“Being a citizen means having the benefits of being one but also the responsibilities: such as paying taxes, and looking out for others. Wearing masks, getting vaccinated (if you can, which is the case for the vast majority) is part of that. There is a limit on how selfish you can be in a society.” (The Guardian, 17 Feb 2022)
Quotation of the day
“It has been said that a pretty face is a passport. But it’s not. It’s a visa and it runs out fast.” (Writer julie Burchill, quoted in Psychology Today)
Millionaires: the other side of the coin
The reason why President Biden’s Build Back Better Act has failed to pass is because it raises taxes on the rich. Other budget bills like the CARES Act, the American Rescue Plan, and the bipartisan infrastructure bill all passed with support from all 50 Senate Democrats. The difference between these bills and the Build Back Better Act is that the latter is fully paid for by increased taxes on the wealthy and corporations.
The excuses that Senators Manchin and Sinema have respectively deployed for their opposition to the Build Back Better agenda simply don’t add up. What does make sense is that their billionaire donors wouldn’t like having to pay their fair share in taxes because of the bill. (Douglas Rooks, Patriotic Millionaires 10 Feb 2022).
My take. The US has gotten itself into a corner by allowing the very rich to get away with minimal taxation, the savings being used t0 protect that cozy arrangements by funding yes-men to stand for Congress. Having allowed this undemocratic arrangement to persist there seems to be no way of halting the tax pandering and kow-towing to the super-rich. One of the reasons ancient Rome fell apart was the growing gap between rich and poor (and never-ending wars). “But what is the use of history?” Sound familiar?
Brexit “opportunities”
This week’s biggest Brexit news is firmly in the ‘beyond satire’ category. Jacob Rees-Mogg is now UK Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency (Rees-Mog is not regarded as serious by some). Response of pro-EU activists was very short, though probably still longer than Mr Rees-Mogg’s list of opportunities.
Former top civil servant Jill Rutter demonstrated the Whitehall skill of saying pointed things politely: “The problem for Rees-Mogg here is that…..the rhetoric of benefits of Brexit comes much more easily to the government than actually crystallising them.”
Many will fear that Mr Rees-Mogg’s idea of a Brexit opportunity might be lowering standards. They won’t be reassured by reports that Canada is pressuring UK to allow growth hormones for cattle, as a condition for joining the 11-nation Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Meanwhile, the UK government, desperate for a US trade deal – is confronted by the fact that levels of toxic chemical in beef are 5000 (yes, five thousand) times higher in the US than the EU considers safe.
Less than 24 hours after Mr Rees-Mogg’s appointment, the House of Commons’ cross-party Public Accounts Committee pointed to huge difficulties at the borders that Boris’s Brexit built. Worse is likely once travel picks up post-Covid restrictions and full border checks are introduced. PAC Chair Meg Hillier said: “the only detectable impact of Brexit so far is increased costs, paperwork and border delays.”. ( The Guardian 14 Feb 2022)
Saved by a cornflake eater!
The influence of public personalities in the US is not a modern phenomenon, in case you thought it was. A little incident, bordering legality, from my youth:
I hitch-hiked to most corners of the US in my early twenties, In the course of this adventure I visited good friends of my parents, the Nivens, who lived in Rochester NY. Howard Niven was CEO of the Xerox Corp (part of Kodak), but he and his wife also “moonlighted” as actors in TV advertisements, just for fun (they didn’t need the money). They were a very handsome couple, with a huge illuminated picture of themselves, about thirty feet high, on the concourse of New York’s Grand Central Station at the tim.
The Nivens took me on an outing to the Niagara Falls, and we duly crossed into Canada. On the way back I suddenly realized that I had not brought my US visa or British passport to return- enter the US. General consternation. Howard Niven wasn’t the least concerned. He approached a junior border official and explained the situation. No I couldn’t enter the US. Then the supervisor appeared, took one look at Howard and exclaimed, “I know you – you advertise Kelloggs cornflakes on television don’t you, with your wife! Yes, I know you!” Please, go on through. Peace of mind restored, Howard receiving an avalanche of thanks.
Could this help with ataraxia happen nowadays? Just asking.
Vaccines
I am starting to think that common sense really is not that common after all – we live in exceedingly stupid times. Exhibit 874: US anti-vaxxers are now urging people to drink their own urine to fight coronavirus. Recently, Christopher Key, the leader of an anti-Covid-19 vaccine group called the “Vaccine Police”, posted videos online extolling the health benefits of what he described as “urine therapy”. According to the wizard of wee, there is “tons and tons of research … [and] peer-reviewed published papers on urine”; so if you do your own pee-search you will discover it is God’s own antidote to Covid-19. “This vaccine is the worst bioweapon I have ever seen,” Key said. “I drink my own urine!”
