It isn't a good idea to spend time in denial or pretending to exist in some alternate universe. Ultimately, this approach will come back to haunt you. So long as most people exist in reality, the alternative universe will have you swimming against the current. The result is usually that you will run out of steam and drown. The physical universe doesn’t know from denial or alternate realities.
Case in point, Axios Columbus had an article in today’s newsletter identifying that Registered Republicans in Ohio experienced a "significantly higher" rate of excess deaths than Democrats in the months after COVID-19 vaccines were made widely available…. (Alissa Widman Neese and Tyler Buchanan, Jul 28, 2023). The authors report from a study done at Yale of ...
deaths in individuals aged 25 years and older in Ohio and Florida from March 2020 to December 2021. The excess death rate among Republican voters was 43% higher than among Democratic voters. The differences were concentrated in counties with lower vaccination rates. Party affiliation only became a substantial factor after vaccines were made available to all adults in the U.S. Just over 60% of Ohioans have completed the primary series of the COVID vaccine, per the Ohio Department of Health. In many rural counties, the vaccination rate is well below 50%. Republican lawmakers, who represent most of Ohio's rural areas, tried to block the vaccine lottery and introduced other bills to prohibit vaccine mandates. Statehouse committee hearings were particular sources of vaccine misinformation.
You can continue to believe that climate change is the new religion of tree huggers, but when your insurance rates are no longer affordable or food prices skyrocket because we can't grow enough food to feed the world population or larger and larger numbers of us are dying from extreme weather events, reality will happen to you regardless of the prism through which you see the world (or your political affiliation).
When Pauline died, I experienced trauma and heartbreak in a way that I’d never experienced before. If nothing else, I’m a rational person with more than a fair share of common sense. What I lack in intellect, I make up for in both. I knew that if I decided to find some form of escape from reality, it would be ‘easier’ for me to manage my emotional and psychological chaos. I also figured out quickly that if I didn’t deal with the reality of what had happened to me and the reality of my grief and sense of loss, I would never be able to heal. From that place, I signed up for intensive therapy. The purpose of those sessions was to help me on a horrible grief journey and to have a trained professional offering objective feedback on the way I was perceiving myself and all of life. I also made a commitment to not touch any drugs or alcohol while going through this process, because I needed to focus on reality without any interference with my thoughts and feelings. I don’t know how successful that approach has been, but what I do know is that if I failed to face reality, I would have remained stuck in the most serious of trauma issues I carried from this experience.
I was raised by parents of the greatest generation. They weren’t perfect, but they did so many things the right way and, for the most part, they had such wonderful values. Perhaps most importantly, they were in constant touch with reality. I grew up with a perspective of life that was grounded in reality. I listened to medical experts to fashion my views of health issues. I read the work of scientists to better understand what was going on in the physical and biological world. I tried to rely on newspapers and magazines to learn about what was going on in the social, economic, and political world around me. We admired and respected teachers in the same way we respected doctors. We read books and enjoyed and appreciated creativity and we analyzed information being presented. Books weren’t dangerous and they sure didn’t need to be banned. What the hell happened that reality has become such a contentious issue. I can appreciate the notion that every single individual on the planet has their own unique reality. I’ll leave it to psychologists and philosophers to wax philosophic on that idea. For me, the cultural anthropologist, I’m going to stick with culture is shared by the members of a society. As we share a way of life, part of that existence is a shared conception of reality.
If we can’t start from an agreement about reality, we’re just screwed. There is one history … and history includes both the good and the bad. Denying the reality of facts is just plain ignorant and dangerous.
We have an election in Ohio on August 8th and there is one issue on the ballot. As I’ve written about in the past, there are statewide office holders and legislators who are pushing for a supermajority vote to make changes to the constitution based on referenda initiated by Ohio citizens. Currently, these initiatives can pass with a simple majority. The people wanting to change the rules have two advertisements running. One of them depicts young girls and the mention of ‘abuse,’ with the word ‘transgender’ sprinkled about. The other ad proclaims how incredible the US constitution is and changing that document requires a supermajority of states. It asks why we undervalue our state constitution such that we would allow changes with a simple majority.
