Why Does Oklahoma Want a Database of All Women Who've Had Abortions & US Will be Choking on Polluted Air by 2054
"Catastrophic" 10-Year Low for Women Representation in Film, It Will Take 60 Years for Women's Parity in UK Film Industry, Builders Blocking Energy-Efficient Homes, The Chad Mitchell Trio Sings
What I’m Discussing Today:
Kareem’s Daily Quote: The banality of evil is real. It happens when we refuse to see it, stop it, or convince ourselves that doesn’t exist.
Oklahoma Pols Want a Database of Everyone Who Has an Abortion: The GOP constantly complains about Big Government intrusion, yet they continue to pass laws to intrude. This time they also want to ban contraceptives that have nothing to do with abortion. Why?
Vast swaths of US will be exposed to polluted air by 2054, says report: If we don’t start stopping it now, when?
Study shows a ‘catastrophic’ 10-year low for female representation in film: Pop culture is where we find society’s true values. Right now, it’s telling us we don’t value women’s voices or experiences as much as we do men’s.
UK film industry may achieve gender parity in 2085, study finds: Why do we have to wait 60 years to achieve parity? Because we don’t demand it.
Why the industry is blocking the push for more energy-efficient homes: They claim it would make homes too expensive. Not surprisingly, that’s a lie.
The Chad Mitchell Trio Sings “I Do Adore Her”: A sweet, simple love song guaranteed to put you in a meditative state.
Kareem’s Daily Quote
Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.
Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia (1930-1974)
I think of this quote whenever I wonder how Trump has been able to continue to triumph in the face of everything we now know. Racist? Check. Rapist? Check. Fraud? Check. Sex with a porn star three months after his wife gave birth? Lied to the public allowing Americans to die of COVID-19? Gave tax cuts to the rich that added $8 trillion to the national debt? Check, check, and check. Yet, those who cast their votes for him can delude themselves that they are good people helping their country. Their delusion does not excuse them from the heinousness of their act. Their lack of self-awareness of their complicity in handing bomb-making material to a person who is planting the bomb under the Statue of Liberty doesn’t make them less of a terrorist.
We may not like it, but here we are. A despicable criminal will be the presidential nominee of the Republican Party, and the cowering members of the GOP are doing nothing to stop him. They are instead celebrating him. The inability to recognize evil has made them evil. How did this happen? Though Flannery O’Connor said this facetiously, it accurately applies to them: “Total non-retention has kept my education from being a burden to me.” Whatever they learned in schools about critical thinking, history, honor, or integrity has long been forgotten.
There is a similar famous quote: “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” This is often attributed to Edmund Burke, though he never said it. He did say something related: “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one…” I like to think of this Substack newsletter as a place where good people associate to think over the issues facing us, to feel comfort in the support of the like-minded, to recharge their commitment to fight the enemy—even when it is other Americans.
My study of history and the many atrocities people commit always get the same reaction from me: How did people allow this to happen? The way we can contort our thinking to justify the worst behavior never ceases to astound and sadden me. We have all justified shameful acts in our lives, but the difference is between those who learn from that behavior and wish to change it and those who refuse to acknowledge their mistakes. Ordinarily, we could simply dismiss them and leave them in their misery. But when they join together in masses large enough to burn down the country, we must do something—or accept that by doing nothing we actually became them.
Oklahoma Pols Want a Database of Everyone Who Has an Abortion (The Daily Beast)
SUMMARY: An Oklahoma bill that would create a database of every person who obtained an abortion is one step closer to becoming law.
The so-called Oklahoma Right To Human Life Act, authored by state Rep. Kevin West, passed out of the Public Health Committee last week and moves to a full House vote next month. The bill would require the Oklahoma State Department of Health to create a database in which each patient is identified by a “unique patient identifier” to track how many abortions a patient has and when. That information and the identity of the patient could be released to authorities under a court order.
Oklahoma already outlaws all abortions except when necessary to save the life of the mother, without exceptions for rape or incest.
