#should be working on something other folks care about (Imposer!) but this project refuses to let me go

[simply-sithel]

Keeping my brain limber by finally throwing myself into the Word Buttler project, ✨ now with Gregg Shorthand support ✨ My rendering of the shorthand remains incredibly weak, but I've spent time fleshing out other support elements. All of it is blindingly ugly-- I'm a dev, not a designer. Am happy that the functionality I want is slowly being actualized, including:

A Gregg Shorthand keyboard where you swipe out from the center to find the key representing the stroke, in vague approximation of the shape being sought

A Gregg -> IPA -> English translator, which includes inline text elements of vertically stacked options to handle phonetic ambiguity

Simple support tools to help me refine the elements I'm using to render the shorthand. Am far enough along now (can highlight individual characters mid-phrase) that I can go back and re-do how I'm rendering the strokes. Maybe if I read that paper for the fifith time I'll finally wrap my head around how to implement it...

[schraubd]

Zioness Has a "Manifesto"

Zioness -- a campaign for progressive Zionists launched in the wake of the Chicago Dyke March fiasco -- has a "manifesto". This perhaps offers an opportunity for me to share my thoughts on Zioness, which I've been observing since its initial inception and towards which I maintain a wary but not wholly antagonistic posture. Some people think that Zioness is just a false flag operation -- people who don't actually care about progressivism at all trying to infiltrate and kick-up-dust within progressive communities. There are several bases for this assertion. First, critics point out the links between Zioness' leadership and the Lawfare Project, which tends to take a relatively conservative line on Israel advocacy issues.  Hence, they suggest that Zioness is really just a stalking horse for Lawfare's right-wing agenda. Second, some have claimed that Zioness has taken a confrontational posture towards the progressive groups it marches with that, it is alleged, is designed to provoke and sow division. This, the argument goes, militates against the interpretation that all they really want is inclusion. These arguments don't quite track for me, however. On the first point, there are, for better or for worse, plenty of Jews with non-progressive (even conservative) views on Israel who genuinely care about and support things like reproductive access, gay rights, economic redistribution, and other pillars of the progressive community. I'd be entirely unsurprised if the leaders of the Lawfare Project fit that profile. Call them inconsistent if you like, but I think there is little evidence to suggest they're lying about the cluster of beliefs they hold. And indeed, at least in the social media feed I've been pleasantly surprised at how Zioness has seemed to genuinely pick up and promote progressive causes in a way that feels organic and heartfelt. Groups or commenters that ignore, say, women's rights six days a week and then parachute in to say "what about women in Saudi Arabia?" whenever someone says a bad word about Israel are a dime a dozen. But Zioness has not actually been doing this -- it has promoted progressive causes in ways and in contexts where there is no clear reason to do it other than that they believe in it.

On the second, there's probably something to the claim that Zioness takes on a defiant tone that can be read as hostile. There's also probably something to the claim that people being open and unapologetic about their Zionism in spaces like this will be automatically read as "confrontational." Both of these interpretations, I think, make sense given the genealogy of Zioness as reaction to the expulsion of several Jewish marchers from the Chicago Dyke March for simply holding a rainbow flag with a Star of David on it -- an act which was taken to be sufficient proof of being an outside agitator who wasn't part of the progressive community. One lesson one can take from CDM is that being subdued in one's Jewishness, and adopting a go-along-get-along stance, isn't going to save you -- in fact, it isn't even going to protect you from accusations of tossing "Zionism" in everyone's face. Another lesson is the need to avoid the heads-I-win-tails-you-lose logic where Zionist are told not to be open in their Zionism when engaging in progressive causes (because it's distracting and making it "about us") and then, when progressive activists seek to define Zionists out of the camp it's justified (because where were all the Zionists during all these other campaigns?). So it doesn't surprise that the new tactic will be out-and-proud, taking a more aggressive and less conciliatory stance. To be clear: this sort of confrontational, disruptive presence is very definitively not my preference. It flies in the face of all my own political instincts. But I've written about how certain modalities of organizing and protesting serve as markers for progressive orientation -- the medium very much being part of the message -- and as much as I hate it there might come a point where it's necessary for more mainstream Jewish groups to pivot towards more confrontational methods of political advocacy that "code" as progressive. Put another way, there's something a bit odd about folks from the IfNotNow wing of Jewish political action complaining that another group is behaving in a disruptive and confrontational manner, and doesn't seem interested in quietly and unobtrusively talking things out without making a big stink in public. To the extent Zioness is confrontational in demanding inclusion, that's wholly consistent with, not in opposition to, speaking in progressive shibboleths. So those are reasons why I don't join the antagonistic camp. Yet I remain wary. And the main reason is that Zioness utterly refuses to even try to think through what progressive commitments mean with respect to Israel. If we return to the manifesto, for example, it's pretty vague on what Zioness actually wants to achieve in the world. Indeed, it tries to hold that vagueness out as a virtue: "We will not define your progressivism or your Zionism." But the fact of the matter is it gives very little guidance regarding what it means, in practice, to "dismantle institutionalized racism in our government and our society." What does that commit us to? What policies are and aren't compatible with that ambition? Most tellingly, Zioness doesn't seem willing to grapple with the fact that progressivism requires certain things out of Zionism. One can believe (and I do) that Zionism and progressivism are compatible while observing the should-be-obvious fact that not all iterations or implementations of Zionism are progressive or consistent with progressivism. Being a progressive Zionist imposes certain obligations with respect to Israel as much as anywhere else; a fact that Zioness seems resolutely uninterested in contending with (and here the link to the Lawfare Project really may do some important explanatory work). So while it claims that it wants to mobilize "progressive Zionists," that term doesn't actually encompass any set of "Zionist" beliefs about Israel so long as the holder is also pro-choice. The progressive Zionist community is already existent in organizations like Ameinu, Partners for a Progressive Israel, and J Street (to name a few), and all of these understand that progressive mobilization around Israel can't be agnostic on matters of Israeli policy or even the best understanding of Zionism. If, as I've often argued, caring about Israel means having opinions about it, these groups care a lot about Israel -- but that manifests precisely because they have particular concepts of what they want Israel to be and an active desire for it to live out a progressive credo. So ultimately, I remain wary. I've already got a progressive Zionist community that I'm comfortable with; it works through the organizations I've just mentioned and they seem to do it better than Zioness is currently capable of. And while I can't fully join the critique of Zioness for behaving in a confrontational, stand-up-and-notice-me sort of way since that mode of social activism is increasingly de rigueur on the left, I don't like it and I don't have any interest in joining it. via The Debate Link http://ift.tt/2s4kcIf

[mikalajanie]

Yes. Not having health insurance can kill you.

