DeSantis Vetoes All Art Grants in Florida & Climate Change Deniers are Killing Us
Why I Hate Presidential Debates, How Heat Affects Our Bodies, Airline Kicks 8 Black People Off Flight for "Odor," Should Leaf Blowers Be Banned, Yul Brynner Sings “A Puzzlement” from "The King and I"
What I’m Discussing Today:
Kareem’s Daily Quote: Today’s quote is an anti-quote, meaning it’s something people say that is actually the opposite of what they mean.
Why I Hate Presidential Debates: A lot of sound and fury—signifying nothing.
DeSantis Vetoes All Arts Grants in Florida: This is a serious symptom of a wannabe despot.
Billions of people just felt the deadly intensity of climate-fueled heat waves: We are dying from the heat and it’s resulting in droughts, famine, and more.
How does heat kill? It confuses your brain. It shuts down your organs. It overworks your heart: A quick primer on taking care of yourself in the heat.
Kareem’s Video Break: This made me happy for the rest of the day.
US airline suspends staff after black men kicked off flight: Eight Black people were perp-walked from the plane because a flight attendant didn’t like the way one of them smelled.
Kareem’s Kvetching Korner: U.S. bans on gasoline-powered leaf blowers grow, as does blowback from landscaping industry: Leaf blowers are like mosquitoes swarming a picnic.
Yul Brynner Sings “A Puzzlement” from The King and I: This puzzlement is how I feel almost every day of my life.
Kareem’s Daily [Anti]Quote
I’m doing something a little different today. Instead of an inspirational quote to goose you through the day, I’m presenting another in my occasional series of anti-quotes. These are common phrases people say that often mean the opposite of what they intend.
Everything happens for a reason.
Anonymous (thankfully)
People love saying this as a balm whenever something bad happens. Their hearts are in the right place because they want to make someone who is hurting feel better. They don’t understand that what they are saying has the opposite effect—if you think about the words.
The implication that “everything happens for a reason” is that there is a supreme consciousness—a god or gods—who has designed all events toward some grand purpose known only to them. The further implication is that the grand purpose is good for us as a whole, even if it’s bad for us individually. This is the answer to the one question that is the foundation of human morality: “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Grand design attempts to make us feel good without questioning whether we really are “good people.”
Of course, the whole idea of a grand design removes free will from the equation. Despite the mental and verbal contortions over the centuries of those who want both free will and a grand design, no can do. This leaves us expected to endure horrible events and pain with a resigned shrug because we’re pawns in a greater game. For me, again, no can do.
But this phrase can have other meanings that make more sense. It could mean that everything that happens is an opportunity for growth. Something bad happens to us and we examine why it happened and if there’s something we could do differently next time to prevent such an occurrence. Even if we can’t, we can learn how to cope with disaster and disappointment so we are less vulnerable the next time. We can become stronger from pain. More importantly, we can be inspired to help others better endure their pain.
It could also mean that everything has a cause-and-effect reason for happening. A nail is embedded in the wood because a hammer repeatedly hit it. Or people who were abused as children are more likely to abuse their children. When we understand the causes, we can better control the effects. That’s what philosophy, religion, and therapy are for.
While the second and third meanings make sense to me, the first meaning does not. It’s better to accept that sometimes terrible things happen and they are in themselves meaningless and without comprehensible reason. There is no one to blame—even though it makes us feel better to assign blame to everything. That makes us feel powerless and insignificant, but I’m okay with acknowledging my powerlessness and insignificance in the scope of the universe so I can focus on what I do have power over and the people to whom I hold some significance.
To feel significant, I don’t need to see everything that happens to me as part of a grand, unknowable design. I just need to do good things that matter to others.
If you want to be big, think small.
Why I Hate Presidential Debates
A presidential debate can gather 80 million or more watchers. That is sad news. Nothing of substance ever happens during a debate. Candidates bluster, insult, throw around dubious statistics, virtue signal, and even outright lie. But nothing new is learned at a debate that should influence a voter one way or the other. The important information is already out there: what have they done, what plans have they made to solve our problems and what do the experts say about the viability of those plans? Both men have been president and their records are all the evidence required. Anyone who makes up their mind about a candidate based on debates is the worst kind of voter: delusional that they have some special power to see into a person’s heart just by watching them on a stage. It’s lazy, insulting to democracy, and detrimental to the country.
