Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 239
November 15, 2017
Football is religion in Louisiana, and player protests have sparked a schism
Drew Brees #9 and Mark Ingram II #22 of the New Orleans Saints (Credit: Getty/Wesley Hitt)
When it comes to football, Louisiana’s devotion borders on religious fanaticism.
But the state, in line with the rest of the union, has fissured along the national divide on whether players have the right to kneel during the national anthem in peaceful protest of police shootings of unarmed black men.
President Donald Trump has spoken out multiple times against this movement, calling team owners to fire players who knelt during the anthem. In response, players across the league have continued to kneel or sit, either before or during the anthem — including those in the Bayou State.
From the New Orleans Superdome to LSU’s Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana football transcends demographics. Monday night games make friendly discussion for the rest of the week at cocktail parties, board meetings and grocery checkout lines. The sport dominates fall months. While late winter lends itself to Carnival season, spring to crawfish and summer to lethargy in the inundating, subtropical heat, the refreshing breeze of October brings full-fledged football fanaticism that, like Mardi Gras, hopes to bring together a racially and economically disparate state.
This season, however, hasn’t been so unifying. Fierce debate has spawned amongst government leaders across Louisiana. Many have been quicker and more outspoken than in the wake of other racially charged events, such as last May when news broke that the two police officers who fatally shot Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge would not be indicted.
The Alton Sterling case has been handed over for further review to Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, who is one of many officials reacting publicly to the NFL protests. Landry, along with state lawmakers, has pushed to pull state funding from the New Orleans NFL team. State Rep. Kenny Havard (R) argued that citizens have a right to protest, but not at a “taxpayer-subsidized sporting event.”
Legislative review is not imminent but has inflamed those who support the players’ rights to protest, including state Rep. Ted James (D). “Y’all worried about Trump, I’m worried about my colleagues who believe as he believes,” James wrote on social media in response to Havard’s move to pull Saints funding. “I can’t wait to get my hands on this damn bill!!!!! Not surprised we will have the discussion. DAMN, I wish we were in session now.”
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) disagreed with kneeling during the anthem but does not want to pull funding. He claimed to have spoken personally with the Saints about future protests. Meanwhile, Saints coach Sean Payton said he was “proud” of his players who protested before their first game of the season versus North Carolina and was not pleased with Trump’s comments. Saints Quarterback Drew Brees made clear before the London-held game versus the Miami Dolphins that his team would kneel prior to the anthem before standing for the actual anthem as a “way to show respect to all.” The state’s lieutenant governor reportedly plans to boycott all future games of his home team as long as the protests persist.
Meanwhile, some Louisiana high schools have threatened punishment — even as far as kicking players off the team — if the teenagers join the movement. In response, one high school’s players did not kneel at their next game but still linked arms.
NFL players native to Baton Rouge, where Alton Sterling was shot two summers ago, have spoken out. San Francisco 49ers Safety Eric Reid, the former LSU player who knelt with his quarterback usually during the movement’s early stages last year, published an opinion piece last week on how his Louisiana background influenced his decision. Other LSU alum, including Jacksonville Jaguars Running Back Leonard Fournette, have also kneeled.
College players have inevitably fallen into the debate as well. LSU Running Back Derrius Guice infuriated fans when he suggested on Twitter that he supported kneeling during the anthem. College teams tend to stay in the locker room during the anthem.
Louisiana’s Congressional delegation have also weighed in. This includes U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins (R), who recently released a response video. Higgins, atop his Harley Davidson in the clip, called the protests “sickening.”
“American professional football was pure, and real, and badass, and patriotic,” the U.S. lawmaker said. “It pisses me off.”
Others have responded through Facebook posts, such as U.S. Rep. Abraham (R). “Certainly these are divisive times,” Abraham wrote. “I get that, and I get that people have a right to protest. But the flag is about more than politics; it’s about veterans like Villanueva who risked everything for this country. We should stand for the flag and the anthem because to not do so disrespects everything that our troops fought and died for.” And U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, after a long recovery after being shot in the hip at a congressional baseball practice in Virginia last June, posted his return to Louisiana on Instagram. In it, surrounded by his family, he declared he was “proud to stand” for the national anthem at the LSU game.
“He didn’t pinch it; he grabbed it”: Two more women share their experiences with Roy Moore
Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore speaks to the media during a news conference in Montgomery, Ala., on Monday, Aug. 8, 2016. He is accused of breaking judicial ethics during the fight over same-sex marriage in the state. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson) (Credit: AP)
Two more women have stepped forward to publicly reveal their experiences with Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, which included a time he allegedly groped a 28-year-old and hit on a 17-year-old. There are now seven different women who have spoken out recently to accuse the Republican candidate of sexual misconduct.
On Wednesday Tina Johnson claimed that during the fall of 1991, while she was in the law office of then-attorney Moore, he immediately began flirting with her.