As a practicing physician for going on nearly 50 years now, I often feel like that auto insurance company that says “We know a thing or two because we have seen a thing or two.”

After years of dealing with people who are insured, people who are uninsured and health insurance companies, I know that having real, comprehensive coverage can mean the difference between life and death.

A few years back, one Republican Congressman – speaking about the impact of GOP legislation that would have drastically cut Medicaid – defended the plan he supported by stating, “Nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care.”

That false assurance has been widely debunked by people who actually report on health reform or work in healthcare. But that hasn’t stopped critics of the Affordable Care Act from continuing to promise “Relax. We’ve got this” … all the while promising to dismantle a law that greatly expanded access to affordable health coverage for millions.

Pre-existing conditions are a matter of life and death …

The current ongoing line of false reassurances has to do with health coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. Many Republicans are on the campaign trail right now claiming that they’ve been protecting folks with pre-existing conditions all along. And these would be the same people who voted for the American Health Care Act in 2017. (The AHCA, passed by the GOP House last year, would have stripped health insurance away from people with pre-existing conditions, had its passage in the Senate not been derailed by late Sen. John McCain.

The folks who wrote the ACA bent over backward to ensure that protections for millions would be a central plank of the law:

Under current law, health insurance companies can’t refuse to cover you or charge you more just because you have a “pre-existing condition” — that is, a health problem you had before the date that new health coverage starts.

… for millions of Americans.

In 2017, about half of non-elderly Americans – or about 130 million non-elderly people – had pre-existing conditions in the U.S., according to a brief from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Nationally, the most common pre-existing conditions were high blood pressure (44 million people), behavioral health disorders (45 million people), high cholesterol (44 million people), asthma and chronic lung disease (34 million people), and osteoarthritis and other joint disorders (34 million people). – U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

More and more people are beginning to understand that. Of American voters, 66 percent of registered voters said that continued protections for people with pre-existing conditions was either the “single most important factor” (14 percent) or a “very important factor” (52 percent) in their vote for a candidate. (Which explains why the GOP is suddenly claiming they love these protections.)

Who are these people with pre-existing conditions?

If you don’t have a pre-existing condition – or you can’t think of someone right off the top of your head who might have one – let me offer a glance at some of your fellow Americans whose stories as patients have crossed my desk over my years as a Physician Executive.

Patient #1: Atrial fibrillation

This middle-aged female was sent to the Emergency Department by her cardiologist because of symptoms that  included a five-day history of palpitations (feeling heart beat in chest), dizziness (imbalance) and headache. The EKG showed Atrial Fibrillation with a rapid ventricular response. She also had an elevated blood pressure that was persistent. The admitting diagnosis was new onset atrial fibrillation with rapid ventricular response.

Result: This patient now has developed the dreaded “pre-existing condition.”

Patient #2: Herniated disc

This 30-something male patient had a 12-year history of a herniated disc. He presented to the Emergency Department with back pain and sciatica going into his left leg, associated with difficulty walking. A CT scan indicated a disc protrusion in the lower back.

This patient had a medical history of a weightlifting injury and known herniated disc. On top of that he presented with a two-week history of gradually increasing low back pain with sciatica. The pain was impacting his ability to walk. An MRI revealed the thecal sac at the nerve root was indented. In layman’s terms, that means the arthritis of the spine was putting pressure on the nerve.

Result: Patient #2 had a pre-existing condition and could be denied health coverage.

Patient #3: High blood pressure, heart disease, chronic lung disease

A middle-aged female patient came to the Emergency Department complaining of a pounding headache located mostly in her forehead, associated with lightheadedness. The patient had a medical history of high blood pressure and heart disease but had not taken her blood pressure medication due to financial reasons for at least two months.

The patient also had a history of mild atrial fibrillation and chronic lung disease, but the patient reported that she had not had treatment for those. The patient also reported swelling in her lower extremities for which she took an over-the-counter medication.

Result: This is not an unusual scenario in today’s healthcare landscape. And this patient could be denied coverage for these pre-existing conditions.

Short-term plans

While Republicans did their level best in 2017 to pass a law that would erode protections for folks like the three examples above (and many more), President Donald Trump has been providing his own false assurances about about health coverage. His promise: that Americans can relax, because he’s coming to the rescue with more (and CHEAPER) short-term health insurance alternatives.

Short-term coverage is not an ideal solution for people with pre-existing conditions. The plans:

aren’t required to cover ACA’s essential health benefits;

may deny you coverage if you have pre-existing conditions;

may require pre-certification for many medical services;

will likely screen applicants through medical underwriting;

impose annual and lifetime benefit maximums.

In October, new federal rules expanded the duration of short-term health plans in many states. But other states have taken a “buyer beware” approach and a handful of states – including New York and New Jersey – completely ban the sale of short-term health plans.

Lack of insurance can kill you.

So let’s go back to the original point of this column: that pre-existing conditions are a matter of life and death. They most definitely are – because having a pre-existing condition in the ‘good old days‘ before Obamacare meant that getting comprehensive health coverage on the individual market was difficult or near impossible.

But can being uninsured really kill you? From my literature review, it’s clear that you are from 3 to 29 percent more likely to die if you don’t have health insurance than those who do!

Here’s some of research:

In 2002, the Institute of Medicine estimated that the “death rate of the uninsured is 25 percent higher than for otherwise similar people who have health insurance. According to the study, 18,000 excess deaths occurred each year because 40 million Americans lacked insurance.”

In January 2008, the Urban Institute updated that study. “Subsequent research has continued to confirm the link between insurance and mortality risk. The true number of deaths resulting from un-insurance will be “significant.”

