News Notebook Friday 10.22.21
News, Politics, Us... "Proudly Sustainable, Since Day One"?
Friday greetings from newShrink, with some happy-hopeful signs of the season!
As the recent New York Times story describes, “After a Long Wait, the Boston Marathon Returns as a Fall Classic:” (1)
“More than two years after the last race, runners finally hit the pavement... ‘It just feels so good to be out here doing this,’ one said.”
themes “happening in the background”…
Following the last couple of deeper-dive newShrink editions and topics, with today’s News Notebook we’re due for a broader-brush sweep across the news-scape of Washington political developments and some brief updates on a couple of ongoing stories. (Though these are quite varied, as always I’d hoped for some logic or general themes to connect or organize these, beyond just random list or alpha-order.)
While it can’t be applied too literally, certainly not with every news story or item here, the images that have kept coming to mind and dream all week are some version of the universal shorthand for intentional sorting, organizing, clearing… and the larger idea of sustainability.
Sustainability could just be a byproduct of following a big current news story. There’s been a lot of rhetoric, discourse, dissent (and comedy) around the issues of climate change, sustainable vs fossil-fuel energy and the politicking under way regarding these issues as part of Congressional efforts to reconcile (or block) President Joe Biden’s infrastructure and Build Back Better “human infrastructure” bills.
A factor could also be the past few years of elder-care transitions with my mom that have involved so many rounds of waiting, clearing-out, sorting, culling and curating what’s valuable, nourishing or inspiring of body, mind or soul vs what needs a new home. By now I may just visualize multiple bins for things very quickly!
In any case, it’s kind of a low hum — a bit like that “work happening in the background” of the psyche, in the poem shared awhile back from my CA reader-friend.
It’s had me thinking, beyond the news or one story, about what’s sustainable and what we even mean by the word — individually, in our relationships with Self, other and community, and on the larger collective scales of politics and public policy.
Some synonyms come to mind: lasting, enduring, durable, resilient, continual, unceasing, imperishable, livable, supportable, feasible, viable… also, balanced, symbiotic, efficient, eco-friendly. I already used, and especially like, nourishing. Also (up)-holding.
In courtrooms, arguments are sustained when they are supported by facts, the law, effective argument (and overruled when they are not.) So: That which sustains, nourishes us, supports, holds us up, lifts, inspires… and endures. With the sustainable there’s an aliveness, animation — or as we know from the Latin, it’s enlivened by soul.
What also came to mind is, how many more — and excellent — options and possibilities are involved in seeking the sustainable… far beyond just “re-duce, re-use, re-cycle.” (This is true, even if we just stick with other “re-” words.)
In just one quick mental survey, consider possibilities and nuances added to the mix by: re-purpose, re-locate, re-make, re-activate, re-generate, re-create, re-solve, re-store, re-novate, re-form, re-do, re-tort, re-bate, re-mit, re-main, re-pay, re-fund… (A lot more different “bins”?!)
And then, how short the negative list becomes: re-cuse (withdraw), re-ject (spurn, veto), re-verse, re-nege (default), and finally, re-FUSE’ (“just say no”), or REF’-use (“trash.”) A much smaller garbage can or landfill?!
From the perspective of newShrink focus on soul and psychology, each of these considerations of sustainability, and the wide variety of choices and action that might involve, requires an inherent “witnessing consciousness” or mindful awareness that is intentional rather than operating out of reactivity.
Not all, or even most, of the news stories and issues mentioned or discussed here directly involve climate, broader senses of sustainability (or any of the “re-” words above.) I invite you to note, and hold for awhile, any that do show up and speak to you. As always, I’ll welcome hearing from you about it.
🦋💙
some news: headlines and updates
Note: To open a link to any/all footnoted article(s) of the many cited here, you can click or browse to open today’s Library on the website and go to the article’s corresponding number. (From a browser go to newshrink.substack.com.)
National: Biden Administration and U.S. Congress
Several stories from The New York Times highlight the messy process under way with efforts to reconcile and/or scale back Senate and House versions of both the President’s infrastructure and his Build Back Better social and middle-class relief being dubbed “human infrastructure.” The larger Democratic-majority House has healthy debate under way between the party’s progressive and more centrist wings.
But the drama has remained intense in the Senate, where a wafer-thin Democratic majority and a filibuster barrier to passage put the spotlight on two obstructing Democrats eager to claim maverick-status and power: Joe Manchin, of very red West Virginia, and Kyrsten Sinema, of much more competitively purple-to-blue Arizona.
