Let’s cut the crap in this country—or not

 

The Associated Press is reporting that “The U.S. Justice Department and Seattle officials asked a judge Tuesday to end most federal oversight of the city's police department, saying its sustained, decade-long reform efforts are a model for other cities whose law enforcement agencies face federal civil rights investigations.”

Well, that must be the case because unlike in years past you never see police patrolling downtown anymore like you used to, especially anywhere near the “infamous” Third-and-Pine intersection, which suggests police are not now in the business of “crime prevention” where they might get into “trouble,” but “post-crime reaction.” But while crime went up from 2021 to 2022, this is a bit chicken-little handwringing because violent crime going “up” from 729 to 736 per 100,000 is next door to not going up at all, despite the fact that police are mostly invisible these days, especially in downtown Seattle where small businesses complain about “crime” when Amazon is their real problem.

Despite all the whining by police and right-wing media, I don’t get the impression that police oversight is a major concern of the city, if the Office of Law Enforcement Oversight location where I work is any indication; undisturbed mail stuck under the door for weeks includes postcards from some anonymous individual whose missives would be ignored anyways because of lack of relevance:

 

 

I admit the “G.F.Y” threw me for a second or two; the postcards are addressed to the current administrator, who the sender assumes, because he has a Muslim-sounding name, must be an anti-Semite from a “shithole” Middle East country.  Obviously the sender is trying to be clever by half by using the French curse term “La Putain,” which could mean “the whore,” but “putain” is in fact commonly used by the French to express the term “fuck” as in “fuck that” or “that’s fucking great”—as actor Jean Dujardin used it during his Oscar acceptance speech. Not "clever" at all, especially since this person seems to be using this term as his or her own moniker.

It thus wouldn’t “shock” me that something like a mass shooting in this city (god forbid) could occur, although it wouldn’t be the first one. The International District (i.e. “Chinatown”) is usually regarded in the usual “model minority” way, but it was the scene of the worst mass shooting in not just Seattle history, but that of the state of Washington. 13 people were killed in the Wah Mee gambling club shooting in 1983.

Members of the community complained that the incident “stereotyped” it as a haven of organized crime gangs (and who knows, there may be one or two today), but let's not be hypocrites about this. The reality of the commentary about the district even then centered around the fact that the stereotype that Asians were more “civil” and law-abiding than other groups was turned on its head, especially in the media, which descended on the previously un-newsworthy district like vultures; this was certainly one way for a community that had isolated itself from the rest of the city to get “attention.”

Of course that is not the only way for the ignored and unknown to get “attention.” Or wait, maybe it is. The shooting in the christian Covenant School in Nashville has received a lot of that, especially the “confusion” about the gender of the shooter. An ABC News story today gave little “insight” into Audrey Hale, save that she was a good student and coworker and “artistic.” The only “question” was that she seemed to be “depressed” in some of her recent social media posts, in which she began referring to herself as a “he.”

This photo of Hale sure makes her look “female” to me…

 

…so it must have been taken at a time when she wasn’t having what has been reported as an “emotional disorder.” Just because someone is now being called “transgender” doesn’t mean they just “act like a man” and go out on a shooting rampage. Many lesbians who identify themselves as the “butch” partner in a relationship take on the “male” role, so why are we are arguing about someone being “assigned” a gender at birth? Why is this even an issue? Because certain "woke" people want to “confuse” the question of responsibility? Just because a woman puts on a man's clothes doesn’t mean she has suddenly become a man. 

How about this: someone hates being a woman so much that in order to “prove” that “she” is a “he” the mentally unbalanced individual targets a Christian school because as a former student she/he viewed the school as a prime candidate for being responsible for this  confusion,” being that it taught “traditional” values. We won't know for "certain" until police release the contents of Hale's alleged "manifesto."

OK, so we know that Republicans are not going to do anything, and why should they start now? They'd prefer Congress take a minute of silence for the tornado victims in blood-red Mississippi, where climate change denial and racial intolerance have coalesced. There have been 90 mass shootings already this year, an average of one a day. People are going to forget about this incident in a week, just like they probably don’t remember any of the others that happened two weeks ago; there are just too many to remember, unless there was something “weird” about it or a documentary was made about it, like the Columbine school shooting.

