Category: Journalism

Despite privilege, a tall white man leads a “life of struggle”

by philg

The New York Times, which previously informed us how easy white men had everything, regarding our most noble citizen… “After a Life of Struggle, Biden Faces One More Inflection Point”:

Before heading into a community center for a campaign rally the other day, President Biden stopped to speak to the overflow crowd …

Faith has been Mr. Biden’s calling card in his nearly two years in office — faith in the system in which he has been a fixture for more than half a century, faith that he could repair the fissures of a broken society, faith that he and he alone could beat former President Donald J. Trump if they face off again in 2024.

Biden is a man of faith and draws overflow crowds.

The presidency he envisioned, one where he presided over a moment of reconciliation, is not the presidency he has gotten.

Saying that anyone who votes for a Republican is traitorously ending our democracy did not work for reconciliation?

To whom can this greatest of living men be compared?

Like other presidents in stressful moments, he has turned to Abraham Lincoln for inspiration.

Abe Lincoln had only a battle to fight…

“One possible lesson for President Biden, who’s engaged in a profound battle to preserve the Constitution and the rule of law, is that moral commitment matters and can prevail, no matter how difficult the struggle,”

Noble Joe has a profound battle against the enemies of the Constitution and the rule of law (who might those be?).

But if he takes a licking on Tuesday, aides said, he will own it and move ahead. In a life of falling and getting back up, it would be one more stumble, not the end.

What would it mean for Joe Biden to “own” the Democrats’ defeat in some House, Senate, and Gubernatorial races? Surely he would not admit doubt in the Rainbow Flag religion. Would he unforgive everyone’s student loans? Would he say that some abortion care for pregnant people is not reproductive health care?

Circling back to the headline, does it make sense to characterized Joe Biden’s life as one of remarkable struggle? If so, why couldn’t he have used his white male privilege to avoid that struggle?

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New York Times: replacement theory is false; it is just that white Americans are becoming a minority

by philg

“Their America Is Vanishing. Like Trump, They Insist They Were Cheated.” (New York Times, October 23, 2022) is on the evergreen topic of the remarkable stupidity of people who don’t live in New York. The main subject of election fraud is not what struck me, though.

The newspaper that assures us that replacement theory is false, like other “fringe right-wing conspiracy theories”, gleefully points out the Dämmerung der Weißen (the twilight of the whites; see also Götterdämmerung):

The county in recent years has become one of the nation’s most diverse, where the former white majority has fallen to just 30 percent of the population.

A shrinking white share of the population is a hallmark of the congressional districts held by the House Republicans who voted to challenge Mr. Trump’s defeat…

Because they are more vulnerable, disadvantaged or less educated white voters can feel especially endangered by the trend toward a minority majority,…

… the white population of the United States expected within about two decades to lose its majority.

Maybe there could be an opera about this. I would love to see Donald Trump portrayed as a character by the Metropolitan Opera.

Related:

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Trust the Science: CNN and Hurricane Ian

by philg

“Ian’s 5-day forecast predicted landfall only 5 miles from actual location” (CNN):

The National Hurricane Center worked around the clock to get the best forecasts out and they did it with incredible accuracy.

Looking back at the forecast, the landfall location, Cayo Costa, was in the forecast cone for all the forecasts given, according to CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller.

Miller also noted that the forecast pegged Ian’s landfall (as a major hurricane also) within 5 miles of its eventual landfall location a full 120 hours in advance – that’s pretty remarkable given how unreliable forecasts can be at the five-day mark and beyond.

So folks on the barrier islands in Lee County, e.g., Sanibel, Captiva, and Fort Myers Beach, had five days of warning regarding precisely where the hurricane would hit? They must be even dumber than we thought.

Thanks to Amygator, we can see that the forecast on Friday at 11 am did show the hurricane hitting Lee County at 8 am on Wednesday (somewhat sooner than it actually did hit).