A 2009 rebuttal study by the Health Research and Education Trust found that “when adjusted for health status and other factors, the risk of subsequent mortality is no different for people who lack insurance than for those who are covered by employer-sponsored plans.” But the study also had a second conclusion: “With health status excluded, the uninsured have a 10 percent higher mortality rate than similar insured persons.”

The Harvard researchers compared 2001- 2005 death rates in Massachusetts to the four-year period after a new healthcare law was enacted and found that “mortality rate decreased by 3 percent between 2006 and 2010 when greater access to health care may have prevented as many as 320 deaths per year. Providing health coverage to 830 uninsured adults prevented one death per year.”

A 2012 New England Journal of Medicine study analyzed the effects of Medicaid expansion on adult mortality in several states. It found a connection between access to Medicaid and reduced mortality: the exact figure was a 6.1 percent reduction in mortality.

The Center for American Progress projected what would happen if the NEJM results were applied to the states which had not expanded Medicaid. “In these states alone more than 12,000 lives per year could potentially be saved if state governments agree to expand their Medicaid programs.”

In 2017, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicted that 22-24 million Americans would lose coverage under the AHCA. If 3 percent of these Americans died presumably because of this impediment to receiving healthcare, then 720,000 Americans might have died because of that lack of coverage over time.

It’s time to pay attention.

The Congressman at the start of this column also famously stated that “Nobody wants anybody to die.” It sounds great – and it’s a notion that most of us can probably agree with.

But at this critical juncture in our nation’s healthcare history – when Americans are more concerned than ever about losing the protections they gained from the ACA – we must pay even closer attention.

We must closely examine our candidates’ voting records on healthcare. We must not simply nod our heads at last-minute promises about preserving ACA’s protections. We can’t simply decide that cheap coverage is good coverage.

We should know better. After all, we’ve all “seen a thing or two.”

Brian Casull has been a physician for almost 50 years in service, including 21 years in the United States Army as a Medical Corp Pediatrician and Hospital Commander. In the private sector, he has served as Medical Director for the Rocky Mountain Rehabilitation Center,  Chief of Staff at the Cigna Staff Model,  Medical Director for The Traveler’s Insurance Company,  Los Angeles Medical Director for UnitedHealthcare, and Assistant Vice President for a Pharmacy Benefit Manager PCS in Arizona. He currently operates his own firm – Casull Healthcare Consulting – and has obtained an MPA in Health Care Organizations. He has also authored This Can Kill You: American Healthcare in Transition and is currently working on a second healthcare book.

from https://www.healthinsurance.org/blog/2018/11/03/yes-not-having-health-insurance-can-kill-you/

[fossadeileonixv]

FDL Season Preview

It’s go time babies.

First and foremost, If you have not submitted your picks for the kit contest, DO SO HERE. I will repeat this at the end too. Some of y’all still need that push!

Anywhoo...

The season is now upon us. We’re gonna skip the game preview this week for a few reasons (all completely on me) and run with the season preview. For this, I’ve reached out to Mike and Av for their insights on the upcoming campaign and all three of us have given some input on the mercato and our expectations from the upcoming season. So let’s get to it.

What was the biggest signing of the mercato?

Mike: The biggest one going into the year is easily Higuain. We haven't had stone cold killer up front like him since Ibra left in. That's not hyperbole, that's the truth. Having a striker with kind of ability and history is like a nice warm blanket on a cold night. He has scored against the biggest and best teams on the boot and should continue to do so. Hopefully having him on the team gives us a confidence we just didn't have last year.

Av: Pipita! Pipita! Pipita! I can’t get across just how excited I am about having this guy here. Due in part to the fact that his transfer was triggered by the C-Ron arrival at Juve and overshadowed somewhat by the LeoDini Show at Milan, I genuinely don’t think Milanista have had the chance to drink in the significance of this move. During the mercato I was developing a stomach ulcer whilst we were shopping for strikers as it looked equally likely that we might sign Morata (barf!) or Falcao (double barf!), but instead we signed the premier striker of Serie A! Pure Win Baby!

After a string of pure "meh" involving Matri, Menez, Destro, Torres, Adriano, K*****c and Silva we finally have an out and out striker for the first time since Ibra left. When you recall how impotent we looked in some games last season I think a very large part of our success this year will hang on how well Pipita does and the idea of him being shadowed by Poaching Patrick has me dreaming! I genuinely think Pipita will play a significant role in our march to the CL places this year. I'm hoping that guys like Hakan and Castillejo can play their part to give Higuain a platform to work from and he'll do the rest. I think if Pipita starts to bang them in he will help galvanise the team with a mentality that they can win. I honestly think he will give us the exact same boost that CRon is giving Juve if not more and that belief is going to be crucial for us this season, mark my words!

TR: Pipita without a doubt. Like Mike and Av said, we haven’t had a striker, or really a player, of his caliber since Zlatan. I’m going to go a little further than Av and say that there is probably no other player who’s performance will have a greater impact on whether or not we qualify for the Champions League. That is the upgrade we absolutely needed in the position that arguably needed it the most.

2) What is your biggest concern going into the season?

Mike: Last year Gattuso fell in love with a certain XI which was fine for about 8 weeks but then he, and the congested schedule drove us into the ground. We tried battling on 3 fronts while playing the same XI almost every game. Total madness. Suso and Jack were total zombies late. Biglia got hurt. Donnarumma looked exhausted. Part of that was Gattuso coming on board midyear, and I understand that. He has to be willing and able to rotate more and he's definitely equipped with the players to do that this season. We have have a lot of players that can play multiple spots in multiple formations. Let's see how he puts the pieces together.

Av: Have we finally got rid of our "Misfield"? My gut says maybe not. Baka, to me anyway, is a Kessie clone which is fair enough if it reduces our over reliance on Frank but I really wished we had landed someone like SMS. Yes, he was a dream ticket purchase that was never likely but you have to admit that having SMS flanked by Frank the Tank woulda been hella sweet. As it is, I feel our biggest deficiency is the mid unless the new additions are a class above what we had last season and only time will tell. We have guys like Borini & Biglia but we need some midfield brains to go with the brawn and still think we are lacking that outside Hakan. My other issue is that we seem to have only two genuine strikers? I dont want to jinx anything ......but you know....injuries!?!?