Can you name the worst mass shooter in U.S. history?  Sorry, times up. Stephen Paddock, the Las Vegas shooter. Oh yes, in the last year Congress passed—what was it?—the “Safer Communities Act”? Wasn’t it supposed to make children “safer” from incidents just like the Nashville shooting? Yeah, it required more stringent background checks for people under 21 trying to buy firearms, but not for those over 21, like Hale.

The bigger question is why if she was under care for an “emotional disorder,” how was she able to legally purchased seven weapons? We are told that there are a few states where merely having a mental disorder is not a reason for denying someone the ability to purchase a gun. The answer is that laws and regulations prohibiting the sale of guns to mentally-ill people are a patchwork and loosely enforced at best. 

Hale was diagnosed with and receiving “treatment” for that undisclosed “emotional disorder,” but she wasn’t on any list; a friend of Hale contacted Nashville police about her fears of what Hale was up to after she posted on social media that “something bad” was about to happen; the friend noted that her warning was not taken with any “urgency” by police.

While the American Psychiatric Association tells us that only one percent of mass shooters have a “mental disorder,” so those with mental disabilities should not be stereotyped as being “dangerous.” This is true, but then again, what “sane” person goes out on such shooting rampages unless there is something seriously amiss mentally or emotionally?

And why after all this time did Hale still hold a grudge against the school? She was 28 years old, and Covenant only served children from pre-school to the sixth grade. The school’s website claims it is a safe, healthy environment that lets “children be children.” It is quite “exclusive” and expensive, over $16,000-a-pop--and that doesn't include costs for books and extracurricular activities; this suggests that Hale came from a background of privilege, which makes her actions even more disturbing. According to USA Today, it has 116 students, and the demographic breakdown by percentage (3.4 percent minority) suggests there are three black students and one Asian/Pacific Islander student. He must be the “one” here:

 

It is certainly possible that if she was “confused” about who she was at the time, Hale might have felt more "lonely" than "special" like this kid at certain times. But there is doubt, since the people who knew her saw potential "symptoms" only recently. We'll have to wait for that manifesto to find out why she wanted to do something "bad."

This country is so full of contradictions and “confusion” that it doesn’t know what to do but wring its hands, indulge in denial or “rationalize” the irrational. You want to cut the crap now and admit that there is something wrong with the way we handle "crisis"? Nah, that’s for people with too much time on their hands.

Rudeness and rule-breaking is the new "normal" in "civil" behavior

 

Rudeness seems to be the rule of the day, whether in politics or society. I thought it was rude of Rolling Stone magazine not to name Colonel Kurtz as the dastardly villain daring to upset MeToo orthodoxy in the Marilyn Manson case in a hit piece in which she was clearly implied as joining the “misogynistic” campaign against both phony “survivors” and their supporters—specifically of the female variety like Kat Tenbarge—in the mainstream media.

The Colonel was obviously not named because she is, well, a woman too, and she has been the most vocal supporter of Manson's innocence of the abuse charges made by Evan Rachel Wood and her gangsters, and has managed to get other YouTube “influencers” on board. Obviously RS by not naming her site is to avoid anyone finding out what their "fuss" is all about. Curiously, Manson’s twitter page seems to focus almost exclusively on his music with no mention of Wood, his defamation case against her or the “controversy” surrounding the case on social media, for or against.

Rolling Stone’s rude behavior can be explained as being too fearful of being exposed as the worst kind of hypocrite. In 2014 it printed a piece entitled “Rape on Campus” written by one of its editors, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, which detailed the story of a woman named “Jackie” who claimed to have been forced into oral sex by a gang of fraternity members outside of their house. I’ve written about the case here https://todarethegods.blogspot.com/2014/12/not-alleged-victims-role-to-tell-truth.html  and here https://todarethegods.blogspot.com/2015/04/pimping-by-media.html and these two headlines from Reuters nicely summarize “the rest of the story”:

 

 

Anyone paying attention to the “conversation” on social media knows that most of the rude and disrespectful behavior is coming not from those trying to expose the truth about false accusations, but from those shouting over them in an attempt to silence and gaslight them. Unfortunately for the gaslighters, unlike in the mainstream media where people who question the established narrative are quickly surrounded by the “cancel culture” vultures and picked apart into submission, truth-seekers on social media are people who only need to have the courage of their convictions.

