As heartbreaking as the news of the Buffalo massacre is, the real horror dawns when you learn that it wasn't the only racially motivated mass shooting in the US that day... three Korean women were murdered at a hair salon in Dallas. One knows that one is living in a sick society when there are so many mass shootings that they crowd each other out of the headlines.
I spent most of today sleeping, I must confess. Sure, I worked three days worth of hours in two days, with three hours spent coaching, but I think that a desire not to even leave the house was as much of a motivator as fatigue.
The conspiracy runs deep, and at least one 4Chan neonazi has detected a Jewish plot in the pushing of LGBT rex:
Ah, yes, the Rootless Cosmopolitans are at it again!
Here's another Brain Genius, commenting on a Vintage Dinosaur Art Facebook page, complaining about how the libs have ruined dinosaurs by discovering fossil evidence which forced a reassessment of what these animals looked like:
This is just a selection of a longer screed which is a farrago of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia, and a stubborn refusal to read the most recent research on dinosaurs. The entire manifesto can be heard, read by the hosts of the Minion Death Cult podcast:
I've been on a Schadenfreude high since yesterday, because it was a very bad day for right-wing lunatics. First up, we have the exposure of GhostEzra, a notorious troll who posed as a successor to 'Q', and used the messaging platform Telegram to promulgate some of the most heinous antisemitic material to MAGA dead-enders:
With increasingly explicit neo-Nazi views shared to over 334,000 people, QAnon influencer GhostEzra's Telegram was dubbed the "largest antisemitic online channel or forum."
The article by the Logically team is a masterpiece of investigative work, involving the examination of unique photo uploads to pinpoint the asshole's location, and the use of image enhancers to match uploaded pictures to his social media.
The cherry on top of this particular sundae is that the investigative team was able to narrow down the possible suspects due to a one-star review of a synagogue on Yelp:
Who even reviews houses of worship on Yelp? I mean, I could see a bubbeh leaving a one-star review if she felt her granddaughter's bat mitzvah were rushed, but even that is a longshot. This guy was so antisemitic, he even had to troll a Jewish organization using a semi-anonymous social media account.
Even more significantly is the announcement that Alex Jones protégé Owen Shroyer will be arrested for being in a restricted area on 1/6:
New today: Infowars host Owen Shroyer, a major right-wing activist and media personality, has been charged in the Jan. 6 riots https://t.co/6g5GTsKIZF
Shroyer also violated terms of a deferred prosecution deal by being on Capitol grounds, and he failed to perform community service imposed upon him as terms of his original charge of disrupting a government proceeding.
Shroyer is a dimbulb whose main claim to 'fame' is being Alex Jone's street-theater 'operative', which basically meant he would ride around in an armored truck performing stupid MAGA tricks:
Like most performative tough guys (unlike myself, who is a tough guy pretending to be a performative tough guy to make fun of performative tough guys), Shroyer was pretty upset at the prospect of being held accountable for his actions.
All told, yesterday was a great day, a banner day for those of us who like to see racist assholes get their comeuppance.
I would love to know who was in charge of vetting CPAC speakers, but this year's roster is a doozy. The prize for whackaloonery goes to an individual calling himself 'Young Pharaoh', who has, as a lot of whackos do, opinions about 'THE J00Z':
This week's CPAC is featuring a speaker named Young Pharaoh. In the past year, he's claimed that: 1) Judaism is a “complete lie”; 2) Jewish people are "thieving"; 3) and “all the censorship & pedophilia on social media is being done by Israeli Jews.” https://t.co/km1UFzl1IQ
The delicious irony here is that Young Pharaoh's problematic content was brought to light by Media Matters for America, long considered a bugbear by the Right. To make matters even funnier, the theme of the conference this year is 'Uncancel America', yet Young Pharaoh was instantly 'canceled' when his outlandish views came to light. Those views are a doozy!
Yeah, this guy believes that there is no historical or scientific evidence for the existence of Jewish people. I'm thinking of running a Schrödinger's Jew experiment to prove the existence of Jews... I can lock a Jewish-presenting guy from the Lower East Side in an opaque box with a bag of Lender's frozen bagels. This individual's Jewishness won't be determinable until the box is opened and we can observe whether or not he plotzed because of substandard bagels.
Young Pharaoh also believes in the QAnon conspiracy mega-theory and it's assorted suite of outré tenets. You, dear readers, are lucky that I have been unable to find his song about Jews eating babies, and no, I am not making that up.
This is what happens when your token black friend is a hotep, a member of a subculture of Afrocentric men who tend to be extremely misogynistic, antisemitic, and homophobic... believers in Black Liberation, but Women's Subjugation. They tend to be right-wingers, and the white right is so vested in trying to paint Democrats as 'the real racists' that they are willing to embrace these whackjobs, until they are exposed as loons by liberal watchdog groups.
