“The Past is . . .Not Even Past.”* 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Monnica T Williams discusses how racist stereotypes rooted in attempts to justify America’s original sin of chattel slavery have become accepted as fact in medicine. Specifically, she cites test used to diagnose asthma, a condition she must deal with. A couple of excerpts:
- A repiratory test called spirometry measures how well a person’s lungs are functioning.
- For Black people, the predicted normal values are adjusted 10–15% lower than for White people.
(snip)
A groundbreaking study by Diao and colleagues, published this year in The New England Journal of Medicine, showed that gold standard race-adjusted equations in lung-function tests underestimate the severity of Black patients’ lung problems and overestimate the severity of White patient lung problems, reinforcing inequalities in healthcare. These race-based calculations normalize lowered lung function for Black people, making them seem healthier than they are. In contrast, White people’s results are based on more sensitive classifications, leading to better access to care, support, and disability benefits.
Her entire article is worth your while. It illustrates how deeply racist stereotypes created to justify chattel slavery and theft of labor permeate and pollute our polity–even tainting so-called “hard” science–to this day.
As if the last election was not proof enough.
______________________
The Rule of Flaw 0
Kimball Shinkoskey, writing at the Las Vegas Sun, is somewhat less than optimistic about the potential effects of the Supreme Supremacist Court’s decision to fabricate from thin air without any precedent whatsoever the doctrine of “presidential impunity immunity.”
Republican Thought Police 0
Farron points out that, if it looks like a book ban, walks like book ban, and talks like a book ban, well, it’s a book ban.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Yet “responsible gun owner” feels compelled to expose his portable phallus in public.
Too much iron. Too many idiots.
Stray Thought 0
When persons loudly and repeatedly crow about how patriotic they are, they probably aren’t.
QOTD 0
Alison Golden and Grace Dagnall, in the thoughts of Inspector Graham as he takes notes using (gasp!) a notepad:
It was easy to appear a dinosaur these days if you hadn’t turned over the running of your life . . . to a couple of gadgets.
Golden, Alison and Dagnall, Grace, The Case of the Screaming Beauty in
The Inspector Graham Mysteries 1-4 (San Carlos: Mesa Verde, 2915) p.46.
The Council of Bent 0
Methinks a strong case can be made that, when Donald Trump considers someone for a cabinet post, the primary, if not the only, question he asks is, “Will this person faithfully and obediently lick my boots?“
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Guns and stupid, guns and stupid.
They go together like love and Cupid.
Let me tell you brother,
You can’t have one without the other.
Pay Attention to the Man behind the Curtain 0
David R Clawson, writing at Psychology Today Blogs, argues that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz can be seen as an allegory for the time in which it was written, that is, the heart of the Gilded Age, and also as an allegory for this, the New Gilded Age. Methinks he makes a good point, as witness this excerpt (only substitute the phrase, “successful businessman” for “wizard”):
I commend his piece to your attention.
The Bully’s Pulpit 0
Steve M. detects a pattern.
Follow the link for his reasoning.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
The serial: Dick Tracy’s G-Men, episode three, which I saw on Tubi.
The dialog: I left orders with the Coast Guard.
The closed caption: I left daughters with the Coast Guard.
The intelligence: Artificial.
The stupid: It burns.
The afterthought: I have daughters. As one who used to be a boater, I have a lot of respect for the Coast Guard, but I’m not sure I’d leave my daugh–oh, never mind.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Practice politeness while paying for your purchases.
The stupid. It wounds.