Among many factors at play here, a dominant one under increasing scrutiny of both of them is huge financial influence by lobbyist groups in industries seeking to block elements of the bills such as relief from high drug prices and both climate change and clean-energy measures. Sinema’s large donations from, and alleged influence by, the pharmaceutical lobby is highlighted by one of the stories here.
Manchin, despite his culture-war stands popular with constituents who elect him in his red state — most of whom don’t benefit from fossil-fuel industry interests — is under fire for opposing the bills’ climate-change measures even as intense flooding and research studies clearly point to more catastrophic ones ahead. Manchin, whose son runs the coal company he founded, still earns a half-million dollars a year from it; he’s also reportedly the Senate’s recipient of the largest donations of money by fossil-fuel industry lobbyists.
Here’s a sampling of the vast coverage available from other national journalism organizations and various network and cable news networks. A wealth of coverage is also available by browsing daily newsletters from heathercoxrichardson.substack.com and roberthubbell.substack.com.
(2) “Biden Backs Compromise to Win a Vast Social Agenda”
The president’s trip to Scranton, Pa., comes as Democrats close in on a deal to advance two bills carrying a scaled-back version of his domestic policy priorities.
(3) “It’s (More) Surprising That Joe Manchin Is a Democrat”
(4) “Calling Sinema an Obstacle to Progress, 5 Veterans Quit Her Advisory Council”
(5) “A 30-Year Campaign to Control Drug Prices Faces Yet Another Failure”
Also on the national economic and personal-pocketbook radar is growing concern about national and international supply-chain logjams with price increases and inflation prospects affecting all American households:
(6) From Bloomberg: “Your Black Friday bargain is stuck somewhere in the Pacific”
Death of Colin Powell
This excerpt from the Associated Press on the death of Colin Powell: “General turned top diplomat dies of COVID complications” (7) captures some complexities of his legacy:
“Colin Powell, who served Democratic and Republican presidents in war and peace but whose sterling reputation was forever stained by his faulty claims to justify the U.S. war in Iraq, died Monday of COVID-19 complications. He was 84.
A veteran of the Vietnam War, Powell spent 35 years in the Army and rose to the rank of four-star general. In 1989 he became the first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In that role he oversaw the U.S. invasion of Panama and later the U.S. invasion of Kuwait to oust the Iraqi army in 1991.
But his legacy was marred when, in 2003, he went before the U.N. Security Council as secretary of state and made the case for U.S. war against Iraq at a moment of great international skepticism. He cited faulty information claiming Saddam Hussein had secretly stashed weapons of mass destruction. Iraq’s claims that it had no such weapons represented ‘a web of lies,’ he told the world body.”
Yet Powell also visibly and honorably served as role model in transformational ways throughout a remarkable life in which race and politics were interwoven threads of both his military and his diplomatic career. He wrote and spoke with eloquence and devotion of driving across the segregated Jim Crow South when courting his wife Alma (who predeceased him a few years back.)
Even Powell’s death brought a purely 2021-twist in the news cycle as Fox News Channel personalities, imitated by others in conservative media appealing to anti-vax audiences, tried to blame Powell’s death from complications of COVID on the fact the general had received a COVID vaccine. (Powell was also in ongoing treatment for multiple myeloma cancer and had Parkinson’s disease.)
On race
Voting rights bill
(8) From The New York Times: “Senate Republicans Block Voting Rights Bill, Leaving Its Fate in Doubt"
“The third filibuster of such a measure underscored how the legislation is unlikely to move forward without a change in Senate rules.”
A Georgia case with large national impacts
As the murder trial of the three men who killed Ahmaud Arbery begins this week, NPR host Ari Shapiro has this excellent interview with Cornell University law professor and criminal law expert Joseph Margulies: "How citizens arrest laws factor into the trial of Amaud Arbery’s accused killers.”
(9) From NPR’s “All Things Considered,” 10.20.21, here’s an excerpt:
MARGULIES: “The combination of all three of them - that is citizen arrest, stand your ground and open carry - are what's going to be at the center of this. Citizen's arrest allowed the McMichaels [father and son on trial] and Bryan to chase Mr. Arbery. Open carry allowed them to be armed if they had a permit. And stand your ground allowed them to use deadly force if they reasonably - there's that word again - reasonably believed that they were at risk of serious bodily injury or death.
SHAPIRO: You wrote about this for the Boston Review last year, where you said laws like this sanction the predictable murder of innocent Black men so long as the community judges it reasonable. Did Georgia's decision to repeal this law back in May fix the problem?
MARGULIES: It went a long way. They eliminated the right of citizen arrest except for shop owners. That's a much more narrow, much better statute. It's a shame - no, it's more than a shame. It's a moral tragedy that we had to have the death of someone like Ahmaud Arbery before it happened. But yes, it's much better.
