using it in scorn than praise. But how MAGA is "MAGA Mike"? Here are three things:

Rep. Mike Johnson is not just an election denier, in the sense that he was one of the 140+ current members of Congress who, on 6 January 2021, voted to discard the will of the people expressed through a free and fair election that was not at all close; he is also an architect of election denial. He filed a brief in an utterly frivolous Supreme Court lawsuit attempting to nullify the election results of four states (Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) and encouraged dozens of Congressional Republicans to sign on to it. He was also a key figure in communicating with Donald Trump to organize actions ahead of January 6.

Johnson staunchly opposes gay civil rights. He not only opposes marriage equality, he has tried to pass laws making LGBTQ sexual activity illegal. He has equated gay marriage to bestiality, equated being gay to being child molesters, and said that allowing LGBTQ rights will destroy America.

Asked by reporters after his election to describe his beliefs, Johnson scoffed, "Go pick [up] a bible." Okay, so he's Christian.... But he doesn't seem to differentiate that the parts of the bible widely cited as condemning homosexuality condemn equally many other things that modern self-professed Christians take far less exception to— including premarital sex and adultery. And, depending on which section of the bible we're talking about (Leviticus 18-20), mixing clothing fabrics such as cotton and wool. And where in the bible does it say it's okay to overturn an election? Oh, right, some of the passages that condemn homosexuality also condemn thievery (1 Corinthians 6:9-11) and liars (1 Timothy 1:8-11) in the same sentence.

canyonwalker: Sullivan, a male golden eagle at UC Davis Raptor Center (Golden Eagle)
The US Supreme Court has ended race-based affirmative action in universities. I know, unless you've been living in a cave that's not exactly news anymore. The Supremes handed down their somewhat predictably 6-3 decision (with its super-majority of conservative and ultra-conservative justices) just over two weeks ago, on Thursday, June 29. Example coverage: NPR News article, 29 Jun 2023.

Most things I could say about this decision have probably already been said elsewhere— especially because I am late to the party by about two weeks. But one thing I heard in the hours following the decision I've not heard or seen repeated anywhere, so I'll share it here.

A college admissions officer at a highly selective liberal arts university was being interviewed (quote slightly paraphrased):

"We've accepted as an assumption in our national discussion on the issue that college admissions is an objective assessment of a student's educational qualifications, and that anything else is discrimination."

The admissions officer went on to explain that college admissions is, in her view, really about what kind of community the school wishes to build. But it's the statement highlighted above that has stuck with me— because of the absurdity it contains.

How can there be an objective assessment of educational qualifications? It's a myth that there can be such a thing. Numbers like SAT scores, ACT scores, and even AP test scores have been shown for years to have limited correlation— reasonable correlation, just not strong correlation— with academic achievement post-high school. Heck, that was established long enough ago that I read the studies in textbooks published in the 1980s when I was in college in the 1990s. And just about everything else about an admissions decision is less numerical, less standardized than that, and therefore requires way more subjective evaluation.

canyonwalker: Sullivan, a male golden eagle at UC Davis Raptor Center (Golden Eagle)
Today marks a year since the US Supreme Court's Dobbs decision throwing out the federal legalization of abortion decided in 1973's landmark Roe v. Wade case. A year later, where are we?

Not unpredictably, many states in the US passed abortion restrictions. 14 states now ban abortion entirely or with severe restrictions, and 6 more have gestational limits that make abortion unavailable by the time many women realize they're pregnant, as this CNN article (updated 26 May 2023) shows. Note the figures would be higher but some states' high courts have struck down bans. For the 25 million women and girls of reproductive age living in these states (NARAL estimate, 10 Feb 2023), the end of the Pro-Choice era is the beginning of a new No-Choice era. ...Or at least a choice that has been taken away from women and girls age 12-44 by the overwhelmingly older, male legislators in these states who clearly know better.

It's interesting, as a counterpoint to what old-white-male legislatures are doing, that in the 6 conservative states where abortion was literally on the ballot in the last year— i.e., where proposed abortion restrictions were put to voters in ballot referendums— new restrictions lost in all 6.

One of the insidious things about limiting access to reproductive care is that you don't have to ban abortion outright to make it effectively unavailable. In many states where it's still legal but with heavy restrictions, a large number of clinics that used to provide abortion care have closed down. Doctors and clinics find the legal environment too hostile, and the greatly reduced demand for legal care makes it economically unviable to continue. This NPR article (21 June 2023) shows an interesting heat map of proximity to abortion access. Researchers who created the map found that one a year ago the average American lived 25 miles from an abortion provider, while today that figure is 86 miles.

