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What Would Great Actually Look Like?

Posted on by Tim

For years now Donald Trump and his loyalists have been talking about “Making America Great Again.”

It is a phrase adopted from White Supremacy groups of the 1940s and 1950s. The meaning is the same now as it was then.

Trump’s idea of a great America is a White Nationalist America which would also be an America returned to the Corporate Feudalism of the Robber Baron era along with the complete erasure of the achievements resulting from both the Civil Rights and Women’s Suffrage movements.

So, what would “Great” actually look like if women, People of Color, and non-Cisgender people weren’t completely, or even partially, excluded from the benefits of it.

An exploration of the answer touches on more things than one might imagine at first.

As an example lets discuss the intersectionality of several issues.

Guns are now the leading cause of death in the United States for those in the age range of 1 year old to 19 years old. This can be attributed to a number of factors including, but not limited to, toddlers and young children accidently discharging poorly secured loaded weapons found in their homes, teen suicide especially among the oft attacked members of the LGBTQIAA+++ community or just those that haven’t yet come to terms with who they will become as they mature into their sense of self and those whose families are unsupportive, and racial and religious hate crimes

American gun rights advocates argue against any and all efforts to address any of these issues, most often by claiming that American gun violence is not a gun issue but a mental health issue.

At the same time, they refuse to do anything to help those in need of mental heath care. That alone would be bad enough, but they are regularly enacting laws and stoking the hatreds that push the mental health issues of both potential perpetrators and victims of violence further into the danger zone.

There is more intersectionality between each of these items and affordable health care, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, reproductive rights, voters’ rights, policing, disparity in justice, and every other aspect of our society than any one article could possibly properly address.

Instead, we’ll turn back to our original question:

What would “Great” actually look like if women, People of Color, and non-Cisgender people weren’t completely, or even partially, excluded from the benefits of it.

It could begin, not with a doomed attempt to eliminate bigotries, but to eliminate the ability to weaponize bigotries through our various societal systems, programs, and institutions.

It would begin not by asking everyone to be nice to each other, but to simply stop going out of their way to be mean and hostile to anyone and being swift to address and correct it when they do.

It would continue by electing officials who prioritize the welfare of the nation’s citizenry over the welfare of stock market investors and the war machine economy. They could then begin the work of not just restoring, but establishing, a true democracy. As the HBO show ‘Succession’ just stated in its most recent episode: America has only had a real democracy for about 50 or 60 years, “unless you don’t count Black people,” and the last few years have proven even that is still remarkably tenuous.

Those elected officials could begin by working to take the best aspects of our society and its potentials and build upon them while weeding out and discarding the worst. This would require abandoning a Constitutional Originalism view which requires holding our society to a standard set by a group of men who couldn’t possibly predict the evolution of the country, or the world, two or three centuries beyond their lifespan and allowing for either a string of Amendments to update the the social contract they created. Or better yet, developing a whole new one to lead us into a better future for all.

The early steps toward accomplishing these lofty goals would require a revamping of our policing, sentencing, and incarceration practices to end the militarization of community police forces and the war mentality their current training instills. Also, it would be necessary to end inequitable justice in favor of rehabilitation instead of punishment for non-violent offenses through a means that was fair and just to all regardless of their societal status or means.

In turn, those things would require the establishment of universal health care and a universal basic income, along with public education. That health care must include mental health care and protective services for children and adults at risk of domestic violence due to their gender or sexual identities. These steps would dramatically reduce the frequency of violent crimes.

All of that would allow for companies to automate far more jobs without detriment to the economy supporting those companies. It would also require a return to much higher corporate and excess wealth taxes to offset the expenses. With companies no longer burdened with responsibility to provide health insurance, and workers no longer trapped with a specific employer to maintain access to health care or basic survivability, companies would be free to find other benefits to attract works to positions that could not be automated. Those workers would be motivated by something other than a simple paycheck to do the work they have chosen to do out of desire instead of necessity. Those not working would be free to pursue their passions without risk of financial ruin if it doesn’t work out; if they excel at those things they may even be able to monetize them for additional income if they were to chose to do so.

None of this will be easy. It will take require the strength and determination to break free of outdated beliefs and traditions that have become entrenched within our #Culturalinertia. It will take the fortitude to oust those in power that would resist it.

This is not something that will be achievable overnight. It is however, something that will never be achieved, if we aren’t aggressively striving to accomplish it.

Nobody ever becomes truly great at anything without putting in the time, resources, hard work, and effort to achieve and maintain it. Countries are no different.

If we want a great society, a great nation, or a great world, we have to build it.

Then we have to maintain it.

Just For the Sake of Argument, Let’s Take the Bait.

Posted on by Tim

On Saturday, December 6th, the 199th mass shooter of 2023 attacked an outlet mall in a Dallas, TX suburb. For our purposes, we will use the same criteria to define a mass shooting as the Gun Violence Archive: A shooting incident in which 4 or more victims are injured or killed by firearms, not including the perpetrator of the event.

Along with his tactical gear, AR-15 style rifle, and other weapons, he was wearing an insignia that authorities believe may be associated with extremist groups.

Investigators have unearthed an extensive social media presence, including neo-Nazi and White supremacist-related posts and images that authorities believe Garcia shared online.

The state Governor, Greg Abbott, fresh off attempting to victim blame those killed in the state’s previous mass shooting with a false accusation that they were undocumented immigrants, now says America doesn’t have a gun issue, it has a mental health issue.

“People want a quick solution. The long-term solution here is to address the mental health issue.” 