What CNN leaves out is that on Saturday the NHC forecast that Tampa would hit. On Sunday, the forecast was that Hurricane Ian would strike Ron DeSantis in Tallahassee:

By Monday, it was back to Tampa (and officials there reasonably ordered an evacuation of low-lying houses). By Tuesday, the predicted track was closer to Fort Myers and its barrier islands (and the Lee County officials reasonably ordered an evacuation of those barrier islands).

So, CNN tells us that Science predicted Ian’s landfall five days in advance, but omits to mention that Science also predicted landfall in a variety of other locations, some of the hundreds of miles away.

Perhaps we think that the fearless purveyors of truth have superior access to Science. From What to Know About Ian and Climate Change – The New York Times (nytimes.com):

What if you studied atmospheric physics in college instead of journalism and don’t pick 1980 as your starting point? “Changes in Atlantic major hurricane frequency since the late-19th century” (nature.com, 2021):

To evaluate past changes in frequency, we have here developed a homogenization method for Atlantic hurricane and major hurricane frequency over 1851–2019. We find that recorded century-scale increases in Atlantic hurricane and major hurricane frequency, and associated decrease in USA hurricanes strike fraction, are consistent with changes in observing practices and not likely a true climate trend. After homogenization, increases in basin-wide hurricane and major hurricane activity since the 1970s are not part of a century-scale increase, but a recovery from a deep minimum in the 1960s–1980s.

One of the most consistent expectations from projected future global warming is that there should be an increase in TC intensity, such that the fraction of [major hurricanes] MH to [Atlantic hurricanes] HU increases … there are no significant increases in either basin-wide HU or MH frequency, or in the MH/HU ratio for the Atlantic basin between 1878 and 2019 (when the U.S. Signal Corps started tracking NA HUs … The homogenized basin-wide HU and MH record does not show strong evidence of a century-scale increase in either MH frequency or MH/HU ratio associated with the century-scale, greenhouse-gas-induced warming of the planet. …Caution should be taken in connecting recent changes in Atlantic hurricane activity to the century-scale warming of our planet.

The Science is settled, according to nytimes.com: “strong storms are becoming more common in the Atlantic Ocean, as its surface water has warmed. … Climate change has already contributed to a rise in destructive hurricanes like Ian, and its effects are still growing.” This is a Scientific true fact that has been established beyond any doubt. The nature.com article, on the other hand, says that this is not true and that the data do not show major hurricanes becoming more common.

Let’s look at the crackpots behind the nature.com article:

It is possible that nytimes.com is correct and nature.com is wrong, of course. But the nature.com folks, with their file cabinet full of PhDs (… in Science), don’t say that they are presenting facts that cannot be and will not be falsified.

Related:

  • “Tropical Cyclone Frequency” (Vecchi and others in Earth’s Future; Wiley 2021): “There is no accepted theory that explains the average number of TCs that occur each year on the Earth, nor how that number will change with global warming.” (full text)
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NYT highlights the bright side of being poorer

by philg

This is kind of beautiful… “Inflation Adjustments Mean Lower Tax Rates for Some in 2023” (NYT):

The rapidly rising cost of food, energy and other daily staples could allow many Americans to reduce their tax bills next year, the I.R.S. confirmed on Tuesday.

Tax rates are adjusted for inflation, which in typical times means incremental movements in the thresholds for what income is taxed at what rate. But after a year that brought America’s fastest price growth in four decades, the shift in rates is far more notable: an increase of about 7 percent.

The implication of the article is that a peasant will enjoy more spending power than in 2022 because his/her/zir/their tax bill goes down (why only peasants? successful Americans are already in the top tax bracket and will stay there). But, of course, this happens only for those peasants whose real earnings went down, eroded by Bidenflation. So the peasant earns less in real terms and also pays a bit less tax, but overall should still have a lower spending power in 2023 than he/she/ze/they had in 2022.

Speaking of spending, at NBAA this week I learned that one can cut costs by renting that mid-engine sports car instead of buying:

Just don’t try to take luggage larger than a 1st grader’s backpack on your weekend getaway. An airline roll-on is at least 3X too large for the frunk (there is no trunk), making this Audio R8 useless as a transportation machine compared to a C8 Corvette.

