Sabotage in the White House: How Trump successfully orchestrated Biden’s “incompetence”

Photo by Sohaib Ghyasi on Unsplash

Republicans want to impeach Biden for the chaos that unfolded in Afghanistan during the first few days of the evacuation. Their cries have grown even louder since Isis-K sent a suicide bomber to Kabul airport. “Biden is incompetent,” they say.

Even Democrats have jumped on that bandwagon, blaming Biden for not beginning the evacuation sooner. We’ve all heard the heartbreaking stories of Afghan interpreters who’ve saved American lives only to be waiting for years for a visa. They say there is no excuse for this mismanagement. It must be Biden’s fault.

If Biden is impeached, Republicans should think about what that means for Trump. Every attempt Trump has made to sabotage Biden will be uncovered. And it won’t just be aired on liberal media or written up in articles published by The New York Times or The Washington Post where Trump’s cronies never venture. No, this time the truth will come out on live TV in front of the entire world.

We can’t predict the future, but we do know something about the past. In the rush to label Biden at fault for the events unfolding in Afghanistan, we should revisit some facts that our selective memory seems to have forgotten. 

 

Trump sabotaged Biden’s efforts to effectively transition into the presidency.

The job of President of the United States is arguably the hardest job in the world. That’s why each president (except Trump) has graciously given the incoming president and his team access to important information that will be needed to do the job effectively from the moment he takes office. Trump sabotaged that effort.

 

Trump gutted the SIV (Special Immigrant Visa Program).

According to Olivia Troye, former top national security adviser to Mike Pence, "Trump had FOUR years-while putting this plan in place-to evacuate these Afghan allies who were the lifelines for many of us who spent time in Afghanistan. They'd been waiting a long time. The process slowed to a trickle."

 

Trump announced our withdrawal from Afghanistan & made a deal with the Taliban

Trump even tried to invite the Taliban to the White House, which “stunned many of Trump’s top advisers.” Instead, then Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo traveled to Doha, Qatar to meet with one of the Taliban’s leaders.

According to Secretary Esper, “Mr. Trump had earlier ‘undermined’ the agreement through his barely disguised impatience to exit the country with little apparent regard for the consequences. That included an October 2020 declaration by Mr. Trump that he wanted the 5,000 American troops then in Afghanistan home by Christmas.”

Former national security adviser, H.R. McMaster was just as blunt regarding the actions of Mike Pompeo: “Our secretary of state signed a surrender agreement with the Taliban,” said McMaster. “This collapse goes back to the capitulation agreement of 2020. The Taliban didn’t defeat us. We defeated ourselves.”

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The day Biden arrived at the White House, there was no warm welcome the likes of which every other president in history has enjoyed. In fact, the door was locked. That’s how petty Trump is. That’s how mean-spirited and childish the man 74 million people voted for turned out to be.

Since Biden took office, he and his administration have been doing everything possible to manage the distribution of vaccines to millions of people; reboot an economy that lost 114 million jobs during 2020 alone and left millions more with a housing crisis; reform an immigration policy that allowed for the separation of families and sent thousands of children to homes with no documentation to tell us where they went; address the unrest raised by the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a white cop; provide aid to states plagued by disastrous conditions resulting from man-made climate change—all of which were exacerbated by the former, twice impeached, disgraced president who did everything he could to gut the regulations that were designed to mitigate the problem.

Still, despite being responsible for everything just mentioned, Biden and his team have managed to fully vaccinate 163 million people. (And of those still unvaccinated, it is estimated that the bulk of them are refusing the vaccination based on misinformation spread by Trump and his followers.)

According to CNN Business, the economy is now operating at 93% of where it was pre-pandemic.

The Biden administration has also been working to reunite families separated at the border. Of approximately 5,500 children who are known to have been separated under the Trump administration, all but about 1,000 have since been reunited with their families. (Those who remain separated, are harder to reunite mainly because the parents were removed from the United States by the Trump administration.)

Billions have been sent to the states to protect people (who lost jobs due to Covid) from eviction. It is the states who dropped the ball on this one. No one should expect President Biden to create systems in 50 different states for distribution of that money. It is the role of the state governments to make that happen.

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We can’t deny the pain, frustration and sheer terror experienced by the people of Afghanistan who supported us during the 20-year war and who deserve to be protected. We can’t pretend hundreds of Afghans and dozens of American soldiers were not killed or wounded by a suicide bomb detonated during the evacuation.

But let us not forget either that the day after the suicide bomb that killed 13 American troops and over a hundred Afghan citizens, an Isis-K member responsible for orchestrating such attacks was found, targeted and killed. Biden was responsible for making that happen.

Since Biden became aware of the problems on the ground in Afghanistan, he has instructed his people to temporarily circumvent the visa process that had been preventing Afghan citizens from evacuating; he has increased the daily number of evacuees exponentially and at last count evacuation efforts by the U.S. and our allies have ensured that 117,000 people have been safely removed from Afghanistan.

