Columns
Smithereens: Reflections on Bits & Pieces
Teachable Moments at Trader Joe's
Berkeley's TJ outlet is always adding small artistic updates to its walls and columns. Sometimes an entire aisle is dedicated to a respected celebrity. This week I noticed that one of the shopping aisles boasts a new street sign named after Notorious RBG. The column now bears the title: "Ruth Ginsberg Ct." (And that's "Ct" as in "US Supreme.")
The shelves at the Berkeley Joe's also offer hidden tutorials in the form of hand-drawn snippets dealing with history, food, and culture. A recent example (sharing space with the posted prices for various bags of noodles) included a surprising historical correction. It read: "Though Marco Polo sometimes gets credit for bringing the first noodles from China to Italy, trade between the two countries was already centuries old."
Exceptionally Rogue
World Beyond War founder and prolific author David Swanson recently hosted a mini-webinar on US militarism. It contained some stunning stats, including: Since the end of WWII, the Pentagon "has killed or helped kill some 20 million people, overthrown at least 36 governments, interfered in at least 85 foreign elections, attempted to assassinate over 50 foreign leaders, and dropped bombs on people in over 30 countries. The US is responsible for the deaths of 5 million people in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and over 1 million just since 2003 in Iraq."
More dreadful data: 95% of all foreign military bases are US bases; 50% of all military spending worldwide is US spending; The US is the world's biggest arms dealer and supplies weapons to some of the world's most oppressive regimes (including Saudi Arabia and The Philippines).
If you think Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion CARES Act is expensive, consider that the Pentagon gets even more money to spend despite a long record of waste, corruption, and unaudited extravagance.
And finally, Swanson askes: If wars are "inevitable" and "necessary," why are they repeatedly based on excuses that turn out to be lies?
Diagnosing a Weakened Earth
Every Sunday, the SF Chronicle's "weather page" features a weekly column called "Earthweek: A Diary of the Planet," in which Steve Newman reviews seven days worth of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and random (and oft-times bizarre) disruptions to the biosphere. In the edition that appeared on March 21, Earthweek cited an outbreak of "seismic sinkholes" in Croatia, a potentially explosive "lava lake" building up steam in the Congo, the earliest appearance of cherry blossoms in Japan's history (linked to global warming), a blinding sandstorm that stretched from Mongolia to China and exposed millions to deadly dust that was 150 times higher than the health limits set by the World Health Organization. But the most wrenching item came from Australia where a native songbird known as the Regent Honeyeater "is slowly fading into extinction as it loses its mating song crucial for its survival." The young birds are imperiled because the parent birds are disappearing before they can pass on their mating tunes. A lead researcher's stark observation: "This lack of ability to communicate with their own species is unprecedented in a wild animal."
The Fantastic Prize that Never Arrives
The folks behind the Publishers Clearinghouse (PCH) Sweepstakes dollarpalooza are starting to look like scam artists who, once contacted, never let you go. Back on September 10, 2020, I received an unsolicited "Search Notice Advisory" letter from PCH notifying me that I had been chosen as part of a "nationwide search area for a prize authorized to be awarded soon."
The award—"$1,000 A Day For Life"—was supposed to announced at an "October 31, 2020 Prize Event." There was no further mention of the October prize drawing. Instead, 2020 ended with the arrival of a new, coupon-stuffed PCH envelope containing a letter that declared "Prize Award Authorized for December 18, 2020."
Instead of the promised December announcement, another large envelope (containing an "Important Notice") arrived on January 8, 2021. The mailing advised "a notice you'll receive from us in just two days will include a very important official entry form that could make you the winner of the February 28th prize award that pays $5,000 A Week 'Forever'!"
On February 5, an "Official Dispatch" from the PCH "Department of Content Dispatch," arrived containing an "Imminent Winner Selection" notice that promised the February 28 winner would be "awarded real soon."
February 28 came and went without a peep from PCH.
Finally, in mid-March, another fat envelope labeled "Imminent Winner Selection" arrived to announce "you cannot win from this Notice" without undertaking a "Final Step" to gain "Compliance" to be "eligible" to be "selected" to win "fabulous prizes."
