Wednesday, August 7, 2024

Why Harris / Walz?

     Yes, I made the font bigger. Get over it.

     It is easy Easy EASY to go off on how dangerously insane Trump is -- I do this on a regular basis. But today, let's talk about a happier topic: the good things about the Harris/Walz ticket.

Experience: Harris has been a prosecutor; a District Attorney for San Francisco (2004-); the Attorney General of California (2010-); a US Senator ( 2017 to 2021, serving on the Judiciary and Intelligence committees); and US Vice-President. These positions -- DA, AG, Senator, Veep -- are elected positions. VP Harris has campaigned,  won elections, and been accountable to her constituents. 

Record:  President Biden and VP Harris expanded postpartum care through Medicare.

The United States continues to have the highest rate of maternal deaths of any high-income nation, despite a decline since the COVID-19 pandemic. And within the U.S., the rate is by far the highest for Black women. Most of these deaths — over 80 percent — are likely preventable.  

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2024/jun/insights-us-maternal-mortality-crisis-international-comparison#:~:text=The%20United%20States%20continues%20to,80%20percent%20%E2%80%94%20are%20likely%20preventable.

They capped the cost of insulin for seniors.

They invested in fighting climate change.

They shepherded through Congress a $1 trillion infrastructure bill. It will fund repairing bridges and removing lead pipes, along with improving access to high-speed internet, in projects all over the county. These projects will benefit everyone who drives...who drinks water...who uses the interweb.... 

Plans for the Future:  VP Harris will continue the basic approach of the Biden presidency in some respects: protect women's rights; grow the middle class; protect unions; eliminating "junk fees"; ban including medical debt in credit reports. As her campaign is so new -- it's been kind of a whirlwind, y'all -- more specifics will be forthcoming. Some likely policies: support for Ukraine; support for Israel, which "has a right to defend itself, [Harris has] said, while noting, 'how it does so, matters'"; honoring the Paris climate accords. (all this info is from a CNN article at https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2024/08/politics/kamala-harris-key-issues-dg/)


And Tim Walz? We can assume that he will back up Harris' positions. But what about his past?

Experience:  National Guard for 24 years; high school teacher, football coach, faculty advisor to hs gay-straight alliance; twelve years in Congress (with a mixed left-right voting record); governor of Minnesota since 2018.

Minnesota?  Has the lowest child poverty rate in the country. Abortion rights are protected. Kids get free meals at school. Workers have paid sick leave and family leave. MN will have 100% clean electricity by 2040 (if all goes well).

Oh, no, what if they turn the US into Minnesota? Well ....  THROW ME IN THAT BRIAR PATCH.



Friday, August 2, 2024

"Weird" may be true, but it's not enough

 The Republican universe seems intent on both denying and illustrating the "weird" description which has been winning the meme war for several days. In photos like these, the weird is indeed strong.






And, most tragically, here:



YES, this behavior is...weird. Inexplicable. Heartbreaking. And the King of Weird is the orange man-baby. Friendless. Soulless. Intellect- and character-free.

The "weird" taunt works because it's dismissive. When people accuse Trump and Trumpsters of being racist / xenophobic / transphobic / and so forth, those terms can be worn as a badge of perverse honor: "I'm not ___ , I'm just a real American!" They just want to return to the Founders' America, or at least a more stable time when kids weren't mixed-race (ha! lookin' at you, Founding Fathers!) and gender wasn't fluid. But they're not racist -- you're racist for making that accusation!

The W word works,  but it's not enough. We have to remember, and keep pointing out, that the policies advocated by Trump and his VP pick are profoundly racist, misogynist, xenophobic. You can read the text of Project 2025 online; this is from the intro on their website. (It does  not yet reflect the resignation of Paul Dans).

     The [2025 Presidential Transition Project] will build on four pillars that will, 

collectively, pave the way for an effective conservative administration: a policy 

agenda, personnel, training, and a 180-day playbook.

     The project is the effort of a broad coalition of conservative organizations that 

have come together to ensure a successful administration begins in January 2025. 

With the right conservative policy recommendations and properly vetted and 

trained personnel to implement them, we will take back our government.