The seat was also uncomfortable for my 6′ frame. I would be driving with knees on chest. I wouldn’t recommend anyone over 5’6″ in height spending his/her/zir/their massive 2023 tax savings on renting an Audi R8.

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Nobody on welfare moves, San Francisco edition

by philg

“Bay Area exodus: Median income drops as wealthy residents move out” (SiliconValley.com):

New census data is shining more light on the Bay Area’s pandemic exodus: The region saw the largest drop in median income of any big U.S. metro area as wealthy people moved away — and current residents of all incomes are more likely to relocate soon than in any other major population center.

Household income in the San Francisco metro area fell 4.6% from 2019 to 2021 to $116,005 a year, according to a census report released this month.

The article highlights rich people moving, but, given that some percentage of Americans move every year, the drop in median income could just as easily be caused by no-income and low-income people staying. The article does not note that someone who is signed up to the full package of means-tested benefits (not to be characterized as “welfare”!), i.e., free housing, free health care, free food (SNAP/EBT), Obamaphone, and the new free broadband, is extremely unlikely to move (since it could take 10-20 years on waitlists to get the same package in a different location or state).

So a city or state is guaranteed to hold onto its lowest-income citizens (not to say “poorest” because they may enjoy a median earner’s lifestyle; see below) even when everyone else seeks to move, e.g., due to lockdowns, school closures, social disorder, and high crime.

From “The Work versus Welfare Trade‐​Off: 2013” (CATO), Figure 4:

Ignore the pre-Biden dollar figures and concentrate on the “percentage of median salary” column, which should be valid despite inflation. Prior to the 2020-2022 coronapanic enhancements to welfare, in other words, being on welfare in California yielded roughly the same spending power as working full time at the median wage (and with no risk of exposure to a virus at work and no need to wear a mask for 8 hours per day).

I think it is interesting from the point of view of journalism that the situation is characterized by rich people disproportionately moving rather than by welfare state beneficiaries disproportionately staying.

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What’s an Indigenous Immigrant?

by philg

I’m back in our AirBnB in Paris where we live like the guys in La Boheme if they had 500 Mbit symmetric fiber Internet. No longer limited to 0.5 GB of mobile data per day at $10 (the Verizon Travel Pass; Google Maps by itself can consume close to this quota), it is time to check the New York Times. “Los Angeles City Council President Steps Down After Racist Comments”:

In a meeting last year, Nury Martinez mocked Indigenous immigrants and the Black child of a fellow council member. She will remain on the council but relinquished her leadership role.

The president of the Los Angeles City Council stepped down from her powerful leadership role on Monday after a leaked audio recording revealed racist and disparaging remarks that she had made about the Black child of a white council member, and about Indigenous immigrants in the city’s Koreatown neighborhood.

“I take responsibility for what I said, and there are no excuses for those comments. I’m so sorry,” Nury Martinez, the council president, said in a statement on Monday announcing that she would resign from the leadership role, but not from the council as some people had demanded. “As a mother, I know better and I am sorry. I am truly ashamed.”

In the profanity-laced recording, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times and which was first reported by The Los Angeles Times on Sunday, Ms. Martinez, who is Latina, compared the Black child of a white council member to a “changuito,” Spanish for little monkey. She also called Oaxacan immigrants living in Koreatown “short little dark people.”

There is much to ponder here. If this politician were not a mother, she would not “know better”? What is it about motherhood that gave her so much wisdom?

Second, how is it possible for someone to be both indigenous and an immigrant? From M-W:

indigenous: produced, growing, living, or occurring natively or naturally in a particular region or environment

immigrant : a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence or a plant or animal that becomes established in an area where it was previously unknown

Aren’t these opposite terms and concepts?

Finally, this politician is a racist and therefore cannot serve as leader of the 15-member City Council. At the same time, she is not a racist and therefore can serve as a member of the City Council?