“He kept commenting on my looks, telling me how pretty I was, how nice I looked,” Johnson told AL.com. “He was saying that my eyes were beautiful.” Johnson was 28 years old at the time and in the office because she had to sign over custody of her 12-year-old son to her mother. Johnson was headed for divorce and was unemployed, it was a rough time in her life, she explained.
“I’m not perfect,” she said. “I have things in my background and I know (the public) will jump on anything, but (what happened with Moore) is still the truth, and the truth will stand when the world won’t.”
Moore continued to make her uncomfortable during her time in the office, she told reporters. Moore even asked her about her younger daughters “including what color eyes they had and if they were as pretty as she was,” AL.com reported. When the papers were signed and her mother left, Moore allegedly came up from behind Johnson and grabbed her buttocks.
“He didn’t pinch it; he grabbed it,” Johnson said.
Johnson’s story is the first known incident that allegedly occurred while Moore was married. He married Kayla Moore in 1985.
Kelly Harrison Thorp also shared her story and explained that in 1982 that while she worked as a hostess at the Red Lobster in Gadsden, Alabama, Moore hit on her. She was only 17.
“He was a public figure in this small town,” she told AL.com.
Moore allegedly asked her if she would go out with him at some point.
“I just kind of said, ‘Do you know how old I am?'” Thorp said. “And he said, ‘Yeah. I go out with girls your age all the time.'”
Thorp said she walked away after refusing his offer and telling him she had a boyfriend.
Moore has denied all of the allegations entirely and has claimed he didn’t even know some of the women who had accused him. But even far-right Fox News host Sean Hannity had essentially given up on Moore and his Senate bid. The Senate GOP has largely condemned his alleged actions and are now scrambling to figure out a viable solution for the December election.
“Everybody knew it wouldn’t matter,” Thorp said when she explained why multiple women had decided to speak up after so much time passed. “He would get elected anyway because his supporters are never going to believe anything bad about him.
And that’s essentially what Alabama Republicans have done thus far.
Speaking outside the Alabama GOP headquarters on Wednesday, Moore campaign attorney Phillip Jauregui attempted to cast doubt on the accusers’ accounts.
“Release the yearbook so we can determine is it genuine or is it a fraud,” Jauregui insisted, referring to a yearbook inscription allegedly from Moore in one accuser’s high school book.
Steven Mnuchin and wife Louise Linton pose with sheets of cash, get destroyed on Twitter
Louise Linton and Steven Mnuchin hold up a sheet of new $1 bills. (Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin)
As the GOP tax reform plan has been thrown into question, Washington D.C.’s most popular duo posed for pictures with freshly printed sheets of cold, hard cash.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and his wife, Louise Linton, looked ecstatic to hold up the sheets of $1 bills on Wednesday at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington, D.C. The individual bills are the first to feature Mnuchin’s signature, as well as U.S. Treasurer Jovita Carranza, which are expected to begin circulating in December, CNN reported.
Naturally, the pictures immediately put Twitter users to work and hilarious memes and caption contests eventually ensued, and they did not disappoint.
“Find someone who looks at you the way Louise Linton looks at Steve Mnuchin holding a sheet of dollar bills with his name on them,” one user tweeted.
Find someone who looks at you the way Louise Linton looks at Steve Mnuchin holding a sheet of dollar bills with his name on them pic.twitter.com/3fGXmJti6c
— Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) November 15, 2017
“Louise Linton holds the great love of her life. Also pictured, her husband #StevenMnuchin,” Renee Graham, of the Boston Globe tweeted.
Louise Linton holds the great love of her life. Also pictured, her husband #StevenMnuchin. https://t.co/IFHTGrkjwq — Renee Graham (@reneeygraham) November 15, 2017
you cannot parody these folks pic.twitter.com/PfDXB0qXTp
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) November 15, 2017
“Just a friendly reminder that the GOP wants to raise taxes on the middle class & take health insurance away from millions of Americans so people like Louise Linton and Steve Mnuchin can get a tax cut,” another user wrote.
Just a friendly reminder that the GOP wants to raise taxes on the middle class & take health insurance away from millions of Americans so people like Louise Linton and Steve Mnuchin can get a tax cut. pic.twitter.com/TbBG2dcWsx — Caroline O. (@RVAwonk) November 15, 2017
“Why do Louise Linton and Steve Mnuchin look like they’re on the way to close down an orphanage?” a user tweeted.
Why do Louise Linton and Steve Mnuchin look like they’re on the way to close down an orphanage? pic.twitter.com/s3zyAHQhch
— Mike Beauvais, Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (@MikeBeauvais) November 15, 2017
The couple had become the center of controversy in late August after Linton posted a picture to her Instagram account of her and Mnuchin getting out of a government plane. She included several clothing designers in her post and also argued with a commenter and bragged about her wealth, which she later apologized for.
“Great #daytrip to #Kentucky!” she wrote, and added the hashtags, “#nicest, #people, #countryside, #rolandmouret, #hermesscarf, #tomford, #valentino, #usa.”
Many had believed the two had gone to Kentucky to view the total solar eclipse, but Mnuchin denied that and insisted he wasn’t interested in viewing the eclipse because he’s from New York.