     The 2025 Presidential Transition Project is being organized by The Heritage

Foundation and builds off Heritage’s longstanding “Mandate for Leadership,” 

which  has been highly influential  for presidential administrations since the 

Reagan era.  Most recently, the Trump administration relied heavily on 

Heritage’s “Mandate” for policy guidance, embracing nearly two-thirds of 

Heritage’s proposals within just one year in office.



The Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 IS, in essence, the Trump plan, the "47 Agenda." It would gut the EPA; ban abortion (and eventually contraception); prioritize "traditional families" by denying resources to nontraditional families; decrease the country's readiness to deal with the next pandemic; institute "abortion surveillance"; end fetal tissue research; end time- and occupation-based student loan forgiveness; end most competitive education grants; end PLUS loans.   - - - - - And this is just a quick skim.

Trump himself HAS NO POLICIES; he cares only about himself, as evidenced by his recent answer to a question about his VP pick. "Is JD Vance 'ready on Day 1?'" This phrase has long been used as a reminder that in the event that a President becomes incapacitated, a VP must be ready to step up. Trump acted as if he didn't even know what the phrase meant. "The VP pick doesn't make that much difference, it's the top spot that people are voting for," he replied. Since Trump cares only about himself, he doesn't care what happens to America if he's incapacitated; he probably never considered Vance's true fitness for the position. 

But, although the orange one has no policies, he has latched onto (or been co-opted by?) the most extreme rightwing nationalists among us. He, and they, would enforce and delight in the most draconian, punitive, and unAmerican policies in our nation's history.

They're not just weird. They're dangerous.







Thursday, December 8, 2016

Post-Trumpian Life

or, How I Refused to Get Over It and Learn to Love the Bomb

I am (still) just freakin' gobsmacked about last month's election results, but I want to try to use my blog (which I had abandoned for a long time) to help me think through things, and perhaps to invite other people to think along with me.  I have been cheered / saddened / inspired by Pantsuit Nation, and as part of this first post-Trumpian post I am listing the resources on feminism, white privilege, and intersectionality that were suggested in a PSN thread. This should be a stable link.




for beginners
http://intersectionalfeminism101.tumblr.com/faq

showing up for racial justice

psychology today

we need diverse books


ted talk

everday feminism

ally?

broke white person

knapsack

check(list)

McIntosh









the root

not my…
https://medium.com/@schmutzie/why-it-is-not-my-responsibility-as-a-marginalized-individual-to-educate-you-about-my-experience-915b4ec08efd#.2asivvdxu

equality feels…

implicit bias

bell hooks !!!!!
'Teaching Community', 'Teaching Hope' and "Teaching Critical Thinking'. 

curriculum

check your

vox
and 



BLM

ted #2


ISR

Deborah Tannen on male v. femaile speech patterns


denison

5 reasons
https://www.bustle.com/articles/117968-5-reasons-intersectionality-matters-because-feminism-cannot-be-inclusive-without-it

wikigender
http://www.wikigender.org/wiki/intersectionality-of-gender-inequality-and-racial-discrimination/



Monday, January 23, 2012

State o' the Union

Things I'd Like to Hear the President Say:

Or any incumbent, really, but it would be cool if Obama did.

"My vision for America is of millions of families, living in warm homes with roofs that keep out the rain, in safe neighborhoods; families where children go to good schools and where adults work at jobs that pay living wages, where the dogs get walked every day and the taxes get paid. Families that are able to save a little for a rainy day. And whether those families have a mom and a dad or a single parent or two moms or a step-dad, I don't really give a flying rat's ass."

Bai Jo, continued

The bad news: people smoked at dinner, and in the bar, so I washed those clothes and have to wash my hair tonight; have been airing my coat out on the enclosed balcony. Not too bad, though.

The bar is called “live”-something b/c they frequently feature live music, though the bands don’t usually play very late, as it’s in a mixed business/residential neighborhood and the neighbors object to late noise. I’m guessing this would be especially true on a Tuesday night, so the band only played until about 10:15. They were a drummer contributing occasional backup vocal, a singer on rhythm guitar, and a lead guitarist, all young and male, wearing jeans and plaid flannel shirts. Good music, strong voice, guitarist has a nice shy smile. No idea what their songs were about, but I’m guessing (as Douglas Adams would say) boy-creature meets girl-creature.

