Month: November 2018

The Rise of Willful Ignorance

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This is the third in a series of posts that discuss in more detail what I perceive to be threats to humanity today. It expands upon the discussion started in my original post that covered seven different risks. It concerns the rise of willful ignorance. This is a disease that may yet cause the extinction of the human race. We can see the effects when the government of a nation consists of individuals who are proud to admit that they are disregarding all scientific evidence, since after all, the scientists have their political agendas that just may show that the preferred action to avoid tragedy will cost a favored political ally some money. And we can’t have that. The recent superb book, The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis, shows what risks are increased if an administration takes over the reins of power of our complex government without any interest in the functions of the government agencies they now administer. Not only do they not have interest, they exhibit no curiosity as to what might happen if the risks they are supposedly managing actually bear fruit. They actively campaign to reverse the work undertaken during previous administrations aimed at reducing risk, like when they proposed spending 20% less on global nuclear materials security in a recent budget proposal.

We as a civilization have created an extremely complex network of interdependencies. We have managed to limit risk to our population through the process of regulations, and through the transparency of government actions. Unfortunately, the mindset of many currently serving in government is that all regulation is wrong, and we must hide the truth from the citizens of our nation so that the increased risk we are taking does not become evident to our citizenry.

Part of what has led to this attitude came from those in the nation who reject all claims of knowledge by experts. Just because someone has dedicated their life to the pursuit of knowledge, whether within a government agency, or at a university, why should we believe that they know more about a subject that we do? We don’t need no steenkin’ math or science, do we? If we can’t learn all we need to know with a 5-minute perusal of the internet, then the subject has been made too complex and anyone’s opinion is just as good as anyone else’s. Thus we have government spokespeople coming out in support of alternate facts. We have conspiracy theories for beliefs that are easily disproven by an examination of the facts, but of course, those facts were reported by the main street media and they are biased and since they are saying that these are facts, we must believe the opposite.

This type of belief system is self-reinforcing. Psychologically, it is very comforting to enshroud yourself in a mantle of community, where all believe the same thing and are able to reinforce that belief through daily interactions. It is known as an echo chamber. The internet has played a huge role in allowing these communities to develop, and those who belong to these communities are nigh unto impossible to convince that their beliefs are wrong. This is what convinces individuals to drive hundreds of miles to a pizza restaurant in Washington and fire a gun in order to bring down the evil child sex trafficking ring known to exist in the basement of a building without a basement. It is why many believe there is an active military operation to spread aluminum salts and other mind-altering substances behind jet aircraft, leading to the chemtrails many swear are meant to numb the brains of honest Americans. It is what convinces many to believe that human emissions of greenhouse gases could never be responsible for any kind of adverse effect.

 

Of all of the risks that humanity faces, this may be the most intractable. Other problems may yield to research, or to spending money, or to creating a better climate for administering programs. But this one goes to the heart of humanity. That is, the belief that my knowledge is good, and since it is good, if you oppose it, you are evil. The psychological reassurance you get when an entire community of like believers reinforces you for being a part of the group who is truly in the know. The only known antidote to this sort of willful ignorance is to increase the scientific and mathematical literacy of the population as a whole, so that the folly of the beliefs of the former group becomes evident. However, it is hard to teach this type of literacy when we as a society continue to struggle to teach a basic standard of literacy. Look at communication means such as Twitter. By trying to limit public discourse to a maximum of (now) 280 characters, they contribute to the belief that all discussion can be simplified to fit within that type of strait-jacket. No one needs to understand anything at more than a superficial level, since the entire world is doing just fine using Twitter to conduct our national political discourse. One quote of H. L. Mencken comes to mind from nearly a century ago. He said, “As democracy is perfected, the office of President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” Would he be happy to know that at last, his prophesy had been fulfilled?

 

 

We’ve Been Had!