That is not the only questionable thing he does. Key was recently arrested for refusing to wear a mask and filming proceedings during a court hearing. The reason he was in court? He was arrested in April for refusing to wear a mask at a Whole Foods store. In August he made headlines for suggesting that pharmacists should be executed for administering coronavirus vaccines; in December he also set off on a road trip across the US with a fake badge and firearms, in a mission to arrest a Democratic governor over vaccine mandates. Very busy man, our Mr Key! I cannot help thinking that if his name was Mohammed his shenanigans would have had him locked up in Guantánamo Bay by now.
Key’s “urine therapy” is far from the only experimental – and highly dubious – Covid “cure” to be promoted during the pandemic. We all remember the former US president’s comments on the benefits of injecting bleach. Last year saw a prolonged bout of Ivermectin-mania. Now, along with urine, the right seems to be fixated on Viagra and colloidal silver. Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, who has repeatedly questioned the efficacy and safety of Covid vaccines, recently dedicated a portion of his show to hyping the potential of Viagra as a potential cure. Carlson seized on the story of a British nurse reportedly recovering from a Covid-19 coma, after being given a dose of Viagra, to sing the little blue pill’s praises. “Is there anything [Viagra] doesn’t cure?” Carlson joked. Yes, I am afraid it does not appear to encourage intelligence.
Speaking of which, the conservative media personality Candace Owens recently told her social media followers that she takes a “teaspoon a day” of colloidal silver, a product that has also been touted as a Covid cure by the likes of Infowars founder Alex Jones. Not only is there zero evidence that colloidal silver can help with Covid, but, the contrary, taking too much can turn your skin blue permanently and, in rare cases, can even kill you.
The amount of misinformation about Covid cures is highly depressing, and it is important that we hold to account the people spreading dangerous falsehoods, and undermining trust in the vaccine. Still, let us be clear: the biggest obstacle towards ending this pandemic is not kooks such as Key and Owens. The obstacle is the rich countries that have been hoarding vaccines, and the likes of Pfizer and Moderna, who have been slow to license their vaccine technology (developed with taxpayer money) to poor countries. The fact that big pharma is making billions from a public health crisis is unconscionable. I am very pro-vaccine but I am running out of enthusiasm for boosters. The idea of potentially having to get a fourth shot soon, while so much of the world still cannot access a first dose, makes me sick. If only we had a vaccine for greed. (Arwa Mahdawi, Guardian columnist, 11 Jan 2022)
Your government is spying on you — again.
A heavily redacted letter from Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M) revealed Thursday that the CIA has been doing some sort of bulk collection of Americans’ data. We don’t really know the details — those parts are blacked out in the redactions, natch — but it was enough to alarm the senators, who both sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee. “These documents reveal serious problems associated with warrantless backdoor searches of Americans,” they said in a joint statement.
This is an old problem, but one that was supposed to have been reined in. It’s been nearly a decade since whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed the National Security Agency had bulk collected records of Americans’ phone calls and emails. Federal courts later found the practice was illegal, and Congress tightened up the laws to end the snooping.
The CIA, however, literally plays by a different set of rules. The agency’s program exists “entirely outside the statutory framework that Congress and the public believe govern this collection, and without any of the judicial, congressional or even executive branch oversight,” Wyden and Heinrich wrote.
That’s an obvious problem. Even if bulk collection is somehow justifiable — and that’s a big “if” — it’s dangerous in a democratic society to let an agency like the CIA hoover up Americans’ personal info without some form of outside scrutiny. That power is easily abused, and indeed the data has been misused in the past: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court found in 2018 the FBI had regularly used NSA information to check up on potential informants who weren’t suspected of criminal or national security violations. The FBI blamed the transgression on a “fundamental misunderstanding” of how the data could be legally used. Funny how that happens.
Snowden, still living in exile after fleeing the United States when he turned whistleblower, had something to say about all of this. “You are about to witness an enormous political debate in which the spy agencies and their apologists on TV tell you this is normal and okay and the CIA doesn’t know how many Americans are in the database or even how they got there anyway,” he tweeted on Thursday. “But it is not okay.”
He’s right. It’s a dangerous world, sure, but Americans have every right to be left alone unless there’s a reasonable, evidence-based belief they’re up to no good. Mass surveillance generally fails that test. But because the details are so fuzzy, it might be difficult for the new revelations to make a splash. That would be unfortunate. When it comes to snooping, the government keeps showing us it doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. (The Week, 11 Feb 2022)
My comment: And we criticize China for doing the self-same thing to ordinary citizens! Well, the CIA is welcome to hoover up my conversations; just don’t complain about the language and the rude remarks about the activities of the CIA over the years, (or the small bits we know about, anyway).
