Eternally Impermanent

Truth is eternal - or so we think.

Truth is eternal - but not necessarily what we think is the truth right now.

Truth is eternal - so we think, and think we must.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson via MSNBC:

A Comparative Book Review

(pay wall)

Tuesday’s election was just practice for the real race coming up next week. Former First Lady Michelle Obama and former Vice President Mike Pence are both releasing memoirs on Nov. 15:

“The Light We Carry” vs. “So Help Me God.”

It hardly feels like a fair contest: Michelle Obama is one of the most popular and dynamic public figures in the world. Mike Pence once lulled a fly to sleep on his own head.

Even the titles — Obama’s misty spirituality and Pence’s patriotic theology — suggest the differences between these two authors. But both their books are fundamentally a response to the same tragedy: the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.

Obama has said that watching the insurrection on TV inspired her to find ways to cope with “uncertain times.” Pence’s title alludes to his pledge to defend the Constitution when President Trump incited a gang chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.”

This week, Obama and Pence have cranked up publicity directed at their respective audiences – groups that can be represented by a Venn diagram containing one circle the size of the sun and another one, outside of it, the size of a golf ball. In 2018, Obama’s memoir “Becoming” sold an astonishing 2 million copies in its first 15 days, and she launched a worldwide book tour involving conversations with various celebrities. Today, Obama is the subject of a hard-hitting interview with People magazine where she explains the challenges of being incredibly beautiful, rich and famous. In this “exclusive” story, she reveals that she knits, watches HGTV and nurtures a circle of women friends “even when it’s uncomfortable.”

As Trump’s hood ornament for four years, Pence is unlikely to generate much enthusiasm from Democrats; and as the man who resisted the Big Lie, he can’t count on heavy promotion from Fox News. But in the Wall Street Journal, Pence is running a 2,500-word excerpt of “So Help Me God” — and not just any excerpt: For the first time, the former vice president reveals his thoughts and actions before, during and after the Jan. 6 insurrection.

As a sales strategy, giving potential readers a preview of his narrative skills is a risky move. Despite protecting the Union from its greatest threat in 160 years, Pence describes that calamity with all the verve and insight of a man telling us how he loads the dishwasher. It’s a peculiar act of historical revisionism — as though the paragraphs have been sprayed with a mixture of fire retardant and Ambien. So powerful is the life-sapping force of his prose that, so help me God, even his descriptions of Trump sound dull.

But regardless of what you think of either of these authors, the publishing world needs some big hits. An industry analyst at NPD BookScan warns that this holiday bookselling season is shaping up to be significantly slower than last year’s. So, please, buy books like you vote — early and often!

A Brief Passage

1894

Perhaps the highest praise an author can receive, John Steinbeck’s depiction of the harsh working conditions in Depression-era California was so brutal that it was banned in the county the Joad family moves to, despite historians confirming that Steinbeck’s portrayal was true-to-life. Local officials in Kern County convinced workers to burn the book in a number of photo opportunities, ironically further enforcing the manipulation experienced by migrant workers in the area that Steinbeck portrays so blisteringly well in The Grapes of Wrath.

Excerpt, Chapter 25:

There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our successes. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And the children dying of hunger, must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificates - "died of malnutrition" - because the food must rot if not sold at a profit.

...and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy - growing heavy for the vintage.

The soliloquy:

Read This Book

Strongmen - Ruth Ben-Guiat

From the publisher:

What modern authoritarian leaders have in common (and how they can be stopped).

Ruth Ben-Ghiat is the expert on the "strongman" playbook employed by authoritarian demagogues from Mussolini to Putin—enabling her to predict with uncanny accuracy the recent experience in America. In Strongmen, she lays bare the blueprint these leaders have followed over the past 100 years, and empowers us to recognize, resist, and prevent their disastrous rule in the future.

For ours is the age of authoritarian rulers: self-proclaimed saviors of the nation who evade accountability while robbing their people of truth, treasure, and the protections of democracy. They promise law and order, then legitimize lawbreaking by financial, sexual, and other predators.

