Columns

Do Mosquitos Have a Political Bias?

During his time in office, TrumpleThinSkin did a lot to dismantle the good work of the Environmental Protection Agency. Now it looks like nature's getting even. New research reveals that pro-Trumpers are more likely to suffer from mosquito bites.

According to University of Washington biologists, biting insects attracted by the CO2 in human breath favor targets wearing black jeans, cyan shirts, orange bandanas, and MAGA-red caps. Research published in the journal, Nature, has some good news for environmentalists and healthcare workers—mosquitos were shown to steer away from humans wearing hospital-worker white, first-responder blue, Lady Gaga purple and Sierra Club green.

Some Options Aren't Optional

On Earth Day, Rep. Barbara Lee (my favorite congressmember) emailed an invitation to "Sign on as a citizen endorser of the Green New Deal." Lee has joined Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey in a campaign to rally "citizen endorsers" to "match the scale of the climate crisis with a bold, comprehensive plan to promote environmental justice." But the petition only called for an email address, a postal code ("optional") and a First Name (also "optional").

How can it be called a petition if it doesn't require the name of the person signing? 

Karmic Strips 

The Chronicle's daily "funnies" took a serious turn on April 26, when Wiley Miller's Non Sequitur showed four scythe-wielding horsemen at the Apocalypse Corral reading a letter from "some guy in Russia [who] wants to know if our membership is restricted to just four." 

Meanwhile, Earth Day went largely unnoted in the Chronicle's Sunday Comics. The pickings were quite grim, actually. 

One strip featured a couple of Earth-orbiting aliens looking at a "World Peace" pie chart that mocked the Peace Symbol while the anti-social kinder-star of Lio was seen donning police-state body armor, helmet and face-mask in preparation for boarding a school bus inhabited by a dozen classmates beating each other with fists and baseball bats. 

So it was a welcome relief to encounter Mutts, a sweetly humane and pet-centric strip that featured a full-panel depiction of nature—trees, hills, clouds and sky—with a quotation from His Holiness the Dalai Lama floating high overhead:
"Because we all share this planet Earth, we have to learn to live in harmony and peace with each other and with nature. This is not just a dream, but a necessity." 

Zooming into Linguistic Antiquity 

An email with a subject line reading "What's New at Zoom" announced the advent of "many exciting and useful features" that have been added to the platform in 2022. According to the script, the upgrades included "Common Criteria Certification, which is an international security standard. Learn more about this distinguishment from our press release." 

"Distinguishment"?" 

According to every online dictionary consulted, "distinguishment" is just another way of saying "distinguished"—except that it's an option that has been obsolete for decades. 

Knock-Knock-Knocking on Kevin's Door 

Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had a bad week. Even for a fibbing Trump toady, McCarthy's missteps would have made a bullfrog blush. First he denounced as a lie reports that he urged Donald Trump to resign. Then a tape recording surfaced in which McCarthy clearly vented his disgust with Trump, grumbling "I've had it with this guy." 

Safely back in California, McCarthy tried to regain political traction by appearing on a podium surrounded by the state GOP's new election-year signature: CAGOP.org. 

Fortuitously, this string of letters conjures a potentially inescapable "earworm" by which we can address our local Repubs. Maybe we can call these corrupted political cyborgs "Cagoporgs." 

Chronicle political scribe Joe Garofoli recently described the state's GOP (with a nod to "Winnie the Pooh" fans) as "long the nation's political Eeyors." Garofoli dnoted that "No Republicans have been elected to statewide office since 2006." 

As for the Cagoporg's attempts to blame Democrats (and not COVID, Big Oil, or the Pentagon) for the fact that inflation is at a "40-year high"? That doesn't wash, Garofoli notes, because that previous inflationary peak was hit when the president was Ronald Reagan. 

Fashion Plates 

It's nice to see evidence of someone who's comfortable with their lot and life. Like the driver of the car with a license plate reading: LAZYOAF. 

