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Don't Rank Cuomo and Other Less Important Thoughts

The Democratic primary for the NYC mayoral race is today. The front-runner has been former Governor Andrew Cuomo, but he's facing a stiff challenge from a surging Zohran Mamdani, who's aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America. I don't live in New York, obviously. But I've been casually following the race, and I do have some thoughts. 1) Don't rank Cuomo. That's the mantra of nearly all the progressives in the race, and it is correct. It's not just that Cuomo is a sex pest (though, dayenu). He was also an awful governor who actively sabotaged Democratic prospects in New York in order to promote his own presidential ambitions -- and yet was so manifestly incompetent he ended up wrecking his presidential ambitions too! Personally mendacious, hostile to his own party, and piss-poor political instincts? No. Get this guy out of here. And honestly, "don't rank Cuomo" is, far and away, the most important thought. 2) David endorses Lander. Not that it matters, but if I had a vote in New York I'd probably rank Brad Lander first. I always liked him. And with ranked choice voting, I could do it without worrying that I was tossing my vote away and/or involuntarily supporting Cuomo. 3) The NYT's cowardly Cuomo quasi-endorsement is nauseating. The NYT recently said it would stop issuing endorsements in local races (why?). But that makes this editorial, where it twisted itself in knots to not-expressly-say it is endorsing Cuomo while effectively endorsing Cuomo because Mamdani is just too lefty and scary, the most spineless thing I've seen in opinion journalism since everything the Washington Post has done over the past 8 months. 4) I'd rank Mamdani. But... I think there is a lot to like about Mamdani. He's clearly better than Cuomo (see #1, above). And I don't think he's antisemitic. But people are allowed to not like his evasive defense of the phrase "globalize the intifada". His response to that question is a reasonable source of criticism, and he can take those lumps. 5) It's not cheating when they don't roll over. On that note, one of the single most annoying habits of the Bernie/DSA wing of the left is how they act as if it's cheating when more centrist candidates don't just roll over and let them win. "The DNC conspired to defeat Bernie Sanders and coronate Joe Biden" -- no it didn't. Biden ran a campaign and beat Sanders, fair and square. That's how democracy works. In any given race, I hope my preferred candidate or faction wins, but I don't expect the opponent to not try (see also: Democrats are responsible for MAGAism because Barack Obama inexcusably refused to just concede the 2012 race to Mitt Romney). We're already seeing similar moaning about how "the Democratic establishment" apparently moved heaven and earth to anoint Cuomo and defeat Mamdani. Again, I think Cuomo is scum, and there are absolutely things he's done in his campaign which aren't kosher. But yes, the left-wing of the Democratic Party is going to have to actually win races where their opponents show up -- it's not going to have things handed to them. Grow up.  6) If Mamdani does win, he should get a chance to govern. That's the perquisite of winning, and he deserves a fair shot. And I'm still curious how DSA domestic policies will play out if implemented (though I still wish we had gotten a test-run a bit further from spotlight in Buffalo). That said, the fact that he won't have a perfectly pliant city council and agreeable municipal bureaucracy putting his policies on a glide path is not sabotage, it's city politics. Much like having to actually win an election against an opposition that's actively campaigning, one is not being sabotaged when one faces the same basic set of obstacles and frictions that are inherent features of local governance in a large city with diverse stakeholders via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/EDMnBXQ

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Calculated Deaths

One of the macabre realities of developing self-driving cars is that someone, somewhere, has to program them to kill people. I don't mean that in a nefarious or conspiratorial way. What I mean is that the car's algorithm must have a decision tree governing how it will respond to unavoidable tragedies -- say, a person suddenly jumping into the road, and the only choice is for the car to strike the pedestrian or swerve into oncoming traffic. Someone is (likely) going to be seriously hurt, the car's manufacturer has to decide who that will be. Human drivers, of course, also periodically face these situations. But in most cases, they don't "decide" who they're going to strike -- at least, not in the same way. A human driver faced with a sudden and unavoidable calamity is likely to make a "decision" based on some mix of instinct, reflex, and random chance. Some will hit the pedestrian, some will hit oncoming traffic, but virtually none of it is based off of any sort of real consideration or calculation. In the abstract, this seems worse, philosophically-speaking. Philosophers might disagree on the right resolution to various trolley problems, but I can't imagine they don't think that it'd be better if we didn't think up an answer at all. Yet in this case, my instinct is that knowing someone was killed by operation of a programmed algorithm feels worse, somehow, than knowing they were killed by what is essentially thoughtless chance. The former invites a sort of "who tasked you with playing God" response. The latter, by contrast, is clearly tragic, but is a tempered one. We understand the driver could not have reasonably even made a decision, so we can't hold him or her accountable for it. What happened, happened. That non-intuitive intuition intrigues me. It suggests there are cases where it is better that decisions -- including critical life-or-death ones -- be made thoughtlessly and without advance consideration. Obviously, the first question to ask is whether I'm alone in holding this intuition in this case. But assuming I'm not, the next question is where else this intuition extends to. Notably, I don't think I'd feel better if the self-driving car was programmed to essentially randomly choice who to kill or maim in one of these situations. But why not? Anyway, that's my thought of the evening. Further thoughts welcome. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/Zv1sJYl

