The Editors Speak – Will the People Follow?

Several major print sources recently published their endorsements for the 2024 Presidential race. This is traditional every four years. Due to the advent of early voting and more permissive and extended absentee voting allowances, these events appeared earlier this year. However, with fewer people tuned into print media, and newspapers in general, I wonder if these messages are still being received as before and do they reach the necessary voters who used to value these opinions?

Does the online presence of such media giants allow them to expand their reach and influence? Or are influencers on TikTok and YouTube reaching a wider audience? Do celebrity endorsements sway voters?  Since 2020 was an unusual election year with much of the country under COVID social and health restrictions, and workers and students experiencing virtual offices and classrooms the usual discussions about anything were muffled. Many then turned to the anonymity of the internet sources they could explore. Some, such as Alex Jones, now disgraced, promoted lies and hatred.

The 2020 election saw anonymous groups such as Qanon with its theories of, among others, Satan-worshipping elites, conspiracies, and global rings of pedophiles explode into the mainstream. It especially disliked Democrats and prominent entertainers and believed many to be among the child-killing conspiracies they espoused. It became a catch-all for those who questioned the death of President John Kennedy, the 911 attacks, and other widely discussed conspiracies such as the so-called Deep State. In 2016 cryptic online comments promoted the election of DJT and claimed he was chosen to prevent this evil from infiltrating the country. After his election, he appeared with QANON symbols at his rallies. Some of the more radical sites were removed by YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter at that time, but this movement became a worldwide phenomenon.

This group is hard to define, it includes right-wing members, religious fundamentalists, social outcasts, and many who were just looking for a community to engage with. The Georgia Congresswoman, Marjorie Taylor-Greene climbed onto this bandwagon, before her election in 2020. One aspect of this group is that it has no visible leader, no official spokesperson, and no one to take any responsibility for the lies and half-truths it supports.

The Anti-Defamation League noted that the blood ritual claims harken back to the anti-Semitic beliefs from the Middle Ages and explained how the movement is kept alive by its supporters.

The MAGA mouthpiece on “Truth Social” regularly re-posts QANON content and DJT sometimes wears the Q symbol to show his alliance. Of course, since the January 6^th Insurrection, QANON has regularly returned the favor and supported the disgraced former president. Elon Musk, once he bought Twitter and revised it as X, allowed Q and its content to return and expand its presence. A recent article in the New York Times noted that Musk is going all out to elect DJT and some note his PAC has so far spent over $80 million dollars and could spend as much as $500 million.

The Times technology report noted the following:

“Over half the accounts tracked by The Times have discussed baseless rumors that the attempted assassination of Mr. Trump in July was orchestrated by powerful Democrats. Combined, their posts were shared three million times in the 24 hours after the shooting.

Every day, about a quarter of a billion people use X, which remains a popular destination for news. The power of the reinstated accounts to shape the discourse on the platform is enormous, as is the risk, said Isabelle Frances-Wright, the director of technology and society at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a nonprofit research organization.

“X has gone from being a social network to, frankly at this point, an online opinion news network where the majority of the narratives and hateful content come from a very small group of people who affect the entirety of the platform in an outsized way,” Ms. Frances-Wright said.

In late August, Mr. Trump claimed on X that Ms. Harris would destroy Social Security by allowing undocumented immigrants to tap into the program — a fear-mongering tactic that has informed false narratives claiming that Democrats are enabling noncitizens to vote.

As the election nears, some of the high-profile reinstated accounts have begun to pre-emptively cast doubt on the results. Much of the commentary is reminiscent of the conspiracy theories that swirled after the 2020 election and in the lead-up to the Jan. 6 riot.”

So, we do not know the effects of this non-traditional approach to electioneering. I assume that X will influence many voters. Whether this scurrilous rant will influence the electorate enough to elect the MAGA team, I don’t know. I wish that more members of the media would also stop using the site, but it has become a necessary stop along the online circuits.

The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision allowed this to happen when it said money is speech and permitted unknown payers with millions and billions in their pockets to fund election campaigns. The FCC regulates campaign ads to a point, but many lies are spread routinely because candidates know that restraint is cumbersome and may not ever happen before the voters make their selections. So they put falsehoods out there and say “my bad” when caught, but they got their message out on the airwaves, so they truly do not care.

Now to get back to traditional media. Does it still play a role in these high-stakes games? Truly they are not games, as I believe, with many, that the future of our democracy is on the line more than ever before in this election. I hope that they will reach a wide audience of responsible voters.

Several media editorials appeared recently and gave their reasons for supporting VP Kamala Harris for election. I only list three here …and even though I truncated them, they are long, so bear with me.