When this process began a there were a lot of comparisons to the final chaotic days of the evacuation of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam war. This is nonsensical. We don’t know how many people were evacuated from Saigon during that final push, but the only estimates I’ve found say it was about 7,000. 

There is a comparison to Vietnam that does makes sense, however; it is to compare them based on the stupidity and ego maniacal tendencies of the men who kept us in both wars for so long when all evidence suggested we could never win. In that regard, they are similar.

In terms of the ongoing evacuation efforts and the extraordinary coordination that has allowed so many to leave Afghanistan unharmed, there is no comparison.

Let’s also not forget that no country has ever managed a successful and trouble-free evacuation from any war. Not only has Biden done something with almost miraculous efficiency (once the situation left by Trump was fully examined, understood, and corrected) he did it without a template or a map to guide him. He and his team in the White House, along with leadership at the Pentagon, and our military personnel and allies, did this flying blind. And they still got 117,000 people to safety.

If Republicans impeach Biden, the full extent of Trump’s incompetence as well as his various attempts to sabotage the efforts of President Biden will be fully revealed to the world. Is that really what they want?

As for Biden, I guess you could say he’s incompetent. But I won’t.

 

Hope is in the eye of the beholder

 Photo by Aziz Acharki on Unsplash

I’m an optimist. I was five or six when my parents got divorced. I had never even heard the word “divorce” before, so I had a little trouble getting my head around it. After asking a few clarifying questions about who I would live with and  what would happen to my toys, I didn’t think it sounded bad at all.

In my child brain it boiled down to this: Mom and Dad wouldn’t live together. I wouldn’t have to hear Dad yelling and Mom crying anymore. I’d have two sets of friends and two sets of toys. How bad could that be?

Whether we accept what we are dealt and look for the next best thing, or we succumb to despair, is a choice we all have to make. When you’re an optimist, the choice is easy.

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Last night while watching my usual line-up on MSNBC, I watched as pundits predicted Nancy Pelosi’s failure to unite Democratic caucus in the House. My taped shows were replaying in chronological order, but I’d already heard the news on CNN. Pelosi got every single Democrat in the House to vote for the infrastructure bill. The naysayers were wrong.

When the images of Afghanis hanging from the side of a plane as it departed Kabul airport were shown over and over on the news, I knew that as horrific as it was, it was panic that created much of the horror. The Taliban had not penetrated the safety of the airport. When those men climbed onto the wings of that airplane, knowing they would eventually have to let go, which would guarantee their death, they were not reacting to the situation they were in, they were reacting to the situation they imagined.

What if these people had waited until death was inevitable instead of running towards it? They were already at the airport; it was a safe space. They didn’t need to fall to their deaths. But they did because they had no hope.

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It’s easy to be hopeful when you live in a safe place. No one in Afghanistan lives in a safe place. They didn’t before we started the war, and they don’t now. For 20+ years, we made it safer for them, but now that’s over. Regardless of how the Taliban behave going forward, it will be hard for anyone in Afghanistan to have hope now. They’ve seen too much violence. You could say they’ve been programmed for despair.

Still, there are stories of Afghanis who tried multiple times to get to the airport and finally, after a series of near-death experiences, they made it. What if they had no hope? They would have given up. If they had given up, they wouldn’t have made it.

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I wish I could bottle optimism. I wish I knew where I got it. I wish I could wrap it up and send it to Afghanistan.

Social media and the destruction of civilization as we know it: An old-timer’s lament

The Fosner Family, Easter 1969 - Heidi’s on the left, I’m on the right.*

I became an activist when I was 11 years old. I wasn’t born into it, like the character River Phoenix played in Running on Empty. And I didn’t act alone, my accomplice was my sister, Heidi.

We had just seen an episode of Room 222, “Clothes Make the Boy” which aired on December 3, 1969. It was a series about a racially diverse fictional High School in Los Angeles. This particular episode can be summed up in one sentence, encapsulated in the imdb write-up (linked above).

The principal of the school “…sees that the dress code (adopted in 1940) may need some updating, but isn’t sure how far to go.”

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We lived in a suburb of Seattle at the time. It was cold in December. Our school dress code wasn’t very complicated: boys wore pants, girls didn’t. That changed the morning after we watched episode 12 of Room 222.

I don’t remember exactly how it unfolded, but Heidi and I decided to wear pants to school. We’d worn them to school before, but not in school. On cold days, girls would wear pants under their skirts while walking to school, then hide them away before going to class. We were only eleven and twelve at the time, but we thought that was stupid.

So, on December 4, 1969, after our pre-pubescent activism was triggered, we left the skirts at home. Our parents were fine with it, but when we walked into our respective classrooms still wearing pants, it caused a bit of consternation.

It’s all a bit vague now (would that I could look up my past the way I can Google old TV shows!) but we created quite the buzz. Teachers were pulling each other aside for private conversations. Other kids were pointing at us on the playground during recess. A couple of times we were told to read quietly while the teacher left the room, presumably to discuss this latest development and decide how to proceed.

