Lead exposure, then and now!

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 23, 2019

The tribal rejection of facts:
Excitement builds as we approach the new year, which starts at this site next week. We'll be focusing on "Aristotle's error," by which we mean the time when the greatest logician is said to have said this:

"Man [sic] is the rational animal."

Because Aristotle knew no English, it's hard to be sure what he actually meant. But in the current colloquial sense, are we humans essentially "rational" in some observable way?

Gossips and fiction filberts, please! We'd be inclined to rewrite that famous old bromide like this:

"Humans are the tribal animal, the creature which runs on script."

We humans! We construe events in novelized ways, then recite our stories in groups. If you doubt that, you can check the many ways the tiny minds of our tortured tribes have chosen to interpret last weekend's events from the D.C. mall.

Dear God, it was hashtag heaven! There were high school kids in MAGA hats, mixed with a bunch of Black Hebrew Israelites and one Native American elder. To what extent have various tribes and guilds chosen to massage this tale? On the front page of today's Washington Post, the lineups were rattled like this:
SELLERS AND WILLIAMS (1/23/19): The viral video showed a large group of Covington Catholic High School boys on the memorial steps in Washington, where students travel annually for the antiabortion March for Life. One of the boys stands inches away from the face of Nathan Phillips, a Native American elder, who was beating a drum during the Indigenous Peoples March. The boy’s classmates stood nearby, laughing and gesturing — what many interpreted as mocking.

But longer versions of the encounter soon appeared, showing it began when a group of Hebrew Israelites hurled offensive language at the teens. And the students said they were dancing and singing along with the Native American music, not mocking it.
In two different news reports this morning, the Post was too dainty to let readers know that the "Hebrew Israelites" to which that text refers is actually a small African-American group more commonly known as the Black Hebrew Israelites.

Because the "offensive language" dispensed by this group involved a lot of "racial" smack, this is a basic part of the story. Unless you read today's Washington Post, where the story got perhaps just a bit massaged.

That said:

Teen-aged Trumpists, a Native elder and epithet-yelling blacks! In the past few days, everyone has been retelling this wonderful story, often in ways designed to drive a particular tribal narrative.

Increasingly, this is what we the people are strongly inclined to do. Such conduct is wired deep in the bone, reaching back into prehistory, and we now have major corporate entities dedicated to the proposition that tribal fiction is all.
.
Increasingly, we're tribal all the way down! Our nation's offshoot of the human race now runs on vast arrays of dimwitted tribal stews pushed by various corporate entities and by journalistic "elites."

Just as it ever was, each tribe can see that The Others tend to perform such acts. But we strongly tend to be blind to our own tribe's tribal behavior.

To see our own liberal tribe in action, we recommend a recent post by Kevin Drum. Drum summarized a report in the Washington Post magazine about Professor Marc Edwards, one of the original heroes of the Flint water crisis.

According to the Post report, Edwards has now become a liberal pariah. Headline included, Drum starts off like this:
DRUM (1/20/19): Marc Edwards Is a Sad Victim of Our Modern Political Era

This is very sad: Marc Edwards, the Virginia Tech professor who first exposed toxic levels of lead in the water supply of Flint, Michigan, was initially a hero to the Flint community. Thanks to him, Flint became the target of nationwide outrage, and steps were finally taken to reconnect Flint to the (safe) Detroit water supply. In less than a year, lead levels in Flint water had dropped to safe levels.

So what did Edwards do? Well, he’s a scientist, and just as he had honestly exposed Flint’s problems in the first place, he also continued to honestly report the results of the intervention. When the water was once again safe, he said so—and that turned him from a hero into a pariah.
For the record, Drum has done a lot of work on the effects of exposure to lead and on the boons of lead abatement. For his 2016 cover report for Mother Jones on these topics, you can just click here.

Concerning Drum's recent post, we'll ask you to notice a startling pair of facts—the type of facts we in our our increasingly brain-dead liberal tribe now reflexively disappear from our frequently brain-dead jihads.

The pair of facts we'll ask you to note are drawn from a graphic in Drum's post, the graphic which carries this title:
Lead Poisoning in Flint
Children under 6 with elevated blood lead levels
Note the following pair of facts from that graphic.
During the worst of the Flint water crisis, fewer than 10 percent of children in Flint were showing elevated blood lead levels (above 5 micrograms per deciliter).