Some thoughts:
From a psychological standpoint basic neuroscience — how our brain and nervous system actually work and react when in a state of high emotional arousal (such as fear for one’s life) — is basis for my most strenuous objections to “stand your ground,” gun- and other laws and policies/procedures in policing that declare acting in the heat of fear as a standard for ‘reasonable’ (and often fatal) responses.
We know from extensive brain research with technologies including FMRI that high arousal of emotions such as fear, rage, despair trigger the fight-flight-or-freeze response in the body, nervous system as an automatic (not consciously chosen — unconscious) survival response. When this happens, the reasonable thinking, planning, strategizing centers of the brain shut down.
This is for survival of the organism, as the heart, lung and lymphatic systems increase blood, adrenaline and lymph fluid to favor combat with arms, running with legs, or the “freezing” of muscle-rigidity. (This is why EMTs and others charged with making in-the-moment triage decisions are most wisely taught not to run, which increases reactivity in these systems thus impairing judgment.)
Otherwise, under high emotional-physiological arousal with the executive thinking-brain offline, literal life-or-death choices are being made with the lowest-functioning, most primitive (reptile and amygdala) levels of the brain in charge.
That this is the standard or basis for any of our laws governing when it is OK to kill someone— much less those claiming to be reasonable — is absurd, appalling, dangerous. (And common across the many states with stand-your-ground, and open-carry gun laws — even without “citizens arrest”.)
Additionally, a claim that any of us is, or can be, completely, consciously and “reasonably” in charge of all our behaviors, emotions, reactivity and felt-experience at all times is hubris that denies our basic biology, physiology, and neurology.
(From a purely depth-psychology point of view, people who believe they are safest sleeping with loaded weapons on their nightstands may need a better understanding of how the psyche and the dreamtime can work — pets, partners and home furnishings, beware!)
NC updates on race, with national reverberations
(10) With “National faculty group investigating ‘structural racism’ at UNC,” the Associated Press has follow-up to the university and esteemed journalism school’s efforts to restore reputation damage from this summer’s controversies. Primary among them were teaching about the long U.S. history of slavery and so-called “Critical Race Theory,” the problematic UNC faculty fellowship appointment ultimately rejected by Nikole Hannah-Jones, and the overarching issues of systemic racism throughout institutions as well as academic freedom.
And, lest we assume the work is anywhere near done on the decades-long, well-documented research findings of systemic and nationwide racial disparities in policing, arrests, convictions and incarceration, here’s jaw-dropping commentary from a newcomer conservative-movement judge even as he is issuing a — supposedly impartial — ruling from the bench (in my home state of North Carolina, I’m sorry to say.):
(11) “Racial bias in courts doesn’t exist, judge says after overturning Black man’s conviction” (The Charlotte Observer).
On abortion
Here’s an update from Robert Hubbell’s Today’s Edition (12), Tuesday, October 19. (Browse at roberthubbell.substack.com.) “DOJ appeals Texas anti-abortion lawsuit to Supreme Court.”
An excerpt:
“The Texas anti-abortion statute was enjoined by a federal district judge, whose decision was reversed by the Fifth Circuit. The DOJ has now appealed the Fifth Circuit’s decision to the Supreme Court. See summary in Axios. Four leading constitutional scholars, including Laurence Tribe and Erwin Chemerinsky, have written an article urging the Supreme Court to block implementation of the Texas law. See The Guardian, “The courts have a new chance to block Texas’s abortion law. They must take it.” The authors argue that the presence of the DOJ as a plaintiff empowers the Court to enjoin the statute:
This case stands on a very different footing from the one that a conservative 5-4 supreme court rejected on September 1 on procedural grounds. With the United States now suing, there is plenty of precedent for the federal government to come into court challenging a state law before it is enforced, and a state cannot hide behind sovereign immunity as a defense.”
I’ll be commenting on psychological and soul aspects of this broader issue, as this difficult case and likely others like it in other states move more definitively through the court system. In the meantime I’ll continue to provide factual coverage updates.
On mental health, suicide and college students
(13) From The Washington Post: “UNC cancels classes after reported suicide and attempt, citing ‘mental health crisis’”
(14) From The News and Observer of Raleigh: “UNC tragedy underscores need for campus mental health care”
(15) From the Commonwealth Fund international reports: Among wealthy and developed countries, the U.S. has among highest health-care spending and costs and highest rates of suicide and lower life expectancy and other health markers. I’ll cite some psychological and soul-dimension factors here briefly due to time and space considerations, for much more thorough discussions in future editions:
As mentioned in other newShrink discussion, as adults and modeling with youth we need to make space for introverted time of reflection and what psychologists call “integrating” of our felt experiences with the life stories and contexts already under way. Loss of meaning and connection with one’s own story can be a devastating element of suicidal despair.