The upshot was: from that day on, girls got to wear pants. That was it; we won. It just took one day, and two girls inspired by a TV show. From that point on every girl at Horizon View Elementary was putting her pants on, one leg at a time, just like the boys.

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Today, activism is clicking a button. I feel like we’re losing our connection to events because we’re not really participating in them anymore. Everything is words, clicks, likes, and tweets. Granted, Covid hasn’t done us any favors. When social interaction can lead to illness and/or death, it can put a damper on things. But even before Covid, our phones, tablets and laptops had become a substitute for social interaction.

When we strip our relationships of the physical part of interacting, we lose more than the ability to hug and touch — we lose the ability to feel. I’m talking about deep feelings, the kind generated by heartfelt experiences, not the petty emotional outbursts that do little more than give us permission to confuse fact with fiction.

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I am not an expert on Sociology, but I remember learning in 7th grade that the way people learn how to behave is from the feedback they get from others. That used to be a good thing. When we interacted before Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, we were accountable in each moment for what we did. There was no anonymity. If we did something, we owned it. And we usually knew right away if what we did was acceptable.

I’m not saying the world was perfect (or that we had to walk ten miles in the snow to get to school — though if we had, isn’t it a good thing that we got to wear pants?) It’s just that the ability to spew venom at strangers simply because we didn’t like what they said wasn’t an option. If we argued with someone, they argued back and right to our faces.

Bullies still existed, but it was a learning experiment, not a way of life. Bullies were punished then. Now they’re rewarded with likes and claps and retweets. Every nutjob who felt like a loner before FB now has a following.

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The other day, the New York Times published a story about how Facebook’s recent quarterly report claimed their most popular posts were filled with “innocuous content like recipes and cute animals .“ But somehow the Times got ahold of a very different report, one Facebook Executives chose not to share.

“In that report, a copy of which was provided to The Times, the most-viewed link was a news article with a headline suggesting that the coronavirus vaccine was at fault for the death of a Florida doctor. The report also showed that a Facebook page for The Epoch Times, an anti-China newspaper that spreads right-wing conspiracy theories, was the 19th-most-popular page on the platform for the first three months of 2021.

The report was nearing public release when some executives, including Alex Schultz, Facebook’s vice president of analytics and chief marketing officer, debated whether it would cause a public relations problem, according to the internal emails. The company decided to shelve it.”

I find it ironic that people complaining of governments that collect taxes without providing adequate infrastructure, jobs, housing, or healthcare have no issue with Facebook generating billions in advertising dollars for spreading misinformation that’s killing us.

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In July of this year, Terry Gross hosted an episode of Fresh Air, titled “Reporters Reveal ‘Ugly Truth’ Of How Facebook Enables Hate Groups And Disinformation. It’s a scary story. Suffice it to say that the algorithms that drive traffic to social media sites (and, apparently, search engines as well) are specifically designed to keep us online as long as possible.

That may not sound like a bad thing, but to me it’s analogous to cigarette manufacturers using habit forming chemicals to keep us hooked on smoking, or food manufacturers using trans fats and salt to make French fries and potato chips addictive.

Facebook is like a vending machine, only it’s filled with junk food and the supply is endless. You don’t even have to pay for it, just push a button.

We once had the good sense to ban trans fats (though per The Body by Bill Bryson, we knew how dangerous they were as far back as the 50s; we didn’t ban them until 2018). We still haven’t banned chemically addictive cigarettes, but at least we’re no longer lying about the danger they pose.

It makes me wonder how many more billions Zuckerberg will accumulate before we decide to do something about that.

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*The family photo is the only one I have of my sister and me at that age. Our house burned down on April Fool’s Day of the following year, and we lost everything. This photo survived, along with a handful of others, that had been sent to our mom (our stepmother is in the photo) who lived in California at the time. And yes, I did cut my own hair. I still do. (Fortunately, it’s a skill that can be developed over time.)

Below is a photo of us taken more recently, in the Haight in San Francisco when Heidi came to California (where I live now) to see the Summer of Love exhibit at the De Young Museum. As before, Heidi’s on the left.

Tips for readers: Hypersensitivity in the era of wokeness

Photo by Sinitta Leunen on Unsplash

 

I see a lot of articles about “tips for writers.” Here’s one for readers.

Stop applying your sensitivity meter to every story you read. It’s not about you, personally. You may think it is, but most writers are writing to share information. The goal is to provide insight into areas of interest to the writer and to share research they’ve gathered on a particular topic that they feel might be helpful to others.

It’s okay if you disagree; healthy debate is encouraged. It’s one of the reasons many of us write. We want to have a conversation. I’m not saying we should avoid debate; I’m referring to knee-jerk reactions to statements in articles that curtail debate and replace it with pettiness.

If you are confused about the difference, allow me to elaborate.