The calendar on my office wall has a note for today: Hanukkah beginsTraffic, Civil and Small Claims, 3PM. Here's wishing my Jewish readers a happy Hanukkah, but be aware that antisemitism seems to be on the rebound. We can see antisemitism in current conspiracy theories, in right-wing rallies, in petty acts of vandalism, in synagogue shootings. A couple of months ago, I had a conversation with a Jewish co-worker in which I mentioned that I had a conversation with a mutual friend of ours about how we'd end up having to hide friends in our attics if Trump's anti-immigrant policies got any worse. She replied that she knew other people had it worse, but that any rise in xenophobia eventually ends in attacks on Jews, and noted that her mother had a backup plan to leave for Costa Rica if things got really bad. I thought to myself, "Gonna have to make more room in the attic."
Hanukkah is all about survival in the face of an oppressive regime. Most Jewish holidays seem to be about survival, and the Jewish people have survived for two millennia since the Diaspora, their ethics and traditions largely intact. Here in the 'States, they have been at the forefront of pretty much every civil rights movement... which has earned them the wrath of reactionaries of all stripes.
Thankfully, it looks like our political system will be pulled from the brink of fascism, which will allow all of us to sleep better at night (this is why I actually embrace the 'Sleepy Joe' moniker for President-elect Biden). People in marginalized communities will face less danger with a non-sociopath in the White House. If the removal of the tyrannical Trump isn't a Hanukkah miracle, I don't know what else would be. Seasons greetings, be careful, because things can still get stupid.
Last night, I logged onto a Zoom lecture sponsored by my great and good friends at the Secret Science Club. This was the 2020 Lasker Foundation collaboration with the SSC, and featured immunologist Dr Arturo Casadevall of Johns Hopkins University, who is chair of the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Dr Casadevall's topic was the Deployment of Convalescent Plasma against COVID-19, and the good doctor began his lecture with a history of the use of serum/plasma in combatting disease. This historic overview started with an account by Thomas Hall Shastid of the use of antitoxin to combat an 1890s diphtheria outbreak. The disease often creates a 'pseudomembrane' in the patient's throat which obstructs breathing, and the treatment typically involved a tracheotomy. While accompanying a physician, Dr Shastid observed the use of an animal-derived antitoxin on a patient:
I found the boy very ill, the whole back of his throat being like white velvet. I had never used the new remedy before, but determined to try it to save the boy's life. I injected a small quantity under the skin of the stomach and watched the throat. I can only compare the marvellous result to the disappearance of snow under a hot sun. After the second dose every trace of the membrane disappeared, and the boy soon recovered.
German physiologist Emil von Behring discovered that immunity to disease can be transferred by serum and Danish physician Johannes Fibiger carried out the first randomized controlled trial in medicine in 1898 to evaluate diphtheria antitoxin. At the time, researchers didn't know that antibodies were proteins.
Dr Casadevall noted that serum therapy is difficult to use, serum typing is needed to apply it. Plasma therapy, which requires blood typing, also came into use- there is no therapeutic difference between plasma and serum. Plasma, is simply obtained from blood, serum derived from coagulated blood and separated out- both contain antibodies.
Antibody therapy was used in 1918 to treat influenza-related pneumonia, and in 1934 to combat a measles outbreak in a private school. Recovery tends to be rapid with antibody treatment. The antibodies were sourced from animals or from human convalescents.
From 1940-1950, with the introduction of antimicrobial drugs such as tetracycline and pennicillin, antibody therapies to treat infectious diseases fell off- with improper screening, other pathogens can be introduced to patients. Hepatitis was discovered through the use of plasma treatment, an outbreak led to a backlash against plasma use. Antibody therapy was still used to treat certain cancers.
There are three principles involved in antibody therapy:
1. Specificity- antibody use must target specific pathogens.
2. Quantitative- a sufficient amount of antibodies must be used.
3. Temporal- early treament is necessary for efficancy.
These three principles are necessary for successful therapeutic use. During the recent Ebola outbreak, an antibody therapy trial was not very effective because the amount of antibodies in the serum was insufficient. A recent flu therapy trial was unsuccesful because it started too late.
Dr Casadevall then shifted to the topic of the COVID-19 pandemic, beginning with a brief timeline, beginning in January, when there were increasing concerns that the outbreak was not containable. He noted that the history of antibody-based therapies was not well known. Accounts of the public response didn't mention plasma therapy. He realized that he needed to get the word out about antibody therapy, and shopped an article around to various media outlets. Eventually WSJ publihed op-ed and the dissemination of information followed. Even non-immunologists who used plasma in surgery spread the information.
Initial contacts created the leadership of the plasma project- not necessarily composed of immunologists. A National COVID-19 Plasma Project website was built by Amazon in March. In March 2020, things were moving fast as Michael Bloomberg and Maryland governor Larry Hogan allocated money to the project. On March 27, the first patient was treated with plasma therapy. The FDA exteded ab Extended Access Protocol and contracts with the Mayo Clinic to allow access to these therapies.
Dr Casadevall noticed that there was an imminent science crisis- the literature contains papers suggesting that antibodies can enhance symptoms. He looked at the literature and noted that the dangers were overblown, most therapies were successful. He turned to the wisdom of antiquity, but got conflicting messages: "fortune favors the bold" but "boldness is the beginning of action but fortune determines the end".
