Freedom To Kill With Speech - Top 12 Anti-Vaxxers

[Overview:  basically there's

1.  And introduction about how perilous the times are

2.  A list of the Dirty Dozen

3.  Comments here and there about the need to adapt our legal thinking about Free Speech and the internet to be able to stop clear, dangerous, disinformation

4.  Some links to sites that offer suggestions for how to do this - though I can't say that I found anything that has anything close to a magic bullet.  At least you can get the sense that people are working on this.]

The Center for Countering Digital Hate posted a study March 24, 2021 called The Disinformation Dozen.   The first point in the executive summary is:

"1. The Disinformation Dozen are twelve anti-vaxxers who play leading roles in spreading digital misinformation about Covid vaccines. They were selected because they have large numbers of followers, produce high volumes of anti-vaccine content or have seen rapid growth of their social media accounts in the last two months."

I'm a firm believer in the First Amendment protections for free speech.  But there comes a point when people say things that do significant damage.  We have libel and slander laws.  We have hate speech laws. All put limits on speech.  

Perilous Times

Right now we are in a battle.  On one side is democracy and the rule of law and knowledge and action based on science. On the other side we have  the rule of power - based on personal opinion, misinformation, religion, playing on people's emotional weak points. 

 The Senate did not impeach Trump after the insurrection. Half the Senators still won't publicly acknowledge that Trump lost the election.  The GOP refuses to take action against treason.  Their  personal power and wealth is more important than the survival of democracy.  Plus the Monied Right have given us a Supreme Court now that may well support moving to an autocratic theocracy.  

US citizens tend to believe their democracy is immortal.  It's not.  It's being severely tested now. What happens in the next few years will change the world for better or worse.  There's no guarantee those on the side of freedom and equality will be the victors in this new civil war.

We must adapt our laws to deal with threats that the internet enables.  I don't have the answers, but I do have the questions.  

 From what I can tell, money is a factor in all of these cases.  Tat a minimum they have lots of followers on social media, so ad revenue is an issue.  And for a number (if not all) of these folks, there are side hustles - video tapes, alternative medicines, etc. - that bring in a lot of money.  Probably speaking engagements add up too.  

I'm guessing that for some, the money is the main draw.  I don't know how many of these people believe what they are saying.  We know that outrageousness generates clicks.  But I'm sure a few of these despicable people have convinced themselves they are speaking the truth.

The spreading of disinformation is a key weapon in the arsenal of autocracy.  

The List

These are the 12 (really 13) people they Center for Digital Hate identified.   The report also has examples of the kinds of post they distribute.  

[All these profiles are from  Center for Countering Digital Hate  a study The Disinformation Dozen. [The pics of the perps didn't transfer over to here and it's more work than I want to do to redo them all, so for the pics I recommend visiting the original source linked two lines up. It also includes examples of their dirty work.]] 

1 Joseph Mercola

Facebook: Active

Twitter: Active

Instagram:Active

Joseph Mercola is a successful anti-vaccine entrepreneur, peddling dietary supplementsand false cures as alternatives to vaccines. Mercola’s combined personal social mediaaccounts have around 3.6 million followers.

2 Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Facebook: Active

Twitter: Active

Instagram: Part Removed

Kennedy is a long-standing anti-vaxxer, and his Children’s Health Defense (CHD) hosts a range of anti-vaccine articles.

Kennedy’s account was banned from Instagram on 8 February, yet his Facebook Page remains active, as does the CHD’s Instagram page.

Kennedy and Children’s Health Defense released a film in mid-March targeting members of the Black and Latino communities with tailored anti-vaccine messages. Facebook and Twitter continue to allow him a platform to promote these false claims.

3 Ty & Charlene Bollinger

Facebook: Active

Twitter: Active

Instagram: Active

Ty and Charlene Bollinger are anti-vax entrepreneurs who run a network of accounts that market books and DVDs about vaccines, cancer and COVID-19. In 2020 they launched the United Medical Freedom Super PAC ahead of last year’s United States elections.

The Bollingers have promoted the conspiracy theory that Bill Gates plans to inject everyone with microchips as part of a vaccination program.

From AP:

“You’re going to love owning the platinum package,” Charlene Bollinger tells viewers, as a picture of a DVD set, booklets and other products flashes on screen. Her husband, Ty, promises a “director’s cut edition,” and over 100 hours of additional footage.

Click the orange button, his wife says, “to join in the fight for health freedom” — or more specifically, to pay $199 to $499 for the Bollingers’ video series, “The Truth About Vaccines 2020.”

The Bollingers are part of an ecosystem of for-profit companies, nonprofit groups, YouTube channels and other social media accounts that stoke fear and distrust of COVID-19 vaccines, resorting to what medical experts say is often misleading and false information.

Wikipedia says he's a former body builder with no medical training.  

4 Sherri Tenpenny

Facebook:Part Active

Twitter: Active

Instagram: Active

Sherri Tenpenny is an osteopath physician who spreads anti-vaccine sentiment and false claims about the safety and efficacy of masks via her social media channels. While her Facebook account has been removed, her Twitter and Instagram are still intact.

 From Wikipedia:

"Since 2017, Tenpenny and her business partner, Matthew Hunt, have taught a six-week, $623 course titled "Mastering Vaccine Info Boot Camp" designed to "sow seeds of doubt" regarding public health information. During the course, Tenpenny explains her views on the immune system and vaccines, and Hunt instructs participants on how best to use persuasion tactics in conversation to communicate the information.[9]

Tenpenny promotes anti-vaccination videos sold by Ty and Charlene Bollinger and receives a commission whenever her referrals result in a sale,[10] a practice known as affiliate marketing.[11]"

5 Rizza Islam

Facebook: Removed

Twitter: Active

Instagram: Active

Rizza Islam’s anti-vaccine posts aim to spread vaccine hesitancy amongst African Americans. While Facebook removed Rizza Islam’s Facebook Page in February, he continues to post anti-vaccine messages from his Instagram and Twitter accounts. 

From Wikipedia entry on the World Literacy Program of which Rizza Islam was Executive Director.

World Literacy Crusade (WLC) is a non-profit organisation formed in 1992 by the Rev. Alfreddie Johnson to fight illiteracy, and supported by the Church of Scientology.[1][2] The group uses "study technologies" and "drug rehabilitation technologies" developed by L. Ron Hubbard, the Church's founder.[3][4] It has been characterized as a "Scientology front group",[5][6] and has been promoted by celebrity Scientologists such as Isaac Hayes and Anne Archer.[1]

Legal issues

The LA Times reported in 2008 that about 100 protestors gathered outside of the World Literacy Crusade offices after being sold fake low cost housing vouchers for as much as $1500. Officials at WLC admitted to selling the free vouchers, but stated they did not know they were fake.[7] The Compton, Californian offices of the WLC housed a drug detox program using “dry heat sweat therapy”.[8] In 2015 the executive director of WLC, Hanan Islam, Ronnie Steven Islam (AKA Rizza Islam) and her adult children were arrested for Medi-Cal fraud and insurance fraud for billing for this detox program.[9][10]

The Anti-Defamation League cites his anti-Semitic and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. 