The Atlantic Monthly rarely endorses but it did so this year here

It explained that it endorsed Abraham Lincoln in 1860, Lyndon Johnson in 1964, and Hillary Clinton in 2016. The following is only a portion of the editorial.

“About the candidate we are endorsing: The Atlantic is a heterodox place, staffed by freethinkers, and for some of us, Kamala Harris’s policy views are too centrist, while for others they’re too liberal. The process that led to her nomination was flawed, and she’s been cagey in keeping the public and press from getting to know her as well as they should. But we know a few things for sure. Having devoted her life to public service, Harris respects the law and the Constitution. She believes in the freedom, equality, and dignity of all Americans. She’s untainted by corruption, let alone a felony record or a history of sexual assault. She doesn’t embarrass her compatriots with her language and behavior, or pit them against one another. She doesn’t curry favor with dictators. She won’t abuse the power of the highest office in order to keep it. She believes in democracy. These, and not any specific policy positions, are the reasons The Atlantic is endorsing her.”

If you’re a conservative who can’t abide Harris’s tax and immigration policies, but who is also offended by the rottenness of the Republican Party, only Trump’s final defeat will allow your party to return to health—then you’ll be free to oppose President Harris wholeheartedly. We believe that American politics are healthiest when vibrant conservative and liberal parties fight it out on matters of policy.

If you’re a progressive who thinks the Democratic Party is a tool of corporate America, talk to someone who still can’t forgive themselves for voting for Ralph Nader in 2000—then ask yourself which candidate, Harris or Trump, would give you any leverage to push for policies you care about.

Trump is the sphinx who stands in the way of America entering a more hopeful future. In Greek mythology, the sphinx killed every traveler who failed to answer her riddle, until Oedipus finally solved it, causing the monster’s demise. The answer to Trump lies in every American’s hands. Then he needs only to go away.”

The New York Times also endorsed VP Kamala Harris and said this in its editorial (partially copied below)

“It is hard to imagine a candidate more unworthy to serve as president of the United States than Donald Trump. He has proved himself morally unfit for an office that asks its occupant to put the good of the nation above self-interest. He has proved himself temperamentally unfit for a role that requires the very qualities — wisdom, honesty, empathy, courage, restraint, humility, and discipline — that he most lacks. This unequivocal, dispiriting truth — Donald Trump is not fit to be president — should be enough for any voter who cares about the health of our country and the stability of our democracy to deny him re-election.

For this reason, regardless of any political disagreements voters might have with her, Kamala Harris is the only patriotic choice for president. And is a dedicated public servant who has demonstrated care, competence, and an unwavering commitment to the Constitution. Ms. Harris stands alone in this race. She may not be the perfect candidate for every voter, especially those who are frustrated and angry about our government’s failures to fix what’s broken — from our immigration system to public schools to housing costs to gun violence. Yet we urge Americans to contrast Ms. Harris’s record with her opponent’s.

Ms. Harris is more than a necessary alternative. There is also an optimistic case for elevating her, one that is rooted in her policies and borne out by her experience as vice president, a senator, and a state attorney general.

Over the past 10 weeks, Ms. Harris has offered a shared future for all citizens, beyond hate and division. She has begun to describe a set of thoughtful plans to help American families. While character is enormously important — in this election, pre-eminently so — policies matter. Many Americans remain deeply concerned about their prospects and their children in an unstable and unforgiving world. For them, Ms. Harris is clearly the better choice. She has committed to using the power of her office to help Americans better afford the things they need, to make it easier to own a home, to support small businesses, and to help workers. Mr. Trump’s economic priorities are more tax cuts, which would benefit mostly the wealthy, and more tariffs, which will make prices even more unmanageable for the poor and middle class.

Ms. Harris recognizes the need for global solutions to the global problem of climate change and would continue President Biden’s major investments in the industries and technologies necessary to achieve that goal. Mr. Trump rejects the accepted science, and his contempt for low-carbon energy solutions is matched only by his trollish fealty to fossil fuels.

In 2020 this board made the strongest case it could against the re-election of Mr. Trump. Four years later, many Americans have put his excesses out of their minds. We urge them and those who may look back at that period with nostalgia or feel that their lives are not much better now than they were three years ago to recognize that his first term was a warning and that a second Trump term would be much more damaging and divisive than the first.

Kamala Harris is the only choice.”

 

The Nation made its endorsement for Harris in a long editorial,  here and which is only quoted partially. It noted some disagreements with Harris, but said the alternative is not acceptable.