There were two notable updates: the Sweepstakes Award was now upgraded to "$7,000 a week for life" and the "Prize Event" was now set to happen on April 30. Not a word about the ballyhooed February 28 whoop-dee-doo.
As per usual, the oversized PCH packet was stuffed with scores of coupons advertising items that could be purchased in "five payments each."
The items that caught my eye in the latest mailing included: a collection of 100-year-old Silver Barber Dimes (1892-1916; 90% silver); a Solar Powered Crucifix Garden Stake; a pair of "copper-infused, odor-resistant" Compression Socks designed to release "motion-activated menthol … into the sock" and; a 4 fl. Oz, bottle of Coyote Urine to repel skunks, deer, rats, groundhogs, voles "and more." The pictured bottle carried a label that advised the product could protect a 16-foot radius and was effective in "triggering the Flight or Fight Response in Small Animals."
(The coupon didn't explain how to respond if the coyote pee triggered a Fight Response, causing the local chipmunks to go ballistic on your begonias.)
Could Body Heat Heal the Planet?
I just uncovered a 2013 press release about a 15-year-old Canadian girl who was honored by the Google Science Fair for inventing a revolutionary flashlight powered entirely from the warmth of a human hand.
Ann Makosinski was troubled by the millions of single-use chemical batteries that go dead and get trashed every year. She knew that a device called a "Peltier tile" could turn a heat-differential into electric current. (Researchers had already begun exploring the use of human body heat to generate electricity to power entire buildings.)
Given that a warm hand can produce around 57 milliwatts of electric power, Makosinsky designed a "thermoelectric flashlight" that operates on as little as half-a-milliwatt. She picked up some used Peltier tiles on Ebay and went to work. Since the output of the tiles increases depending on temperature differences, Makosinsky created an LED light that was hollow in the middle, allowing cool air to rub up against the hand-held exterior. The cooler the ambient air, the better the flashlight works, making the invention perfect for evening and nighttime use. In the following video, Makosinski demonstrates how well her invention performs—even at standard classroom temperature.
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So what became of this breakthrough invention? A Google search reveals that the last mention of Makosinski's "fleshlight" dates from 2014. A search of similar products currently on the market comes up empty. There are battery-free flashlights that are crankable and magnet-shakable but nothing with the convenience and performance matching Makosinski's marvel. On the other hand (so to speak), there are several flip-the-idea products on the market that use non-reusable batteries to heat plastic handwarmers!
The history of invention is filled with examples of powerful, entrenched businesses conspiring to suppress competing inventions to assure they never reach the market. Could it be that Duracel and Rayovac conspired to pull the plug on Makosinski's revolutionary green-tech alternative?
You Think the USPS Is Underfunded? Check Out the IRS!
Public Citizen president Robert Weissman is back with another stunning critique about "the way Washington works." This time, Weissman is raging about "some infuriating new government data" that will rankle just about anyone who's not a millionaire. He writes:
"In 2012—not even a decade ago—the IRS audited most major American corporations but by last year, not even 4 out of every 10 corporate giants were audited. And audits of millionaires dropped 72% during the same time span.
In fact, audits of millionaires—who are disproportionately white—dropped off way more than audits of working people claiming a tax credit meant to help low-income Americans—who are disproportionately people of color."
And why is this? Well, you could take a cue from Trump-flunky Louis DeJoy's reign as head of the US Postal Service. (DeJoy has just announced a "10-year plan" that will increase postal fees while cutting staff, reducing hours, slowing service, and curtailing airmail delivery.)
"In recent years," Weissman explains, "the IRS’s budget and staffing has plummeted—down 15% just from 2014 to 2019—so the agency can’t do as much auditing as it once did.
"The IRS is using its diminishing resources to target working people while the super-rich and giant corporations get away with tax evasion on a colossal scale—to the tune of literally hundreds of billions of dollars every year!"
This being Public Citizen, there's an action petition that's ready to sign. And here's the link.
ACTION: Tell Congress to fully fund the IRS so it can make sure billionaires and Big Business pay what they owe. The IRS must be given the funding it needs to audit the super-rich and giant corporations and to crack down on widespread tax evasion.