“People in Kentucky took this stuff very seriously. Being a New Yorker, I don’t have any interest in watching the eclipse,” Mnuchin said.
The perspective on homeschooling
(Credit: Getty/Steve Debenport)
Homeschooling has had a pretty consistent reputation over the years. The entertainment world has sold us on a picture of macrame and totalistic ideologies. For example, the opening sequence to the film Mean Girls would have you believe there are few paths that end in homeschooling, and decidedly all lead to the socially awkward.
Alternatively, let’s consider the school system. With serious underfunding issues and skyrocketing class sizes; a system where passionate teachers are practically being muscled out, It’s no wonder homeschooling has increased by a staggering 61% in just a decade. Parents are unlocking a new world of education. Could there be something to this homeschooling thing after all?
The following are three disadvantages and three advantages of homeschooling.
Home truth (the cons)
The ultimate echochamber
According to a government report released this year, only a quarter of parents take any prep before homeschooling their children. The legislation on homeschooling differs so dramatically from state to state, and case to case making it extremely difficult for any sense of community between peers. A homeschooling environment not only deprives a child of a holistic education, but breeds an environment for potential abuse of power. In contrast, a school is a place where a child’s views are challenged by different personalities, points of views and ways of life. They also have access to nurses and counselors. When a child attends a traditional school they are exposed to socialisation. This is as imperative in early childhood as it is in adolescence, and the effects carry through to adulthood.
Financial burden
For many families the question of education is limited to most accessible and most affordable. For homeschooling to work, at least one parent is typically playing an active role in the education process. This means planning and execution. At the very most a tutor can be brought in, meaning adding a salary. Ultimately, Homeschooling means giving up an income. Homeschooling does not come with scholarships or donors. With nearly half the families in the US live 250% below the poverty line, is homeschooling just another privilege keeping the educated, educated, and the working class, struggling?
Homeschooling sets unnecessary hurdles
The GED, or high school equivalency are tests that demonstrate that the level of knowledge obtained by a student is that of a high school graduate. GED is the most common standardized test for a homeschooler. And although it is easily accessible, The GED barely gets you through the first hoop to employment. Jobs requiring a GED alone will keep your child at minimum wage with little room for growth. Colleges and employers, not only value accredited diplomas, but also extracurriculars. Students who have participated in internships have a hiring advantage of 75% and a higher salary on average by 31%. Navigating the job market is a daunting task at the best of times. Isn’t every parent’s mission to prepare their children for the great big world?
There’s no place like home (the pros)
Active members of the community
Homeschooling as an education practice builds itself on the values of family, community and involvement. Homeschooling methods, are highly adaptable and grow as their surroundings do. Homeschooled children are rarely in one on one situations, rather participating as active members of their community. Every day is a possible field trip, a lesson to learn, no matter the size of the community. A rural student, and an urban student both have the advantage of seeing the consequences of their actions as the world around them changes.
Fostering academic curiosity through role-modeling
By taking on homeschooling you are role-modeling for your child the ideals of personal responsibility and a strong sense of identity. Children develop a sense of agency about their learning, and its trajectory, when they feel their role in it. Homeschooled kids are hardly limited on options. 74% of homeschoolers go on to tertiary education, with a college graduation rate of 66.7% over traditional schools rate of 57.5%. Education could be about seizing opportunity. The school culture breeds an atmosphere of competitive achievement. Kids become focused on ‘winning’ rather than learning. Knowledge is not something to be memorized, but rather to be discovered.
A sound investment
With homeschooling the output matches the input, no matter the family situation. Your child’s education is in your hands and within your resources. Research shows that family income has little to no influence on their ability to successfully homeschool. Public schools, on the other hand, receive funding according to district. This means students education is staggered depending on their financial situation. Consider the reality of public school: The extracurricular activities after an 8 hour day inside, tutors – to help keep your child’s head above water in a competitive environment, and whatever laptop and accessory the school deems mandatory. With public schools choking under shrinking budget and often misappropriated funds, it’s hard to face copping the hidden costs of public education.
Bottom line:
What worked once may not be working any longer. Homeschooling takes a great deal of commitment, personally and legislatively. Are we moving towards a future of educational pioneers or should we leave the educating to the classroom?
You might perpetuate misogyny if you say this to a girl
(Credit: AP)
Sexual assault has arguably become the hot-button issue of the fall. Harvey Weinstein’s fall and the #MeToo social media movement have awakened many Americans to the reality that almost every woman has encountered sexual harassment or assault at some point in her lifetime. Now many parents are asking how they can protect their daughters from becoming victims and their sons from being perpetrators. Sexual harassment and assault are highly pervasive among children. According to a 2011 study, 56 percent of girls reported having experienced sexual assault while in school. One piece of advice some parenting experts are giving is: stop telling adolescent girls that boys are mean to them “because they like you.” It’s an outdated response that normalizes male aggression against women at a dangerously young age.