TR: An injury to Biglia or Higuain. For all the hard work Leodini did this season, they were unable to address the depth, or dearth of, particularly in the midfield. And to be honest, that’s not fault of their own. We’ve seen how building teams overnight perform, and they put together the puzzle pieces they had in a way that creates something recognizable. However, while injuries to Franck and Jack can be mitigated with Baka and Laxalt, a Biglia injury or one to Pipita and we face a rather dramatic dropoff in quality in relation to their backups. Unless you switch formations, you would have Montolivo pulling the strings in midfield or Patrick, my dear sweet baby Patrick, leading a line for an extended period of time. Not a death knell, but one that instantly jeopardizes CL contention.

3) Conversely, what gives you most hope.

Mike: I'm an eternal optimist so I can find a way for everything to give me hope, even Suso. What gives me the most hope is our combination of youth AND experience. What i mean is our young guys have played and played a lot. R13 is 23 but has already played 171 games. Donnarumma 19/135. Caldara 24/126 Calabria 21/52. We are young AND have a lot of game time under our belts. That's huge going forward. All that youth with vets like Higuain up top, Biglia in the middle and a backup like Reina? That's a nice mix.

Avia: Elliott Management. Crazy, I know, but their clean sweep of the previous administration and the introduction of Leodini was a master stroke. It now feels like we have people in charge who remember what Milan were all about and not naval gazers who made a nostalgia based purchase. It feels like we have taken a genuine step towards the Milan we all know and love. If they land Gazidis then colour me happy, we have Leodini taking care of the football side of things and someone like Gazidis coming from the EPL to help boost our off field business acumen. Milan.... the footballing fraternity welcomes you back from your self imposed exile.

TR: Agreeing with Av here, it has got to be the management. Elliot, as evil as they are, are astute businessmen so I take both solace and self-hatred knowing that they’re the ones overseeing this thing. The financial side of the club is out of the hands of old buffoons and con artist thrill-seekers. On the technical and sporting side, they’re making all the right moves. Maldini’s return can’t be overstated and I truly trust Leonardo to work alongside him building a project. Both sides seem to be on the same page and for the first time in a long time, I’m truly excited and hopeful to be a Milan fan.

4) What or who you think will surprise us?

Mike: I think Laxalt will be the signing of the year for us. I've loved the guy for a while now and can't wait to see him in our colors. He can play both LB and LM an provide some spicy sauce on that left side that we haven't seen in quite some time. His play and runs behind guys like Hakan, Jack and Castillejo should be fun to watch.  

Av: Laxalt. Had a pretty good world cup and hope that he comes alive and helps boss our "Misfield". Got my fingers crossed for him, will be great to see some damned speed in the midfield and see how well he can work with RRod. Maybe its his hair but he kinda reminds me of a very young Edgar Davids.

TR: Baka. If Leodini saw enough in him to take a flyer (or maybe flier) on him, then I trust their judgement. His CL performances for Monaco are still very fresh in my head and I think the slower pace of Serie A may draw that player out once more. How he fits in is something I still can’t call, but I have high expectations for him. Much like you do at the beginning of a relationship when you first see only the best of someone and misread their potential as unlimited so you accidentally say ‘I love you, Timoue’ way too early on and while he may not feel the same, he says it too because he thinks that he might fulfill those words some day. But that day never comes, with the ash from that damning phrase’s impact with your small, vulnerable planet, still lingering high in the sky, refusing to settle and slowly impairing the life on this once fecund planet from regenerating, with only the most stubborn, prickly, and aesthetically uncompromising life forms surviving.

Anyways, I’m fine.

5) Ummm, moving on. What or who you think will disappoint us?

Mike: I probably shouldn't answer this question. I'm not sure about disappointment... but I am worried about how the CB pairing goes. Working out a new pairing always takes time. Folks are gonna have to be patient and there's gonna be speed bumps the first few months.

Av: Donna. Due in part to his a-hole agent, i just know that at some point during this season his performances will make me wish we had shipped him to land SMS. With Reina in place I think Donna is more than just surplus. This will no doubt elicit a groan from most but I'm praying Rino doesnt let us down! The squad is pretty solid apart from the reservations I harbour about our midfield so it will be interesting to see how Rino goes about business this time. Wide down the wings or narrow through the middle?

TR: I’ll be that guy. Rino scares the hell out of me. He’s my favorite Milan player of all time, so I assure you this isn’t something personal, but I’m not entirely convinced as of yet. That winter run was magic, but there were a few distressing decisions and performances when we came back down to earth, so my worry is even more-so now with the expectations ramped up, that he is in over his head. I trust Leodini and I definitely think he’ll benefit from his relationship with them, but I think more than any other factor, Rino is going to make or break out chances at a top four finish.

6) Make a bold prediction!

Mike: Higuain leads the league in goals. PERIOD. (League-wide, my bold prediction is that Ronaldo doesn't finish top 3 in scoring and SMS has a Belotti-esque fall from grace and Lazio finish out of Europe)

Av: Write this down or screenshot it kids ....#15in6! I think Higuain will finish Capocannoniere, help us secure a CL spot and then decide he wants to make his loan to Milan permanent! Buy your official shirts while you still can!

TR: Rino switches formations before the first international break. I think he’s slowly moving towards a 4-2-3-1 and expect to see that sooner rather than later.

7) What will satisfy you as a Milan fan this year? More precisely, what constitutes a successful year?

Mike: Champions League for next year. It's CL or bust. F the Coppa. F the Europa league.  

Av: The ONLY thing that will make me happy is a finish in the CL spots. Anything less will have been futile. CL PLACES. ARE. A. MUST! Bearing in mind that Elliott are asset stripping hawks I don’t want to see what they have in store for us should we continue to finish outside the CL spots the next 2-3 seasons. Either we finish in the CL spots or Rino is gone at the end of the season.