Tamya Cox-Toure, executive director of the ACLU of Oklahoma, said the law could discourage patients from seeking abortions during a medical emergency and discourage doctors from performing them.
“People who are ending their pregnancy for medical reasons—to save the health of the pregnant person—are the people who are going to be part of this database,” she told The Daily Beast.
MY TAKE: Of what practical use would this database be except as an ax to threaten people? Here’s how you know that this law is not an effort to help anyone but rather a part of a larger campaign to return women to the confines of the 1950s where some conservatives want them: The bill was drafted by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal advocacy group that argued the Supreme Court case overturning Roe v Wade. They are also responsible for a lawsuit to ban mifepristone, which is used in medication abortions.
The Oklahoman reports that “The current iteration of the bill would ostensibly prohibit the sale, prescription and administration of contraceptive measures intended to induce an abortion or prevent a fertilized egg from being implanted into the uterus.” That would likely include contraceptive devices like the IUD and over-the-counter pills like Plan B.
Bill sponsor West claims that section of the bill is intended to “specifically target the over-the-counter items that are not always safe for everybody.” Nothing is “always safe for everybody,” not even aspirin or cough syrup. That justification is nonsensical. Plan B pills do not cause abortions; they only work if the woman is not already pregnant. That’s the smoking gun that tells us that this bill is not about abortion but also contraception—and ultimately about restricting women’s rights and options. Why would anyone want to prevent women from using contraception except to control their options?
West says he’s planning to rewrite that section but he’s already tipped his hand and that of his supporters by including it in the first place. Whether or not he rewrites the bill, his eventual goal is clear. And it ain’t good for women—or society.
Vast swaths of US will be exposed to polluted air by 2054, says report (The Guardian)
SUMMARY: Vast swaths of the continental US will be exposed to unhealthy, polluted air by 2054, according to an alarming new report.
Researchers at First Street Foundation, a non-profit that analyzes climate risk, found that one in four Americans are already exposed to air that is deemed “unhealthy” by the Air Quality Index (AQI), which provides daily air quality readings. That number is expected to grow by 50% in the next few decades, with an estimated total of 125 million Americans experiencing dangerous air pollution by the middle of the century.
The report warns that climate-related wildfires and heatwaves are undoing many of the gains from federal clean air regulations. Between 2010 and 2016, the United States started to see an increase in air pollution for the first time in 80 years, said Jeremy Porter, head of climate implications research at First Street.
“If we’re going to start thinking about solutions, we have to start combating the origin of the air pollutants, which are wildfires and extreme heat,” Porter said.
MY TAKE: When it comes to the environment, I sometimes feel like we’re staring up into the sky as a giant meteor blazes directly toward us while we shrug and say, “Hope it misses us.” Well, it’s already hit us and now we’re dealing with the aftermath. The catastrophic results of decades of abuse and neglect are wafting through our air and swimming in our drinking water. Our general health has been affected and will only get worse for our children. But where are all those book-banning parents when it comes to literally protecting their children’s lives?
If you watch enough TV cop shows you know to always ask, “Who benefits from this murder?” Well, who benefits from the murder of the environment? Those poisoning it. They make enough money from its destruction to influence the government to not stop them. Why else would Supreme Court justices get free vacations? Why would some of the dumbest politicians get so much money in corporate donations?
This isn’t about hugging a tree, it’s about survival. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) argues that “chronic underinvestment has left water infrastructure outdated and on the verge of collapse in many places across the country.” Environmental agencies are supposed to look out for these issues, but they are underfunded and understaffed. When Trump was president, he devastated environmental protections by eliminating over 100 rules (“The Trump Administration Rolled Back More Than 100 Environmental Rules.” Other Republicans, like Matt Gaetz, have called for the elimination of the EPA, which is pretty much like advocating removing guard rails from roads along cliffs.
The NRDC explains that “lead, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances known as PFAS, industrial pollution, and agricultural runoff are contaminating the drinking water for hundreds of millions of people—and many don’t even know it.”
