Real Fear, Fake Danger

Burr!  I'm tired of winter. I only think that I like summer. Oppressive heat. Winter is not that cold (not here anyway, not today, thanks anthropocene). It's the dreariness. It's the dead vegetation. Fall is colorful but it only transitional. A splash of color then dreariness. Spring is what wait for. Daily change - buddings, fresh shoots. The yellows. The violets. You can dilly-dally (In the rain if you like with your goulashes one. Yellow ones to boot). I even look forward to getting the mower out (not really, I pay someone to do that). Ah Spring! But first I must get through the next two months. It's all in the mind, you know. And a little self-medication will take care of that.

A real catalyst of change is entering the Whitehouse. Maybe not the change that his supporters hope for. He's promising something better (no that was greater, I think)  We'll get something out of this too, you know. We'll get something better than you'll get, you can be damn sure of that. There's no going back to the old politics.That's all dead.  We've made sure of that. Thanks Mr President for being such a magnificent catalyst. Remember - Make America Better. Say it Loud. Be Proud.

The average per patient cost of a rare disease drug had risen from $84,000 a year in 2010 to $

112,000 in 2014

[There is a] relative absence of modern ‘degenerative’ disease (heart disease, cancer, hypertension, diabetes, bowel disorders) among… hunter-gatherers and subsistence farmers – Mark N Cohen – Health and the Rise of Civilization, 1989 p100

Use of GMOs decrease the use of insecticides but increase the usage of herbicides on US farms

The cultural apparatus is responsible for distributing the prevailing ideas [of political, military and economic power] to a mass public – Stanley Aronowitz - Taking it Big, 2012 p233

When watching preschoolers for potential trouble, teachers spend 42% of their time watching black boys; 34% watching white boys; 13% on white girls and 10% on black girls (Yale Child Study Center)

The debates are part of the unconscionable fraud that our political campaigns have become. – Walter Cronkite

Sand is the 2^nd most used natural resource on earth, behind only water 

The only country that has ever used such weaponry [nuclear] will remain on record as ready and willing to do so again without nuclear provocation, an act, it is now believed in Washington, that would create a calmer planet – Tom Engelhardt (The Nation 9/22/16)

Medical billing records more accuracy report a hospital patient’s cause of death than do death certificates which tend to report the initial reason for the patient’s admission and under-report any infection or error that may have happened during their treatment. Actual reporting procedures to the Center for Disease Control are controlled by the state and not the federal government. Death from superbug infections if accurately reported may actually exceed hospital deaths due heart disease or cancer.

To study only the world’s victors keeps thought locked to a narrow reality. Out of defeat emerges ideas, changed people, and new movements – Russell Jacoby – Picture Imperfect: Thought for an Anti-Utopian Age, 2005 p5

Ten African and Asian countries representing just 2.5% of the world’s economy host 56% of the world’s refugees (estimated at 56 million).

Politicians were sold like soft drinks in election campaigns. Even the growth of a new conservatism in the 1980s was not really a mass political movement. It was a sophisticated and largely successful sales effort promoting unfettered markets – Gary S Cross – An All Consuming Century, 2000 p9

The anutal number of humans  (individuals) living longer than 110 years steadily increased for most of the 20^th century but has been decreasing this century in spit of the increasing total number of people now (at this very moment) alive

Forced to chose between limiting population or trying to increase food production, we chose the later and ended up with starvation, warfare and tyranny – Jared Diamond

A recent study concludes that if you figure in the CO2 released in the production of ethanol and bio-diesel, the consumption of these so called green fuels actually increases the total CO2 emission resulting from their consumption. A previous study found that the total energy produced by these fuels was less than the total energy used to produce them.

In 1910 the life-expectancy of the average car was about 10,000 miles.

The less educated fear they are being governed by intellectual snobs who know nothing of their lives and experiences. The educated fear their fate may be decided by know-nothings who are ignorant of how the world really works… Elite anxiety about the consequences of political ignorance is nothing new. In the long history of intellectuals worrying about democracy and its failings, two basic fears keep nagging away. The first is that democracy will mean rule by the poor, who will use their power to steal from the rich. The second is that democracy will mean rule by the ignorant, who will use their power to do the dumbest things. Both these worries go back at least as far as Plato. – David Runciman (The Guardian)

The Average American family spends $14,000 a year on automobiles

Well-informed people are likely to have more elaborate and internally consistent worldviews than inattentive people, but that just reflects the fact that their rationalisations are better rehearsed. - Christopher Achen

As soon as I had done it

            I knew it

I had been cutting Jalapenos

And had not washed my hands

            And now here I am peeing

            Oh God, I said to myself

Now I have done it!

I washed my hands with soap

            And hot water, but I knew

Already that it was too late

Maybe not, I hoped

            But in a few minutes

            I would know

Now you’ve gone and done it

Nothing left to do but suffer  

            The consequences

And I do

Nothing you can do

            I had done it before

            And I had survived
God, I hope I never 
            Do this again

Being in love has a very bad effect on men – it seems to addle their wits. Now women are just the opposite – on top of the world, looking radiant and twice as good-looing, as usual. Funny, isn’t it, that it should suit women, and only make a man look like a sick sheep – Agatha Christie – The Pale Horse

The higher one’s income the less proportionally is donated to chariable work

He is now a capitalist—the owner of a taxable asset….  How can Bolshevism flourish in a motorized

Country – Chevrolet advertisement, 1924

80% of millennials have never even tried a Big Mac. 44% of adults between 21 and 27 have never sipped a Budweiser

The only part of our government policy apparatus now capable of planning and with the money and moxie to act on its plans is our armed services - Chas W. Freeman, Jr

For every US soldier killed in action, there will be 150 VA disability claims

There can be no objective measure of social value. - David Graeber – Revolutions in Reverse, 2011

You can’t eat information nor live on likes

The beginning of the end of the world means that yesterday’s model of prosperity – let’s call it capitalist liberal democracy – has reached its limits. It is like an aging machine that shudders and backfires more violently and regularly, because it is broken. And yet, we are unsure, as a world, where to go next. - Umair Faque

China is building its first ever foreign military post. In Africa. Russia is reopening military bases in Vietnam and Cuba. It has reached an agreement with Egypt for a base there. And now has a permanent air and naval bases in Syria. The US has bases in 74 countries; Great Britain in ten; and France in seven

Journalism deserves a lot more blame for Trump's success as a vulgar self-marketer, because that's what so much of journalism itself has become. -  Jim Sleeper

Enrollment in teacher preparation programs has dropping dramatically, falling 35 percent nationwide in the last five years. The US educational system has an 8% attrition rate. The shortfall of teachers is expected to be at least 100,000 within the next fall.

We work in the present, not for the present – Leon Blum

60% of people in a relationship say they’re not very satisfied with their relationship (National Opinion Research Center)

But even regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized— the question involuntarily arises—to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered – Hegel