HinesSight

Verizon outage today was irritating for several reasons

It was a stressful morning in the life of my wife and I, two retired people who usually enjoy a relaxed morning of breakfast, browsing of online news sources, and watching our dog nap after her first meal of the day.

But today we had an electrician coming over to install two ceiling fans, and my wife, Laurel, came into my bedroom as I was just getting up, saying "My phone isn't working; I need to use yours to tell the electrician that if he's delayed, to text or call you, since he won't be able to reach me."

Looking at Laurel's iPhone 14 Max, the same model as mine, I saw the dreaded "SOS" in the upper right corner where a cellular connection is supposed to be. That's Apple's signal that our Verizon service had disappeared, but if we needed emergency help it can be reached via other cellular providers.

The strange thing was, my iPhone was still able to make phone calls and send/receive texts. However, the cellular range extender wasn't working that I'd talked Verizon into giving us after I pointed out to them that we'd bought two new iPhones from Verizon but couldn't reliably phone anybody from our house, the reception was so poor out here in rural south Salem. 

Laurel was told by several people that she called this morning, "You're breaking up." When she went closer to a window, the connection improved, just like our not-so-good old times before we got the range extender. Not surprisingly, since my iPhone was working and Laurel's wasn't, we figured that the problem was with her phone -- though I couldn't figure out why the range extender wasn't doing its thing.

Because we've both become addicted to our smart phones, like the vast majority of Americans, Laurel was worried about driving around later in the day with no functioning phone, just in case she had car trouble or needed her phone for some other reason. 

So, overly optimistic beings that we are, even though part of me knew this wasn't going to be easy given my past experience with contacting Verizon, I called Verizon on my phone. I'm pretty sure I heard a message that said something like, "We're experiencing higher than usual call volume due to outages in parts of the country."

OK, I thought, that must refer to the recent hurricane that decimated several states in the southeast, notably including western North Carolina, where a couple Laurel has kept in touch with since their college days moved a few years ago, so that state has been on our mind. What Verizon failed to mention, and damn well should have, was that a massive outage of their cellular service unrelated to the hurricane had occurred in many places across the country.

Later I saw that this was exactly what an author of a ZDNet story, "Is Verizon down for you? Massive outage puts phones in SOS mode across the US," thought.

If you're seeing SOS mode on your phone today, you're not alone. Verizon, the largest wireless carrier in America, is experiencing a massive outage that's affecting users across the US.

Around 10 a.m. ET, users reported that they could not call, text, or use cellular data. Many added that their phones were in SOS mode.

Phones enter SOS mode when not connected to their carrier network, either because they are in an area with poor coverage or because of a technical problem. Given that most of today's reports are from major cities, this issue seems to be the latter. 

When I used Verizon's "Check Network Status" tool, it showed that everything seemed to be functioning normally. My first thought was that this might be related to damage from Hurricane Helen, which ravaged parts of Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. However, many people affected today by the Verizon problem aren't in the storm's path.

For most of the morning we were thinking that Laurel's nonfunctioning iPhone was caused by some glitch with her phone.

We tried restarting it, several times. We never were able to talk to anyone at Verizon, but Laurel talked with somebody at Apple, a company that actually has real live technical support people who speak with customers having a problem. We puzzled over the fact that settings on her iPhone was showing no Esim card, the electronic version of a physical sim card. I Googled "problem with Verizon cellular range extender," since that wasn't working.

Eventually I put "Verizon outage" into the Google News search box. That brought up lots of stories about a widespread Verizon outage reported by hundreds of thousands of people, which meant many more must have been affected, given that most people aren't going to report a problem on a web site that tracks outages.

It sure would have been nice if Verizon had prominently displayed a message to those of us looking for technical support either by phoning Verizon or going to the Verizon web site that, most likely, our problem was due to a widespread Verizon outage. That would have saved my wife and me hours of time we could have spent more productively than trying to figure out what was wrong with Laurel's iPhone.

In short, nothing, since by the time I drove into town around 2 pm and called Laurel's phone from my car, her phone was back to normal. 

Tonight I searched for any stories that described the cause of Verizon's outage. Couldn't find any. So far, Verizon apparently isn't revealing why so many Americans had to spend much of Monday with no Verizon cell service. For us, it was an annoyance. For a business, it was lost sales. 

Why would Verizon be hit with such a massive outage all across the country? Was it a hacking attack by some malicious foreign power like Iran or Russia? Was it an error caused by Verizon itself? Not only us Verizon customers deserve to know, but all Americans do, given how reliant we are on our smartphones these days. 

Some life lessons from a Tai Chi seminar

I've been practicing Tai Chi for nineteen years, having embraced this internal martial art after twelve years of karate, an external martial art. 

