BMBS

A school system in southern Virginia, near the North Carolina border, announced last week that it has received a $200,000 award to set up “gunshot detection” systems in all of its buildings. This is in addition to $100,000 it got last year for the system. The children of Martinsville, which has about 73,000 citizens, will be protected by equipment that recognizes the sound of a gunshot and the weapon that produced it, and sends automatic notification to 911 and law enforcement cell phones. School officials said, “It’s mass notification, and takes out the human element.”

How many school shootings does it have each year? The old gag of dropping books simultaneously in class could have new consequences.

Watching events like today’s celebrations in China of the Communist Party’s 70th anniversary, it’s hard not to wonder if the tens thousands of soldiers marching by the reviewing stand — with resolute, almost rapturous stares in support of their institutions and country — really believe it all. Same goes for the hundreds of thousands of people along the parade route, displaying almost ecstasy to be parts of the celebration.  It’s natural to ask, How could they believe that stuff?

It’s also fair to ask, though, if those mobilized for our equivalent activities are really true believers too?  They obviously participate more on their own free will than their counterparts in a place like China, but do the thousands chanting that the press is enemy of the people, or that an opposition leader should be locked up, really believe it?

The U.S. Federal Reserve (Central Bank) has issued a 64-page report that challenges assumptions about the economy that it consistently gives high grades to.  Even though “many families have achieved substantial gains” since 2013, the survey found that 39 percent wouldn’t be able to put together $400 for an emergency expense.  About 60 percent said that if they lost their jobs, they couldn’t cover three months of expenses even if they took out loans, sold assets, or borrowed from friends and relatives.  (For comparison:  The consumer debt of the average American credit card holder – not family – is more than $4,000.)  The 11,000 interviews upon which the survey was based were on-line, so Americans in the toughest straits – without access to internet or cell phones – may not have been included.

This has been one of the longest economic expansions in U.S. history.

Today’s Martin Luther King’s birthday (would have been his 90th) — a good time to reflect on perceptions of the sort of civil disobedience that he (and others) espoused. A columnist in the New York Times yesterday praised the efforts and results of the grass-roots progressive movement known as “the resistance” over the past two years, including its role in defending the Affordable Care Act and helping flip the House of Representatives. But the columnist believes that the current government shutdown, now in its fourth week, has shown the limits of the progressive movement. If this were happening in Europe, he argued, people would be “pouring into the streets” instead of lining up at soup kitchens or at pawn shops to sell their valuables. There are no big protests, no picket lines, no strikes.

Do people feel that it’s all useless? Or that their complaints in social media help? Or that everything’s going to be fine?

How blissfully we would jump into ponds and lakes as kids and swim, splash, swallow, and blow out water that got into our noses. I remember one particular pond where friends and I swam that had mud so mushy and deep on the bottom that we had no idea what forms of life we were stirring up. Now researchers’ progress treating an infection caused by an amoeba lurking in such waters — unbeknownst to us — makes me shudder. According to the New York Times Science section, brain-eating amoebas — called Naegleria fowleri — live in “freshwater ponds in much of the United States.” It’s an “exceptionally lethal microbe that invades through the sinuses and feeds on human brain tissue.” Infections are rare (143 known U.S. victims since 1962) but almost always deadly; only four victims have survived.

The drug research looks promising, but maybe we should sit on the sofa and play electronic games for now?

The Atlantic ran a long article in its December issue about “The Sex Recession” — asserting that sexual activity among younger people is either declining or less fulfilling or just less fun. Some of the reasons she identifies, I understand, are not universally accepted. Whether porn, with all its exaggerated practices and exaggerated body parts, has moved sex (which we used to call “making love”) into an un-fun, intimidating place probably is subject to challenge. (I think my peers and I find some of dark practices a little scary; the mystery and adventure were plusses for us.) But I really liked one point the writer, Kate Julian, made. When she told interviewee women about how older people struck up conversations and met mates “in the elevator, in the break room, on the walk to the subway,” she found the following reaction:

I was fascinated by the extent to which this prompted other women to sigh and say that they’d just love to meet someone that way. And yet quite a few of them suggested that if a random guy started talking to them in an elevator, they would be weirded out. “Creeper! Get away from me,” one woman imagined thinking. “Anytime we’re in silence, we look at our phones.”

Who’s shutting down whom?

Oregon last week joined about 20 other states in allowing people to pick up roadkill and eat it. The state legislature in Salem passed — unanimously — a bill legalizing the consumption of deer and elk found on state roads as long as the people (chefs? diners?) turn over the head and antlers to wildlife officials within five business days. But other states are more flexible. Georgia, for example, allows motorists to take home bears they injure or find injured along the side of the road. An expert on wilderness survival says “there’s a tremendous amount of meat out there.” According to press reports, he added: “It’s kind of crazy, when there’s so many families that are struggling to make ends meet and kids are not getting enough nutrition, and there it is, free on the side of the road.”

The United States bombarded, invaded, and began the occupation of Afghanistan 17 years ago. The war has cost Americans the lives of more than 2,200 fighters and support personnel as well as more than $840 billion. U.S. government “experts” claim that the Taliban, whom the U.S. military has been trying to destroy since 2001, control only 44 percent of the country — leaving the other 56 percent in the hands of the Afghan government Washington supports. The Pentagon claims that Afghan government security forces outnumber the Taliban 10 to 1, but Afghan officials admit to U.S. reporters that fully a third of their guys are “ghosts” who’ve abandoned their positions, and that many others are poorly trained and unqualified. The intelligence on the Taliban numbers and capabilities smells foul — exaggerating strengths when planners need to argue for resources and rationalize their failures, and exaggerating weaknesses when they want to look like the investment isn’t a total waste. Last year, for example, the claimed 13,600 insurgents killed and the 2,000 arrested would represent half of the official estimate of Taliban force strength of 25,000-35,000. Entirely cooked numbers. The “experts” are also lying about other indicators of progress, including maternal mortality, life expectancy, etc.

As we approach the 17th anniversary of 9/11 and the first airstrikes in Afghanistan next month, the American public and U.S. Congress still demand no accountability, no results.

Route 66, about a mile from here, this morning started charging tolls during rush hour for vehicles not meeting HOV requirements (currently driver plus one, but soon to be driver plus two).  The price for the 10-mile trip from the Beltway to the bridge into Washington, DC, cost $34.50 at 8:40 a.m.  For much of the morning rush it cost $28.50.  According to the Virginia Department of Transportation, traffic averaged 57 m.p.h. — compared to the average 37 m.p.h. previously.

It’s not hard to see who’s going to benefit from these new tolls — people who can afford to dish out $34  to run the 10 miles three or four minutes faster than people who can’t.

The U.S. House of Representatives has made payments totaling $359,000 to settle six claims brought against Members of that institution, including for sexual harassment.  One such payout, reported this week, was for $84,000 paid to a former employee of Texas Republican Blake Farhenthold, who lodged a complaint about his comments to her about his “sexual fantasies” about her and, presumably, other offenses.  The Congressman refused to confirm the settlement because mandatory nondisclosure agreements under the Congressional Accountability Act [sic] prohibited him from commenting.  (Farhenthold, who used to own the internet domain blow-me.org, said that he “100 percent support[s] more transparency.”)   There’s been at least one other sex-related payout, but others were for other forms of discrimination.

Accountability is at the very heart of democracy.