My smallpox scar

     Smallpox inoculations began in the early 1700s.  Cotton Mather, the Puritan minister, promoted them.  At this time this was a dangerous practice, since the doctor would lance open a wound and put in scabs or even pus from a smallpox victim.  The procedure gave you smallpox, but usually a mild form.  Some people died, but not nearly as many as those who were not inoculated and caught the disease.

     Ben Franklin, concerned about the cost of the procedure, established a society to inoculate the poor for free.  Washington ordered his troops inoculated, and Jefferson inoculated himself and his children.

     In 1796 an English doctor named Jenner realized that people infected with cowpox, a different disease, were also immunized against smallpox, and those inoculations were not dangerous.  

     The UN and other organizations launched a world-wide effort to eradicate the disease, and in 1980 the World Health Organization announced that smallpox had been eliminated.  I got my immunization long before that .  My grandson doesn’t have a smallpox vaccination scar.  There’s no need.

     Measles has not been eradicated.  A kid just died from measles in Texas because his parents believed that Robert Kennedy, Jr., was correct in saying the vaccine was dangerous.  

    A majority of the United States Senate approved Robert Kennedy, Jr., to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services.  He was nominated by the current President of the United States.  A plurality of Americans voters elected that President.

Trump signs along the highway

Today I drove drove to the nearby town of Palmerton, about 12 miles away.  I saw at least five Trump yard signs or flags in front yards, and I couldn’t help but wonder what these people liked about Donald Trump:

  his renaming the Gulf of Mexico.

  his betrayal of Ukraine.

  the appointment of completely unqualified people to run the government.

  the continuous stream of lies.

  the tariffs.

  the discarded environmental rules.

  the price of eggs.

  voting with Russia at the UN.

  Elon Musk.

I’ll stop there, but you know I could continue in that vein.

These people are living in a bubble.  They either don’t know what is happening or are worshipping Trump in some kind of “cult of personality.”

At least the signs give us the location of the people who are a threat to America’s future.

The Little Red Card

The Little Red Cards are printed by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center in San Jose, CA.  The cards are available in 19 languages including Spanish, Haitian Creole, Punjabi, Tagalog, and Korean.  The card lists rights found in the 5th and 4th amendments of the Bill of Rights.  If you are stopped by an ICE agent, you show him the card.  Don’t say anything.  Just show the card.

They have been very effective.  You can get them on line from the Immigrant Legal Resource Center or from the UFW Foundation.  You, of course, can print them on any kind of paper you want, but it is best to use red card stock.

The card is a fold over.  On the one side is the language of the immigrant; on the other side is the English translation.  Even if you are a citizen, if you look Mexican, or Asian, or Haitian, or even Ukrainian (in other words, if you live in the United States today), you should have one in your wallet.  Also the number of an immigration attorney.  Yes, it has come to this.

The U.S. votes with Russia and North Korea

I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation on the efforts by the U.N. to end colonialism.  I was working on it in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  Most of the French, British, Spanish, and Belgian colonies had become independent by the time I completed my research.  At that time Puerto Rico and Russian client states were not considered colonies.  The Portuguese colonies, Southern Rhodesia, and South West Africa were colonies and the main focus of U.N. efforts.

The idea that one country could simply seize territory from another sovereign country was an antiquated idea.  When Iraq did attempt to conquer Kuwait, a large coalition of countries joined together in a successful attempt to roll back the conquest.  The U.S. was a leader in that effort.

Now we are marking the third anniversary of the attempt by Russia to conquer Ukraine.  Ukraine introduced a resolution to condemn Russian’s aggression and demand Russia’s withdrawal.  93 counties voted in favor of the resolution.  65  countries, including many African countries, China, and India, abstained.  Only 18 U.N. members voted against the resolution.  Some I can’t understand.  Why the Marshall Islands, why Palau, why Eritrea or Mali?  I can, of course, understand Russia, Belarus, and North Korea opposing the resolution.

The one that I will never understand, the one that makes me ashamed, the one that belies the reason the U.N. was brought into being in San Francisco in 1945, the one that betrays every ideal of international law was the U.S. vote.   

Paddington goes to London

 When Aunt Lucy sends Paddington to London with a tag around his neck, he is understandably worried.  All the tag says is “Please take care of this bear.”

Aunt Lucy then tells him about the War.  “Thousands of children were sent away for safety, left at railway stations with tags around their necks, and unknown families took them in and loved them like their own.”

Aunt Lucy was referring to the “Kindertransport,” a rescue operation that brought thousands of Jewish children from Germany, sent by their families who, correctly, feared for their lives.  The program stopped when Hitler invaded Poland.

Now we have a President who would say Poland invaded Germany.  After all, that is what Hitler claimed.  And we have Elon Musk, who thinks it is ok to give a Nazi salute.  And we have Steve Bannon who goes to a conservative conference and grins and gives the Nazi salute.  And we have J.D. Vance who goes to Europe and praises fascist parties.

What will you do if you know undocumented immigrants in your neighborhood who have kids, and one of them asks if you will care for one of their children when they are deported?