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One year ago, I wrote a post titled You’ve Been Had!, highlighting the people that the administration had placed in positions of high responsibility, and detailing their (un)fitness for those same positions. It is now time to revisit this administration, showing how much (or little) progress has occurred in support of the stated objectives of Donald Trump, with a special emphasis upon how the actions taken are diametrically opposed to the goals espoused during the campaign. I would write more about the people involved, but most of the original list are either under indictment, or have left the administration in order to crawl back under the most convenient rock.

So what were the pledges that Donald Trump made that fully excited his base and enabled him to claim victory through the vicissitudes of the Electoral College. Here’s what I took away from the campaign in terms of pledges.

  • Build the wall. Build a physical barrier along the southern border of the US in order to reduce the 50% of the illegal immigrants to the country who physically cross the border
  • Lock her up. Appoint a special prosecutor in order to determine the basis for prosecuting Hillary Clinton for her E-mail pecadillos.
  • Drain the swamp. Run an administration that works for the forgotten people of this country who have been dominated by those coastal elites, who are probably Jewish
  • Eliminate all traces of the actions of that traitor, Obama

There were more, but these were the pledges that resonated most strongly with the base during the campaign events in 2016 (and 2017 and 2018). So now that we are two years into this administration, how are things going? How well have these pledges been fulfilled? Note that we are not discounting the one true accomplishment of this administration, that of turning our judicial branch of government over to the Federalist society to be remade in its own image. That is one that has been overwhelmingly successful, probably to the long-term detriment of the citizens of the US.

Build the Wall. Ban Muslims. Stop the invasion of the US by undocumented others. Well, after two full years, we have seen prototypes of physical wall designs installed near San Diego. We’ve fixed some of the existing barriers on the southern border. And we’ve sent thousands of active duty military to the Texas border where they are sitting awaiting the onslaught of, women and children and men who form a rag-tag army of pestilence aimed at inflicting gang violence upon an unprepared nation. Or so we heard in the lead-up to the mid-term election.

We’ve not had any fiscal authorization for a physical wall, even though Republicans have held a majority in both houses of Congress to this point. Maybe it is because even those Republicans who have had to link arms with the President in order to survive his famous tweets, realize that building a physical wall across thousands of miles of arid landscape makes zero sense. Who knows? But with the legendary negotiating skills of the Snowflake-In-Chief, we can expect a braying noise to begin hitting the airwaves about the absolute necessity to authorize funds for the wall. This is in order to allow a continuing resolution to be passed that will keep the Federal government operating in the near future.

We’ve seen incredible incompetence in the implementation of the zero tolerance policy earlier this year leading to the family separation debacle. To think that children would be separated from their families without even a rudimentary way to connect the parties after separation occurred! To think that, if concern for children being brought into the country for exploitation was a reason for this policy, they would not have had a genetic testing program in place to confirm familial relationships. No, what we the people got in the implementation of this program was a totally incompetent effort that was fatally flawed in order to demonstrate the toughness of this administration. Incompetence that is continuing with the show of military force at the Texas border.

So all of the effort we see is aimed at the interdiction of people physically coming over the border from Mexico. Meanwhile, we see zero activity aimed at stopping the roughly 50% of those who are in the nation illegally due to overstaying their legitimate visas. That’s about par for this administration. Devote outlandish attention to their incompetence with one half of the problem while totally ignoring the other half of the problem as if it doesn’t exist. The people of the US applaud the efforts of this administration to rid us of the flood of illegals who are forcing us to eat tacos.

Lock her up! We will show the nation what we value by assigning a special prosecutor to take down that noted criminal, Hillary Clinton. What she did by exposing the secrets of this nation to the risk of discovery by having her unsecured e-mail server is a traitorous act. So how’s this effort going? Uhh, there doesn’t seem to be a special prosecutor anywhere in sight for Hillary, but the effort by Robert Mueller seems to be giving this President fits at this time. I never realized that the word collusion had to be preceded by the word no, but now I cannot separate the two words in my mind. Seems like the walls are closing in on this President, much like the walls of the garbage compactor in the first Star Wars movie. Once Roger Stone is indicted, and the facts show that he indeed was the link between the Russian operatives and the Trump campaign, feeding them tidbits about the upcoming release of scores of e-mails, the loop will be closed, and we will see the collusion duck waddle and quack in a very duck-like manner. But it is amazing how the line of Lock Her Up still elicits uproarious shouts each time it is brought out at one of the hundreds of copy-cat rallies this President uses to get his adrenaline fix.