6 Rashid Buttar

Facebook: Active

Twitter: Active

Instagram: Active

Rashid Buttar is an osteopath physician and conspiracy theorist known for videos posted to his YouTube channel.

From Wikipedia:  

Rashid Buttar

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rashid Buttar

Nationality American

Education Des Moines University

Occupation Physician

Known for Conspiracy theories, 

Anti-vaccine views

Rashid Ali Buttar (born January 20, 1966) is an American osteopathic physician from Charlotte, North Carolina, also known as a conspiracy theory and vaccine hesitancy proponent.[1] He is known for his controversial use of chelation therapy for numerous conditions, including autism and cancer.[2] He has twice been reprimanded by the North Carolina Board of Medical Examiners for unprofessional conduct[3][4] and cited by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for illegal marketing of unapproved and adulterated drugs.[5][6][7]

7 Erin Elizabeth

Facebook: Active

Twitter: Active

Instagram: Active

Erin Elizabeth, partner to Joseph Mercola, runs Health Nut News, a prominent ‘alternative health’ website with affiliated newsletter and social media accounts.

8 Sayer Ji

Facebook: Active

Twitter: Removed

Instagram: Part Removed

Sayer Ji runs a popular alternative health website, GreenMedInfo.com, and affiliated social media accounts that promote pseudoscience and anti-vaccine misinformation. Despite his GreenMedInfo accounts being removed by Twitter and Instagram, it is still available on Facebook.

An article on GreenMedInfo.com falsely claimed that "The FDA knows that rushed-to- market COVID-19 vaccines may cause a wide range of life-threatening side effects, including death."

From Wikipedia:

"Ji obtained a BA in philosophy from Rutgers University in 1995.[2] He has previously owned an organic food market in Bonita Springs.[3][4]

He is the former editor of the defunct International Journal of Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine [5] and a member of the advisory board and a former vice-president of the National Health Federation, a lobby group opposing government regulation of alternative health practitioners and supplements retailers.[5][6][7][8]

Ji became popular promoting common alternative medicine beliefs, such as enthusiasm for ancient healing practices and the claim that the appearance of some foods is meant to indicate which organ of the human body they are meant to cure.[5] While he always invited his readers to be suspicious of governments, health authorities and pharmaceutical companies, during the COVID-19 pandemic Ji joined other proponents of alternative medicine in embracing conspiracy theories about allegedly oppressive global organizations.[1][9]

Ji denies being an anti-vaccination activist, but consistently shares false or misleading messages about vaccine safety and efficacy.[10][5][11][12] He is married to Kelly Brogan, another well-known promoter of medical misinformation.[11] He lives in Florida.[8][13]"

9 Kelly Brogan

Facebook: Removed

Twitter: Active

Instagram: Active

Kelly Brogan is the partner of fellow alternative health entrepreneur Sayer Ji. She claimsto practice “holistic psychiatry” and sells a range of books and courses from her website.

10 Christiane Northrup

Facebook: Active

Twitter: Active

Instagram: Active

Christiane Northrup is an obstetrics and gynecology physician who has embraced alternative medicine and anti-vaccine conspiracies. She has used her social media accounts to spread disinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine.

11 Ben Tapper

Facebook: Active

Twitter: Active

Instagram: Active

Ben Tapper is a chiropractor with a growing following on social media. He has routinely posted COVID disinformation and spoken out against masking.

Example Violations

12 Kevin Jenkins

Facebook: Active

Twitter: Active

Instagram: Active

Kevin Jenkins is an anti-vaccine activist with a growing social media presence who has appeared at public events with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Jenkins has called vaccines a“conspiracy” to “wipe out” black people and is a co-founder of the Freedom Airway & Freedom Travel Alliance, a company founded in late 2020 to help its members travel around the world without observing any masking, quarantining, vaccination, or other pandemic control measures.

The report is pushing for Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to shut down their accounts - and some of these folks have many different accounts.  

They succeed because of people like the man below.

[Note:  I've googled the text of this cartoon hoping to identify the cartoonist.  There are many places that have put this up.  But the creator's name I couldn't find.  I thank the creator and I'll add your name if you notify me who you are.  Or take it down if you prefer.]

The idea that constitutional rights can't be abridged comes up against the fact that the exercise of one person's constitutional rights can curtail the constitutional rights of others. Then we have to evaluate which right is more critical.  Letting FB cut people off is not an issue because it's the government, not private companies, that must not abridge people's rights.  Companies may set conditions which apply to all users equally - based on behavior, not inherent traits such as race and gender.  

What can you do?

I don't want to just offer bad news without giving people some ideas of what can be done about it.  People should share such information with policy makers - you can easily email your members of Congress even if you don't have the power to implement these things yourself.  Or you can join or donate to organizations that fight these problems.  Here are a few ideas just to remind you that every problem has ways to mitigate it and people who have taken on this project.  

How to fight lies, tricks,and chaos online -   There are a number of sites that offer individuals steps to prevent receiving misinformation.  This is one of the best I saw.  It also includes when to report to law enforcement.  And it recognizes that this is all complicated and no checklist is fool proof.  This is definitely worth a look.

A guide to anti-misinformation actions around the world - This offers a list, country by country, of measures to stop the spread of misinformation.  Unfortunately, many of the countries are authoritarian regimes that don't offer us much help.  But worth a look to see what other democracies are doing.

MITIGATING MEDICAL MISINFORMATION: A WHOLE-OF-SOCIETY APPROACH TO COUNTERING SPAM, SCAMS, AND HOAXES

"This brief addresses how the public health sector, along with a coalition of civil servants, media workers, technology companies, and civil society organizations, can understand and respond to the problem of medical media manipulation, specifically how it spreads online. Here we present a supplementary research-and-response method in correspondence with the World Health Organization (WHO)’s already suggested framework for dealing with the infodemic, with a focus on media manipulation.2"

How to Slow the Spread of Disinformation: A Guide for Newsrooms - 

Congressional Panel On Internet And Disinformation... Includes Many Who Spread Disinformation Online - This one has a promising title, but it doesn't live up to the promise.  It demonstrates the problem of people writing about complex without really being experts themselves. (Like I'm doing here.)  This person writes very little about what was debated.  He basically pulls out stuff he disagrees with and throws up his hands.  The comments, though, offer a sense of the complexity and conflicts of goals involved in all this.  

