Gonna Catch up with the Hearings Later

This morning, the DJ on the local commercial music station made an offhand comment about having to use the split-screen feature on his television to watch the Rangers playing in the NHL conference finals and the 1/6 hearings simultaneously.  Me?  I'm taking a night off for bar trivia (it's my weekly ritual with good friends, well, ONE weekly ritual with good friends, along with a weekly online game night).  I figure that I can catch up later, no matter how important it is... we'll be dealing with the aftermath of 1/6 for years to come.

The importance of the hearings into 1/6 can be gauged by the responses that even 'polite' Republicans have to it- via Tengrain, we have the oleaginous David Brooks:

Using the events of Jan. 6 as campaign fodder is small-minded and likely to be ineffective. If you think you can find the magic moment that will finally discredit Donald Trump in the eyes of the electorate, you haven’t been paying attention over the last six years. Sorry, boomers, but this is not the Watergate scandal in which we need an investigation to find out who said what to whom in the Oval Office. The horrors of Jan. 6 were out in public. The shocking truth of it was what we all saw that day and what we’ve learned about the raw violence since.

Yes, David, the horrors of Jan. 6 were out in public, but the networks that put those horrors into motion were not out in public, and that's what the hearings are about.  The big players who funded the insurrection and transported the perpetrators are still out there, still in positions of power.  Damn right, the events of Jan. 6 are campaign fodder.  Hell, the campaigns of politicians who participated in the insurrection in any way should be suspended, and the roles of those politicians cannot be ascertained without the hearings.

I'm sure it will be riveting television, but a ritual is a ritual, so I will have to watch it in reruns.  At any rate, I think I deserve a night off.

Conservatism Kills

Put succinctly, Conservatism kills.  Sure, right-wing policies towards firearms kill, but the culture of death goes even deeper, on a more basic level.  There is currently a 'mortality gap' between heavily Democratic and heavily Republican counties and it is widening. 

The team compiled data from more than 3,000 U.S. counties in all 50 states and found mortality rates decreased by 22% in Democratic counties but dropped only 11% in Republican counties, according to the study published Tuesday in the British Medical Journal.

This gap is apparent across a wide range of pathologies, medical and social:

Mortality rates in Democratic counties dropped from 850 deaths per 100,000 people to 664, but in Republican counties, mortality rates declined from 867 to 771. The mortality gap widened across leading causes of death in the U.S. including heart disease, cancer, drug overdoses and suicide.

Democratic counties also saw greater reductions in deaths from chronic lower respiratory tract diseases, diabetes, influenza and pneumonia, and kidney disease.

The driver of this mortality gap is a disparity between health incomes for white Democrats and white Republicans, with health outcomes being better for white Democrats.  Black and Hispanic Americans tend to have worse health outcomes than white Americans, but their death rates are falling more rapidly than those of white Republicans.  

The Affordable Healthcare Act, aka Obamacare, played a role in the decreasing mortality rate in Democratic leaning counties, but personal choice also plays a role.  Democrats are more likely to engage in healthy habits, such as receiving vaccinations, exercising (we love our bike lanes), and eating well (unlike Republicans, we don't think that eating vegetables is 'gay' and don't see hamburgers as a lifestyle).  

As a progressive, I really want to see an improvement in longevity and quality of life for all Americans, but if Conservatives insist on remaining in a death cult that is killing them, can't they speed things up in time for the November midterms?

 

Another Kitchen Ordeal, Courtesy of Fox

Via Tengrain, we have a Fox segment about the travails of living under California's environmental regulations which actually reveals the complete culinary ineptitude of the Fox entertainers:

Fox hosts can't figure out how to use an electric stove. pic.twitter.com/Wi07S0vqGM

— Kat Abu (@abughazalehkat) June 6, 2022

My favorite bit is the bullshit about the '45 minute fried egg'. That sounds more like a sacrifice to a volcano god.

 Now, a real pro doesn't even need a stove to cook, but then again, this fine fellow was a true-blue liberal:

Fox cooking segments tend to be disastrous, because of the stupidity of the individuals involved.  I'm reminded of those old Ronco commercials, which made routine tasks look fraught with angst, peril even.  My favorite Fox cooking segment involved Diamond and Silk making a 'no sugar added' banana pudding, with hilarity ensuing:

 

I'm sure you all see the flaw in that technically true 'no sugar added' claim...  I also love their distinction between 'Nilla Wafers and vanilla wafers, though that's not as stupid as a forty-five minute fried egg.

Shots on Both Sides

This afternoon, I received my second COVID booster shot.  I had been planning to get it before mid-June, and a workplace mandate merely moved the date up a week or so for me.  Since the big government-run vaccination sites have closed, I went to a local CVS store for the inoculation.

This not being a big COVID injection site, while registering for the booster, I was given the option to receive an additional vaccine.  I chose the initial shingles shot.  My brother Vincenzo had the shingles and declared it the worst pain he'd experienced in his life.  A coworker who had it said that he was bedridden for two days, his body alternately feeling like it was on fire or it was being stabbed with multiple pins,,, with a barely endurable constant itching as a background bad feeling.  Shingles shot, please!!!  