Something to consider in November when you mark your ballots. The Terminator’s “Come with me if you want to live” takes on a whole new meaning.
Kareem’s Video Break
Golf coach and PGA professional Georgia Ball was practicing when she was interrupted by a man who felt it was his duty to tell her how to play better. This clip should be a warning to all men to curb their inclination to “mansplain” about sports (or pretty much anything) unless asked.
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Study shows ‘catastrophic’ 10-year low for female representation in film (The Guardian)
SUMMARY: A new study has shown that the number of female leads in Hollywood movies is at a 10-year low.
Despite the $1.4bn success of Barbie, last year’s top 100 films saw just 30 feature a female lead or co-lead, the worst result since 2014 according to a new study by the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative.
“This is a catastrophic step back for girls and women in film,” Dr Stacy L Smith, research head, said in a statement. “In the last 14 years, we have charted progress in the industry, so to see this reversal is both startling and in direct contrast to all of the talk of 2023 as the ‘year of the woman’.”
The results follow a record high in 2022 with a 44% result. Despite a number of major female-lead films moving to 2024, such as Luca Guadagnino’s romantic drama Challengers starring Zendaya, the study’s authors do not believe this to be the reason, writing that “we cannot explain the collapse” and calling it “an industry failure”.
The number of films led by women of colour also fell from 18 to 14 which still marks a major leap from 2007, when the study originated, with just one. Only three films in 2023 featured a woman over the age of 45 as a lead or co-lead compared with 32 for men in the same age category.
MY TAKE: March is International Women’s Month during which we celebrate the countless contributions of women and dedicate ourselves to honoring those contributions by fighting for their equality. One way we fight is by identifying the areas where we fall short. Like this one.
Legislators know what laws they can pass based on reading what the public will accept. They do this through polls, which are of dubious reliability, and through looking at pop culture, which is much more accurate because it reflects a greater number of people. How pop culture treats certain issues and groups of people helps them form policies that they think will appeal to voters to allow them to gain more power. They are reading the room—in this case, the room is defined by movies.
The reduction in movies about women, especially women of color, tells politicians that the public does not value women’s stories, voices, or points of view as much as they do men’s. This has emboldened them to pass the most restrictive laws against women in the last 50 years. They feel justified in ignoring women’s collective voice. After all, who’s listening?
The standard Hollywood defense when faced with accusations of under-representing a marginalized group is to point at a couple of successes and say, “See, we’re doing our part,” and to point to a couple of failures and say, “See, we tried but the public doesn’t want them.” Studies show that studios are quick to abandon non-mainstream projects after only a few failures, but will continue to support mainstream projects regardless of the number of disastrous box-office flops.
The U.S. population is 50.4% female, yet they lack a substantial presence in our storytelling canon. Hollywood movies are one of the country’s major exports, not only in how much money they earn but in showing the world our values. The value being shown right now is that half of our population has less to say or is less worth listening to.
RELATED: UK film industry may achieve gender parity in 2085, study finds
SUMMARY: Progress towards gender equality in the UK film industry is slow, a new study whose findings were presented on Tuesday at the Berlin film festival has revealed.
The report, entitled Re-Framing the Picture, examined 12,000 films made between 2005 and 2020 by 34 different countries, but focused on the UK, Germany and Canada when drawing its conclusions.
These were not encouraging: while there have been “modest” numerical improvements resulting from policy drives, including diversity standards introduced as a subsidy requirement, little change in power dynamics is detectable.
On average, the report found that in the UK 78% of all key creative positions were held by men, and 81% of the network elite. In Germany the numbers were 74% and 86%; in Canada 77% and 82%.
At the current rate of progress, a 50% split would be achieved in 2085 in the UK, in 2041 in Germany and 2215 in Canada.
One of the report’s authors, Prof Deb Verhoeven of the University of Alberta, said systemic problems were to blame, which could not simply be fixed by quota policies.