 

“The great strength of Kamala Harris’s unlikely but existentially important campaign for the presidency is her powerful grasp of what is at stake in this election. “In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man,” Harris declared in her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. But as she reminded the delegates, “the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.”ocracy posed by a reelected “Donald Trump with no guardrails”—especially after the Supreme Court’s recent 6–3 decision granting him “presumptive immunity” from criminal prosecution for his official acts—Harris urged Americans to “consider what he intends to do if we give him power again. Consider his explicit intent to set free violent extremists who assaulted those law enforcement officers at the Capitol. His explicit intent to jail journalists, political opponents, and anyone he sees as the enemy. His explicit intent to deploy our active-duty military against our own citizens.”

We believe those threats are real. Of course, we endorse Harris over Trump. But we also endorse Harris in her own right, as an experienced and capable leader with a vision for America’s future that—while not as progressive as we might prefer, particularly when it comes to foreign policy—represents a clear advance on the Democratic presidential nominees of the past half-century.

Harris has long been an eloquent and tireless fighter for reproductive freedom. She spent the months following the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization highlighting the connections between that assault and the other Republican efforts to roll back our rights. …Some of these proposals outlined in Project 2025.

And although some of her wealthy backers haven’t been shy in pressing her to fire Fe deral Trade Commission chair Lina Khan, Harris has, so far at least, stood firm behind Khan and the anti-monopoly agenda she has pursued at the FTC.

On foreign policy, however, the positive case is harder to make. Her change in tone, and her statements taking note of the horrendous death toll among Palestinian civilians, while welcome, might also be little more than the standard “pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian, but subtly more pro-Israeli…

On the war in Ukraine, Harris’s position is hawkish. On relations with Russia and China, she has done nothing to indicate any departure from the Biden administration’s belligerent rhetoric….Still, anyone promoting Trump as a peace candidate needs to check their eyesight. Or their privilege.

Donald Trump has been a cancer on our public life since his days posing as a successful casino operator. His pervasive influence not just on our politics but on our manners, conversations, imaginations, and media developed a momentum that, until Biden withdrew, seemed likely to carry this habitual liar and adjudicated rapist back to the pinnacle of power.

Leftists contemplating voting for a third party in protest of Harris’s shortcomings—or out of discontent with our two-party system—need to ask themselves why their particular cause, or their personal discomfort, is more important than making sure that Trump, JD Vance, and their claque of congressional collaborators are defeated decisively….

Harris deserves credit for moving nearly $25 million from her campaign to down ballot races. The vice president knows she can’t afford to win narrowly in the battleground states; for her and Walz to govern effectively, to break the fever of Trumpism, they also need to lift Democrats in the races that will decide control of the House and Senate.

The insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021, may have been unsuccessful. Their aims, however, were part of a long campaign to drag this country back ….(in the words of the Dred Scott decision), women had no control over their own bodies, corporations were free to pollute our air and water, and employers were allowed to terrorize and discard their workers.

Job one for Harris, then, is to defeat Trump—and Trumpism—decisively this November. Yet the current moment, and Harris’s campaign, offers more than merely a chance to wake from our long national nightmare."

Til next week-Peace!

Gaslighting & Demagogues

With less than a month to go before election day, many on the right have resorted to distortions of the truth. Some statements are wild and outrageous, others are just plain lies. Right-wing media faithfully echoes and parrots these lies. You have probably heard the phrase: "Who are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes?"

Below I explain the tactics of gaslighting and demagoguery,

Medical News Today describes gaslighting:

Gaslighting is a behavior that people learn by watching others. A person who uses this tactic may have learned it is an effective way of obtaining what they want or controlling people. They may feel entitled to have things their way or that the wants and needs of others do not matter.Sometimes, people with personality disorders such as narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) exhibit abusive behavior. A 2023 article Trusted Source states that people with NPD have:

a consistent need for admiration and attention

a belief that they are better than everyone else, or

 special in someone with a lack of empathy.

This combination of symptoms can lead to unhealthy relationships. However, gaslighting is not always due to a mental health condition. Anyone can engage in this behavior.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a demagogue as:

 A leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power.

Examples of these tactics:

       Claiming Haitians are stealing pets to eat.

                   Stating immigrants are taking black jobs.

                   Accusing FEMA of diverting disaster relief money to fund "illegals"..

Blaming opponent crowd size numbers on AI enhancement.

Denying the efforts of FEMA, the Biden administration, and others in reaching out to aid the hurricane victims, when the media is showing us the ongoing work.

Saying "Only I can solve your problems."