The first plasma therapy for COVID-19 took place at Houston Methodist Hospital. Thousands of COVID-19 patients were treated in the US, most occurring outside randomized clinical societies. Members of New York's Orthodox Jewish communities, hit hard and early by the outbreak, were mobilized to donate plasma.
Is antibody therapy safe? It's as safe as typical plasma therapies. Most of the plasma in hospitals is used for bleeding problems. Safety in therapeutic use clears the way for other therapies, including vaccines. Is antibody therapy working?
There are many encouraging reports of good patient outcomes.
In an Extended Access Protocol Data Analysis, 35,000 patients were analyzed. One study showed that, if plasma is given in first three days, mortality is 27% lower than if given after day for. The dose must be specific to SARS-Cov-2, and the dose must be sufficient. Increasing numbers of anecdotal case reports show efficacy of antibody treatment in immunocompromised individuals.
Dr Casadevall noted that there are strong precedents for efficacy based on historical use. This is strong theoretical support for efficacy based on knowledge of antibody action, and there are encouraging signs from clinical trials. He told us that his opinion has become more optimistic over past few months.
He drew our attention to studies of prophylaxsis protocol- typically giving plasma to family members of patients. Early administration enhances immune response, late administration can help lower viraal loads. Antibodies made during early and late convalescence are different, but they tend to lower viral load, inflammation, and respiratory effort.
There are issues- poverty is a factor in receiving therapies. Controversies make the job harder but he focuses on the science. The FDA, though cautious, was ready to go ahead with plasma therapy by June. He is avoiding political statements, but has nothing but good things to say about the government scientists.
He concluded with a recap of his observations throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, hitting on the following points: Convalescent plasma is available throughout the US, plasma use in the USA is under Emergency Use Authorization, plasma supplies are plentiful as a result of recruitment campaigns, deployment of plasma is driven by physicians and scientists- this is not a money making endeavor.
There are no pharmaceutical sponsors- this involves local generated therapy. All plasma units are different, defining useful units is difficult. There is a great advantage to antibody therapy- it is low tech, easily deployable, and inexpensive. Antibody therapy will continue to be used against COVID-19 and for future epidemics. The current challenge is to figure out how to use it effectively for future knowledge. Our plasma experience established the safety of antibody therapies, cleared the way to mAbs, gamma globulins, and vaccines. Currently antibody therapy remains the only therapy for COVID0-19, but is a stopgap until better treatments, such as a vaccine, are available.
The lecture was followed by a Q&A session. The best plasma seems to be from symptomatic patients who do not require hospitalization. If you have had COVID-19, please donate. How was diphtheria antitoxin available in the 19th century? They used cultures similar to bacterial cultures, but did not know what antibodies were. What about post-COVID patients? Dr Casadevall urged his friends at Methodist Hospital to follow up on COVID-19 patients on a long-haul basis. Plasma units differ- even one patient can produce two diverse units on two different days. How many units are needed? The typical does is 200cc, but units come in different sizes. It seems that the more one gets, the better the outcomes are. Dr Casadevall noted that most of the effort is grassroots, driven by scientists, doctors, and community organizers. He is optimistic- if we have a good plasma therapy, we will likely end up with a good vaccine. Humanity has never seem this virus before, but we are successfully fighting it off.
Can we pool plasma units to make them more complex and more standard? There is a risk as more plasma is used- one unit could contaminated a pooled plasma supply... this happened in the 1930s with hepatitis. Zika went away before plasma study, Ebola plasma therapy was insufficient. It took a month to get plasma studies set up for COVID-19. This current model will ensure more rapid responses in the future, giving a big boost to antibody therapies, even for illnesses as the seasonal flu. Does it remove the incentive for randomized control trials? Criticism was driven by doctors in community hospitals. There are ethical concerns- randomized control trials are needed to establish efficacy of plasma, but when there a crisis, it's ethical to use a generally safe therapy. A lot has been learned and no harm has been done. Remdesivir reduces viral replication, it and other antivirals have had a great effect on treating HIV and other virals.
Some Bastard in the Zoom audience asked: What factors distinguish viral pathogens to which the body can gain some degree of immunity, such as chicken pox, and viral pathogens for which the body does not gain such immunity? every virus is different- to survive, they need hosts, so they are experts at defeating immune systems, or they will go extinct. Every virus has a different strategy, some are fast breeders. COVID-19 is new to humanity, and we are fighting it,
Another question involved knowledge of virus genetics and the role of mutation- plasma use creates selection pressure, the evolution of the virus is an open-ended question. Antibodies prevent access of virus by blocking proteins, viruses can mutate to chage their proteins.
Once again, the Secret Science Club and Lasker Foundation combined to present an excellent, timely lecture. Kudos to Dr Casadevall, Margaret and Dorian, and the good people of the Lasker Foundation. Socially-distant air high fives all around!