In a 2021 post, "Internal martial arts have a lot to teach us," I quoted from a book by Ron Sieh:

Typically the martial arts are characterized by how they arrive at power: the external, by muscular effort; the internal, relaxed and effortlessly.

All "karates" are considered external, and most of the Chinese arts, plus Judo, Capoeira, and Kali, are lumped into the external category.

T'ai Chi Ch'uan, Hsing I Ch'uan, and Pa Kua are the Chinese internal arts and of course, Aikido is a Japanese art. There is a flow in the internal arts that is missing from the external ones.

In the external there is a quality of fighting, of pushing against the way things are, to change what is happening to better fit our "plan."

In the internal tradition a more inclusive approach is cultivated, a quality of non-interference, of using your opponents' strengths to your advantage without the struggle to change them.

Glenn, Dustin, Marisa, Eric, and Brian (me) at Pacific Martial Arts Tai Chi seminar

Yesterday Warren Allen, my Tai Chi instructor, offered a three hour seminar for five students who are especially interested in the martial side of Tai Chi, as contrasted with the energetic/exercise side. Warren is well suited to teach both aspects of Tai Chi, having much experience with both internal and external martial arts.

One of the things I like about Tai Chi is its close connection with Taoism. I like the description of Tai Chi as "Taoism in motion." Meaning, Tai Chi embodies the principles of Taoism, including notions like effortless effort and yin/yang transitions as the foundation of movement.

Here's some of the life lessons that were conveyed at the seminar, partly through words and partly through partner exercises.

(1) Doing something with your whole self works best. Obviously we don't always need to use every mental or physical capability at our disposal. Getting a spoon out of a drawer to eat cereal in the morning just requires a simple intention and minor movements of my arm and fingers. But often our core needs to be involved: both our bodily core and our psychological core.

By themselves, my arms are much less strong than my arms connected to my core. Tai Chi encourages whole-body movement, combined with whole-mind movement. That's an ideal, of course, one which I fail to live up to many times each day. However, most people would agree with Tai Chi that when we really need to do something right, putting our whole self into the activity works better than half-hearted action.

(2) Trying too hard makes an action less easy. Throughout life most of us have been told to try harder if we want to succeed. Teachers and coaches praise us for putting in maximum effort. While there can be some value in this, Tai Chi demonstrates that trying too hard interferes with our innate capacity to accomplish what needs doing. Excessive effort leads to tension. Tension makes it more difficult for both our physical muscles and mental abilities to do their job.

This is evident when a relief pitcher enters a must-win baseball game in a tough situation, like the bases loaded with nobody out with the score tied. Frequently I'll hear an announcer critique a relief pitcher with a control problem: "He's trying to aim the ball rather than trust his technique." Yoda said, "Do or do not. There is no try." Good advice. 

(3) Rushing is a sign to relax and slow down. We don't spar in a hardstyle martial arts sense in our Tai Chi classes. We do throw punches in a controlled manner, partly to get practice in handling a real world attack and partly to learn how we react to a physical threat. 

At the seminar I noticed that when someone punched at my head fairly slowly, I responded more softly and smoothly than when the punch came more rapidly. This is understandable, though undesirable. For actually I had plenty of time to respond, including by stepping back and to the side while guiding the punch past my head. 

Often we react to unwelcome events in our life with more speed and tension than is necessary. Slowing down and relaxing will lead to a better outcome. Navy SEALs have a mantra: Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Easy to say, more difficult to do.

(4) View conflict more as a dance than a battle. It's easy to see battles everywhere we look in life. I do this frequently.

Someone is scrolling away on their smartphone while sitting at a weight machine at our athletic club that's the last exercise I have left to do in my workout. That ticks me off. Someone is driving slowly on the two lane road with few passing lanes that I have to take on my way into town for an appointment that I'm late for. That irks me.

Actually, though, these people aren't out to drive me crazy. I'm doing that to myself. They're simply doing what feels right for them to do. So I'd be better off viewing these sorts of encounters as just a dance between me and someone else, not a battle. Soon we'll be dancing in another fashion with other partners. Maybe we will step on each other's toes, maybe we won't.

Either way, viewing conflict more as a dance than a battle makes a lot of sense. Especially when I'm the only one feeling a conflict, as is the case with the two examples I just offered.

2024 Salem Art Fair is much improved from 2023

The Salem Art Fair and Festival is on an upward trajectory, according to my decidedly personal opinion.

After going to the fair every year since I moved to Salem in 1977, enjoying the shady setting under the large oaks in Bush Park, in 2022 the fair had to move to a big grassy field with little shade because the oaks were being damaged due to soil compaction.

The title of my July 15, 2022 blog post expressed how I felt about the change: "Salem Art Fair better for trees in new location, but not as pleasant now." It was uncomfortably hot out in the sun, and the layout of the artist booths was much more confusing than the old layout: semi-circles branching off a central paved path.

