GAMERS ALERT: Free Online Redistricting Mapping Software Let's You Help Shape Alaska's House And Senate Districts [Updated]

An email [it's copied below] for Alaska Redistricting Board update subscribers today says that they have worked out an agreement with Tufts University for maps making tools for the public to use.  [You can subscribe to the Board's updates here.]

The 2020 detailed census data are not out yet, but people can start practicing with the 2010 data now. Below is the email with a link to the software and two example maps.  

I haven't tried this yet because I wanted to get it out to people immediately.  For anyone interested in mapmaking or in politics, this is a must.  It's a good opportunity to get non-political tech people paired up with non-tech political people.  

I hope gamers see this as a real life game and that they can keep the Redistricting Board accountable by showing them that better maps (maps that meet all the Federal and State requirements more efficiently and equitably) can be made.  When there were challenges to the Redistricting Board's maps in the 2010 round, maps were submitted to the courts to show that better maps could be made.

As I looked at the example maps below I realized there are some requirements for valid districts that mappers need to know. Here's an early post from the 2010 Redistricting round that details some of the Federal and State requirements.  For instance, 

The Federal Constitutional Redistricting Principles are, briefly:

• A.  "One Person, One Vote". . ."legislative seats must be apportioned exclusively on the basis of population and the populations of the respective districts must be substantially equal."
• B.  "Districts of as nearly as equal size as practicable.  Maximum overall deviation of the no more than 10%, (i.e. plus or minus 5%)  Deviation is the measure of how much a district or plan varies from the ideal.  Good faith efforts to make deviations as small as practicable must be made. 

There are forty House seats.  Each has to be as close to equal as possible.  

The official 2020 total Alaska population which is  733,391 divided by 40 = 18,334.775.  

But it's impossible to have a fraction of people in every district, so it's necessary to have some deviance.  .  Ideally, each district deviates from 18,335 by less than 1% (That would be 183 people). 

But while mappers have to get all the districts equal, they also have requirements for compactness and for "relatively socio-economically integrated areas"   That's why some districts can deviate up to 10%, though that is discouraged.  Urban districts with lots of population should be under 1% deviation if possible.

So here's an enlargement of the first map below.  It's pointing to "percentage of deviation from the ideal"  That should make sense to you now, but let me repeat the details again.

Population Balance refers to the fact that every House district has to be as close to 1/40 (there are 40 house districts) of the official 2020 total Alaska population which is  733,391 divided by 40 = 18,335.  

I'm confused by the numbers in the red circle.  It says percentage, and 8.860 percent is under 10%.  But I don't know why it has a comma instead of a period.  I have an email into the Board to clarify that.  It could just be the way that software handles percentages.  I'll update this when I hear back. [UPDATE July 22, 2021:  Yes these are numbers and if I had read the note more carefully, I would have realized you need to hove the cursor over the numbers to get the percentage of deviation.]

Now, here's the email:

"Good morning subscribers,

Thanks for your continued interest in Alaska’s redistricting process. Census data for 2020 is expected in late August and the Board is looking forward to getting to work.  Drawing maps will be challenging and public feedback is an essential part of the process. 

 

One of the ways you can provide input is by sending the Board your map ideas. To facilitate this the Board is working with The Redistricting Lab at Tufts University to deploy a customized, web-based, publicly available map drawing tool.  This platform is available now for your beta testing at: 

https://www.akredistrict.org/create/

REMINDER: the data and blocks shown are from the 2010 Census; the 2020 data will be uploaded in late August – we’ll send out a notice at that time. Any maps you create until then will be based on 2010 population data and so are not appropriate for formal submission to the Board.

The web mapping tool uses a "paint brush" concept (for coloring) to shade in areas you wish to assign to a district, which are denoted by 40 individual colors.  This customized version allows painting at the Census block level, the most precise level of geography available and the same one which the Board will use to draw new legislative districts.

As you "paint" a district, the population will be dynamically totaled under the Population tab.  To assist you, under the Data Layers tab you'll find tools to overlay the state with existing legislative district boundaries, incorporated city limits, borough boundaries and school districts.

If you would like to view population distribution you may make selections to shade Census blocks with population density under Data Layers -> Demographics -> Population.

The system supports undo/redo, and allows you to "lock already drawn districts". This enables drawing perfectly adjoining districts by respecting blocks you have already colored into a previous district.

Use the Save/Update button to save your work, share plans with others (copy and send the URL) or submit directly through the website for Board consideration (once we have gone live with 2020 data, expected at the end of August).

Please take a little time to experiment with the tool so we can identify any bugs prior to our public launch. Your feedback would be appreciated; simply reply to this email.

Thanks,

Peter Torkelson

Executive Director

Alaska Redistricting Board 

P.S.  Here are a few tool tips to get you started:"   [Below are the two example maps that were at the end of the email.  You can enlarge them considerably by clicking on them.]

 

Little UN at Muldoon Farmers' Market In Anchorage

 Finally made it to the Muldoon Farmers' Market Saturday.  It's a little smaller and has fewer venders than when I was here last in 2019.  Maybe there will be more venders as the summer crops ripen.  

Still, I got to buy veggies from Cherry, who's from Myanmar.  

She spent something like ten or twelve years in refugee camps - first and longest, in Thailand.  And then in Malaysia.  She was in the refugee camp near Maesot, Thailand which I passed on the way to and from Umphang where one of my former students is the headmaster of the local school.  He tried to take us into that huge camp, which sprawls across a mountainside, but the officials he knew there were away that day.  Here's a picture I took from a post back in 2007.  They said 25,000 refugees from Myanmar were kept there.

This booth was set up by Vonnie whose company is Arts by Vonnie.  She has her own unique Alaska cards that she designs.  Vonnie's got cards with a number of different styles as well as stand alone prints.  The website reveals a lot of interesting pieces and also a woman who's involved in important social issues, like projects at Hiland Correctional Center and the Let Us Dream project - for which she did clever portraits of the various participants.  I recognized EJR David as soon as I opened that page.  

The vendor at this booth sold us some great kale and some baked goods.  She's from Somalia and ok'd a photo of the table, but not of herself.  

Another vendor was from Bhutan and I got a jar of rhubarb-raspberry jelly from an Alaska Native woman.  

Here are some  posts from 2018 and2019 that feature the market.  And yes, by September there are a lot more fresh vegetables for sale.  

There's also a great playground here for the kids.  

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.