Drain the swamp! Yeah, that isn’t quite working like people may have thought. Who could have foreseen that by draining the swamp, that would include gutting the efforts to enable for-profit college students who were defrauded by institutions that scarfed down the Federal student loans of their marks  students, from being able to gain relief from these loans? Why, didn’t Betsy DeVos appoint a program dean from DeVry University as head of the Student Aid Enforcement Agency? What could be better than to have someone intimately involved with one of the for-profit colleges being sued, to serve in an oversight and enforcement role for the debt forgiveness program? Is not the fox the best guard of the hen house?

Ok, maybe this was an isolated case. Let’s look at something that really does affect many of Donald Trump’s core supporters. Those who are suffering financial distress, and have to turn to payday lenders in order to meet an immediate need for cash. Unfortunately, due to the excessive fees and interest charges for these loans, many who use them as their last resort find themselves trapped in an endless series of rolled-over loans, each with additional service fees added. It is the perfect mechanism to squeeze profits out of those least able to pay.

The Federal agency working on behalf of consumers, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued regulations on October of last year that provided at least some regulation of this new financial product offering. The regulations would have ensured that the lenders make an assessment as to whether the person seeking the loan could pay it back, and set a limit on the number of times that a loan could be rolled over. Alas, the regulations were not to become effective until August of 2019.

In July of this year, Treasury Department urged the CFPB to rescind the rule, stating that it was not needed. The administrators of the Treasury Department, who have only the hearts and well-being of the public in mind, insist that it is the proper role of the states to set guidelines for the payday loan industry. Just like they had done so thoroughly before the Federal effort to set regulations in this area. Guess that the swamp drain got clogged up with all of those donations from the payday loan industry to receptive swampers.

Oh well, I guess it is going to be difficult to find cases where the swamp is actually being drained. Let’s go on to the last of our items, erasing all traces of Obama from the government. On this pledge, we can unequivocally state that the pledge is well on the way to being fulfilled. From the Iran nuclear deal, to the non-binding Paris Climate accord, to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and through a myriad of other actions, Donald Trump is demolishing all traces of his predecessor in office. And he’s not through there. He’s demolishing all traces of the past 73 years of the post-war diplomatic environment. Through his blatant disregard for diplomacy and for the necessity to understand that words have consequences, this china shop bull has smashed the crockery higgledy-piggledy. Throwing the weight of the US around, he unilaterally withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear control pact. Iran is now unencumbered from adhering to the limits and inspections imposed by the pact, and could restart their nuclear program.

But Iran is small potatoes compared to the signal diplomatic achievement of the Trump presidency to date. That is the love affair he is conducting with Kim Jong Un of North Korea. Who can forget the statements of affection between Donald and Kim? “A very worthy, smart negotiator, absolutely,” in the aftermath of the June meeting between the two men in Singapore. And, who can ever forget what was said in Wheeling, West Virginia in late September. “I was really being tough, and so was he. And we would go back and forth. And then we fell in love, okay? No, really. He wrote me beautiful letters, and they’re great letters. We fell in love.” Of course, other than not conducting actual nuclear explosion tests, or new ballistic missile tests, there is absolutely no evidence that North Korea is taking any steps to denuclearize. Our inexperienced diplomat-in-chief, who knows more than all of the rest of the government put together, would never let himself be snookered by a tyrant whose only ambition is to keep his regime in power. I would bet that Kim has actually read Machiavelli. He certainly is using the playbook very well as he uses flattery to disarm the leader of the US until he can make his nuclear arsenal and its deployment a “fait accompli.”