How Data Privacy Laws Can Fight Fake News  - This post argues that by protecting personal privacy online, it would be harder for people to be targeted for mis- and disinformation.

That's enough.  People are working on this.  Find them and support them.  

Enjoy A Little Thai Humor

Creativity and humor are evenly distributed around the world.  The west has no monopoly.  

This may take several views to catch it all.  

พุง is pronounced phung and means belly

ปาก is pronounced baak and means mouth

ดนฃา  is pronounced tonkaa and means thigh

มัน  is pronounced man (rhymes with fun) and means fat (like chicken fat)

น้ำมัน is pronounced num mun and means oil.  

The Thai words and their English transliteration in red are on the road signs, but the subtitles translate to the English words so if you don't know the Thai you might not catch it as they say it. 

It does all make sense - where they are coming from and going to.

Lighter Fare - The Garden's Doing Great

 

This fat king bolete showed up in the back last week and I quickly snatched it before the little worms that share my taste for boletes showed up.  This is one of the easy to identify and one of the best for eating.  Below is a picture of it sliced.  There's a lot of mushroom here.  I grilled a couple pieces and stir fried the rest with garlic and onion.

Of the flowers I planted from seed this year, the bachelor buttons were the first to bloom.  New ones are opening up daily in a set of beautiful colors.  The daisies are perennials that come up on their own.

Thalactrum, or meadow rue  The aphid love these plants, but this year I've been hand watering and using the hose to get the aphids off each morning.  The plant does fine with a strong enough spray to get rid of the aphid that cluster massively.  Here's a 2015 post which shows aphid larvae on this plant.  

If this is not a mutinus elegans, it's certainly one of its close relatives.  It showed up in the front yard this morning.  

"MushroomExpert.com

Mutinus elegans, M. caninus, & M. ravenelii

[ Agaricomycetes > Phallales > Phallaceae > Mutinus . . . ]

by Michael Kuo

Stinkhorns frequently bewilder people by popping up in lawns, thrusting their slime-covered tips into the world within a matter of hours. They have been much maligned over the years, probably because--well, because they stink and they often look like penises (human, canine, or alien). Unlike other mushrooms, the stinkhorn distributes its spores by applying an odorous, spore-thick slime to its tip, which flies and other insects are attracted to. The flies then carry the spores to other places."

I made a seaweed bread recently.  

And the tomatoes are flowering.  The trick now is for the tomatoes to set and grow.  I was advised to tap each of the flowers so they would self pollinate.  This one's in the outdoor greenhouse and while there are lots of way for bees to get in, it's not as exposed to those outside.  These are subarctic tomatoes that are more likely to fruit in Alaska.  

Between Voter Suppression And Supreme Court Activism GOP Is Ripping Apart US Democracy

 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse is working hard to shine light on Republican actions to thwart democracy through covert operations.  In this previous post "When You Find Hypocrisy In The Daylight, Look For Power In the Shadows" - Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse At Barrett Hearings  I offered a video of Whitehouse outlining the goals of the new GOP Supreme Court.  (New referring both to GOP and to Supreme Court.)  He identified 80 cases where there was a 5-4 majority (conservative v. liberal) split in the rulings and identified these four key outcomes:

• Unlimited Dark Money - that allows the wealthy and corporations (yes those do overlap) control legislatures that make the rules and even to get people appointed as head of federal agencies that regulate them.  Citizen United is the key decision here, but there are many others
• Knock the Civil Jury Down - The powerful can't control civil juries like they can control Congress.
• Weaken Regulatory Agencies - particularly pollutors to weaken their independence and strength
• Voter Suppression and Gerrymandering - making it harder to vote for citizens who might vote against their interests - Shelby County decision on no factual record against overwhelming support on the other side, that knocked out voter suppression protections and a bunch of states started suppressing the vote.  Same on gerrymandering.  

The goal of all of these is to create a Supreme Court that would strengthen power of corporations and the very wealthy.  He also outlined the Federalist Society's 40 year campaign to create this kind of court, including the creation of a legal ideology - Originalism - that would allow justices to reinterpret the Constitution to meet the conservative objectives.  All supported by dark money.

I'd like to call your attention to a New Republic article - The Supreme Court's Total War on Congress - by Simon Lazarus, Robert Litan/July 8, 2021 that argues the Supreme Court has shown in recent cases that it is now at war with Congress and has moved past its powers to interpret whether a law is Constitutional, to simply invalidating laws they don't like.  Here's one brief quote from the article which they say embody their thinking underlying a couple of cases decided in the last week of the Court's session:

 "If we cannot come up with a credible Constitution-based excuse for striking those provisions down, we will simply turn to the power justified two centuries ago by Chief Justice John Marshall as this court’s responsibility to “say what the law is.” We will use that raw power to ignore or rewrite unwanted statutory provisions, to render them ineffectual, or to produce results directly opposite to what they mean."

They are specifically looking at the case which essentially invalidated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and a decision which blocks a California law allowing unions to meet with workers on private property in labor campaigns.  Clearly the Voting Rights case fits the last of Whitehouse's four categories - Voter Suppression and Gerrymandering.  The anti-union case probably fits into the Weaken Regulatory Agencies category, though this was a California State law.  

You'll notice that State's Rights are used when convenient - as in the Voting Rights case - and also ignored when convenient - as in the California case.   

Finally, here's Sheldon Whitehouse again responding to these two recent Supreme Court cases in a Tweet today:

This week’s Scheme speech discusses two decisions just delivered by the Court – Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. FEC and Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee – that reflect the patterns and purposes of the Court-capture effort. https://t.co/LgkaE3zYkW

— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) July 13, 2021

 

Watching this video, I had to acknowledge that Whitehouse is a very slow and deliberate speaker.  But the content is is rich in fact and meaning.  For those who find Whitehouse too slow, I offer this comment by cartoonist Jen Sorenson on the recent Voting Rights Act.

I'd note that the two items in the title - Voter Suppression and the Supreme Court - are only two of the GOP efforts to destroy our democracy.  Trying to overturn elections is another.  Violent attacks on opponents is another.  Keeping democracy is going to require extra effort on the part of those who believe in democracy.  Extraordinary effort to get voters to the polls despite the obstacles the GOP is setting up and the Supreme Court is allowing is one option.  

Happiness - A Novel By Aminatta Forna - "People want choices without consequences"

Aminatta Forna's novel starts with a Wolfer killing the last pair of wolves in Greenhampton, Massachusetts  in 1834.  One of the key characters, Jean, carries on that theme by studying coyotes in upstate New York in the 21st Century as well as urban foxes in London.  But this is secondary, though related to the main theme and main character Attila. 

Attila describes his job working in crisis zones around the world.

"'I specialise in trauma, among civilian populations principally,' said Attila.  'Much of my work is as you would imagine.  Teams of us go in, some to count the dead, others to trace the living and return them to where they should be or send them somewhere else.  I work with the survivors.  My job is less to fix the damage than to catalogue the extent of it."