If you haven’t seen the first Paddington movie, I don’t think I’m spoiling anything to tell you that Paddington did find a family to take him in.

The leopards are on the prowl

I will now quote an entire paragraph from an article by Patricia Mazzei in today’s New York Times, p. A13:

So far, few Venezuelans who voted for Mr. Trump are abandoning him.  Instead they are walking a fine line, supporting his fight against illegal immigration but contending that most Venezuelans with T.P.S. should not get caught up in it.  [T.P.S. is Temporary Protected Status, which allows certain immigrants from unstable countries to live and work in the U.S.]  Even though Mr. Trump derided programs like T.P.S. on the campaign trail, many Venezuelan America voters say they expected any crackdown to focus on unauthorized immigrants with criminal records.

I won’t say any more about that.

Going to hell in a high-speed handbasket

I knew it was going to be bad.  I knew our system of government could be changed forever.  What I didn’t know was how fast it would happen or how blatant it would be.

Supporting Russia over Ukraine and saying Ukraine started the war.

Laying off government employees protected under the rules of civil service.

Interfering with local policies, like New York’s congestion law.

Going after media outlets that are critical of the administration.

Allowing people without credentials to examine our personal files.

Insulting and threatening allies.

Using the military against American civilians.

I’ll stop there, but that list could be extended and extended again.

I also thought some of the members of his own party, some of his billionaire friends, even public opinion would limit his actions.  It is not happening.  It seems we live in a country full of weak and spineless people.

The casual cruelty of racism

 In a recent New York Times article  (Feb.15, 2025) on things to do in St. Petersburg, Florida, the very first suggested place to visit was the St. Petersburg Museum of History.  The museum features exhibits on weather, baseball, and the alleged fountain of youth, all of which turned the town into a major tourist attraction.  You can see the world’s largest collection of autographed baseballs here.  

You can also see an exhibit on “the highwaymen.”  These were 26 African American artists who (one was a woman) who were unable to exhibit their works in Florida galleries because they were black.  They would stand along Highway 1 in the 1960s and 70s to sell their paintings and make a living, hence the name “the highwaymen.”

How petty.  How mean. 

Here's two samples.

Some questions about Palestinians and Israelis

 Why, when the ceasefire exchanges are reported, are the Israelis called hostages and the Palestinians called prisoners?

Why do the Israelis seem to have so many “prisoners” to exchange.  When were they captured?  Were they all combatants?  Where were they kept?  Were they mistreated?

Why have 40,000 Palestinians left the West Bank in recent months?

Why are illegal settlements on the West Bank protected by the Israeli army?

Why aren’t more Israeli settlers punished for burning Palestinian homes and intimidating and even killing Palestinians on the West Bank?

Why is the Trump administration now talking about the end of the “two-state” solution and using 3000-year-old Biblical names for the West Bank?

Why isn’t more attention paid to the fact that approximately 50,000 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, many of them women and children?

What is the difference between “ethnic cleansing” carried out by Serbia and that proposed for Gaza by the Trump administration?

When was the idealistic vision of the original Zionists abandoned?

Why will some people call this post anti-Semitic?  It isn’t, and if you think it is, you need to re-examine your beliefs.

Another ineffective liberal protest

Today I asked my friend what she thought was the most impressive protest action she could think of.  After about five seconds, she said, “The 1963 March on Washington.”

“Right,” I replied.

The March on Washington i had hundreds of thousands of participants.  It took months to organize.  It had first aid stations, march monitors, porta potties, loud speakers, singers, people to pass out water, bus parking.  It took place before word could be spread on the internet, because there was no internet.  No cell phones.  Just organizers who had some experience and a simple message.  Equal rights.

I’ve read that on Feb. 28 we aren’t supposed to buy anything unless it is from small businesses.  It is supposed to show our power.

Against what?  For what?  How will we know if it succeeded?  What if everybody just postpones purchases until March 1?  What is a small business?

Suppose MAGA said, “We won’t buy anything on Feb. 28 to show our power.”  How would I respond?  I’d run down to Lowes or Dollar General and buy all kinds of stuff.  I’d show them.

I have participated in quite a few local demonstrations at the Jim Thorpe Courthouse.  We always alerted the cops.  We also alerted the newspapers and local tv stations.  We had a definite purpose, like “Stop the Penn East Pipeline” or “Save Mauch Chunk Lake, or “No Sewage Sludge on Carbon County Farms” or “Support Ukraine,” or “Stand with Standing Rock” against the Dakota access pipeline.

We always had press coverage and interviews Two of those battles we won, with three on-going.  They were small demonstrations, but we had signs ready, speakers lined up, monitors to keep demonstrators from doing stupid stuff.  We were organized.  Phone calls were made.  Commitments were locked in.  We didn’t just put out a call on Facebook for people to show up.

Don’t worry.  I won’t buy anything on Feb. 28.  I don’t buy anything on most days.  And this “action” will have about as much effect as if I go down to the edge of Beltzville Lake and toss a rock into the water.

How did we ever get this stupid?