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For years people with a uterus were women. Therefore, only women had babies. Even now, it’s pretty rare for a person with a uterus not to be a woman. So, when people write or talk about women and pregnancy, it’s not a personal slight to non-binary or transgender people. Please don’t take it as one.

On the other hand, if you ask someone you know to respect your gender identity and they don’t, that is a personal slight. See the difference?

When a Black person says it’s racist that eyeglass makers don’t make glasses that fit their faces, I have to disagree. It’s economics. Black people represent less than 15% of the population in America. How many businesses cater to 15% of the population?

Instead of calling them racist, how about asking them to consider a line of eyewear that better fits Black people? Racism implies a superiority to the person being referenced. I don’t think eyeglass manufacturers are making a statement that non-Blacks are better than Blacks. I think they’re saying they want to sell a lot of eyeglasses. See the difference?

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Also, keep in mind that writers need to think about flow. If writing becomes cumbersome, no one reads it. Let’s say you’re writing a piece about female empowerment and instead of using “women” you say, “people with or without a uterus who identify as female.” You’ve just killed your flow.

A comment I recently got on a piece that referenced scientific research was “If you’re going to include science, include all the science, not just what proves your point.” 

I would argue that the point of a piece is to make a specific point. Otherwise, why are we writing? There is no way to include “all the science” on any topic. Nor should it be a goal. The goal is to write something that moves us as writers and to reference the material that contributes to our thinking. In other words, it’s to do exactly what this person is condemning.

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In short, we are all sensitive people. I’m not saying we shouldn’t recognize that. But no one can address every other person’s individual sensitivities. So, when you read something, keep in mind that it’s not about you; it’s about ideas. Focus on those and maybe give a little bit of leeway when it comes to semantics.

Yes, words matter; but what’s behind them matters more. 

 

 

 

Covid Rant

 

Yesterday, a bunch of Senators announced that they have Covid. All were vaccinated. It was announced by several news organizations, yet none of the commentators bothered to point out that the only reason we know they have Covid is, unlike the rest of us, they get tested constantly.

None are sick, and none are expected to get sick, yet now that this has been announced it’s just providing additional ammunition for vaccine deniers to use when they say “See, vaccines don’t work.”

Would someone please tell these people that vaccines don’t stop Covid from getting into your nose or mouth. How could they? A vaccine doesn’t erect a wall between you and the Covid infected person who might be breathing on you. That’s what the mask is for. This tells us one thing and one thing only: The senators in question have probably not been diligent about wearing masks. And that’s okay because they’ve been vaccinated. But can we please stop confusing what a mask does with what a vaccine does?

Masks prevent the spread; vaccines prevent the dead. Is that easy enough for everybody?

I expected more of Nicolle Wallace and Rachel Maddow. But they’ve done nothing to clarify this issue. Instead, like all the other folks who don’t seem to understand how this works, they’re saying it’s because the new Delta variant is so much more contagious. Maybe. But maybe not. Maybe just not wearing a mask would have been enough to get plain old original Covid-19, too. But we have no way of knowing because most vaccinated people who don’t wear masks are not getting tested.

For all I know, I have Covid! I’m not getting tested because I have no reason to. I have no kids who are unvaccinated, so I’m not putting anyone at risk, and I never leave my apartment because now that I committed to writing every day, I don’t have time to go anywhere.

The point is the failure to be clear about specifics is part of the reason people are still so confused. And confused people make stupid decisions. So, let’s stop confusing them!

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And another thing: a mask that droops below your nose can’t protect you. Unless you are a mouth-breather who never lets a breath enter your nose, you’re wasting the mask by letting it drop down your face. Why do I see this everywhere I go? I’m guessing it’s because people are too lazy to take it off when they don’t need it, so they pull it down under their chins while leaving the elastic straps over their ears. This causes the elastic to S-T-R-E-T-C-H and then it no longer stays secure. How can anybody not know this?

Here’s an idea: take it off and put the straps around your wrist when you are not wearing it. Unless your wrist is the size of King Kong’s, it won’t stretch out and you won’t forget where you put it. We’re talking about potentially life-saving measures here. Is this really too much to ask?

I’d say something directly to the people I see doing this but I’m afraid one of them might decide to kill me. I’m serious. People have been murdered for asking others to wear masks. I can only imagine what fate might await me if I corrected a stranger’s mask etiquette.

Admittedly, I’m cranky right now. But I’ve been fired up about this ever since I saw Nancy Pelosi tugging away at a crooked mask while standing at a podium pontificating about the threat the virus presented. “Great example, Nancy” was what I yelled at the TV. Thankfully, she’s learned to store it around her neck rather than pull it down over her chin, so recently I’ve found other things to focus on. Like yelling at Nicolle Wallace and Rachel Maddow.

TGIF – this is my last blog for the week. I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted.