That’s a statement that deserves unpacking and exploration, because taken at face value, he’s not actually wrong. At least not until you add the context of the rest of his statement.

“What Texas is doing in a big-time way, we are working to address that anger and violence but going to its root cause, which is addressing the mental health problems behind it,” Abbott said during an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”

The Republican governor also called for increasing penalties for stricter laws “to get guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals and to increase penalties for criminals who possess guns.”

So, what is Texas doing “in a big-time way” to address this issue? What are the specifics?

Here is a rundown of some of the laws signed by Abbott that took affect as of Sept 1st, 2021, in the wake of that year’s school shootings. His primary solution then, eliminate the requirements for gun permits, background checks, and training:

  • House Bill 1927: Known as permitless or constitutional carry, it allows Texans to carry handguns in public without a license and the background check and training that a license requires.
  • House Bill 2622: Known as the “Second Amendment Sanctuary State Act,” it prohibits state agencies and local governments from enforcing new federal gun rules.
  • House Bill 1500: Prevents government entities from banning the sale or transportation of firearms or ammunition during a declared disaster or emergency.
  • House Bill 957: Exempts firearm suppressors that are made and remain in Texas from federal laws and regulations.
  • House Bill 1407: Allows license holders to carry visible, holstered handguns anywhere in a motor vehicle, rather than having to wear the handgun in a shoulder or belt holster.
  • House Bill 1387: Allows certain foster homes to store guns and ammunition together in the same locked location, rather than requiring the items to be stored separately.
  • House Bill 1069: Allows certain first responders to carry handguns.
  • House Bill 2112: Removes the requirement that handguns must be carried in a “shoulder or belt” holster, expanding what kinds of holsters are legal.
  • House Bill 103: Creates a statewide active shooter alert system.
  • House Bill 4346: Prohibits certain firearm restrictions on a property during the use of an easement.
  • House Bill 29: Allows state-owned public buildings to provide self-service weapon lockers.
  • House Bill 1920: Expands and clarifies what constitutes a secured area of an airport in relation to possessing a firearm.
  • House Bill 2675: Requires the Texas Department of Public Safety to expedite the handgun license process for individuals “who are at increased risk of becoming victims of violence.”
  • House Bill 918: Makes young adults between the ages of 18-20 eligible for a license to carry a handgun if they are protected under certain court orders related to family violence.
  • House Bill 781: Allows junior college school marshals to carry concealed handguns rather than storing them.
  • Senate Bill 741: Allows school marshals in public school districts, open-enrollment charters, and private schools to carry concealed handguns rather than storing them.
  • Senate Bill 20: Allows hotel guests to carry and store firearms and ammunition in their rooms.
  • Senate Bill 19: Prohibits government entities from contracting with businesses that “discriminate against the firearm or ammunition industries.”
  • Senate Bill 162: Known as the “lie and try” bill, makes it a state crime to lie on a background check in order to illegally purchase a firearm.
  • Senate Bill 550: Removes the requirement that handguns must be carried in a “shoulder or belt” holster, expanding what kinds of holsters are legal.
  • Senate Bill 313: Creates a sales and use tax exemption for firearm safety equipment.
  • Senate Bill 168: Requires schools to use best practices when conducting active shooter drills, so they’re less harmful to students’ mental health and wellbeing; went into effect immediately.


At the time those bills were passed into law, Texas became the 20th U.S. state to adopt permitless carry. As of this writing, there are now 26, with Florida becoming the most recent.

What, then, is Governor Abbott; Texas; other Republican-led states; other national Republicans; even attempting to do to reduce gun violence? To improve any health care access, let alone mental health care? To remove the societal stigma, especially from a Republican view point of needing mental health care? Or, any health care?

A 2022 ABC News analysis shows Texas has the highest number of counties with no providers.

Texas Health and Human Services Public Information Officer Kelli Weldon explained that the state has a mere 39 local mental and behavioral health authorities providing care to residents.

Of the state’s 254 counties, 172 are considered rural, according to Weldon.

Further, “Seventy-five percent of rural counties across the country have no mental health providers or fewer than 50 per 100,000 people, according to an ABC News analysis of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data.“

This is all following the 2019 creation of “All Access Texas” a largely underfunded and mostly hidden program in the state of Texas that was supposed to address the very issue of the state’s many Mental Health Care deserts. It’s primary purpose seems to be to help those that have already committed crimes seek recovery, more than to help prevent such crimes from being committed or keeping the tools of efficient mass murder out of the hands of those most likely to commit it.

Realistically, if it were completely up to Republicans, even the care for gun violence victims would be only available to those rich enough to survive in a fully privatized health care system. For decades, they attempted to prevent the CDC from even compiling certain gun violence data or the use of any such data from being considered when debating changes to the law.

If mental health care is indeed the long-term solution to America’s gun violence what specific mental health care initiatives and improvements are gun rights advocates willing to embrace right now, today, to begin that process?

What short term milestones are they willing to enact immediately to set us on the path to a societal recovery by addressing the mental health symptoms of our gun violence #Culturalinertia?

Are we in agreement that feeling the need to carry a semi-automatic long gun to feel safe grocery shopping, for example, is itself a mental health issue that needs to be addressed.

Can we agree that the same mental health issue that leads to domestic violence is very likely to lead to gun violence if untreated?

Can we agree that if better availability of better mental health care is indeed the long-term solution to gun violence, then thorough, free, periodic, non-partisan mental health care screening must become a short term element for obtaining that long-term goal?

Or, are their collective cries of “mental health” just another tool to attempt to district us that the leading cause of American gun violence is that nothing about modern America’s gun rights are “well-regulated.”