As recently as 1998, 50 percent of children in Flint were showing that degree of exposure.
As Drum has repeatedly pointed out, the recent degree of exposure in Flint would have been considered a public health miracle as recently as a decade or so ago. When baby boomers were growing up, almost everyone had that degree of exposure to lead. And everybody understands how well we boomers turned out!

This doesn't mean that it was good that some kids in Flint were exposed to that degree of lead. It means that our brain-dead liberal world, including newspapers like the New York Times, were aggressively disappearing basic facts in order to heighten the thrill we could take from the alleged water crisis.

No one scared more Flint kids sh*tless than our own Rachel Maddow. In real time, we noted the fact that Maddow, despite her obsessive focus on Flint, never had Edwards on her show for a stand-alone interview segment. As we noted, the reason for this seemed obvious—she was selling the notions of "poisoning" and "crisis," and Edwards, a responsible scientist, tended to undercut these pleasing tribal cries.

Maddow proceeded to scare parents and children sh*tless. Eventually, the New Yorker ran a report citing the kids in Flint who inaccurately believed that their lives had been ruined by the water event. You aren't allowed to know how many millions of dollars Maddow is paid each year for such rating-boosting behavior.

The liberal world has begun to ape the conservative world over the past dozen years. We've begun to screech and yell about manufactured crises and over-emphasized random events. We almost always disappear or invent facts to drive our tales along. Or we play the Skittles card, endlessly citing wholly irrelevant facts.

The sheer stupidity of this conduct is a blight on the soul of the world. That said, our press corps lives for bullshit like this. This very clearly explains why we now have a thoroughly disordered and dangerous president, namely Donald J. Trump.

Go ahead—review Drum's graphic! As our own tribe's silly screamers tell us that We are the rational animals, just ask yourself how many other basic facts you aren't being told.

Man [sic] is the rational animal? Drawing on Harari's work, we'll go with "tribal" instead.

Our new year starts next week.

46 comments:

  1. Yeah, Bob. Thanks for recording the day-to-day buffoonery of your zombie cult. We, humans, sure appreciate it.

    I would, however, prefer that you ignored the lead nonsense, and concentrate instead on something far more important and dangerous, specifically: your zombie death-cult's new-found passion for war, imperialism, and bullying.

    But if you can't - no worries, Bob, I understand. It's only natural that as a zombie-dembot yourself, you can only superficially address your cult's atrocities...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. John "I Never Met A War I Wouldn't Want to Send My Doorman's Kid to Fight" Bolton is Trump's National Security Advisor.

      Troll harder, clown.

      Delete
    2. It doesn't matter if they are part of it. What's important is that they are lib-zombies' heroes now. As well as McCain, and the mad dog Mattis, and every other mad general out there.

      Delete
    3. And Donald J. Trump, too. He's also, a lib-zombie hero. Why wouldn't he be?

      Delete
    4. Trump's a lib-zombie hero, not a liberal hero.
      The difference is easy to spot. For instance, a liberal might say, "Republicans put a sexual predator, Brett Kavanaugh, on the Supreme Court,", whereas a lib-zombie would say something stupid, like, "I can't believe Republicans would put a sexual predator, Brett Kavanaugh. on the Supreme Court."

      Delete
    5. Donald J. Trump is a lib-zombie hero? You are broken, dembot. Ask your boss to run diagnostics, but in my expert opinion you're looking at immediate decommissioning. Sorry.

      Delete
    6. If Bush and Cheney can be, (and Reagan too), why can't Trump? You're not falling for the Deep State's lies about how Trump isn't a dembot zombie hero, are you?

