Roger O Green

The Big Myth: climate change; djt

djt should want a speedy trial, right?

Hank Green said, I Can’t Stop Thinking that People Who Deny Climate Change are Lying.

It’s more insidious than that, I believe. Last week, I attended a book review of The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government & Love the Free Market by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway.

The description: “In the early 20th century, business elites, trade associations, wealthy powerbrokers, and media allies set out to build a new American orthodoxy: down with “big government” and up with unfettered markets. With startling archival evidence, Oreskes and Conway document campaigns to rewrite textbooks, combat unions, and defend child labor. “

On ABC News’ This Week for September 3, 2023, meteorologist Ginger Zee describes “how rhetoric around climate change science became so polarizing.” George HW Bush (41) went to Rio de Janeiro to support the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. His son, George W. Bush (43), waffled, listening to voices such as talk show giant Rush Limbaugh, who claimed he could find as many scientists on each side of the global warming “debate.”

Yes, but

While running for President in 2000, W said, “Global warming needs to be taken very seriously… But science, there’s a lot of — there’s differing opinions.” His Vice-President suggested, “there does not appear to be a consensus… as the extent to which as part of a normal cycle versus the extent to which it’s caused by man.”

Pollster Frank Luntz advised Republicans in a memo that climate change was “not a winning issue for the party in the early 2000s” and that they lean into the “lack of scientific certainty.” It’s advice he’s now backed away from.

Were W and Cheney telling the truth about their beliefs?

I think it’s weird that Vivek Ramaswamy, the youngest of the candidates at the first Republican debate of 2023, said, “The climate change is a hoax… Drill, frack, burn coal, and brace nuclear.” Most younger adults accept human-created global warming as settled science.

Was Ramaswamy telling the truth about his beliefs?

The Big Lie

Similarly, most of the sycophants running against djt for President committed to voting for him even if he is convicted in one of these felony trials. Some would even pardon him.

As a poli sci guy, I’m fascinated that “two conservative law professors [are] suggesting that President Trump should be disqualified under Section Three of the 14th Amendment, which bars anyone from office who participated in insurrection or gave aid and comfort to enemies of the Constitution from being on the ballot.” It’s something that will be hashed out in the courts, of course.

The Weekly Sift guy indicates What an innocent Trump should do. “Trump’s people are saying the charges against him are bogus, that it’s all politics waged by overzealous partisan prosecutors. It’s election interference whose purpose is to promote slanders against Trump during the campaign…

“But if that’s what’s going on, then Trump’s lawyers should be chomping at the bit to get into a courtroom, where they can tell the real story, introduce the “complete” and “irrefutable” evidence that clears Trump…”

Vindication?

“So if all Trump’s indictments are nothing but weaponization of the justice system, that’s what he should want: Bring in 12 ordinary Americans who are not part of the vast Biden conspiracy, let them examine all the evidence, and then see what they think. In particular, Trump should want to get as many vindicating verdicts as possible on the record before the election so that voters could put aside all doubts about his guilt…

“But if you look at what Trump, his lawyers, and his cultists are doing, they seem scared to death of him facing a jury. His legal strategy revolves around endless delay…”

So, the defense of the major player in the government for four years is leaning into the Loathe the Government sentiment. It’s brilliant, if bizarre.

1972: fighting against the war

Wading through the diary, my friends, the Okie, and I were involved in various activities fighting against the war in Vietnam. Some of the references are oblique, I acknowledge.

M 2 Oct: Listen in on Barry’s Guerrilla Theatre Committee. This one guy kept pressing Barry on whether he killed people or not. [I take it that Barry was a Vietnam Vet against the war. The others in the room were upset with this inquisition.]

W 4 Oct: Organizing an action against Ed Nixon, Richard’s brother, who was coming to town. About 60 people were at a meeting in Gage Hall planning activities, creating posters, and doing publicity for the action.

F 6 Oct: A group of us, including Michael [with whom I had gotten arrested in May 1972], went to the Poughkeepsie police station and told an assistant to the chief that we would have a protest the following week. We didn’t think we needed permission, but we received it anyway.

M 9 Oct: Richard Nixon said four years ago on this date, “Those who could have had a chance for four years and could not produce peace should not be given another chance.” – Santa Monica, CA, 1968.

Ed Nixon was at a Poughkeepsie restaurant eating with some fur coat-wearing admirers of his brother. Some students from Vassar and Bard protested there. Most of the protesters were kitty-corner from the Nixon re-election headquarters. We were handing out anti-RMN literature. One woman took the piece I handed her and tore it up into a dozen pieces, exclaiming, “How could you do this to this to that man?”

Ed Nixon was surrounded by four or five Secret Service agents as someone from our group presented him with a letter.

Syracuse

I hitchhiked to Binghamton on Friday, October 13, stayed with my parents, and saw some friends.

M 16 Oct: My mom took me to the Binghamton draft board. A bunch of us took a bus up to Syracuse. Got “oriented,” filled out a form regarding crimes and political activities, had a mental test, and received a physical (ears, eyes, back, X-ray, urine sample, blood sample, eye test, and hearing test).