No, even more so than when I wrote it in November 2017, it is clear that “We’ve been had.” The track record of nearly two years shows that we can only expect worse and worse as we wind our way to the next election cycle. At least there will be one chamber of the legislature that will not bow down to the leader of our nation, who is so afraid of a bad hair day that he would forego a centenary observance of the end of the first world war.

 

An Unexpected Visitor

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I was surprised by the sound of the doorbell. I was not expecting anyone on this November evening. When I got to the door and turned on the light, I was met by my friend Slimey’s face staring back at me. He was holding a plastic orange pumpkin in one of his clawed hands. I opened the door, and he greeted me with “Trick or treat!”

I motioned for him to come in, and said to him, “Did you know that Halloween was last week?”

“It was?” he asked. “You lose track of time down there in the swamp. I figured this was the best way to not attract too much attention, carrying the treat bucket. Most folks who drove past me just didn’t see me.”

I moved the coffee table away from the sofa so as to give him room to haul his huge girth towards a seat. He sat down with surprising grace, pulling his tail up behind him and laying it beside him on the couch. I asked him first, “How did you find my house?” I had only seen him alongside the tidal basin before, and had no clue how he knew where I lived.

Slimey looked up at me. “I Gargoyled you.” He pulled out a Slimey-sized phone with a well-scratched screen cover. “It’s the best way for my kind to keep up with what’s going on in the world above.”

I realized that I was being a poor host, not offering my guest any refreshments. “Could I get you anything to drink?”

Slimey thought for a moment, then said. “If you could, I’d like a glass of water flavored with some dirt from one of your plants. That would be delicious.”

I got up, and went into the kitchen in order to prepare drinks for us. I pulled a pinch of soil out of the aloe plant I kept in the kitchen, and placed it in the largest plastic cup I had, then filled it with tap water. As for myself, I poured a large scotch atop a few ice cubes. I figured that this was going to be an unusual evening, and I’d best be ready for anything.

When I returned to the living room, I noticed a trail of water leading to the sofa. When I looked back at the source, I noticed that all of the fish in my aquarium were missing, and Slimey was licking his claws. “I must complement you on the buffet you laid out there. That was mighty tasty,” he said.

I was flummoxed, yet I did not complain. It is never a good thing to complain when a 400 pound reptile with razor-sharp claws is sitting on your sofa. Instead, I handed over the cup to Slimey and sat down myself. “What brings you here tonight?” I managed to ask finally.

“I wondered if I could watch the election returns with you?” he said. “We don’t get good reception down in the swamp, and I’d really like to know what’s going on as soon as possible.”

“We can do that,” I said. I picked up the remote control and turned on the TV on the wall. Up came a scene of five people seated at an extended table, with graphics all over the walls behind them. They were talking about the closeness of the Senate race in Texas. “It now appears that Ted Cruz has defeated Beto O’Rourke for the Senate seat in Texas.” And up popped a giant picture of Ted Cruz, oozing his smarmy smile across the screen.

Slimey perked up. “That’s good for me, isn’t it? He’s the one who was so insulted a few years ago, but came back and kissed Donald’s ass this year, right? Anyone with so few principles has got to be great for the swamp.”

I nodded in agreement. While I personally would have wanted Beto to win, I could see it from Slimey’s perspective. The more candidates got down into the muck and mire to win, the messier the swamp would be.

Slimey took a swallow of water, then smacked his lips. “Ah, that’s good stuff you put in there. I can taste just a tinge of tartness from the dirt.” He pointed his claw up at the screen where the talking heads had moved on from the Texas race, and were talking about the wave of women entering the House.

“Now, that can’t be good. I know those women, they like to clean, they like to clean things up. I like it better when you’ve got a bunch of sloppy men around. They don’t worry about the filth.” Slimey took another gulp of water.

I nodded, then looked at the screen for more information. It was not to be found in the endless rehashing of the talking points they focused upon. I finally said, “You’re right, women don’t like dirt. But I don’t think they’re going to be able to really clean up the swamp. It’s too deep to get at.”