The aforementioned study also shows how normalized sexual assault is in the eyes of offenders: 44 percent of the students who admitted to sexually harassing others didn’t think of it as a big deal, and 39 percent said they were just “trying to be funny.” Clearly, sexual harassment and assault is a silent presence among today’s children, and when parents tell their daughters to ignore or tolerate it, they prop up a devastating cycle of violence. For far too long, American parents have tolerated aggressive behavior in boys. Even implicitly, adults condone violence in boys; studies show that parents are more tolerant of boys who act aggressively toward peers and siblings than of girls who do the same.
Teaching girls to speak up when they are violated is a cornerstone of the third wave of feminism. Parenting expert Robyn Silverman, host of the podcast How to Talk to Kids About Anything, explains that parents who tell girls that boys are being mean to them because they like them actually disempower their daughters from speaking out when they are put in painful situations. “It tells them that they shouldn’t complain about the conduct because, even though the delivery is hurtful or uncomfortable, it’s ‘nice’ to be liked—and isn’t that what all girls are supposed to want? It all at once excuses the ugly behavior, gives it a favorable label and silences the girl.”
Silverman continues, “The message is insidious, the most atrocious kind of earworm that rings inside a girl’s head as she continues to interact with boys: their behavior is OK because the reason for their actions is seen as favorable.”
Also, when parents tell their daughters that boys mistreat them because the boys find them attractive, the adults create an unhealthy connection between sex and violence for these girls. As Heather Hlavka of Marquette University explains, in a recent study, “young women overwhelmingly depicted boys and men as natural sexual aggressors, unable to control their sexual desires. Girls normalized their experiences of sexual harassment and abuse because they were so common and indiscriminate; ‘that’s what boys do’ and ‘they do it to everyone.’” It’s all part of a normalization of male violence that begins in childhood and is hushed up by parents who don’t connect the dots to later male aggression.
This bad advice also enforces dangerous and rigid gender roles in kids. Slate’s Melinda Wenner Moyer recently asked how parents can shield children from sexism early on. As it turns out, not much is under parents’ control, although parents can do their best to keep from enforcing gender stereotypes. When children adhere strongly to common perceptions about gender, they become tied to a system of typecast sexual roles. As early as their teen years, “adolescents with strong gender stereotypes start to believe that boys are constantly seeking out sex and that girls should strive to look pretty and seek boys’ sexual attention.”
The lessons children learn about gender violence can greatly impact them later in life. Young girls who are taught to believe that aggression and bullying from boys is an indication of affection can go on to date men who mistreat them. Boys are negatively affected, too. We’ve already known for years that young boys who see assault normalized when their fathers hurt their mothers are more likely to hurt their own partners or spouses later on in life. As Moyer writes for Slate, “studies also find that the more strongly boys believe [gender] stereotypes” like the notion that bullying girls is OK, “the more likely they are to make sexual comments, to tell sexual jokes in front of girls, and to grab women.”
Sexual assault and consent can be difficult subjects to broach with children, but these topics are crucial to bring up. Silverman explained how parents can take action early on to encourage their daughters to speak up when they’re touched or spoken to inappropriately. “As a parent myself, I have looked both my daughter and son in the eyes and told them: If someone is touching their private body without their consent, this is not okay and they should speak up. If they are touching someone else’s private body without consent, this is not okay and they should stop. And yes, if they see this behavior in action, they should speak up, stop it or speak to someone else who can stop it. These are messages both boys and girls need to hear. And they need to hear it early.”
Liz Posner is a managing editor at AlterNet. Her work has appeared on Forbes.com, Bust, Bustle, Refinery29, and elsewhere. Follow her on Twitter at @elizpos.
Solar “microgrids” like Tesla’s aren’t a fix for Puerto Rico
A section of collapsed road after Hurricane Maria, October 7, 2017 in Barranquitas, Puerto Rico. (Credit: Getty/Joe Raedle)
In addition to its many other devastating human consequences, Hurricane Maria left the island of Puerto Rico with its power grid in ruins. Power was knocked out throughout the island, with an estimated 80 percent of its transmission and distribution wires incapacitated. When hospitals and other critical users could not get backup power and water supplies ran low, an extended outage became a humanitarian crisis that has yet to be resolved.
This shameful outcome should have been avoided with strong, swift federal leadership. Yet more than five weeks after the storm, only about 40 percent of the grid has been rebuilt, and service remains unreliable even where power is restored.
As the recovery process inches its way forward, the questions many are asking go like this: Why are we rebuilding the grid to be the same as it was before the storm? Can’t we use this as an opportunity to create a more modern, resilient, renewable power system? Isn’t this the perfect opportunity for an upgrade?
The answer to these questions, from my perspective having worked with and researched the power industry for four decades, has little to do with technologies and everything to do with some nearly insurmountable financial and governance challenges. There is a path forward, but it will not be easy.