TR: While I think it is fair that Mike and Av have concluded that missing out on the CL is a failure, I personally don’t see the season as a waste if we finish 5th. Finishing below fifth is indeed a failure in my eyes, but I think if we see growth, whether it be a deep Europa run, a more dynamic attack, consistent performances, not dropping five points against newly promoted sides, and so on ad so forth, that that in itself is enough for me. Maybe I’m setting my expectations too low, but when was the last time you saw something connecting two consecutive seasons? When was the last time we built off something the season prior? We have team capable of finishing fourth, but in many respects, last year was 0 and this year is year 1.

7) That was great guys. Especially TR’s responses. Outstanding work. So let’s wrap it up. Who finishes top 6?

Mike: Juve, Napoli, Milan, Roma, Inter, Fiorentina

Av: Juve, Napoli, Inter, Milan, Roma, Nazio

TR: Juve, Napoli, Inter, Roma, Milan, Atalanta

Sowwy! I hope I’m wrong!

Aiight kids, that wraps it up. 14:30 EST tomorrow and hit us with da feedback

Again, make your kit contest picks here!

[downthetubes]

Kendal Calling: An interview with cartoonist Lynn Johnston

With the Lakes International Comic Art Festival just over a week away, we continue our Kendal Calling interviews with a chat with Lynn Johnston, a Canadian cartoonist known for her newspaper comic strip For Better or For Worse. She was the first woman and first Canadian to win the National Cartoonist Society's Reuben Award. David, We’re Pregnant! which sold over 300,000 copies. Shortly after, she was divorced and worked as a commercial artist, freelancing from home.

Lynn was born in Ontario and grew up in British Columbia. She attended the Vancouver School of Art then took a job in an animation studio in Vancouver, where she began to apprentice as an animator. After getting married, Johnston moved to Ontario in 1969, and in 1972 the discovery that she was expecting her first child led to the publication of In 1975, Hi Mom! Hi Dad! was published as a sequel to David, We’re Pregnant!. By this time she was remarried and continued to freelance until her daughter Kate was born. Do They Ever Grow Up? was the third publication in her first sequence of books about parenting.

In 1978, Universal Press Syndicate asked if Johnston was interested in doing a daily comic strip. She signed a 20-year contract and the work on For Better or For Worse began. This comic strip has been syndicated since 1979 and, at its peak, appeared in more than 2,000 newspapers in 23 countries. Lynn was the first woman to receive a Reuben Award for Cartoonist of the Year in 1985, she has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, has received the Order of Canada and claims a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame. downthetubes: Which comic project you’ve worked on are you most proud of and where can people see it or buy it? Lynn Johnston: I ended the story of For Better or for Worse in 2007. It was a syndicated comic strip, running in over 2000 papers at the time. Right now, I’m painting and working on a series of comic art fabric patterns. I hope to have a few clients interested in bedding, draperies and children’s apparel. I’m also updating my original comic strip art for the web. downthetubes: Which comic project you’ve worked on are you most proud of and where can people see it or buy it? Lynn: I’m proud of everything I do! I’d like folks to see my comic strip – all 29 years worth on our website. There are many collection books available through Amazon and it will soon be available again in a series of hard cover books. The first of these should be on sale soon.

downthetubes: How do you plan your day as a cartoonist? Do you plan your day? Lynn: I have just turned 70, but I’m still working. I put in three days a week on the fabric patterns and paint when I feel the muse. I also produce new art for the website and occasionally write an article for same. I am also working with another artist on a graphic novel about his life. We have set a year from now as our goal for publication. downthetubes: What’s the best thing about being a comics creator? Lynn: The best thing…for me, was doing what I loved to do and be gainfully employed doing it. I think that all of us who were/ are syndicated or in some way, doing comic art for a living, feel the same. Another tremendous plus was meeting all my heroes. I came into the business when Charles Schulz was there – and Will Eisner, Bil Keane, Dik Browne, Johnny Hart... I knew many of these wonderful, talented and generous people. What a privilege to have called them my friends. downthetubes: And the worst? Lynn: The worst part of doing a syndicated comic strip was also the best: I hated the pressure. No matter what else was happening in my life, I had the relentless pressure of deadlines. I worked harder than I ever worked before. This made me more productive and focused than I had ever been, so I did a huge amount of work; something I’d never have done on my own! Aside from the comic strip, I worked on a series of animated specials. It was a pleasure to work with talented artists and writers; the bad side was dealing with horrible budgets, which resulted in a poor quality product. “We don’t want it good, we want it now!” was the mantra, and the lack of care showed. I had to quit the shows and refuse to let them be released as a series. I have never been as angry at anything as I was when we did these animated shows!

downthetubes: What most distracts you from getting your work done? Lynn: Everything distracts me now. Now that I am my own supervisor and have flexible, self imposed deadlines, I tend to slack off, dawdle about and generally waste time. I’m “retired” but for me, that’s a lame excuse for not doing more! The deadlines for syndication were wicked, but I sure got things done! downthetubes: Do you think it’s easier or harder for young comic creators to get published today? Lynn: I don’t know what’s happening in the comic art world right now! With newspapers not too sure what to do with themselves, the internet still coming into focus, graphic novels becoming the new go-to for reading and new technology turning animation into the most incredible resource imaginable, we are seeing new areas for cartoonists to explore every day. I think if you are really good at what you do, can deliver on time and work well with a team, you’re going to find employment as a cartoonist. downthetubes: Have you ever been to the Lake District before? Lynn: No. My mom’s family was from Lincolnshire and my dad’s was from the Stonehenge area. The last name was “Ridgway” from the area of the Ridgeway. My partner was born in South Shields and moved to Canada at the age of nine, so we both have strong ties to “the old country”. What do I expect? To really enjoy myself in Kendal and to feel quite at home! downthetubes: Which one comic creator would you most like to meet, and why? Lynn: I think I’ve met all the people I dearly wanted to meet. How fortunate I’ve been. downthetubes: How do Festivals and other comics events help creators most, do you think? Lynn: What festivals do for me is to allow me to see what’s new; what’s happening and to meet young cartoonists (and old friends) who are experimenting with and sharing their talent. I’ve met a number of people here in Vancouver who are doing wonderful stuff - with graphic novels and animation. I’m excited to see that comic art still has the power to inspire artists who then pull us into their world. What a gift. downthetubes: What one piece of advice do you offer people looking to work in the comics industry? Lynn: Advice? Learn how to draw backgrounds. Everyone likes to focus on characters, but characters have to live somewhere! Young artists especially, spend hour after hour perfecting a superhero costume and forget that this character has to eat and sleep and get to work somehow. So, draw stuff! Houses and trees and vehicles and chairs...stuff!! I find that realistic toys are extremely helpful. Those good quality die-cast cars, trucks and buses will give you a vehicle you can hold up and see from all angles. I have a box full of toys. In the box are animals, toy bicycles, hats, shoes, roller blades, skis - all kinds of realistic “models” for my drawings. Another piece of advice is; learn how to write. If you can’t write well, you can’t create a good story or time a good punch line. Reading poetry is helpful because there is a cadence to good writing, which draws the reader along; as if he was driving on a good highway. Any junk on the road, any unnecessary detour, anything that detracts from the easy drive will pull your audience out of your world and what happens to them? They become critics. Learn how to write. downthetubes: What’s your favourite comic right now and where can people get it? Lynn: Right now, I’m enjoying Sean Karemaker’s work. He is a graphic novelist who works on long scrolls. It’s a unique way to work and it allows him to use stereographic imaging to create a movable, interactive environment. He writes about his childhood in Denmark, with charm and insight. downthetubes: Lynn, thank you very much for your time and we look forward to seeing you at the Festival!