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A Day of Milestones

Today is a pretty big day. For starters, it's my blog's birthday! It is a whopping 25 years old today, with over 7,400 posts. That's a lot of writing! In addition, Nathaniel turns five months old today. You wouldn't know it by looking at him, though -- he's 20 and a half pounds and over 27 inches long! We've already got him in nine-month old clothing, and he stretches some of that. And of course, related to the above, it is my very first Father's Day as a father. I am so lucky to have the best baby in the world, co-parented by the best wife in the world. I cannot express how lucky, grateful, and blessed I feel. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/fulDv3M

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"Personal Liberty Laws" for the MAGA Era

Earlier today, in response to the violent detention of California Senator Alex Padilla for the sin of asking an intemperate question of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, someone quipped that "We have entered the 'caning of Charles Sumner' stage of historical parallels." I've been thinking of antebellum precedents myself recently, albeit in response to a different issue: the new propensity of ICE and other federal police agencies to refuse to clearly identify themselves before purporting to make immigration-related arrests, and the corresponding rise in "ICE impersonator" events where criminals and scammers impersonate the agency to victimize vulnerable communities. What we are seeing, again and again, are police actions that to an immediate observer look indistinguishable from a kidnapping, abduction, or carjacking. On the one hand, this indistinguishability heightens Americans' vulnerability to violent crime; on the other hand, the adoption of these thuggish tactics by the police is itself rightly seen as an attempt to leverage terror against the population. Responsible states and cities should not cooperate in this project, and indeed they should take whatever steps they can to resist it. In the antebellum era, many northern states passed "Personal Liberty Laws" to blunt the effect of a different exercise of state-sponsored abductions: the Fugitive Slave Act. My proposal is for a new "Personal Liberty Law", that takes the form of directing how state and local police should respond* if they witness what appears to be a kidnapping, abduction, or the like. In essence, the policy should be as follows:  Where the police witness what appears to be an abduction, they should assume it is an unlawful abduction and respond accordingly (including with use of appropriate force) unless they have actual knowledge that the detention is occurring under lawful authority (i.e., is an actual police operation). "Actual knowledge" can include advance knowledge (in cases of coordination), or conspicuous display of law enforcement identification (such as a badge, or the use of marked police vehicles). "Actual knowledge" does not include mere verbal or written declarations (including clothing labels) that the putative kidnapper is a member of any particular police agency, as such declarations are too easily fabricated. Absent such "actual knowledge", the police should act as they would if someone conducted a street abduction before their eyes, up until the point they are satisfactorily given "actual knowledge" (which again, requires more than simply the raw assertion "we're with ICE"). If that means physically interceding to protect the individual at risk of abduction, so be it. Now, I can already hear the MAGA howls: "this would put ICE agents at risk!" Whether or not that complaint moves you or not, I would humbly submit in reply that what's actually putting ICE agents at risk is that their behavior is indistinguishable from that of violent criminals, and that the proper remedy to ameliorate that risk is for ICE to avail itself of the many unique police resources -- such as badges, marked vehicles, and warrants -- that would serve to separate themselves from violent criminals. If they insist on forgoing such resources, then they take on the risk that other law enforcement officers will assume they are exactly who they appear to be. Responsible states and cities are under no obligation to leave their residents vulnerable to being targeted for kidnappings and abductions simply because Stephen Miller wants to impersonate his favorite street gangs. * I'm bracketing the important, if not potentially fatal, issue of whether state and local police would ever follow this guidance even if it were issued. To be honest, I don't know how practically effective the original "Personal Liberty Laws" were when enacted, but the symbolism was important. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/TGMdJ3F