Today women are traveling farther for abortions than they've had to for 50 years. One interesting wrinkle of people crossing state lines now for care is that Florida, a GOP dominated state that is enacting tough restrictions, has actually seen a big spike in numbers of abortions performed. This Politico article (24 June 2024) shows that Florida has seen the largest increase of any state. I'd say, "Suck on that, DeSantis," except that his 6-week abortion ban currently tied up in court may well be upheld.

canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
New Orleans travelog #8
French Quarter - Monday, 23 Apr 2023, 4pm

Today we decided to visit a graveyard in New Orleans since the museums we wanted to visit were closed. [Ed.: This blog is delayed from almost 2 weeks ago.] After some discussion of alternatives we chose the St. Louis Cemetery #1 because it was the oldest— and also nearest. We could walk there from our hotel a block off Bourbon Street in the French Quarter.

What's there to do in a cemetery? Learn, actually. Here are Five Things:

1. Graves in New Orleans are all above ground

Throughout most times and places in Western cultures, most of dead are buried underground. Above ground crypts are only for the very wealthy few. In New Orleans the calculus is different, as if you dig a hole even 18 inches deep it fills with water.

Graves in New Orleans are all above ground (Apr 2023)

Originally inhabitants of New Orleans, founded by the French in 1718, buried their dead in the levees on the banks of the Mississippi River. That failed as soon as there was a natural flood... all of a sudden the coffins of the dead were floating among the living! Then they tried drilling holes in coffins (to allow water in) and sinking them in the river... that didn't work so well, either. St. Louis Cemetery #1, the oldest in the New Orleans (but named St. Louis because that's the name of the cathedral), was founded in 1789 when the region was under Spanish rule.

2. It's HOT inside. A year and a day.

Graves in New Orleans can be reused after 1 year (Apr 2023)It gets hot inside these brick and stone tombs. It's often 130° (55° C), the tour guide told us. This slowly cremates the remains inside. How slowly? Well, not too slowly. City ordinance dating back centuries is that tomb can be reopened a year and a day after a body is interred— and then it can be reused.

3. High mortality rates

On many of the tombs in New Orleans you'll see several names in the space for one body— sometimes a dozen names. This reflects not just the law allowing reuse of tombs (see above) and the economics of allocating real estate for the dead, but also the high mortality rate of the times.

"Half of all children died before their 5th birthday," our guide asserted. I've been unable to find hard data supporting that— but it's not too far off from widely understood figures. From 1800 to 1870, the child mortality rate was 40%+ globally. That means almost half of all children born alive didn't survive 5 years. Could something(s) particular to New Orleans have led to a higher death rate locally? Sure. The city was rife with poverty, and squalor, and... Yellow Fever.

4. HALF the city died?!

Yellow Fever was a scourge of New Orleans throughout the entire 1800s. It was only tracked officially starting in 1800, and its cause (mosquitos and poor sanitation) wasn't identified until 1900. Epidemics occurred almost annually after 1825. The worst outbreak was in 1853. "In that year alone the city lost half its population!" our guide asserted.

Half the residents died? That's a shocking statement. Again I did some research to check the numbers. Long story short: Various sources indicate the death rate from Yellow Fever topped out at around 5-7% per year. But that's still a lot of people when you think about it. Perhaps what the guide meant was in a 10 year period half of all city residents died. The numbers definitely support that! 💀

5. Racial history. Homer's defiance.

New Orleans had a history of racial integration. Founded as a French colony in 1718, its culture was more welcoming of Black and mixed-raced people than it would become after US statehood (as part of Louisiana) in 1812. During the French period it had a significant population of free people of color. And these non-white people were not just relegated to servant status a la the Jim Crow era that followed the Civil War; they were artisans, business owners, and educated. Even when the Spanish Crown tried tightening racial laws during the brief period of Spanish control in the late 1700s, locals developed ways around it to continue blending multi-racial families.