They use masculinity as a symbol of strength and a political weapon. Taking what you want, and getting away with it, becomes proof of male authority. They use propaganda, corruption, and violence to stay in power.

Vladimir Putin and Mobutu Sese Seko’s kleptocracies, Augusto Pinochet’s torture sites, Benito Mussolini and Muammar Gaddafi’s systems of sexual exploitation, and Silvio Berlusconi and Donald Trump’s relentless misinformation: all show how authoritarian rule, far from ensuring stability, is marked by destructive chaos.

No other type of leader is so transparent about prioritizing self-interest over the public good. As one country after another has discovered, the strongman is at his worst when true guidance is most needed by his country.

Recounting the acts of solidarity and dignity that have undone strongmen over the past 100 years, Ben-Ghiat makes vividly clear that only by seeing the strongman for what he is—and by valuing one another as he is unable to do—can we stop him, now and in the future.

Big History

They knew the history, and so they knew something like COVID was coming 15 years ago.

Bush didn't do enough - IMO because he was too busy fuckin' around with the Cheney/Rumsfeld project to conquer the oil world.

Obama took it more seriously, and managed to do more, but still not enough - IMO because of little public interest in it, and (largely) Republican fuckery, ie: "sequestration" as a means to hamstring progressive policies.

45* comes along and shit-cans the whole structure - on purpose - in order to destabilize the government and open the way to authoritarian plutocratic rule.

And now we're on our way to a million dead Americans, as our system of democratic self-governance is teetering on the brink.

The last 3 chapters plus the afterword go a long way towards explaining how stupidly we've been acting.

On Learning From History

I just finished listening to Timothy Snyder's "On Tyranny" for the 2nd time.

Snyder put it out as Trump was beginning his efforts to entrench the Daddy State in 2017.

So even though Trump himself is slowly being extricated, the Plutocracy Project continues apace - and it's every bit as lock-step authoritarian as anything Qult45 tried to do, but maybe even more dangerous because they're very busily trying to put a friendlier face on it - Glenn Youngkin and Josh Hawley come to mind.

The outline:

1. Do not obey in advance. Much of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then start to do it without being asked. You've already done this, haven't you? Stop. Anticipatory obedience teaches authorities what is possible and accelerates unfreedom.
2. Defend an institution. Follow the courts or the media, or a court or a newspaper. Do not speak of “our institutions” unless you are making them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions don't protect themselves. They go down like dominoes unless each is defended from the beginning.
3. Recall professional ethics. When the leaders of state set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become much more important. It is hard to break a rule-of-law state without lawyers, and it is hard to have show trials without judges.
4. When listening to politicians, distinguish certain words. Look out for the expansive use of “terrorism” and “extremism.” Be alive to the fatal notions of “exception” and “emergency.” Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.
5. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that all authoritarians at all times either await or plan such events in order to consolidate power. Think of the Reichstag fire. The sudden disaster that requires the end of the balance of power, the end of opposition parties, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Don't fall for it.
6. Be kind to our language. Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. (Don't use the Internet before bed. Charge your gadgets away from your bedroom, and read.) What to read? Perhaps The Power of the Powerless by Václav Havel, 1984 by George Orwell, The Captive Mind by Czesław Milosz, The Rebel by Albert Camus, The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, or Nothing is True and Everything is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev.
7. Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy, in words and deeds, to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. And the moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.
8. Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.
9. Investigate. Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on your screen is there to harm you. Learn about sites that investigate foreign propaganda pushes.
10. Practice corporeal politics. Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.
11. Make eye contact and small talk. This is not just polite. It is a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down unnecessary social barriers, and come to understand whom you should and should not trust. If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life.
12. Take responsibility for the face of the world. Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate. Do not look away and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.
13. Hinder the one-party state. The parties that took over states were once something else. They exploited a historical moment to make political life impossible for their rivals. Vote in local and state elections while you can.
14. Give regularly to good causes, if you can. Pick a charity and set up autopay. Then you will know that you have made a free choice that is supporting civil society helping others doing something good.
15. Establish a private life. Nastier rulers will use what they know about you to push you around. Scrub your computer of malware. Remember that email is skywriting. Consider using alternative forms of the Internet, or simply using it less. Have personal exchanges in person. For the same reason, resolve any legal trouble. Authoritarianism works as a blackmail state, looking for the hook on which to hang you. Try not to have too many hooks.
16. Learn from others in other countries. Keep up your friendships abroad, or make new friends abroad. The present difficulties here are an element of a general trend. And no country is going to find a solution by itself. Make sure you and your family have passports.
17. Watch out for the paramilitaries. When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching around with torches and pictures of a Leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-Leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the game is over.
18. Be reflective if you must be armed. If you carry a weapon in public service, God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no. (If you do not know what this means, contact the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and ask about training in professional ethics.)
19. Be as courageous as you can. If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die in unfreedom.
20. Be a patriot. President Trump is not. Set a good example of what America means for the generations to come. They will need it.