Fill out Form 98, the Moral Waivers document, in triplicate, plus another form. Went back to Binghamton. The next day, I hitched back to New Paltz.

Tu 31 Oct: letter from my draft board: “undetermined status.”

Election

Th 2 Nov: attend McGovern rally. Pete Seeger sings Lincoln Jefferson, Last Train to Nuremberg. Carol Langley (ex-New Paltz student) sings: The Real American Man, Lullabye (Medgar Evers), another song. Fred Sternam (Drew U) sings The Ballad of Spiro Agnew, wiretap the Election, We’ve Got to Get Together. Brother Kirkpatrick, the MC sang Stop the Fires of Napalm and Death Don’t Have No Mercy. Seeger: Wimowek, We Shall Overcome.

I signed up to poll watch from 9 am-noon on Election Day.

F 3 Nov: my friend Mark and I distributed McGovern literature in Woodstock. A dog nipped Mark in the leg.

M 6 Nov: Making calls for McGovern to Democrats with mixed results.

Tu 7 Nov: By the time I had gotten to New Paltz from Kingston, c 7:30 pm, the media had already called the election for Nixon, 322 electoral votes so far) to 17. He’d eventually get 521, including New York, which depressed me. 14 women and 16 black people in Congress.

I watched speeches by Shriver, McG, Agnew, and Nixon. The latter said, “It’s only a victory if succeeding generations look back at the 1970s and say, ‘God Bless America.'”

Sa 18 Nov: Went to an antiwar rally with others from college. Later, I watched the John Wayne movie The Green Berets.

And a whole lot more

There is a lot more detail in the diary, most notably that the Okie and I moved from the roach-infected apartment in Kingston, where we stayed only eight weeks, to the much nicer place at 34 D Colonial Arms in New Paltz at the end of November.

Also, I did more antiwar activities, attended my classes, hung out with my friends, read comic books, and negotiated life with the Okie.

Ultimately, I’d like to get through 1973 before 2024.

Spectrum cable $15 rebate

a “reckoning”

Reading the article Disney vs. Charter Spectrum: The Sticking Points, Where Things Stand, and More in The Hollywood Reporter for September 4, one item jumped out at me.

“Is Charter Spectrum giving customers rebates? Yes, Charter Spectrum is offering customers who call customer service a $15 rebate. If the dispute drags on, it is possible” that the offer will expand.

Hey, I still have Spectrum Cable. Unlike most of the other carriage disputes between cable providers and carriers, this one affected me. I planned to watch at least some of the US Open tennis tournament broadcast on the ESPN networks over the Labor Day weekend.

When I called Customer Service first thing Tuesday morning, I had a 12-minute wait. The first person I talked with had no idea what I was talking about. I was transferred to billing, which took another 14 minutes.

NOW I’m at the right place. After verifying my information, she activated the $15 rebate plus a $5 rebate for the next six months, which they added because they had just raised their rates by about $8. But it won’t affect my August 23 bill, but rather the following one.

Go somewhere else!

Per the article: “In an unprecedented move, Charter [Spectrum] is telling some customers to consider Fubo, the sports-centric vMVPD, and is offering a discounted rate for three months (yes, the cable company is giving its customers an offer to cancel their TV service).”

In my experience, this was correct! The billing person sent me an email. The last line: “For more information about the situation and to see what options are available, visit disneyespnfairdeal.com.” The link eventually directs me to two tiers of Fubo with a Spectrum discount. Alternatively, “Stream with another provider such as Sling or YouTube TV.”

I’m going to have to consider the options seriously. My phone/Internet/cable services are bundled. Currently, the phone service is reasonable, but the phone is high, and the cable is expensive. I could get the phone and Internet service for less from Verizon.

I don’t know if Fubo would work on my “old” (2015) television. The other issue involves getting a DVR, if that’s an option, because I hate watching live TV.

Less than a month ago, TechCrunch noted: “Linear TV viewing [cable and broadcast usage] sinks below 50% as streaming soars to new heights.”

THR quotes MoffettNathanson analysts Michael Nathanson and Craig Moffett: “‘The stark reality is the media and distribution landscape has been building up to this moment for many years. Each media company owns some of the blame…’ Wells Fargo analyst Steven Cahall calls the [Disney/Charter Spectrum] dispute a ‘reckoning’ for the media business.” Is this “the end of the end?”

Movie review: Golda

Henry Purcell

Right after we got home from church, my wife said we had to go NOW if we were celebrating National Cinema Day with $4 tickets. I didn’t know that she’d selected a movie to see at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany.

I knew nothing about the film Golda, except that it was about the late Israeli prime minister and starred Helen Mirren.

After a cursory history of Israel (formed in 1948 and fought the Six-Day War in 1967), we heard a discussion among Israel’s military leaders about what turned out to be the Yom Kippur War of 1973. There were disagreements about strategies in anticipation of Egyptian and Syrian military buildups; a preemptive strike by Israel would have been unacceptable to the US leadership of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger.