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Back in the USA

If you're wondering why I've been silent around these parts over the past week, it's for a generally happy reason: I was in England, attending a conference at Oxford on "Religion, Speech, and Vulnerability." The whole family attended -- me, Jill, and Nathaniel, and my parents met us as well -- and so we stretched the trip into a family vacation spending time in both London and Oxford. The trip was amazing -- first and foremost because Nathaniel was an absolute rockstar who had no trouble with the nine-hour flight and is apparently immune to jet lag (unlike his parents). Highlights of the trip include going to Tate Modern, doing a gallery walk in Mayfair, and seeing Operation Mincemeat in the West End. It really is the sort of trip that will be a lifelong memory. But now that I'm back, I do want to temper that happiness with a bit of a dark cloud. Before I left, I found myself thinking -- seriously -- about information security. Do I bring my normal cellphone? Do I bring my laptop? If so, do I delete any sensitive files, or refrain from posting controversial content while I'm away? These thoughts, of course, were triggered by the high-profile stories of the USCBP's new MAGA marching orders, which have captured U.S. citizens in their draconian talons. Even among citizens, I certainly knew I wasn't the most likely target, but there were certainly elements of my profile (anti-Trump, academic, Jewish but averse to Trump's putative anti-antisemitism initiatives) that at least mildly elevated my risk factors. Ultimately, I didn't do much differently -- packed my laptop in my checked bags, turned off my phone on arrival, and mostly refrained from social media posting while I was gone. And, unsurprisingly, my reentry into the U.S. was entirely unremarkable and smooth aside from an annoying long line -- no odd questions (to say nothing of detention). But even still, I think I can fairly say that it is a bad thing I'm even thinking along those lines -- that my own government might snatch me away for no other reason than my political opinions and drop me off to fester in a lawless pit. And I can honestly say that this is a thought I've never had before in any prior administration, including Trump I (to say nothing of Biden, Obama, or Bush). Of course, there are those who have had these worries with far more grounded basis for far longer than I have; I'm not trying to minimize that. My point is only that we should identify the spread of these sentiments as a klaxon warning sign that the democratic freedoms we take for granted are fading. And even if you don't think of yourself as among the "usual" targets, your mundanity will not save you. Even in fascist states, for the most part most people aren't being snatched off the street most of the time. When typifies the oppressive regime is not the experience of being snatched, but the constant ambient worry that it's a possibility. That worry is not one I have experienced until now -- indeed, not experiencing it is something I had taken for granted until now -- and it's not a good or healthy sign of the vitality of our democracy that I'm feeling it now. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/Trk920H

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In Defense of Government Waste

It's a pretty common refrain, particularly among the people who have recently found themselves leopard chow: "I support cutting government waste, but ...." The "but" usually is something like ".... but my job really is valuable" or ".... but this program really is important to the community" or ".... but they're going about it all wrong." And of course, my first thought when reading that is "who supports 'government waste'?" Well, here I will. Sort of. The easiest point to make is that one person's "waste" is another person's "valuable job" or "program important to the community." How much of what people imagine to be "waste" actually is quite valuable? A lot, I'd wager. We're already seeing how frequently people could use of dose of Chesterton's fence -- the fact that they don't understand why there's a government program doing X does not mean that there is no good reason why there's a government program doing X. Bring back small-c conservatism! But I'll take a bigger swing. Let's stipulate that there is some amount of actual, undeniable government waste: money being spent inefficiently, savings that could be obtained with better processes, programs that serve no valuable purpose other than make-work, etc. I'm sure that's true. So who could oppose trying to root that undisputedly wasteful activity out? Well, I might. Might is the operative word. It depends on how much waste there is. Because ferreting out wasted dollars ... costs dollars. And runs the risk of false positives, either of which can make the "anti-waste" program end up costing more money than it saves. DOGE might end up being an example even as it took a chainsaw to a huge range of government programs. And while DOGE may be distinctive in just how idiotically it is being run, the broader principle holds: there is, in any system, some amount of inefficiency that it is paradoxically more efficient to ignore, because the time, energy, and cost of trying to uproot it will dwarf any potential savings. One area we see this a lot is in the management of entitlement programs that are "means-tested" or have other barriers and hoops to jump through for recipients to prove their eligibility. The goal is to ensure that no one who is, say, not actually poor or not actually unable to work gets a share of government money they shouldn't. But the usual result of creating these hoops is actually a large drop off in enrollment by eligible families, who find the requirements too confusing or onerous to navigate, even as it creates extra layers of bureaucracy and administration that are expensive to run. We'd almost certainly be better off just swallowing the fact that some "undeserving" people will enroll -- "waste" -- in exchange for better and more streamlined service for the people we are trying to target. It's not soft-heartedness. It's both more empathic and more efficient -- a win-win. Now again, this is dependent on how much waste we're dealing with. Where waste, fraud, and abuse are rampant, then tamping down on them probably is both necessary and cost-effective (in part because where these things are rampant, there's also a lot of low-hanging fruit that can be picked without much effort). The point, though, is that "cutting waste" isn't self-evidently a good thing; it needs to be cost-justified. And my sense is that the story of widespread of government waste is just that -- a story -- and that in most cases "anti-waste" activity does more harm than good. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/Ss5gaUu