Book Your Festival Tickets Now!

• Book your tickets for this year’s Lakes International Comic Art Festival here. This year’s events programme includes live draws, masterclasses, interactive talks and a chance to get up close to the best comic creators in the world!  Web: www.comicartfestival.com | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Podcast | View the Festival Programme on Issuu | Download the Programme (PDF) LYNN JOHNSTON ONLINE

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[jmrphy]

On turning left into darkness

In the past week, many associates of mine on the radical left have expressed grave concern about my recent cultural politics. If you haven’t been following, here’s my best shot at a succinct, impartial recap. I have been blogging about what it means to engage intellectually with smart people on the right. By “smart people on the right,” I mean people with non-trivial intellectual projects defending right-wing perspectives, potentially even including some that appear horrifying and/or evil. I use the word “smart” only to exclude from the mind two images that have come to define “conservatism” in the left-wing imagination: infantile and fundamentally disingenuous politicians, and then mindless, racist armies of trolls. Specifically, for instance, I have expressed interest in the writings of Nick Land and Curtis Yarvin (Moldbug); I recently hosted a podcast with psychologist Diana Fleischman that included discussion of controversial topics such as “human biodiversity” (some say this is a euphemism for racism and some say it’s an empirical reality). Obviously not the usual talking points for a left-wing intellectual, but to be clear nobody is accusing me of writing or saying anything particularly impeachable. I did receive some very thoughtful concerns, however, so one goal of this post is to clarify at least one or two of the most fair and important criticisms I have received. This is a caring thing to do, and I still believe deeply in caring.

On the other hand, any culture of absolute kindness becomes a conservative system of unspoken violence insofar as painful truths get repressed and all participants become deformed over time. It is because I genuinely love my friends on the left that I am stepping up to publicly state, and seriously pursue the implications of, dozens of difficult questions we have basically had an unspoken pact to not speak about for perhaps decades now.

If you are one of my comrades on the left who is generally overexposed to human docility or illness, I must also warn you, caringly, that you might be alarmed or confused by what follows. Many of you are now accustomed to a particular script: comrade is “problematic,” group pulls moral alarm, comrade begs forgiveness and (even in the best of cases, not to mention the horror shows), comrade dies a little on the inside, group feels reassured comrade will do no harm, group grows old and gray wondering why they never changed the world. Well, I have seen this script performed too many times to play along any longer; over the past several years I think I have learned a thing or two about why our groups don’t change the world. One reason is that we punish our own for grappling with questions we pretend to understand but are in fact to fearful to seriously consider.

So at the same time this post will charitably respond to some left-wing critiques of my project, in the same breath I am going to unapolagetically push further outward on my perspective that so horrifies many of you. I will no longer fight rearguard battles against fearful and disingenuous people on the left who would rather condemn something than admit they don’t have the time to read and process it; but neither am I here to cozy up with right-wing currents, as so many on the left assume of anyone who starts really speaking up and speaking out. I should like to become a worthy opponent of the smart wings of the new reaction, rather than merely pretend they are stupid; for I consider it a great embarrassment that the revolutionary left has yet to generate anything as genuinely interesting and creative as The Dark Enlightenment or Unqualified Reservations. If so-called left-acclerationism is our best response, then we’re in deep trouble (see below). Fortunately, I think we can do much, much better, but we won’t know until we try.

One of the key objections put forward by my more thoughtful critics from the left is the following. They argue that it is ethically and/or politically wrong to entertain a frame of debate in which racist implications appear likely. For example, my podcast with Diana is ethically or politically bad because by even discussing biological differences across groups, I am effectively increasing the perceived legitimacy of notions that can and will be used to support racist ideas or policies. I think this is a reasonable concern based on a plausible model of culture. Yet after reflecting on this for several years, I believe this idea is fatally mistaken in ways that have not yet been fully grasped or written down anywhere (that I know of, anyway). Here is a first, short attempt.

This idea that it is ethically or politically wrong to entertain a certain frame of debate is a fatal error in both the normative and empirical sense of that term. First, on the normative level, the idea of refusing to engage people with certain frames of reference dehumanizes people who have no access to anything other than those frames of reference. In short, this objection writes off large swaths of humanity as inhuman. I believe that this monopoly on humanity claimed by educated leftists is now, on net, a more violent and reactionary phenomenon than any legitimacy that would be given to racism by even talking with a proper racist (let alone decent people who merely have dicey or controversial positions). What many on the left ignore is that today large swaths of human beings are, through no fault of their own, socialized into right-wing and often racist frames. There exists a large number of people who are racist because they were sociologically doomed from birth to be racist (e.g. poor undeducated white kids in racist families and geographies are statistically doomed to be racist). Their humanity has been robbed from them (as it’s increasingly robbed from everyone).