'What happens then?'

'After us?  More reconstruction.  The aid agencies, the people who have won the contracts to fix the roads, mend the dams, repair the bridges.'

'I meant to the victims.'

'We file our reports, they can run to thousands of pages.  Sometimes a perpetrator or two is imprisoned in The Hague.  A few of the survivors will be called as witnesses and have their moment in court.  They get to see some general or president or warlord  whose name they have heard but who they've never laid eyes on put behind bars.  They go there wanting to face the person who tortured them, but that never happens, the system doesn't work like that.  The lawyers argue about chains of command, utmost responsibility.  Those words don't mean anything to the woman whose daughter was taken away or who's son's bones turned up in a ditch he had to dig himself.'  Attila shrugged.  'While all that's happening, somewhere in the world somebody else gets ready to go to war.'

'Wow!' Jean exhaled, not knowing what to say next.  (p. 118)

All that proceeds the next paragraph: 

Attila gave a small wry smile.  'I'm not being cynical, just realistic.  War is in the blood of humans.  The kind of people who torture and rape during war, they're always among us, every time you walk own a busy street you're passing killers waiting to kill.  War gives them license.  We tell ourselves people are ordinarily good, but where is the proof of that?  There are no ordinarily good people, just a lot of people who've never been offered the opportunity to be anything else.  As for the rest, the followers and foot soldiers - well you can't imprison half a nation.  For them and for everyone else life carries on, only not quite as before."(118)

I should add that Attila is a Ghanian psychiatrist who's in London to present a paper at a conference. It's there that Jean bumps into him (literally) while she's jogging over the Waterloo Bridge observing one of her foxes weaving unnoticed through the crowd.  

He goes on, and I had to think of all the white supremacists that Trump has unleashed:

"There was no big secret to war, Attila thought.  There would always be people who relished violence, all they ever needed was a leader and an opportunity.  If someone could unite the gang members of New York or Chicago or London, they could take over their respective cities if that person was the president they could take over the country.  A lot could be achieved by offering young men power and sex."

The book was published in 2018.  Usually books take years to be written, edited, and published, so the odds are good it was started before Trump was seen as a viable candidate, though passages like this could have been edited closer to the publication date.  

The chapters are titled Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, etc. as we follow Attila during the two weeks or so he's in London for the conference.  He and Jean run into each other a couple of times and then team up after Attila goes to see his niece and a neighbor tells him that the niece and her son were taken by immigration.  He tracks down he niece in a hospital bed who was let go because it was a mistaken identity (well, actually, an unscrupulous landlord who reported her as illegal so he could get her out of the apartment and raise the rent), but the boy, who'd been put in a foster home, had run away.  Jean, who's been mapping out sections of the neighborhoods to keep track of her foxes, offers to help find the boy.  Jean has also enlisted the help of night workers - street cleaners, doormen, restaurant workers, many of them Africans) to report fox sightings to her.  She recruits them to help look for the boy.  

After Jean gets ambushed on a talk radio show by the host who believes urban foxes should all be killed - Attila gives her this advice:

"Attila laughed. 'Do you know what a diplomat I once worked with told me?  That in government they are taught to treat the electorate like six-year-olds.  If you ask a member of the voting public a question on any subject most of us can only come up with three words we identify with that thing  The words depend on what our concerns are or what the papers tell us our concerns are. . .

As a retired public administration professor, I assure you I never taught my students to treat the public like six year olds, but then few government employees have public administration degrees.  And thinking about the three words can be useful. 

There are other events and characters in the week and a half that's covered in the book.  And some flashbacks to prior events.  How Jean's marriage fell apart in the States.  Rosie, an old lover of Attila's who's got Alzheimers and is living in a nursing home and Emmanuel, who's bonded with Rosie, through his job at the home as a caregiver.  Attila's dead wife Marysa also hovers over the interwoven plot lines.  

The flashbacks take us back to war zones - either those between humans and wolves and coyotes, or between humans and humans - to give us background on Jean and Attila.

Attila muses about war frequently.

"His mind was on the mission ahead which was not the kind for which he cared a seminar on frontline training  for the military.  Young men giving their bodies and their minds to battle sent by middle-aged men who only ever handled a gun on their weekend duck shoots and men like Attila tasked with the job of trying to keep the young men sane while what they were being asked to do was an insanity itself."

There's also a fair amount of discussion about psychiatry.  Here's one example.

“In Attila’s second year of medical school the psychiatric establishment was rocked by an incendiary laid treacherously by one of their own a psychologist called David Rosenhan,  Rosenhan had attended a lecture by the Scottish psychiatrist Ronald Laing a hard-drinking radical who liked to irritate his peers by challenging psychiatric shibboleths among them the notion that psychiatric diagnoses were objective and could be compared with medical ones  Rosenhan wondered if there were any empirical way to test this assertion and decided to conduct his own experiments  He recruited a group of six volunteers including (alongside several medical professionals) a painter and a housewife and himself as the seventh  Each volunteer was detailed to ring one of several psychiatric hospitals and to request an appointment, to which they presented themselves unwashed and unshaved.  They were to describe hearing voices.  Nothing too dramatic and always the same words, ‘Empty’, ‘Hollow’, ‘Thud’.  All but one of the volunteers was admitted, after which the six, in accordance with their instructions, behaved perfectly normally and told staff the voices had gone away.  Nevertheless the participants were held for an average of nineteen days, and one poor soul was kept inside for fifty-two.  When eventually they were discharged each of the patients was described not as sane or cured but ‘in remission’.  In every case the only people who suspected the volunteers of being perfectly sane frauds were other patients.” (pp 229-230)

Rosenhan was a real person.  The experiment was real.  Though Wikipedia has the details slightly different and cites cites Susannah Cahalan who challenges that it happened.  Here's an NPR review of Cahalan's book, The Great Pretender.  

I'm close to the end of the book and finding it fascinating, in no small part because many of the characters are part of an African immigrant underclass in London, taking on low level service jobs.  It's a part of London I'm much less familiar with.  

From the author's website:

"Aminatta Forna was born in Scotland, raised in Sierra Leone and Great Britain and spent periods of her childhood in Iran, Thailand and Zambia. She is the award-winning author of the novels Happiness, The Hired Man, The Memory of Love and Ancestor Stones, and a memoir The Devil that Danced on the Water, and the forthcoming essay collection, The Window Seat: Notes from a Life in Motion."

As I near the final pages, I'd say the book is about the human need to control.  To control the world, to control nature, to control others.  This is demonstrate by how psychiatrists try to control mental illness by categorizing and then treating it. By how people try to control the uncontrollable by killing it - culling urban foxes, refusing to listen to Jean who has been studying the fox behavior and who says that just killing them won't work. 