The power system before Maria
Prior to Maria, Puerto Rico had one of the largest public power authorities in the U.S., known as PREPA, serving a population of 3.4 million people from 31 power plants, 293 substations and 32,000 miles of wire. Almost half its generation was from old, very expensive oil-fired plants, resulting in prices about 22 cents per kilowatt hour, among the highest in the U.S. The island has several solar photovoltaic farms but gets about 46 percent of its power from oil and only about 3 percent from solar.
At the center of all this is PREPA and its outsized role in Puerto Rico. With US$9 billion of debt, PREPA has been part of the contentious refinancing process that ultimately required congressional action. PREPA is also the largest employer on the island, with strong connections to the island’s leadership, so proposals perceived to adversely impact PREPA can be difficult to enact. Recently the island has established a new energy commission called PREC with oversight over PREPA’s plans, spending and rates.
Hurricane Maria knocked out long-distance transmission lines that transmit power from more remote parts of the island in addition to local utility poles.
AP Photo/Gerald Herbert
The PREC’s efforts at reform underscore the enormous challenges the utility faces. In September 2016 the PREC issued an order directing PREPA to convert some of its oil plants to gas, renegotiate some high-priced renewables contracts and purchase more renewable energy.
In April 2017 PREPA issued a new financial plan with starkly grim prospects: a $4 billion maintenance backlog, the loss of fully one-quarter of its sales in the next 10 years, and continued red ink as far as the eye can see. Meanwhile, renewable power developers who have tried to build plants on the island have encountered great difficulties, as chronicled in this blog post.
Then, just before Maria, PREPA declared bankruptcy. Maria therefore destroyed the grid of a system that was already bankrupt, having trouble maintaining its service and paying its bills, resistant to renewable interconnections, and politically difficult to reform.
Proposals for rebuilding with microgrids
The challenge, then, is to 1) restore energy access as quickly as possible; 2) begin to build a long-term resilient and operable grid; and 3) reform a broken regulatory system. In the wake of the storm, clean energy experts and businesses saw this as the perfect opportunity to start over.
“Puerto Rico will lead the way for the new generation of clean energy infrastructure,” one solar CEO asserted, “and the world will follow.” Elon Musk also famously tweeted an offer to solve the island’s energy problems with Tesla solar systems and batteries.
With an array of solar panels and batteries, a group of buildings, such as a hospital, or a neighborhood can power itself and operate independently in the case of an outage with the central grid – called “islanding” in industry parlance.
Provided they can be paid for and operated safely, quickly setting up these solar microgrid systems is an excellent measure that is both stopgap and long-term contributor. These systems can be set up in a matter of days, providing enough power to help neighborhoods with critical power needs, such as cellphone charging, powering cash machines and providing electricity service for health care and first responders.
However, these systems cost tens of thousands of dollars, and there is currently no substantial way to pay for them other than the kindness of strangers. Three-and-a-half million people would need perhaps 350,000 of these systems – at a price tag in the billions – to provide only a fraction of most families’ power needs.
Even if costs were not a consideration, these distributed systems aren’t a substitute for the grid. Many people think that microgrids don’t need poles and wires, but if they serve more than one building they use pretty much the same grid as we use today.
Once the grid is rebuilt, the new grid-independent systems should then become part of a series of new community microgrids, or networks of multiple solar panel installations backed up by storage. These interconnected systems would be able to “island” together to keep the whole community running at partial if not complete levels of service. With the necessary planning and approvals, new community power organizations could be set up – perhaps separate from PREPA – to finance the conversion of local grids to a more resilient form.
So there is a path from the current grid to one that is far cleaner and more resilient, but it’s not simple or quick. It would require melding complete and rapid restoration of power with a major infusion of capital.
Changing the base of generation from PREPA’s aging, inefficient fleet to clean sources is an essential part of this path. However, even at an extremely fast pace, it takes months to plan the economics, financing and engineering of this transition. More commonly, it takes years and careful economic and financial planning to raise the billions of dollars of capital needed and then spend it wisely.
A sustainable, resilient path forward
Puerto Rico’s citizens have endured great hardship and tragedy. We as a society certainly owe it to them to do whatever we can to lessen the damage from the next hurricane and speed power restoration. However, the path to a sustainable and resilient grid for the island is not as simple as air-dropping solar panels and other equipment onto the island and assuming all will be well. The suggestion that restoring power by replanting the current poles and wires will foreclose a more distributed solution isn’t correct, nor is it the most equitable way to restore power to everyone as quickly as possible.
This isn’t to say that the installation of fully independent solar systems and microgrids should be discouraged in any way. With the important provision that the hardware is maintained properly, the more solar and storage we can get onto the island sooner the better.
At this point, Puerto Rico’s grid is being rebuilt essentially as it was before.
But even as the grid is rebuilt as quickly as possible, the planning and engineering should begin on how to migrate the grid to smaller sections that self-island. This must include all the main aspects of power system development and operation, including financing, ownership, operation and maintenance of the systems.
The only logical way for Puerto Rico – and every other storm-prone electric system – to become a series of resilient and clean microgrids is to first get the entire grid functioning and then to create sections that can separate themselves and operate independently when trouble hits.
