Second Class

Today the United States made approximately 52% of the population second class citizens. In doing so, it removed any doubt as to whether or not the US is a first world nation. Any nation that is so corrupt as to allow the system designed to keep different branches of the government both separate and in check to rot away completely is a failed state.

Overturning Roe isn’t just about the overweening hatred of women and pregnant people that is foundational to the Republican/Fundamentalist/Catholic/White Supremacist/Billionaire/Toxic Cis Hetero-normative hegemony in this nation. It’s about fear and control. It is not and has never been about the unborn. If it was, prenatal care would be both funded and required, and people who neglected pregnant people’s healthcare would actually suffer consequences. But they don’t.

There is no pro in the “pro-life” movement. The anti-choice movement was created as a political movement to unite historically opposed allies so Republicans could get elected. That’s it. That’s the “pro-life” movement. It’s a con, and a very successful one.

If you think you’re virtuous because you’re screaming at people going in and out of Planned Parenthood, the vast majority of whom are receiving basic medical care regardless of sex or gender, you’re just being a judgmental asshole. If you think it’s acceptable to tell people that “women just shouldn’t be able to kill babies” then you don’t understand science, and you’re still an asshole. If you think someone who has been raped should be required to carry their rapist’s potential offspring to term, you’re certainly not getting your advice on morality from Jesus, and you’re an asshole.

The truth is, abortion is not mentioned in the Christian Bible. Other faiths, such as Judaism and Islam, actually value the lives of their adherents and consider abortion to be necessary medical care to save the lives of the already born. You know, those of us in whom society has already invested. In other words, the lives of actual people.

But here in the United States a small group of very wealthy, very white nominally Christian people have hoodwinked many of you and outright fucked the rest of us. They play on your fears. They turn your basest instincts about in-groups, out-groups, skin color, and sex, into weapons and then use them against you. Really, to a large extent this isn’t even about Democrats or Republicans, this is about Oligarchs. Because at the end of the day, if you have a uterus and you’re rich, you’ll be able to get necessary medical care, like an abortion, no matter what.

It’s the ordinary people, the rest of us, that will suffer, as we do now. We suffer in a failed nation with no nationalized health care; institutionalized racism and sexism; homophobia and transphobia; ableism and systemic and cultural indifference to the disabled; and with a huge part of the population that genuinely believes that it is really OK to hate loudly and proudly. We suffer with the largest incarcerated population in the “civilized” world, and we have an epidemic of gun violence unlike any other country on earth.

Roe is the first, but it won’t be the last. While we’re all angry now, let us make today important not because of what we lost, but because of what we begin. Let today be the day that historians recognize as the beginning of the revolution. Oligarchs, we are coming for you. Everyone else needs to get on the correct side of history, or else fall with the Oligarchs. They are going to wish we only had torches and pitchforks.

Our wacky New England weather

Yesterday it was raining and the temperature actually dropped into the upper 40’s.  In June.  There is actually a slight chance of us having a Nor’Easter on Friday.  Oh, crazy New England weather, don’t ever change.  Honestly, I still prefer you to baking in the humid Southern sun.

And speaking of insanity and bad weather, we are supposed to have a bad hurricane season this year.  That wouldn’t be quite as troubling except that the current occupant of the White House has not yet put anyone in charge of NOAA, FEMA, or the NHC.*  He can, however, find the time to go play a lot of golf and to tweet all sorts of crazy stuff.  Needless to say, people in hurricane-prone places like Florida are starting to notice.

Well, since Trump is also planning to slash FEMA’s budget as well as the NOAA budget and the NASA budget, maybe they think we don’t need to worry about being able to predict the weather.  We should just sit back and not worry about silly things like storm forecasts and we can just go back to the blissful days of yore, when major storms could sneak up on people with little to no warning and do horrendous damage.

Nah, that could never happen again, right?

~Geoff

*It turns out Trump did nominate someone to lead FEMA in late April, but the Senate has not yet voted on the nominee, probably because they are so busy trying to take away everyone’s health insurance.