From Ayo, one of the immigrants in Jean's team of fox watchers:

"Cannot become rich from [foxes], cannot control them, not even kill them.  That's why the foxes make some people angry.  The problem with those people is that they themselves have forgotten they are alive."

A career diplomat echoes that theme.  He's holding a snow globe given him long ago by his daughter:

"'This is how most people want to live.'  He put his hand out for the [snow] globe and Attila handed it to him.  Quell held it up to the light.  'They want to be safe, they want to be comfortable.  They want to believe that they are in control of their lives, and they want that thing we call freedom.  It all comes at a price, but don't you dare mention that.  People want choices without consequences.  And we give it to them, fools that we are.  We are the "somebody" people who have no bloody intention of doing anything themselves mean when they say somebody must do something.  I blame books, films, all that nonsense.'"

 

"While America has the watch, the Taliban have the time" Thoughts On Afghanistan

[US consumers of news get lots of click-bate photos and headlines, but very little depth on any topic. This post offers a peek at the complexities involved in predicting the future of Afghanistan. ] 

I was going to sort out my thoughts on the US pulling all troops out of Afghanistan.  What exactly did I know, not know?  What do I think the likely consequences might be for the people of Afghanistan, the US, and the power dynamics of Central Asia.

My basic sense was that Afghanistan is likely to be taken over by the Taliban - that an extreme male oriented version of Islamic law would be imposed and those associated with the US would be assassinated, 

This would lead to lots of headlines blaming Biden for 'losing Afghanistan,' losing face for the US internationally, and give the Republicans one of their most effective weapons for the 2022 and 2024 elections.  

So I outlined those ideas, including the context that I didn't think would be included - that already England and the USSR have tried to take control of Afghanistan and eventually withdrew.  That others - particularly Afghanistan's neighbors - would work to keep Afghanistan stable and safe for them, as well as developing more extensive beneficial relationships between their countries.  I also saw come comparisons with our war in Vietnam and the kinds of rhetoric used when it was clear we had lost and were going to withdraw.  

Then I started googling to find out more about the interests and relationships Afghanistan has with its neighbors.  

After reading a number of articles on Afghanistan's relationships with its neighbors, my outlook is more hopeful.  The people of Afghanistan have suffered a great deal over the last 40 years - including the Taliban.  The US' departure may give the Taliban the symbolic victory they need to work more cooperatively with the Afghan government, and more importantly, with neighboring governments.  

Iran and Pakistan have vested interests in a friendly Afghanistan.  Iran's Shi'a government has serious issues with the Sunni Taliban.  But all the countries in the region have interests in regional infrastructure - roads, power, communications, trade.

Most significantly, China's been aggressively building a road to Pakistan as well as infrastructure projects in Africa, and trade agreements with Europe.  China's border with Afghanistan is the smallest, but China's power and expansionist interests the largest.  

While some of the terror people expect when the US pulls out completely may happen, I suspect the long term outlook for Afghanistan is not so grim.  China will spread its largesse among the Taliban and the Afghan government in exchange for a more secure country and an extension of their  Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and their China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).  

No matter what actually happens, we can count on the GOP to focus on the worst aspects.  But if they don't have any real issues with Biden, they would fabricate some fantastic tales.  

So here is my original outline and below are some links you might find interesting.

These are thoughts about the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.  

1. The GOP will try to use Afghanistan to defeat Biden in 2024.  Even though the GOP is not too interested in women's rights in the US, they used women's rights as one of the reasons to go into Afghanistan and defeat the Taliban. We will see images and stories after the US pulls out completely of assassinations, of girls being barred from schools, of imposition of Taliban rules like before US troops entered the country.  
2. The stories we won't hear 
1. A serious evaluation of why, after 20 years, the Afghan government couldn't defeat the Taliban.  
2. What would likely happen in Afghanistan and the cost to the US if we stayed and continued our 'nation building'
3. Calls for US troops to intervene to help the millions of people around the world whose lives are as difficult, as at risk, or worse, in other countries (remember how Trump helped the Syrian people?)
3. Stories we may hear:
1. How the British and Russians both withdrew from Afghanistan, unable to defeat local resistance.
2. How our initial goal was to get Al Qaeda and bin Laden, not to do democracy building
3. How getting into war is easier than getting out of it
4. How this is a humiliating defeat for the US
5. How Vietnam was also a humiliating defeat for the US, but eventually has become a thriving country, doing much better without us, even though we portrayed the Communist North as evil demons
6. How Afghanistan is not Vietnam 
4. The biggest irony, I think, is that the corruption we hear about in the Afghan government is, if not the result of, certainly greatly magnified, by the billions of dollars of US money and weapons and contracts that have flooded the country.  For those in a position to scoop up some of that largesse, it was an irresistible opportunity to make one's fortune, with hopes to leave when the spigot got turned off.  
5. Likely outcomes of leaving
1. The initial outcomes will favor the Taliban, 
2. The opposition to the Taliban, without the cushion of US money, will either be killed, flee the country, or take on the Taliban more seriously and without the fighting over US money
3. Neighboring countries (there are six - can you name them? Three were part of the Soviet Union which no longer has a border with Afghanistan.  See map below) will begin to adjust their Afghan policies when the US is gone and exert influence to protect their own interests such as
1. those who supported the Taliban because they were fighting the US will likely have a strong influence on the Taliban and/or withdraw their support
2. concern for radical religious beliefs destabilizing their own populations (Taliban are Sunni Muslims. Iran are Shi'a)
3. protect their borders 
1. stem tide of Afghan refugees coming over their borders
2. prevent military threats
4. exploit minerals and develop infrastructure projects and other economic opportunities  in Afghanistan
5. make deals to export their products to their nearest neighbor

US voters have short term memories.  Pulling out in 2021 gives Biden three years for this action to be lost in the flood of events that will occur between now and the election.  There may even be glimmers of good news to emerge from Afghanistan - but I think that will take longer.  

Source:  Geo Politics of South Asia and MENA

Don't miss the tiny, but significant border with China.  

Some interesting background:

Iran's Influence on Afghanistan (June 23, 2020) Middle East Institute - SourceWatch lists MEI's biggest funders as the world's major oil companies.

Iran-Taliban Growing Ties - What's Different This Time? (Feb 16, 2021)  The Atlantic Council - Media Bias/Fact Check says it's factual with a center-right bias.

Iran's Influence in Afghanistan (2014) Rand Corporation - AllSides rates Rand as "Leans Left" (Note, this was before Trump was seen even as a viable candidate)

No-Win War:  The Paradox of U.S.-Pakistan Relations in Afganistan's Shadow - Event Recap - (May 11, 2021) Wilson Center - MediaBias/Fact check rates Wilson Center between "least biased" and "left of center"

The headline quote of this post comes from this article and is attributed to Zahid Hussain quoting a Taliban leader

How Qatar came to host the Taliban (2013) BBC - Interesting background on how the Taliban leaders came to have their headquarters in Qatar.