It is my view that the revolutionary left is absolutely obligated to treat such people as the humans they truly are despite the dehumanization they have been subjected to. When the “humane” leftist says thou shall not engage with any racist “framing” of a conversation, they are saying that large swaths of essentially innocent people do not have the right to think, speak, or participate in public life, i.e. this position coldly writes off the past and continued dehumanization of literally millions of people. Leftists think they are being radically humane, guarding the last line of defense against the collapse of human equality, but the horrifying mistake nobody is willing to reflect on is that this is actually saying “keep those filthy animals out of the little circle of humanity I still get to enjoy with my educated friends.”

The genuinely humane, revolutionary-emancipatory position in contemporary culture is that we must dare to do the cognitively and emotionally terrifying, and dangerous, work of extending whatever last shreds of humanity we have, to everyone we possibly can. Therefore, the truly humane, caring, revolutionary gambit today ethically requires us to “engage with racist frames.” As a militant antifascist, I also believe in drawing lines across which absolute refusal or physical resistance becomes the correct move: to me, the clear line is if someone is actively engaged in violence or directly inciting it. I would not have a conversation with a neo-Nazi marching in my town throwing bottles at immigrants; I would, with my community, physically remove them from my town. All I am saying is that to draw this line of militant non-engagement at the level of “thinking and speaking with a racist frame” would require us to tell millions of people to go die in the cesspool they were born into. We have been effectively doing that for decades now, and not only does it fail, but it appears to engender or intensify novel mutations of racist politics (e.g., carefully non-explicit white “identitarian” movements, etc).

Continuing from the previous part, the second problem is as follows. This notion that it can be wrong, a priori, to consider certain frames of reference is a grave error in the practical or strategic sense as well, because to cast off so many people as inhuman casts off all of the humans we would need to change anything. It empirically dooms the left to never achieve the fundamental transformations we claim to be fighting for. If you listen to smart people on the right, they are currently laughing their way to the end of humanity as the left continues to push deeper and deeper into the mistakes we are actively refusing to learn from. It is very difficult for the few revolutionary leftists still alive to confront this, because it’s genuinly so vertiginous and horrifying that it really approaches what is cognitively and emotionally unsurvivable for genuinely caring people: there are at least some objective reasons to believe the human species may be genuinely crossing the threshold at which exponentially increasing technological efficiency makes the absolute end of humanity an objective and irreversible empirical reality. I think it’s debatable where we are at in that process, but it seems undeniable this question is now genuinely at stake and I simply don’t see a single person on the revolutionary left seriously considering this with the radical honesty it requires.

If folks like Srnicek and Williams and the “post-capitalism” types are the best the radical left has to offer on this front, I’m very sorry but we’re in serious trouble. No disrespect to those folks, they are all very good and smart people. But that is exactly the problem. A really profound problem nobody on the left wants to consider is that being a “good person” imposes psychological constraints on your most basic capacities to think and express yourself honestly. To understand this, we need to take a little historical detour.

Recall that capitalist society only emerged and grew on hypocrisy as the standard mode for cognitively and emotionally managing the necessity of having to brutally exploit each other to survive. This hypocrisy is what the word “bourgeois” means, and it is nothing less than the naturalized lifestyle of everyone who qualifies as a “good person” in modernity. Because living as a human being under capitalism requires hypocrisy, being empirically correct about what is happening and how the world functions (science) as well as interpersonally adequate to each other (what is called “caring,” or saying/doing what helps specific other people in specific moments) are mutually exclusive to a substantial degree. The psychologist Jonathan Haidt has shown with several years of research that people who identify with the political left are disproportionately interested in “care” as a value; conservatives have a more multi-dimensional “palette” of moral foundations). To be clear, I am in fact deeply interested in the value of care, which is one reason I find myself sociologically on the left-wing of political culture. The unique challenge I don’t see anybody on the radical left seriously confronting is how our committment to care comes with the cost of certain systematic errors we happily ignore by dishonestly repeating over and over that we ignore them because we “care.” The issue here is that, it is programmed into the nature of a capitalist bourgeois society that to pursue unlimited “care” means that you objectively do not care about changing reality. This is because changing something as complex as “society” requires an extremely sophisticated empirical rigor deeply at odds with the care we also need to exercise in order to cooperatively change things together as diverse human beings. How to achieve the optimal balance of these genuinely contradictory tendencies is, in my view, one of the million-dollar questions for any serious revolutionary political thought today.

(An aside. The first and most stupendous person to see all of this in the early stages of capitalist modernity, who so clearly saw the doomed destiny of any society organized on hypocrisy, that he preferred to sacrifice his public “goodness” to produce monuments of honesty so outrageous he hoped they would raze the hypocritical order altogether, was, of course, Rousseau. Now, Rousseau did not squash the rise of bourgeois hypocrisy, but he had demonstrable effects in generating the modern revolutionary left tradition as we know it, from the French Revolution to Fanon and beyond. There are many good critiques of Rousseau, but if there is one example of how a sincere individual can craft a life that contributes to genuinely collective, world-historical waves of revolutionary political change, it is surely Rousseau. If this aside does not help you to see the world-historical difference between my own perspective and the neo-reaction, then it is unlikely any other citations ever will.)

In my view, this tradeoff between being correct about how the world works and caring for each other enough that we can cooperatively change it in the direction of peace and abundance for all—this is perhaps the most vexing and urgent puzzle for a genuine revolutionary left today. Yet remarkably I am not aware of a single person genuinely risking themselves on solving it, so I’m going to try. At present I am working on understanding the mechanisms whereby such an important problem has somehow been so stubbornly invisible to so many of us for so long. My wager is that we if we can truly understand the mechanisms of our own blindness, we will find pathways to the holy grail of the revolutionary left tradition: the flourishing of all human beings in peace and abundance, immediately, without recourse to all of the right-wing solutions that get raised in direct response to the left’s willful neglect of exactly this impasse.