The lecture was recorded, and will be available at a future date, but in the meantime, here's a video of Dr Casadevall discussing the state of antibody use to combat COVID-19:
Now, THAT is a perfect intersection of science and current events, which is a perfect example of the Secret Science Club sweet spot.
Last night, I hit a supermarket and a produce store before work. I needed to pick up milk for my workplace coffee habit anyway, so I handled my regular weekly shopping duties as well. The store shelves are pretty well denuded, though mirabile dictu, I WAS able to pick up a package of frozen spinach on a top shelf of an otherwise empty freezer. Meat selections were pretty slim, but I was able to grab (heh) a Dominican cooked salami. I have a familiarity with this product... in my years of working in the South Bronx, I was introduced by coworkers to that most Dominican of breakfasts, mangú con tres golpes, mashed plantains with three 'punches', those being fried eggs, fried cheese, and fried slices of salami. I had never purchased an entire Dominican salami, though, so I decided to do some research into different uses, and I fell down a rabbit hole.
Dominican salami has an... uhhhhh... interesting history, and its mere existence is due to two disparate types of racism. In the Bad Old Days of the mid 20th century, Dominican dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo agreed to grant asylum to thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing the expanding Nazi regime. Trujillo's reason for desiring an influx of Jewish refugees was, to say the least, messed up- in the wake of a massacre of Haitians living in the Dominican border region, Trujillo wanted an influx of white immigrants in an effort to 'lighten' the Dominican populace through intermarriage. The racist Trujillo was eager to welcome the European Jews fleeing the racist Hitler... great, just great.
About a thousand Jewish refugees emigrated to the DR, settling in the north of the country. They established farms and food processing businesses, including a meat processing conglomerate that produced European style cooked salami (having faced starvation, many of the immigrants didn't keep kosher). The cooked salami product, inexpensive and having a long shelf life, gained national popularity. It's not, though, the sort of salami that Katz' would send to your boy in the army:
As far as the salami itself is concerned, it's a far cry from the hard, dry salami of my Genovese ancestors... you could cut it with a fine string. It's spicy, but without heat, with a soft texture, almost like that of a pâté. It can be eaten out of hand, but does benefit from a crisping in a frying pan. I also imagine it would be good in a lentil stew, as a substitute for cotechino. It's a tasty product, but its raison d'être is enough to leave a bad taste in one's mouth.
Here's wishing all of my Jewish readers as happy a Passover as possible in this bad, bad times. I'm not Jewish, but growing up in the NYC metro area, I have always had Jewish friends and neighbors, and have attended Passover Seders (we would double up on holidays with our Israeli-American neighbors on numerous occasions). One of the questions posed by the youngest attendee of the meal is, "How is this night different from all other nights?" I imagine, with stay at home orders, this night isn't much different from the preceding fourteen to twenty nights.
On a personal note, I found out that a friend of mine tested positive for COVID-19 after feeling run down for a few days. She is two weeks into her battle, but is on the mend (I just got a text from her indicating this). She does, though, know someone who succumbed to the virus at the age of 54. Scary times, indeed!
Here's hoping that everyone stays safe. The COVID-19 pandemic is terrifying, but the accompanying plague of stupidity is even scarier.
Catastrophes bring out both the best and worst in people. For every story of noble medical personnel and doughty grocery employees, there are stories of hoarders and grifters and just plain shitty people. Now, with a lot of business being conducted over teleconferencing platforms, the trolls are out in force. In particular, the anime Nazi crowd is waging coordinated campaigns to bombard Jewish schools with antisemitic threats. Flooding conferences with violent porn and racist content is seen by the 3edG5U crowd as a prank, never mind the trauma it can cause the victims, including children at 'learn from home' sessions and individuals in recovery.
I go in to work every day, I receive my briefing in person from the gentleman working the shift before me, and I end my shift by disinfecting the company cell phone and placing it on the desk for the hand-off. I haven't used this teleconferencing software at all. Hell, I don't even Skype or FaceTime, preferring audio phone calls so my attention isn't divided. The poor security protocols for these teleconferencing apps makes me disinclined to start using them. There are a lot of disaffected people out there with poor socialization, and they are bored... that's not a recipe for good outcomes.
The call came as I was just about to disembark from the Bx34 bus, in the Woodlawn section of the Bronx, about two blocks from my home. It was my older brother, Sweetums, calling from Switzerland. After catching up on family matters and general chitchat, the call took on the timbre of a wellness call: "As a regular reader of your blog, I have to note that you seem to be remiss in blogging about the death of Charles Portis." I could detect a hint of concern in his voice... knowing how big a Charles Portis fan I am, something was up. I don't set Google alerts, and I have to confess that I had actually looked up Charles Portis back in January, as I do occasionally, so I wasn't expecting news of his death of Alzheimer's complications at the age of 86. BUMMER. That call took place two weeks ago, but a post like this isn't so easy to write... it involves quite a bit of re-reading.