Turkmenistan:  The Afghan connection (Jan 12, 2021) Eurasianet   Media Bias/Fact Check gives Eurasianet a high rating in factual reporting and a slightly left of center bia.Gives a sense of the kinds of issues  and projects that connect the two countries - particularly infrastructure projects. 

China Has a BIG Plan for Post-U.S. Afghanistan—and It’s Worth Billions: Beijing just can’t wait for the U.S. to get out of the way.(July 4, 2021) Daily Beast

Who are the Taliban? ( July 1, 2021) BBC

Will Turkey take over at Afghanistan's main airport?   (July 9, 2021)  Al Jazeera - Al Jazeera, like the Taliban, are headquartered in Doha, Qatar.

If China does move into the vacuum there are many possibilities.

• The GOP will trumpet how Biden 'lost' Afghanistan to China, as they did about losing Vietnam to the Communists and earlier, how Truman 'lost' China.  Of course, the US never 'had' any of those places to lose in the first place.
• The Afghan resistance to foreign rulers has been impressive.  They may quickly find China to be one more foreign nation trying to exploit them.  And they know how China is treating their fellow Muslims the Uighurs in the Chinese province of Xinjiang, which has China's tiny border with Afghanistan.  
• Tired of 40 years of war, the Taliban (they fought under other names before they became Taliban) may be ready to use the US withdrawal to declare victory and enjoy peace.  Though fighting is the one activity they are really good at and so may be more comfortable in that, and they may see this as their turn again to rule Afghanistan.  

Alaska's COVID Numbers Are Going Back Up

In the Alaska Daily COVID-19 Count 3 tab below the banner up top, I've got a spreadsheet with Alaska COVID stats since March 15, 2020. It's 3 because numbers 1 and 2 got so long and bulky, I needed a new one.  I started it because the state just kept replacing yesterday's numbers with today's and it was hard to know if things were getting better or worse.  They've got fancy dashboards now with graphs, but they are only posted three times a week now.  This week only twice because there was a holiday Monday.  Along with updated numbers on the chart.  I post some comments to give the numbers a little more meaning.  

In the last few weeks, the numbers have changed.  They were going down.  Then they seemed to level off.  And now they are going back up.  This isn't over yet.  I've kept my COVID posts mainly in the COVID tab, but given that we are moving up again, it seemed useful to repeat yesterday's (Friday) comments here in the main section of the blog.  You have to go to the tab to see the chart.

Friday, July 9, 2021 - Our direction has definitely changed.  We're going back up.

Two new deaths reported today for a total of 370 Alaskans. Note, reported doesn't tell us when they happened.  We don't know if it was in the last two days or ta while ago and that stats are just catching up.

There were 14 new hospitalizations.  27 COVID patients are hospitalized in Alaska.  There are 48 ICU beds available in Alaska.  That's a reasonably high number for the time I've been following it.  But it could drop if hospitalizations spike. That number is also affected by non-COVID patients.

You know that most of the hospitalizations lately are of unvaccinated people.  Not only are these people risking themselves, they're giving the virus time to mutate into ever more contagious and severe versions.  AND they are endangering all those under 12 who haven't been approved yet for vaccination. And they're using up medical facilities and the patience and time or health care workers unnecessarily. Most of the kids will probably have slight or no symptoms, but a number of them will get sick enough to be hospitalized.  But the anti-vaxers really don't seem to care about anyone but themselves.  It's like a bunch of are in a big rowboat trying to get to shore, but part of the group insists on jumping up and down and rocking the boat.  

117 more people tested positive in the last two days.  Nearly 60 a day.  

But what concerns me most is that Test Positivity was reported at 2.43.  That's the highest number I have (there were days when the numbers weren't available) since April 30, 2021.  There were about   6600 tests since Wednesday.  

Redistricting Board Goes To Redistricting Seminar in Salt Lake City Next Week

I was tempted put the word 'junket' in the title, but I wasn't sure everyone would know that I was just joking.  This is a serious conference that the Board members and staff should attend.  Not only will they get more information about the latest ideas on redistricting (like how the recent US Supreme Court decision to weaken Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act might mean), but also to meet people from other states doing redistricting.   

The latest announcement from the Board:

"Alaska Redistricting Board Member Attendance at NCSL

A quorum of the Alaska Redistricting Board will attend the "Get Ready to Redistrict" seminar hosted by the National Conference of State Legislatures in Salt Lake City Utah from Wednesday, July 14 through Friday, July 16 for educational purposes only.  No Board action will be taken.

What: Educational seminars, NCSL Redistricting Conference

Where: Downtown Marriott at City Creek, Salt Lake City, Utah

When: July 14 - July 16, 2021"

While this is NOT a board meeting where official action will be taken, all the Board Members, apparently, are going to Salt Lake City, so they are required to post an announcement.  It's one of those sticky areas.  Surely, they will have three or more members together talking about what they learned.  Maybe over lunch or dinner.  And those conversations should be available to the public by law.  

When legislators go to such conferences, only a few go to anyone single conference, so there's usually not a quorum.  Perhaps it would be useful for a Board member or the staff to do some unofficial minutes of any meetings of three or more members to let the public know what they're learning and how they think it affects what they'll be doing.  

The conference is put on by the NCSL (National Council of State Legislatures).  Their mission is:

"NCSL: Our Mission

NCSL, founded in 1975, represents the legislatures in the states, territories and commonwealths of the U.S. Its mission is to advance the effectiveness, independence and integrity of legislatures and to foster interstate cooperation and facilitate the exchange of information among legislatures.

NCSL also represents legislatures in dealing with the federal government, especially in support of state sovereignty and state flexibility and protection from unfunded federal mandates and unwarranted federal preemption. The conference promotes cooperation between state legislatures in the U.S. and those in other countries.

In addition, NCSL is committed to improving the operations and management of state legislatures, and the effectiveness of legislators and legislative staff. NCSL also encourages the practice of high standards of conduct by legislators and legislative staff."

This organization has traditionally been bi-partisan, with the goal to promote effective and efficient practices in state legislatures.  I haven't kept track of them lately, but their values used to be (and probably still are) following the rule of law for the public interest.  

Highly partisan organizations, like ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), have tried to mimic the look of NCSL, but with a heavily partisan twist.  While NCSL offers states model legislation to neutrally (as I said above, to promote the rule of law and the public interest) ALEC offers model legislation that pushes the agenda of their sponsors, like the Kochs.

Here's the agenda for the conference next week. (You have to scroll down the page and then select the day you want.  This is pretty long, so you might consider reading these on the days they are happening.)