It is because of this tradeoff between being correct and caring that I have recently become interested in what I have been referring to as the “smart” right-wing. Many people are concerned that my recent interest in intelligence means that I’ve become an IQ elitist or something. On the contrary, I am keenly suspicious of the politics of high-IQ subcultures, precisely because I know there is a trade-off between being correct and caring. Because we care about each other, there are certain things we refuse to see or else refuse to tell each other about what is really true. That’s fine, and perhaps a hard constraint of the types of beings we are on the radical left. But “smart” far-right people, who do not give a fuck about how people feel, they might just be the only ones capable of telling us those truths we need to process if we are ever going to have a sufficent command on reality to generate the systemic transformations we believe in. But at the same time, I am highly skeptical that the evacuation of care is a viable political project, because warmth is a condition of life for we creatures who require the sun to live, we creatures who are literally composed of a once-exploded star. I think right-accelerationists are wagering on the possibility that, if technologically super-charged hypercapitalism is understood correctly (hence the call to minimize care), that is objectively the most likely path for the possibility of surviving, perhaps into the becoming of something post-human.

For instance, a remarkable feature of Nick Land’s current writing is his obsession with coldness; I have never read anyone who so conscientiously endorses the absolute evacuation of care as a political project. Many on the left find this so evil they are resolutely insisting that if one so much as speaks his name with even one non-negative adjective in the same sentence, that very act is enough to force the speaker out of the publicly defined circle of “good humans” into that outside zone of cast-off inhumanity (consider that Land’s handle is @outsideness), via the same intellectual-social process I described above. If we self-servingly cast off human beings as if they are sub-human, we cannot then feign surprise and indignation if they say, “OK then! I’ll go off to become one with the superintelligent eugenically produced cyborg overloads you’ll be enslaved by in a couple of generations and I will laugh my ass off all the way to the singularity!” That’s the vibe I get when I browse Nick Land’s ongoing work, and when I look at the objective reality of runaway global finance and the tech sector, it does not seem implausible that something like this could potentially be underway. Of course I find that horrifying, which is why I am calling absolute bullshit on the people who say that it’s “too evil to engage.” On the contrary, it’s too alarming not to engage.

The more evil you think someone is, the greater should be your concern to ensure there is not the slightest chance they understand something better than you. If they are so evil, and they understand even one tiny thing you don’t, perhaps they are off using that edge in knowledge to engineer you out of existence. This suggests to me that when people say, “intellectual engagement with person X is prohibited,” what they are actually saying is “we are so afraid they might be part of the superintelligent cyborg army coming to enslave us that, even if they are literally preparing to, we do not want to know about it, even if there is a chance that we can still stop them!” And this is where I get off the train to nowhere, for this is where moderate respectable leftism (including most currently existing “radical” variants) converges with the most insiduous and cowardly conservatism. If there is some chance that hyperintelligent cyborgs are preparing to overtake humanity once and for all, because there is some chance that for generations now they have been operating on a model of the world we made it our pact to never consider, then I’m going to take a real look. Not everyone has to be comfortable doing so themselves, but at this point I think that any honest, decent, thinking being on the radical left will at least allow me to try.

I believe that currently, a dirty little secret on the the left is that for some people, the “left” is an agreement to protect each other’s right to look away from the most horrifying and potentially tragic realities of planetary life today, to (implicitly) secure amongst ourselves the last bits of interpersonal warmth available on the planet, agreeing to allow the rest of humanity’s descent into irreversible coldness. It helps to explain why, if you even approach these issues with the slightest indication of analytical coldness, you have to be ejected from the warmth cartel, for ejecting such existential threats is a condition of its survival. But I believe it has always been the vocation of the revolutionary left, properly understood, to risk its own survival on deploying just enough analytical coldness to engineer the unique machine that would take as an input the left’s unique material resource (warmth or energy via care) and produce as an output non-linear, systemic dynamics the ultimate equilibrium state of which would be peace and abundance for all. What that machine looks like is the question, and this is only a formal statement to illustrate the revolutionary left position today as an engineering problem. There are many reasons that have been adduced as to why such a machine cannot exist, and I do not pretend to offer responses to them here. I am only suggesting that any revolutionary left today, worthy of the name, would need to “solve for X,” as it were. The point of the engineering metaphor is not that everybody in the revolutionary movement will need to be an engineer, not at all; the point is only to show that any left-revolutionary project, to succeed, will have to solve this engineering problem.

What does this mean for revolutionary politics, in plain conversational terms? By putting all of our eggs in the basket of care and kindness, the radical left is now suffering from an engineering crisis it does not have enough engineers to even notice. In short, making revolution is a complex practical problem we are not solving because we are now generations deep in a long-term strategy of prohibiting people who are good at high-level problem solving but bad at being polite. Not to mention people who are good at creative and social openness, but bad at obeying rules. Thinkers of the respectable-radical left, people such as Paul Mason or Srnicek and Williams are selling a hope of technological super-abundance, but they are too sweet to tell any of their left comrades that all of the people you would need to actually produce that super-abundance are off building hyper-exploitative super-capitalism in part because they once went to an activist meeting and everyone treated them like fascists. To bring this back to anti-capitalist basics, the reason left post-capitalist thinkers don’t reflect much on such little problems as this one is because selling books is as mutually exclusive with truth-telling, in the short run, as is being a “nice person.” Hence the need for a fundamentally anti-bourgeois revolutionary intellectual culture cold enough to seek all of the darkest truths, but still warm enough not to betray the calling of solidarity. I’m not saying the left should start worshipping cold analytical power; all I’m saying is that if we genuinely believe in the necessity of changing the world, a revolutionary culture would have to be at least minimally hospitable to a minimal number of people who have knowledge of how complex things work and how they break, and people with the traits and inclinations to maneuver among diverse others. Both types of people are effectively prohibited from those who currently define radical progressive politics. Contemporary radical left culture is now so fully doubled-down on the wager of kindness over intelligence and creativity, that I am afraid it is almost vacuum-sealed against learning why it might be on the verge of extinction. I am writing this, and will continue writing to this effect, on the last-ditch possibility there exist other people out there, somewhere, who can see in this something more important than a moral offense.

from Justin Murphy http://ift.tt/2ppFcmI