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You Cant Theorize a Hand

When we last left off my artist's journey, I was making mediocre (and that's okay!) renditions of a fruit stand. But since then, I've started taking an introductory drawing class at the Multnomah Arts Center (good news -- it looks like we saved it!), and I'm actually very pleasantly surprised by my progress! We've drawn something different each week. For example, in week two we did self-portraits -- mine would haunt your nightmares insofar as it makes me look like a serial killer. But I do think it's clearly a rendition of me as a serial killer, so that's something. Last week, we focused on drawing hands, which I know are the bane of every artist. But I think mine turned out pretty good! A little meaty, but to by honest my hands are chonky boys. So good job me! Moreover, while I was drawing, I think I said something quite profound (in the sense that I said something very obvious, but in a manner that wraps around into being profound). Namely: You can't theorize a hand. What does that mean? I know what a hand looks like. If you asked me to describe it, I'd start with the palm, thumb, and four additional fingers. Going into more detail, there are the fingernails, the knuckles, and the palm lines. And so it's easy to think, when you're trying to draw a hand, to just take the parts of the hand that you know a hand has, and try to render them onto a page. But that's not actually how one draws a hand. To draw a hand, you can't just have in your mind the theoretical components of a hand. You have to actually look at your hand, and draw what you see. Not "a fingernail" or "a knuckle", but a darker spot here against a lighter spot there. When you think not in terms of a theoretical hand, but in terms of what you're actually seeing, a lot of what you see actually won't seem to line up with your theoretical image of a hand. The dark shadow here isn't a knuckle or a fingernail, it's just present. It's there whether you imagine it being there or not. So you actually have to resist the part of you that's only looking to draw the theoretical hand, and draw what's actually in front of you. This is really quite bracing, since for awhile it looks like you're just drawing random lines and dark spots that don't correspond to anything. It takes a lot of trust in the process to believe that, when it all comes together, you'll have a hand. But you will! Whether or not you think the above hands are "good", they are a lot better than if I tried to just draw what my mind's eye imagines a "hand" to look like. A good lesson for me to learn. Onward! via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/7rwP4GR

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Obtuse Corneal Hydrops

Well, my corneal hydrops are back. And just in time for me to get on a nine-hour flight to London with a four-month-old baby! I've done some of my own research, which I know are among the scariest words a non-medical professional can speak (but like being a mad, ignorant voter, it's so fun!), but really I don't think I was able to do much damage, because it doesn't seem like much is known about the condition by anyone.  Corneal hydrops occur when a layer of your cornea called Descemet's membrane rips, letting fluid leak where it shouldn't and resulting in extreme tearing and eye swelling. It is an uncommon side-effect of my already uncommon keratoconus -- don't I feel special -- and nobody really seems to know what causes it or how to prevent it. Likewise, in terms of treatment the prevailing medical opinion seems to be summarized as "suck it up, buttercup". There are some saline drops to draw out the fluid, and you can take Tylenol for the pain, and other similar OTC medications for other secondary symptoms (e.g., Sudafed for sinus congestion) but that's about it. There was one interesting thing I did find, though. Virtually every source on corneal hydrops appends "acute" in front of it ("acute corneal hydrops"). The "acute" means that it presents suddenly and without warning. But that doesn't describe mine -- in my case, I start noticing symptoms progressively over the course of a week or so. In fact, even that's a bit misleading, since the "symptoms" that correlate with hydrops for me -- essentially, sinus-like symptoms on the left side of my face -- are not as far as I can tell normally associated with hydrops at all. But for me, they always go hand-in-hand, and they predict a forthcoming hydrops event with alarming accuracy. So a week ago I started noticing those symptoms start to appear and wrote my doctor asking if there was anything I could do to forestall the hydrops before my trip. He replied, in so many words, "nope -- good luck!" I was able to manage the sinus-symptoms with OTC medication, but last night my eye finally -- for lack of a better word -- exploded. Have you ever woken up feeling dehydrated because of the amount of fluid you've lost leaking out of your eyeball? Because I have! This is the third time I've had hydrops in the past year. The first time occurred while I was on a plane from Portland to Tallahassee, and it was deeply unpleasant (as in, the flight attendants who saw me asked if I needed paramedics to meet me at the gate). I think the dry airplane air exacerbates the effects dramatically. So you can imagine how excited I am to get on a nine-hour international red-eye flight with an infant while ailing with this particular condition. We leave on Wednesday evening. Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday ... basically, four and a half days for my condition to improve.  I'll stock up on eye drops and other palliative interventions, but still -- pray for me. (And remember, all of this could have been averted if we had a functioning health care system). via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/J1yE8dV