 

Gender isn’t just about the genitals you’re born with: The gender conundrum

Photo by Yasmin Yusef / Unsplash 

A year or so ago, I saw a scientist on PBS who was talking about gender dysphoria. I wish I could remember her name. She was adamant: there are only two genders. But what she didn’t say was that gender is a spectrum. It may not seem like that to most people because most folks are okay being male or female. Generally, straight (cisgender) people are also more easily accepted by society because they don’t challenge our thinking (not to mention some people’s sense of morality) in the way LGBTQ people do. But they are not more normal.

Years ago, I read a book called Why Men don’t Listen And Women Can’t Read Maps: How we’re different and what to do about it.  It was written by a married couple, Allan and Barbara Pease. Published originally in 2000, it was an international best seller. Yet despite the ground-breaking research it highlights, I’ve not met anyone who has ever heard of it.

My guess is that’s because the real value in this book has nothing to do with understanding how men and women differ, despite the title. What is truly groundbreaking in this extraordinarily well-researched work is their inclusion of scientific studies that prove gender isn’t just about the genitals we are born with—and most folks aren’t comfortable with this information.

In one of the final chapters in the book, titled “Boys Will Be Boys, But Not Always” the authors highlight studies that show a complex relationship between gender, identity, and sexual orientation—one that is determined not only by genes, but also by hormones.

The combination of genetic and hormonal influences leads to tendencies that are every bit as normal as any cisgender person’s—they just haven’t been understood as well.

Take, for example, the gay brothers and sisters discussed in the sub-chapter “The Gay Gene.” (Note: There is no "gay gene" but this book was written 21 years ago and that was what they called the chapter where the research cited here can be found.)

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Research done by Dr. Dean Hamer in 1993 found that out of 40 pairs of brothers, who were homosexual, 33 shared genetic markers in the same region of the X chromosome. Interestingly, they did not find the same genetic pattern in lesbians. It seems hormones in the mother’s body when a female fetus is developing are the biological basis for gay women. The key is that in both cases, the determining factor is not choice, but biology.

You might expect then that all identical twins share the same sexual orientation, but they don’t. The reason for that is something called “penetrance.” Gene penetrance is basically how much power a particular gene has to become activated. If you’ve heard of the BRCA1 gene, you probably know that a variant of this gene is considered a marker for breast cancer. But why do some people with this variant develop cancer and others don’t? The answer is penetrance.

Hormones, apparently, can have a profound effect on penetrance. “If, during the early stages of pregnancy, testosterone is suppressed and the fetus is male, the chance of giving birth to a gay boy dramatically increases because it is the female hormones that configure the brain.”

Any number of things might suppress testosterone while a fetus is developing in the womb. One of them appears to be stress, bit it’s important to note that any major life change is stressful; it’s not necessarily bad. Maybe the mother is planning her wedding, or just got promoted. Day-to-day life is stressful. This is normal.

In addition to the research the authors studied, they met with a Russian professor of brain surgery who confessed to a series of “brain-altering experiments” that were carried out in humans. The research was done in secret and no specific studies were cited. But the results he provided were astonishing.

“…they had changed boys into girls and girls into boys by altering their brains in the womb with male hormone. They created their own gay, lesbian, and transexual people.” (Italics, mine)

As you might imagine, these experiments were not without problems. (In one case, they created a boy with both male and female genitals.) The original term for a child with both male and female genitals was “hermaphrodite.” Today, scientists appear to agree hormone levels are the reason for this, and most are now using the term “intersex.”

While this affects a relatively small population (.02-.05%) it becomes problematic less for what it is than for the reaction of parents who traditionally insist that doctors surgically fix the sex of their child immediately—without taking the time to discover what gender the child might wish to be.

Interestingly, In 2015, Malta became the first county to outlaw non-consensual modifications of sexual anatomy. This is important because studies have shown that a child’s sexual identity may be fluid until puberty. Therefore, making the gender choice for that child, prior to puberty, means there is a potential for making the wrong choice.

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Another fascinating discovery highlighted in the chapter “What Happens in the Womb” is that scientists have identified different centers in the brain that affect gender identity and sexual preference. What this means is the possibilities are not nearly as limited as we’ve been led to believe.

If the center for gender identity does not line up exactly with the center for sexuality, a person might identify as one sex but behave in ways more traditionally associated with the other. Or a person might be right in the middle of the identity spectrum and feel no strong urge to identify as either male or female but have a definite preference for sex with men. Another alternative could be someone very strongly female in her identity but attracted sexually to both men and women.

Based on this research, it isn’t surprising that gay men can be very masculine, and lesbians can be very feminine. We are not all one or the other. It’s a spectrum.

This may also explain why some prefer the pronoun “they” vs. “him” or “her.” If their identity center is hormonally balanced, such that neither male nor female feels normal to them, this is how they can define themselves in a way that fits how they feel and who they know themselves to be.