I challenge you to find any Republican led piece of legislation, or even one a majority of Republicans support, from any state in the U.S. that addresses this by attempting to prevent those predisposed to such violence due to a lack of mental health care from obtaining guns.

What you will find, instead, is an abundance of issues of their offering of empty “thoughts and prayers,” their efforts to use their power and influence to increase the number of guns available and the ease with which they may be obtained, their efforts to use their power and influence to make the enforcement of any existing gun regulations — if not impossible — far more difficult, and their incessant knowingly smug embrace of Stochastic Terrorism to increase the usage of them as a primary tool in everyday conflict resolution and identity based politics.

It bears repeating, here, that if gun advocates don’t want the solution to be a Constitutional Amendment revoking the 2nd Amendment, then they must start contributing in good faith to real alternative solutions. Otherwise, they’re going to find themselves without a seat at the table for the discussion at all.

Human or AI?

Posted on by Tim

“Even a manically depressed robot is better to talk to than nobody.“

~Douglas Adams

Following up on last week’s blog “Ironic Conundrums,” I again turned to OpenAI’s Chat-GPT-4 system for assistance.

My reasoning for doing this is simple.

Artificial intelligence as a business, societal, governmental, educational, and personal tool isn’t going to go away.

It is only going to continue evolving faster than we can implement regulations and controls governing its usage parameters. It is absolutely an integral part of the future of our #Culturalinertia, for better or worse. Humans have a long history of becoming dependent upon technology to the point of unlearning how to do the things that technology was built to assist them with.

With this in mind, we need to learn how to ensure we are steering toward better as much as we possibly can.

To help us do that, I asked GPT to “Explain what steps an average person should be able to take to determine if something they are reading was written by an artificial intelligence text generator.”

Following is its response. Don’t miss the irony in Step 10, which advises us to ask AI if we are being tricked by AI:

Determining if a text was written by an artificial intelligence (AI) text generator can be challenging, as AI-generated text has become increasingly sophisticated. However, there are certain steps an average person can take to identify AI-generated content:

  1. Look for inconsistencies: AI-generated text may have inconsistencies in tone, subject matter, or point of view. If the content seems disjointed or switches between topics without clear transitions, it might be AI-generated.
  2. Analyze grammar and syntax: AI-generated text may have unusual grammar or syntax. While it has become less common in advanced AI models, it can still serve as an indicator of AI-generated text.
  3. Evaluate coherence and logic: Check if the content flows logically and is coherent. AI-generated text might sometimes produce sentences that sound plausible but lack a clear connection to the overall topic.
  4. Fact-check: AI-generated content might contain inaccuracies or outdated information. Fact-checking the text against reliable sources can help identify if the content was generated by an AI.
  5. Repetition: AI-generated text might repeat phrases, sentences, or ideas throughout the content, which could be a sign that it was generated by an AI.
  6. Unusual word choice: AI-generated text might use unusual or rare words, sometimes inappropriately or out of context. This can be an indication that the text was generated by an AI.
  7. Check for overuse of common phrases: AI-generated text may rely on common phrases or idioms more frequently than a human author would. If you notice an overuse of clichés, it might be AI-generated.
  8. Emotional connection: AI-generated text might lack a personal touch or an emotional connection. If the content seems impersonal, it could be a sign that it was generated by an AI.
  9. Source credibility: Consider the source of the content. If it’s from a reputable website, organization, or author, it’s more likely to be human-written. Unfamiliar sources or those with a history of sharing AI-generated content should be approached with skepticism.
  10. Use AI detection tools: Several online tools have been developed to help detect AI-generated text, such as OpenAI’s GPT-3. These tools analyze text for patterns associated with AI-generated content and can provide a probability score that estimates the likelihood of the text being AI-generated.

Keep in mind that these steps are not foolproof, and some AI-generated content can be very convincing. It’s important to remain vigilant and use critical thinking skills when evaluating the credibility and authenticity of any content you encounter.

Ironic Conundrums

Posted on by Tim

This evening I asked the OPENAI Chat GPT-4 engine to “Write a blog posting on the ethical and legal concerns of using creative AI to generate educational or business materials you will present as your own work product.”

This was the result it returned in roughly 15 seconds:

Title: The Ethical and Legal Conundrums of Using Creative AI in Educational and Business Contexts

Introduction

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) has led to innovative applications in various fields, including education and business. One such AI application is the creative generation of content, which raises concerns related to intellectual property, ethics, and legal implications. This blog post will delve into the ethical and legal issues surrounding the use of creative AI to generate educational or business materials presented as one’s own work product.

Ethical Concerns

  1. Plagiarism and academic integrity: In educational settings, using AI-generated content and presenting it as one’s own work violates academic integrity and constitutes plagiarism. Academic institutions emphasize originality, critical thinking, and individual effort, which AI-generated content undermines. Students who use AI tools for such purposes might miss out on essential learning opportunities and compromise their educational development.
  2. Unfair advantage: In competitive business environments, companies that use AI-generated content without proper attribution may gain an unfair advantage over competitors. This practice can undermine trust and fair competition, as other businesses may struggle to differentiate between genuinely original content and AI-generated materials.
  3. Devaluation of human creativity: As AI-generated content becomes more prevalent, there is a risk that the value of human creativity and effort will be diminished. This could lead to a loss of unique perspectives and ideas, as people may rely more heavily on AI-generated content rather than developing their own ideas.