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I Dream in Generative AI

I've always been a lucid dreamer. I typically know when I'm dreaming, and am able to exert some level of control over the course of the dream. Recently, though, my dreams have become, for lack of a better word, more mundane. It'll be morning (in the real world), and I'll think "I wonder what time it is", and then I will dream that I checked my clock. Then I will start thinking in accordance with what the "clock" said, up until I remember that I didn't actually check the clock and it could be essentially any time.  But when I "see" the "clock", why does my brain pick the time that it does? My wife said that my brain is basically acting like ChatGPT -- collating together a mesh of experience to level a prediction of the time it most expects to correspond with me checking my clock while lying in bed asleep. So, for example, this morning I dreamt it was 9:45 AM, which is around when I usually wake up -- in fact, this time I actually genuinely wasn't sure if I had actually checked the clock or had dreamt doing so, since it was quite plausible that I would wake up around 9:45 and check my clock. Another example: sometimes I encounter text when I dream. I'll see a newspaper or come across a plaque on the wall. Of course, my brain knows a newspaper or plaque should have text on it, and I am congenitally incapable of passing by text without reading it. Yet it would ask a lot out of my brain to put together a full and cogent newspaper article on the fly while I'm dreaming. So it does what image-generative AI does in that situation -- it creates a sort of hazy swirl of jumbled together letters -- a really disorienting effect when I'm trying to read something in the dream. It's really a fascinating effect. Anyway, this all led to me having one of my dumber thoughts, which was to describe my brain as "like a kind of biological A.I.". Maybe the machines should replace us. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/alc0B6e

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A Lifetime of Pride Awaits

   Nathaniel turned four months old last week. And I’m already a proud papa. Of course, he isn’t really doing that much right now. But why should I let that stop me? Here’s a list of some of things I’m proud about my baby: I’m proud of how big he is: Nathaniel scared us a bit at the hospital—he lost a lot of weight after he was born, and wasn’t waking up for feedings. But now he’s a veritable giant! 96th percentile for weight, and literally off the charts for height (28 inches long!). Anyone have advice for raising a jock baby? I’m proud of what a great observer he is: Whenever we go out, Nathaniel is incredibly well-behaved. He almost never fusses in public, but he also rarely smiles in public either. Instead, he gets this thoughtful, observant look on his face and just silently soaks everything in. Then we get home and it’s silly-town. But not in public. He’s not an animal. I’m proud of how strong he is: Almost from the get-go, Nathaniel has been very strong. He was holding his neck up and looking around even while we were still in the hospital. I’m proud of what a great sleeper he is: Don’t kill me, fellow parents, but Nathaniel basically started sleeping through the night immediately. I can count on one hand the number of times we’ve been woken up by him crying. He’ll take a midnight bottle, but sleep right through it—I don’t even have to rock him back down. And otherwise, he sleeps consistently from 7 to 7. Daytime naps are a little dicier, but he’s getting better, and in any event I’ll take that trade all day. I’m proud of how patient he is: For awhile, Nathaniel had no interest in waiting even a second for a bottle once he got hungry (our running joke trying to soothe him while the bottle warmed was to agree “we’ve never fed you once in your life”). But now he’s much more understanding. It’s even more pronounced when he wakes up in the morning—no tears, no yelling, he’ll just happily entertain himself in the crib until mom is ready to get him. I’m proud of how resilient he is: This is a big one, because it is not my forte. But when he got his shots, mom and dad were upset for longer than he was. And we’re already seeing him develop self-soothing practices to help him fall back asleep or get through a challenging time. I could learn from him. I’m proud of how joyful he is: He may not show it in public, but Nathaniel has the best smile. He loves to giggle when being tickled, he loves to jabber while on his playmate, and he loves to dance when we sing him songs (we hold him upright as he bounces about). There’s nothing I love more than watching him take joy in the world around him. This is just a short list. And it will only grow as he grows older. I’m not going to lie and say there’s nothing he could do that wouldn’t make me proud; but what is true is that there are an infinite number of ways he can make me proud, and I can’t wait to discover what they all will be. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/Cy7zRHY

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The Joy of Being a Mad Ignorant Citizen