Yes - We Are Slouching

We've arrived at a place where the ever-more radicalized rubes are being manipulated in a way that will - if unchecked - lead to bloodshed.

The Good Germans have to stand up to this shit or we'll be going over the edge fairly soon.

We need more than a few August Landmessers.

WaPo: (pay wall)

‘I think we should throw those books in a fire’: Movement builds on right to target books

Perhaps the most infamous quote of the 2021 Virginia governor’s race — and indeed of any 2021 race — belongs to Democrat Terry McAuliffe: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

What many people might not have fully processed is that the quote stemmed from a debate about books in schools. Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin (R) had attacked McAuliffe for, as governor, vetoing a bill to allow parents to opt their children out of reading assignments they deem to be explicit. The impetus was a famous book from Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, “Beloved,” about an enslaved Black woman who kills her 2-year-old daughter to prevent her from being enslaved herself.

While that effort took place years ago, it was rekindled as a political issue at a telling time. Not only are conservatives increasingly targeting school curriculums surrounding race, but there’s also a building and often-related effort to rid school libraries of certain books.

The effort has been varied in the degree of its fervor and the books it has targeted, but one particular episode this week showed just what can happen when it’s taken to its extremes. Shortly after the election result in Virginia, a pair of conservative school board members in the same state proposed not just banning certain books deemed to be sexually explicit, but burning them.

As the Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star reported Tuesday:

Two board members, Courtland representative Rabih Abuismail and Livingston representative Kirk Twigg, said they would like to see the removed books burned.

“I think we should throw those books in a fire,” Abuismail said, and Twigg said he wants to “see the books before we burn them so we can identify within our community that we are eradicating this bad stuff.”

Abuismail reportedly added that allowing one particular book to remain on the shelves even briefly meant the schools “would rather have our kids reading gay pornography than about Christ.”

It’s easy to caricature a particular movement with some of its most extreme promoters. And there is a demonstrated history of efforts to ban books in schools, including by liberals. Such efforts have often involved classics such as “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Of Mice and Men” for their depictions of race and use of racist language more commonly used at the time the books were written. More recently, conservatives have often challenged books teaching kids about LGBTQ issues.

But advocates say what’s happening now is more pronounced.

“What has taken us aback this year is the intensity with which school libraries are under attack,” said Nora Pelizzari, a spokeswoman at the National Coalition Against Censorship.

She added that the apparent coordination of the effort sets it apart: “Particularly when taken in concert with the legislative attempts to control school curricula, this feels like a more overarching attempt to purge schools of materials that people disagree with. It feels different than what we’ve seen in recent years.”

Even as the news broke Tuesday in Virginia, another school board just outside Wichita, announced that it was removing 29 books from circulation. Among them were another Morrison book, “The Bluest Eye,” and writings about racism in America including August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Fences,” as well as “They Called Themselves the K.K.K.,” a history of the white supremacist group. The books haven’t technically been banned, but rather aren’t available for checking out pending a review.

“At this time, the district is not in a position to know if the books contained on this list meet our educational goals or not,” a school official said in an email.