Legal Concerns

  1. Copyright infringement: AI-generated content can pose challenges for copyright law. Since current laws mostly protect human-created content, the legal status of AI-generated work remains uncertain. Using AI-generated content in educational or business materials without proper licensing or permission could lead to potential copyright infringement issues.
  2. Intellectual property rights: As AI-generated content becomes more sophisticated, it may be difficult to determine the original source of the ideas and concepts. This ambiguity can lead to intellectual property disputes, as it is unclear who should be credited for the work or who holds the rights to the content.
  3. Data privacy: AI tools often rely on large datasets to generate content. If these datasets include private or copyrighted information, there may be legal implications related to data privacy and security. Educators and businesses should ensure that the AI tools they use comply with data privacy regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Conclusion

The use of creative AI to generate educational or business materials presents a complex landscape of ethical and legal concerns. While AI offers powerful tools for enhancing productivity and efficiency, it is crucial to maintain a balance between embracing innovation and upholding ethical and legal standards. Educators, students, and businesses should be aware of the potential pitfalls and take steps to ensure that the use of AI-generated content aligns with intellectual property laws, academic integrity, and ethical principles



Manufactured Chaos

Posted on by Tim

The Republican party appears to be in turmoil.

Trump, his entire inner circle, and his fellow insurrectionists at FOX News are all caught up in criminal and civil court battles that aren’t going well for them. However, they have no intention of giving up their efforts to get Trump re-elected, in large part because an active campaign is continuing to shield them from those cases being permitted to advance properly.

Republicans in control of the House appear to be obstructing each other as much as they are their opposition.

At least twice this year, Speaker McCarthy has turned over the entire House to insurrection spokesperson Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene as Speaker Pro Tempore.

Republicans in the Senate have mostly gone quiet in the halls of Congress.

None of them are giving any appearance of being willing to actually govern. None of them are making any effort to work with Democrats or the Biden administration on any meaningful legislation.

Their one cohesive policy stance seems to be a willingness to force the nation into default by refusing to raise the debt ceiling to ensure the government continues to pay off the debt it has already accrued.

Meanwhile, all these Republican leaders have pretty much stopped appearing on any news networks other than FOX News and that network is choosing to give the majority of its air time to the most extremist Trump loyalists.

When they do speak publicly, on air or online, they’re rhetoric feeds the hatred of violent extremists embracing fascism through White Nationalism, patriarchal misogyny, and religious bigotry.

It is not only easy, but extremely tempting and extremely dangerous, to dismiss all this as disorganized and incohesive chaos. Don’t fall into that trap. It becomes far more terrifying when you allow pattern recognition to settle in.

Since the beginning of our country, regardless of the party name they chose, America’s political conservatives have had the same agenda that they currently have:

To establish a society of multinational corporate feudalism with most of the populace serving as serfs enriching the corporate ownership both as consumers and servants using racism, bigotry, lies, misinformation, and any other tools they can get their hands on in order to accomplish it, and insure that the populace does not have the resources or willpower to do anything about it.

If you accept that premise, then their ongoing efforts against health care, birth control and abortion, living wages, food and housing assistance, social services, social safety nets, and more all make sense. If you accept that premise, their constant efforts to divide us over race, religion, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexuality, age, and more make perfect sense as tools to keep us from uniting. If you accept that premise, then all their efforts to discredit and dismantle the federal government, especially its regulatory enforcement, make perfect sense. If you accept that premise, all their lies and misinformation make perfect sense.

If you accept that premise the appearance of constant infighting, incompetence, and outright stupidity make perfect sense as a tool to get us to dismiss the underlying patterns as well as from what the damage they are doing nationwide in the state level governments they’ve managed to gain control of.

If you can see beyond the smoke and mirrors and all the bluff and bluster, taking a look at where we are right now in relation to the 2024 election cycle makes far more sense.

Trump is currently the front runner for the Republican party’s presidential nomination, and will likely win it barring any unforeseen health issues or sudden movement in any of the several criminal cases pending against him. Despite CPAC attendees deciding that they want Kari Lake as their VP nominee, Trump is more likely to pick Marjorie Taylor Greene. She both idolizes him and looks enough like his daughter Ivanka to be too enticing for him to pass up. The news that she and her husband are finally divorcing after staying together through the last 8 years of very public disagreement about Trump does nothing but add to this possibility.

This is why McCarthy has given her control of the House twice already despite having many more experienced and slightly less crazy options available. They’re trying to get you used to seeing her at the podium.

Meanwhile, the “traditional republicans” — a term which merely means they prefer to be more subversive with their efforts toward obtaining their party’s long term goals than overt — are currently pushing for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to be their nominee. Ron is far more dangerous than Trump. He shares all the same petty, vindictive temperament, the same quirks, biases, and more, he’s just a more skilled politician who knows how to get his hatreds built into legislation proposals that he can get passed into law.

Honestly, all the Republicans would be perfectly fine with either of these candidates winning. Either continues them full speed ahead toward the goals they’ve been laying the ground work for across the nation with there recent slate of “state’s rights” bills that are nothing more than a rehashing of the original secession letters of the Articles of the Confederacy that led to the Civil War.

I think; however, that Republicans will find that if Trump gets too hard to elect, the Trump voter base won’t rally behind DeSantis after they’ve torn each other apart in a primary. So they’ll opt for a more “traditional” member of their party. They’ll rally behind someone more like Sens. Richard Burr or John Thune who have mostly kept themselves out of the national spotlight and present them as their “moderate and rational” candidate to lure back in the party’s disenfranchised conservative moderates.

But, know this, even if they were to choose someone more like Adam Kinzinger or Liz Cheney or Mitt Romney, they’d still be putting forth a candidate that was 100% behind the modern Republican party’s long established policy platform and goals. The ones behind the smoke and mirrors and bluff and bluster.