We drank a couple of rounds of beer (and I had some water) and talked. Zach talked a lot of trash (in a good-natured way) about cows being violated by aliens on his home farm in Arkansas and about his good dawg saving him from a timber rattler. We quizzed David about his love life. Emily wanted stories of my misspent youth, so I told some. Matthias doesn’t drink but took part in the conversation (perhaps making more sense that some others of us were at times).

After the band quit I went over to the lead singer and said “Ni de yinyue hen hao” on my way to the bathroom. Later, when the canned music was on, I asked him “Youmeiyou yinyue Grateful Dead ma?” He repeated “grateful dead” and asked me to type it into his phone. He then went up to the muzak station and, in minutes, we were listening to “Truckin’.” In Lanzhou, drinking German beer at 1am. Life is indeed good.

Today I had class from 10:40 to 12:20, collected papers, and then came home and got
serious about organizing/packing, marked the papers, organized my gifts for giving away tomorrow. At 6:30, went to taco Christmas/farewell dinner with the American crowd. Tacos all homemade and really good; Christmas music; small Chinese children showing off – one small girl, three-ish, has moves worthy of Toddlers and Tiaras.

Tomorrow will have last class meeting with my students, give presents, take class photo. : ( And tomorrow night at about 8pm, will take overnight train to Yinchuan to visit Lily. I think I can get train to Xi’an on 25th for about $50 US and then a flight back to Lanzhou for about the same, on the 28th. Will have one more night here to rearrange bags and make sure I have everything (am only taking two small bags on this week’s tourist trip, leaving large bag here in apartment) before getting on the plane, the morning of the 29th, for HOME.

The More Bai Jo, the More Pengyou

Wednesday, December 21, 2011
6pm ish


Whoof, another big news day. The meeting yesterday turned out to be the end-of-year formal meeting with university bigwigs: half a dozen Chinese men, most of whom spoke little English, on one side of the table, and six of us western teachers (5 US, 1 UK) on the other, with a handful of more junior (and female) Chinese teachers of English at the ends of the big table. Fruit and peanuts and sunflower seeds as refreshments.

The Big Head Guy, Mr. Cai, is a vice-president, I think, and he (through an interpreter) made a gracious speech thanking us for our contributions and inviting us to make suggestions. (Linda, the resident old hand, had warned us that this meeting is really all about celebrating our joint wonderfulness, and any real concerns should be raised in a much lower-level setting.) Some coffee and tea was drunk. Introductions all around.

Much was made of Emily’s project setting up an English-language library on one of the campuses; it is being used for browsing, book-club discussions, and all kinds of stuff. Mr. C suggested she submit a report about it so that the project could be nominated for a regional award (go, Emily! She is the Peace Corps volunteer who reminds me of me. ). I gave Emily my card and told her I could probably get books for her when faculty clean out their offices or their teenagers’ bookshelves.

David had a substantive suggestion which he very carefully made in a constructive and positive way (about teaching research skills and ways of thinking), and there was some discussion about that. Then it was time for “part two” of the meeting, our banquet.

We took a van and two private cars across town to the same Muslim restaurant where we had beef noodles for breakfast last week. At night it looks much dressier, with wait staff in purple uniforms. We were ushered upstairs to a private banquet room with two round 12-tops of lovely dark wood, each with a large lazy susan in the middle, and cushy high-backed chairs. We each were poured hot tea and, as each person asked, wine (in a large wine glass) and/or “pi-jo,” something like everclear, in a teeny-tiny glass. (I got both.) By my count, we each eventually had about 20 shots of the pi-jo.

Things got underway about 7pm. After a starter of yellow, cold watermelon soup, the cold dishes came out first and were placed on the lazy susan: mint and some kind of nuts; a green salad that deserves a much nicer name; shrimp; thin beef slices with sauce; sushi; and so forth. Then came the hot dishes, which I will not attempt to name, because at some point Mr. Cai started the long process of ritual toasting.

Three different times, about five minutes apart, he stood and made a gracious little speech wishing the whole group well, and each time we said “cheers” and clinked glasses and tossed back the pi-jo. After that, it was time for each person at the table to go around and individually toast every other person, with a corresponding glug of pi-jo. Emily had given me a heads-up about this procedure, and we started getting our refills (which seemed to come every five frickin’ minutes) only half full. Also I had a few wine toasts instead of all pi-jo.