Slimey looked at me, then shook his head slowly in agreement. “I’ve grown attached to my swamp. I’d hate to see anything happen to it.”

I let out an unintentional yawn. It was getting late and they had just started going over the California results. Slimey noticed, and put his cup down and said, “I’ve imposed long enough. Thanks for the drink and snacks.” He unwound his tail from the sofa and maneuvered his way to the door.

I opened it for him, and said to him as he left. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about with someone trying to drain the swamp. Since no one’s done anything about it, the ocean warming will cause the water to rise. Soon the swamp will retake just about all of this town. You’ll be in good shape.”

For a minute I thought I was in trouble. Slimey looked rapturous, and started to move toward me to hug me. The thought of being squeezed by those huge limbs and crushed came quickly to me. But as swiftly as Slimey looked like he was going to embrace me, he backed off, and before he turned away he said, “Thanks. Thanks friend.”

I closed the door and turned out the light on the porch.

 

For previous tales of Slimey, see this Draining the Swamp

And this one: Sustaining the Swamp

 

The Bugs We Fear

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Back in May, I wrote a post detailing some of what I perceive to be threats facing humanity. This is the second of what will be seven posts providing more details on each of these threats. This one concerns infectious diseases.

Starting in the 1940’s, modern medicine discovered the magic bullet of antibiotics. Antibiotics have prolonged the lives of hundreds of millions of people by enabling bacterial diseases to be stopped before they created sepsis inside of humans, and caused massive organ failure. The practice of medicine soon became the story of the prescription of antibiotics, and the eventual over-prescription of the same. Once the knowledge of the power of antibiotics became known, the customer (i.e., the patients) were insistent on being prescribed antibiotics even when they suffered from a viral infection, like a cold. All of society believed that antibiotics were able to put the suffering of the past from bacterial infection out of the memory of humanity.

Except. Except that human greed and the needs of commerce got in the way. Except that human behavior caused the effectiveness of antibiotics to be compromised. Now, barely 77 years after the first widespread use of an antibiotic to treat diseases, the news is full of stories about bacteria that are resistant to all but the most powerful antibiotics, and even some strains of bacteria have developed resistance to all forms of antibiotics. How did we get here? It started when agricultural researchers discovered that by applying low-dosages of antibiotics to animal feed, weight gain for the animals was increased and disease incidence was reduced. Since agriculture in the US relies upon high animal density in farms and feed lots, and since anything helping the profit margins of farmers was viewed as a God-send, commercial animal feeds began to incorporate antibiotics as a key additive. Unfortunately, this served as an ideal breeding ground for bacteria to show the powers of evolution. Ever wonder why all antibacterial commercial products claim that their product kills 99.99% of bacteria? It’s because there are always a few bacteria that have a mutation that enables them to survive the onslaught of the chemicals aimed at killing them. It may not be a concern for a kitchen countertop to have some bacteria that survive bleach or other similar kitchen cleaner. But it is totally different when a strain of bacteria survives a dosage of antibiotics inside of a farm animal. That strain now faces less competition since many other bacteria were inhibited by the antibiotics in the feed. Soon, the resistant strain is circulating among farm animals, and slowly the antibiotic in the feeds lose their effectiveness as the population of resistant bacteria increases in the environment. Since they began to incorporate antibiotics, animal feeds have used most of the types of antibiotics, which means that effectiveness of many antibiotics have been lowered over time. Market demand is now pushing agricultural firms to proclaim that their animals are antibiotic-free, but only time will tell if that movement will grow fast enough to keep antibiotics at least partially useful.

Human behavior also plays a role. As noted earlier, patients often demand a prescription for an antibiotic even when their infection is viral. This dosage of unneeded antibiotics increases the chance of developing a resistant strain directly inside of a human. Add to this the tendency for some folks to stop taking a medicine once they feel better, and you end up with the worst case for developing antibiotic resistance. By not taking the full course of antibiotics, it is more likely that some of the bacteria will survive, and then their traits will be passed on to subsequent generations of bacteria. One way or another, the bacteria will outwit us as we currently use antibiotics.