Pay attention to what they are actually doing and what they are actually accomplishing by working so hard to make you believe they’re not successfully working together to achieve their goals on a nationwide scale.

Because they are.

And that is far more important than anything they say that they are or are not doing, or will or will not do.

Black History vs Critical Race Theory (CRT)

Posted on by Tim

Today, February 1st, marks the beginning of Black History Month in the United States for the year 2023. At least in any school district still allowed to teach it.

In the past, I have observed the month by trying to put forth a series of social media deep dives into the lives of the Black men and women whose incredible contributions to medical, industrial, technological, and social advancement of our nation have largely been erased from our societal record while their contributions remain a part of our daily lives. My intent was to focus on those individuals overlooked in favor of the constantly rehashed chosen few deemed worthy of very brief cherry-picked [white-washed] discussion by those in charge of the curricula.

This year, in light of the assault on all aspects of Black History education by White Nationalist American conservatives and evangelical Christians, I am only going to write this one essay on the subject.

Contrary to what Republicans would have you believe, a focus on teaching Black History in our schools (even for just a month) is intended to show that People of Color, most specifically Black people, have contributed so much to the advancement of our society, culture, nation, and world that most of us take for granted. In most cases this was done both for, and in spite of, a society, culture, nation and world that has long sought to belittle, demean, exploit, dehumanize, gaslight, enslave, and eradicate them.

The lessons on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., always focus on largely white-washed highlights of his “I have a dream speech. The lessons on the Black Panthers always focus on the fact that they were walking around in public armed with pistols and long guns. Teaching about Harriet Tubman focuses on her as a matriarch leading countless slaves to freedom.

Modern American Republicans (those political conservatives and evangelicals) want you to believe that learning these things somehow harms the emotional and psychological health of modern White children. They have chosen to mislabel it as Critical Race Theory which is not now and has not ever been a focus of any public elementary, middle or junior high, or high school curricula, not even for one month a year.

Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a largely academic exercise for jurisprudence and political scholars. It explores how racial bias and discrimination have become embedded within societal systems and that harm that creates directly for those targeted by it and indirectly for our society as a whole. It then forces us to look for ways we can begin to excise those biases and discriminations from those systems to create a more fair and equitable society for us all. Accomplishing this would not in any way diminish or harm any White child, it would only help put an end to continuing the diminishment and harm they inflict on all People of Color.

Encyclopedia Britannica’s online entry for Critical Race Theory states:

“[R]acism in the United States is normal, not aberrational: it is the ordinary experience of most people of colour. Although extreme racist attitudes and beliefs are less common among whites than they were before the mid-20th century, and explicitly racist laws and legal practices—epitomized by the Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation and denied basic civil rights to African Americans in the South—have been largely eliminated, most people of colour continue to be routinely discriminated against or otherwise unfairly treated in both public and private spheres, as demonstrated by numerous social indicators. African Americans and Hispanic Americans (Latinxs), for example, are on average more likely than similarly qualified white persons to be denied loans or jobs; they tend to pay more than whites for a broad range of products and services (e.g., automobiles); they are more likely than whites to be unjustly suspected of criminal behaviour by police or private (white) citizens; and they are more likely than whites to be victims of police brutality, including the unjustified use of lethal force. If convicted of a crime, people of colour, particularly African Americans, are generally imprisoned more often and for longer periods than whites who are found guilty of the same offenses. Many Blacks and Hispanics continue to live in racially segregated and impoverished neighbourhoods, in part because of zoning restrictions in many predominantly white neighbourhoods that effectively exclude lower-income residents. Predominantly Black or Hispanic neighbourhoods also tend to receive fewer or inferior public services, notably including public education. The lack of quality education in turn limits job opportunities, which makes it even more difficult to leave impoverished neighbourhoods. On average, Blacks and Hispanics also receive less or inferior medical care than whites and consequently lead shorter lives.”

If we were to approach those oft-revisited Black History Month lessons from above with a CRT viewpoint we’d be doing a critical analysis of Dr. King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” as well as why it was necessary to be written from a jail cell. We’d be talking about the reason the Black Panthers were armed was to protect Black citizens from racist attacks which led to White conservative politicians led by Ronald Reagan and the NRA to establish California’s first major gun control restrictions, the Mulford Act. We’d also discuss how that same organization, the Black Panthers, were responsible for the creation of the school breakfast programs that greatly benefited all impoverished children, including White children. We’d learn about how the 2nd Amendment was established in large part to maintain armed slave patrol militias to recapture escaped slaves the the warrior-spy Harriet Tubman was forced to become to protect those she was helping reach safety.

This month, I encourage and implore you to learn some real facts about both Black History and Critical Race Theory.

Set aside a few hours to learn how the history of American Slavery has affected every aspect of the American society that was built both by and atop it, and learn how that same society has worked hard to erase the memory of those contributions while still benefiting from them.

Go watch Hulu’s short series of episodes based on the Pulitzer Prize winning “1619 Project.”

Hopefully, that will pique your interest enough to go read the full award winning series of articles created for the New York Times by Nikole Hannah-Jones.

The #Culturalinertia of the Zombie Apocalypse

Posted on by Tim

As far as we can tell, humans have been mystified and filled with hope and fear by the concepts of the possibilities of life after death and the possibility that death is the ultimate end.
 
For many it alters the way they choose to live, behave, and interact.
 
Entire religious belief systems have been built and destroyed because of it.
 
It has been the subject of endless theological and scientific study and debate.