Happy #PresidentsDay

Today is the day that we traditionally celebrate the men who have held the office of the President of the United States.  Over the years that celebration has gone from actually thinking about the Founding Fathers to indulging in a long weekend, sales on automobiles, and deep discounts at your local mall or favorite online store.

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Friday November 11th, 2016 7:00pm @BU CFA – A FREE Concert Featuring Me!

It’s that time of year again.  The When Patients Heal You concert is back.  Only this year we’ve moved out of the lecture hall at the BU Medical Center and we’re back at my alma mater, Boston University.  In fact, we’ll be performing in the concert hall where I did my undergraduate recital lo these many years ago.

patients-heal-you-2016-ad

 

It will be much like years past, all the performers will be neurology patients of Boston Medical Center and many of them will be epileptics like me.  We’ll all get to perform two pieces and probably bring the house down at the end with big sing a long with Denise at the keyboard.

There’s usually a reception afterward with tasty food and a chance to mingle with the performers and the medical staff who not only provide us with excellent care, they sometimes even perform with us.  Please join us on Friday night for a great concert and a lot of fun.  This is a free event.  Tell your friends.

~Kelly

“Do you miss the South now?”

That’s a question I am often asked in winter here in Boston by people who know me, especially on particularly cold days.  My answer is always no, no matter how snowy and miserable and cold it is.  And the reason for that is because while I don’t mind cold winters, I really, really don’t like hot summers.  Plenty of people don’t feel the same way, which is probably why so many people from the Northeast retire to Florida.  But I would always rather put up with nasty Boston winters than brutal Alabama summers.  And it’s why on days like today (when it’s supposed to get over 90 degrees) I long for winter to return.

Being the weather geek I am, let me break it down for you with some data.

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Sometimes, fear is a good thing

As a part-time first responder who is interested in emergency management, disaster recovery, and safety in general, I read pretty much everything related to those topics that I can get my hands on, including a lot of stuff about how people respond in a crisis.  It’s fascinating stuff, and some really excellent books have been written about it, such as  Amanda Ripley’s The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes – And Why

A side effect of this is that I have started paying attention to what I would call “unusual” deaths and accidents.  People keep doing things that I would consider to be pretty damn unsafe, and it costs them.  Recent examples are plenty.  A man leaves the designated paths at Yellowstone, and falls into a spring that is so high-temperature and acidic that there is literally no body to recover.  A young man accidentally shoots himself while taking a selfie with a pistol.  A tourist in Australia goes swimming at 10 at night in an area clearly marked with signs warning about crocodiles and gets killed by a crocodile over 14 feet long.  Or the guy in Georgia back in March who decided that it would be cool to pack an old lawnmower with 3 pounds of Tannerite and then shoot at it from only 40 feet away.  He blew off his own leg, and the whole thing was caught on video.

And I realized that what all of these people had in common was this: a lack of fear.  Specifically, a lack of what I would consider to be the healthy kind of fear.

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Wow – there are zika virus conspiracy theories now

This is a thing?  Snopes has to talk about it?  Wow.  OK, where do I start.

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The science and history of rogue waves, part two

While searching for some videos on YouTube that might do a better job of explaining the phenomenon of rogue waves than I can, I actually found some really, really good material.  First, one of my absolute favorite people on the Intertubes, Hank Green, who is also half of the awesome duo that is the vlog brothers.  Here, Hank talks about rogue waves on his SciShow channel.

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The science and history of rogue waves, part one

In what could prove to be a huge step forward in predicting how rogue waves are formed, and thus a tool for saving lives at sea, researchers at MIT have found a way to give 2 to 3 minutes warning of an incoming rogue wave.

I know it probably sounds stupid, but it’s hard for me to explain how excited I am about this research.  So much so that I am tempted to go speak with the researchers sometime (living in Cambridge does have its advantages).  But to understand why I am geeking out about this, it might help for me to go into some detail about what we know about rogue waves, and how they have affected ships at sea, as well as oil rigs, lighthouses, and coastlines.  This is one of those times that my love of history (especially maritime history) and my love of science come together.

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