  I'm still learning about the fault lines of local Portland politics. Everyone is a Democrat here, so that's no help. We just completely revamped our city governmental structure, abandoning the "commission" model (where elected city commissioners were responsible for particular bureaus of city governance) in favor of city council featuring three elected members each from four geographic districts. I think that's an improvement, though the last election was a bit of a free-for-all. Anyway, Portland is in a time of budget cuts, and the city council is deciding what to slash. One proposed cut is to permanently close the Multnomah Arts Center (MAC), where I happen to be currently taking an introductory drawing class (if you want a charcoal self-portrait that will haunt your nightmares, hit me up). Since I'm enjoying my class (and am anticipating taking my son to family art classes when he's a bit older), I was horrified at the prospect that the center might close -- it's got a lot of great programming and its five minutes from my house. So I wrote to my city councilors urging they keep the MAC open and find other places to make budget cuts (I apparently wasn't the only one). Congratulate me on being an engaged public citizen? Maybe. But the thing is, here's the relevant information I was bringing to the table in forming this opinion and deciding to yell at my councilors about it: I like the MAC. End of list.  Obviously, in the abstract the MAC is a nice thing and worthy of support. But in times of scarcity, the question is about relative priorities -- the money has to come from somewhere. And for my part, I have no idea what other things might be cut instead of the MAC is kept open, nor do I have any insight in how to weigh potential competing priorities even if I was told of potential alternatives. And moreover, I don't really have any interest in learning more. "There must be another way", I say, while having no idea what those alternatives might be and no interest in finding out. To be clear, I'm not saying it's likely that the MAC is actually a good place to cut. The hue and cry to save it makes me feel more confident that there really are better places to trim from. And the proposal to close the MAC came from one councilor -- it's not a situation where all the experts agree this needs to be done while I stubbornly refuse to accept it.  But the point is that I'm getting to be an uninformed voter (for real this time!) and it is glorious. I just get to see something I don't like and be mad about it! Do you know how much more relaxing that is compared to when you do know the difficulties and complexities of an issue? I can also decide that the reason we're facing the need for such cuts is Donald Trump. Do I know that? No, but I can't imagine his slash and burn attack on effective governance is doing Portland any favors, and that's good enough for me! This could get addictive. I have to be careful. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/7iYoxIw

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What Internet Randos Are Saying About the DC Jewish Museum Shooting

Earlier this evening, two staffers with the Israeli embassy were shot and killed while leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC. The event was a multifaith and multinational gathering exploring "how a coalition of organizations - from the region and for the region - are working together in response to humanitarian crises throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region." The attacker reportedly shouted "free Palestine" after committing the killings. (Tomorrow, the Museum was scheduled to host an event on "Pride: The Policy Accomplishments of the LGBTQ+ Movement", but this doesn't seem related to that). Whenever events like this happen to the Jewish community, I have the macabre habit of trawling through the comment sections of my favored social media outlets, looking for people to block. I say macabre, but I actually find it quite cathartic: every block is another terrible person I don't ever have to deal with. Is it an endless and Sisyphean task? Of course. But you know that story about the kid throwing starfish back into the ocean and being told "why bother -- there's so many, you'll never make a difference throwing them back one by one", and he throws another one back in and says "I made a difference to that one?" It's like that, but oppositional. I digress. After hearing the news, I did my perusing on Bluesky, and I have some anecdata to report. First, a positive: Most people are reacting with what I would consider basic normalcy and decency. Just generally expressing horror and sadness or worry about how actings of political violence are only going to make a bad situation worse. Sometimes people I think exaggerate the pervasiveness of the "bad" takes on Bluesky -- and at one level I get why: if 1000 people are commenting on a political event, and 10% have a repellant take, that's simultaneously only 10% (a pretty small minority) and also that's 100 repellant comments, which can feel very overwhelming, very quickly. So while I don't begrudge anyone who can't look past the bad actors, I want to put it in some perspective. To everyone who had a normal response to a terrible tragedy: you get a sticker. On the "bad" side, I sort the bad actors into a few groups. The number of people I saw affirmatively cheering the murders was very small. More common was either an overacted performance of yawning indifference ("huh -- anyway, did you see the Pacers game?"), or a dashed off "I'm not saying I support this..." followed by a very long "but...." To be honest, though, none of these surprised me (either in their content or their relative numbers). The response I saw which did surprise me in terms of the frequency I encountered it was the number of people suggesting the shooting may have been a false flag, designed to justify either complete ethnic cleansing in Gaza and/or further authoritarian repression here at home.  To be clear: I'm not including in this group people suggesting the Trump and Netanyahu administrations will attempt to exploit this shooting to further their malign agenda. That goes without saying. I'm talking about people who think the shooter was himself an Israeli operative, or otherwise acted at the behest of the Israeli government. This is "the paranoid style", leftist version, and I was stunned at how many people seemed ready to indulge in it.  I probably shouldn't have been -- one still sees people arguing that Israel intentionally let October 7 happen (and massacred its own people) in order to justify its invasion of Gaza -- but still, it stood out. A lot of people really are prone to believing these sorts of conspiracies. Anyway, that's my impressionistic take on what random reply-guys are saying. Mostly normal, some cheerers or apologists, and a bit more conspiracy theorists than I was comfortable seeing. Your mileage may vary. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/etqEzTU