It has permeated every aspect of human entertainment culture from the various forms of heaven, hell, purgatory, angels, demons, eternal banquet halls celebrating warriors, eternal pits of fire and brimstone punishing sinners, to the aspects of the undead walking the earth as vampires, ghosts, zombies, and the twisted monsters stitched together by mad scientists.  

Much of our #Culturalinertia and how it has shifted can be measured by looking at how such things are discussed as its presentation evolves through entertainment.

The TV show ‘Supernatural’ ran for over 15 years, it survived after the network it originated on died and disappeared, and it had a very different take on modern religion than any previously show could have put on air.    It followed in the footsteps of “Charmed” and Buffy the Vampire Slayer” introducing the concepts to millions that not all “monsters” were bad and not all “heavenly creatures” had the best interest of living humans as a priority.
 
We can see a similar evolution in the seemingly never-ending cultural fascination with a zombie apocalypse.
 
The modern form of it started with George A. Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead.”   This movie launched not only an enduring new genre of film, but dared to be one of the first major studio films brave enough to make a Person of Color the hero in a position of authority leading White characters. It also laid the groundwork for building nearly every horror film sequel franchise that has been made since.

The only real question of morality in Romero’s films though was whether one would have the fortitude to kill a zombie that had once been a person we knew or cared about.

But, to keep us from getting bored with it, the zombie mythos has had to evolve many times since that movie’s release in 1968.  Romero’s follow-up films helped forge the path for that as well.
 
Then came the inevitable spoof films and reboots like “Revenge of the Dead,”” Night of the Day of the Dawn Of the Dead,” one of my favorites: “Shawn of the Dead” or my daughter’s favorite — the zombie apocalypse Christmas musical — “Anna and the Apocalypse”

These would be followed by reinventions of how zombies would move in “28 Days Later” and its sequel as well as South Korea’s “Train to Busan.”
 
Through all of these, the fascination with the genre has been more about either being torn apart and eaten alive or the fear of falling victim to whatever virus or curse was turning people into reanimated corpses with a singular purpose of spreading their affliction or a never ending hunger for human flesh/brains.
 
Entire fictional religious and scientific backgrounds have been created, fleshed out, torn down and rebuilt to explain how it could happen in each particular film’s fictional universe.

Then “The Walking Dead” came along and changed it all again, both with its graphic novel and its TV show.

This show survived for more than a decade and spawned multiple spinoffs simply because it decided to introduce the audience to something scarier and more monstrous than the zombies.   The moral ambiguity of the humans capable of surviving in a post-apocalyptic world and the struggles they’d have with their own humanity to manage it.  It explored not just the terror of surviving the initial outburst and its spread, but the terror of competing with other survivors for food, water, and an ever-depleting supply of shelter, ammunition, fuel, and other vital resources.

These survivors quickly learned how to navigate and defeat the monsters in all but the most dire circumstances.  They even eventually learned how to weaponize the monsters against each other.

This brought new dimension and depth to explore in what was becoming a played-out genre.
 
Would becoming a living monster be worse than becoming an undead one?   Would you be the kind of person that would sacrifice others to save yourself or yourself to save others if it became necessary to choose?  Would the answer live on a sliding scale of morality and self-preservation depending on who was involved?  What psychological struggles and tangible hardships would arise with the possibility of conceiving and delivering a child into such a world?  What kinds of cooperative communities, leadership politics, and both internal and external rivalries would arise between such communities?

It even allowed children as primary characters to do what was necessary to survive or sometimes failing.   It didn’t shy away from making the parents of those kids deal with the undead monsters they had become, or the making the kids deal with the undead monsters they’re parents became.
 
These are the plotlines that allowed the entire genre to rise up and start plodding forward again.

A few years after the Walking Dead TV show first aired, a video game was released called “The Last of Us.”  It won tons of rewards for both its visuals and storytelling.    And it re-wrote the “zombie” mythos all again.  These monsters weren’t walking undead.  They were infected, not by a virus or curse, but a very real (in our world) fungal infection.   A fungal infection that already takes over living hosts with no purpose other than to spread itself through other hosts as far and as fast as possible.  This fungal infection is called Cordyceps.  It is the one that already infects and spreads through ants that are known as “zombie ants” once infected. The fungus overgrows the central nervous system and assumes control of the body. 

The only reason the virus can’t infect humans in our current world is that it cannot survive at the temperatures found inside a living human.   The game itself never explains how that changes, but the new TV show based upon it does.

The fungus, like many things, is forced to evolve to survive in higher temperatures as the global climate warms.  The slight adjustment needed to survive at human body temperatures from its current limit of about 94 degrees Fahrenheit doesn’t require a massive suspension of disbelief to make it terrifying.  The show also changes its secondary spread methodology from airborne spores (which the game used as an obstacle to be navigated) to a more scientifically sound growth of fungal tendrils.

It cannot be stressed how viscerally this concept lands right now as we are navigating our third year of a massively contagious global health pandemic and the ongoing crises created by the environmental changes brought about by rising global temperatures.

It isn’t surprising that modern survivalists have gone from prepping for the likely possibility of a nuclear apocalypse to one created by an unstoppable health crisis or global climate catastrophe.  
 
You can even buy premade zombie apocalypse survival kits now and they’re not entirely considered “gag gifts.”

As our society evolves to new levels of personal and interpersonal risk and horror, the entertainment we use to escape and/or cope with it also evolves to keep pace.

We can learn much about ourselves and others by analyzing the trends that endure, the ones that are rejected, the ones we mock, and the ones to which we pay homage.

