Into the Great Unknown Unknown

It is an obituary which, I confess, I read with pleasure... Donald Rumsfeld has passed into the great Unknown Unknown.  Among the evildoers of the Dubya Maladministration, Rumsfeld was perhaps the most grotesque, the architect of many a failed Foreign Adventurism policy.  Acting as a foil to the possibly more evil Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld used the elective Iraq War as a means of testing his military doctrine while Cheney was primarily concerned with boosting his stock portfolio with no-bid, cost-plus contracts.  As an aside, until the COVID-19 pandemic hit, eventually killing more than 600,000 American civilians, I would have considered the Dubya Maladministration worse than the Trump Maladministration.

My real wrath lies with the media, which fawned over Rumsfeld, even as he spouted complete blatherskite about a war which was ill-advised, poorly conducted, and, frankly, evil.  While I can parse this statement from Rumsfeld, it still scans as deranged, a sort of 'thought-terminating cliche' to prevent too much scrutiny about the reasons for the Iraq invasion:

 

Conducting the war, Rumsfeld had a flippant attitude towards the military personnel who questioned his incompetence in providing matériel for the war effort:

 

The most damning thing about Rumsfeld is that he could confidently state that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction because he sold nerve toxins to Saddam Hussein when Iraq was fighting a ten-year war against Iran.  Here are the two in happier times:

 

Rumsfeld could be likened to a Bizarro Judas Iscariot, betraying an evil man rather than a good man.

Rumsfeld's legacy is horrific- countless Iraqi dead, thousands of American dead and tens of thousands of American wounded, the rise of ISIS in the Levant and Fertile Crescent, and a refugee crisis that has engulfed Europe, resulting in the deaths of uncounted migrants.  I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of 21st Century individuals I consider as evil as this man.

I haven't been watching any mainstream media coverage of Rumsfeld's death, I suspect they will completely ignore the evils that he perpetrated, while a satire website and a teen fashion magazine get it right.  People remember, though, as one can glean from a Twitter feed on which Rumsfeld's PR team forgot to turn off the comments:

A statement from the family of Donald Rumsfeld: pic.twitter.com/AlKYxVvqgF

— Donald Rumsfeld (@RumsfeldOffice) June 30, 2021

The planet is better off with him gone.

Choosing to Be Disadvantaged

Typically, when a politician speaks of 'Two Americas', he or she is referring to unfair conditions imposed on a segment of the population by hostile or merely indifferent forces.  Segregation?  Imposed on Black Americans by a hostile White majority.  Wage gap?  Largely due to the sheer indifference of market forces, though racism and sexism do indeed play a role.  Now, however, we are seeing a 'two Americas' situation which is self-inflicted...  Dr Anthony Fauci issued a warning that there could soon be two Americas- an America in which the majority of residents of a locale are vaccinated, and an American in which low vaccination rates lead to spikes in COVID-19 cases.

The particularly enraging factor here is that this divide is self-inflicted.  Both Americas have roughly equal access to free vaccinations, this disparity is one of choice, with many gullible idiots falling for anti-vaccination disinformation campaigns.  This is particularly dangerous as the more contagious and possibly more deleterious Delta variant, which now accounts for more than 25% of  current COVID-19 cases..  Personally, I won't be ditching the masks anytime soon.

There is a political gap between these two Americas, the vaccinated America and the unvaccinated America, as a ranking of states by percent of vaccinated population reveals.  I find myself trying to avoid being callous about the MAGA Confederacy degenerating into plaguelands, trying to eschew a 'rona take the hindmost attitude.  In my worst moments, I even have stray, wicked thoughts that MAGA vaccine reluctance might be the Ark B solution to many of the problems our nation faces, but my more charitable nature, thankfully, returns.  There are individuals who, due to age or illness, cannot take the vaccine, which is a big factor in why I'm so furious about anti-vaxxers.  Vaccines are out there, but without the authorities resorting to the medicinal use of dart guns, they won't be chosen.  Dr Fauci may be right about there being two Americas, but, as in the case of the Civil War, this two America situation is one of choice.

Deer Boy, You're Supposed to Be Wild

Starting last year, we've had some fearless deer take up residence at my principal workplace. This summer, a handsome young stag has been particularly bold, showing absolutely no intention to flee even when approached within ten or so feet:

His favorite spot is beneath a pine tree onsite, a spot where there's a lovely, soft carpet of fallen pine needles.

Yesterday morning, he and I had similar designs on one of the onsite mulberry trees (I have been gorging on mulberries lately, as I do every year).  While I was stuffing myself with the fruit, he was waiting patiently to get some of the leaves (which are edible when picked young).  Basically, it was morning shift change for the mulberry racket.

He's a charming presence on the property, lending a hint of naturaleza to the suburbs not twenty miles north of Times Square.  I just have to find a little buddy or two for him.

A Dangerous Heat

I have a lot of internet friends in the Pacific Northwest, including champion of small bloggers and all-around good guy Tengrain.  The Pacific Northwest is currently gripped in a dangerous heat wave, with Portland, Oregon baking at a temperature of 112F (44.4444C).  The danger of this heat wave is compounded by the fact that air conditioning is far from ubiquitous in the historically temperate region.  As always, unhoused individuals are at particular risk.  I can't even begin to comprehend the effects this heat will have on the local flora and fauna.

A glance at a weather map of this region is enough to give one the creeping horrors, CBS is describing the phenomenon as a once in a millennium heat dome, though I suspect that 'once in a millennium' is going to be a regular occurrence in the coming decades.  Can we talk about global warming now?  Sure, it's too late to forestall a catastrophic change in worldwide climate, but the earlier we start combating the problem, the more we can mitigate the civilization-altering effects.