 

Television news and print media this week reported on the devastation from Hurricane Helene as it traveled across several states in the South. We have also seen FEMA on the job working in these states as its staff partnered with local authorities, the National Guard, and regular Army troops. These groups helicoptered food and water to remote areas and took part in mountainside search and rescue efforts. Other forces brought tankers with potable water to ruined towns, and Jose Andres brought food from his World Central Kitchen to a hub in Asheville, NC, and continued to distribute thousands of meals.

Helene has become the deadliest hurricane since Katrina and is so far responsible for over 220 deaths; once the searchers get into the more remote areas, they expect to find more bodies. Although all of this work is public knowledge for anyone who cares to look, the Republicans and their candidate claim FEMA is running out of money. According to the NY Times, FEMA is getting short of staff but has funds to draw from other agencies even though House Speaker Johnson refused to call Congress back for an additional appropriation requested by President Biden. It also refused to increase funding in the recently passed stopgap funding bill.

Sometimes the public does not understand the mandate that FEMA has; it is not there to make disaster victims whole. The staff has to provide safe passage and rescue efforts in threatened areas and coordinate the relief with power and cell companies, health departments, local officials, first responders, and volunteers. It may provide shelter if homes are destroyed or allocate funds for safe refuge, or temporary trailers. The maligned $750 payout is to be used for emergency necessities such as food and clothing, when people lose access to their banking accounts.

FEMA staff can assist homeowners and others with filing claims for insurance reimbursement, but are limited in the amount of funds it can disperse; the highest amount is $42,500 and many do not qualify for that. However, in this instance, sadly, most homeowners will not qualify for insurance relief, as flooding caused the most damage to homes and businesses, and residents who do not live in floodplains seldom have flood insurance. In Florida, the insurance market has diminished as providers left the market or increased coverage rates above affordability for many Floridians on fixed incomes. In 2022 Florida created a company called Citizens to be used by residents as an insurer of last resort for those who cannot find other coverage.

FEMA also goes into communities after the initial emergency and helps communities rebuild. The Army Corps of Engineers can be deployed to rebuild bridges and build levees as it did in New Orleans.

While there are funds dispersed to communities that take in asylum seekers, those funds come from dedicated funds determined by Congress under the FEMA and Customs and Border Protection Shelter and Services program. Continuing to claim that FEMA does not have enough money because dollars are going to immigrants is misleading and harmful to all concerned. (But it is gaslighting.)

The Department of Homeland Security also has resources to assist in recovery efforts but is now warning that those who continue to spread disinformation are creating a level of distrust seldom seen in this sphere.

FEMA Director Deanne Criswell spoke to George Stephanopoulos on ABC Sunday.

Criswell said, "You know, it's really a shame that we're putting politics ahead of helping people, and that's what we're here to do.". She added "This dangerous rhetoric is creating fear in our staff while they are trying to do their job"

Others have described workers going out in teams for their safety, which slows recovery.

CNN Fact checker Daniel Dale describes one week of false claims made by DJT about Hurricane relief here.

Monday: He falsely claims Biden hasn't answered calls from Georgia's governor.

The governor disagreed and described his call from the president.

Monday: He cites baseless 'reports' about anti-Republican bias in the North Carolina response.

“Trump provided no evidence when a reporter pressed him later in the day.”

Thursday: He falsely claims the Biden-Harris response had received 'universally' negative reviews.

For example, Republican South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said at a Tuesday press conference that federal assistance had "been superb," noting that Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had both called and told him to let them know whatever the state needed.

Thursday: He falsely claims Harris spent 'all her FEMA money' on housing illegal immigrants

"They stole the FEMA money, just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have a vote for them this season." (Illegal residents cannot vote.)

“Department of Homeland Security, the White House, and independent observers noted this week, that they're just two separate things funded separately by Congress.”

Friday: He falsely claims $1 billion was 'stolen' from FEMA for migrants and has gone 'missing'

"”Though Trump's Thursday claim about FEMA money and migrants had already been debunked by Friday, Trump repeated the claim to reporters at least twice on Friday — and then said it again at a Friday night town hall event in North Carolina.”

Saturday: He falsely claims the federal government is only giving $750 to people who lost their homes.

“has included FEMA providing $750 for folks who need immediate needs being met, such as food, baby formula, and the like. And you can apply now." But she added just moments later, "FEMA is also providing tens of thousands more dollars for folks to help them be able to deal with home repair, to be able to cover a deductible when and if they have insurance, and also hotel costs."

Saturday: Again falsely claims there are 'no helicopters, no rescue' in North Carolina 

“As reported by CNN: The state said, in an official update Saturday: "A total of 53 search and rescue teams from North Carolina and beyond, consisting of more than 1,600 personnel have conducted search and rescue operations during this event. Search and rescue teams have interacted with over 5,400 people, including assists, evacuations, and rescues."