Portis was not a prolific writer, having penned only five novels, but his second, and best (but not my favorite) novel, True Grit, was a bestseller made into two movies, in 1969 and 2010. The 1969 adaptation ensured Portis' fortune, so he never had to resort to writing potboilers to pay the bills (one common trope in biographies of Portis was that he 'retired to a fishing shack in Arkansas'). I wrote a fairly extensive blog post about True Gritshortly after the release of the 2010 film. If you've never read it, get it now and read it, and then read it again... we're all supposed to be under quarantine, you're going to need reading material and this book is perfect.
Portis' first novel, 1966's Norwood, is best described, like most of his novels, as a picaresque... the protagonist, Norwood Pratt (Portis was once the London bureau chief of the Herald Tribune) is a young Marine granted a hardship discharge upon the death of his father, in order to care for his sister, 'a heavy, sleepy girl with bad posture... old enough to look after herself and quite large enough, but in many ways... a big baby'. Portis sends him from Ralph, Texas to New York City to collect a seventy dollar debt from an old military buddy. As luck would have it, a chance run-in 'Grady Fring the Kredit King', who needs someone to transport a car to NYC, sets him on his journey, where he eventually meets such characters as a 'college educated' chicken, 'the world's smallest perfect fat man', a Jewish travel writer who doesn't travel, and, eventually, the love of his life. The novel, which reads much like Midnight Cowboy reimagined as a comedy, was made into a film (which I've never seen) starring True Grit leads Kim Darby and Glen Campbell in 1970:
Portis' third novel, The Dog of the South, mines a lot of the same material that Norwood did, it is a picaresque whose protagonist, bookish Arkansan named Ray Midge, chases after his wife, who has run off with her ex-husband, a scoundrel named Dupree. To make matters worse, the pair have stolen Midge's car, a shotgun, and credit cards. Charles Portis' keen eye for all details automotive is on display as he describes the clunker that Dupree has exchanged for Midge's car:
In exchange for my car, he had left me his 1963 Buick Special. I had found it in my slot at the Rhino Apartments parking lot, standing aside a red puddle of transmission fluid. It was a compact car, a rusty little piece of basic transportation with a V-6 engine. The thing ran well enough and it seemed eager to please but I couldn't believe the Buick engineers ever had their hearts in a people's car. Dupree had shamefully neglected it. There was about a quarter-turn of slack in the steering wheel and I had to swing it wildly back and forth in a childlike burlesque of motoring. After a day or two I got the hang of it but the violent arm movements made me look like a lunatic. I had to stay alert every second, every instant, to make small corrections. That car had 74,000 miles on it and the speedometer cable was broken. There was a hole in the floor on the driver's side and when I drove over something white the flash between my feet made me jump. That's enough on the car for now.
Using the receipts from his stolen credit cards, Midge deduces that his quarry has traveled south to Mexico, and he remembers that Dupree's family owns a property in British Honduras. As in Norwood, the protagonist, a 'gringo of goodwill in a small Buick', meets a variety of weirdos, such as petty criminal Dr Reo Symes, the owner of a bus with 'The Dog of the South' painted on its sides. The book is, like most of Portis' novels, alternately hilarious, sad, and trenchant, and was optioned for a film treatment by Bill Hader.
Portis' last novel, 1991's Gringos, like The Dog of the South, is also set in Latin America, specifically the Yucatán. The protagonist, Jimmy Burns, is an expatriate American who earns his living by taking on transportation jobs, occasional black-market dealing of artifacts, and other odd jobs... though he is 'the very picture of an American idler in Mexico, right down to the grass-green golfing trousers'. The plot of the book involves a search for a missing American girl who may have run away from home with an ex-con self-styled New Age guru, a false prophet who has joined an influx of hippies hoping for mystical experiences. Burns is a mercenary, but he isn't quite the antihero that True Grit's Rooster Cogburn is. The book contains what might be characterized as Charles Portis' keenest commentary on his fellow Southerners:
Dorsey was still looking for the catch. He couldn't size me up except that he was pretty sure I didn't report to work every morning. The back of his neck, a web of cracks, was burnt to the color and texture of red brick from much honest labor in the sun. A badge of honor, you might think, but no, it was the mark of the beast. The thanks that Dorsey and his people got for all their noonday sweat was to be called a contemptuous name. Few rednecks actually had red necks these days, but Dorsey Teeter had one that glowed.
I'm holding off on writing about Charles Portis' 1985's Masters of Atlantis. This book is perhaps my favorite comedic novel, a wild farrago of true believers in recondite 'lore' and the grifters who see them as a means to make a fast buck. While I read this novel, checked out from the public library, as a high-school student, mom actually checked up on me because I was laughing so hard I was having trouble breathing. I'm going to save this book for another post, such is my intense love for it. After the 2010 release of True Grit, now-disgraced WNYC host Leonard Lopate did a segment of Portis.
Roy Blount Jr once observed that Portis “could be Cormac McCarthy if he wanted to, but he’d rather be funny.” Even in his books which are punctuated by violence, such as True Grit and Gringos, there is no reveling in gore, and the action is punctuated by comedic scenes. If you haven't read anything by the man, please do... at least read True Grit. See for yourselves what being a member of the Portis cult is all about.