In political debate, we are seeing now what happens when children are put in charge. When Reps. Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Green start their engines, there is just loud backfires and no forward movement, and their only notion to “fix” the problem of credibility, according to Gaetz, is to kick those pesky Democrats off the committees so they stop being rude “nuisances” about the truth.

Of the hearings themselves, Kris Kolesnik in The Hill writes “The 'whistleblowers' aren’t really whistleblowers; rather, they’re apparently aggrieved, card-carrying members of the MAGA-verse. The expert witnesses have had little relevant expertise to be convincing. Their documentation — so far — is flimsy.” While the January 6 committee conducted its business with professionalism and a minimum of hubris, “The Republicans’ predicament is the public is becoming increasingly skeptical about Chicken Little-style fearmongering.”

Rude behavior also seems to be hypocritically allowed to some, but not for others. For all their bluster about "free speech," it is Republicans who are most animated not just by the desire to deny others their free speech rights, but to put it into law like any ordinary fascists. Gov. Ron DeSantis constantly insults people with differing opinions than he has, and he apparently believes that giving racist white people the ability to be rude in their opinions about people of other races and ethnicities is just fine. “History” as taught in schools by law must now omit anything that white students would be made to feel “personally responsible for,” like slavery and Jim Crow.

The philosopher George Santayana told us that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” and DeSantis and Florida Republicans are not only guilty of this, but they are condemning generations to come of doing it—and they have the nerve to question why civility is going to pot? So we can all be rude to each other together because of our collective ignorances?

Of course it all starts at the “bottom,” and what one would consider the simplest and most basic of civil behavior and respect for the “rules” has given way to coddling rude people and rule-breakers. Remember when the librarian enforced “quiet”? Not today. At the Seattle Central Public Library, you are the “bad guy” if you complain about noisemakers, and the noisemakers are coddled like poor little people who need to be shown “respect.” 

Last week I searched out for an isolated location in order to work on Thursday’s post when someone with apparent mental health issues decided to sit a couple seats over in a building with 10 floors of seating available and was “arguing” incoherently with some imaginary person. After a few minutes of this I told the person that the “talking” area was on the fourth floor, and she got up and left, but not before issuing forth a number of loud, incoherent threats.

This person went someplace a few rows back to continue her “argument.” Not long afterward a security guard showed up and told me a librarian had called and said I had been “harassing” another patron. What? OK, so she was black and female, so that was double trouble. Don’t you hear that person jabbering away loudly over there, I asked. Don’t you think that is rude? No, he didn’t think this person was being rude or breaking any rules. People are allowed to talk and make all the noise they want anywhere in the library except the top floor (10) which is the only floor where security is allegedly tasked to enforce “quiet.” 

Huh? The only “rule” that is “enforced” on that floor (or any floor in the library) is the “no napping” rule, and the librarians and security walk right past people who are actually disobeying what in the past was considered to be the most basic rule in the library—not bothering people who are reading or working with loud conversations or playing music. The security guard did, however, threaten me with “consequences” because I was disturbing the “peace” with these complaints about rude behavior.

Of course rudeness and rule-breaking is the gold standard on Metro buses these days. Music playing without headphones and people from foreign lands whose natural tone of speaking is shouting is just “normal" and every rule on the “Ride Right” list posted on every bus is broken by someone on every bus trip. Trying to point out what the rules only brings a response that reinforces the fact that attempts to curb the current level of civil behavior is unenforceable. Certain people feel they have a “right” to ignore simple rules of behavior and act rudely because if they feel they are not sufficiently “respected,” why should they respect anyone else—and as we know two negative behaviors repel each other, and nothing gets solved.