Two rows a month equals a happy marriage
A survey of 2,000 married Brits has found that the recipe for a happy marriage includes six meaningful conversations, three long walks and two massive rows every month. The Times reported that the most contented couples claimed to have sex five times a week and say “I love you” up to 20 times a fortnight. They also kiss two or three times a day and cuddle 11 times a week. (The Times, Feb 2022)
My take: (Thinks: how can I enhance the image of my marriage without appearing to brag?). Ahem! My wife and I agreed, when we got married, to have six meaningful conversations a day, a long walk every day and no massive rows at all. I draw a curtain over the more intimate activities mentioned in The Times quotation. That subject would only stir up grave discontent among readers, and in the US we have enough of that already. (Epicurus never told us not to joke)
You read this comment on Epicurus.Today.
Is the American democratic system breaking down?
Following the disaster that was Jan. 6, an already-partisan Congress has grown almost entirely untenable as working Republican and Democratic partnerships — particularly in the House — crumble in the face of the most serious attack on the U.S. Capitol since 1812.
In interviews with more than four dozen lawmakers and congressional staffers, “people of all political stripes say the House has become a deeply unpleasant place to work, with simmering ill feeling and a series of ugly incidents fraying remaining bipartisan ties,” writes the Wall Street Journal.
“It’s as bad as I’ve seen it,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who has served in Congress since 1981, told the paper. “The toxic environment has been building for a long, long time before Jan. 6, but Jan. 6 just blew it up in flames.”
“It is the tensest it’s been,” added Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.), blaming Jan. 6, and the resulting magnetometers that scan representatives for weapons as they enter the chamber, and the pandemic for the dysfunction.
The “bad blood” even infiltrated one of the House’s “most prominent bipartisan groups, the “Problem Solvers Caucus”, which recently helped with infrastructure and pandemic negotiations. “Some members were contemplating getting out,” Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) told the Journal.
And in another example, Democratic Illinois Rep. Brad Schneider halted a legislative relationship with incendiary Arizona Republican Rep. Paul Gosar after Gosar defended Captiol rioters and voted against certifying the 2020 election results. “If you can’t recognize the legitimacy of the election and the legitimacy of the new president, and you’re unwilling to stop trafficking in the lies that led us to Jan. 6, then I’m not going to work with you,” Schneider said. Gosar, for his part, insisted Schneider to be a “toxic individual” engaging in conspiracy theories. (The Wall Street Journal, 27 Dec 2022)
My ( very personal) comment: I hesitated before posting the above, since it is ultra-political and thus a no- go for those who follow Epicurus. But the resulting disfunction, trouble-making, lies, the potential breakdown of democracy and intelligent government-for-all, threatens the peace of mind of us all. I happen to have lived in London throughout the blitz. Our home was flattened in a Nazi bombing raid. We were constantly roused at night and had to run to a bomb shelter. I have a deep dread of fascism all all it brings, and have no wish to leave this world in the same cruel and violent state that I joined it.
Slimming in bed
There’s good news for those of us who love a lie-in: an extra hour’s sleep a night can shave 270 calories off a person’s daily diet – the equivalent of around three chocolate digestive biscuits. Over three years, this could lead to a weight loss of 1.8 stone, according to researchers at the University of Chicago and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Many people are working hard to find ways to decrease their caloric intake to lose weight – well, just by sleeping more, you may be able to reduce it substantially,” said (Esra Tasali, director of the UChicago Sleep Centre).
My comment: If you are sleeping you are not eating. O.K, but just cutting down on fattening food should have the same effect, and you can still have an enjoyable, rewarding life out of bed.
Vaccine uptakes in Europe
Back last September France suspended 3,000 health workers without pay for refusing the Covid vaccine. Some staff at hospitals, retirement and care homes had refused Covid jabs despite warning by Macron. The health minister said “several dozen” had resigned rather than have the vaccine.
The French health authority, Santé Publique, estimated that fewer than 12% of hospital staff and about 6% of doctors in private practice had not been vaccinated last fall. Just under 47 million French people aged 12 and over were fully vaccinated, representing 81.4% of the population; 86.1% have received at least one jab. France has been one of the most vaccinated countries in the world. Compare that with the US where the percentage has yet to reach the 70% mark. (The Guardian, 16 September 2021)
My comment: To refuse vaccination is to be plain selfish and inconsiderate.