End the Nightmare, Help Make His Dream Our Reality

Posted on by Tim

I did not want to be the middle-aged White guy posting the obligatory Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., quotes today in order to honor the holiday named after him while our society continues dishonoring everything he was, he did, and was done to him, in order to earn that holiday.

A lifetime friend, and retired federal law enforcement officer, who is also a Black man born around the same time the Reverend Doctor was assassinated, and raised in the supposed “post Civil-Rights” era, posted this reminder this morning:

“Dr. King was arrested 29 times. He was a protester. He was not a nice man who said nice things from the pulpit. He was a protester. He was also not well liked as people like to assert. At the time of his death he arguably was the most hated man in America, due to him speaking out against the Vietnam war.”

“Two days after his ‘I Have A Dream’ speech, FBI Domestic Intelligence Chief William Sullivan wrote in a memo ‘We must mark him now, if we have not done so before, as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro and national security,’. Which culminated in the FBI sending a letter to Dr. King’s home which was opened by his wife, documenting their surveillance of his extramarital affairs and telling him that he was an ‘evil, abnormal beast’ and that he needed to commit suicide with 34 days.“

Now, over half a century later, the same type of people that screamed at and attempted to kill young Black children being integrated into previously all White public schools, the same type of people who screamed and attempted to kill Martin Luther King, Jr, and his supporters, are the ones still fighting against “Black Lives Matter” movements and screaming about their intentional misunderstanding of actual history as “critical race theory.”

In many cases it isn’t just the same type of people, it is the literally the same people.

Republican politicians around the nation have been working hard to eradicate all of the Civil Rights gains that Dr. King helped us to put in place and the voting rights protections that came about as a result of those continuing his work after his death. These same politicians will be very carefully cherry-picking quotes from his speeches and work today — mostly likely out of context quotes that seem to be calling for perpetual non-violent protest of uncompromising oppression — in order to further the white-washing of his legacy.

If you haven’t read Dr. King’s “Letter From a Birmingham Jail,” you should start there, before doing anything you think is intended to honor his memory today. Only then will you have a true understanding on his feelings toward the use of both non-violent and violent protest of unjust laws and systems. Only then will you understand what he was truly fighting for and why he was assassinated.

Only then will you understand why we can never be a truly free and democratic society until we reject the nightmare he was protesting and start making the dream he had for us all into our reality.



The #Culturalinertia of Consent

Posted on by Tim

The issue of consent in our society is problematic at best, and mostly one sided.

This is because our society has a established a long history of supporting male dominated stereotypes for nearly all interactions, personal and professional, across all aspects.

Even with our language we assign male attribute descriptors to discussions of strength and bravery.

“Take it like a man.”

“Grow some balls.”

We expect strong, tough, capable, brave men to be devoid of empathy, compassion, and personal feelings other than anger and lust.

“Real men don’t cry.”

“A real man wouldn’t let anyone talk to them that way.”

We assign feminine attribute descriptors to discussions of weakness, while we treat compassion, understanding, and nurturing as additional forms of that weakness.

When men are being perceived as weak, we attribute female descriptors to them. When women are perceived as strong or forceful, we attribute male descriptors.

“Don’t be a pussy.”

“You punch/throw/run like a girl.”

“She’s got more balls than the lot of them.”

“She’s twice the man you are.”

Now, obviously, there has been much recent improvement on these issues with the rise of the #MeToo movement and the increasing acceptance of non-binary gender identities slowly guiding change to our daily discourse. But there’s a long way to go. Especially with the Evangelical far-right pushback to the shift attempting to return us to an error of legalized spousal rape while stripping away all the civil rights gains of all women and all people with non-traditional gender identities and relationship roles.

Meanwhile, much still hasn’t improved at all. Sexual assault victims and sexual harassment victims are still “slut shamed” and subjected to the additional trauma of having their own lives torn apart with character assassination attempts for coming forward with accusations against their abusers.

Laws are being passed all over the country to either reinstate or protect the right of a man to force his wife to have sex with him when she doesn’t want to. Laws are in place to give rapists the right to sue for paternity in states that won’t allow their victims to seek an abortion for an unwanted pregnancy resulting from rape and/or incest.

The Brock Turners and Brett Kavanaughs of the world continue to do whatever they want to whomever they want with little or no serious consequence even when the extend of their deeds are made public.

This carries over into our entertainment as well.

The classic holiday song “Baby It’s Cold Outside” is nothing less than a date rape anthem for men attempting to continue to pressure and coerce women who have already said “No” multiple times into spending the night with them rather than helping them get home safely or just allowing her to leave.

Chris Pratt famously exposed himself to Any Poehler and everyone else on set on the set of “Parks And Rec” during a scene because he wanted to get a more surprised reaction from her on camera. The exposure was not scripted and was not consented to by any other person present. Her reaction is the one that made the cut for the show.

Meanwhile on “Friends” it was scripted for Matt Leblanc’s character Joey to expose himself to the entire cast and a guest star’s character whom his character had literally just met. This was played off as normal behavior for the people in the show for the era it was filmed. But it was handled much differently. Leblanc wore boxers under the robe he was supposed to open during the scene, and showed less than he likely would have in a bathing suit to them. In one outtake of the scene he actually had one of the other actors pictures attached to the front of the boxers. Despite the scripted scene, he still didn’t have consent to truly expose himself to them, and he took steps not to.

Movies and television productions are starting to have intimacy coordinators and counselors on set to prevent anyone being improperly exploited, pressured, or forced into something they are not completely comfortable with.

The need for this is becoming more and more apparent due to the abundance of cases like the one above.