The fair improved in 2023, as I noted in another blog post. I believe the booth layout was close to how it was this year, with most booths in a large circle surrounding the big grassy area. But the temperature was in the mid to high 80s on Friday, the day my wife and I went in 2023.

This year the Salem Art Fair dates changed to mid-September, the 13th, 14th, and 15th. Great decision. Having the temperature in the low 70s in the afternoon caused us to enjoy the fair a lot more than in the hotter previous years. Moving the main stage and food court from the north to the south end of the grassy field also was a plus.

Made it easier to hear music and get something to eat or drink after entering the fair. I took photos of some other improvements.

There were more booths under trees, which was pleasant -- especially for people with limited mobility. When we were looking at booths in the big grassy area, I overheard a woman using a walker say to her friend, "It's difficult for me to get around on this grass; I'm tired." The paved path under the trees is way more walker and wheelchair friendly. 

Again, I realize that the fair had to be moved from under the white oaks. But just being near some trees somehow makes booths seem more, well, artsy. 

The beer and wine area is more centrally located now. And it isn't "walled off" from the rest of the art fair, as it used to be.

I guess there's no way to make the big grassy field look like anything other than what it is, but at least it wasn't a hot big grassy field in September. Still, I can picture street performers doing their thing in this area, entertaining fairgoers with juggling, mime, hoop tricks, and such, much as a few musicians were singing and playing elsewhere with a collection plate for donations.

A copper booth looked warm and bright.

This booth looked cool.

My child-raising days are long past, as are my daughter's. But maybe I'll live long enough to be able to buy a cute children's sweater if or when my granddaughter has a child.

It was nice to see "This is Kalapuyan Land" signs scattered around the fair, reminding us of the Native Americans who were here first. 

This year I actually bought some art at the Salem Art Fair. Usually I'm just a browser. But the Mercurial Art booth attracted me. I browsed at first, then after my wife and I got some cold drinks, I went back and bought one of the fused glass creations. At the moment I have it next to a reading light in my office, since the tree leaves show up best when lighted.

If I understood him correctly, Leonard Tinnell, the artist, told me that the rock holding the fused glass via a slot cut into the rock was deposited by the great Missoula Floods that occurred at the end of the last Ice Age. That's how the Columbia Gorge in Oregon and Washington was fashioned, with the floodwaters reaching the Willamette Valley, where Salem is. 

Here's a description of the fused glass art from the Mercurial Art web site. 

Crushed glass (also known as frit) and glass powders are used to paint the imagery of a grove of trees in the changing seasons. Starting at room temperature, the glass is heated in a kiln to a process temperature of 1500 degrees, then cooled through several annealing zones back to room temperature. Multiple firings result in more complex geometric designs using cut sheet glass, or by slumping the glass into a mold to achieve the curve of a plate or bowl.  

Watching Oregon - Boise State football game on Peacock was miserable

Last night wasn't pleasant for me, football-watching-wise, for a couple of reasons. 

One, the Oregon football team played a crappy game against Boise State, an opponent they were favored to beat by 19 points, but ended up winning 37-34 on a last second field goal. This follows their crappy initial game against Idaho, a team they were expected to beat by around 50 points, but won by only 24-14.

Two, the Oregon - Boise State game was on Peacock, NBC's streaming service. We subscribe to Peacock for entertainment, so I had no problem accessing the game at 7 pm via our Apple TV device. That was my favorite part of the game: the few minutes at the start before the first series of commercials. 

Now, I readily admit that because I almost always record a football game on our DirecTV DVR, then start watching it about an hour after the game started, I'm used to fast-forwarding through commercials and halftime. Sometimes I also use the 30-second skip-ahead feature to only watch the actual action, since that's about how long it typically takes a college team to go from play to play.

So I have a low tolerance for unwanted interruptions during a football game, especially commercials. I expected that Peacock wouldn't let me skip commercials, and that indeed was the case. Such was bad enough; worse was how many damn commercials there were, especially in the first half. There seemed to be way more than in a usual game on regular TV: ESPN, Fox, and such. 

I recall that in the first quarter there were several "three and outs" when both Oregon and Boise State were having trouble moving the ball. The way that went on Peacock was: Oregon has three plays, punts the ball on fourth down, lengthy commercial break, Boise State has three plays, punts the ball on fourth down, lengthy commercial break.

Ridiculous! 

I'm used to commercial breaks at the end of each quarter, with a few during each quarter, plus maybe during time outs. Also after scores. But when the ball simply changes hands... that made watching a game on Peacock frustrating, though it seemed to me that there were fewer commercials in the second half.

