Climate Sunday: Fire, Water, and the Sacred Things

 

Saudi Health Minister Fahd bin Abdurrahman Al-Jalajel said that 83% of the 1,301 fatalities were unauthorized pilgrims who walked long distances in soaring temperatures to perform the Hajj rituals in and around the holy city of Mecca.https://t.co/ULoOMijRBI

— KATU News (@KATUNews) June 23, 2024

The Saudi Health minister can go ahead and blame the faithful for being "unauthorized" to come to do the Hajj, but this denial is hiding a very terrible story--the Hajj is becoming unsustainable. The pilgrimage to the site of the two holy places is too hot in the summer months for many people--the aged, the disabled. The faith of the pilgrims is great--the human ability to withstand the temperatures that are becoming more common is limited.

We've seen climate activists target several works of art, but most recently, the painting of Stonehenge got our attention:

This act disturbs ancient lichens that have protected the stones for one thing (ignore JK Rowling--she actually is Dolores Umbridge which is just the worst thing, and even worse, she is and probably knows it).  It's a weird act of vandalism that detracts from the message that we need to protect the things we love, for another. Also, just as a person with some ancestral connection to Blighty, there's some folk shit you need to leave alone. You fuck about with ancients liths and you are bound to get spirited off and knackered by rogue Morris dancers the next time you're exiting last call at the pub. 

Which Side are You on? (Trump?)

I could spend time breaking down President Trump's bizarre press nightmare, but I don't really fucking care what he said today. He was saying it all along, but some people just weren't paying attention. Hillary Clinton gave an entire speech about Trump and the so-called "alt-right" almost a year ago, and I thought the case she made was solid and apparent--my bad. It turns out, someone like Donald Trump can be a lifelong racist surrounding himself with other racists, and people will actually pretend they don't notice. That shocked me more than it should have, I will admit.

But then again, I am a funny old thing--I believe Americans should kill fascists. 

Look at the header of my blog--"This blog kills fascists. Eventually. It's a process I'm working on. Be patient with me." That header is a call-back to Woody Guthrie, who just forthrightly put "This machine kills fascists" on his guitar. My blogging isn't up to Woody Guthrie's songwriting, but I aspirationally hope I'm doing my bit. I'm not going to kick fascist ass all at once, but I will attempt it. Like I thought it was my job. 

And what do you know--Guthrie had his dealings and complaints about Old Man Trump (Donald's daddy).  Donald Trump started the hell off in this life Team Racist and fascist-associated. (No really, I'm not linking The Nation and I don't want to say Roy Cohn was such a fascist, but am I pretending Roy Cohn was not a fascist? Go--read Politico. McCarthyism is fascism. It doesn't matter that Cohn was a gay Jew. Demonizing and destroying and doubling-down and publically lying about everything? Shit's fascist. )

This blog is rooted in the mid-20th century ideas that Keynes rocked, that civil rights for all were a positive good, and that we all are supposed to stand against fascists. It's what the good people do. It's what Churchill and FDR did. (Stalin--I don't know him.)

It's what heroes are supposed to do. 

In the United States of America, where I thought I was living, Nazis are stupid and bad at best and are history's worst monsters because of course they are.  I mean, who demonizes and singles out ethnic minorities and gay and trans people and religious minorities  and disabled people and tries to codify into law ways to make the oppression of these people permanent? 

Oh, right. Trump. Because he is what he is. (And let's not actually "go there" and pretend his honesty is refreshing-it's shit. I don't expect people to eat shit and smile. You like this? You like eating shit, and there's something fundamentally wrong with you.) 

We are supposed to see Dictators as bad and even clowns in this society.