      Delete




    7. No matter how old you are, family history is important. While you might not think so at the time, as you get older there will be things you and your grandchildren will want to know. Most of us don't realize it until the older generations are gone and you can't replace first hand comments. Don't just put in about the good times, add in the harder times and how you overcame those trials. Another thing to remember is what caused the deaths of those you loved. There are many things that have been found to continue into future generations that knowing it runs in the family can be helped with now or possible in the future. prevention starts with knowing where to start. I wish someone had taken the time to write these things down for mew to be able to go back to. My Grandmother and my mother told us many stories of what things happened in their lives and about the people in their lives. I now wish someone had written those things down since both have passed now. But I never thought at that busy point in my life that I would one day want to remember all those things. So much family history is lost when the older generations are gone. Please pass it on to your family while you can. You can even just do it digitally so it can be accessed by family later on.Family pictures are something to cherish also. Just be sure to write down who is pictured in them, where they are taken and when. I have found family pictures that no one now even knows who is in them.

      AKHERETEMPLE@gmail.com
      or
      call/whatsapp:+2349057261346
































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































      No matter how old you are, family history is important. While you might not think so at the time, as you get older there will be things you and your grandchildren will want to know. Most of us don't realize it until the older generations are gone and you can't replace first hand comments. Don't just put in about the good times, add in the harder times and how you overcame those trials. Another thing to remember is what caused the deaths of those you loved. There are many things that have been found to continue into future generations that knowing it runs in the family can be helped with now or possible in the future. prevention starts with knowing where to start. I wish someone had taken the time to write these things down for mew to be able to go back to. My Grandmother and my mother told us many stories of what things happened in their lives and about the people in their lives. I now wish someone had written those things down since both have passed now. But I never thought at that busy point in my life that I would one day want to remember all those things. So much family history is lost when the older generations are gone. Please pass it on to your family while you can. You can even just do it digitally so it can be accessed by family later on.Family pictures are something to cherish also. Just be sure to write down who is pictured in them, where they are taken and when. I have found family pictures that no one now even knows who is in them.

      AKHERETEMPLE@gmail.com
      or
      call/whatsapp:+2349057261346

      Delete
  2. “In real time, we noted the fact that Maddow, despite her obsessive focus on Flint, never had Edwards on her show for a stand-alone interview segment. As we noted, the reason for this seemed obvious—she was selling the notions of "poisoning" and "crisis," and Edwards, a responsible scientist, tended to undercut these pleasing tribal cries.”

    Edwards appeared on Maddow’s show 1/27/2016. (Transcript here: http://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/rachel-maddow-show/2016-01-27)

    Ah. But Maddow never had Edwards on her show... *for a stand-alone interview.* OK. Why that is some crucial distinction isn’t clear.

    Was Edwards, the “responsible scientist”, really “undercutting” Maddow’s “pleasing tribal cries?”

    You judge for yourself. Here is how Edwards described the situation in Flint at that time (from the Maddow transcript):

    EDWARDS: “...there`s really no precedent for this kind of manmade
    disaster.”

    Well, he didn’t use the word “crisis.” Will “disaster” get you there?

    And here is Edwards a year later speaking. It’s a YouTube video titled
    “Bad Government Betrayed Flint, MI. Good Government can Make it Right”. The link is
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICDIcOOrg9w

    Edwards says this, laying out his thesis about the Flint water crisis:
    “...how bad government caused this horrific man made disaster.”

    So, to recap, the “responsible scientist” used the words “disaster”, “betrayed” and “horrific.”

    I would hate to see how an irresponsible scientist would characterize the Flint water situation.

    ReplyDelete
  3. “It means that our brain-dead liberal world, including newspapers like the New York Times...”

    I’m tempted to quote this without comment. But...

    Has it not been established that the New York Times is not a liberal entity? The fact that the right wing says it is is no reason to pretend that it is. Liberals have enough problems to attend to without being lumped in with media corporations, by a media critic who presumably knows this and ought to keep these things distinct.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Has it not been established that the New York Times is not a liberal entity?"

      What, dembot? Are you fucking kidding me? The nytimes is where your zombie cult receives its marching orders.

      Okay. Is the thoroughly corrupt (thank you Seth rich and Wikileaks) Murkan D 'party' a liberal entity?
      No? Name one liberal entity, dembot.

      Delete
    2. You apparently haven’t read the work of a blogger named Somerby.