The pharmacist at CVS. a consummate pro, gave me the COVID jab in the left arm, and the shingles shot in the right arm.  She told me that I might experience redness and swelling around the shingles injection site, and instructed me to drink plenty of fluids.  She told me that I should come back in two months for the second shingles shot.  Four hours after receiving both shots, I feel fine, though after running some brief errands, I plan on being home for the duration, drinking water and generally loafing around.  Yeah, what a way to spend one's day off!  At least it's a nice afternoon for sitting in the back yard, counting my blessings for having a high tolerance for injections.

Post title a paraphrase of the title of this post-punk classic:

I think I'll pump my fists a bit... I've heard tell that arm movements help distribute the fluid from the injection sites, lessening the incidence and duration of injection site soreness.

I Am Not a Number, I Am a Free Deer!!!

This year, a new minor character joined the cast of this blog, a handsome young fellow with a mysterious past.  I'm talking about Deer 58, a young stag wearing a radio collar and a pair of ear tags bearing the number which serves as his name.  He's relatively tame, and settled into his role on my worksite with aplomb.  He was later joined by Dear 57, another stag which is much more skittish, not nearly as amenable to being photographed.

Yesterday, my coworker learned about the mysterious past of Deer 58 (and Deer 57).  While he was working the afternoon shift, he spotted two young men in our overflow parking area, standing next to a car bearing a sign for White Buffalo Inc, a wildlife management company.  Two young men, perhaps not so different from 57 and 58, were standing next to the vehicle, searching for something.  That something, my coworker was told, was the radio collar used to track 57 and 58, and thirty other deer in the region.  The radio collars have small charges installed, which blow the collars off when a particular study has finished.  Deer 57 and 58 were now free of their collars, though they still bore the ear tags, which sometimes fall off and sometimes don't.

The White Buffalo employees were looking for one of the collars, they get paid a bonus for every collar they retrieve.  My coworker joked about getting a cut if he found the collar before they did...  In the course of their conversation, my coworker learned that 57 and our friend 58 tended to move from our site to a nearby park- they favor the park in the winter because of the many oak trees on the premises, which provide a bounty of tasty acorns which help tide the deer over in the lean season.  They move to our site in more clement weather in order to take advantage of our varied ecological niches- meadow, forest, and marsh.

White Buffalo is also conducting a similar deer survey on Long Island, and will compare and contrast the data from the two locales.  Here's where I note that our sizable campus is near a broad swathe of green space, and the deer even wander into downtown areas such as the pretty village of Tarrytown (it's a good town).

It's my sincere hope that Deer 58 won't be subject to a cull, or the like.  He makes for a charming presence on the property, and I kinda look at him as a coworker.  If he's calm and contentedly hanging out on site, it probably means that no unauthorized persons are skulking about.  As far as I'm concerned, he's on the payroll, albeit on a more informal basis than myself or Ginger.  I'd like to see him having the run of the place, a free deer.

He's Supposed to Be One of the Smart Ones

I'm a 'better dead than crimson' kind of guy, and every so often my contempt for that institution is vindicated, and I'm not even prepared to go into the really egregious stuff today.  Right now, I'm just talking about a guy who is supposed to be a right-wing intellectual, whose main claim to fame is 'destroying' college libs with 'facts and logic', but whose actual debate tactic is a Gish Gallop.  Yeah, I'm talking about Republican wunderkind Ben Shapiro, who has some thoughts about school shootings:

Ben Shapiro: The reason that so many kids die of gun violence is because “kids cannot carry guns”https://t.co/FMQ7E2ZuPm pic.twitter.com/Mu1pCfe2xR

— Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) June 3, 2022

He even invokes his vaunted 'logic' in his bizarre rant, though he sounds deranged, especially when he says that he's 'unaware of any situation in which the threat of a good guy with a gun has not ended a situation with a bad guy with a gun '.  Ben is notably ignorant, or perhaps wants to bury the existence of that right-wing terrorist altogether.

Ben is supposed to be one of the 'smart ones', but he's deranged- what kind of loon would think that broaching this topic is a smart rhetorical move?  Ben's an idiot, but that's been apparent for years.  Like I said, I'm a 'better dead than crimson' kind of guy, and practically every day proves me right.

Jersey Bound

Today will be a busy day.  My baby brother, Gomez, and his family will be in Northern New Jersey because my niece is playing in a hockey tournament all weekend.  She's a whiz on the ice, as well as being an academic powerhouse.  Her dad played hockey in high school, and currently plays in an adult league, as well as working part-time as a referee.

I have to work, but will be able to meet them after the first game for dinner.  I haven't seen them since before the pandemic started, since they came to visit NYC in Summer 2019.  We had a blast back then, and I'm sure tonight will be a lot of fun... I just have to look up places to dine in the greater Wayne, New Jersey vicinity.  The only business I know of in Wayne is the now-closed lawn ornament place these guys took their name from:

 Jersey being the Land of Diners, I'm sure I'll find a spot pretty easily.