Loss of capacity to discern emotions can be problematic. For example inability to discern between healthy and normal cycles of being “up” and extraverting energy with the normal need for going “in and down” for reflection and integration — or between situationally appropriate sadness that facilitates effective working through of problems in rainy-day blues, vs clinical, intractable depression. (Without the discernment, the possibility of the latter is terrifying and in itself can be debilitating.)
There can be unintended consequences from the intense “100 percent positivity” emphasis of our culture: the assumptions we are supposed to be “on” and “up” all the time or we’re sick, pathological, something’s wrong. (And in us adults, there can be a manic quality to this that our kids of all ages absorb at the expense of learning their own self-regulation and coping skills.)
Shifting now to a lighter note…
🦋💙
… about that “proudly sustainable” title?
This piece of today’s Notebook title arrived for me just as it does here — at the end of the post, long after my having thought and written the introduction section above about sustainability and “the work happening in the background” of the psyche. This theme then reminded me of the cool packaging, and entire eco-vibe, of the favorite Rothy’s brand shoes (a delivery I’d highlighted at the end of a previous post.)
Well OK, I also snagged another — really cute! — pair that arrived this week; they hooked me with a hefty “fifth company anniversary” discount. (I’m really not the shopper or clothes/shoe-hound this sounds like; except for replacing running shoes it’s been almost-never in these recent COVID times.)
Rothy’s shoes and various accessories, for women, men and kids, are made completely from recycled plastic bottles… machine washable in cold water… have removable washable inner soles… are cool, fun, even some sparkly designs… are so popular the common sizes like mine stay back-ordered even without current supply chain problems… and they’re not cheap.
Rothy’s packaging reflects the brand, recycled brown cardboard-everything, on-trend design touches. And the Rothy’s tagline is (of course!):
“Proudly Sustainable, Since Day One.”
Having spent much of the week immersed in both the political limitations and dire need for dramatic public-policy action on climate change and sustainable energy, this hit me as both hilarious and near-tragically sad all at once. People, whole towns and communities are routinely displaced, injured, even killed, their livelihoods and economies destroyed (and so on) in the now-predictable cycles of intensifying storms and wildfires — for which our elected officials can’t/won’t muster a fraction of funding, commitment and actions needed.
Meanwhile a whole lot of women like me, and more than a few men and kids, are walking around wearing overpriced — but very cute — plastic water bottles on our feet?!
(And yes, wearing them does beat piling more into the giant Pacific Ocean plastic-glob.)
🦋💙
Just one more thing…
some related pure silliness… (with a satisfying bite)
Winding up the many ironies of climate and broader sustainability themes, I share below a link to the full cold-open of The Late Show Tuesday night (also browsable on You Tube.)
Here are the song lyrics, for those of us who like the written words. (They’re to the melody John Denver put on the charts, “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” And now, two new notes on how both our memory for detail and how the unconscious/soul works and prompts us in daily life.
First, after the earlier email version of this post went out Friday, a nagging wee-hours Sunday morning edit from the dreamtime corrected the real John Denver song title on which the spoof is based — I’d mistakenly had it as “Rocky Mountain High.” Sunday morning I corrected it, from memory, as an update on the website, to “Country Roads.”
This effectively turned both spoof and original Denver song lyrics into ear-worms playing in the background, especially during my run. A revisit to the original song yields the real song’s complete title, which is: “TAKE ME HOME, Country Roads.”
[NOTE: ALL OF THE LYRICS IN BOLD BELOW ARE THE PHRASE, “TAKE ME HOME,” IN THE REAL SONG.]
“Almost Sea World, West Virginia,
Blue Ridge Mountains’ll be a coral reef soon.
It’ll be wet there, wetter than a lake.
I bought this boat with the coal profits that I make.
Country roads, on my boat, or in my car… if it can float.
West Virginia, underwater.
Time to row country roads.
Drop the “s” from the west, now that we are only wet.
Wet Virginia, Mermaid Mama.
Hope y’all can float, stay off my boat.”
And, that is all I have. Talk to you next week!
🦋💙tish
… it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
— William Stafford, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other”
Post Notes:
To open a link to any/all footnoted article(s) of those cited here, click or browse to open today’s Library on the website and go to the article’s corresponding number. (From a browser it’s newshrink.substack.com.)