Dr. Fox-Penner thanks Scott Sklar, Phil Hanser, Sameer Reddy, Thomas McAndrew and Jennie Hatch for input. All errors are his own.
Peter Fox-Penner, Director, Institute for Sustainable Energy, and Professor of Practice, Questrom School of Business, Boston University
November 14, 2017
Shooting spree in Northern California leaves 4 dead, children injured
An unidentified woman, right, is comforted by an investigator at the Inland Regional Center, the site of shooting rampage that killed 14 people, Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2015, in San Bernardino, Calif. (Credit: (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong))
Another gunman has opened fire at random in America.
A gunman who indiscriminately picked targets during a shooting spree in Northern California on Tuesday morning killed at least four people. Several people and places, including an elementary school, were targeted in the community of Rancho Tehama Reserve, about 130 miles north of Sacramento.
The shooting is the latest in a string of violent episodes across the U.S. which have included Las Vegas and Southern Texas.
A total of ten people were injured during the spree, including two children. The unidentified gunman fired at an elementary school and a woman driving her kids to school in the rural area.
according to the Washington Post, the gunman was shot and killed when law enforcement arrived on the scene. No children were killed during the shooting spree.
“It was very clear early on that we had a subject that was randomly picking targets,” Phil Johnston, an assistant sheriff in Tehama County, told reporters, according to the Post.
The incident occurred just shortly after 8 a.m. when police were hit with “multiple 911 calls of multiple different shooting sites, including the elementary school” in Rancho Tehama Reserve, less than 200 miles north of Sacramento.
There is no currently known motive behind the attack and the identity of the shooter is still being confirmed, but authorities said they found two handguns and a semiautomatic rifle, and the shooter was previously known to law enforcement, the Post reported.
Johnston said “there was a neighborhood dispute ongoing” but that authorities still didn’t “know what the motives are for this individual to go on a shooting spree.” Johnston also said neighbors told authorities “there was a domestic violence incident” that had involved the shooter.
The shooting is just the latest in what is already the deadliest year for mass killings in the U.S. in more than a decade. While tragedies and bodies continue to pile up, there has been little talk of increasing gun control on Capitol Hill.
Bill Gates is building his own city — no democracy required
Bill Gates (Credit: Getty/Jamie McCarthy)
Stop me when this sounds like a plot dreamed up by a Bond villain: The richest man in the world announced in a press release his intent to invest $80 million to buy 40 square miles of land just 45 minutes west of Phoenix. He and his investors want to build around 80,000 residential units and thousands of acres of commercial and industrial buildings to create their own “smart city,” dictated on their own terms and planned without any input from, oh, you know, the people who are going to actually live there — in other words, no pesky democratic planning getting in the way. The city will embrace the sort of techno-utopianist goals that sound good on paper but never yield any tangible social results besides buttressing the egos of the Silicon Valley cult. And the best part: the city-to-be — Belmont — is literally named after the firm that is investing in it, Belmont Partners.
If this sounds like a fiefdom, well, it kinda is. Weaving his own funds through a few different holding companies, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is proposing to build a town based on his personal beliefs as to what makes society great. Aside from their slight political differences, that sounds vaguely like our president’s moralistic vision for the world, no? It’s an unusually top-down way of engineering a place where people will actually live and work and breathe and think, and bucks the democratic rules that govern most cities in the Western world.
Gates’ dreams of planning his own city are not that unusual for people cut from the same cloth. There’s a long, dark history of billionaires and/or corporations trying to design “utopias” themselves, without democratic input. (Mike Davis edited a book called “Evil Paradises” that may be the premiere account of this phenomenon.) By dint of The Walt Disney Company’s presence, Florida has multiple experiments of the sort: most of us have heard of Celebration, Florida, the master-planned suburban community designed and developed by the corporation. But more sinister than Celebration, there’s also Lake Buena Vista and Bay Lake, two small cities whose politics and even tax bases are entirely controlled by the Walt Disney Corporation.
A 1993 Washington Post article on the bizarre politics of these two cities describes how the Florida government “gave the Disney organization extraordinary powers, rights and privileges” to manage and control them. This includes exemption from building regulations, the power to freely annex private land, the power to “issue millions of dollars worth of tax-exempt municipal bonds to pay for improvements on Disney’s property,” and, darkly, “authority to detain anyone deemed to be ‘causing a public nuisance’ or to forcibly remove from Disney’s property anyone the company regards as undesirable.” Plus, “the law exempts Disney from being accused (much less convicted) of false arrest.” Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista are essentially police states run by The Mouse.
Techie efforts to control civics mirror Disney’s imperious ambitions. There’s a deep-seated belief in libertarian-rampant Silicon Valley that the government and our political processes are slow and messy; to that end, many techies, mad with power, have attempted to start their own partially or fully-privatized cities. These vary in terms of ambition: real-life super-villain Peter Thiel is one prominent donor to the Seasteading Institute, which promises to build floating “libertarian island” cities free of government regulation. Most terrifying, SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk is rabidly pursuing his chance to dictate the terms of his own privatized Marian utopia, funded by selling extra-planetary tourism packages to the rich.
