Month: April 2023

Responding to the recent cases of people being shot just for knocking on a door, Atrios wants to know what's going on. After all, it wasn't like this back when he was growing up:

Someone walking up the driveway wasn't threatening. Certainly pulling into a someone's drive to make a "u-turn" was standard practice.

Of course it's obscene that anyone is inspired to pull out a gun and start shooting over these things, but how did "someone at my door or in my driveway" start being seen as intrusive behavior at all?

I mean, people shouldn't be pulling out guns and shooting at every perceived threat, but how did these things start being seen as perceived threats?

I have a thought about this. Two thoughts, actually.

First, this might have been more common back in the day than Atrios thinks. Certainly we were all taught to be suspicious of strangers knocking on the door at night. And while I don't personally know of anyone being shot for this, that doesn't mean it never happened. Back then, before the rise of cable news and social media, this was the kind of local story that never went national.

More provocatively, though, I suspect there has been some change and it's largely due to a lagging effect of the great crime wave of the '70s and '80s. As that crime wave swelled, we steadily became acclimated to the idea that threats were everywhere. Eventually we became afraid of virtually any interaction with a young man (especially a young Black man), let alone a knock on the door late at night from one of these suspicious folks.

Over the past few decades this danger has largely abated. Crime is still around, of course, and it's still mostly the province of young men, but it's not much more common than it was in the '60s. We don't need to be reflexively scared of young men these days:¹

But we're scared regardless. Cops are. Families are. Teachers are. And when everyone is scared, bad things happen.

This is why I think the lead theory of crime is important. In one sense, it's strictly an explanation of past behavior: namely the rise and fall of crime between about 1965 and 2010. It's no help in explaining changes in crime rates today.

But it does explain why we should no longer be reflexively afraid of young men. It's because our original fear was driven by a generation of young men who were unusually aggressive and violent because they had been lead poisoned in childhood. Now, with the lead gone, they are back to normal and we don't have to be especially scared of them. It would be nice if people could truly internalize this.

¹The chart comes from Rick Nevin, and it's based on the latest data. More here.

Today is my first day at City of Hope in preparation for my CAR-T treatment next week. I'm getting a PICC line placed and undergoing a few tests, but no more. Tomorrow is officially Day -5, leading up to Day 0 on Tuesday when the CAR-T cells will be infused into my bloodstream.

The most appropriate picture I could find for this occasion was Les Invalides, the hospital built by Louis XIV for the care of soldiers hurt in his endless wars. It is also the home of Napoleon's tomb, which to this day I've still never seen. I've never quite figured out why I should bother.

The Washington Post brings us the latest from Florida:

Ron DeSantis is blowing it. Initially, his pitch was simple: I'm an anti-woke conservative but I'm not crazy like Donald Trump.

But that's evolved considerably over the past few months. DeSantis was doing fine as long as he attacked the soft underbelly of liberal sex, gender, and race politics: trans kids in sports; queer theory in AP classes; teaching gay acceptance to third graders; puberty blockers for adolescents; and so forth. These are all things that produce a fair bit of angst among not just MAGA conservatives, but also moderates and independents.

But banning discussion of gender identity completely? Taking over a public university because he didn't like its curriculum? Banning abortion at six weeks? Going to war with Disney as an act of state-sponsored revenge? Claiming that the Federal Reserve is trying to mount an economic coup using digital currency?

Some of these seem like transparent pandering. Some seem like dangerous extremism. Some are flat-out conspiracy theory lunacy. And some, like the Disney war, are scaring the business wing of the Republican Party, which tolerates the GOP's culture war agenda only as long as they're left out of it.

DeSantis is acting like the United States is just an extension of the most conservative parts of Florida. It's not, and DeSantis has put himself into a pickle. He's obviously too weak and insecure to deny anything to the MAGA cesspool, and this is ruining his chances of appealing to anyone else. He needed to appear strong enough to control the MAGA beast, not become its kept man.