The North Carolina National Guard announced Thursday that its own air assets had "completed 146 flight missions, resulting in the rescue of 538 people and 150 pets." The Washington Post reported Friday: "The drone of helicopters has become routine across western North Carolina in the wake of Helene. National Guard and civilian aircraft now crisscross the skies of a region where roads and bridges have been destroyed and people are trapped. “

To conclude, I can only quote in part some remarks from the post by Heather Cox Richardson on October 6, 2024, here:

"During WW II the U.S. Office of Strategic Services had picked up on Hitler's manipulation of his followers when it described Hitler's psychological profile. It said, "His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it."

 

"The MAGA movement is now based in the Big Lie. Its leaders refuse to admit that Trump lost the 2020 election. Trump's running mate, Ohio senator J.D. Vance, two days ago actually said Trump won, and as media figures more frequently ask the question of MAGA lawmakers, they continue to dodge it, as Arkansas senator Tom Cotton did today on NBC's Meet the Press, and as House speaker Mike Johnson did on ABC News's "This Week."

 

"Now, though, their lies about the federal response to Hurricane Helene show that they are completely committed to disinformation. "

As Will Bunch noted today in the Philadelphia Inquirer when Vance lied again at the vice presidential debate about the legal status of the Haitian migrants in Springfield,

 

Bunch points out that MAGA Republicans insist on the right to lie, considering any fact-checking "censorship," a position to which Vance pivoted when Minnesota governor Tim Walz asked him if Trump won the 2020 election.

 

Just as Russian political theorists advocated to overturn democracy, MAGA Republicans have created an alternative political reality, aided in large part by the disinformation spread on social media by X owner and Trump supporter Elon Musk.

 

Perhaps, though, the very real, immediate damage MAGA's disinformation about Hurricane Helene is causing might finally be a step too far. In what is at least a muted rebuke to Trump, Republican governors across the damaged area have stepped up to praise President Joe Biden and the federal response to the disaster." As I write this, Hurricane Milton is strengthening in the Gulf of Mexico and taking aim at Tampa Bay and other communities along the Gulf Coast and is expected to hit land as a Category 5. This is so sad. Til next week-Peace.

Extreme Weather is Here

Has Mother Nature gotten your attention yet?

This summer, Phoenix Arizona recorded over 100 days with temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Scientific American reports that over the last two summers, worldwide temperatures were the highest ever recorded in two thousand years. (They can determine this from examining tree rings, somehow.) The average temperature for this year was 62.2 Fahrenheit or 16.8 Celsius, which exceeded the high set in 2023 by a small one-tenth. Fifteen countries across the world recorded their highest-ever temperatures. Western Australia and Antarctica also set records for heat.

The article further notes:

“Though global and national temperature records offer clear signs of how much excess heat greenhouse, gases have trapped in the atmosphere, real people do not live in average temperatures. Such measurements can mask wide regional variations and extremes. In the US Southwest, successive summer heat domes created one of the hottest places on the planet: 

The planet will continue to blast through heat records until humans stop producing greenhouse gases, says Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University. With renewable energy now cheaper than fossil fuels, the largest hurdle to meaningful action is not technological but political, he says. This means “the solution is in our grasp,” Dessler emphasizes. Greenhouse gas emissions have held steady over the past decade, at least preventing further acceleration of warming.”

The Paris Accords, in 2016, made it a goal to keep global temperature rise under 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The world is knocking at that door now and many expect that level to be exceeded in the next decade unless more countries move away from reliance on fossil fuels. Changes will not be abrupt but will come in spurts as the oceans, where much weather develops, react to the warmer temperatures. Extreme weather events such as those spurred on by El Nino years in the Western Hemisphere will become more prominent and severe.

According to the National Weather Service, “El Nino can affect our weather significantly. The warmer waters cause the Pacific jet stream to move south of its neutral position. With this shift, areas in the northern US and Canada are dryer and warmer than usual. But in the US Gulf Coast and the Southeast, these periods are wetter than usual and have increased flooding.”

La Nina years act as a contrast to El Nino years, as they shift the jet stream northward, resulting in warmer weather for the southern regions and cooler and wetter conditions for the northern areas. La Nina can lead to years with more severe hurricanes. These systems occur irregularly and can last from one year to several years. Whatever block they are in, the US will feel the effects of these phenomena. El Nino ended last Spring, so we are now in a La Nina year.

On September 19, 2024, the Washington Post reported in an article titled:

How rising global heat connects catastrophic floods on four continents

Within weeks, catastrophic floods swept across four continents.