Also, while this may be a quirk of Apple TV, it was irritating to pause the Oregon - Boise State game on Peacock, shift our television over to HDMI 1 where I was recording the Oregon State - San Diego State game that started at 7:30 pm on CBS-SN, watch that game for a while, then find that the Apple TV device had shut off after that period of inactivity, which meant that Peacock showed me the current stream of the Oregon - Boise State game when I went back to it, not where I'd left off watching.

While I was able to rewind and advance the game on Peacock, I avoided doing this since I figured that then I'd have to sit through the commercials again. So I missed part of the game because I was trying to cram both the Oregon and Oregon State games into a few hours of evening football watching.

I guess that's a third irritation: how the demise of the Pac-12, leaving Oregon State and Washington State the only members of a Pac-2, resulted in the Oregon - Boise State game starting at 7 pm and the Oregon State - San Diego State game starting at 7:30 pm. This screwy almost-same-time scheduling never happened, so far as I can recall, back when both Oregon and Oregon State were in the Pac-12 conference.

Next Saturday Oregon plays Oregon State on FOX. It could be a close game, notwithstanding Oregon's #9 national ranking in the AP poll, given how bad Oregon has been playing compared to pre-season expectations. But regardless of who wins -- for sure it will be a team from my state -- I'll be happy both with the outcome and that the game wasn't on Peacock. The production quality of the game also was below par: shaky camera work, inexplicable black screen popping up from time to time.

Another school shooting shows there's only one reason: too many damn guns!

Today four people were killed and nine wounded at a high school in Georgia by a 14-year old student there. 

According to Wikipedia, as of August 31, so far in 2024 in the United States a total of 527 people have been killed and 1,755 people have been wounded in 432 mass shootings. (Defined as at least four people killed or wounded in an incident.)

So this school shooting wasn't anything special, sadly. School shootings just get more attention from the media.

I watched some of the coverage as I exercised this afternoon, then listened to MSNBC and CNN discussions of the mass shooting while driving home.

It didn't take long for me to become disgusted with the all-too-familiar ritual of this country's usual reaction to mass shootings. Vigils, prayers, praise for the police reaction, vilifying the "evil" shooter, calls for better mental health care, blah, blah, blah. 

I can't stand this crap anymore. None of these endlessly repeated actions addresses the real cause of mass shootings: the massive amount of guns floating around in our country. 

This is so damn obvious, it's journalistic malpractice to talk about anything else. 

The United States doesn't have a higher proportion of people with mental health problems than other high-income countries. What distinguishes us is our insane gun culture, the wrong-headed belief that guns keep us safer. 

They don't. As shown in the chart below, which has data for 2017 and 2019, the United States has by far the most guns per 100 people among these countries, and also has by far the highest gun murder rate per 100,000 people.

More guns, more gun deaths. That's the five-word explanation for why our country has so many shootings. There's no other reason. 

So whenever I hear some talking head on a news program blather on about the need for better mental health care, or for arming teachers, or for any other action aimed at reducing mass shootings other than making it more difficult to own a gun, I feel like screaming at the television or radio, shut the fuck up, you idiot!

In the coming days and weeks law enforcement types will study the Georgia shooter's background, his motive for doing what he did, whether his parents knew he had access to the AR-15 style rifle used in the shooting, his behavior on the day of the attack, and such.

None of that, precisely zero, zilch, nada, will move the United States closer to reducing the crazily high number of gun deaths and injuries in this country. Fewer guns -- that's the only real solution.

And that, unfortunately, is almost impossible to achieve until we get a Supreme Court that understands that the second amendment to our constitution allows for strong regulations governing gun ownership.

Good news: DirecTV has Big Ten Network. Bad news: How Oregon played.

Today started off on a high note for me, college football-wise. I was thrilled when, in the morning, I set my DirecTV VCR to record the 3:30 pm Oregon State vs. Idaho State game on The CW (channel 32) and the 4:30 pm Oregon vs. Idaho game on the Big Ten Network (channel 601). 

While that may not sound like a big deal to football fans who don't use DirecTV -- we live in rural south Salem, Oregon, where there's no cable options -- those of us who suffered through many years of not getting the Pac-12 Networks due to a never-ending corporate pissing match between them and DirecTV rejoiced when the Pac-12 became the Pac-2.

Not because we were happy about the demise of the Pac-12. I was really sad when every member except Oregon State and Washington State headed off to other conferences: the Big Ten, Big 12, ACC. But the plus side for me was being able to see every Oregon and Oregon State football game in the 2024 season.

Unfortunately, there's now a corporate pissing match between the Big Ten Network, which is owned by Fox, and Comcast/Xfinity. Today I commiserated with a friend who is an avid Ducks fan and has Comcast at his Salem apartment, sending him this text. 