On the other end of the achievement spectrum, there's a contender driving around behind a plate that declares: QALFYING. 

The owner of a Celica has a plate that declares: SO STAY. The mystery of the meaning is cleared up by two lines of type on the plate's metal frame. They read: "I don't want to grow up" and "We can stay forever young." 

A blue Tesla is leaving fellow drivers with a puzzle thanks to the plate: F43ONO. Maybe it is an echo of the previous message but written by someone who's not ready to turn 30—as in "Grade 'F' for 30 Years. No!" 

Finally, a car spotted parked in North Berkeley bore a plate that read: AHEGATO. Since the plate was on a Subaru, I thought this might be a version of "arigato," which is Japanese for "thank you." But it's not. Besides, translating "arigato" into plate speech would give you "REGATO." Google couldn't find a Japanese translation for ahegato but found a near-match in "ahegao," which turns out to be a goofy form of Japanese porn that's trending on TikTok. 

The Reich-versus-Musk Twitter Feud 

Several weeks ago, Tesla mega-mogul Elon Musk was in the news for spending $2.64 billion to purchase nearly 10% of Twitter's stock. On April 24, Musk staged a historic take-over, purchasing the Twitterverse, lock, stock, and bare-all, for $44 billion. In that one fall swoop, Musk became the World's Biggest Twit. 

Musk has described himself as a "free-speech absolutist" who plans to ramp-up Twitter to become a First-and-last-Amendment bastion. But many are doubtful. 

Foremost among those standing tall to de-mask Musk's libertarian masquerade is UC Berkeley Economics Prof. Robert Reich, who recently posted an essay titled "Why Elon Musk Blocked Me on Twitter." 

Reich noted that Musk has complained to his 80 million Twitter followers that banning insurrectionist D. Trump from Twitter was an abuse of power and argued that Internet giants should never be allowed to act as "the de facto arbiters of free speech." 

Reich has reason to challenge Musk's protestations. Two years ago, when Reich posted a tweet about dangerous working conditions for workers at Musk's Tesla plant, Musk responded by blocking Reich from his Twitter account. 

"Seems like an odd move for someone who describes himself as a 'free speech absolutist,'" Reich writes. "Musk advocates free speech but, in reality, it's just about power." 

Here are some recent Reich rants that Musk's minions were prevented from ever seeing on Twitter: 

• "So let me get this straight: Elon Musk made $159 million by violating securities law, and he was rewarded with a seat on Twitter's board?" 

• "In 2018, [Musk] allegedly misled investors for tweeting that he had enough funding to take Tesla private. He paid a $20 million fine—equivalent to some loose chance for a man worth over $250 billion." 

• "Tesla forced all workers to take a 10 percent pay cut from mid-April until July. In the same period, Tesla stock skyrocketed and CEO Elon Musk's net worth quadrupled from $25 billion to over $100 billion." 

• "Modern-day robber baron Elon Musk increased his wealth by $6 billion in one day last week. Meanwhile, our tax code enabled him to pay zero federal income taxes in 2018." 

• "Elon Musk became the second-richest person in the world after illegally threatening to take away stock options if employees unionized and firing staff after telling them they could take unpaid time off. I'll say it again: Musk is a modern-day robber baron." 

Taking Stock of Capital Hill's "Insider Trading" 

Public Citizen wants to make it illegal for Washington's elected representatives to invest in stocks—especially when they cast votes that can increase the value of their personal investmants. "Members of Congress [should be] public servants, not day traders," says Public Citizen's Robert Weissman. He gives some examples: 

• Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY) invested thousands in cannabis industry stocks and three months later presided over the Budget Committee's vote to decriminalize marijuanca—a piece of legislation that Yarmuth cosponsored. 

• Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK) has hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in Lockheed and Raytheon and now chairs the Republican Budget and Spending Task Force, which is calling for a $22 billion hike in Pentagon spending. 

• Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)—who has a net worth of $1.5 million—invested in Chevron and Lockheed Martin stocks one day before Russia's invasion of Ukraine. As Greene subsequently tweeted: “War and rumors of war is [sic] incredibly profitable and convenient.” 