This rule-breaking is also evident in the fact that while some people just assume you have to pay your way—i.e. pay bus fare—others seem to think they have a "right" not to pay fare. I don’t see any bus drivers anymore confronting non-paying “customers” and only one who insisted that at least someone who doesn’t think they have to pay fare to at least show the “courtesy” of telling him they have no intention to pay instead of just walking past him. Personally I don’t think this is fair to fare-payers; why should anyone pay bus fare? 

I did some investigating, and apparently it is Metro’s policy to coddle these rude rule-breakers. I had already been told that drivers should avoid “confrontations” with non-fare payers, and now it is merely said that no one should be denied “service” merely because they can’t pay—which of course gives license to anyone who thinks they can get away with riding “free.”

That’s pretty much where society stands today. We as a society are reaching a point where you cannot have an honest discussion about obeying the simplest of rules of behavior without being accused of being the “problem” and declaring the rule-breaker the "victim." Everything has to start somewhere, and as in the library or on the buses, rules and rude behavior have been ignored for so long that they are now out of the control of those who are supposed to enforce civil behavior—and the only “solution” is to keep ignoring it as if it isn't happening. 

Climate change report reinforces the notion that too little and too late is the "answer" that most people care to hear

 

With rising inflation, interest rate hikes, banks going under (Again? Haven’t they learned anything?), the war in Ukraine still hot, Republican investigations designed not to uncover the truth but for cynical political capital, the possible arrest of Trump, and still no resolution on the Aaron Rodgers trade, it’s easy to “forget” that there is a “starting point” to all of this, which is life on Earth. No inhabitable planet that took billions of years of evolution to create allegedly intelligent life forms who could destroy it all in a relative millisecond has time for this. 

Instead of nationalism, greed and pointless conflict over religion, culture, race and some megalomaniac’s place in the history books (like having an international arrest warrant for war crimes), we should be looking “ahead” and doing something we can all agree on (unless you are a fossil fuel corporation and their political playthings), and that is how to “fix” the planet before it’s too late to do anything about it.

It’s easy to see why it isn’t on top of most people’s to-do list; each day goes by and everything just seems the same, as if change is merely too "incremental" to notice. Well, of course change is all around: old buildings and their old piping get older and rustier, bridges get creakier, roads get crackier—those are things we can actually see, and still it takes seismic events or job-creation schemes to do anything about it. 

But to the uninformed, the sky seems limitless in the amount of pollution it can absorb, and garbage landfills and the oceans are conveniently out-of-sight and out-of-mind. Most people prefer to keep their concerns “aspirational” than concrete, although if “green” energy can replace fossil fuels without causing blackouts or pain in the pocketbook, then most people are “for it.” Those who are not are, well, those oil companies and the politicians who are in their pay.

“Change” has to come at some point, but what that means exactly isn’t certain. Is this country and the world going to be caught flatfooted when confronted by the reality that world is no longer the “welcoming” doormat for humanity’s negligence? Will “change” mean people will simply make “adjustments” while still relying on the factors that caused the change in the first place—or will they stop delaying what is needed and make the switch in earnest from fossil fuels? It certainly isn’t clear from those who still think more oil is the “answer” to all our problems and attack green energy activists as “left-wing radicals.”

There does seem to be some changes in climate that do seem to suggest “unnatural” reasons. The famous “snows of Kilimanjaro” are disappearing fast; a few anti-science scientists claim this is a “natural” occurrence starting in the late 19^th  century, but most scientists would point out that this was the time when the use of greenhouse gas-emitting pollutants began in earnest. Climate change is blamed for the fact that the Great Salt Lake has decreased in size from 3,300 square miles to 950, and the Aral Sea--once one of the largest lakes in the world--has virtually disappeared thanks to a combination of human misuse and drier climate:

 

At least in the Pacific Northwest, 2021 and 2022 saw mostly below normal temperatures in winter and spring, but followed by record-breaking heatwaves during the summer. After a series of 100+ degree days in 2021 in Seattle, in 2022 we experienced a four-month “endless” summer with almost no rainfall from mid-June into mid-October, with a record high temperature of 88 degrees recorded at Sea-Tac Airport on October 16, the latest in the year that temperatures reached 80+ degrees. Even the Washington Post thought it worth mentioning that the “historic” heat waves experienced in the Pacific Northwest were believed to be “virtually impossible” without significant human impact, according to climatologists.