Grave of Homer Plessy, plaintiff in a notorious US Supreme Court decision (Apr 2023)US statehood in 1812 brought a host of legal changes. All of a sudden the laws controlling Black and mixed-race people were very strict, and they were strictly enforced. Culture, though, tends not to change as quickly. Many of the French- and Spanish-speaking residents of the area— who were actually the majority for a long time— continued with their more "live and let live" ways. Or at least they tried.

There's an interesting bit of American history rooted here. Among the dead buried in this cemetery is a local fellow named Homer. Homer Plessy. A name that all US students learn in history class— or used to learn, before "anti-woke" hysteria became a thing.

In 1892 a group of prominent citizens, including Black, White, and mixed race people, wanted to challenge racial segregation laws. One of its members, Homer Plessy, bought  a train ticket and sat in the whites-only train car. Plessy was born a free man and was only one-eighth Black— but by US law that meant he was Black, and under Louisiana law that meant segregation. He was arrested.

Plessy's punishment may have been as short as a single night in jail (our guide's claim; I've been unable to verify with brief research) but the point wasn't to go to jail or not. The point was to challenge the law. Plessy appealed all the way up to the US Supreme Court. In 1896 the Supremes decided, in the infamous Plessy v. Ferguson decision, to uphold segregation with the doctrine of Separate But Equal. That doctrine became the legal underpinning for the Jim Crow south. It was the law of the land for at least 58 years, until Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, and other cases in the years following, picked it apart.

canyonwalker: wiseguy (Default)
After the rapid collapse of Silicon Valley Bank nine days ago everyone was looking for whom or what to pin the blame on. GOP culture warriors quickly aligned on a simple, stupid, common explanation: The bank was too "woke".

Politicians such as Florida Gov. and apparent presidential candidate Ron DeSantis and Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley have gone on the talk show circuit blaming the bank's diversity efforts for its failure, as have countless right-wing pundits. And you thought I was joking when I quipped right after the failure that these sorts would snivel, "Isn't that just some community bank for liberal techies who care more about whether the lollipops in the lobby are cruelty free and LGBTQIA+ positive than what the interest rate is?"

One of the first examples of the too "woke" blame game came from WSJ columnist Andy Kessler a week ago. Link: Full column. He wrote:

“In its proxy statement, SVB notes that besides 91% of their board being independent and 45% women, they also have ‘1 Black,’ ‘1 LGBTQ+’ and ‘2 Veterans.’ I’m not saying 12 white men would have avoided this mess, but the company may have been distracted by diversity demands.”
Wow. There are so many things wrong in just two sentences. I'll limit my fault finding to Five Things for brevity:

1) If ever there were a time the disclaimer, "I'm not saying..." meant literally "I am saying..." this would be it. He is literally saying that diversity is the problem.

2) Unpacking his syllogism, is he saying that the BOD members who were ‘1 Black,’ ‘1 LGBTQ+’ and ‘2 Veterans’ were unable to spot a not-too-hard-to-understand risk that "12 white men" would have spotted? And really, dumping on veterans as less smart than "white men"?

3) ...Or, continuing to unpack the syllogism, is he saying that the bank expended so much effort on its diversity program that it neglected to manage its financial risk?

4) Pretty much all banks strive for diversity. They all tout diversity programs on their websites. Go check any of the big ones: Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Capital One, US Bancorp, etc. None of them are failing.

5) Meanwhile, study after study has shown that diversity promotes business success rather than hinders it. A 2020 report by consultancy McKinsey found that "[T]he relationship between diversity on executive teams and the likelihood of financial outperformance has strengthened over time."


canyonwalker: Sullivan, a male golden eagle at UC Davis Raptor Center (Golden Eagle)
Actress Nichelle Nichols passed away this past Saturday, July 30. She was aged 89. She was best known for her role as Lieutenant Uhura in the Star Trek TV series (1966-1969) and several feature films.

In her role as Uhura, Nicols, a black woman, was a trailblazer. Star Trek featured one of the first multi-racial casts on TV. Her kiss with star William Shatner in a 1968 episode is thought to be the first interracial kiss on US television.

No less a luminary than Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. weighed in on the significance of Nichols portrayal of Uhura. In a story she's told many times, she met King— surprisingly, a Trek fan— and confided in him that she was thinking of leaving the show for a role on Broadway, or even to join him in his marches. King told her to stick with the role of Uhura as she was fighting the same fight as him by playing that character on the screen.


canyonwalker: Sullivan, a male golden eagle at UC Davis Raptor Center (Golden Eagle)
Yesterday the Supreme Court published its decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. This is the political earthquake of a ruling that was leaked in draft form 7 weeks ago. Earthquake, because it reverses the 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade that affirmed a woman's right to seek abortion. That "law of the land" has guided how women live their lives for nearly 50 years.