Hitler and those who are Hitler-adjacent are supposed to be targets of our scorn, not our admiration. People waving Swastika flags are not okay--ever.  You should expect better. The people who would easily accept standing right by them--are not okay either. And this Confederate thing--kind of fascist, also too, with the added problem of being treason against the US in the defense of bondage-slavery, because read the actual articles of secession of the states in question. Yes, it was always about slavery, not states' rights. Because it was about states' having the right to endorse slavery. Because the South was like, "Screw it" with respects to Northern States' feels about the Fugitive Slave Acts, which made catching free human (black) bodies and delivering them back into a pernicious bondage incumbent upon people who didn't want any part of it. Which was obviously fuckery. Northern states had to comply with making black people slaves, and the South at first simply didn't give a shit if the Federal law was about determining what states were free--but then when GOP President Lincoln happened, they had a total freak-out and got scared he'd take away their bondage humans. 

Wow. Fucking snowflakes. Makes you wonder why the Party of Lincoln is being all about Confederate statues now, doesn't it?

Bill O'Reilly's Vacation has Become Permanent

The first sign that Bill O'Reilly wasn't going to weather the sexual harassment allegations this time was the vacation--that sort of seemed like Fox Mushroom Farm Inc. wanted his face off television right away. That had to happen because O'Reilly has a touch of the (in) righteous indignation about him and would have made things worse, if anything. That's my personal guess--I only have a superficial insight that if you wanted to do damage control, whisking the focal point of the shit-storm away from the hot light of the cameras is the way to go. But post-Roger Ailes' nasty sexual harassment scandal, this problem of sexual harassment and cultural misogyny stops being about personalities doing wrong things, and starts looking like a very unhealthy corporate atmosphere.

And, of course, their biggest money-maker was leaking sponsors like a sieve. Away he goes! But this is after losing so many other very familiar faces--Andrea Tantaros? Gretchen Carlson? Greta Van Susteren? Megyn Kelly? So maybe it's a good change that they are now losing a familiar face who has actually consistently proved he deserved to get booted (instead of women who just were trying to do their jobs in a crappy sexist propaganda mill).

After all, this is hardly the first time that we are hearing that Bill O'really is a creep. We've been hearing this for a very long time--Rolling Stone has a detailed timeline of grossness. He's not just reportedly sexist, inappropriate, and abusive, though. He's also super racially-insensitive and kind of a huge liar. This is why, when he alleges that he is the victim of leftist "character assassination", it rings sort of hollow. He's being smeared by people reporting what his co-workers and former co-workers has admitted he does, and what the previous monetary settlements seem to imply? It's like when politicians claim they are being smeared when they have been quoted verbatim--if you don't like the effect, quit hitting yourself!

But as for the future of Fox News, I can't say they are necessarily doing a big turn-around by filling his slot with Tucker Carlson. And the culture of the company, it stands to reason, is still the delightful oink-fest that made up pretend fan-sites to promote their female talent for their other-than-professional attributes. Just because O'Reilly is gone, doesn't mean the problem of what the company has promoted on their news channel and lived and worked by behind the scenes is cleared up. They have problems beyond O'Reilly and Ailes. And I feel like we'll be hearing about more things sooner rather than later.

Somebody Else's Babies

Although I'd like to think I speak fluent "white asshole" having grown up around that dialect my whole life, I spent a long while staring at this comment wondering why Iowa Rep. Steve King (R) thought babies of any particular parentage weren't capable of carrying on with "our civilization". There's nothing about what I think of as American culture that excludes the children of immigrants--on the contrary! Our American way is made up of immigrants who wanted to work hard and achieve a good standard of living, to experience freedom of thought, religion and political access denied to them in their home countries. I, like Steve King, am the descendant of European immigrants. There is nothing about me that privileges me to better understand America as a German/Irish/English, etc. mutt,  than a child of any other heritage because we are a nation on paper, made of laws and words and ideals, but not bloodlines.

A baby learns language. A baby learns religion. A baby learns what their parents or guardians and the world around them teach it.  But one thing a baby shouldn't be expected to do is "restore a civilization". Steve King supposes a civilization already in peril. It is for adults to lead and teach--not to count on children, who can only learn what is around them, regardless of who their mothers and fathers are. If our civilization is so fucked it is down to diaper-wearers to rescue it, maybe it was already fatally flawed?

But this is just more racist nonsense from a tiresome racist--an Iowan who for some reason sports a Confederate flag on his desk:

and has a history of saying appallingly white nativist things. But he has been representing his district in Iowa since 2003. As a US Representative. While being pretty openly racist.