It warmed my heart just now to be able to record the OSU game on The CW and the Oregon game on the Big Ten Network after so many years of having to deal with DirecTV not having the Pac-12 Networks. I’ve been reading that the Ducks game is blacked out on Comcast due to a dispute between them and the Big Ten Network. I’m curious if that’s true for you.

It was. He responded with:

Well the table has turned (I fear), and your home is able to get Ducks and Beavers football, and it sounds like I will be unable to get at least the Ducks games. Again a dispute on how the profits are split. But I haven’t heard from Comcast one way or another. What a bizarre twist for the local Duck fans. If they are blacked out they just might riot.

It's unclear how long the Comcast blackout will last. An Oregonian story about this issue says:

The question now is whether the impasse will last days, weeks or months.

“I don’t know about months but certainly weeks,” an industry source said Saturday.

The blackout imposed by Fox, which owns the Big Ten Network, came in response to Comcast refusing to move the Big Ten Network to a basic subscription tier along the West Coast once the four schools joined the conference.

I thought both The CW and Big Ten Network did a fine job with their broadcasts of the Oregon State and Oregon games. I'd never watched The CW before (CW stands for the two founding organizations, CBS  Corporation and Warner Brothers). The announcers and camerawork seemed comparable to ESPN and Fox.

My big disappointment today was how Oregon played. They were favored by about 50 points over Idaho but ended up winning by just ten points, 24-14. I don't think Ohio State is quaking with fear about playing Oregon on October 12 given how Oregon looked today.

Either Oregon isn't deserving of its #3 national ranking at the moment, or Idaho is a much better team than expected. Perhaps both are true.

In the fourth quarter Oregon just had a 17-14 lead with a 3rd and seven near the Idaho goal line. An Idaho lineman went offside, leaving Oregon with a 4th and two. Oregon then scored, a game changer since it was looking like Oregon might have to kick a field goal, making the game 20-14 with Idaho having about 5 1/2 minutes to score a touchdown and win the game.

That's pathetic for a team with a quarterback vying for a Heisman trophy that has set its sights on a national championship. Hopefully Oregon will get its act together before it plays Oregon State on September 14. Oregon State won comfortably 38-15. Oregon won uncomfortably.

Bill Oram of the Oregonian started off his column with:

Oh boy, it is certainly tempting to lay into the Oregon Ducks today. To say they bought into their own hype. Label them paper tigers. Call for everyone to lay off the talk of a playoff.

They were supposed to manhandle the team from the panhandle. Instead, it was nearly a Vandal scandal.

The Ducks were spectacularly close to ending up on the wrong side of one of the biggest upsets in college football’s storied history.

Michigan almost got off the hook for its 2007 loss to Appalachian State.

In 16 games against FCS opponents since 2002 — all wins, of course — the Ducks’ average margin of victory had been more than 46 points.

On Saturday, they were favored by 49.5.

Their actual scoring advantage? Three points with barely eight minutes to go in the fourth quarter, before they managed to eke out a 24-14 victory.

“The score is what the score was,” Dan Lanning tersely told reporters after the game

And what was that?

Unimaginable? Unacceptable? Unforgivable?!

Maybe all three. It doesn’t have to be an upset to be upsetting.

In 2024 we see very few bees and yellow jackets in rural south Salem, Oregon

We've lived at our house on ten acres in rural south Salem, about six miles from the city limits of Oregon's capital, for thirty-four years. This has been an unusual year for us as regards the bee and yellow jacket population.

We've seen very few of each on our property. Almost none.

Typically we have several natural bee hives. We have flowering plants in our yard that were chosen to appeal to bees. In 2024, though, the bees never showed up.

Same with yellow jackets. In past summers, when we'd eat breakfast on our deck some yellow jackets would appear almost instantly, especially when my cereal topped with raspberries and strawberries was on the table. This year, a few times a single yellow jacket buzzed around. That was it.

And by August we'd see yellow jackets going in and out of underground burrows, which we'd spray if one was close to where we walked. This year, no sign of that. 

Bumblebees have been fairly common. We've seen more of them in our yard than bees. That's never happened before, I'm pretty sure. 

Some neighbors who have a large yard with many flowering plants have noticed a similar marked drop-off in bees. Their theory is that it could be related to aerial spraying with a helicopter of Christmas tree farms north of our neighborhood.

I suppose that's possible. But it seems sort of unlikely to me, given how far away the tree farms are, at least a mile or so. 

It's a mystery. I haven't seen any news about western Oregon experiencing a big die-off in the bee population. Some Googling didn't reveal anything special about 2024 when it comes to natural bee hives in the Willamette Valley.

So I figured I'd cast this blog post into the waters of the Internet and see if it gets any responses from people more knowledgeable than my wife and I are about how bees and yellow jackets are faring in our area this year. 