To make it quicker and a little less deadly, people other than the big boss can go around in pairs and can toast people in pairs. So Emily and I went around together and toasted Matthias and David together and Ms. Li and Ms. Ji together.

Then we had to go and toast everyone at the other table. Of twelve.

And then the people at the other table of twelve had to come over and toast us.

It was a jolly affair, quite a love-fest, and the food was fabulous. At about 9pm we headed back to campus, not nearly as wasted as I thought that I would be. The pi-jo goes down like it will blow your nose off, but it isn’t actually that alcoholic, apparently.

So we went out to a tiny bar to drink German beer and listen to a 3-man Chinese rock band. On the way there we took two taxis; on the way home, at about 1:30, the five of us squeezed into one taxi, um, so maybe we were a little bit drunk by that time.


To be continued ---

Tibetan Monsastery

Sunday, December 18, 2011
noon ish
Day Twelve, Lanzhou Adventure


Today is remarkably like a Sunday at home: read the NYT this morning, listened to NPR, had fruit and coffee for breakfast. Showered, washed hair, did laundry. Lunch at the student cafeteria (noodles & onion & cabbage; tomatoes cooked with egg; something like green beans – but not – cooked with chicken – I think) for under $2. This afternoon will read student work and refine plan for this week’s classes. At some point I’ll take a break and go to the “supermarket” for a Sprite and a candy bar : ) Maybe I’ll see the security guard who always say “hi.” Now I’m icing knee/foot, and a big difference is that I’m wearing silk long johns and staying under a big comforter to keep warm while doing so.

Yesterday was this week’s big adventure, a day-trip to the Labrang monastery, about 150 miles from Lanzhou. Here a blurb from Wikipedia (may not reproduce the Tibetan characters here):

Labrang Monastery (Tibetan: བླ་བྲང་བཀྲ་ཤིས་འཁྱིལ་ Wylie: bla-brang bkra-shis-'khyil; Chinese: 拉卜楞寺 Pinyin: lābǔlèng sì) is one of the six great monasteries of the Geluk (Yellow Hat) school of Tibetan Buddhism. Its formal name is: Gandan Shaydrup Dargay Tashi Gyaysu Khyilway Ling (dGe ldan bshad sgrub dar rgyas bkra shis gyas su 'khyil ba'i gling), commonly known as Labrang Tashi Khyil, or simply Labrang.[1]

Labrang is located in Xiahe County in Gansu province, in the traditional Tibetan area of Amdo. Labrang Monastery is home to the largest number of monks outside of Tibet Autonomous Region. Xiahe is located about 4 hours from the city of Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu.




The school arranged the trip for all the current Western teachers, so counting the driver, our tour guide Ms. Li and her husband Keith, there were nine of us. Me; Matthias the quiet speech teacher; David the Scot (grizzly red hair and faint brogue, former rugby player); Emily and Zach the Peace Corps volunteers, who’ve been here almost three and one years respectively and seem very young to my aged self; and Linda, who has, with husband-Glen-who-stayed-home-to-grade, been in China about fourteen years and Lanzhou about eight.

I stepped outside just before 7am and met the others a few yards down the alley toward the main street. At 7 Ms. Li called and woke our driver, who had forgotten to set his alarm, so we had about half an hour to get acquainted; I’d met Linda, David, and Matthias before, very briefly, but didn’t know there were any Peace Corps folks here. Zach immediately made my taste buds homesick by mentioning that he’d gotten up early and made bacon & eggs for breakfast. I learned that Emily is from Minnesota and has also been to a December Packers game, and that Matthias is from Massachusetts – no one was freaked out by the cold. Ms. Li reported that it was -17 at Labrang and asked if we would all be warm enough. (Our Chinese hosts are very solicitous of our comfort.)

The driver turned up and we got underway about 7:30, and we got through the city with very little traffic interference, stopping at a restaurant on the western edge for Lanzhou’s claim to fame, the beef noodles, for breakfast. Now that I’ve had said noodles, apparently, I can say that I’ve truly lived.