 

Typhoons triggered landslides across Southeast Asia and inundated Shanghai. A slow-moving storm, unusual for this time of year, sent a deluge over Central Europe. Months of floods wore on in northern and central Africa as rain continued to fall on landscapes that are normally more arid. And in the United States, a tropical system too disorganized to become a named storm nonetheless poured historic rainfall on the Carolinas, with more than 20 inches landing in some spots.

 

In Asia, Typhoon Yagi became the year’s most intense super typhoon before making landfall in China on Sept. 6 and northern Vietnam on Sept. 7 and bringing torrential rains into Laos and Myanmar, where it converged with monsoon rains to trigger landslides that buried entire villages. The storm killed dozens in the Philippines and Thailand, and nearly 300 people each in Vietnam and Myanmar.

 

In Europe, a similar contrast was fueling rain that has lingered over the continent for nearly a week. After Arctic air plunged southward to meet Mediterranean warmth, catastrophic floods, and heavy snow inundated parts of Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. At least 19 people died and thousands were forced to vacate their homes in Central and Eastern Europe.

 Each of these pieces preceded the arrival of Hurricane Helene last week.

Devastating rainfalls preceded and followed Helene’s path northward over the already saturated ground. Helene came ashore as a Category 4/5 storm with winds over 140 miles per hour and a six-to-eight-foot storm surge along Florida’s Gulf Coast. Barrier islands and coastal communities, far from the eye, were in many cases obliterated. As the storm left Florida it was downgraded to a tropical depression. However, that did not prevent it from dropping 12 inches of rain over a few days in Atlanta, Georgia, and nearly twice as much over eastern Tennessee and Western North Carolina. This storm traveled north as far as southern Ohio, creating unprecedented destruction with severe flooding in its wake. The speed of this storm, with its accompanying winds and torrential downpours, broke many existing weather records. The famous Masters Golf Course in Augusta suffered major storm damage. Many roads in western South Carolina became impassable because of water and tree damage.

In Tennessee and North Carolina, Interstates I-40 and I-26 had portions ripped out by cascading waters. The towns of Chimney Rock, Black Mountain and Boone came close to obliteration. In Asheville, a city of 95,000 residents, the Swannanoa, and French Broad Rivers overflowed into many areas along their banks, inundating areas such as Biltmore Village and the Riverside arts districts. The water plant, overtopped by flooding, could not function, which resulted in Warren Wilson College, located outside the city, being isolated and losing access to clean water. At one point during the height of the storm, more than 2.5 million people in the south were without power and/or cell service.

Video of destruction in Asheville can be found here and here.

In Tennessee, patients had to be rescued from the roof of a hospital as flooding waters entered its lower levels. Nearby dams such as the Waterville Dam and the Nolichucky Dam threatened to overflow, but survived the onslaught.

 As of Sunday evening, the death toll from this storm stands at 89, but as waters recede, death totals are expected to climb.

President Biden issued emergency declarations for the affected areas and FEMA is already providing services to the places they can reach. FEMA, and the the power company for much of the area, Duke Energy, pre-positioned supplies and work crews in the Florida panhandle, but not further north as they did not expect the furious strength of Helene to expand that far.

Property damage from this one storm is expected to reach as high as 26 Billion, while the estimated economic damage over months can be calculated by losses in the tourism business, integral for much of the area, the costs for resettling the large numbers of residents, and reorganizing commercial and governmental services. Some put those totals over time to exceed 100 Billion dollars. Some Gulf Coast residents, having experienced three major storms in recent years, can no longer buy or afford insurance, which makes mortgages increasingly more difficult to obtain. Resilience is endemic in coastal communities, but families can only take so much. In coastal North Carolina, along the Outer Banks, the town of Rodanthe has seen seven houses reclaimed by sea waters in the last four years.

So how long should the Federal government rebuild such communities that are subject to periodic disasters? In North Carolina, the Park Service is buying up some coastal homes in areas of severe erosion, but it does not have funds to continue forever. I favor restricting all building in areas close to the sea, as sea level rise will not reverse. Some communities require homes to be built on stilts, but, as we have seen, waters can undermine those supports.

So, is this storm a wake-up call? I hope so. How can we, as regular folks, contribute to the slowing of Global Climate Change? Well, not all of us can afford to trade in for an electronic car, or even a hybrid one. But maybe we could make fewer trips and combine our errands into one outing. If we cannot place solar panels on our apartments, maybe we could work to conserve energy in our homes. We could grow produce or buy from local providers and farmers markets. If offered in our area, we could compost food waste for local repurposing. Small steps add up. Remember the mantra: Reduce, reuse, recycle.