I guess what I'm getting at is, this whole thing where liberals say things like "Some conservatives are racist" (not, by the way, all conservatives are, because fuck no, and fuck that, and "Strawman, much?") this guy is what we're talking about. The guy who doesn't realize nonwhite civilization is also a thing. (It has actually been most of the civilized things.) The guy who gets kudos from David Duke and Richard Spencer:

Rep @SteveKingIA is praised by two of the biggest #WhiteSupremacist names in the country. Take note, #GOP, this is the company you keep. pic.twitter.com/be57Y4EpGe

— Avi Bueno (@JasperAvi) March 13, 2017

Which reminds us of?

I'll take our chances of continuing civilization with "somebody else's babies" over reinforcing Steve King's hateful bullshit, any time.

I Stand with Planned Parenthood and HRC

On Oct. 16, 1916, Planned Parenthood opened their first health center and changed life for women in America. Here's to the next 99 years. -H

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 16, 2015

.@HillaryClinton They've also ended the lives of millions of unborn babies. Here's to ending #PlannedParenthood's destruction. #ProLife

— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) October 16, 2015

One of the real true things about me is my support of the health care access of every person in this country. Respecting all bodies, of whatever walk of life, as equally dignified and deserving of care, seems like a no-brainer to me. Understanding that human beings are sexual beings, and that their reproductive health is not some freakish "extra" thing, but central to their ability to control their economic fate--by making family-planning choices--is essential to understanding how to stem poverty and make healthy families the center of a thriving economy. Hillary Clinton has been a great proponent of women and children's health for as long as I have known of her. She supports the idea that the health of families is crucial to the health of our nation.

Mike Huckabee is a bone-ignorant culture warrior and wouldn't grasp why any woman sees terminating a pregnancy as relative to her own health, even while he easily excuses why a young male sees fit to sexually violate his sisters or their companions.

I know who would dominate in a debate on this subject. But Mike Huckabee will not get the nomination of his party, not least because he is more fit to be a Twitter troll than a president.

Also, I would, grammatically speaking, also like to end the destruction of Planned Parenthood! Yeah! Let's stop trying to end an organization that does a lot for regular people!

A Politicization of Human Bodies

The inadvertent revelation that there was a strong political component to the House Select Committee on Benghazi would necessarily make me leery of the promotion of another Select Committee on Planned Parenthood--is "select" a euphemism for GOP enemies' list, perhaps? But the thing of it is, since the Tea Party "wave" election year of 2010, abortion access has been directly in the sights of many conservative legislators. Planned Parenthood, as the biggest provider of those services, has been particularly targeted. This is not the first time that a GOP-led House has decided that hoax videos should result in defunding Planned Parenthood.  I've known for a while that right-wingers basically are opposed to the idea of any family planning services for low-income people at all, regardless of whether they are abortion-related, because you never hear "Hyde Amendment" brought up at all.

The current fight is in part fueled by a particular donor/agitator, Stephen Baer. He's sort of pushed the rumor that might have shut down the McCarthy speakership by alluding to a Kevin McCarthy/Renee Ellmers affair. (I'm calling bullshit on the affair bit because it isn't verified and every time I try to think of it, my mind goes to a super-cut of scenes with Majors Houlihan and Burns from the popular 1970's sitcom M*A*S*H*.) But let's be honest, an odd-numbered year is when there aren't elections, and the signifying whackadoodles can feel like doing shit like threatening to not raise the debt ceiling (if they know what that is) or shut down the government. They're bloody nihilists, that way. It stimulates the gawkers. It's fireworks. It costs taxpayer money, but we've already established that they don't care. They take that expense, turn around, and fundraise off it. It's ballocks but they're working it.