Speaking of Los Angeles, Land of Lockdown in the Sun, here’s an except from In a Dry Season, a book that I read in prep for the UK trip:

[a Brit who returns from living in Los Angeles] smiled and patted his arm. “Thanks. You’re sweet.” She snatched a cigarette from his packet and lit up. “You don’t smoke,” Banks said. “I do now.” Jenny blew out a long plume. “I’ve just about had it up to here with those nico-Nazis out there. You can’t smoke anywhere. And to think California was a real hotbed of protest and innovation in the sixties. It’s like a fucking kindergarten run by fascists now.”

The book was published in 1999.

Speaking of immigrants and the UK, here’s a book that was for sale at the Tate Modern:

What else were they selling?

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Have the TV networks been showing Ron DeSantis?

by philg

A reader comment on What would it cost to retreat from Tampa to Orlando as Hurricane Ian appraoches?:

It’s amusing to watch the media’s approach to the hurricane and Ron DeSantis. They pretty much have to put him on TV, discussing plans to evacuate, etc. But the contrast with this young, vibrant, competent governor speaking extemporaneously versus the decrepit old fossil in Washington squinting his eyes to read what somebody else put on the teleprompter must be driving them nuts.

Assuming that DeSantis is continuing to demonstrate competence and organization, the best way for the media to support Democrats would be to ignore him. This would be the flip side of featuring Andrew Cuomo during coronapanic so much that he won an Emmy and the hearts of Americans identifying as female (see “Hot for governor! Women confess they are developing ‘MAJOR crushes’ on Andrew Cuomo” and remember that, due to his masterful management of the virus, New York State had only 367 COVID-tagged deaths per 100,000, while Sweden’s radical “give the finger to the virus” policy resulted in a horrific 1,849 deaths (per million)).

At this point it is unclear that Ron DeSantis will be doing a lot of briefings. Maybe he is going to be busy managing the statewide response instead of getting in front of cameras. But if the DeSantis twitter feed fills up with briefings that aren’t shown on CNN, can we infer that CNN has its thumb on the scale?

Here’s this morning’s briefing:

Let’s compare to a recent press conference from Joe Biden:

Who wants to compare the two for cognitive function and apparent competence to manage? No fair if you’re a passionate Democrat or Republican! Maybe we should let the European readers judge.

How about the Democrat running to liberate Floridians from the hated tyrant? Here’s his Twitter profile this morning:

Without scrolling, it is all about fascism and abortion care, neither of which is going to de-flood Fort Myers and Naples.

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Hurricane lies from state media (NPR)

by philg

“Some don’t evacuate, despite repeated hurricane warnings, because they can’t” (state-sponsored NPR):

Depending on a family’s financial situation, evacuating away from a storm can be costly.

“Many modest- to low-income households simply don’t have the cash or credit,” said Joshua Behr, research professor at Old Dominion University, in a 2018 interview with NPR.

Behr emphasized that the poorest may often wait until the last minute to evacuate, resulting in little to no availability for affordable hotel rooms.

The tragedy of inequality yet again and the obvious remedy is an expansion of the government that funds NPR so that enhanced transferism can be implemented.

As discussed in Practicalities of evacuation from Florida’s west coast, however, all of the quoted material from the NPR article is a lie. The county-run shelters near Fort Myers are (1) free, (2) pet-friendly, (3) equipped with backup generators, (4) stocked with free food and water, and (5) accessible via free transportation (Uber or government-run; summon via taxpayer-funded Obamaphone or wait for the flood and the knock on the door from the public safety crews). A poor person would actually save money by going to the shelter because he/her/zir/their food would be paid for. (The information regarding hotel rooms is also a lie; plenty were available starting at about $60 per night as of the day before the storm made landfall.)

Aside from lack of funds, what other obstacles could a person face in getting to safety?

And while many emergency warnings and notices are now printed in both English and Spanish, there’s still a gap when for those who speak other languages.