The day before, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) issued an executive order calling on state education officials to review the books available to students for “pornography and other obscene content.” Abbott indicated before the order that such content needed to be examined and removed if it was found. He reportedly did not specify what the “obscene content” standard for books should be.

Abbott added Wednesday that the Texas Education Agency should report any instances of pornography being made available to minors “for prosecution to the fullest extent of the law.”

The effort builds upon a review launched last month by state Rep. Michael Krause (R), who is running for state attorney general. Krause is targeting books that “contain material that might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex or convey that a student, by virtue of their race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.”

Krause doesn’t say what he intends to recommend about such books, but he accompanied his inquiry with a list of more than 800 of them, including two Pulitzer Prize winners: “The Confessions of Nat Turner” by William Styron and “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

There has also been an effort by Republicans in Wisconsin not focused on books, but broadly on the use of certain terminology in teaching students. As the Hill’s Reid Wilson reported about the state GOP’s particular effort to ban critical race theory from schools:

[State Rep. Chuck] Wichgers (R), who represents Muskego in the legislature, attached an addendum to his legislation that included a list of “terms and concepts” that would violate the bill if it became law.

Among those words: “Woke,” “whiteness,” “White supremacy,” “structural bias,” “structural racism,” “systemic bias” and “systemic racism.” The bill would also bar “abolitionist teaching,” in a state that sent more than 91,000 soldiers to fight with the Union Army in the Civil War.
The list of barred words or concepts includes “equity,” “inclusivity education,” “multiculturalism” and “patriarchy,” as well as “social justice” and “cultural awareness.”

Ed Note: If a law makes it illegal to mention words and phrases like "woke" and "social injustice" and "systemic racism", then it becomes illegal to teach anyone about that law.

And don't dismiss this as dumbass politicians who don't know what they're doing. They know. It's all part-n-parcel of Daddy State conditioning. 

Back in September, a school district in Pennsylvania reversed a year-long freeze on certain books almost exclusively by or about people of color. A similar thing happened in Katy, Tex., near Houston, where graphic novels about Black children struggling to fit in were removed and quickly reinstated last month. Many such fights have been concentrated in Texas.

There has also been a recent effort by a conservative group in Tennessee to ban books written for young readers about the civil rights struggle. Supporters cite the anti-critical race theory law the state passed earlier this year. And school officials in Virginia Beach recently announced they’d review books, including ones about LGBTQ issues and Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” after complaints from school board members.

Indeed, oftentimes the books involved are the same.

As the Los Angeles Times reported this week, such battles are part of a much larger debate over excluding books that has been injected with new intensity amid the anti-critical race theory push and now, apparently, with the demonstrated electoral success of that approach.

The Spotsylvania County, Va., example is an important one to pick out. While the two members floating burning books have aligned with conservatives, the vote was unanimous. It was 6-0 in favor of reviewing the books for sexually explicit content. School officials expressed confidence in their vetting process but acknowledged it’s possible certain books with objectionable content got through that process.

The question, as with critical race theory, is in how wide a net is cast. Sexually explicit content is one thing; targeting books that make students uncomfortable or deal in sensitive but very real subjects like racial discrimination is another.

There is clearly an audience in the conservative movement for more broadly excluding subjects involving the history of racism and how it might impact modern life. And while it’s difficult to capture the targeting of books on a quantitative level nationwide, this is an undersold subplot in the conservative effort to raise concerns about what children might learn in school.

Beau Of The Fifth Column:

"We have moved on to the literal book-burning portion of the show."

BTW - If great-great-great grandpa was hanged as a horse thief in Oklahoma 140 years ago, and I tell that story as part of the family lore sitting at dinner on some random Sunday, I'm not teaching my kids to hate their family. I'm telling them the truth about something that actually happened.

That Deep State Thing

Yes, there's a conspiracy against 45*.

Just as there was a conspiracy against Nixon.

And a conspiracy against McCarthy.