I realize that many such people are influenced by bogus claims on the internet (and maybe actually believe the propaganda). But those of us who respect science and scientists cannot imagine why refuseniks cannot think for themselves, and having attended church on Sunday, concluded that protecting others is an Epicurean – and a Christian – duty.
Words of wisdom
“It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn’t use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like “What about lunch?”. (A.A. Milne, quoted in The Economist).
My comment: Amen to that! I remember at school my English teacher firmly telling us that long words don’t necessarily denote a brainy fellow, more likely a pompous one. Wonderful writer was A. A. Milne – lucid and straightforward.
The heating oceans
Extreme heat in the world’s oceans passed the “point of no return” in 2014 and has become the new normal, according to research.
Scientists analysed sea surface temperatures over the last 150 years, which have risen because of global heating. They found that extreme temperatures occurring just 2% of the time a century ago have occurred at least 50% of the time across the global ocean since 2014.
In some hotspots, extreme temperatures occur 90% of the time, severely affecting wildlife. More than 90% of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases is absorbed by the ocean, which plays a critical role in maintaining a stable climate. (The Guardian 2 Feb 2022)
My comment: I suppose all this is still a hoax for the doozies among us and those with a vested interest in continuing to burn fossil fuels. I just hope someone out there is listing the names and whereabouts of the naysayers for posterity. The plinths of the slave-owners egocentric are being dismantled,
which is a pity. They could have ben used for the “climate change is a hoax” crowd.
What has this to do with Epicureanism? Peace of mind. I personally will be long gone when the worst starts to happen, but I am dry concerned about younger generations and feel deeply for them.
Russian dirty money
“It has been two and a half years since the publication of parliament’s “Russia report”, which laid bare the extent of links between the Kremlin and Russian-backed financial interests – and the resulting flows of illicit cash through the City of London. The UK’s allies are beginning to take note of the intractability of the problem. A report from the Center for American Progress – a thinktank close to the Biden administration – stated last week that “uprooting Kremlin-linked oligarchs will be a challenge given the close ties between Russian money and the United Kingdom’s ruling Conservative party, the press, and its real estate and financial industry”. (The Guardian, 2 Feb 2022)
My comment: I am familiar with that part of London beloved by Russian oligarchs, who launder their money through the City and own a significant proportion of the fancy housing in Central London. It’s a scandal that this is allowed to continue, but then the ruling Conservative party is thought to be the beneficiary of corrupt cash floating around, in the process making Central London too expensive for many ordinary Brits. Bear this in mind when the subject of Putin and Ukraine comes up. One partner in NATO cannot be relied upon. Think “UK”. (Yes, this is politics, but clean politicians and a foreign policy untainted by corruption would help somewhat with one’s peace of mind, yes?)
“A deeply unpleasant place to work”
“Following the disaster that was Jan. 6, an already-partisan Congress has grown almost entirely untenable, as working Republican and Democratic partnerships — particularly in the House — crumble in the face of the most serious attack on the U.S. Capitol since 1812.
“In interviews with more than four dozen lawmakers and congressional staffers, “people of all political stripes say the House has become a deeply unpleasant place to work, with simmering ill feeling and a series of ugly incidents fraying remaining bipartisan ties,” writes the Wall Street Journal.
“It’s as bad as I’ve seen it,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who has served in Congress since 1981, told the paper. “The toxic environment has been building for a long, long time before Jan. 6, but Jan. 6 just blew it up in flames.”
“It is the tensest it’s been,” added Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.), blaming Jan. 6, the resulting magnetometers that scan representatives for weapons as they enter the chamber, and the pandemic for the dysfunction.
“The “bad blood” even infiltrated one of the House’s “most prominent bipartisan groups,” the Problem Solvers Caucus, which recently helped with infrastructure and pandemic negotiations. “Some members were contemplating getting out,” Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) told the Journal.
“And in another example, Democratic Illinois Rep. Brad Schneider halted a legislative relationship with incendiary Arizona Republican Rep. Paul Gosar after Gosar defended Captiol rioters and voted against certifying the 2020 election results. “If you can’t recognize the legitimacy of the election, the legitimacy of the new president and you’re unwilling to stop trafficking in the lies that led us to Jan. 6, then I’m not going to work with you,” Schneider said.
Gosar, for his part, insisted that Schneider was a “toxic individual” engaging in conspiracy theories.” (The Wall Street Journal)
My comment: Epicurus seems to have believed that all politics and most politicians were toxic in any case. But the current situation in the US is extremely worrying. The light is dimming on democracy.