      Delete
  4. Let’s see: Somerby’s list of elite professors we can trust now includes:

    Marc Edwards, “hero” and “responsible scientist”

    Not trustworthy:
    Gödel (nutcase)
    Bertrand Russell (cloistered elite logician)
    Anyone calling him/herself a “logician”

    Uncertain status:
    Einstein (really hard to understand, so suspicious)

    Keep the list coming, Bob.

    ReplyDelete
  5. It is arguable whether Prof. Edwards would have been viewed as a hero and whether there would have been any real effort to address the Flint crisis without the publicity brought to it by people like...Rachel Maddow.

    ReplyDelete
  6. In light of Mao’s comment @4:03 pm, it suggests a question. To Bob Somerby. What does HE consider “liberal?” He identifies himself as one, frequently saying “we liberals.” Sometimes he has used the term “progressive.” It’s not clear if he intends those words as synonyms or not. He uses the term “pseudoliberal” for people he believes think of themselves as liberal but he does not. A term that he never seems to use is “neoliberal”, although that is in common use.

    Outside of Somerby’s own assertion that he is a liberal, there is no evidence that he is one, or more accurately, he never indicates what he specifically means when he uses the term “liberal.” It as a fraught term that allows Somerby’s readers to assign their own pre-conceived meaning to it. Conservatives will understand if their way, Hillary supporters another, Bernie supporters another. The fact is, Somerby never tells us what he actually believes or advocates about any issue, so his use of the term “liberal” for himself is highly ambiguous.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He's looking for something like 'liberalism with a human face', I suppose.

      He doesn't know it's impossible; the only face of liberalism is a hateful, sanctimonious swine...

      Delete
    2. I cannot speak for Bob, but I consider myself a Liberal because (perhaps partial list):
      * I believe government can and should be a force for good by:
      1) reducing the risks individuals run by running various forms of social safety net
      2) running various forms of economic activity where government is better suited than the free market (defense, policing and other emergency services, education, health care...)
      3) regulating various forms of private economic activity to reduce transaction costs and to limit the "tragedy of the commons", whereby public assets are appropriated and consumed by small groups to the detriment of the rest of us
      4) modifying the outcomes of otherwise free markets to prevent inequality reaching excessive levels
      5) performing other pre-marketable tasks of value to us all but not yet supportable by capitalist markets (e.g. basic scientific research)
      * I favor recognizing the intrinsic worth and dignity of each individual citizen, irrespective of a long list of categories both fashionable and ignored; I recognize that our society has had a poor record in this regard, and continues to need to make progress.
      * Believe strongly in democracy as the imperfect form of government that is better than anything else that has been tried
      * Believe that free speech (roughly in line with that to which we pay lip-service, not necessarily the way we actually practice it) is essential to a free and democratic society
      * Believe that we should love, respect and cherish other law-abiding citizens, no matter how wrong they may be in their views
      * That our nation should be of laws and not of men (or even women). This includes the notion that societal punishments of individuals should only be through law and the due process of the justice system.
      * That appropriately regulated free market capitalism is, in certain economic activities, a very efficient way of harnessing the talents of our people to generate wealth for us all.

      I don't know whether Bob would subscribe to all these ideas or have more beliefs to add, but I tend to find myself sympathetic to much of what he says, possibly because we subscribe to similar principles that we both call "Liberal".

      Delete
    3. @mark
      My point is that no one knows what policy proposals Bob calls “liberal.” He simply doesn’t tell us. Being more MLK-like or “less tribal” are not policy positions. When he disagrees with someone he thinks is a liberal, he calls them a pseudoliberal, rather than a “liberal with whom I disagree.” Which begs the question of what he ultimately means by “liberal.” The only position he affirms is an opposition to talk or advocacy of integration in public schools, which puts him outside the mainstream of progressive orthodoxy, which indicates an idiosyncratic definition of “liberal.”

      Delete
    4. 629

      When he says this "The liberal world has begun to ape the conservative world over the past dozen years" - do you not understand what he means by the word liberal there or to whom he is referring?

      When he says "the type of facts we in our our increasingly brain-dead liberal tribe now reflexively disappear from our frequently brain-dead jihads.", do you not understand what he means? Do you not understand to whom he is referring?

      Delete
    5. Alas, 7:17, frequently, they do not. That's why you normally have to scroll past the Mao's, the DinC's, and various other clueless anons (I find respondents to the afore-mentioned particularly annoying) to find posts worth reading.