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Building a Better Scotsman

Here's one of my least favorite evergreen internet donnybrooks: Person A: So-and-so isn't a real Christian [or insert identity here]. Real Christians care about the poor/don't commit adultery/aren't racist [or insert other "good" qualities here]. Person B: I've got bad news for you: lots of real Christians are greedy/adulterous/racist etc.. Stop trying to bowdlerize the reputation of Christianity by pretending the bad parts don't exist! The reason I hate this is that both "sides" are not just attempting to do wholly salutary things, but they often know the salutary point the other side is trying to make and just pretend not to. Person B is certainly right in trying to check against an illicit cleansing of Christianity's moral reputation. There are lots of people who are and are recognized as Christians who do bad things, and one can't wave that history away by playing games with definitions. But Person A is also right in that the public meaning and understanding of Christianity is a perpetually contested concept, and it is a good thing when people try to align that concept with other good qualities. It is good when people who are Christian understand that identity to encompass good things. It is a constant push-pull struggle, and Person A is fighting the good fight in trying to push "Christianity" in a positive direction. So yes, it would be bad if we just collectively glaze over the bad attributes of various identity/ideologies in a misplaced desire to define ourselves into innocence. But it would also be bad if we sabotaged efforts to present alternative and more salubrious accounts of these identities by acting as if they're forms of cheating. In theory, a bit of nuance lets these positions coexist. One important lodestone I'd turn to here is Richard Rorty's maxim that "there is nothing deep down inside us what we have put there ourselves." The inherent nature of Christianity (or again, fill in your favored blank) is not homophobia, nor is it LGBT-inclusion. There's nothing deep down inside the concept save what we put there ourselves. If we put in homophobia, then its homophobic. If we take out homophobia and replace it with LGBT inclusion, then its LGBT inclusive. It is not definitionally wrong when people put in homophobia, nor is it cheating when people try to take out homophobia. In the field, I think a good rule of thumb is to ask what the speaker is reacting to. If someone is criticizing Donald Trump by saying he's "a bad Christian", I'm not convinced it's helpful to swoop in and say "actually, Christians can be bad." If someone is criticizing Donald Trump for imposing Christian nationalism upon the population, I'm not convinced it's helpful to swoop in and say "what he's doing isn't really 'Christian' at all."  Likewise, I don't have a lot of patience for people who try to deny the real strands of homophobia in Christianity by simply saying "that's not real Christianity". That is, to borrow from Bonhoeffer, "cheap grace"; it takes work to excise those strands, it's not something that can be accomplished by proclamation alone. But I also don't have much patience for people who pooh-pooh the notion of doing that work at all because they insist homophobia is inherent to Christianity and anyone who tries to dislodge that attribute is lying -- and importantly, standing up and presenting a different vision of Christianity is an important form of doing the work. Indeed, there aren't many other ways. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/w5DjmEC

[schraubd]

Parental Sabbiticals

Today was Jill's first Mother's Day as a mom. Tuesday, Jill returns to work after the end of her parental leave. The end of her leave, and the beginning of a return to "normal" where we will both be working parents, underscores just how special these last four months have been. That we've both been off of work and have been able to just concentrate on being parents, on loving and cuddling and playing with our baby, has been a gift beyond measure. It's also accentuated how important parental leave is. We've been very lucky in terms of support: we're financially stable, had both sets of parents come for extended visits, had night doulas for much of the first month, have a baby who basically started sleeping through the night immediately, and yet it still feels like this whole deal would have been absolutely possible if even one (let alone both) of us were working. Even now, with four months of experience under our belt, the prospect of "daddy daycare" feels terrifying to me (and that's accounting for the fact that Jill works from home!).* I do not understand how anyone who's ever been a parent doesn't support universal parental leave. Jill and I have joked about how "surprising" it is that not having to work and just being able to concentrate on helping your baby grow is so much more pleasant than toiling in the salt mines, but really, it is an experience that everyone deserves to have. Oregon, to its immense credit, does mandate (and fund) twelve weeks of paid parental leave -- this is a brilliant policy that should be nationwide. In fact, I'm way beyond that -- I think we should have periodic parental sabbaticals. Not a sabbatical from parenting (that's what sleepaway camp is for, and I'm embarrassed that I didn't figure that out until well into adulthood). I just think that every six or so years, one should be able to take parental leave again just to ... parent. Obviously, the parenting demands of a baby are different from those of a six- or twelve- or eighteen-year-old. But no matter what age your child is, I cannot help but imagine that both parent and child would benefit if the former could set aside four months where all they have to do is be a mom or dad. Four months to dive into a parent-child art class. Four months to really concentrate on math tutoring. Four months to dedicate to college visits. I get why this incredible experience of parental leave is centered around the time when your baby is a baby. But really, why should it be so limited? We live in a (for now anyway) incredibly rich society. This an investment we could make, and which could make so many lives so much better. A lot of people talk a big game about encouraging families to have children -- by which 98% of the time they mean "taking away choices from women so that they no longer have any option but to have children" -- but this is something that actually would be a great catalyst for thriving families. So consider this my big Squad/Green New Deal-style pitch: universal paid parental sabbaticals, for any parent with children under the age of 19. Build families back better. * My leave formally ends at the end of the semester, but I don't teach over the summer, so even though I will be "working" (e.g., writing papers), I'll be taking over primary childcare duties during the day. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/SuJwLMZ