What I learned in the film is that Golda Meir smoked cigarettes. She smoked a LOT of cigarettes. Smoking cigarettes was hazardous to her health.

Meanwhile, the battles far from Tel Aviv seemed at arm’s length, hearing about defeats and victories via audio transmissions.

I was not engaged in the film until about halfway through when Henry Kissinger (Liev Schreiber) arrived. There’s subsequently a good scene with multiple phones and a few others. But it was too little, too late.

Wanted more

Golda Meir, the person, is intriguing; she was born in Kiev/Kyiv in 1898, immigrated with her family to Milwaukee, and then emigrated to Palestine with her husband in 1921. She became the first female head of government in the Middle East.

Golda, the movie, is, according to critic Todd Jorgenson of Cinemalogueone” “.. .uninvolving as a political thriller and incomplete as a recap of Golda’s background and rise to power. It remains emotionally detached while struggling to penetrate her steely gaze.” I’ll buy that. It was 51% positive with the critics, though 89% with the audience on Rotten Tomatoes.

Music

One thing I loved was the outro music. It was from Henry Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas, specifically Dido’s Lament from the aria “When I am laid in earth.” Conductor Leopold Stokowski wrote a transcription of the piece for the symphony orchestra.

Here’s a version conducted by Stokowski. The video has too much background hiss, but I love that the conductor announces that it’s a piece “we all know.”

Listen to a version from the 1995 Proms, conducted by Andrew Davis.

One last thing: to the woman whose cellphone rang at least four times during the film- Grawlix.

Willingness to strike

Labor Day 2023

I am always heartened to see labor succeed in what I perceive to be a hostile environment. In the Truthout story from early August 2023, UPS Workers Disproved Corporate Media’s Narrative That Strikes Are Harmful. The subhead: It was UPS workers’ willingness to strike — not corporate kindness — that earned them a new tentative agreement.

The story speaks not just to the particular negotiations but the issues that labor everywhere in the USA confronts. “One thing seems undeniable: Any significant gains won by Teamsters against a reluctant employer will have come about because rank-and-file workers showed the company that they were prepared to strike…

“But you wouldn’t know this if you only paid attention to the corporate media’s reporting, which has mostly contained doomsday scenarios on the potential strike that mimic the boss’s talking points. From CNN to The New York Times, from Fox News to MSNBC, the refrains have been constant: UPS workers will disrupt the economy by striking. What if a strike causes a recession? UPS Teamsters already have it pretty good. A strike will hurt the company and benefit competitors. What about the consumers!?…

“Moreover, the corporate media’s criticism of strikes are not uniquely applied to UPS drivers. They’re deployed whenever workers threaten to strike. Teachers, nurses, railroad workers, screenwriters: they’ve all faced these attacks.”

Indeed, “What about the patients?” or “What about the children?” has been the mantra, not just of management but the news coverage. I have heard it often. To which the nurses rightly push back, “What about patient care when nurses are overextended?” Educators ask, “How can teachers teach when they need to work a second job to make ends meet and still take money out of their pockets for school supplies?”

Fair deal

“More than half of UPS’s workers are part-time. Some currently earn as little as $15.50 per hour. In 2022, thousands of part-timers saw their wages slashed, even as the company took in record profits. According to the statement released by the union, the new agreement includes a wage increase of $2.75 more per hour in 2023 and $7.50 per hour over the length of the five-year contract for existing part-time (and full-time) workers…

“Meanwhile, UPS CEO Carol Tomé raked in over $45 million in total compensation in 2021 and 2022. She holds 33,076 shares in UPS stock, worth over $6 million. In 2021, UPS’s CEO-to-worker pay ratio was 548-to-1, meaning a UPS worker making the median wage at the company would have to work well over half a thousand years to earn as much as Tomé.”

From Market Business News (MBN), “According to Glassdoor.com, a job search website, the CEO-to-worker wage ratio in the USA in 2015 was 204:1. In other words, the average CEO pay was 204 times the average worker pay. CEO pay averaged $13.8 million per year, while that of workers was $77,800.”

As recently noted, “The phenomenon of firms with overpaid CEOs and employees is not new.” The ratio should be closer to 20 to 1, lest managers experience “resentment and falling morale.”

DOL

I’m a bit of a labor nerd. I get notices from the US Department of Labor. I received these on August 3.

Department of Labor recovers $350K in back wages, damages after finding Spokane-based supermarket chain denied 602 workers overtime pay.

US Department of Labor obtains judgment ordering Indiana home care agency to pay $188K in back wages, damages to 83 workers denied overtime.

Federal court sentences South Carolina labor contractor, operators after investigation finds fraud, labor trafficking, abuses of farmworkers – This after “a U.S. Department of Labor and multi-agency investigation found the employers subjected migrant farmworkers to exploitative labor, confiscated passports and housed workers in unsafe and unhealthy conditions.”

Federal inspectors again find ergonomic hazards and inadequate medical care exposing Amazon fulfillment center employees to safety and health risks.

These are just a few examples of the government doing good for its workers rather than management.