Here in the New York metropolitan area, the expected high is a relatively temperate  92F (33.3333C).  While not comparable to the heat cooking the Pacific Northwest, this temperature poses a specific threat, if the 1950s science fiction B-movie It Came from Outer Space is a credible source:

When has a B-movie ever steered you wrong?  Be cool, everybody.

Happy Pride Day! Returning to Last Year's Theme

It's the day of the NYC Pride Parade, the day I typically take to wish my LGBTQ+ readers a happy Pride Day and Pride Month.  I'm going to reiterate my theme of last year's Pride post- intersectionality is crucial to all liberation movements.  I don't think I could do better than repeating what I wrote last year:

An intersectional approach to human rights campaigns involves confronting all oppression- racial, class, religious, sexual and gender orientation/identification. Your feminism is broken if you are anti-transwoman. Your racial liberation movement is defective if it countenances homophobia. Your Democratic Socialist agenda just isn't working out if you are anti-semitic.

LGBTQ+ friends of mine have lamented the fact that homophobia still has a place among Black churches which have been at the forefront of the Civil Rights and racial justice movements.  Similarly, wealthy gay individuals have been insensitive to the needs of people of color.  As a straight white male, playing the game of life on the lowest difficulty setting, I urge everybody to take an intersectional approach- human rights should not be compartmentalized, period.

This year has been characterized by a record number of bills targeting transpersons.  Anti trans agendas are being promulgated by joke woke groups such as the LGB 'movement', which is attacking trans-identity from a supposed gay perspective, and the TERF 'movement', which is attacking trans-identity from a supposed feminist perspective.  Both groups have cynically allied with right-wing groups to attack transpersons' rights.

Meanwhile, right-wingers are using anti-trans bigotry as a Trojan Horse to promulgate a broader anti-LGBTQ+ agenda.  They lost the culture war against same-sex marriage, and, being reactionaries, they are fighting to roll back gay rights, especially in light of the Biden Administration's stated commitment to LGBTQ+ rights.  Ignore this wide spectrum right-wing approach at your peril.  Also, from a historical perspective, transwomen of color were at the forefront of the Gay Rights movement, at great risk to themselves.  If you celebrate Pride, you owe them a debt of gratitude, and more importantly, you owe them the protection that they need. 

A Foundation of Sand

I haven't been able to devote too much time to coverage of the horrific condominium collapse in Miami, but it does concern a couple of my interests, namely the need for strict regulations on developers, and the foolishness of building on barrier islands... I'm not a big Bible guy, but that bestselling book has something to say about building a house on a foundation of sand.  While I was shocked by footage of the collapse, so reminiscent of the collapse of the Twin Towers visually, the thing which really grabbed my attention was the map of the locality:

I just want you all to get an idea of where this condominium building was built. On that sliver of land sitting on a delicate coral aquifer, right on the water. #Surfside pic.twitter.com/oxtjXE5gYr

— Cuban Being (@cmkinmia) June 25, 2021

The building was built on a barrier island, and with rising sea levels, water infiltrates the foundation, corroding steel supports and degrading concrete. A building doesn't even need to be underwater to be rendered uninhabitable. A 2018 engineering report indicated that the building had major structural damage, it "detailed significant cracks and breaks in the concrete, which required repairs to ensure the safety of the residents and the public."  Other reports indicate that the building was inexorably subsiding.

Of course, the conspiratorial fever swamps are abuzz with shitty narratives, from the relatively mundane domestic terrorism accusation to the outré war to save the Mole Children whackaloonery. The simple fact of the matter, so inconvenient to right wingers because it contradicts their worldview, is that the Miami building collapse is the horrific synergy of deregulation, a Republican tenet, and global warming, which Republicans deny... it's so much easier to opine that Q Team and the White Hats demolished the building to save some Tunnel Tots from Hillary Clinton's adrenochrome harvesting scheme. 

Returning to sober, thoughtful mode, I can't place any trust on the government of the state of Florida putting any regulatory burdens on oceanfront developers. Oddly enough, I think the one force which can stop the construction of large buildings on barrier islands is the insurance industry. If it becomes impossible to insure these buildings, and if insurance companies refuse to pay for claims involving improperly sited buildings, the developers will be forced to comply... once they take a bath financially. Of course, that won't bring back the victims of this building collapse, or alleviate the suffering of victims of future collapses.

Heroic Effort to Save a Villain

This morning's infuriating story is the revelation that Donald Trump was much sicker from COVID-19 than the White House admitted.  This idiot vacillated between calling the pandemic a hoax and stating that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was no more dangerous than a typical flu.

Trump was given a cocktail of experimental drugs, consisting of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies (antibody therapy was the topic of a Secret Science Club lecture last year) and steroids, to help his unlovely corpus fight off the disease.  Six hundred thousand dead Americans never received the benefit of these therapies.

The enraging thing about this story is that Trump's life-or-death struggle against COVID-19 did nothing to change his response to the pandemic.  Not even his near-death experience, or the death of his supposed friend Herman Cain, for that matter, would change his irresponsible pandemic response, his dismissal of the virus as a deadly pathogen, his disdain for the wearing of masks, his championing of dangerous quack 'remedies'.  Hell, he never even slowed the pace of scheduling superspreader events.  The assertion that the presidential succession was in disarray is, to me, merely a disquieting footnote to the anger I feel at Trump's endangering of the public.

Extraordinary measures were taken a man whose inaction and duplicity resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans.  Trump, a foolish man, gained no wisdom from his brush with death, he never even acknowledged that fact that only cutting-edge medicine, paid for from the public coffers, kept him on Earth's topside (even going so far as claiming that his good genes protected himself from the virus).  It was a heroic effort to save a villain.