The overturning of a Supreme Court ruling is rare. There's a principle in jurisprudence called Stare Decisis. It's Latin for "Stand by things decided" and it means that judges should respect the precedent of previous decisions on an issue rather than whipsawing the law back and forth when they happen to disagree with it. Chief Justice John Roberts explained during his confirmation hearings years ago that stare decisis means that to reverse a past ruling a judge must conclude more than just that it was "wrongly decided"; judges must also weigh issues such as how a reversal upends settled expectations, whether a reversal diminishes the legitimacy of the court, and whether a particular precedent is workable or not.

Roberts did not to vote for overturning Roe v. Wade. Though he concurred with 5 other justices in upholding the Mississippi law at the center of Dobbs v. Jackson, a law that restricted abortion after 18 weeks, making that decision a 6-3 vote, he did not join the 5-4 majority that went far beyond that to strike down Roe v. Wade entirely.

How rare of an outcome is this? The only other time a Supreme Court ruling that affects the daily lives of literally tens of millions of Americans was when Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 overturned the 1896 ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson. Plessy notoriously upheld the doctrine of "Separate but Equal"— a cornerstone of racism perpetuating legal apartheid after the elimination of slavery in the 1860s. Note how the long arc of history bends toward justice in that reversal.... The reversal of Roe v. Wade is the first time the Supreme Court has ever reversed a previous opinion to take away a civil right.

canyonwalker: Sullivan, a male golden eagle at UC Davis Raptor Center (Golden Eagle)
Three White men who chased and murdered 25-year-old Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery in south Georgia were sentenced to life in prison today. Two have no chance of parole. The third, a 52-year-old, will be eligible for parole under Georgia law only after serving a minimum of 30 years. Example news coverage: CNN.com article 7 Jan 2022, Yahoo! News article 7 Jan 2022, New York Times article 7 Jan 2022.

Ahmaud Arbery was killed on the afternoon of February 20, 2020. The convicted men spotted Arbery jogging in a residential neighborhood near his home, determined— with zero evidence— that he was a suspect in recent area robberies, and chased him for 5 minutes with their pickup trucks. Once they proceeded to block him in, the three men closed on him, at least one leveling a shotgun at him while another recorded cellphone video. A fight ensued, and the man with the shotgun shot Arbery 3 times at close range.

Swept Under the Rug

This murder was originally swept under the rug. Police arrived at the scene and quickly made a determination that the men who chased Arbery and pointed a gun at him were acting in self defense. Nobody was arrested. Two district attorneys chose not to prosecute. Justice might never have been served... until 73 days later one of the perpetrators posted his cellphone video of the murder on social media, boasting about it. This caused an outrage among members of the community— and across the state and nationwide. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Georgia's Attorney General, and the FBI were called upon to investigate.

As an aside, this is one of the critical ways that racial injustice is perpetrated. Not only are Black people convicted more often when brought to trial than Whites, and not only are they given harsher sentences when convicted, but they are also charged more often in circumstances where police and prosecutors use their discretion not to arrest or prosecute White suspects.

Aside #2: In case it's not obvious, this was a modern day lynching. White men decided a Black man in their neighborhood was a crime suspect. Even though they called 911 to report him, and even though he had committed no actual crime they witnessed, they decided to chase him down and threaten him with guns. When he acted to defend his life, they killed him. Then, of course, the chummy local authorities let them go.

Justice Delayed but not Denied (So Far...)

This is a case where justice may have been delayed but has ultimately not been denied.... so far. The judge who sentenced the men today made the courtroom sit in silence for one minute before reading their sentencing to put "into context" how long they chased Arbery.

Judge Timothy Walmsley told the courtroom on Friday that he was going to "sit quietly for one minute and that one minute represents a fraction of the [5 minutes] that Ahmaud Arbery was running" away. Example news coverage: Yahoo! News article, 7 Jan 2022.

Note how I do add the caution "so far" to justice having been delivered here. That's because the convicted men have avenues of appeal. Though there's no visible mistake in their trial, they are of course able to challenge it from multiple directions, and quite possibly the same racism embedded in the system that shrugged off their actions as "Seems legit" the first time will support them again on appeal. But it's also possible that they'll be convicted of more charges, as federal civil rights cases are pending against them.