Since then we have experienced below normal temperatures again this winter and spring, but curiously well below normal precipitation.  Not that this isn’t “normal”—we’ve had above normal yearly precipitation for a while, enough to push the previous decade’s “normal” up by 2 inches—so once it a while it will be below the norm to “average” things out.  The “long range” outlook this year continues to be cooler than normal into spring, and warmer and drier in the summer. 

We have been told that cooler winters and springs are  caused by global warming, since it knocks the “polar vortex” off its normal axis and bringing colder weather further south in winter and early spring; but that this will be a short-term occurrence, until there isn’t much polar icecap left to melt. The hotter, drier summers are a better indicator of climate change around these parts.

But is this the beginning of the “end”?  The New York Times is telling us that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on the future suggests that the “future” is a lot closer than people wish to understand:

Earth is likely to cross a critical threshold for global warming within the next decade, and nations will need to make an immediate and drastic shift away from fossil fuels to prevent the planet from over-heating dangerously beyond that level.

The effect of doing nothing, according to this IPCC graphic, tells us that future generations will spend its entire lifespan in an increasingly hostile “environment” unless something is done:

 

The IPCC report’s “long” version is beyond the layman’s patience, and the “Approved Summary for Policymakers” isn’t much better. I’ll try to pick out the important bits:

Human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming, with global surface temperature reaching 1.1°C above 1850–1900 in 2011–2020. Global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to increase, with unequal historical and ongoing contributions arising from unsustainable energy use, land use and land-use change, lifestyles and patterns of consumption and production across regions, between and within countries, and among individuals.

Global surface temperature was 1.09°C [0.95°C–1.20°C]5 higher in 2011–2020 than 1850–1906, with larger increases over land (1.59°C [1.34°C–1.83°C]) than over the ocean (0.88°C [0.68°C–1.01°C]). Global surface temperature in the first two decades of the 21st century (2001-2020) was 0.99 [0.84 to 1.10]°C higher than 1850-1900. Global surface temperature has increased faster since 1970 than in any other 50-year period over at least the last 2000 years.

The likely range of total human-caused global surface temperature increase from 1850–1900 to 2010–2019 is 0.8°C–1.3°C, with a best estimate of 1.07°C. Over this period, it is likely that well mixed greenhouse gases (GHGs) contributed a warming of 1.0°C–2.0°C8, and other human drivers (principally aerosols) contributed a cooling of 0.0°C–0.8°C, natural (solar and volcanic) drivers changed global surface temperature by –0.1°C to +0.1°C, and internal variability changed it by –0.2°C to +0.2°C.

In 2019, atmospheric CO2 concentrations (410 parts per million) were higher than at any time in at least 2 million years, and concentrations of methane (1866 parts per billion) and nitrous oxide (332 parts per billion) were higher than at any time in at least 800,000 years.

It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Global mean sea level increased by 0.20 [0.15–0.25] m between 1901 and 2018. The average rate of sea level rise was 1.3 [0.6 to 2.1]mm yr-1 between 1901 and 1971, increasing to 1.9 [0.8 to 2.9] mm yr-1 between 1971 and 2006, and further increasing to 3.7 [3.2 to 4.2] mm yr-1 between 2006 and 2018.

Human influence was very likely the main driver of these increases since at least 1971. Evidence of observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones, and, in particular, their attribution to human influence, has further strengthened since AR5. Human influence has likely increased the chance of compound extreme events since the 1950s, including increases in the frequency of concurrent heatwaves and droughts.

Alright, so we know what the problem is and who is causing it. What to do about it?

