Hypocrisy

I posted a long screed calling out the hypocrisy in homophobia. I had one individual who took offense at that, which to my mind likely indicates that they are homophobic. Much of my screen was based on my understanding of the Tanakh (the Old Testament to Christians) which I’ve read several times. Rather than trying to refute my assertions, they lashed out, claiming I was distorting or misrepresenting what was there, and eventually even indulging in name calling. I guess that should not be too surprising. People with rigid ideologies react very badly to any challenge to their beliefs.

Let’s take this from the top. First there are many things in the Tanakh which are called abominations. These things were not meant to consign one to eternal damnation, but meant one was ritualistically unclean. That meant one should not pray in the Temple in Jerusalem until going through a ritual cleansing. Yet to fundamentalist Christians a very few of those are thought to be the gravest of sins. At the same time, they quite ignore many other things which were called abominations.

So what is the Tanakh trying to condemn? The prohibition against a man lying with a man, according to at least some rabbis was condemning ritual male temple prostitution. Other authorities say it was banning pederasty or the sexual exploitation of young men by older men. According to many authorities it was not meant to bar a loving mutual relationship between two people of the same gender. Further, there is nowhere in the Tanakh where it mentions lesbian relationships.

In the Christian New Testament, Saint Paul condemns all same sex relationships, but Paul was not Jesus. Though I don’t claim to be an expert on the New Testament, I’m not aware of Jesus saying anything about same sex relations. Still, much of Christian orthodoxy is based on the teachings of Paul, and not necessarily Jesus. To be fair, I’m Jewish and taking my guidance from liberal Jewish and Christian sources. Fundamentalist Christian and Orthodox Jewish sources are more likely to hew to what seems to me to be more homophobic interpretations. 

I’d actually be surprised if fundamentalists didn’t react badly to my views. There is a deep strain of homophobia in many followers of fundamentalism. They are unable and unwilling to accept any world views that differ from their own. Personally, I don’t care whether they like LGBT folks. My only concern is that they not be allowed to harm LGBT or pass laws discriminating against them. What you do in your house and believe in your heart is your problem, not mine. 

When I see people condemning same sex relations and then see shootings in gay bars, or the murder of gay or trans individuals, I have to think they are connected. If you don’t like gay relationships, don’t have one, but don’t harm those who believe otherwise.

This land was stolen

 I saw a meme saying "This land was stolen." I am sympathetic to the wrongs that were done to native Americans, and I know that over the centuries they were treated brutally at many times. 

In reading "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee", the atrocities committed by soldiers on the native Americans were as vile as anything I've ever read. 

Our family lore is that we have some native American ancestry, for what little that matters. 

Still, what happened here is nothing unique. All across Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas, there have been migrations and people pushed out of land that they had held for centuries. 

It has been going on for millennia and there is nothing unusual about what happened here. In England, the Celts had their land stolen by Angles, Saxons, Vikings, and Normans. 

That is true for almost every other part of the globe, as best I can tell.

BLM & Police Killings

I had someone tell me 'more white people are killed by police than black people'. In gross numbers, this is true. Almost twice as many white people are killed by police than are black people. The difference comes when you look at it proportionately. There are many more white people than black people.

Looking at statistics, for every million white people, 16 are killed by police. For every million black people, 40 are killed by police. That is the average over the period 2012 to 2019. That boils down to a black person being 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police than a white person.

They also mentioned the number of police officers shot to death in the line of duty. Well in 2021, there were 73 police offices shot to death in the line of duty, including those targeted because they were police. In comparison, there were 1,055 people shot to death by police officers. So there were about 14.4 people killed by police for every police officer shot and killed.

This is not to say that many of those killed by police were not justified. I'm sure many were, but certainly not all, or even nearly all.  The problem comes when we ignore all police killings and assume all were justified.

I think the majority of police are decent people trying to do their best. For those who aren't, we need to call them into account. That is too seldom done. Only very rarely are police charged for killing someone, even when the circumstances would justify charging them.

That, in a nutshell if what the BLM movement is about. And until we find and remove those police who abuse their power, we will have turmoil in this country. 

Divisiveness on the left

 The topic of abortion is getting very heated, and indeed it should. We have a stacked Supreme Court that seems set to reverse precedent to take away women's right to abortion. We need to put our voice and money to trying to make sure that doesn't happen.

Still, let's not be divisive within our own ranks. Had the 2016 election turned out differently, we would not face this dilemma today, but there are a variety of reasons why that happened. I've seen people blasting Bernie supporters  from 2016, blaming us for Hillary's loss. 

I voted for Bernie in the 2016 primaries and am in no way ashamed of it. I really preferred not to add yet another dynasty to our presidential politics, and I felt Bernie's positions more closely resembled my own.

When Hillary got the nomination, I voted for her in the general election, as did roughly 9 out of 10 Bernie supporters. We were not the reason she lost. She lost because of Russian influence, being savaged by Wikileaks, the electoral college, and taking certain states for granted.

Hillary was not my first choice, but then Biden was not my first or even second choice for the nomination. Still, I voted for both in the general election. 

They did some comparisons and found that in 2008, some 25% of Hillary voters in the primaries voted for McCain in the general election, but Obama won anyhow. Clearly more Bernie voters supported Hillary than that.

Let's not spend our efforts attacking each other, but work to defeat those who are working to take rights away from women and others.

Ukraine

 Interesting that a few short weeks ago, NATO was shaky, Biden was highly unpopular, and the GOP was loving Putin. 