“The film industries do not just need more women, but women in the right positions,” she said. Verhoeven added that “the modest gains made by women and gender minorities have not come at the expense of men [but] have arisen as the result of an expansion of the industry rather than a displacement of men.”
MY TAKE: Well, finally women in the film industry can take comfort. They’ll be treated as equals in only 60 years. Unless there’s the usual backlash when any marginalized group starts to progress and they get shoved backward again. Or unless people decide that 60 years is ridiculous and fight for parity now.
The key takeaway of the study that will undoubtedly be ignored is that the modest gains by women were not at the expense of men and that the issue isn’t just about adding women to the total numbers but putting them in positions with more power. Percentages are not the answer to fixing the problem, respect is.
Why industry is blocking the push for more energy efficient homes (The Washington Post)
SUMMARY: “Out in the middle of nowhere” in Moore County, N.C., developer Ron Jackson said he is building what America needs — more affordable homes for the nurses, police officers and teachers struggling to find housing they can afford amid a nationwide shortage.
That’s why Jackson and others from North Carolina’s home-building industry say they came out in force last year against a state plan to tighten energy efficiency building codes so new homes would waste less energy, reducing their carbon footprints. The builders succeeded in blocking the new standards, helping to maintain the status quo.
“All that energy code was going to do in my price range is make it to where the working man and woman would not be able to buy a home,” Jackson said. He sells homes in the $250,000 range and estimated the changes would have increased his costs by more than $20,000 — a figure that comes from a survey of North Carolina builders conducted by the state branch of the National Association of Home Builders, the housing industry’s largest lobbying group.
Across the country, the home-builder lobby is mobilizing its 140,000 members against state and local efforts to save energy and ease the transition to cleaner technologies, such as wiring homes to support electric car charging. Since poorly designed and insulated buildings tend to leak and waste energy — one reason homes account for nearly one-fifth of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions — climate advocates say the home builders’ repeated victories will have a lasting impact, locking in practices that could hurt consumers and the planet for decades.
There’s no debate that boosting the energy efficiency of new homes often increases upfront costs, but the builders appear to be inflating the numbers. A federal study found that North Carolina’s proposed code update would have added at most about $6,500 to the price of a newly built home, not $20,400. According to the analysis, these changes would have paid for themselves through lower power bills and, during the first year alone, reduced carbon dioxide emissions by the equivalent of taking 29,000 cars off the road.
MY TAKE: This is a cautionary tale that is taking place across the country. The home-building industry, like most Big Business, focuses on greedy instant profits rather than slightly less profit and a healthier environment for the community. They seem to believe that the richer they get, the better they can afford to live in a place less polluted than what they’re building for others. Wealth will insulate them, not only from a wrecked environment but also from decency and morality. But it won’t. While they’re building their environmentally destructive homes, they are also digging our graves—and those of their children and children’s children.
Kareem’s Jukebox Playlist
The Chad Mitchell Trio: “I Do Adore Her”
The Chad Mitchell Trio was formed in 1958 when they were glee club members at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. They made their name in the folk music scene in New York City. Harry Belafonte discovered them and featured them in his Carnegie Hall concert in 1960. Eventually, they began performing more satirical and political songs about civil rights and Vietnam. Members of the group came and went over the years, including John Denver in 1965. The group performed several of Denver’s original compositions.
I picked “I Do Adore Her” because it is one of the most beautiful and powerful love songs I’ve ever heard. Love songs are tricky because they can easily become cloying and silly. Rather than express love, they express desperation. But this is an exception. The vocals, harmonies, and lyrics flow together with heartfelt sincerity that reveals the delicious agony of love.
Thinking about the narcissistic Republicans who study themselves in mirror thinking how beautiful and righteous they are. If they find imperfection in themselves they blame others. Their righteousness stinks. Look no farther that Matt Gaetz. “And his hair was perfect”. -Warren Zevon
Oklahoma today is an illustration of what American might be like tomorrow. To paraphrase Louis Brandeis, the states are becoming “the laboratories of autocracy”.