Just thought you should also look at these “reforms” proposed in :

Mandate for Change (the 2025 Project) on page 378. I noted just a few of those reforms. The Heritage Foundation, many Republicans, and previous staffers from the DJT White House worked on this document and some are now working on his campaign. He cannot disown it no matter how much he tries to backtrack. He would dismantle many of our recent reforms.

“End the focus on climate change and green subsidies.)

Mission/Overview The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy traces its roots to the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975,42 but most of its programs today are rooted in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.43 Under the Biden Administration, EERE’s mission is “to accelerate the research, development, demonstration, and deployment of technologies and solutions to equitably transition America to net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions economy-wide by no later than 2050” and “ensure [that] the clean energy economy benefits all Americans.”44 The office is made up of three “pillars”: energy efficiency, renewable energy, and sustainable transportation.

Under the Biden Administration, EERE is a conduit for taxpayer dollars to fund progressive policies, including decarbonization of the economy and renewable resources. EERE has focused on reducing carbon dioxide emissions to the exclusion of other statutorily defined requirements such as energy security and cost. For example, EERE’s five programmatic priorities during the Biden Administration are all focused on decarbonization of the electricity sector, the industrial sector, transportation, buildings, and the agricultural sector.45 l Eliminate energy efficiency standards for appliances. Pursuant to the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 as amended, the agency is required to set and periodically tighten energy and/or water efficiency standards for nearly all kinds of commercial and household appliances, including air conditioners, furnaces, water heaters, stoves, clothes washers and dryers, refrigerators, dishwashers, light bulbs, and showerheads. Current law and regulations reduce consumer choice, drive up costs for consumer appliances, and emphasize energy efficiency to the exclusion of other important factors, such as cycle time and repairability.

Budget EERE was funded at slightly more than $2.8 billion in FY 2021, and DOE requested slightly more than $4.0 billion for FY 2023.47 Congress needs to rescind the appropriated monies that EERE has not spent and begin fresh with new appropriations..”

We have an election on November 5^th. Please vote early if you can; this date is only 37 days away. Get your friends to vote. If our world, clean air, clean water, food access, and safe global temperatures are important to you, speak up and act. Involve others. Make a plan to vote and bring friends.

Before I close, I must say words of condolence to those who have lost their homes, their livelihood, or loved ones in this storm. I hope this trauma will soon ease.

Til next week – Peace.

School Daze

Do you remember the rhyme-

“School days, school days,

Good old Golden Rule Days,

Readin’ and writin’ and ‘rithmatic

Taught to the time of a hickory stick?”

So, since it is September and the start of new school years across the nation, I thought I would look at the school days of my youth. Those times are as far removed from today’s educational programs as the slates the pupils used during the Colonial period or in one-room schools. Today students use technology routinely and easily adapt to the computer earning now prevalent. In my day, practices were different.

As a senior, but not quite a relic yet, I have memories of vastly different school days from my childhood education in a town close to Boston. I thought it might be interesting to share some of my experiences from those days. Classrooms then typically held around thirty students. The teacher wrote classwork assignments on chalkboards. At the end of the day, someone would be assigned the job of cleaning the chalkboards and clapping the chalk dust from the erasers. (Nobody considered the perils, then, of chalk dust.)

In my town, there was no grade for kindergarten, students started school right into first grade. I walked to my school, a few blocks away from home, attended the morning session, went home for lunch, and returned for the afternoon. (Of course, our mothers or someone was expected to be at home.) This all seems quaint now. After a bitterly cold winter with heavy snow, the town changed to single sessions, and that remained the norm throughout the rest of my education.

Dress codes were simple; girls could wear skirts or dresses, never pants. If it was freezing or snowing, they could wear leggings under their skirts. Boys could wear corduroy or cotton trousers, but not jeans, or dungarees, as they were called then. Sneakers were only for older children when they played sports or had gym class.

We were taught penmanship, usually in the third grade, when we learned cursive writing. I seem to remember the Palmer method, where one had to keep the arm off the desk and use sweeping hand motions as we dipped our pen into an inkwell set in our desks. The pens left splotches if the students were not careful with the dipping. This often meant that one had to start over with a clean piece of paper. These were not simple tasks for small hands. Contrast that with today’s practices, which no longer teach cursive as students and teachers, used to computers, do not see a need for it.

We also learned the multiplication tables by rote in the early grades. Later in English studies, teachers showed us how to diagram sentences as we used the parts of speech. Such lessons are no longer taught and are considered unnecessary.

Elementary school teachers, most frequently, were women. Teachers could be married and have children, but had to step down if they were visibly pregnant. (I never understood the rationale for this policy – it is not as if the students did not live in homes where new brothers or sisters arrived at intervals.) Of course, they too wore dresses or skirts, except when they taught gym classes.