Just this week it was announced that the stars of the 1968 “Romeo and Juliet” movie are suing paramount for the nude scenes they feel they were forced into while filming the movie. The actors were 15 and 16 at the time, roughly the same ages as the play’s tragic characters. Both are now in their 70s. There was no recourse at the time for them, there is now. For years, the version of this film with their nude bedroom scene was shown in public school English classrooms around the nation despite containing nude images of underage actors. Setting aside the power dynamics in play. Minors cannot legally consent.

As a father of multiple daughters, as a brother, a son, a husband, an uncle, a nephew, and a friend to the various women in my life, as a father of a son, I feel it is my responsibility to both teach and advocate for them whenever I can. I won’t even make my kids give “hello” or “goodbye” hugs to family friends or relatives if they don’t want to. Because it will never not be their choice who gets to press against them and wrap arms around their body.

It is important for all women and girls to learn they control their body, who they allow to see and touch it, and how and when that happens. It is equally important for all men and boys to learn that same truth and to honor it.

What is oft overlooked is that the opposite should also be true. Boys and men also have the same control over access to their bodies and women and girls should also honor that. This, despite the fact that society and entertainment want to portray all men as always ready and willing, even if they are already committed to a different person. Not only ready and willing, but completely incapable of having the strength to say “No” even if they wanted to.

It is dismaying how casually and enthusiastically Margo Robbie recently admitted she forced an unscripted kiss on Brad Pitt during a scene filmed for their recent movie, “Babylon,” just because she didn’t know when she’d ever have another chance to kiss Brad Pitt.

Millie Bobbie Brown made a similar excited announcement about her own behavior and cruelty with costar and supposed friend Louis Partridge while filming “Enola Homes 2.” Brown admitted she grabbed his face during rehearsals and kissed him to his surprise. “It was so cute really seeing her take the lead,” she said about the scene. “And also seeing a girl just make the first move is just really exciting.” Additionally, she admitted to punching Partridge while mingling on set. “Because Louis is a good friend I just kept punching him, I wasn’t doing stunts, I really was hurting him,” she said. “By the end of it, he said: ‘Millie can you just fake punch me,’ I was fully just getting him right in the stomach.”

I am not sure if such behavior should be considered expected or unexpected from a child star who, just like Emma Watson, was subjected to a social media “countdown clock” tracking when she would be of “legal” age to be sexualized.

Regardless of whether we use male or female descriptors for the behaviors; regardless of who is the instigator; regardless of how it is portrayed on screen for storyline entertainment purposes, consent is vital for all parties.

Non-consensual contact is assault. Additionally, most forms of such assault are at best unethical and at worst criminal.

Be better. Teach better. Demand better.

Understanding History is the Key to a Better Future.

Posted on by Tim

I am told that there is a proverbial phrase among the Inuit: ‘A long time ago, in the future.’ Let the children see our history and maybe it will help to shape the future.

~Romeo LeBlanc

If you’ve been following my public social media pages on Facebook or my semi-private companion discussion group, over the last decade or so, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve been increasingly sharing more and more information from historians. These range from the profanity laced lessons of James Fell to the almost daily deep dives of Professor Heather Cox Richardson to guide us as we discuss our #Culturalinertia and how to change it where necessary.

It is vital to understand our history to understand what we have experienced, overcome, endured, or accepted in order to get to where we are today.

How else can we recognize whether the problems we are facing now are a new trend, a resurgence of an old problem we believed conquered and forgotten, or something so deeply entrenched in the inertia of our culture that we barely even recognize it as a problem anymore unless it directly affects us or someone we care deeply enough about to wake up and take notice.

Today, on NPR’s Fresh Air, host Terry Gross interviewed the leader of one of the best deep-dive investigative journalism teams of this era, Rachel Maddow.

If you can find the time for nothing else this week, please, I implore you, set aside the 43 minutes to listen to this important interview.

The purpose of the interview is a discussion revolving around Ms. Maddow’s 9 part podcast entitled “Ultra.” It is an Apple podcast available on iTunes. The historical story Ms. Maddow weaves together in the series has already had its movie rights optioned by Steven Spielberg.

In the podcast’s 9 episodes, Ms. Maddow explores a period of American history between World War I and World War II. “The all-but-forgotten true story of good, old-fashioned American extremism getting supercharged by proximity to power. When extremist elected officials get caught plotting against America with the violent ultra right, this is the story of the lengths they will go to… to cover their tracks.” It documents the history of sitting members of Congress conspiring with a known Nazi agent to implement Hitler’s plot to overthrow the American government before we could enter World War II. Insurrectionists criminally charged with plotting to end American democracy for good. Justice Department prosecutors under crushing political pressure. 

If you do find the time to listen to the whole podcast series, when it is over, it will be impossible not to see all the direct links and parallels of the “America First” efforts of those sitting congress members and their most famous spokesman Charles Lindbergh with the modern “America First” movement and its most famous spokesman Donald Trump.

Whether you listen to the whole series or not, after you listen to the interview, please, I implore you, join me in a resolution for the coming year and then forever after.

Let us resolve to stop using words like “unprecedented” and “unbelievable” for things that have already happened, are still happening, and will keep happening until we put an end to them.

Refuse to allow the normalization of things that must be corrected by dismissing them as one-off anomalies that will self-correct if we just have enough patience and blind-faith trust in the centuries old systems that allow them to keep recurring.

Let us fully embrace the most important tool we have for making a better future, a true deep understanding of the history that has lead to our present.

History, in illuminating the past, illuminates the present, and in illuminating the present, illuminates the future.

~Benjamin Cardozo