For an excellent analysis of this argument and its shortcomings, please see David Dewitt’s column regarding the historical malfeasance of equating the Ohio Constitution with the U.S. Constitution to attack it.
The Ohio Constitution was established in 1802. The simple majority rule has been in effect since 1851. In 1912, voters were given the ability to introduce and vote on Ohio citizen led initiatives and referenda. We’ve pretty much been operating this way for well over 100 years. Why suddenly have we developed a burr up our collective republican butts about making changes to the constitution?
Well, there’s going to be a referendum on the November ballot regarding access to abortion. It will pass with a simple majority. That reality is not acceptable to a minority of Ohio voters who want to restrict access to abortion, and for many of them, with no exceptions. Hence, they want to change the voting rules so they can have their way in the most undemocratic fashion. They shoehorned this very expensive election into August to cheat their way into banning abortion against the will of the majority voters in the state of Ohio.
Here’s my take on abortion. I totally respect people’s beliefs and perspectives on this issue, and if a person believes that abortion is immoral, I encourage them to never get one.
Abortion is defined and given meaning in a religious context. Our religions offer us explanations of the unknowable, such as the beginnings and endings of life. These beliefs derive from our religious traditions. In America, we have many different denominations of Protestantism, Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Baha'i Faith, Rastafari, Druze faith, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Taoism. There are around 600 Native American tribes in the United States, each with their own religion. Each of these religions has its own set of beliefs about the origins of life, the meaning of life, when life begins, the primacy of the mother’s health vs the fetus, the relation of the fetus and the mother, as well as the many other issues surrounding conception, the development of the fetus, birth, and death. Oh, and the majority of Americans are not affiliated with any religion. Looking forward to my grandchildren’s winter music program and all of the rousing Rastafarian songs that will be presented along with Silent Night.
What you believe about abortion is a religious issue. America has no state sponsored religion. The first amendment separates religion from the state. If you don’t believe that abortion is right, don’t get one and don’t support it. But when it comes to how others deal with this issue, it is best if you keep your religious opinions to yourself.
We’ve always been a divided country.
In the 1990s, the Newt figured out that Republicans could never win an election if people voted their economic interests. It is in the DNA of Republicans to limit government spending (on programs that help you) and to consolidate resources among the wealthy and selling this gig as an opportunity to tinkle down onto the masses. So, the Newt developed the magic show about god, guns and gays to distract the masses from all the issues that really matter. Hence, the ‘cultural’ issues took center stage, like wasn’t it awesome of us to teach slaves all these great agricultural skills.
When did common sense become nonsense.
In my lifetime, I’ve never witnessed such a contentious process involving the nature of facts or reality. Listening to the nightly news has become a trip into the bizarro world. How is it that reality is up for grabs? People used to experience shame and guilt for cheating and lying. Not anymore. It is frightening and it could really be the end of us.
Okay, carry on.
As a public service to those of you who are sweltering in the hottest summer on record, I’m going to be presenting the last of my winter photographs from this past year. There is something truly magical about being out in a heavy snowstorm where the consistency of the snow has it piling up on trees and everything else. Those were the conditions I experienced during a hike on the Olentangy Trail this past January. The snow started coming down hard. I grabbed my camera and headed down to the trail which is less than ten minutes away. It wasn’t too windy or cold. I was able to shoot most of the time without gloves on.
Shooting in a snowstorm can be a challenge because if the face of the lens gets wet, the photographs aren’t going to turn out … unless you are ok with some funky looking abstracts. Keeping the face of the lens dry means not pointing the camera upward at all. It also means protecting the face of the lens if the wind does start to blow. I was able to accomplish a dry lens. I was thrilled with what I was able to capture. There were beautiful landscapes, and I was able to capture some wonderful small scenes, close-up and macro images, and abstracts. As much as I love color, so much of what I was shooting looked black and white without converting the image to black and white. Thus, I converted some of the images to black and white.
Reminder - you can view any of the images full screen by clicking on it. You can view all of the images in a grid full screen by clicking on one of the images and then scrolling through them. I always recommend viewing my photographs full screen; and the larger the screen, the better.
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