A few other positive changes have come out of this case. The first district attorney who passed on charging the men, and who allegedly told the police not even to arrest them, has been charged with one felony count of violating the oath of a public officer. Days after the shooting the police chief was indicted on charges of coverup for unrelated incidents. Voters subsequently voted out the district attorney and elected new county commissioners who replaced the police chief. Finally, the Georgia legislature passed a bill, which was signed by the governor, repealing the law allowing Citizen's Arrest— a holdover law from the Civil War era used as a common pretext for lynchings, which these murderers asserted, falsely, in their defense.

canyonwalker: Sullivan, a male golden eagle at UC Davis Raptor Center (Golden Eagle)
Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of 9/11. On 11 September 2001 nineteen terrorists commandeered 4 passenger aircraft and flew them into New York's Twin Towers and the Pentagon outside of Washington, DC. One of the aircraft crashed in an empty field outside the small town of Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers aboard heard news of the mass murder-suicide attacks and tried to overpower the hijackers. In all nearly 3,000 innocent people were killed in the attacks.

Never Forget - September 11, 2001"NEVER FORGET," demands the popular slogan. Indeed, we Americans who were alive on that day, even those of us who live 2,500 miles away from where the attacks occurred, will never forget what happened on 9/11. But while we, collectively, remember, it's like we have selective memory. While we remember this, what else are we forgetting? Or choosing not to acknowledge?

One thing that many people overlook, or minimize, in talking about 9/11 is the cost of the War on Terror we spawned in reaction to it. In efforts to punish the perpetrators and prevent subsequent attacks like it, we have spent nearly $6 trillion already— with another $2 trillion more needed in health care and disability coverage for veterans in decades to come. This war effort has resulted in nearly 900,000 deaths worldwide and at least 38 million people displaced. I read these figures in a fascinating article at Vox.com yesterday (11 Sep 2021).

Another thing many of us forget— or find easy to overlook— is how life has changed since 9/11. In the aftermath of the attacks safety became an all-consuming goal. Americans accepted, or were forced to accept, unprecedented government intrusion into their private lives. Surveillance became such a norm most of us forgot about it. And where people didn't forget it, their reminders were often met with eye rolls as if to call it churlish to mention. Plus, merely being surveilled is a majority privilege. People who are Muslim, or look or sound like they might be Muslim or from a Muslim country, are frequently stopped by authorities in the normal course of their lives because someone thinks they "look suspicious".

Yet another thing often forgotten, or failed to be acknowledged, is how 9/11 compares to other things. On 9/11 we lost nearly 3,000 people to a terrorist attack. 20 years later we've spent trillions of dollars, invaded multiple countries, killed almost a million people, and trampled on Constitutional liberties, all for those 3,000 deaths. Meanwhile, at various times in the past year, more people in the US died from Coronavirus in one day than were killed on 9/11. The n-cov2 CoronavirusOverall 660,000 people in the US have died from Coronavirus in the past year and a half. Though the death toll is no longer surpassing 9/11 every single day it's still terrifyingly high at a recent average of 1,666 daily— more than half 9/11's death toll. Source: New York Times, "Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count", retrieved 12 Sep 2021.

All the more terrifying about Coronavirus's high death toll is that these deaths are now largely preventable— and have been for months. We know how greatly reduce transmissions, infections, and hospitalizations. It starts with the vaccine, which has been free and freely available in the US for months now. Next common simple, common sense measures such as masking and social distancing. If we could get high compliance with these three things we could have Coronavirus nearly eradicated in the US by now.

Instead we've got half the country's political leaders minimizing the dangers of Coronavirus and arguing that all these mitigation measures are pointless and/or unconstitutional trampling of civil liberties. Ironically this is the same political party that carried most of the water for the post-9/11 surveillance state. They argued as an article of faith, "The president's main job is to keep us safe." ...Actually, no, it's literally to uphold the laws and the Constitution— but don't let things like what's literally in the Constitution get in the way of your arguments. Oh, and BTW, this is also the party that argues for strict, literal interpretation of the Constitution— though obviously only when it suits their ideological goals.

So yeah, never forget 9/11. But don't let it blind you to terrible things going on today that we can stop.


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canyonwalker

May 2025

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