Thanks, Sweetums, for breaking the news to me... you have the wisdom of a Pletho Pappus!
Yesterday, I posted about the New York Times publishing a pseudoscientific op-ed piece that trafficked in antisemitic tropes, and last night, there was a heinous antisemitic attack in Rockland County, across the river from my beloved City of Y______. This machete attack was a terrorist attack, pure and simple- it was a attack perpetrated in the heart of a largely Hasidic village, in the home of a religious leader, during a religious celebration. The intent of the attacker was to show the Hasidic community that they weren't safe in their own community, in their own homes, to sow terror.
There has been a lot of tension in Rockland County, specifically East Ramapo, regarding the funding of the public school system- it's largely perceived that the Hasidic community is trying to defund public schools while funneling tax dollars into yeshivas. The attacker in this instance wasn't quite a local, he was a resident of a nearby town the next county over. I doubt that he was keeping abreast of the school district controversy. There is also a history of animosity between the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community and the African-American community in the region (both the Hasidic and the Caribbean-American communities are also expanding from Brooklyn to Rockland as members seek affordable homes).
I don't have any answers here... I was raised to believe that diversity was a good thing, that getting along with people of all colors, creeds, and ethnic origins was not only the mark of a civilized society, but the path to a richer cultural life. I really don't spend a lot of time in Rockland (I joke that I draw a dragon on that part of the map while acknowledging that I am long overdue for a trip to Khan's Mongolian Grill), but it's in my backyard. It pains me to see such barbarism so close to home.
I don't read the New York Times anymore. I don't click on links to the Times, I don't link to the Times... I don't say this with any joy, back when the world (and the Times) was not so awful, one of life's low-key pleasures was spending a post-bender Sunday sipping coffee and reading the Sunday Times damn near cover-to-cover, completing the crossword puzzle, naturally.
Every so often, I am reminded why I now shun this newspaper that I once loved, and this weekend is one of those reminders... the Times published a Bret Stephens piece about Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence that cites a white nationalist 'race realist'. The idea that different racial groups have different IQ ranges, with Ashkenazi Jews at the top, is a pseudo-scientific update of the myth of the sinister Jewish plotter. One of the tenets of the current fascism is that wily Jews are fostering non-white immigration to the United States and Europe to promote interbreeding in order to lower the general IQ, resulting in a more easily manipulated populace. Yeah, claims that one particular group has a higher IQ are invariably connected to claims that other groups have lower IQ.
I don't even know if Bret Stephens, an Ashkenazi Jew himself, is aware of the full implications of his 'race science'. Being ignorant, though, is more damning than being evil- after all, the guy is a paid contributor to what passes as the paper of record. I'm not even Jewish, but I have a well-tuned ear for racist dogwhistles. Basically, Stephens is writing a seemingly flattering depiction of Jewish people, while not caring that he is trafficking in the foundations of a century-old antisemitic trope- I'm not privy to the New York Times publishing protocols, but I never thought they'd be publishing 'Protocols'.
Here's wishing my Jewish readers a happy Hanukkah. I have older Jewish friends who tell me that Hanukkah wasn't really a major holiday until relatively recently, post World War 2, at any rate. The holiday became a bigger deal when Christmas became more of a public extravaganza, and who doesn't want a festival of lights during the dark days of December? Maybe that explains why there really weren't any great Hanukkah songs, and the best known Hanukkah song, given the nature of the dreidel game, is best compared to The Gambler or Queen of Hearts. Oddly enough, while there really hasn't been great Hanukkah music, a lot of our popular Christmas standards were written by Jewish composers. I figure that music composition turnabout is fair play, so I present what is perhaps the best Hanukkah song, by the late, great Sharon Jones, who started off singing gospel music in church:
I love that video, with the band wearing ugly holiday sweaters depicting the band, and Sharon absolutely nails it, as she always did. I can't think of a better Hanukkah song, so you should blast it after all of the gambling's done.
I'm a New Yorker, so even though I was raised in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church, I schlep to work, I nosh when I'm hungry, and I complain about the gonif in the White House. I've always had Jewish friends and neighbors, Jewish roommates and Jewish girlfriends and Jewish co-workers. The eye doctor who first fitted me out for glasses was Jewish. Growing up, the vast majority of my friends were either Catholic or Jewish, so it was easy to assume that the majority of the nation was as well. Until recently, I (like most of my Jewish friends and acquaintances) thought that the Jewish people in the United States were as safe as any Jewish people on the planet. Now, I'm not so sure...
In the past three years, I've heard from LGBTQ friends who were afraid to get married because they thought they might get put on a list. I've heard from Hispanic friends who were afraid that they would hear a fateful knock on the door because their immigration paperwork might not be in order. So far, I haven't personally heard any Jewish friends express any fear of the current regime, but that time might come. Oddly enough, the most worrisome factor in Trump's 'Jewish Policy' is couched as a bill combating antisemitism... the bill seems to define Jewish people as a national identity group as well as a religious identity group, which plays into an old trope that Jews have divided loyalties to this nation. This is mere days after Trump peppered a speech in front of a conservative Jewish audience with antisemitic tropes. As a bizarre coda to this farrago of anti-Jewish bigotry, Trump invited antisemitic evangelical pastors Robert Jeffress and John Hagee to the White House Hanukkah party.