In general, those who support a candidate always believe their candidate “won” the debate. But it doesn’t matter either way. The person who wins the debate isn’t necessarily a better candidate for president, they’re just better at debates, which is not a skill necessary to be a good president. It reminds me of Black Panther when M’Baku challenges T’Challa to be the leader of their country. What people would choose their leader based on hand-to-hand combat, the most useless skill for a modern leader? Fun in a movie, but dumb in real life.
What does it say about us as a society that we insist on this form of ritualized verbal combat that is nothing more than strutting and fretting their hour on the stage filled with sound and fury—signifying nothing?
If you watched just for the entertainment value of two codgers arguing in Real Housewives style, then that’s legit. Grab the popcorn and enjoy. If you’re watching to help make up your mind about which candidate to support, you don’t understand the responsibilities of democracy.
DeSantis Vetoes All Arts Grants in Florida (The New York Times)
SUMMARY: …But in a move that stunned arts and culture organizations, Mr. DeSantis vetoed the entirety of their grant funding — about $32 million — on June 12, leaving them scrambling to figure out how to offset the shortfall.
“It’s not going to close us,” Mr. Russell said. “But it is a gap that I am going to have to figure out how to make up, and if I don’t find alternate sources of funding, that could be someone’s job.”
Leaders of arts organizations in Florida, many of whom have worked in the state for decades, cannot remember a governor ever eliminating all of their grant funding. Even in the lean years of the Great Recession, at least a nominal amount — say, 5 percent of the recommended total — was approved.
Established arts organizations usually know better than to overly rely on nonrecurring state dollars subject to the discretion of politicians, said Michael Tomor, executive director of the Tampa Museum of Art. But to cut funding at a time when arts organizations are still struggling to recover from the coronavirus pandemic sends a concerning message “that taxpayer dollars should not be used in support of arts and culture,” he added.
…Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, gave no explanation for zeroing out the arts grants. His office said in a statement that he made veto decisions “that are in the best interests of the State of Florida.”
MY TAKE: This shocked me because it is one of the most odious expressions of political arrogance I’ve seen in a while. Yes, other policies and laws have been evil, but this is a line in the sand that indicates DeSantis sees himself as a dictator and he doesn’t care who knows it.
The budget was approved by his own legislature but he unilaterally decides art isn’t worth the cost in Florida. For a governor who proclaimed he wants to “Protect the Children” (by censoring their education) he’s just reduced by 35% programming designed for children. He’s also forced 31% of arts programs reliant on state funding to fire staff. This budget cut comes from a man who used Florida funds to send migrants in Texas to other states as a political statement. He also used state funds to further his own failed presidential campaign. He’s the shady dad who’ll spend money on a Rolex for himself while telling his kids they can’t afford to buy a dress to go to the prom.
DeSantis’ budget cut is equivalent to throwing paint on the Mona Lisa. He is defacing the value of art both economically and culturally. Florida’s arts generate billions of dollars for Florida’s economy as well as almost 100,000 jobs.
There’s a more insidious message here: Art is not relevant to people’s lives. He’s informing people that art is a frivolous indulgence like ice cream, not a significant form of communication that brings joy and enlightenment to the world. I will let artists speak to this kind of simple-minded thinking: Edgar Degas said, “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” Art is about offering people many ways to view the world around them and their place in that world. It elevates our interaction with the world. Pablo Picasso said, “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” Art—whether a painting, a play, or jugglers—makes us forget the daily duties we are tethered to, but also makes us appreciate the meaning of why we are tethered.
DeSantis wants to bully the arts to warn them that unless their art serves his political agenda, he will crush them. It’s censorship once removed. He’s done so many evil, cruel, and stupid things as governor, but this indicates a way of thinking that is so removed from the needs and benefits of society that it’s shocking he’s still in office. He doesn’t think Floridians will care enough to do anything about it. Is he right?