But going back to Belmont: this kind of anti-democratic ambition isn’t new for Gates. His entire philanthropic vision, exemplified by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is predicated on the idea that rich people and technocrats know best how to manage the levers of society, and the rest of us peons should sit back and let the rich techies run our lives. Billionaires like Gates, who spend much of their lives surrounded by yes-persons, believe they know better than everyone else how things should be; Silicon Valley, similarly, is encased by a reality distortion field that believes technology and progress are one and the same, a fairly dangerous belief that history belies.
If Gates were actually taxed fairly on the income that other people make for him, we might get to collectively decide where and how to allocate the resources from that wealth; instead, he gets to build his own Belmont on his own terms, imprinting his own beliefs about what a virtuous utopian city would look like. It’s a great PR campaign for him and lousy for everyone else. But that’s the difference between charity and solidarity, to paraphrase Eduardo Galeano: charity is a relationship of top-down control, the rich dictating how the rest of us live. Solidarity is when we decide for ourselves.
If Belmont attracts a self-selecting crowd of residents, much like Celebration, Florida, then it could perhaps become a temporary “success” in the same way that lily-white Celebration is a success. Steven Conn chronicled how the draw for many Celebration residents was actually the lack of a normal democratic character of a city; indeed, those who came often preferred to have their lives managed by a publicly-traded corporation. As Conn wrote (emphasis mine):
For many residents, the attraction of Celebration was the promise that Disney would control the environment of the town just the way it had made its amusement parks the happiest places on earth. Residents contract privately for services, and the town’s Architectural Review Committee strictly regulates the physical appearance of the place. “Most of us came here not because of Disney,” resident Kathleen Carlson told the Miami Herald; “we came because we wanted that type of control over our neighborhood. You don’t have to worry that your neighbor will suddenly start parking an old pickup on his front lawn.” Celebration has substituted corporate control for democratic participation in the life of the town. It is hardly the sort of reinvigorated “community” new urbanists hoped they could create, but exactly the result one might expect, given the way “community” has been turned into a real-estate asset.
But Celebration didn’t stay this way. Like any city, it was subject to the greater economic vicissitudes, which private contractors couldn’t manage away. Conn continues:
When the Great Recession settled into Florida, however, not even Disney could control real estate values inside its model town. By the end of 2010, property prices had dropped even more than they had in the rest of the state—in some cases as much as 60 percent—and foreclosures were happening more frequently as well. In the space of a week at the end of 2010, the town experienced its first murder and then the suicide of a resident who had barricaded himself in his home and held a SWAT team at bay for fourteen hours. Stunned, much like residents of Reston had been when drugs and violence had come to that model town a generation earlier, Celebrationites had to confront reality.
Billionaires would be wise to learn from Celebration: you can’t engineer utopia.
“Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan”: Inside 5 new must-read books
For November, I posed a series of questions — with, as always, a few verbal restrictions — to five authors with new books: Eileen G’Sell (“Life After Rugby“), Garth Risk Hallberg (“A Field Guide to the North American Family“), Bill McKibben (“Radio Free Vermont“), Richard Thomas (“Why Bob Dylan Matters“), and Kevin Young (“Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News“).
Without summarizing it in any way, what would you say your book is about?
Eileen G’Sell: Beautiful secrets and bloody feet. Marathon finish lines ribboned in loss. Learning how to spell “laughter” correctly.
Garth Risk Hallberg: The binoculars on the cover could have been a kaleidoscope: inside is 21st-century family life seen through the crazy swirl of all the books I loved when I was 24. It’s like my attempt to mediate in my parents’ divorce. My parents John Cheever and Gertrude Stein.
Bill McKibben: Standing up (via sitting in), local beer, late-‘60s non-Motown soul music, the roots of podcasting and/or the natural successors to Paul Harvey and, mostly, resistance.
Kevin Young: Art, truthiness, pseudoscience, hoaxing, fake news, race, and humbug in American life and history.
Richard Thomas: The genius of Bob Dylan across more than half a century, poetry and song, folk, blues, gospel traditions, the art, how a classic comes into being, aesthetics of melancholy, faith, life, love, death, performance artistry, how experience, observation and imagination conspire.
Without explaining why and without naming other authors or books, can you discuss the various influences on your book?
McKibben: When I was a boy I lived in Lexington, Massachusetts, and my summer job involved donning a tricorne hat and giving tours of the Battle Green, whereon began the fight against imperialism and colonialism. It taught me early on that there was nothing unpatriotic about dissent; rather, the opposite.
Young: Tom Sawyering as a verb, girl wonders, spirit photography, the OED, poetry, fairy tales, hysteria, “race science,” euphemism, the movie “Time After Time” from 1979, captivity narratives, commonplace books and Parliament-Funkadelic.