Dylann Roof's Sad White Boy's Burden

There had to be a manifesto, right? And it is every bit as racist and dumb and copy-pasta'd and self-justifying as these things pretty much are. I expected it, because this is the digital age and we have seen this sort of thing before. And no, I don't like it any more than you, Gentle Reader. So let's take a look at this life-ending trash's jumped-up civil war spank book--

Oh wait. Before we do, let me segue onto one little thing that bothered me about all this--Roof had an imaginary girl friend who went and dated a black guy. And then the above pumpkin-head with the pipe-cleaner arms unironically wearing a Gold's Gym tanktop decided that:

I have noticed a great disdain for race mixing White women within the White nationalists community, bordering on insanity it. These women are victims, and they can be saved. Stop.

You know what? That little thing he told the survivor he left alive about "You rape our women and you're taking over our country."  How I said it was like Birth of a Nation? That weird thing--fear of black male sexuality intersecting with white females--as if white women were property in danger of being "stolen", was what got Emmett Till beaten and killed even if he was just a harmless 14 year old boy passing a little irreverent time of day. It's as if white women had a job functioning as producers of more white people that was betrayed by congress with black men. And white ladies who did not do that (like, for example, President Obama's mother) were somehow lost or wrong or victims?

The Bamiyan Buddhas Recreated in Light

A project to project the images of the fallen Bamiyan Buddha statues, destroyed in 2001 by the Taliban, in the spaces where they once stood, has provided a graceful memorial to the destroyed historical treasures.

The illumination has brought relief to many of the locals who had been pressed into service by the Taliban in 2001 to destroy the Buddhas. After tank fire failed, the local workers drilled holes, planted dynamite and conducted a series of explosions to bring the giant statues down. "I regretted it at that time, I regret it now and I will always regret it," one of the workers, bike repairman Mirza Hussain, told the BBC in March. "But I could not resist, I didn't have a choice because they would have killed me."

Many have called for the reconstruction of the statues, but UNESCO suggests rebuilding the massive stone Buddhas might be impossible. With the new light projection, the Bamiyan Valley might just have the next best thing.

I think there is something fitting in the idea that modern technology restored what a remorseless anti-modernity and intolerant  culture destroyed. It's not quite the same thing as the statues actually being back, but in a way, this project demonstrates that ideas are not destroyed and that history is meaningful and gives us inspiration and should be respected--and that new technologies are the way that subsequent generations can appreciate and build on the achievements of those that went before. History, technology, civilization--these things are cumulative (I want to say "progressive", but that word is unnecessarily politically fraught--except you know what I mean.)

A Very Short White History Lesson

The sign on the left was a signifier in segregated America that a place of business catered to white people only, because at the time, it was considered acceptable for white people to deny spaces for people of color in their places of business, in certain schools, hospitals, voting booths, areas of public transportation, and so on.

The sign on the right was put up by a business owner who had no idea that for many people, the sign he put up would in a way remind people of the sign on the left. There are many people alive today who remember signs like the one on the left. I'm not sure how the business owner in question missed it when he put his sign on the front of his business where he earned the money he lived on.  Past tense, because for some reason, people just stopped coming to his business. It was as if there was a sign on the front that drove his clientele away.

But he was bewildered:

“I had to take the sign down for various reasons. It was only supposed to be a white thing, but people read more into it than that,” he wrote on GoFundMe. “I don’t think I deserve this just because I wanted to be proud of being white and be able to celebrate my heritage like everyone else does.”

Exactly. Sometimes the best way to celebrate history is to learn it.

I'm All About the Freedom to Have Hoodies

I have a very particular opinion about the outlawing of hoodies for some people.

Sure, a law already exists about wearing hoods or masks in the commission of a crime, and this is OK law, and I am not an Oklahoman, so why should I care? But it just so happens that, like people will, I sometimes wear a hoodie to keep warm, because winter winds blow right on a person's face, and it smarts. I don't wear a hoodie myself because I intend to do an illicit thing. I just don't want the rude, cold winds of winter to smack the bejesus out of my face.

This isn't to say I have no opinion about Robin Hood, Zorro, or any other masked or hooded figure. I am not one of the Carbonari, and if I was, I would lie to you. But I will simply point out that many people have worn hoods for a variety of reasons, including warmth and comfort, without being in the least culpable of any crime. So I dislike the idea that people wearing hoods to keep warm might get a form of hassling just because.