Billions of people just felt the deadly intensity of climate-fueled heat waves (The Washington Post)
SUMMARY: Scorching heat across five continents set 1,400 records this week and showed how human-caused global warming has made catastrophic temperatures commonplace.
Dozens of bodies were discovered in Delhi during a two-day stretch this week when even sundown brought no relief from sweltering heat and humidity. Tourists died or went missing as the mercury surged in Greece. Hundreds of pilgrims perished before they could reach Islam’s holiest site, struck down by temperatures as high as 125 degrees.
The scorching heat across five continents in recent days, scientists say, provided yet more proof that human-caused global warming has so raised the baseline of normal temperatures that once-unthinkable catastrophes have become commonplace.
The suffering came despite predictions that a year-long surge of global heat might soon begin to wane. Instead, in the past seven days alone, billions felt heat with climate change-fueled intensity that broke more than 1,000 temperature records around the globe. Hundreds fell in the United States, where tens of millions of people across the Midwest and Eastern Seaboard have been sweltering amid one of the worst early-season heat waves in memory.
MY TAKE: Scientists who are experts on climate change are nearly 100% in agreement that human-caused climate change is a profound disaster threatening continued human existence. These warnings have significantly increased over the past decade as the climate has worsened bringing widespread changes resulting in droughts, lost crops, rising ocean water, and more.
In the 1995 movie The Usual Suspects, a character uses a famous quote (often attributed to French poet Charles Baudelaire, but which appeared in a different form in 1836 from John Wilkinson): “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” That concept has become the motto of the Republican Party when faced with issues they prefer not to deal with: Convince their followers the problem doesn’t exist.
A 2024 Pew Research Center poll found that climate change was at the bottom of Republican voters’ priorities out of a list of 20 items. Only 23% of Republicans believed climate change was a major threat to the country’s well-being, as opposed to 78% of Democrats. Burning fossil fuels is the cause of most U.S. Greenhouse gas emissions, yet 73% of Republicans favor more offshore oil and gas drilling. Only 20% say they would seriously consider buying an electric vehicle the next time they buy a vehicle.
They continue this denial despite recent facts: On June 5, 2024, CNN reported that “The planet just marked a ‘shocking’ new milestone, enduring 12 consecutive months of unprecedented heat, according to new data from Copernicus, the European Union’s climate monitoring service. Every single month from June 2023 to May 2024 was the world’s hottest such month on record, Copernicus data showed.” Add to that, these news stories from the last couple of weeks:
Deadly heat in Mexico and US made 35 times more likely by global heating (The Guardian)
SUMMARY: The deadly heatwave that scorched large swaths of Mexico, Central America and the southern US in recent weeks was made 35 times more likely due to human-induced global heating, according to research by leading climate scientists from World Weather Attribution (WWA).
Over 75 million people in the US are under heat alerts. Go indoors and hydrate (AP NEWS)
SUMMARY: Over 75 million people in the United States were under extreme heat alerts Monday as a heat wave moved eastward, and the mid-Atlantic and New England were likely to see highs in the 90s as the week progresses. Excessive humidity will make it feel even more oppressive.
The U.S. last year saw the most heat waves, consisting of abnormally hot weather lasting more than two days, since 1936. Officials again warned residents to take precautions.
‘Godfathers of climate chaos’: UN chief urges global fossil-fuel advertising ban (The Guardian)
SUMMARY: Fossil-fuel companies are the “godfathers of climate chaos” and should be banned in every country from advertising akin to restrictions on big tobacco, the secretary general of the United Nations has said while delivering dire new scientific warnings of global heating.
…According to the WMO, there is a roughly 50-50 chance that the period of 2024 to 2028 will average above 1.5C in warming, globally. “We are playing Russian roulette with our planet,” Guterres, known for his strident language on the climate crisis, told an audience underneath a suspended 94ft model of a blue whale at the American Museum of Natural History. “We need an exit ramp off the highway to climate hell.”