(And Al Capone and Ted Bundy - but that's a slightly different angle on the story)

If we're to have any hope of surviving as a republic, we have to insist on a government planted thick with career professionals "conspiring against" the liars crooks and losers who intend to use the law (specifically, the loopholes in the law - the Smarmspace) in order to rule over us instead of serving the greater good.

I've made plenty of noise about entrenched bureaucracies, but my beef is about people in government who get too cozy with the people they're supposed to be regulating - too much of an interlocking-interests kinda thing.

As Cult45 devotees continue to remove the support structure, we're seeing the implosion of our system of self-goverment, and it seems to be rapidly accelerating towards collapse - at which time we can either regenerate it, or kiss it goodbye forever.

The New Yorker:

Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, told me that the Administration is propagating a long-held conspiracy theory to justify its behavior. “My understanding is that Trump, Giuliani, and others in the Administration believe that there is a deep-state conspiracy in the State Department against the President and that Masha Yovanovitch was part of this.” Her recall from Kiev, he said, “was a consequence of that conspiracy theory.”

The Deep State conspiracy theory is hardly confined to the West Wing, Murphy went on: “I hear this, too, from my Republican Senate colleagues. There is a belief that there is a group in every corner of the government that is out to get Trump. There really are morally centered people who find him deeply distasteful, and it is required of them to raise questions of corruption if they see it. The Trump Administration sees that as a conspiracy.”

I may be indulging in a simple Argument From Ignorance, but when I look at what has to be obvious - Trump's corruption and outright law-breaking - and I see a Republican party hellbent on maintaining solidarity with him - and perpetrating all manner of anti-democracy rat-fuckery - how do I conclude anything other than this being a deliberate effort to tear down the republic in order to replace it with plutocracy?

In Passing On Passing

Walker Bragman, The Independent:

How does one eulogize a villain? It’s a question I find myself asking today after reading the news that David H Koch has died. What else can we really call a man who spent his entire adult life enriching himself at the expense of the world around him, leaving in his wake millions of destroyed lives, a planet on the brink of ecological catastrophe, and a nuclear superpower governed by a far-right political party? 

While it is generally impolitic to castigate someone after death, in the case of David Koch, it’s hard not to point out that his life’s work was the destruction of others. 

Koch went by many titles — billionaire industrialist, businessman, philanthropist, entrepreneur, conservative activist, libertarian vice presidential candidate — and I expect we’ll see many of those thrown around today. But “villain” is the one that suited him best.

Indeed, such is the appropriate term for a profoundly wealthy man who relies on a shadowy network of political advocacy groups to sell unpopular, detrimental policies to unsuspecting voters for the purposes of personal gain. 

Along with a 42 per cent stake in Koch Industries, David inherited what could be described as a pathological distaste for government from his father, a founding member of the far-right John Birch Society and a man who reportedly once built an oil refinery for Nazi Germany. Together with his brother Charles, David would use both to reshape America for the worse.

David and Charles, colloquially known as the infamous “Koch Brothers,” poured money into causes like climate change denial to ensure their fossil fuel empire remained profitable for as long possible. They went after public education, throwing their cash behind voucher programs in states like Arizona, which ranked 47 in the nation for its public schools last year. They went after unions through proxies like former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. They targeted Social Security for privatization. According to one report, they even tried to hamper cleanup efforts after Hurricane Katrina. 

And these are just some of the worthy causes David Koch and his brother used their vast fortunes to pursue. The reality is, given the porous nature of America’s campaign finance laws, there is no way of truly knowing the complete extent of their political ventures. 

David Koch’s legacy is truly one of injustice. For as much injustice as there was in how he lived, there is much more in how he died. Rather than slip into obscurity, forgotten by the generations that will hopefully do the work of undoing the damage he caused the planet, Koch finds unearned immortality in infamy.

If not for our human need to learn from the mistakes of our past, this man ought to have no legacy. But the world he left behind is undeniably impacted by his actions and riddled with inequities, many of which he should have answered for in life, but instead will have to do so in the books of history.

I've never wished any man dead, but I've read some obituaries with great pleasure.