India has officially surpassed China as the most populous nation on the planet. This is a bad thing, not a good one, and hardly the only problem India has. Here's one of the biggest:

As a point of comparison, this number is around 10% for the United States. India's rate of labor participation is also low in general, which is one of the reasons for this:

India's per capita GDP rose at about the same rate as China's up through 1980. After that, however, it lagged far behind. This chart goes only through 2010, but the numbers for 2022 are about $14,000 for China vs. $5,000 for India (compared to $80,000 for the US). In absolute terms India has enjoyed strong growth, but nowhere near enough to make it an economic giant like China.

PICC line installed!

By the time you read this I will be at City of Hope having a PICC line installed in my upper arm. Then there will be a few chit-chats and miscellaneous tests, which should be finished by lunchtime.

I'll be in and out of the clinic for the next few days, and I don't really know what my schedule is going to be yet. If you don't see any posts, don't worry. It just means I haven't had enough free time—especially since I plan to use some of this free time to roam around with my trusty camera and see what's what in Duarte.

Cancer delendum est.¹

¹Alternative meaning: "Crabs must be destroyed."

Fox News settled the Dominion lawsuit today for $787 million. Depending on how you look at it, that represents about half a year's profits or 20% of their current cash stockpile. Not a back breaker, but not a trivial hit either. Here's how the market responded:

That is one big nothingburger. Apparently investors have decided this has no material effect on Fox at all.

I have nothing interesting to say about this except that I'm going to miss the show. I don't blame Dominion for settling, but I was looking forward to the media circus that would have surrounded a trial.

BY THE WAY: Fox's only public statement so far is that the settlement "reflects Fox’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards." You betcha.

This is a heliotrope, specifically a Parry's Phacelia growing by the side of the 241 toll road just before it merges into highway 91. It's technically an herb, and right now it's growing all over the place along with fields of poppies.

A few days ago James Carville made some news by telling New York Times columnist Charles Blow that the biggest story of the 2022 election was "abysmally low Black turnout," especially among young Black voters.

Is this true? According to a Times analysis published last November, it's true in at least three Southern states where we have solid data. In Georgia, Louisiana, and North Carolina collectively, the gap between Black and white turnout was 26%, about double what it was in the three previous midterm elections. We will presumably get good survey data for the other states eventually, but I don't know when. ANES only covers presidential years and I haven't heard anything from folks like Catalist that have analyzed previous midterm elections.

All politics is local, and three Southern states don't necessarily represent a widespread problem. But they might. Surely someone has updated information about this by now?

A few weeks ago Bruce Willingham, publisher of the McCurtain Gazette-News in Idabel, Oklahoma, left a voice-activated recorder behind after the end of a county commissioners' meeting. He suspected the group was continuing to conduct county business after the meeting had ended.

And they were, in a manner of speaking. Here are county commissioner Mark Jennings and Sheriff Kevin Clardy discussing all the people who want Clardy's job:

Jennings: I heard 2 or 12 people were going for sheriff. I said fuck, let's get 20. They don’t have a goddamn clue what they’re getting into. Not this day and age. I’m gonna tell you something. If it was back in the day, when Alan Marshton would take a damn Black guy and whoop their ass and throw him in the cell? I’d run for fucking sheriff.

Sheriff: Yeah. Well, it’s not like that nomore.

Jennings: I know. Take them down to Mud Creek and hang them up with a damn rope. But you can’t do that anymore. They got more rights than we got.

This comes in the wake of a Gazette-News investigation of a case last year in which sheriff's deputies tased a hogtied burglary suspect and killed him.¹ Interestingly, everyone involved in this—the burglary suspect, the sheriff, the county commissioners, and the two reporters who have been a thorn in their side—are white. The mention of lynching Black folks isn't even personal. It's just completely gratuitous.

In any case, the sheriff himself thinks there are bigger issues afoot:

There is and has been an ongoing investigation into multiple, significant violation of the Oklahoma Security of Communications Act, Title 13, Chapters 176.3 and 176.4 which states that it is illegal to secretly record a conversation in which you are not involved and do not have the consent of at least one of the involved parties. There is a significant number of victims of this criminal activity and it has taken significant effort and time to identify them and corroborate evidence.

Currently, the FBI is involved and both the mayor of Idabel and the governor of Oklahoma have called for everyone involved in the recorded meeting to resign. We'll see where that goes.

¹For the record, he was hogtied by onlookers who had captured him. The deputies had nothing to do with that part.