Wednesday, July 14

2-3:30 p.m.: Optional: Redistricting Basics

If this is your first redistricting cycle, join us for this session. Experienced legislative staff will provide a foundation on redistricting based on NCSL’s Redistricting Starter Kit.

3:45-5 p.m.: Option A: Race and Redistricting: Civil Rights Groups Speak

French fries and ketchup. Sunscreen and the beach. Redistricting and lawsuits. Three classic pairings. Hear from groups that represent minority communities in the U.S. on what they’re focused on this decade when it comes to redistricting. Who knows—maybe what we learn will forestall a lawsuit or two.

3:45-5 p.m.: Option B: Census Redistricting Data Program Evaluation | Primary Topic: "Geography"

In this session, census redistricting program liaisons and other users of census redistricting geographic data are invited to come talk through the strengths and weaknesses of the already completed geographic definition and delivery of geographic materials from the 2020 census. Feedback on the 2020 redistricting data program's geographic operations will be used in the formulation of the 2030 census redistricting data program. Feedback is also welcome on other aspects of the program.

5-7 p.m.: Welcome Reception

Thursday, July 15

6:45 a.m.: Optional Morning Run

Studies show exercise improves brain functionality. This run, though, is all about going slow and being social.

7 a.m.-3 p.m.: Registration

7:30-8:45 a.m.: Breakfast and Welcome

Eat first, then at 8:15 a.m. we’ll welcome everyone and review what's ahead

9-10:15 a.m.: The Census

Option A: Census and Data for Beginners

Are you a non-data expert working on redistricting? This session is for you. Learn what data the census will be released, a bit about how it can be used and an introduction to other types of data used in redistricting so you and your data colleagues can communicate effectively with each other.

Option B: Census and Data for Experts

In this advanced session, we’ll cover differential privacy (and if it makes a difference), working with race and ethnicity data, how election turnout impacts the accuracy of political data, and the use of party registration as a data layer. Warning: nerding out likely.

10:30-11:45 a.m.: Take Your Pick

Option A: Meet with Your Redistricting Software Experts

Your state has probably chosen its redistricting software by now. Here’s your chance to meet your software vendor, discuss its features and pick up tips. These sessions will be run by the vendors themselves, not by NCSL.

Option B: Short Takes on Three Key Issues

Gain insight into three issues that are easy to overlook: local redistricting (yes, it’s required by law); the “hand off” of redistricting data to election officials so they can prepare for next year’s primaries; and why some states are adopting inmate data reallocation laws.

Noon-12:45 p.m.: Lunch

1-2:15 p.m.: Choose Your Own Adventure

Option A: Balancing Conflicting Criteria

Criteria (or principles) are the rules of the road in redistricting, and they vary by state. Sometimes, though, they pull in opposite directions and it’s hard to comply with them all. Hear veterans of the redistricting process explain how to strike a balance between potentially irreconcilable mandates.

Option B: Data Details

What can redistricters learn from data sources beyond the census? For instance, in redistricting, what does voter registration provide and how does it differ state to state? Does it matter whether votes were cast by mail, in-person on Election Day or during an early in-person voting period? How does party enrollment data inform decision-making? Is there a way to know just how independent the non-D and non-R voters are? What’s turnout got to do with it? Dig deep with data experts.

2:30-3:45 p.m.: Redistricting Litigation in the 2020s

Redistricting litigation for the 2010 cycle didn’t end until 2019. Will the coming cycle be just as intense? Hear nationally recognized litigators discuss the current state of the law, new trends to watch in the 2020s, and possibly make predictions for the future.

4-5:15 p.m.: Threading the Needle: The Voting Rights Act and Racial Gerrymandering

Two federal requirements governing redistricting involve race. The Voting Rights Act directs states to ensure that certain minority groups have the opportunity to elect candidates of their choice, whereas the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment prohibits race from predominating during redistricting decision-making. Confusing, right? Listen as two expert litigators parse the nuances created by the U.S. Supreme Court and how states can walk the legal compliance line.

5:30-6:30 p.m.: Connecting With Your Peers

Option A: Republicans

This is an ancillary session run by Republicans, for Republicans. For more information, contact Kylie Bongaart.

Note: This is not an NCSL-sponsored session.

Option B: Democrats

This is an ancillary session run by Democrats, for Democrats. For more information, contact Jeff Wice.

Note: This is not an NCSL-sponsored session.

Option C: Nonpartisan Staff Reception

If you’re a legislative staffer and don’t belong at the partisan sessions, get to know your colleagues from around the nation.

Evening on your own

Friday, July 16

7 a.m.: Optional: Walking Tour

See the sites with Brian Bean, a staffer with the Utah Senate. Meet in the lobby.

7:30-8:45 a.m.: Breakfast

Eat first—then at 8 a.m., choose which break out session at attend.

8-9:15 a.m.: Getting Along

Option A: Lowering the Temperature When Legislatures Redistrict

If you read the press, redistricting boils down to just one thing: power. Is that really true? Bring your breakfast to hear from legislators who have threaded their way through the trials and tribulations of legislative infighting.

Option B: Working With Your Commission

In states where commissions have primary responsibility for redistricting, what’s the legislature’s role? Bring your breakfast and hear from former commissioners and legislators who worked with commissions to find out how colleagues in prior decades stayed engaged while respecting the legal division between line-drawers and policymakers.

9:30-10:45 a.m.: Unseen Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

You don’t know what you don’t know. Fortunately, there are people who have done redistricting who DO know what you don’t know. Attend this session to learn from attorneys the pitfalls that can trip up the best-planned redistricting process—so you can avoid their mistakes.

11 a.m.-Noon: Legislative Privilege and Transparency

Legislative privilege is a critical part of the lawmaking process. Without it, policymakers wouldn’t be free to ask candid questions and talk openly with their staff. And yet, in this cycle “transparency” is being heralded. Learn the nuances of this area of the law so you can better understand what will happen when you end up in court over redistricting.

12:15-1:30 p.m.: What Court Will Look Like (and Box Lunch)

Odds are, you’ll be sued over redistricting. What will that lawsuit look like? This panel of litigants, litigators and a judge will walk you through the life of a redistricting lawsuit so you have an idea of what may happen if your maps end up in court. Bring in your box lunch.

1:30-2 p.m.: Ask Us Anything

Faculty will answer anything anyone cares to ask so we leave the Beehive State with exactly the information you need for the redistricting work about to begin.

3-4 p.m.: Optional: Tour of Utah State Capitol 

Living Through A Pandemic Is A Little Like Living Abroad For A Year

Back in June there were various news stories about how high school students felt that they were being robbed, by the pandemic, of sacred high school experiences, like prom and graduation.  My reaction was that in ten years, their pandemic year stories will be much more meaningful than most people's graduation stories.  