I saw a meme today that said something like,”If you never had diphtheria, polio, smallpox, whooping cough, or measles, thank a vaccine.”  I’ve had measles, mumps, and chicken pox because when I was a kid, we didn’t have those vaccines.  We didn’t even have a vaccine for polio.

I was better off than my grandmother.  Three of her siblings died in the same week from diphtheria.  

Now I learn that the Louisiana Health Department says it will end media campaigns or health fairs to promote vaccines against preventable diseases.  Doctors should discuss the “risks” of vaccines with their patients.  The Department will “no longer promote mass vaccination.”

Louisiana is experiencing a surge in flu this winter.  It has a lower life expectancy than most states.  This is positively Darwinian.

Some of the info for this post is from Tim Balk,”Louisiana Health Dept. Says Vaccination Pushes Will End,” New York Times, (Feb. 15, 2025), p. A19

Should I shoot cowbirds?

My father, who knew a great deal about the natural world, nonetheless felt that foxes were less desirable than rabbits.  After all, foxes were predators and rabbits were “nice” animals that ate plants.  Plus foxes eat chickens.  According to Natalie Angier, who wrote about prejudices against certain animals, Dad’s attitude would have been an example of “biobigotry.”  

She said we tend to think of animals using human judgements.  Cowbirds lay their eggs in other birds’ nests, bluebirds for example.  Cowbird eggs tend to hatch earlier than most bird species, so the host birds then feed the cowbird babies.  The cowbird chicks will eventually toss the other birds out of the nest.

To a human, the cowbirds represent laziness of the worst type.  They seem parasitic.  Plus they are among the “ugliest” of birds with drab brown and black feathers.

I’ve had this discussion with my daughter, who thinks shooting cowbirds is wrong.  However, cowbirds are in no danger of extinction.  In fact, they are thriving.  Eastern bluebirds, on the other hand, have declined precipitously in the last 50 years, mostly due to suburbanization, industrial farming, and loss of habitat.  Cowbirds love bluebird nests.  My argument is that we have already screwed up the environment, and since we have tinkered with it to such a large extent, we are justified in trying to rectify some of our mistakes.

This is why we cannot allow certain exotic non-native species to gain a foothold.  Perhaps the worst example of introduced species messing up an ecosystem is Australia.  Here we have our own problems with feral house cats, kudzu, and even white-tailed deer, a native species that has lost its predators.  We need to put our thumb on the scale.

Dear Elmo, thanks for asking

Just a bit over a year ago Elmo of Sesame Street fame tweeted a question to his 457,000 followers on X.  It was a simple question:  “Elmo is just checking in!  How is everybody doing?’

He received thousands of responses.  “Elmo I’m depressed and broke” was one.  People wrote that xthey had been laid off, were anxious about 2024 (with good reason), or their dog had rolled in goose feces.  How about “Elmo each day the abyss we stare into grows into a unique horror.  One that was previously unfathomable in nature.  Our inevitable doom which once accelerated in years or months now accelerates in hours, even minutes.”

In all Elmo received over 9000 responses.  Elmo replied the next day, “Wow!  Elmo is glad he asked!  Elmo learned it is important to ask a friend how they are doing.”

What would people say now?  I can’t think of one thing that has improved since last February.  Not a single one.

Information for this post is from Callie Holtermann, “The Day Elmo Asked An Innocent Question,” New York Times , (Feb. 4, 2024).

By the way, dear readers, I am planning to go a week without mentioning the orange bozo in the White House unless I just can’t help myself.

The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization

That’s the subtitle of the book Material World by Ed Conway (Knopf, 2023).  According to Mr. Conway, the six are lithium, which is essential for the batteries for electric vehicles.  If you have followed any discussions of batteries, you probably would have guessed that one.  You might also know that the supply is rather limited.  The other five aren’t as evident, at least to me.  They are sand, salt, iron, copper and oil.  

I might have guessed copper, iron, and oil.  Without coppers no electric generators.  Without iron, no steel.  Without oil–well, you know what would happen.  Salt I didn’t know about.  It is used in many chemicals and pharmaceuticals.  Sand is used for glass and even concrete, and evidently there is a world-wide shortage of sand.  Who knew?

General George Washington and smallpox

General George Washington required soldiers in the Continental Army to be vaccinated against smallpox.  That was in the 1770s.

A measure of how far we have regressed is that today a majority of the U.S. Senate approved the appointment of Robert Kennedy, Jr., to head an agency that deals with the health of Americans.

The pettiness is amazing

The interesting thing is that you knew exactly to whom I am referring.  There is something really weird about a President who obsesses over plastic straws.  Actually, you don’t need a straw if you carefully hold your glass with both hands and bring it carefully up to your mouth.

He will no longer talk the Associated Press because they refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of Mexico. 

The constant worry that someone is getting the better of Trump is also weird.  Today Trump said the executive branch would stop enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977.  This is an act that prevents American companies from bribing foreign officials.  The act has been enforced many times, including a recent fine for WalMart for bribing Mexican officials.

Trump thinks the act harms American businesses.  He said “it’s a disaster.”  By allowing American companies to bribe foreign officials, “It’s going to mean a lot more business for America.”  

Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama and Biden had no problems with the the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.