But bacterial infections are only a part of the disease story. Viruses cause many more diseases, and there are several factors in our modern world that enhance the possibility of a viral infection causing huge problems in our society. First, viruses are mobile. They can hitch a ride upon any animal infected with the virus. Whether that is a chicken carrying the latest variant of bird flu, or whether it is an international traveler that had unknowingly been exposed to the latest version of Ebola or Marburg disease from Africa, viruses can travel amazingly fast in our modern, interconnected world. Then there is this little issue about climate change. Regardless of the source of a warmer climate, one result is that mosquitoes that are intolerant of cold, are now expanding their ranges into temperate climates. Thus malaria is expanding its range. Other viral diseases that once were known only in Africa are now showing up in Sardinia, a handy stopping place on the way to infect southern Europe.

Yet another factor is affecting viral disease transmission. Through extensive research, humanity has managed to control the immune system to enable it to react to viral invaders that can cause diseases. Thus, humanity has wiped out the dread disease smallpox as a scourge. Only remote pockets of polio remain, which means this crippler of people is nearly extinct. Who remembers iron lungs where the sufferers of polio were kept, enabling them to breath until they regained at least a semblance of muscle strength? The use of vaccines has greatly limited tetanus, and diphtheria, and whooping cough. The old childhood diseases of measles, mumps, and chickenpox are no longer rites of passage for children. All have been vanquished through the use of vaccines.

Except. Except that a growing percentage of the population no longer believes that the benefits of vaccination exceed the perceived costs. Especially with the growth of the internet, there are groups convinced that vaccines are causing the growth of conditions such as autism. And therefore they are opting out of mandatory vaccination protocols. Either opting out, or spacing vaccinations out over a longer period than recommended, all in a belief that they are protecting their children from a fate worse than the disease that the vaccine is intended to prevent. What this is doing is increasing the percentage of the population who does not have immunity to the disease, and as a result, diseases that had been nearly eliminated are making a comeback. In 2017 there was an outbreak of measles, mainly within the Somali immigrant population around Minneapolis. According to the CDC, the rate of measles vaccination of Somali children was only 54% in this area. This enabled measles imported from a visit from Africa to spread throughout the community, until 65 cases were recorded. Of those, 20 required hospitalization. I remember my own case of measles, back in 1961. I contracted it right after my tonsillectomy, another rite of passage that is no longer nearly universally prescribed. It was not fun, but I did not suffer any of the permanent effects that could have resulted.

How should we deal with infectious diseases in the future? Certainly there is a need for more pharmaceutical research in antibiotics. If we can stay ahead of the resistance curve, we may still be able to keep the tragedy of blood poisoning from killing thousands and thousands each year. Unfortunately, pharmaceutical companies are not investing heavily into antibiotic research. The perceived market is deemed too small to justify the vast expenditures required for drug development. This is an area where government-directed research is required since the lack of private company research does not appear to be amenable to a market-based solution. The current trend towards reducing antibiotic supplementation in animal feed needs to become universal. This may be a problem though, in other countries where a simple and cheap way to control animal disease and increase animal yield is not viewed as an existential threat.

Finally, for viral diseases, there may not be good ways to deal with them. The warming of the climate will result in the spread of many diseases beyond their current tropical ranges. Unless we can put the climate warming genie back into the bottle, we may have to deal with the effects. Vaccine development is required, and investment in additional vaccine capacity for diseases such as yellow fever. But the hardest problem to deal with may be the human resistance to acknowledge that science has the answer for disease prevention. It may never be possible in this fractured society to convince a large enough percentage of the population of the benefits of a vaccine. There will always be self-sustaining groups who convince themselves that they know more than all of the scientists in the world. After all, the scientists are the elites who have failed us, right?