In the meantime, antisemitic attacks are on the rise in this country, from both white and black right-wing whackjobs. Trump's legislative order will do nothing to prevent real antisemitic violence, while playing into the hands of conspiracy theorists who portray Jews as a sinister 'Other'. If I thought Trump had a scintilla of awareness, I'd suspect that he planned things this way.
Here's wishing a happy new year to my Jewish readers. I have always been lucky to have Jewish friends and neighbors, and we would often double up on holidays- we would celebrate Hanukkah with them, they would come over for Christmas Eve. I am still flabbergasted by anti-semitism in the US... this was one country where Jewish people, their religious freedom protected by the Constitution, could thrive, and thrive they have. The arts and sciences would not be what they are without the contributions of Jewish people. Personally, my first pair of glasses was outfitted by a Jewish optometrist, so MY academic potential wouldn't have been the same without this 'Jewish plot'.
I wish I could wish an unqualified happy new year to my Jewish friends, but nothing is straightforward these days. Anti-semitism is on the rise here in the 'States, from attacks on Orthodox Jews in NYC to synagogue shootings country-wide. Conspiracy theories abound, but they all seem to be rehashes of the old 'Protocols' style blood libel. Nothing is untainted by the current awfulness... I can post a picture of birds one day, but bird populations are plummeting. Cool bug pics are nice, but insect populations are declining. Those cute baby turtles I posted about will face the danger of plastic ingestion. Nothing is 100% happy, there's always a downside in this stupid, cruel era. I'd like to think that the bulk of the population is supportive of our Jewish neighbors, but there is a sinister undercurrent which the current administration has emboldened to go public. They aren't the norm, I tell myself, the decent people will defeat them, I hope.
The epicenter of the measles outbreak in the NY metro region is the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community which shuttles back and forth between Brooklyn and Rockland County, which lies directly across the mighty Hudson from my beloved Yonkers. It's not surprising that anti-vaccination ideation has hit this community- it is a community which has traditionally been targeted by hostile government forces, and a community which places little, if any, value on secular education. Distrust of secular authority plus scientific illiteracy seems to be the combination which has led to suspicion regard vaccines.
Last Monday night, members of the ultra-Orthodox community met in Rockland County for an anti-vaccination symposium. There, they were subjected to misinformation peddled by opportunistic quacks. The most striking statement recorded during the symposium, though, was a statement by a man who should have known better... a statement by a Holocaust survivor:
Just one of the event’s five speakers, who were introduced as “distinguished personalities” and the “cream of humanity’s crop,” was from the Orthodox community. Rabbi Hillel Handler, who has likened vaccination to “child sacrifice” in the past, told the crowd that according to “medical research,” if you catch “measles, mumps and chickenpox, your chances of getting cancer, heart disease, and strokes goes down 60 percent.”
He also said that Hasidim were being scapegoated by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who he called “a very, very sneaky fellow” and a German.
“The Jews are our misfortune,” he said, bringing up how Jews were stigmatized in Nazi Germany. “We Hasidim have been chosen as the target in order to distract from the virulent diseases that are sweeping through the city from illegals.”
The emphasis is mine... this is a particularly grotesque quote because Rabbi Handler is participating in the same sort of stigmatization that he decries. The lack of self-awareness on display here is stunning. My take on this whole sorry affair is that the Hasidim are being victimized by a bunch of grifters and anti-science loons, and in turn are victimizing their own children. Playing the blame game, and trying to paint Latin Americans as a threat is beyond the pale- it's playing from the same anti-semitic conspiracy theory handbook, merely changing the name of the enemy. I'm not Jewish, but I can recognize a shanda fur die goyim when I see one.
I'm not involved with social media apps, never having had a Facebook account or a Twitter handle. Back in the 90s, I had a job as an insurance claims investigator, so I have an aversion to putting too much personal information online. Besides, do I really need a Facebook account so I can find out that someone I worked with over a summer thirty years ago hates Jewish people? I have friends, I prefer to see them in person when possible, and to talk on the phone when it's not. The idea that a sizable portion of the population of the US uses Facebook as a news source is enough to give me hives, especially because of the amount of disinformation disseminated via the 'network'.
The the banning of a rogues gallery of bad actors by Facebook and Instagram should serve to slow down the pipeline of bullshit a bit, but it took a good long while for multiple violations of the Terms of Service to trigger the bans. Particularly amusing to me is the right-wing outrage of the characterization of Louis Farrakhan as a right-winger... it just goes to show you how the entirety of right-wing culture in this country is motivated by an animosity towards African-Americans when righties can't recognize a theocratic, anti-semitic, homophobic religious fundamentalist as a fellow traveler. A common response to left-of-center calls to deplatform neo-Nazis was 'why don't they ban Farrakhan?' I don't see any lefties crying over him getting bounced along with Yiannopoulos, Loomer, and Jones.
