2021 Pandemic Response - Seeking One True Size To Fit All

Here on a foggy mountaintop in Marshall, Arkansas (population 1300 and change), I'm preparing my family's bags to return to our disparate homes - Vermont, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Brooklyn and London. The kids are adults with careers and degree studies in Europe, my partner has a continued sabbatical in Spain. I should have more time to blog when I'm on my own again, though re-making this thing over and pruning back to the best branches seems daunting.

So let's try this. I can explain and represent the views of my conservative red-hat Trump was robbed family members to my more educated, more erudite liberal relatives. First, let me explain something to blog readers - the reddest of states has both.

Here is a conservative in my family who I wuld not want to become sick. He's 89. He loves oysters. He lives in the South of France, where vaccine hesitancy is highest. Today's blog will use CV-19 policy and opinion variance to illustrate how there is not "one correct answer". 

(Publishing prematureley as a place holder, last post of 2021 Coming back to edit, time to pack the car).

Anti-Anti-Liberals: Moore (In)digestion of "Planet of the Humans"

Renewable energy is only necessary, certainly not sufficient. Planet of the Humans is too harsh on its arguable over-emphasis, but anti-Moore reaction misses an important point... Carbon policy needs to share Earth Day's platform with rain forest action, emerging market litter collection, palm oil plantation reform, and other environmental causes. People don't care about 4 degree average temperature, even if that would be fatal. People care about baby animals, and extinction, and those thinks are disappearing at a rate that 350.org is not addressing.  To boil it all down to a tweet:

Robin I

@WR3A

·

Planet of the Humans? Bushmeat hunting + overfishing + burning rainforest for pastures + palm oil demand + wet markets + shark fin soup adds up to a disaster is more critical than carbon. But none of those crises add to

@MMFlint

@jeffgibbstc

anti-corporation thesis Fixing climate is necessary, not sufficient

That's the best I can do at defending, and de-fanging, Planet of the Humans. As a documentary, it sucks. The reporter is trying to be at the center of his own story. Second, it's a case study in "gotcha-ism", the presentation of anecdotes for the sole purpose of damaging the personal reputations of decent people, not just the flaws in their positions. That's a recipe for bad journalism.

Here is a link to addressing @MMFlint (Michael Moore) and @JeffGibbstc and their army of detractors, harvesting the best arguments from both sides... Followed by my meta-comments.

The COVID-19 Bottom Line: Some Societies Can Afford To Insure The Elderly. Some Can't.

This will be brief, and I don't want to "bury the story" yesterday about concrete things recyclers in wealthy societies can do to preserve their businesses.

Bloomberg columnist Adam Minter just published a big truth. In some of the 7 billion people world, there is enough stimulus to finance "flattening the curve". In other places, there is not.

Right To Repair During Pandemic

This morning brings an astute opinion page article by Adam Minter of Bloomberg, about how we are more vulnerable today to anti-reuse and anti-repair (planned obsolescence) strategies today than we were a couple of months ago. Apple has closed its "authorized" repair hubs, and the crackdown on trade in Asia during the pandemic has made replacement devices much more difficult and timely to order.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-28/apple-s-rules-make-iphone-repairs-hard-to-get-amid-coronavirus?srnd=opinion

This excellently explained column may give Right To Repair legislation the push that it needs in Vermont. I will certainly be sending it to my legislators in Addison County.

Adam Minter is a swordfish - a reader who is interested in, understands, and re-conveys messages better and more broadly than you can. The meta-blogger should not be interested only in the number of readers (the most widely prescribed blogging strategy) or page rank, but in the ability to draw in a deeper intellectual with the capacity to make change. Of the three books of 1960 which influenced me deeply - To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper), Silent Spring (Carlson), and The Waste Makers (Packard) - the third is perhaps most under threat by big manufacturers. It is getting cut out of school books. More below on why that matters...

Fishing for Swordfish

(This blog is both about a personal history on the subject of interest - right to repair - and also a commentary on "meta-blogging" which is a strategy of writing dense blogs that attract fewer - but more influential - followers)