As I thought about it more, it seemed that the pandemic has been, in many (not all) ways - a lot like living living abroad for a year.  

Of course, there are lots of ways to live abroad - with work, in the military,  a school year overseas, traveling from country to country, etc.  The impact of the year (or more) abroad ranges widely, depending on whether you live in an ex-pat bubble or you're the only foreigner in your community. Most people's experiences are somewhere in between those two extremes.  

Some key factors that affect the experience include:

• whether you have to learn and to speak the other language(s)
• how many others from your culture are there with you
• whether you work with locals or not

But regardless, there are certain things that happen to many people living in another culture.

• your new culture makes you think about your home country differently
• you think about things you miss, but also learn that the new culture has alternatives, some of which are better 
• you start comparing the two cultures, which is the first step to realizing that the way you've always lived isn't the only way to live, or even the best
• things you thought were necessary turn out not to be
• you see that your new culture interprets news about your culture differently - whether it's in the newspapers or comments from your new friends and colleagues
• you start thinking about what the new culture does better than your old culture and vice versa
• if you learn to speak the language well enough to negotiate life in it
• you find out that your native language is just one of many, many ways to communicate
• that translation is not simply substituting the foreign words for your native words 
• you learn that there are words in the new language that don't exist in your own, that give you different ways of thinking about the world, 
• as you master the grammar, what first seemed awkward or just plain weird, now becomes an alternative to what you once thought was the only way words could be arranged together
• there's a certain freedom to navigating without ever using your native language, a liberation from the biases and limits every language imposes on its native speakers
• If the new language has a different alphabet or characters instead of letters, you have to rearrange brain cells to adapt even more

• when you return you are not the same person who left - your mind and expectations have been expanded
• there's the pleasure of old food favorites and seeing friends and family
• but you start missing food specialties from the new culture 
• and your old friends haven't gone through what you've gone through and they don't realize you see things differently, and while they like the exotic pictures, they don't understand the less visible aspects of the other culture and how that's changed you

The list can go on and on.  But overall being in another country forces you to see your own country differently and also to see yourself differently.  You see that there are other possibilities than the life you used to live.  This is true if you went to the other country voluntarily or not (say, if your parents took you.)

I think the same will prove true for all of us who have lived through the pandemic.  

• It interrupted our routines and forced us to find other ways to do things.  
• We learned to order delivery or use curbside pick up for groceries and other items.  
• We learned to wear masks and gloves.  
• We learned to use zoom and streamed a lot more videos.  
• There were many things we didn't understand - particularly about the virus and how to respond to it - and it took time to figure out what worked and what didn't.  
• Some people resisted changing their routines. 
• They refused to believe that the virus was real.   This happens, say, to US citizens overseas who insist on only eating US food and will only speak English and think they are not subject to the new country's laws and customs
• We've had more time home alone or with our families.  Time to think.
• We've learned new vocabulary, from COVID to community spread and Zoom

Changes are already being reported.  I'm hearing news of people who want to keep working from home post pandemic.  Or even rethinking whether they want to stay in the same job or profession.  

Some people get back from an overseas stay with new insights, but gradually fall back into their old routines.

Other people's lives are profoundly different when they get back.  They gravitate to new friends who have overseas experiences too and can understand their new perspectives.  They cook their favorite foods from overseas and try to find ways to keep up their language skills.  They see bias in the media covering their new country.

Nobody chose to spend these past two years in a pandemic, but some people took advantage of the changes while others endured it kicking and screaming.  But even they will have learned from this experience.  I think of my son who did not want to spend a year in Hong Kong and didn't particularly enjoy all the changes in his life.  He was 15 at the time.  But he used his overseas experiences in his college essays when he got back.  Later he took Chinese in a community college so he could speak to work colleagues using their own language.  He taught English in China for a year, worked a year in Europe, and got a masters degree in SE Asia.  I don't think those things would have happened without the year in Hong Kong.  

One obvious difference between the pandemic and a year abroad is that the whole world participated in the pandemic at the same time.  And the pandemic exposed inequities between nations and within nations.  

For all of us, 2020 and 2021 will be landmark years in our personal lives and in the history of the world.  If we're lucky we will have learned a lot.  We'll be better prepared for a future pandemic.  We'll take climate change more seriously. We'll realize that changes to our routines to combat climate change may be initially challenging, but they will also offer opportunities we didn't expect.  

Will The Real Justin Levitt Please Stand Up

 On the tv show To Tell The Truth, there were three contestants who all said they were the same person and a panel of four asked them questions to determine which one was the real, in this case, Justin Levitt.  When the questions were done, the host would say, "Will the real [Justin Levitt] please stand up."

I discovered Justin Levitt ten years ago when I was blogging the Alaska Redistricting Board.  Levitt is a voting rights expert from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.  I've been following him on Twitter.  So I sent him a direct message when I found out who the Redistricting Board's Voting Rights Act consultant was.  Did he know him?  Was he a good choice?  I didn't get a response right away.  In the meantime I read the whole winning proposal and saw that Justin Levitt was one of the experts listed on the proposal.  So, I direct messaged Levitt again saying that I saw he was on the proposal and so I understood why he hadn't responded.  

Then he did respond. There were two Justin Levitts, and yes he was the one at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, and no, he wasn't part of the winning proposal.  

Justin Levitt - LMU and White House

Instead, it turns out, according to his university profile, 

"As of April 8, 2021, Professor Levitt is on leave from Loyola, serving as the White House Senior Policy Advisor for Democracy and Voting Rights."  

And he does have a website called All About Redistricting. 

Justin Levitt -National Demographics
Corporation

Meanwhile, there's another Justin Levitt who is also an expert on redistricting.  He's  the Vice President of the National Demographics Corporation and got his PhD in political science at  UC San Diego.  The dissertation is titled, "“Beyond the Circle: Geographic Constraints on Tradeoffs in Redistricting.”

This is the Justin Levitt who is listed on the winning Voting Rights Act proposal.

So, the Justin Levitt I'm familiar with and whose redistricting page I've visited and whom I follow on Twitter, is NOT the Justin Levitt who will be part of the Voting Rights Act consultant's team.  

But I couldn't help but recall the old tv show To Tell The Truth, so here's the episode of To Tell The Truth Bruce Adelson of Federal Voting Rights Consulting ... July 3, 1961 - 60 years ago this week.  One of the panelists is a very young Johnny Carson.  And the first guest was the fireworks director at the Los Angeles Coliseum. 

But in our case, there actually are two Justin Levitts who both work in the field of voting rights and redistricting.  The Levitt I contacted did say that they have met.  It's probably fairly common to have to people working in the same profession, but in this case the name is not too common and the field is pretty specialized.  

It seems to me To Tell The Truth could have up their game by having three contestants who all had the same name.