The one bad thing about this wholesale deplatforming is that it destroys a source of some high-quality schadenfreude- I mean, I find this sort of shit hilarious. Of course, I'm not the sort of person who right-wing nuts and conspiracy loons target for harassment. Schadenfreude is a luxury I am willing to give up to make life more pleasant for the innocent victims of the assholes who were banned and their vicious brigades of followers.
Here's wishing all of my Jewish readers a happy Hanukah. A couple of weeks ago, before leaving for a week's Thanksgiving vacation, I had to clean out the perishable items from refrigerator and cupboard. Having a half-full bag of potatoes, I decided the most expedient way to get rid of them was to shred them in my food processor and make hash browns... now, two weeks later, I can totally get in the mood to make some latkes- the mixture of potatoes and onion fried in a lot of oil just works, and I'm not even Jewish, man.
I'm on the record saying that I like to celbrate EVERYBODY's holidays- Christmas, Diwali, Hanukkah... I love them all, the one's I was raised celebrating and the one's I've adopted. Growing up, we'd often double up on holidays with friends and neighbors- Passover at their place, Easter at ours. In this era of polarization and ethnic-based bigotry, sharing our joyful occasions with each other is more important than ever. Hanukkah, like Diwali, is often referred to as the 'Festival of Lights', and we need light more than ever these days.
It's been a weird day... I worked until about 6AM, then went home for a long nap, having to get up at 2PM to return to work. At work, I spoke to two of my Jewish friends and co-workers, who both have relatives who are congregants at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, none of whom were harmed, baruch hashem. I was then reminded that the brother of another friend of mine, who had moved to Pittsburgh for grad school decades ago and decided to stay, was a congregant at the synagogue. He was not present for the massacre. I imagine that, if I were to poll my Jewish friends here in New York, that most of them would know congregants of the synagogue in Squirrel Hill.
After this sobering rundown on the situation of my friends' friends and loved ones, I began to indulge in a bit of Schadenfreude by checking out the downfall and probable demise of the Gab.ai platform, which I have been fascinated, and repelled, by for the past year. From its inception, the social networking site has been a haven for trolls and neo-nazis, misogynists and racists... oh my! Their debut on the world stage occurred this past weekend when the synagogue shooter made a cryptic announcement that he was 'going in'. Since the massacre, the Gab spokescreeps have been overactive on Twitter, oddly enough, with a litany of whinging and self-righteous twaddle. In one particularly ludicrous assertion, the Gab CEO claimed to have been 'proactive' regarding the shooter, yet this was after the massacre.
The usual cliche for describing the limits of free speech is yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater, but in this instance, the person is yelling 'burn down the theater with those people inside'.
Besides reading up on the Gab saga, I have been, in the runup to Halloween, been watching classic B horror movies, particularly those starring Bastard fave Vincent Price. Poking around the t00bz, I have found two great PSAs by Vincent Price regarding bigotry, the first from 1947:
The second from 1950:
For a guy who relished playing villains, he sure was a good man.
I have not been in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh in many years- the first and last time I was there was when I helped a high school friend of mine move into an apartment when he started his MFA program in lighting design at Carnegie Mellon University. It was a nice place to visit, but my trip was a whirlwind- I was tasked with returning the rental van my friend used to move his worldly possessions, so there was no time for lollygagging.
Demographically, Squirrel Hill's population is forty percent Jewish, with the neighborhood housing one-third of Pittsburgh's Jewish population, which has been in the neighborhood for a century. I can think of no other place, besides neighborhoods in NYC and LA, in which Jewish Americans felt more secure in their lives, their faith, their culture. This attack was perpetrated by a deranged bigot who was convinced that the Central American migrant movement trumped up by right wing media outlets is a Jewish plot to undermine 'white America'. It was a textbook case of terrorism, an attack designed to make the Jewish population of the United States feel unsafe no matter where they are- if a massacre can happen in Squirrel Hill, a haven for Jewish people and a diverse college town, a massacre could happen anywhere. The right-wing media, including such mega-corporations as Fox, have been pushing the narrative of an invasion caravan for the better part of a month, so they, and Trump, bear some culpability in the radicalization of the shooter.
This massacre has been a particularly horrific coda to a terrible week, and I sincerely hope that my Jewish friends stay safe. The bigots are a small percentage of the population, and they WILL LOSE.
If there's one ray of sunshine in all of this darkness, it's that the MAGAbomber case was broken because the jerk left a latent fingerprint on a bomb meant to harm Maxine Waters- the lady can kick right-wing ass without even breaking a sweat. In a week as terrible as this, any bit of good news is precious.
The Big Bad Bald Bastard is a character played by Monsieur _______ of the City of Y______. The role of the Bastard is a handy one to play on subways, walking the streets, and in dive-bars, when being a nerdy, bookish sort is not to one's advantage.