      Cheers,

      Leroy


      Leroy

      Delete
    6. 7:17,
      I'm not sure, but I think Bob is referring to the talking heads employed by the corporate-owned media, when he refers to "liberals". The corporate-owned media being at all "liberal" is one of Bob's go tos when it comes to repeating Right-wing nonsense talking points.

      Delete
    7. What are the talking points of which you speak?

      Delete
    8. 10:12,
      That the media is 'liberal". And that coastal elites ridicule the Midwest as "flyover country" are the two obvious ones.

      Delete
    9. Do you consider yourself liberal 1122?

      Delete
    10. "My point is that no one knows what policy proposals Bob calls “liberal.” "

      What are you talking about, dembot? A "liberal policy" is whatever your cult leaders say it is.

      Today it's mccarthyism, censorship, middle-eastern wars, open borders.

      Are you questioning any of that, dembot?

      Delete
    11. Here, dembot, a minor example:

      "In 2006, a liberal columnist wrote that 'immigration reduces the wages of domestic workers who compete with immigrants' and that 'the fiscal burden of low-wage immigrants is also pretty clear.' His conclusion: 'We'll need to reduce the inflow of low-skill immigrants.' That same year, a Democratic senator wrote: 'When I see Mexican flags waved at pro-immigration demonstrations, I sometimes feel a flush of patriotic resentment. When I'm forced to use a translator to communicate with the guy fixing my car, I feel a certain frustration.' ... The columnist was (New York Times') Paul Krugman. The senator was Barack Obama."

      https://www.investors.com/politics/columnists/trump-russia-illegal-immigration-larry-elder/

      Delete
    12. Mao crybabybot those "minor" examples are actually poor examples for your argument as they do nothing to bolster them. Your context-limited approach is risible. Here's a lollipop to suck on, wipe your tears and maybe the kids will let you play with them.

      Delete
    13. 1;53,
      So we're taking the word of liberal dembot zombies now? Damn, the Deep State must own your ass lock, stock, and barrel for you to be spreading their lies after 16 months of railing against them.

      Meanwhile, over here in the real world, we realize that stiffing labor is what capitalists do. Immigration or not. When you're done with your crocodile tears, look into the $25/ hour minimum wage laws being pushed by people who really care.

      Delete
    14. "Meanwhile, over here in the real world, we realize that stiffing labor is what capitalists do. Immigration or not."

      Yeah, sure. Go back to sleep, dembot; I'll wake you up when Che is on the ballot.

      "When you're done with your crocodile tears, look into the $25/ hour minimum wage laws being pushed by people who really care."

      Ah, THE PEOPLE WHO REALLY CARE ™ . Of course.

      But hey, didn't you just say that over there in your REAL world stiffing labor is what capitalists do? Minimum wage or not?

      So, what idiot would pay the minimum wage when millions of illegals are pouring in through open borders? Maybe in your REAL world they will, I dunno, but not in this one.

      So, why don't you stuff your virtue-signalling drivel up your dembot ass, where it belongs?

      Delete
    15. Who uses the term "virtue signaling"?

      *****
      In April 2015, writing in The Spectator, British author James Bartholomew used the term to describe public, empty gestures intended to convey socially approved attitude without any associated risk or sacrifice.[9] Bartholomew specifically criticized in-store advertising at Whole Foods Market where a picture of a mother carrying her child on her shoulders under the caption "VALUES MATTER...We are part of a growing consciousness that is bigger than food—one that champions what's good."[10][11][12] He stated that "This a particularly blatant example of the increasingly common phenomenon of what might be called 'virtue signalling'—indicating that you are kind, decent and virtuous".[10] He also applied the phrase to several other media, academic, and political figures.[10] According to Bartholomew, virtue signalling can be either declarations of support, or declarations of hate towards negative things, as a way to hide self-aggrandizing intentions of the signal.[13][9][2]

      In a later article, Bartholomew incorrectly claimed to have invented the phrase.[14] Bartholomew's claims have been challenged by The Boston Globe[3] and The Guardian, although both credited Bartholomew with popularizing the term.[2]