(On a side note: I know a lot of people have trouble with the whole “they” thing. I am one of them. It’s got nothing to do with disparaging people who don’t wish to be identified as male or female. It’s a language thing. To me “they” means plural. I understand if a person prefers not to be identified as male or female, but they are still one person. So, it messes with me a bit. Still, out of respect for them, I’m getting used to it.)

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I read this book years ago, not long after it was published. I expected to see headlines highlighting this amazing new discovery. Instead, crickets. The coverage and follow-up studies I was eagerly anticipating were virtually non-existent--until recently. The reason is both upsetting and ridiculously simple: people didn’t want to know.

As pointed out in the abstract of a paper published by the National Institutes of Health in 1995 titled Present controversies in the genetics of male homosexuality, “molecular research of homosexuality does present particular problems because of the intense stigmatization some societies accord to these individuals…It is apparent that scientific discoveries do not resolve moral dilemmas.”

In short, for years scientists dismissed the evidence of a genetic link to homosexuality because it interfered with “moral dilemmas.”

Here’s an even more blatant example of willful ignorance on this subject, also from an NIH publication. This one is titled Ethical complications of scientific research on the causes of sexual orientation:

“We argue that even if scientists could explain how sexual orientation develops, no significant ethical conclusions would follow. Further, we suggest that the current emphasis on finding a biological basis for sexual orientation is potentially harmful to lesbians, gay men and other sexual minorities in various ways (although perhaps it is in some ways potentially helpful as well).”

The stated assumption that “finding a biological basis for sexual orientation is potentially harmful to lesbians, gay men and other sexual minorities in various ways…) is perhaps the most egregiously ignorant statement I’ve ever read in the abstract of a scientific journal. And I’ve spent over a decade in biotech and have read a lot of abstracts.

Fortunately, prevailing attitudes have since changed.

As documented in the article “Stop calling it a choice: biological factors drive homosexuality” on the website The Conversation, a study done in 2019 confirms the ground-breaking research begun in 1993 and referenced in Why Men Don’t Listen And Women Can’t Read Maps.

The jury is in, finally: “… there is overwhelming evidence of a biological basis for sexual orientation that is programmed into the brain before birth based on a mix of genetics and prenatal conditions, none of which the fetus chooses.”

It’s time to face reality. When it comes to sexual orientation and gender identity there is no normal, there are only varying degrees of weirdness. And like it or not, we're all on that spectrum.

The hidden cost of being a woman: The Plumber

Photo from Joseph Gionone Plumbing, AC and Heating

 

I manage a 20-unit building for my family. It was built in 1965, so the plumbing is not exactly state-of-the-art. Specifically, all the original tub/shower enclosures have three-handle fixtures, which are necessary because the valve behind the tile is a three-handle valve.

Three-handle fixtures are not common these days, but they can be purchased. In fact, before I called a plumber, I bought one. I just needed someone to install it.

There are a lot of ads for plumbers online, so I’m always careful to read the reviews before calling one. I selected one with rave reviews for their efficiency and their willingness to send someone the same day. “Satisfaction Guaranteed” appeared in large font on their website.

Here’s what happened:

The plumber arrived at 5pm for an appointment scheduled between 2 and 4. (No one called to let me know he was running late.) When he arrived, I gave him the parts I had purchased and asked him to install them. I let him know that once I rent some of the 10 vacancies I have now (mostly due to people moving away during the pandemic) I will have him come back to help me upgrade some of the plumbing, but for now, I need to do the bare minimum.

Thirty minutes later he knocks on my door to tell me he’s done for the day. He explains that he replaced one of the handles, but not the other. He has to come back next week (this is Thursday). He doesn’t work on Fridays. His office will call me to schedule it.

Then he takes out his phone and shows me a photo of a single-handle faucet, one that would require him to open the tile wall, replace the currently functioning valve, reconfigure the pipes behind the tile and install a new extra-large plate to cover the tile he’ll be damaging when he replaces the valve that doesn’t need to be replaced.

He is practically glowing as he shows me this brand-new, single-handle faucet that looks like it belongs in a cheap motel. “So much better!” he tells me. He is so animated; I’m reminded of someone selling a seminar or workshop that will change my life. I tell him that’s a great solution when I need to replace the valve, but for now, I just want to make the handles match.

Now that he’s replaced one, can he please just finish the job?

Once again, he shows me the photo and says, “You really need to do this.”

Then he reminds me how late it is and says he will have the office call me to set up a time to come back and finish the job. He leaves, after reminding me for a third time, that it’s much easier to find parts for the single-handle faucet—as if he’s already forgotten that I handed him the parts he needs when he arrived.

The following morning, I get a text from the admin at this office telling me the bid for the job is $2,350.

I wondered if there was some confusion about the scope of work. This couldn’t possibly be a bid for replacing the handles, could it? I called back and asked if he could please explain exactly what they were bidding on. Instead of answering my question, the office admin (who is also a man) tells me if I don’t like the bid, I should call another plumber.

I knew there had to be some misunderstanding, so I asked for a written bid. That should clear up any miscommunication, I thought. I was told it would be sent that evening.