Leave a comment if you have an explanation for why we've seen so few of them in 2024. Maybe this is just a hyper-local thing, a decline in numbers that is part of some natural cycle. It concerns us, though, that this could be a sign of something harming bees. (Yellow jackets, we're not as concerned about.)

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Joe Biden's speech at the DNC was met with love, and also relief

President Biden deserved the warm welcome he received at the Democratic National Convention tonight. The cries and signs of "I love Joe" were heartfelt. 

However, as I watched his speech here in Oregon, where it was over well after midnight East Coast time and 9:30 or so our time, which seemed like a crazily late time to showcase what amounted to Biden's farewell to the nation as Kamala Harris is poised to enter the stretch run of her presidential campaign, I keep thinking that a big part of why Democrats love Joe is that Biden had the good sense to withdraw from his reelection effort, which created a strong sense of relief.

If he hadn't done this, I was prepared to watch his speech at the convention as the Democratic candidate, rather than as the guy who made Harris' campaign possible, with undisguised enmity. For until the pressure on Biden to withdraw became too strong for him to ignore, reporting indicated that right up to the end, Biden believed that he could beat Trump. 

That wasn't a complete fantasy, but it was damn close to being delusional. The evidence for this is how quickly Harris erased Trump's lead both nationally and in the battleground states, since her candidacy unleashed a wave of enthusiasm that was always there, but was being stifled by Biden's evident inability to run a strong campaign against Trump -- in large part because of his age, but also because he isn't a scintillating speaker.

Those weaknesses were on display tonight, though despite the lateness of the hour, Biden's voice sounded strong, probably because he mostly was reading from a teleprompter. He'll give more speeches before his presidency is over. I'm looking forward to never hearing him say "No joke" or "I'm not kidding" again. I never can understand why Biden feels the need to say these things, since it's obvious from what he's talking about that it isn't a matter of joking or kidding.

By contrast, so far I haven't found anything Kamala Harris or Tim Walz do when they're speaking that irritates me. 

Anyway, I think it was great that Biden got his moment in the sun on the first day of the Democratic National Convention. He rolled through his greatest hits, taking justified pride in his many accomplishments as president. It's hard not to like the guy, though Trump and most Republicans are able to do this, no problem. 

I'm just happy that he was speaking on Monday, rather than on Thursday, when the presidential nominee speaks. I found his speech kind of boring, but that's to be expected of Biden. He beat Trump in 2020 because the nation yearned for someone unexcitingly normal after four years of Trump's over-the-top craziness.

Now, though, I look forward to backing Harris-Walz, who bring out just the right amount of excitement among voters open to their populist progressive message. 

LGBTQ people may not be born that way, but they're formed that way

The Sunday New York Times had a great idea in the opinion section of the August 4, 2024 issue: have some of their columnists debunk a bit of conventional wisdom in their circles. Here's how it was described.

Our world is more connected than ever. But it's never been easier to find yourself shepherded into a comfortable herd made up of close friends or political allies, your social set or professional peers. And those herds are the perfect environment for groupthink to thrive, to allow dubious beliefs or weak arguments to masquerade as unquestionable truisms.

We asked nine of our Opinion columnists to debunk an idea -- big or small -- that has become conventional wisdom in their circles. We wanted to read about the arguments that start debates at dinner parties or make their friends roll their eyes. These are Times Opinion's unpopular opinions.

David Brooks wrote "Many People Fear A.I. They Shouldn't." Zeynep Tufekci wrote "Politicians Say We're More Divided than Ever. It Could Be Worse." Bret Stephens wrote "Conservatives Think The Market Always Gets It Right. It Doesn't." Tressie McMillan Cottom wrote "Don't Hate on the D.M.V. It's Actually Great." Michelle Goldberg wrote "Mothers Are Told Natural Childbirth Is Best. It Isn't." Pamela Paul wrote "The Saying Goes: Dogs are Man's Best Friend. But Cats Are Better." Lydia Polgreen wrote "We're Taught to Hate Hypocrisy. We Shouldn't." David French wrote "Some Think What You Preach Matters More Than What You Do. It Doesn't." 

And Charles M. Blow wrote "People Say Queer People Are Born That Way. It's More Complicated." That's a gift link from my online subscription; my wife subscribes to the Sunday paper edition, which is how I learned about the debunking columns. I've copied in Blow's piece below for easier reading within this post.

Blow makes a lot of sense, though he takes on a subject that in liberal circles is controversial: that sexual orientation isn't purely genetic but arises from a bunch of factors, including genetics. But this seems to be true. Here's a couple of excepts from a 2008 story in Science, "Gay Is Not All in the Genes."

Why are some people gay? Most researchers who study sexual orientation think that both genetic and environmental factors play a role, but the relative contributions of each remain unclear. A new study of Swedish twins reinforces earlier findings that environmental influences--including the environment in the womb--may play a greater role than genes.