More than 400,000 households in Florida speak Haitian as their primary shared language, according to the Census Bureau. Tens of thousands of Floridians speak Portuguese, French, Chinese, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Arabic, German, Russian, Italian or another language as their primary shared language at home.

“While looking at an evacuation map at a county in Florida, I saw they have it in both English and Spanish and thought ‘OK, that’s great.’ But also there are people there who may not speak either language,” said Cuite.

Cuite says alongside the language barrier being an issue for people, there are also different levels of literacy to account for.

“Some people may not be able to read, which makes things like finding their evacuation zone a challenge,” she said.

NPR has previously informed us that low-skill immigrants make a country rich. Today, NPR informs us that a substantial number of migrants can’t speak English or Spanish, are illiterate in all languages, and live in households in which all members are illiterate in all languages. Putting these two together, we can infer that this Army of the Illiterate will boost what we are told is the world’s most advanced economy.

Our neighborhood came through the overnight thunderstorms, which Mindy the Crippler did not appreciate. The phone shrieked a couple of times with a tornado warning and the federal government’s advice to Floridians to take shelter in basements (the nearest of which is in Atlanta?). There was heavy rain at times and some branches had come down from the palm trees. The neighborhood teenagers played football on the green (I also removed my shirt and a nice young lady paid me $100 to put it back on).

There have been no power glitches so far and no wind gusts above about 30 mph.

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Giorgia Meloni is more dangerous than Vladimir Putin (CNN and New York Times)

by philg

“The Future Is Italy, and It’s Bleak” (NYT, July 22, 2022):

Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party … could open the way for the Brothers of Italy to become the first far-right party to lead a major eurozone economy. For Europe and the country, it would be a truly seismic event.

Like other far-right parties across Europe, it is descended from a fascist or collaborationist original

Perhaps we will not all burn together in the fire. But if the far right takes over the government, in Italy or elsewhere, some of us surely will.

“Italy’s Hard-Right Lurch Raises New Concerns in Washington” (NYT, yesterday):

Italy’s election of a far-right governing coalition, … despite concern about their party’s fascist roots. … members of the Trump wing of the Republican Party embraced the rise of a nationalist whose party has roots in Mussolini-era fascism.

“Giorgia Meloni claims victory to become Italy’s most far-right prime minister since Mussolini” (CNN, yesterday):

the most far-right government since the fascist era of Benito Mussolini. … She has also called abortion a “tragedy,” raising fears for the future of women’s rights in the country.

“How Giorgia Meloni and her far-right party became a driving force in Italian politics” (CNN, Sept 25, 2022):

The National Alliance, formerly the Italian Social Movement, was unapologetically neo-fascist, formed by supporters of Benito Mussolini. … Now, the 45-year-old ultra-conservative … never wavering from a conservative agenda that puts in question LGBT rights, abortion rights and immigration policies.

A full-scale war had to unfold in Ukraine before the New York Times was prepared to call Vladimir Putin names, but Giorgia Meloni earned these monikers before taking a single official action. Maybe this means she will win the Nobel Peace Prize soon! (Barack Obama was nominated after 12 days of being in office.)

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How can the death of a 96-year-old dominate the news if we are facing multiple emergencies?

by philg

Here’s the front page of the New York Times right now:

Of course, it is sad that a 96-year-old has died, but this is the newspaper that has told us we’re facing a “climate emergency” (Biden will fix), a public health emergency (COVID-19), a second public health emergency (racism), a public health crisis (racism, again), a global health emergency (monkeypox), a domestic health emergency (monkeypox, again), a non-health emergency (homelessness), a kids’ mental health emergency (give them a computer while their school is closed for 1.5 years and then give them therapy), etc., etc.

If these emergencies are, in fact, emergencies, how is it possible for everyone’s attention to be directed toward the transition from an elderly monarch with purely ceremonial duties to a child of that monarch?

(Separately, what would Meghan Markle need to do in order to obtain the position of queen for herself?)

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