During that age of nuclear threats, we learned to duck and cover, which meant during drills we were to crawl under our desks and not look at the windows, which presumably might have a blinding blast. We did not know then, if that blast was that close, that we would be incinerated.

Each class day began with the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. Originally, not all states used the same pledge as it was not universal until World War ll, when patriotism was promoted more to support the war effort. The words “under God” were not part of the pledge in those days. Although religion was not integral to my early public school days, it became more so later. Various religious groups, especially the organizations of Catholic Bishops and the Knights of Columbus, lobbied for this pledge change. It became law when President Eisenhower signed the bill to add the phrase in 1954. Two years later, the words “In God we Trust “ were added to the country’s motto and even later to currency. These were reactive moves to combat the threat of communism, considered prominent during that era of McCarthyism and the House UnAmerican Activities Committee.

Subsequently, if my memory is correct, student readings from the Old Testament were added to the morning’s opening day rituals. Then, over the years, various groups petitioned against these routines in public schools. Jehovah’s Witnesses wanted their members to be excused from the pledge, while The Society of Friends (Quakers) requested that its members stand, but not pledge to the flag. This religion also has a testimony against the swearing of oaths. In 1962, using the reasoning of the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, the Supreme Court in Engle vs. Vitale ruled against the recitation of a school-sponsored prayer in public schools. Later, courts prohibited Bible reading, as schools were deemed secular. Displays of the Ten Commandments were also prohibited after a suit brought by the State of Kentucky. (Stone v. Graham) Teachers, however, could teach portions of the Christian Bible in comparative religion classes for older students.

Today, in a country as diverse as ours, religion in public schools remains another divisive issue when world cultures are considered. Yet, despite the claims of some, America was not formed as a Christian nation. The founders made specific efforts to keep religion and government apart. Many came from families that fled to this New World to escape religious persecution. The Pilgrims, Puritans, Quakers, and French Huguenots all arrived hoping for religious freedom. Catholics, Protestants, and Lutherans mostly came later, but sought the same freedom to worship, or not, options. Enslaved African populations brought with them religious practices from their homelands.

Religious groups continue to push this button amid their desire to let this Conservative majority court strike these precedent-setting rulings down. Recent rulings supporting merchants who refuse to serve gay couples and coach prayers at football games are peeling away the prohibitions formerly enacted. States that now mandate displays of the Ten Commandments in classrooms are doing so in defiance of established laws. Schools that allow students to attend Christian Bible classes in the school day, but during free periods, even if held off campus, are also skirting the law. These practices do not consider the coercive nature and the pressures placed on parents or children who might not go along or who have differing beliefs. They do not respect the child who is Jewish, Muslim, or Hindu, for example, who does not know how to step back when their teacher asks them to join such groups. There are no reasons for these classes to take place during the mandated classroom hours, apart from the logistics of having a captive audience easily swept in and becoming the camel’s nose under the tent.

According to a study done in 2023 by PRRI, White Christians comprise 41% of our populace, and “no religious affiliation” is 27%. Christians of color (Black, Hispanic, Native American, and Asian Christians) total around 25% while religions such as Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, and Hindu are among the remaining 6%. Basically, then, as these stats show, about one-third of the US population are not members of a white Christian demographic.

PRRI notes a more in-depth portrait below.

“The majority of both major political parties identify as Christian. However, Republicans (84%) are 25 percentage points more likely than Democrats (59%) to do so. The biggest difference in the religious makeup of self-identified Republicans and Democrats is the proportion of white Christians, compared with Christians of color and the religiously unaffiliated. Seven in ten Republicans (70%) identify as white and Christian, compared with just 24% of Democrats. Among Republicans, 30% are white evangelical Protestants, 20% are white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants, and 17% are white Catholics. Among Democrats, those numbers fall to 4%, 10%, and 10%, respectively.”

“By contrast, 16% of Democrats are Black Protestants and 11% are Hispanic Catholics, compared with just 1% and 5%, respectively, among Republicans. Similar shares of Republicans (4%) and Democrats (3%) identify as Hispanic Protestant. Democrats (33%) are nearly three times as likely as Republicans (12%) to identify as religiously unaffiliated.”

There is an old saying that ‘your rights end where my nose begins’. While we all may practice our beliefs; no one should interfere with that freedom; however, no one should try to force you into their belief system.

My America respects all beliefs and stays away from those who hate, denigrate, or taunt others. Is your America celebrating our nation’s diversity and moving forward like mine? Let’s make that happen!

Til next week- Peace!