Thomas: Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan, Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Dante, T. S. Eliot, folk music, Woody Guthrie, singing and thinking about Dylan across 53 years, old girlfriends, wife, daughters, life and life only, Dylan bootlegs, concerts.
G’Sell: French asceticism and French New Wave. Classical ballet and police brutality. Getting hit by a car and smashing the windshield while wearing a magic hoodie. Late ’80s sugar cereals that have managed to survive.
Hallberg: Well, there’s a force that pulls things together and a force that blows things apart. At the time of the writing, in 2003, I felt like fragmentation had the upper hand, in life and in art. But I grew up Episcopalian, so I felt — still feel — this need to draw things together under one roof. To say, no, you belong here, experimental French thing, and you, too, domestic realism. And you especially, “Choose Your Own Adventure.” Talk amongst yourselves.
Without using complete sentences, can you describe what was going on in your life as you wrote this book?
Hallberg: Third graders: people on whom nothing is lost. Me: their teacher. Ha, ha. Also: terrorism, anthrax, Iraq War, D.C. sniper, months we couldn’t use the playground, running zigzag across parking lots to frustrate bullets. And drinking. Giving way to writing. Alertness, rawness, sadness, funniness. Lifeness. Meditations in an emergency.
McKibben: Being put in handcuffs/paddywagons with some regularity; failing to save the planet.
G’Sell: Living alone in Berlin before the Palast der Republik was torn down. Living with someone in Barcelona and feeling suddenly alone. Making a living, living large, retiling my Midwestern kitchen floors. Calculating the area of a scalene love triangle. Protesting in the streets, tripping on my laces, and road tripping thousands and thousands of miles in a rental car with my dog.
Young: An election or two. Archives. Fake news. Black Lives Matter. Raising kids and myself.
Thomas: Thanksgiving, Christmas, singing protestant hymns every Sunday, starting the day with coffee and expectingrain.com, teaching three spring courses with May 1 book deadline, Dylan concerts in Florida, New York, Rhode Island, walking dogs in Webster Woods, eventually seeing it was going to work.
What are some words you despise that have been used to describe your writing by readers and/or reviewers?
Young: I generally try not to read reviews. But people sometimes call me “prolific,” which I’ve come to accept.
Thomas: “Pessimistic.” My day-job writing deals a lot with “melancholic” aspects of poets like Virgil and Horace — and now Dylan — a much better word, and an optimistic word.
Hallberg: I have complicated feelings about “ambitious.” Like, I don’t want to read anything that’s not ambitious. But then if something was successful, would you even notice the ambition? Then again, “successful” is a word that really gives me hives. If you’re succeeding, maybe you’re not trying hard enough.
McKibben: Unrealistic.
G’Sell: “Confessional.” I have nothing to confess. And my work is only loosely autobiographical. Smuggling a shiny set of ovaries does not a confessionalist make. I love a lot of confessionalist writing. But that’s not what I do.
If you could choose a career besides writing (irrespective of schooling requirements and/or talent) what would it be?
Hallberg: Rhythm guitar. No, wait — irrespective of talent, right? B-boy.
Thomas: Being Bob Dylan. Or a lumberjack.
G’Sell: Stunt double or neonatologist.
McKibben: Cross-country ski racer.
Young: Guitarist for a good band, or bassist for a bad one.
What craft elements do you think are your strong suit, and what would you like to be better at?
Thomas: I generally write for people who study Greek and Latin, with too many footnotes. Not sounding too academic is a goal.
McKibben: Sometimes I’m funny. I can’t bear to write about or imagine violence/people getting hurt, which might limit possible plots.
G’Sell: As a culture critic and long-time teacher of how to spin a sentence, I think my work displays (flaunts?) a dexterity — or audacity — with punctuation more common to prose than contemporary poetry. I would like to be better at not relying on that dexterity to seem intelligent and sophisticated.
Hallberg: I guess character is where I start, and everything beyond that is a mystery. I remember part of the formal dare here was to write a book without dialogue, because I was so bad at it. I failed, but learned a lot about dialogue in the process.
Young: Brevity.
How do you contend with the hubris of thinking anyone has or should have any interest in what you have to say about anything?
G’Sell: I pretend I am Donald Hayne, the guy who played the Voice of God in “The Ten Commandments.” #burningbushforever
Hallberg: Well, I’m drawn to all the unpublishable lengths — triple-decker, novella — so I guess I try to protect the reader by writing things that will never see print. Failing that, I remind myself that I’ve always been curious about what other people had to say, and to assume readers are like that, too. That’s the price of admission to the little society of readers, right? A bias toward being interested?
Young: Does curiosity count?
Thomas: Because I wrote it about Bob Dylan. He’s been reading what I — and very few others — have been reading all my life. I hope that works some.
McKibben: Sadly, my track record has been fairly good. I wrote the first book about what we then called the “greenhouse effect,” way back in 1989 — which means that those who had the good sense to listen to me then have had 30 extra years to worry about it.