Public Citizen would like to put an end to insider stock trading by the nation's lawmakers by urging voters "to swamp their offices with phone calls, emails, letters and petitions." 

Activists on Six Continents Link to #StopLockheedMartin  

On April 21, the same day Lockheed Martin held its annual general meeting, a global campaign was launched to condemn the company for its role as the world's largest arms maker. While few entities have cause to celebrate the monstrous war in Ukraine, Lockheed has seen its share price soar by 20% in the weeks following Russia's invasion. 

Lockheed pulls in $65 billion in annual profits and arms more than 50 countries—including some of the world's most oppressive dictatorships. As the mobilization notes: "From Ukraine to Yemen, from Palestine to Colombia, from Somalia to Syria, from Afghanistan to West Papua, no one profits more from war and bloodshed than Lockheed Martin." 

In response, more than a hundred groups on six continents organized a Global Mobilization to #StopLockheedMartin. 

David Swanson, the Executive Director of World BEYOND War, joined activists from CODEPINK, Maryland Peace Action, MilitaryPoisons.org, and Veterans For Peace at a protest event outside Lockheed's Annual Meeting in Bethesda, Maryland. Swanson noted: "They have so much money they can put up war memorials everywhere—as long as no one remembers what shame is. While we were there, we saw an armored bank car drive into the Lockheed Martin headquarters." 

More Gas-lighting for the Oil-igarchy 

The Sierra Club is seeing red because the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has de-greened oversight of gas pipeline and export terminal permits, thereby damaging both climate and nearby communities while benefiting the fossil fuel industry. 

FERC knows that it needs to do better with its Pipeline Certification and Greenhouse Gas Emissions policies but seems to fear carbon-addicted oligarchs more than a carbon-fueled Apocalypse. 

Every time a federal watchdog cow-tows to a polluting industry, it sends a wounding message to our country's downstream communities. In this case, it tells us "You don't give a FERC." 

Spelling Out Solutions in Federal Legislation 

Some days it seems you can't get legislation passed in Washington without generating a catchy acronym. Case in point: Food and Water Watch recently referenced the untreaed tap water that poisoned thousands in Flint, Michigan eight years ago. (Lead leaching from the system’s decrepit pipes sickened Flint's children and at least a dozen residents died.) 

"We need real, permanent federal investment in our water and wastewater infrastructure to prioritize community safety and promote climate resilience," F&WW writes. And that means urging elected leaders to pass the Water Affordability, Transparency, Equity and Reliability Act (aka the WATER Act). Click here to support the WATER Act! 

A Bandolier of Mil-Speak 

Militarized grammar seems to have an unbreakable lock on US English. A group called VoteVets offers a recent example in a fund-raising letter that aims to "Defeat Trumpism," "Expand Democratic Majorities" and "Advance Progressive Values." [Italics added.] VV hails itself as the "Most Potent 'Secret Weapon' in the Progressive Arsenal!" and promises to "combat disinformation," "deploy Operation Voter Storm to target vets," and ready to apply "force" "on the ground" to "win victories" in the November elections. VV has deployed a regiment of political foot-soldiers, many of whom are already embedded in Washington's trenches. In the November election, VV is promoting the campaigns of no less than 32 former military and intelligence veterans. 

A Sentence to Chisel in Stone 

The Economic Policy Institute will be hosting an online discussion with Robert Kuttner, the co-editor of The American Prospect and author of a new book, Going Big: FDR’s Legacy, Biden’s New Deal, and the Struggle to Save Democracy.  

As Kuttner writes:
“Joe Biden’s presidency will be either a historic pivot back to New Deal economics and forward to energized democracy, or a heartbreaking interregnum between two bouts of deepening American fascism. We are facing the most momentous threat to the American republic since the Civil War.”  

You can register for the May 3, 11:00–12:00 a.m. live-cast by clicking here.