--Mark Twain (but not really)

On Women And Sexual Health

NYT: (pay wall - please consider subscribing - keep journalism alive)

By Jen Gunter
May 16, 2019

I used to be able to orgasm easily, but now it is very difficult. I have to hit the exact spot in exactly the right way. Is there anything I can do to improve this? I can orgasm when I masturbate, but not usually with my partner. I’m 60+. Help!

— Anonymous, Dallas

As women age, some report a decrease in orgasm intensity as well as difficulty achieving orgasm. This phenomenon can be age-related, though low estrogen may also play a role. Other factors may include medical conditions or their treatments. The good news is there is often help.
Tell me more

There could be many reasons a woman’s ability to orgasm changes with age. Before determining the cause of age-related sexual problems, a doctor should first rule out that there are no libido issues or previous difficulties achieving orgasm, and establish that everything is solid relationship-wise.

After that, a woman could consider that she may simply need a little “help” achieving orgasm. Age-related changes happen in many organ systems, and the clitoris is no exception; after all, many people need reading glasses or a hearing aid as they age. For women who do not experience pain with sex and simply find it takes more effort to achieve orgasm, incorporating a vibrator for clitoral stimulation into sexual play — while masturbating or with a partner — may be all that is needed. There are many vibrator options with different levels of intensity and construction types to hit different “spots.” Some also provide more of a suction sensation versus traditional vibration.

Another factor in orgasm may be a decrease in strength in the levator ani muscles. These are the muscles that support the vagina, bladder and rectum, and they also produce the physical contractions of orgasm. Your orgasms may be affected if these muscles are weak because of age or childbirth. A doctor — typically a gynecologist or urogynecologist — can examine these muscles to determine if you have a pelvic floor disorder. If they are weak, you may be offered Kegel exercises to strengthen them. You may even be referred to a physical therapist who specializes in treating the pelvic floor muscles.

For women in menopause, low estrogen levels can have sexual consequences because of a decrease in blood flow, tissue elasticity and lubrication. Low estrogen can also lead to pain with sex, which can definitely affect orgasm. The changes caused by low estrogen can sometimes be managed with over-the-counter lubricants and vaginal moisturizers, but often a prescription product, most commonly topical estrogen, is needed.

Medical conditions, such as depression and diabetes, can also affect sexual response as can some medications, such as antidepressants and opioids. Antidepressants and anti-seizure medications that are often prescribed for hot flashes during menopause can negatively affect orgasm, so consider the potential sexual side effects when deciding to start or stay on these medications. Sorting out how medical conditions and medications may affect a woman’s sexual response can be challenging, so working with an experienced practitioner is essential.

Another factor to consider:

Women whose male partners have erectile dysfunction sometimes tell me this condition can have an impact on their own sexual response. This phenomenon is not well-studied, but I hear it often enough that I can’t dismiss it. Not knowing if a partner will be able to achieve a full erection can be stressful. And if sex has to move quickly to catch the moment for penetration, it may bypass what some women need emotionally and physically to reach orgasm. If a woman’s orgasm is normal when she masturbates, but not with her male partner, erectile dysfunction may be a factor to consider. There are a variety of treatments for erectile dysfunction that a male partner can discuss with his own health care provider.

Dr. Jen Gunter, often called Twitter’s resident gynecologist, is teaming up with our editors to answer your questions about all things women’s health. From what’s normal for your anatomy to healthy sex and clearing up the truth behind strange wellness claims, Dr. Gunter, who also writes a column called The Cycle, promises to handle your questions with respect, forthrightness and honesty.

 see also: Walker Thornton

Today's Quote

When wealth is passed off as merit, bad luck is seen as bad character. This is how ideologues justify punishing the sick and the poor. But poverty is neither a crime nor a character flaw. Stigmatise those who let people die, not those who struggle to live.

-- Sarah Kendzior, The View From Flyover Country

@sarahkendzior

Today's Tweet

No lifeboats. As it is right now, the GOP has to die - along with Cult45.