MY TAKE: I don’t generally like to overwhelm the reader with so much information, but the situation is desperate. We have to kick down the door that climate-change deniers are cowering behind if we’re going to survive in the future. Republicans have been chanting “Protect the Children!” as justification for all kinds of restrictive legislation that actually harms them, but this may be the most devastating to all of our children.
Trump has called climate change “a hoax” and, since that’s what his followers want to believe, they will follow him by ignoring all the evidence shoved in their faces daily. Trump tried to weasel a billion dollars in donations from fossil fuel companies in exchange for continuing the rhetoric of denial and preventing laws that might address our problem (“What Trump promised oil CEOs as he asked them to steer $1 billion to his campaign”).
We’re in a lifeboat with a serious leak and Trump is offering—for a price—to toss overboard the bucket we’re using to bail water. Sure, they’ll all drown too, but that’s okay with them as long as they drown with the biggest bank account.
FYI: How does heat kill? It confuses your brain. It shuts down your organs. It overworks your heart (AP News)
Here’s what you need to know:
The body’s resting core temperature is typically about 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s only 7 degrees away from catastrophe in the form of heatstroke.
When the inner body temperature gets too hot, the body redirects blood flow toward the skin to cool down. But that diverts blood and oxygen away from the stomach and intestines and can allow toxins normally confined to the gut area to leak into circulation. That creates clotting around the body, multiple organ failure, and death.
The bigger threat is strain on the heart (especially for those with cardiovascular disease). When you overheat, blood rushes to the skin to reduce core heat. Blood pressure drops. The heart reacts by pumping more blood so you don’t pass out.
Also, cause for concern is dehydration—which I’ve personally been battling with for the past few months. Losing liquids puts a strain on the kidneys. This can result in organs shutting down from lack of blood, oxygen, and nutrients, leading to seizures and death.
As the world gets hotter, we need to do whatever we can to stop it from getting worse. But we also need to protect ourselves daily.
Kareem’s Video Break
I make no apologies for loving videos of people expressing overwhelming joy.
US airline suspends staff after black men kicked off flight (BBC News)
SUMMARY: Several American Airlines employees have been put on leave for their involvement in an incident in which black passengers were removed from a flight after a complaint about body odour.
Three passengers filed a lawsuit against the carrier in May, alleging racial discrimination in the 5 January incident.
In a note to employees, CEO Robert Isom said that the incident was unacceptable and that the company "fell short" of its commitment to customers.
"We are holding those involved accountable, including removing team members from service," the airline said in a statement.
The company has also announced a number of initiatives aimed at preventing such incidents from taking place, including an "advisory group" focused on the experience of black passengers.
In the May lawsuit, three men - who were not seated together and did not know each other - said that every black man was removed from the flight between Phoenix, Arizona and New York City.
A total of eight passengers were removed.
"American Airlines singled us out for being black, embarrassed us, and humiliated us," they said in a statement.
The three men - Alvin Jackson, Emmanuel Jean Joseph, and Xavier Veal - were eventually allowed to re-take their seats on their original flight.
MY TAKE: Eight Black people who didn’t know each other were removed from a plane because a White male flight attendant complained about the body odor of one of them. After an hour, they were allowed back on the plane. American Airlines is taking all the usual steps to prove they don’t discriminate, but let’s remember that in 2017, several Black passengers’ complaints of discrimination prompted the NAACP to issue a warning to Black travelers to avoid American Airlines. AA responded with promises of reforming policy and the NAACP advisory warning was lifted.
But here we are again. Black passengers getting perp-walled in front of everyone for the crime of Flying While Black. For this to happen, a lot of people had to collude. One flight attendant alone couldn’t have done this. He needed others to agree that this was the best solution. No one along the way said, “Stop! This is blatant discrimination, which is both illegal and morally reprehensible.” They all just went along.
That’s what it feels like for the Black community when we witness the plethora of studies proving systemic racism in jobs, education, healthcare, and voting—only to have groups deny it exists, thereby approving for the discrimination to continue. You don’t have to personally discriminate against a person to be an enabler of discrimination. You just have to pretend not to see it.