They come in a medium-size bowl with half-red and half-greeen liquid (I think the red is added spiciness) covering the noodles, which you dredge up, along with bits of onion (and other stuff). The beef comes on a separate platter, and you add pieces of it to your noodles, let it get soaked a bit, and chow down. I think I was the only newbie to this experience. (And they WERE quite good.)

Out of the city, we drove in between rows of low, barren, reddish-brown hills, sharp-edged, with low scrub brush here and there. For the first half-hour, the haze of Lanzhou pollution followed us, and details of the distant landscape were indistinct. As the road steadily and slowly climbed, the haze disappeared and it got colder. There was a skiff of dry snow on the ground. The van’s heating system kept us pretty comfortable, but fog and then ice formed on the inside of the windows. The hills fell away, and there were small fields on either side of the road, every speck of land cultivated, shocks of corn bundled together.

To get to XiaHe, the town near the monastery, you have to pass through a Muslim-populated area, and we saw tiny villages with the tower of a mosque in the center. And I do mean tiny: a cluster of red-brown walls, carved gateways. We began to see groups of cattle or sheep in the fields. Some trees, but not many; not enough water here to support much vegetation, I think. (And the forests got chopped down a long time ago.)

As we approached XiaHe, the hills’ big brothers reappeared on either side, knife-edge mountains in intricate curves. We began to see Tibetan pedestrians, moving toward Labrang, in groups of two or three. They would walk a few paces, put their hands together in prayer, and prostrate themselves, full-length, by the roadside. Get up and do it again. Pilgrims come from their hometowns, praying all the way, to the monastery. Loose pants and long wraps, headbands, black hair and darkish complexions.

We passed through the town of XiaHe, elevation about 13,000 feet, most of which seems to be on that one main street: a couple of hotels, police station, tire shop, and lots of street stalls set up in front of the shops: fruit, shoes, coats, sides of beef, veggies, jewelry, belts. Would love to come back here in the fall (the tourist season).

A right turn off the highway, and we see the monastery complex ahead: white buildings with curving, upturned roofs touched with gold, backed by steep mountainsides. After we get our tickets, we are met in a central open area by our tour guide, a student monk. As a student, he is not allowed to wear anything covering his arms. He has warm-looking boots, and his draped maroon robes may have several layers, but his right arm is bare, and he is hatless/scarfless/gloveless, while we’re all wearing coats plus an assortment of accessories. The senior monks we saw wear a heavy maroon cloak which looks something like an academic robe – and looks a lot warmer than the basic robes.

The monastery has (he says) over 1200 monks, most of whom study in one of six colleges; he is in the college of philosophy, and they spend much of their time in debate. (Rhetoric lives!) There is also a college of medicine, devoting a lot of time to herbal remedies, and an upper and lower Tantric, or Vajrayana, college. The monks rise at 6 to begin their days of study and prayer.

Our group was the only tourists on site that day; this cold and dry season is not a very tourist-y time, but there were a dozen or so worshippers. We visited four different temples, each fairly small, each smelling of yak butter, and each holding, on the front wall, a giant (about 25 feet tall) golden Buddha, in different poses. And each with elaborate fingernail polish. On the walls to either side are rows of smaller (14-inch high) Buddha figures, and from the ceiling and beams hang brightly-colored scarves and panels of cloth. (No photos inside, sorry. Also, the souvenir shop was closed.) The largest indoor space was the “plaza,” a dim, cloth-draped interior with row after row of kneeling mats and little artwork.

There was a sort of museum space where we could take pictures; I took some of large masks which are carried in festival processions and of scenes (a bit like Russian icons) made by local artisans and given to the monks.

We took photos – including some with a tiny donkey – and piled back in the van at about 1:30, I guess, for the drive back. We had a late lunch at a Muslim restaurant (the cuisine is slightly different, and they follow halal – like kosher – in the kitchens), which meant sitting at a round table with a big lazy susan in the middle while servers brought out dish after dish after dish for us to pass around and sample. Rice noodles, bao zi, mushrooms, corn, lamb, beef, radishes, potatoes, and then soup. YUM.

We got lucky on traffic again and were back to campus by about 6pm. The city has made some efforts to tame the traffic beast, restricting driving to city center by odd/even license plates for both private cars and taxis, but those restrictions don’t apply to weekends, and Saturdays can be insane.