[schraubd]

Requiem for a POB

One of the great traumas of my youth, as my mother tells it anyway, was when a favorite brand of gummy bear oatmeal was discontinued. It was one of my favorite breakfast treats, and learning that it was gone -- and gone forever -- was devastating to my tiny brain. I was heartbroken; sufficiently so that this calamity is still spoken of in the Schraub household thirty-plus years later. It did eventually come back when I was teenager, but by then the magic was gone. Fast forward to the present, and one of David's favorite contemporary treats is Dole's pineapple orange banana juice (or "POB", rhyming with "lobe"). I had this off-and-on as a kid as well, but my true love affair with it didn't begin until I was an adult. It is a beautiful mixture of the holy trinity of smoothie fruits, and having it in my fridge is tantamount to being able to get a delicious smoothie whenever I want. Since David loves smoothies, this is a major selling point. Unfortunately, POB has become increasingly hard to find.* And today I deigned to ask someone at the grocery store if they had it, and he said it had been discontinued. I don't know if he just means only that store no longer carries it, or it's no longer produced anywhere, but given my trouble finding it at any of the myriad grocery stores near my house, I fear the latter. Upon getting this news, I remarked to my wife that this was even worse than the gummi bear oatmeal fiasco, because I'm an adult now and "there's less time". She replied "doesn't that mean it's better?" And I just want to explicitly trace out both of our logics here: My idea was that less time is "worse", because there's less time for someone to reproduce the product and return it to the grocery shelves. Her idea was that less time is "better", because I'm closer to death and so will have to suffer for less time. Grim. Anyway, I am heartbroken. Bring back POB! * I have no idea if this is anything Trump and/or tariff related -- I'm actually inclined to doubt that it is -- but I'm happy to blame him for it anyway. If other voters can crankily decide every bad thing in their life is the fault of the incumbent party, why can't I? via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/Ts8zKcZ

[schraubd]

Like Wildfire

The first I heard of wildfires in Israel, it was in the context of an allegation that the fires were the result of Israeli settlers committing arson while attacking Palestinian farmers. As best I can tell, that allegation traces back to a stray Haaretz tweet that reads "As wildfire rages in Israel, security source tells Haaretz settlers set Palestinian agricultural land on fire in the West Bank." There doesn't seem to be any further corroboration, and the link in the post doesn't go to any article or news item elaborating (as best I can tell, it was either taken down or never existed in the first place). Meanwhile, the right-wing coalition running the show in Israel was also quick to blame the fires on arson -- specifically, that caused by Palestinian militants. This, too, seems thinly supported and already has the hallmarks of a smear campaign. Netanyahu, for instance, claimed that 18 individuals had already been arrested for suspected arson; the true figure is three. And one of those three is a sixty-three-year old man with no criminal record who was found with the smoking-gun evidence of a tobacco pipe and some cotton to clean it. Finally, there are the experts, who posit that the wildfires raging across an arid region of the eastern mediterranean that just had its driest winter on record are probably attributable to ... the climate crisis. Fancy that. In recent years, right-wing politicians have frequently blamed Palestinians for arson in the wake of wildfire outbreaks, but no one has ever been indicted for nationalist-motivated arson leading to large-scale fires. Most major fires investigated were ultimately attributed to negligence. The Carmel disaster in 2010 was sparked by a discarded hookah coal. Two of the major fires that scorched parts of the Jerusalem hills in 2016 were caused by a flare gun and welding work. Other large fires were found to have been started by farmers burning waste or hikers making coffee. The phenomenon of blaming minorities for starting wildfires is not unique to Israel: in Turkey, Erdoğan blamed the Kurds; in Europe, migrants were accused of arson; and in California, claims emerged that LGBTQ individuals in the fire services were responsible for the failure to contain the fires. It does all hang together, doesn't it.  via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/8Xx0K2G