It never came.

Instead, the technician who had done half the job texted me. He said his boss told him that I didn’t want him to do the work. I repeated via text what I’d told the admin over the phone: it was too expensive for the work I requested. He texted back, “How much are you willing to pay?”

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Later that evening, I discussed the job with one of my regular contractors. He said that without the need to replace the valve or repair any tile, this was a pretty straightforward plumbing job and shouldn’t cost anywhere near $2350.

On Monday morning, I left the following message with the technician. “I would like a written bid for finishing the job using the parts I have on hand, as originally requested.”

I never heard back.

If this was the first time a man had failed to hear me, despite my efforts to be clear and concise about what I needed, I wouldn’t be writing this now. If it was the first time a man overcharged me or tried to persuade me to do something far in excess of what was needed, that would be one thing. But this sort of thing happens constantly.

So, when I asked myself if the plumber and the admin at the office didn’t hear me or if they actually chose to ignore me, I could only come to one conclusion. Since neither of them are deaf, it’s got to be the latter.

I can’t help but wonder how much differently all this would have gone down if I were a man.

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Fictionalized scenario: Where I am a dude

Plumber shows up, installs the handles I purchased.

Then he casually says “You know, at some point you may not be able to find parts for these, have you thought about upgrading? Might save you some trouble in the future.”

Discussion ensues. He tells me he can probably get me a deal if I want to do more than one apartment. We agree to touch base again after I’ve rented a few units and have a little more income to use on upgrades. We shake hands (or bump elbows) or whatever. End of story.

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I retired from my day job last December, but I don’t really feel retired because now I spend all my time monitoring men to make sure they’re not trying to take advantage of me. It’s exhausting.

It’s also not every man. I know a lot of great guys who are helpful, knowledgeable, kind, and trustworthy. It’s important to say that.

Unfortunately, not one of them is a plumber.

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Background on the writer:

My career as a Sr. Operations Analyst for a tech company ended on December 23, 2021. It wasn’t my first career, but it will be my last one as a corporate employee. My longest career has been in property management, due mostly to managing the building for my family, where I have lived for over 30 years.

Other areas of employment have been in biotech, where I wore many hats while supporting a handful of start-ups attempting to do amazing things like cure cancer with gene therapy and grow proteins in filamentous fungi in a fraction of the time it takes in mammalian eggs.

There were also several periods of self-employment where writing/acting/content production/desktop publishing/desktop support and other odd jobs were done to pay my bills while taking a mental health break from the corporate environment.

I’ve had a great life, but in hindsight, I can’t help but wonder if I should have been a plumber.

It’s time to hold white people accountable for indiscriminate discrimination

 

Remember the woman who threatened to call the police on the black man who asked her to leash her dog in Central Park? She lost her job, but then she sued the company that fired her. 

After completing an undisclosed amount of “therapy” which included “instruction about racial bias,” the charges against her were dropped.

According to her lawyer “After a thorough and honest inquiry, the New York [district attorney’s] office dismissed all charges today against Amy Cooper. We thank them for their integrity and concur with the outcome.”

I’m not sure what her lawyer’s definition of “integrity” is but it’s not the same as mine. When has a black person been charged with anything and had the charges dropped after “therapy”? I believe that answer would be NEVER.

George Floyd was murdered over $20.

Barnes went on to say, “Others rushed to the wrong conclusion based on inadequate investigation and they may yet face legal consequences.” How is a video of a woman threatening to call the police on a black man for doing nothing more than reminding her to put her dog on a leash something that requires investigation? 

We all saw it. We all heard it. There is nothing to investigate here, we know what happened. And who are these “others” who may “yet face legal consequences”?

What about the old couple in Michigan who called the cops on the black realtor showing the house next door to his black clients? The client had his 15-year-old son with him. All three were handcuffed before the cops realized they were legitimate visitors. 

Did the old couple who called the cops on the black realtor and his clients hear breaking glass or a door being busted down? No? They just saw black folks on the lawn and assumed a crime was being committed.

Did anyone at dispatch bother to ask what evidence for a break-in this old couple had? Oh, that’s right, a car reminded them of another car that was seen before and might have been linked to a crime. So what about running the damned plates? That would have told them it wasn’t the same car. 

I’ve heard nothing to justify what happened here. It’s not good enough to say the couple responsible is old. Age isn’t an excuse for discrimination. Racists don’t get a pass because they are senior citizens. They may have believed the car in front of the house looked like one they’d seen before, but that sounds a little too much like the folks who thought Ahmaud Arbery looked like a person they’d seen break into a house before.

Arbery ended up dead — the realtor and his clients were just handcuffed — so it’s no big deal, right? Wrong.

My heart broke when I read the comments of the 15-year-old who thought “We’re going to die today.” Can you imagine? Probably not, not if you’re white. 

George Floyd was murdered over $20.