With the invasion of Ukraine, NATO is now stronger than ever. Some of its members are greatly increasing their defense budgets, and some non-members are interested in joining. Much of the world has united against Russia, even countries that normally try to be neutral. 

Biden has become more popular, and most of the GOP is now anti-Putin. Putin was trying to shake the foundations of the western alliance, but instead has made them far stronger. 

Beyond that, the Russian army is struggling, while the Ukrainians are fighting harder than anyone would have expected. 

The Ukrainians are at a disadvantage, since the Russians have more and better weapons and since Russia has a far bigger army. Further, Putin has shown that he is more than willing to level entire sections of Ukraine and attack civilians. That however is almost certain to fuel an insurrection that will keep the conflict going even if the Ukrainian government falls.

It’s interesting that Putin has given conditions for ending the Russian incursion. Among them is that Ukraine remain neutral, rather than joining NATO, and that Ukraine cede Crimea to Russia. Putin may be looking for a way to gracefully end things without admitting defeat.

Russia published a list of countries hostile to it. Beyond the obvious of all the EU, plus the US, Japan, and others, they included such military, economic, and diplomatic powerhouses as Monaco, San Marino, and Liechtenstein. 

Many companies are shutting down operations in Russia, even though that will cost them money. The real shock was when Switzerland said they were freezing Russian accounts. The Swiss didn’t even try to shut down the Nazi accounts.

Now there are more Russians protesting the war in Ukraine than Americans protesting sanctions on Russia or weapons being funneled to Ukraine. Russian athletes were banned from the Paralympic Games. When the UN General Assembly voted on a censure of Russia over Ukraine, only five countries voted against it, including Russia, Belarus, and North Korea. 

It is a great tragedy for Ukraine and the Ukrainian people, but it seems that Putin may not get what he had hoped out of it.

My Stroke

 Over two years ago, I had a comparatively mild stroke. I realize now that in some ways I was stupid, lucky in other ways, and smart in a few. 

I didn't go to the hospital right away, which was stupid. In my defense, I didn't realize what had happened. In most cases, with a stroke, there is paralysis on one side of the body and/or slurring or speech. I had neither. What I had was a splitting headache, balance issues, and vision issues. It was only after some research I I realized what it might be, which was confirmed when I did go to the hospital.

I was lucky because, even though it was a hemorrhagic stroke, it was very mild. That type of stroke is far more likely to result in death. The fact that I'm writing this means I didn't die. I'm also lucky in that it didn't cause paralysis or speech problems. Oddly enough, I'm lucky because I ate something and got very ill and threw up all I ate. I'd been considering taking some ibuprofen for the headache, but that is a blood thinner, which could have exacerbated bleeding in the brain. Because I got ill, I decided against taking the ibuprofen, but that was also a bit smart. I was also lucky because it all happened pre-Covid so the hospital was not overwhelmed.

I was smart because I kept my head elevated, both immediately after and when I slept. That helped minimizing the bleeding and probably helped keep it from being any worse that it was. I was also smart in doing physical therapy to help improve my balance. 

In the immediate aftermath, I walked like a drunken sailor, and could not get both eyes to focus on the same thing. In the hospital they found that I could not move my eyes to look up or down. I could tilt my head, but not move my eyes that way. The CT scans and MRIs found evidence of the bleeding, but showed that the bleeding had stopped. They showed no evidence of aneurysms and I did not have high blood pressure, which is common with that condition. As best we could tell, I had banged my head, probably weakening the blood vessel. When I turned my head sharp and fast, it caused the blood vessel to rupture.

My balance is pretty much back to normal. I had some mild balance issues before that, and still take care. The vision in my right eye is terrible, and when I had an eye exam, they told me that correcting the right eye to normal would end up giving me double vision. Apart from that, my vision is almost normal again. I spent two days in the hospital, one in ICU, and one in a regular room. The only other times I was in a hospital were when I was born, and when I had my tonsils out as a child. 

What are the signs of a hemorrhagic stroke?

* Sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm or leg (especially on one side of the body)

* Sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding speech.

* Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes.

* Sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination.

* Sudden severe headache with no known cause.

Cost of Education

 When I started community college, full time tuition for a semester was $70. With minimum wage at $1.60 it took 44 hours of work to pay tuition for the term. 

Now the average tuition cost for a state college is $5,370 a semester and with a minimum wage of $7.25, that would take 740 hours of work to pay tuition for the term. 

That is outrageous. We need fewer expensive ships and planes and to put that money into education.

We are saddling students with debts that become almost impossible to pay off. We say we want an educated workforce, but we aren't willing to pay for it.

What is sad is when I see someone saying, 'I paid off my student loans, why should these people get a free ride?'

For this country to continue to be prosperous, we need to have people educated and healthy. Instead, we put the burden for these things on people who are in many cases least able to afford them.

It's time to put aside the mentality of 'I've got mine, screw you', and get everyone taken care of, not just the wealthy and the big corporations.

Do Not Call List

 The idea of the Do Not Call list is great, but with no real enforcement, it is effectively useless. 

It does not deter robo calls or spam calls in the slightest. 

I put my number on the Do Not Call list, which did nothing. I've reported the numbers and times of the calls, to no effect. I've talked to the people and told them not to call, but they still do. I unplugged the landline for a week, but it made no difference. I have picked up the calls without speaking, which didn't help. 

I've had ten such calls already today and it isn't even 12:30 yet.