Several mitigation options, notably solar energy, wind energy, electrification of urban systems, urban green infrastructure, energy efficiency, demand-side management, improved forest and crop/grassland management, and reduced food waste and loss, are technically viable, are becoming increasingly cost effective and are generally supported by the public. From 2010– 2019 there have been sustained decreases in the unit costs of solar energy (85%), wind energy (55%), and lithium ion batteries (85%), and large increases in their deployment, e.g., >10x for solar and >100x for electric vehicles (EVs), varying widely across regions. The mix of policy instruments that reduced costs and stimulated adoption includes public R&D, funding for demonstration and pilot projects, and demand pull instruments such as deployment subsidies to attain scale. Maintaining emission-intensive systems may, in some regions and sectors, be more expensive than transitioning to low emission systems.

Global modelled mitigation pathways reaching net zero CO2 and GHG emissions include transitioning from fossil fuels without carbon capture and storage (CCS) to very low- or zero-carbon energy sources, such as renewables or fossil fuels with CCS, demand-side measures and improving efficiency, reducing non-CO2 GHG emissions, and CDR47. In most global modelled pathways, land-use change and forestry (via reforestation and reduced deforestation) and the energy supply sector reach net zero CO2 emissions earlier than the buildings, industry and transport sectors.

Mitigation options often have synergies with other aspects of sustainable development, but some options can also have trade-offs. There are potential synergies between sustainable development and, for instance, energy efficiency and renewable energy. Similarly, depending on the context48, biological CDR methods like reforestation, improved forest management, soil carbon sequestration, peatland restoration and coastal blue carbon management can enhance biodiversity and ecosystem functions, employment and local livelihoods. However, afforestation or production of biomass crops can have adverse socio-economic and environmental impacts, including on biodiversity, food and water security, local livelihoods and the rights of Indigenous Peoples, especially if implemented at large scales and where land tenure is insecure. Modelled pathways that assume using resources more efficiently or that shift global development towards sustainability include fewer challenges, such as less dependence on CDR and pressure on land and biodiversity. (high confidence)

Phew. So how much time do we have left to fix it?

The longer emissions reductions are delayed, the fewer effective adaptation options. Deep, rapid, and sustained mitigation and accelerated implementation of adaptation actions in this decade would reduce future losses and damages related to climate change for humans and ecosystem.

The higher the magnitude and the longer the duration of overshoot, the more ecosystems and societies are exposed to greater and more widespread changes in climatic impact-drivers, increasing risks for many natural and human systems. Compared to pathways without overshoot, societies would face higher risks to infrastructure, low-lying coastal settlements, and associated livelihoods. Overshooting 1.5°C will result in irreversible adverse impacts on certain ecosystems with low resilience, such as polar, mountain, and coastal ecosystems, impacted by ice-sheet, glacier melt, or by accelerating and higher committed sea level rise.

Continued emissions will further affect all major climate system components, and many changes will be irreversible on centennial to millennial time scales and become larger with increasing global warming. Without urgent, effective, and equitable mitigation and adaptation actions, climate change increasingly threatens ecosystems, biodiversity, and the livelihoods, health and wellbeing of current and future generations. The illustrative development pathways (red to green) and associated outcomes (right panel) show that there is a rapidly narrowing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all:

 

A decade to accomplish at least to halt global temperature increases, the continued growth of greenhouse gas emissions and misuse of water resources seems to be a tall order when “aspirations” is what many people can only “accept,” and you have right-wing politicians either denying reality or outright opposing any “mitigation” as not “cost effective” and hurting their corporate puppet-masters’ profit margins. 

There should be “high confidence” that by the time climate change is causing the one-two punch of higher fuel and electricity costs for colder winters (in the short term) and hotter temperatures in the summer (long-term)--combined with increasing numbers of, and more damaging, weather-related natural disasters that people will expect the government to pay the cost of--that cluelessness about why this all happened is the typical response. But this would be a ticking time-bomb that everyone was told about, and apparently it was believed it never would explode in their lifetimes.

Well, it would have to "explode" in someone's lifetime, and might as well be ours. If disaster strikes, this is what we should expect to  happen when we just pretend to find it "concerning," but are unwilling to do anything more than as little as possible because it is too "theoretical" to be real, and put our "trust" in the entities who least want to take the responsibility.  We just might as well get what we deserve for being so foolish for so long.