Kareem’s Kvetching Korner
New name for a feature where I kvetch (Yiddish for complain) about minor things that bug me but aren’t worth getting outraged about. This is where I can indulge my pettiness.
U.S. bans on gasoline-powered leaf blowers grow, as does blowback from landscaping industry (AP News)
SUMMARY: The roar of the leaf blower has become an inescapable part of daily life in communities across America, leading towns and states to ban or restrict blowers that run on gasoline.
But the measures face blowback from the landscaping industry and some property owners who say that the battery-powered blowers favored by the legislation are costlier and not nearly as effective as the gasoline-powered ones.
“If you look at what this machines does, how loud it is, how much it pollutes, it’s not normal to be accepted where we live, where our children play,” said Jessica Stolzberg, a writer and crusader against gas-powered leaf blowers who helped get a ban on the machines enacted in her hometown of Montclair, New Jersey.
MY TAKE: I’m not a fan of the leaf blower. First, it is loud enough to make me grit my teeth in annoyance. Second, people seem to prefer using it as early in the morning as they can get away with. Third, the smell of the fumes makes me gag. Fourth, it appears to me to be grossly inefficient.
It’s that fourth reason that rankles. The other day I was driving down a street where a man with a leaf blower was blowing all the leaves from the sidewalk and gutter into the middle of the street. As the car in front of me drove down the street, all the leaves whooshed in the air and floated back to where they’d started. If you want leaves removed, rake them up into a pile, bag them, and put them someplace else. Don’t blow them around for an hour at ear-bleeding decibels only to have to do the same thing with the same leaves the next day.
Yes, I know that makes me sound like the cranky old neighbor rocking on his porch, complaining about kids today, and starting every sentence with “In my day…” But I can live with that if it means the end of the leaf blower. Okay, ending them may be too harsh, but curtailing them to certain hours and using quieter ones is at least a start.
Kareem’s Jukebox Playlist
Yul Brynner: “A Puzzlement” from The King and I (1951)
I love this song from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and I because it perfectly expresses how many of us feel so often. We are caught between conventional wisdom that we’ve been raised on and new information that contradicts what we’ve been comfortable believing. It also explores the existential anxiety of having to decide between two seemingly equal choices.
When I was a boy,
World was better spot.
What was so was so,
What was not was not.Now I am a man—
World have change a lot:
Some things nearly so,
Others nearly not.
There are times I almost think
I am not sure of what I absolutely know.
Very often find confusion
In conclusion I concluded long ago.
History itself is a collection of stories of beliefs humanity held that were demonstrably wrong. People often went to war over these beliefs or used the beliefs of the average person to manipulate them into going to war. The same can be said of our personal histories: They are a chronology of many mistakes and some triumphs. The only difference is whether we struggle to learn from our mistakes—like Yul Brynner’s character—or we merely ignore them and forge ahead in blissful ignorance, thereby assuring that we will continue to make the same mistakes over and over.
Presidential/political debates are totally useless. Thank you. My always belief. Didn't watch. Furthermore, I refuse to allow any garbage that comes from the nasty orifice of the orangeman into my consciousness.
And to the guv of the orange state, may you burn in Hell. Cutting the Arts programs so he can create more ill-mannered morons like himself without the tempering and curative effects of the arts. What is wrong with him? Perhaps he's seen too many caricatures of himself from artists. There is a solution for both of the 2. May they disappear into oblivion forever.
Thank you for Yul Brenner and the King & I. Such a magnificent performance and actor. Wonderful movie. And of course, the young boy and his pup. Just delightful.
Please take care of yourself and protect against this awful heat. I stay inside with the AC except for the necessities. Never have been able to deal with high temperatures.
Stay well and happy and at peace. 🌷
One more thing about leaf blowers on behalf of our little friends. Removing loose leaves each week (at an ear crushing volume no less) disrupts the habitats of many beloved creatures: bees, butterflies, chipmunks. Rake them if you must. Or make peace with them. They're not the enemy, they're just leaves.