Fuck bipartisanship.

Republicans are bad. They have bad morals and bad ideas. The goal should be to eliminate them utterly as a political movement and then allow a center-right party to move into the vacuum which has basic skills like arithmetic and not being racist.

— Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser) November 28, 2018

And I'll say it again: 45* has not remade the GOP in his image - he is the perfect reflection of what the GOP has become.

Nancy MacLean explains it:

Keith

"...like trying to shovel smoke."

A New One

I've not met this lady, but we've been chatting online for a short bit and I think she's the real thing.  And she talks about real things too.

I've linked to her site on my "Places I Go" list - click on the little stack of lines in the upper left of the main page. 

Back To The Gilded Age

A little reminder of the damage a bad president can do.

Vox:

Since the election of Donald Trump, there’s been a lot of discussion in medical circles about bringing a Silicon Valley ethos to drug innovation in America.

This idea is embodied in Peter Thiel, the billionaire founder of PayPal, who has reportedly been helping the president vet a pool of candidates to lead the Food and Drug Administration.

Thiel, a libertarian iconoclast, has repeatedly made the case that the FDA gets in the way of drug innovation by making it too difficult for new medicines to get to the market. Some of the FDA candidates he’s identified — including Silicon Valley’s Jim O’Neill and Balaji Srinivasan — have similarly argued that the agency should dump its requirement that drugs be proven effective before reaching the market, and that we’d be better off if the FDA operated more like a “Yelp for drugs.” In other words, bringing the same speedy and disruptive approach to medical regulation that Silicon Valley brought to the taxi and hotel industries, for example, will unlock cures — fast.

But Thiel and his pals miss a very important point about developing new drugs: Manipulating biology isn’t the same as manipulating computer code. It’s much, much harder. Speeding up medical innovation will take a lot more than just stripping down the FDA — it’ll take huge leaps forward in our understanding of biochemistry and the body. Health care is also different from taxis and hotels in another key way: Consumers can’t really judge the safety and quality of medical products by themselves.

Trump to remove USDA animal welfare protections from cruelty for dogs. A reminder from 9/16: he's never HAD a dog pic.twitter.com/NykVqnG6Nj

— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) February 4, 2017

So, like, one of the things Da Gubmint is there trying to do for you is to keep some asshole from killing your dog.  If you can't quite work yourself up to giving a fuck about people, maybe you could think about finding a little compassion for their fucking house pets.

More from the Vox piece:

One of the key notions that undergirds the Peter Thiel view of the FDA is that if the agency just got rid of some of the pesky restrictions for drug approval, we’d usher in another golden age in drug development. (Thiel declined our interview request.)

To test this idea, I asked a longtime pharmaceutical scientist (and conservative), Derek Lowe, for his views. In his 28 years in the lab, Lowe has seen hundreds of thousands of compounds tested on a huge variety of drug targets, and never, not once, has he brought a drug to market.

The reason? “We don’t know how to find drugs that work,” he said.

For every 5,000 compounds discovered at this "preclinical" phase of drug development, only about five are promising enough to be tried in humans. That’s a success rate of 0.1 percent.

Drug innovation comes from painstaking tinkering and a dash of luck. “It’s very tempting for someone who has come out of IT to say, ‘DNA is code, and cells are the hardware; go in and debug it’,” Lowe said. “But this is wrong.”

Let's just try to remember one or two itty-bitty things, OK?

You were supposed to have read that shit way back in high school, y'know.

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Twilight Of The Elites

I guess I really need to read the book.

From a blurb by Chris Hayes about his new book:

But extreme inequality of the particular kind that we have produces its own particular kind of elite pathology: it makes elites less accountable, more prone to corruption and self-dealing, more status-obsessed and less empathic, more blinkered and removed from informational feedback crucial to effective decision making. For this reason, extreme inequality produces elites that are less competent and more corrupt than a more egalitarian social order would. This is the fundamental paradoxical outcome that several decades of failed meritocratic production have revealed: As American society grows more elitist, it produces a lesser caliber of elites.