      A criticism of accusing another person of virtue signalling is that in doing so, ironically, one is, as Jane Coaston in the New York Times notes; "trying to signal something about their own values: that they are pragmatic, appropriately cynical, in touch with the painful facts of everyday life."[17] David Shariatmadari in the Guardian argues that this makes it "indistinguishable from the thing it was designed to call out [reproach]: smug posturing from a position of self-appointed authority."[2] Sam Bowman says of this that "saying virtue signalling is hypocritical. It’s often used to try to show that the accuser is above virtue signalling and that their own arguments really are sincere. Of course, this is really just another example of virtue signalling!"[4]


      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling


      On this blog, the answer as far as I can recall is Comrade DinC and Mao, two peas in a pod.

      Delete
    16. "he never indicates what he specifically means when he uses the term “liberal.” It as a fraught term that allows Somerby’s readers to assign their own pre-conceived meaning to it"

      How is that different here than it is anywhere else when someone uses the word liberal without attaching their specific beliefs and meanings to it?

      It's not that hard to figure out what he means. there are people in the corporate media who represent liberals, many of them are guests that work as liberal lobbyists or for liberal think tanks or authors who write books or write articles for liberal magazines and of course there are the liberal politicians themselves including former and current Congresspeople, senators and presidents and presidential candidates and there are bloggers outside the corporate media who represent liberals and liberal issues to whom he is also referring.

      I get it it's a big tent so it's hard to pin down on particular strain of liberalism when it's referred to so broadly, particularly now that there is a civil war brewing beween the entrenched, corporate, corrupt and horrible DNC faction and more left-leaning progressives, but you have to use your mind and your instincts to understand to whom he is referring, it's just not that hard man.

      Delete
    17. Squirming from 'virtue-signalling', dembot?

      Nice. But yeah, it's a mere euphemism. Scratch that, read 'sanctimonious liberal bullshit'.

      Delete
    18. "look into the $25/ hour minimum wage laws being pushed by people who really care"

      Who is that?

      Delete
    19. Mao,
      I remember back when you liberal dembot zombies. Now look at you, campaigning to be named liberal dembot zombie of the year.
      I guess what they say is true, you can hate someone so much you can become them. It's been fascinating watching your metamorphosis.

      Delete
    20. 1:34,
      Mao just wants to be on a winning team. I'm willing to bet, Mao joined the side of liberal dembot zombies after watching Nancy Pelosi wipe the floor with Trump over the State of the Union address. Pelosi looks like the authoritarian in that skirmish, and Mao craves the approval of authoritarians.

      Delete
    21. Mao is a fatherless virgin. Powerless, weak and spawned and stuck in a shithole from which he will never escape, he goes with whatever father figure shows the most power, to represent the daddy and power he never had and never will have.

      Delete
  7. Hey, Bob. U there?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Well, I hope Bob covers the trilogy (Socrates, Plato and of course Aristotle). I'd be down with that. Here's a bit about Socrates for your enjoyment. Part One is worth a look too.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR7ryg1w_IQ

    Leroy

    ReplyDelete
  9. “Teen-aged Trumpists, a Native elder and epithet-yelling blacks! I”

    Yeah, you’re just going through the motions now, eh, Bob?

    ReplyDelete
  10. New year, same as the old.

    ReplyDelete
  11. All of those "tribal" groups were on the mall expressing a point of view. It is not wrong for observers, even on the internet, to respond to those messages. The media didn't put MAGA hats on those kids or give the old man a drum or create those black Hebrews. They went to the mall to pigeon hole themselves and confront others. Somehow Somerby makes this our fault. It isn't.

    ReplyDelete
  12. If Bush and Cheney can be, (and Reagan too), why can't Trump? You're not falling for the Deep State's lies about how Trump isn't a dembot zombie hero, are you?

    ReplyDelete
  13. This is a great thing, I think everyone feels this information is very valuable, thank you

    ReplyDelete
  14. This is a great thing,I think everyone feels this information is very valuable, thank you

    ReplyDelete
  15. But if you can't - no down or not worries, Bob, I understand. It's only natural that as a zombie-dembot yourself, you can only superficially address your cult's atrocities...

    ReplyDelete