...The results, published online this month in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, confirm earlier findings that identical twins are more concordant for same-sex behaviors than fraternal twins are but only modestly so: In men, genetic effects appeared to explain 34% to 39% of the differences between the two twin groups, whereas in women, genetics accounted for only about 18% to 19% of the difference--a finding consistent with other research showing that sexual orientation in women is not as rigidly determined as it is in men.

If I was asked to debunk a bit of conventional wisdom in my circle, a top choice of mine would be "Most people believe we have free will. But we don't." This is one of my favorite subjects on my Church of the Churchless blog. I've written many posts about free will, or rather the lack thereof. 

So I resonated with Blow's statements, though I don't totally agree with them: 

“Born this way” may, unfortunately, have been an oversimplification. It’s probably closer to the truth to say that people are “formed this way.”

...Now the argument has to be more sophisticated: We may choose how we identify and how we express — or suppress — our attractions, but our attractions themselves are not a choice.

We must insist that people’s right to exist, and our responsibility to affirm and protect them, doesn’t hinge on the mechanisms by which they came to exist. The “end” exists, regardless of the “means.”

The way I see it, everything that we do, and all that we are, is determined by causes and conditions extending all the way back to the big bang.

This scientific understanding, which Robert Sapolsky ably argued for in his recent book, Determined, makes it impossible to blame people for being whoever they are now, for they had no choice in the matter -- notwithstanding Blow's attempt to make our attractions not a choice, but how we express or suppress our attractions a choice.

Regardless, I like what Blow said in his column.

It won't please those who believe in the "born that way" hypothesis, nor will it please those who believe in the "sexuality is a choice" hypothesis. The truth doesn't always lie in the middle, but in this case I think it does. My only quibble with his column is that I don't believe we ever make choices of our own unfettered free will, no matter what those choices are.

When Lady Gaga released “Born This Way,” the 2011 song on an album of the same name, it was an instant hit and an instant L.G.B.T.Q. anthem. The song debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top 100, and Elton John called it “the new gay anthem.”

It was the dictum of a generation, three words operating with bumper sticker efficiency, conveying that queerness was natural and immutable, and that it was not a result of abuse, grooming or impairment. Queer people were not broken, and therefore in no need of fixing. Queerness was neither a choice nor a curse. It was not a “lifestyle” but a state of being.

The idea that sexuality was innate, captured in the phrase, was a rhetorical work horse that began to lead the conversation around L.G.B.T.Q. issues. Although the idea of homosexual bio-essentialism has a history that long predates this modern iteration, “born this way” this time was a phrase that matched the moment and captured the zeitgeist. As with most things in politics, it was about timing.

Later that year, during remarks delivered at the Human Rights Campaign annual dinner, President Barack Obama joked to the gay rights group that “I also took a trip out to California last week, where I held some productive, bilateral talks with your leader: Lady Gaga.”

Obama was referring to meeting Gaga at a fundraiser at which she raised the issue of bullying after one of her fans, 14-year-old Jamey Rodemeyer, endured homophobic bullying before dying by suicide.

Before the fundraiser, Obama had repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the military, allowing queer service members to serve openly, and soon after the fundraiser, Obama would become the first president to declare his support for same-sex marriage.

In the years after the song was released, the percentage of Americans saying in polling that “being gay or lesbian is something a person is born with” began to consistently outweigh those who responded that being queer was “due to factors such as upbringing and environment.”

“Born this way,” as a slogan, was a tremendous cultural and political success. The problem is that it isn’t supported by science. The emerging scientific consensus is that sexual orientation isn’t purely genetic. A person’s genetic makeup and exposure to prenatal hormones may provide a propensity to queerness, but they aren’t determinative. Other factors most likely also play a role.

“Born this way” may, unfortunately, have been an oversimplification. It’s probably closer to the truth to say that people are “formed this way.” As the complity of human sexuality has become clearer, scientists and writers have attempted to add necessary nuance to the subject. But the slogan remains entrenched in the culture.

Just last year, Rolling Stone crowned “Born This Way” the most inspirational L.G.B.T.Q. song of all time, calling it a “battle cry” that “is as relevant as ever.”

But the time may have come to retire the phrase. It is not only unsupportable by science but also does not capture the full reality of queer experience and is unjust to some members of the queer community itself.

As Lisa Diamond, a professor of developmental psychology, health psychology and gender studies at the University of Utah, explained in her 2018 TED talk, the argument is “unjust because it implies that L.G.B.T. individuals who fit a certain cultural stereotype, the ones who have been exclusively gay for as long as they can possibly remember, are somehow more deserving of acceptance and equality than someone who came out at age 60 or whose attractions have been more fluid or who is bisexual rather than exclusively gay.”