I can’t even imagine the trauma a black person would feel if the cops were to approach with guns drawn. They didn’t stop to ask who these people were — they handcuffed them first and asked questions after. If that happened to a white person, well. Let’s not even go there.

It’s time these people were held accountable. The fact that nothing is being done about this, is just more proof of institutional racism. This repeated scenario of white people assuming black people are criminals with zero evidence needs to stop. And cops of all people should know better.

I’m not sure the best way to do it, but I think a good place to start is to shame them. Short of laws against being racist jerks, there’s not much else we can do other than join together as white people to make it clear that this is not acceptable.

As sad as it is, these people aren’t going to listen to black folk, so it’s up to us to call a stop to it.

So, I‘m saying it now. “STOP!” Enough is enough. Y’all need to check yourselves the next time you decide being black is a crime. And if you can’t tell the difference between one black person and another, just shut up.

Question: How do we know our democracy is broken? Answer: When the vast majority wants things it just can’t get.

 

On yesterday’s episode of Deadline Whitehouse, Matthew Dowd broke it down for us. Whether we’re talking about preserving voting rights; increasing availability of health insurance; enacting gun reform; or guaranteeing equality for women and people of color, the majority of Americans have made it clear they want a true democracy. Republicans, on the other hand, are doing everything they can to prevent that.

“They want a tyranny of the minority…they fundamentally don’t want the voices of all of America to be heard.”

If you’ve been following the rampant Republican rush to curtail voting rights, you already know the filibuster has thus far kept Dems from protecting voting rights on a national level, despite the fact that more than 400 bills with provisions that restrict voting access have been introduced in 49 states in the 2021 legislative sessions.

While it’s also true that over 900 bills with expansive provisions have been introduced, those that have passed have done so largely in states where access to voting is already strong. The larger threat is the Republican push to redirect the vote count away from state Secretaries of State and into the hands of state legislatures.

As former Senator Claire McCaskill pointed out on the same episode of Deadline Whitehouse, as Democrats have increasingly focused their efforts on national elections, Republicans have been systematically taking over state legislatures. The result: even if the majority votes one way, when the votes are counted, Republicans will be in position to move the needle.

As Joseph Stalin is famous for saying in 1923 “I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this — who will count the votes, and how.”

While some will point to the recent passing of the infrastructure bill as proof our democracy is working, Dowd disagrees. “It’s very easy to pass a give-away bill…people didn’t have to make any hard decision on giving away free money and building bridges and roads. That’s not the test of a democracy. The test of a democracy is voting rights and we’re failing that test today.”

The main argument Dowd makes so compellingly is that we need to do things differently. The old ways aren’t working. Witness Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema and their refusal to consider a temporary halt to the filibuster in order to get voting rights legislation passed. Despite the Democratic majority in the Senate, as long as Republicans can rely on the filibuster, majority cannot rule.

As 57 Texas state Democrats made clear with their exodus to D.C. (a last resort to deny Republicans the quorum they need to pass voter restrictions) we’re out of time. This crisis isn’t just about voting rights, it’s the fact that decades of gerrymandering has left us with a Congress so evenly divided it can’t get anything done. It’s not that our country is so evenly divided, it’s that our representation doesn’t mirror the wishes of our people.

To quote Matthew Dowd, again, “Where the voters are, and where the politicians are, are in two fundamentally different places. And gerrymandering is only partly to blame.”

There is no gerrymandering in the Senate, yet states with low populations get the same number of seats in the Senate as states with huge populations. This throws the balance of power in the Senate in favor of the least populous areas. How bad is it? Six U.S. Senators represent the same number of constituents as 60 U.S. Senators in another state.

There is only one way to change that: amend the Constitution.

How likely is that? Hard to say. One could argue that when it was written, no one had any way of knowing how great an imbalance we would suffer with population centers growing at such disproportionate rates.

Still, if Congress can’t agree voting rights, how likely is it that they’ll come together for a Constitutional amendment?

Merrick Garland and state Democratic leaders may be our only real hope. Garland has already instructed the DOJ to initiate a lawsuit against the state of Georgia for their recently enacted voter suppression laws. If he does the same in other states, the legal proceedings may keep such the laws from taking effect before the 2022 mid-terms. That would certainly help.

And just two days ago, the Democratic Governor of WI, Tony Evers, vetoed voting restrictions passed by the Republicans in his state. Fortunately, in this case, Republicans do not have enough votes to override his veto.

In the meantime, almost half of the 57 Texas state Democrats who have so far successfully deprived the Republican counterparts of the quorum needed to pass voter restrictions have begun to head home, leaving just 26 in DC — not enough to deny Republicans their quorum. But a Texas judge has stepped up to help. Travis County Judge Brad Urrutia, a Democrat, signed an order that will protect the Texas Democrats “from being arrested, detained, or confined in any way for two weeks.” A small win given that all Dems can do at this point is postpone the inevitable.

Republicans still have a chance to fight the order in a hearing scheduled for August 20. And you can bet they will.