And, Speaking of Billionaires…
Since the dawn of the Year of COVID, US billionaires have become $1.3 trillion richer—and another 46 well-endowed American millionaires actually graduated to billionaire status over the past year. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of American families were losing jobs, healthcare, and housing due to the spreading contagion.
In response, House Squadron member Rep. Pramila Jayapal has joined forces with Senator Elizabeth Warren to "level the paying field" by passing an Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act. The UMTA would apply an annual 2-3% wealth tax on the richest Americans and redirect trillions of dollars to serve the survival needs of America's majority. And, yes, there's a petition for that!
"Agenda Framing" in the Aftermath of Tragedy
Many organizations responded quickly and strongly to the horrific Atlanta killing spree that took the lives of eight people, calling for a National Day of Action on March 27 under the banner: "We Stand Against Anti-Asian Violence White Supremacy."
But there was something about the response that raises concern. While eight people were killed, the political response focused on the six Asian women who were slain. When only some victims are recognized—on the basis of gender, ethnicity, politics, religion, or whatever—this serves to place an "agenda frame" around a tragedy, creating a narrowed focus that places the spotlight on some victims but leaves others in the shadows.
A similar "agenda frame" was imposed in the aftermath of the January 6 Capitol Insurrection. The media consistently reports that five people died during the rioting but the only one victim is named—Capitol police officer Brian SIcknick, the only one of the five who died at the hands of Capitol attackers. Three other unnamed officers committed suicide (for unexplained reasons) while the fifth barely-mentioned fatality was Ashli Babbit, an unarmed 12-year Air Force veteran who was shot and killed by Capitol security guards trying to prevent the storming of the House Chambers.
The Atlanta Killings: The Nexus of Religion and Sex
In the Atlanta spa-shooting tragedy, what all eight victims had in common was that they all were engaged in the operation of local massage spas—a fact that aligned with the shooters' "sex addiction" excuse.
As Judith Levine noted in an article posted by The Intercept, the accused killer, Robert Aaron Long was a fundamentalist Christian who hated the fact that he was addicted to porn and paid sex. Instead of acting out of hatred of Asian Americans, Long apparently turned to violence because he hated himself for being sexually attracted to Asian women.
Referencing the foreign policy of the Trump administration and early echoes of sino-phobia from the Biden Bunch, CODEPINK warns that the rising incidence of Asian-targeted attacks "are a direct result of US foreign policy that included bipartisan aggression towards China." The xenophobia that CODEPINK references predates current US-China competition. It goes back to the WWII recruiting poster depictions of "Demon Japs" and, before that, to the "Yellow Peril" memes of the 19th Century.
One issue that remains to be explored in this tragedy is the American system of employment discrimination that assigns certain racial and ethnic minorities to positions in the "sub-economy"—where women frequently find themselves forced into low-rung work as housekeepers, nannies, homecare workers, nail parlor attendants, and masseuses. Despite the attacker's claim that he was motivated by "sex addiction," the press has shown little interest in exploring the issue of Asian women forced to become masseuses and sex workers in order to survive in The Land of the Free.
This Just In
In the wake of the latest mass-shooter-super-spreader event, the New York Times undertook an investigation to find an answer to the question: "Why Does the US Have So Many Mass Shootings?" After a deep dig into existing records, stats, studies, and research, the NYT announced their conclusion: "Research Is Clear. Guns."
And it's not that there is more crime in the US, there's just more gunfire. As the Times explained: "A New Yorker is just as likely to be robbed as a Londoner … but the New Yorker is 54 times more likely to be killed in the process."
One of the Times' findings was that, while the US represents only 4.4 percent of the world's people, American citizens possess 42 percent of the planet's guns.
For Pete's Sake!
It's been great to hear Pete Seeger singing "Hard Times in the Mill" on TV recently but kinda shocking to hear this revolutionary balladeer's voice conscripted to serve as the soundtrack for a 30-second TV car commercial. Granted the product was a Volvo XC80 Rechargeable Plug-in Hybrid, but still….
Here's the rarely broadcast minute-long version of Volvo's ad.
At least Pete's background soundtrack was more palatable than Bob Dylan's pandering and self-promoting ads for Cadillac (2007), and Chrysler (2014).