I fully understand how frightening relinquishing this phrase may be.

“Born this way,” as both a scientific concept and a political ideology, was easy to understand, accept and digest. A more nuanced explanation of attraction, one with a bit of mystery, opens the door to ambiguity and uncertainty that the opponents of gay rights will no doubt seek to exploit.

Relinquishing such a powerful tool might feel like giving up too much. But incoming Stony Brook University professor Joanna Wuest, author of “Born This Way: Science, Citizenship, and Inequality in the American LGBTQ+ Movement,” believes that retiring the idea may potentially not be much of a loss at all, because the science is so strong that things like conversion therapy “are extremely detrimental to mental health and even the lives of queer people.”

As she explained to me, “we don’t need a strong biological theory of identity to understand that when you punch someone, they say it hurts.”

Now the argument has to be more sophisticated: We may choose how we identify and how we express — or suppress — our attractions, but our attractions themselves are not a choice.

We must insist that people’s right to exist, and our responsibility to affirm and protect them, doesn’t hinge on the mechanisms by which they came to exist. The “end” exists, regardless of the “means.”

I watched The Handmaid's Tale to learn what reelecting Trump would be like

It was a tough job, but I had to do it -- watching every second of every episode of the five seasons of The Handmaid's Tale, a show that I wasn't interested in when it aired from April 2017 to November 2022, but which grabbed my attention this year for a couple of reasons.

One was that I'd seen Elisabeth Moss in The Veil and was captivated by her acting. She's the lead character in The Handmaid's Tale.

Another was that I wanted to see what lessons The Handmaid's Tale had for our current political situation, where Donald Trump is seeking a return to the White House and the three Supreme Court justices he appointed overturned abortion rights guaranteed by Roe v. Wade in June 2022 via the Dobbs decision. 

In case you're not familiar with the basic plot of The Handmaid's Tale, which is based on a book by Margaret Atwood, Wikipedia summarizes it.

In a world where fertility rates have collapsed as a result of sexually transmitted diseases and environmental pollution, the totalitarian, theonomic government of Gilead has established its rule in the former United States in the aftermath of a civil war. Society is organized by power-hungry leaders along with a new, militarized, hierarchical régime of religious fanaticism and newly created social classes, in which women are brutally subjugated. By law, women in Gilead are forced to work in very limited roles, including some as natal slaves, and they are not allowed to own property, have careers, handle money, or read.

Sure sounds like the sort of thing rabid Trump supporters would dream about, albeit not to the degree religious authoritarians were able to pull off in The Handmaid's Tale. 

Power-hungry leaders? Check. Militarized regime? Check. Religious fanaticism? Check. Subjugation of women? Check. 

The Handmaid's Tale has many flashbacks where we get to see how the United States as we know it now became a nation, renamed Gilead, with totalitarian rule by men consumed with a lust for power and keeping women in the subservient place their interpretation of the Bible demands. 

At first it seems impossible that this could happen. But bit by bit, rights are extinguished until democracy and the Constitution are just memories. Today many Americans think that could never happen here. 

They need to think again. 

Project 2025 was embraced by Donald Trump until publicity about this scary agenda for a second Trump presidency became so strong, his campaign had to pretend to disavow it. There's a lot to dislike in the 900 page document. A BBC story describes some of what it would do, including these scary plans that relate to The Handmaid's Tale.

Project 2025 proposes that the entire federal bureaucracy, including independent agencies such as the Department of Justice, be placed under direct presidential control - a controversial idea known as "unitary executive theory".

In practice, that would streamline decision-making, allowing the president to directly implement policies in a number of areas.

The proposals also call for eliminating job protections for thousands of government employees, who could then be replaced by political appointees.

The document labels the FBI a "bloated, arrogant, increasingly lawless organization". It calls for drastic overhauls of this and several other federal agencies, as well as the complete elimination of the Department of Education.

...Project 2025 does not call outright for a nationwide abortion ban.

However, it proposes withdrawing the abortion pill mifepristone from the market, and using existing but little-enforced laws to stop the drug being sent through the post.

The document suggests that the department of Health and Human Services should "maintain a biblically based, social science-reinforced definition of marriage and family".

Since I watched some of The Handmaid's Tale every day until I finished the series, there were times when I thought about giving up on it. Not because it wasn't captivating. Because it was so dark and disturbing. 

The big lesson that I took away from my viewing was this: to prevent The Handmaid's Tale from being even a partial reality in our country, it's absolutely essential that Kamala Harris be elected president this November. Donald Trump has told us that he plans to be an authoritarian theocratic ruler if he wins. 

We need to believe him.

"We" being everybody in the United States who supports freedom, democracy, and the rule of law, but especially women, because they have the most to lose from a second Trump presidency, just as they had the most to lose in The Handmaid's Tale.