Wondering on Wednesday 7/7/21

Ready... Set... Wonder!

What in the wondering world is going on tonight? Let's take a look.

The embattled president of Haiti, Jovenel Moise, was assassinated in his home early this morning, and his widow has been flown to Miami in critical condition. Meanwhile, on the interwebs, fingers immediately pointed to Bill and Hillary Clinton as the culprits. The wondering here? How on earth did Hunter Biden escape blame?

There's a lot of speculation on what GOP leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Afraid of Trump) will do about the House Select Committee on the insurrection. Will he appoint RWNJs like Marjorie Greene (R-Jewish Space Lasers), Lauren Boebert (R-OK Corral) and Matt Gaetz (R-Where's Nestor?)? Or maybe #FormerGuy favorite Jim Jordan (R-Coatless in Ohio), one wonders? Or, will he try and appoint people who might actually acquit themselves as serious members of Congress? 

One thing I am wondering about is why Nancy Pelosi (D-I Swear I Won't Run for Speaker Again) decided that three of the eight Dems on the Committee needed to be former impeachment managers. Is there no one other than Adam Schiff (D-I Don't Know When to Stop Talking) who could participate? You remember him, the guy who told the fun stories before anything even got started in the first impeachment? Couldn't she have done better, I wonder, in making this look less partisan? Or doesn't she even care anymore?

Former Guy sued social media companies Facebook, Google, and Twitter today, claiming in part that they are 'state actors' and therefore subject to the First Amendment. Red meat for his base, a comedic goldmine for his critics, and a continuation of his propensity for lawsuits. Says Santa Clara University law school professor Eric Goldman, Trump

is playing a standard media game. It fits into a broader pattern of the former president bringing lawsuits and then not vigorously pursuing them.

As always, we're left wondering what his 'news' is supposed to distract us from - maybe the tax-evasion case against the Trump Organization and Allen Weisselberg, his CFO? Or the fact that even Fox News doesn't broadcast his rallies?

We collectively fell short of President Biden's goal of 70% of American adults having at least one dose of a COVID vaccine by July 4th., landing at around 67%. So, instead of having big vaccination sites that are being underused, the new plan is to meet people where they are - going door-to-door to learn about - and counter - vaccine hesitancy; making sure primary care physicians  and pediatricians have vaccines available; and using mobile vaccination clinics, among other things. 

Response to these ideas is mixed, with the usual suspects on both sides acting as we expected they would. So, what's the wondering? Is there anything that will convince more people to get vaccinated? What if we told them the virus really did originate in a Wuhan lab, not a wet market (whether that's true, or not) - would that work? Or, maybe instead of offering a college scholarship, or a million bucks, we gave everyone a gun and a year's supply of ammo - would that work?

What are you wondering about?

Wondering on Wednesday (v145)

Wondering what happens when you Google 'Trump News'? Here, I took one for the team.  Taking the step to go first to Google News, and then search for Trump News. I get this.

As you know, what you see when you search for Trump News and what I got will almost certainly be different because you and I are different and because we're searching at different times, and so on.

For example, because I follow the president on Twitter (forewarned and all that jazz), his tweets are featured prominently on my search page.  Also featured in the search, in case you're wondering, is this article from PolitiFact:

Trump tweeted that "96 percent of (Google News) results on 'Trump News' are from National Left-Wing Media."

This figure is based on a non-scientific study from a conservative website that categorized any media outlet not expressly conservative as being part of the "left." These outlets include wire services, broadcast networks and most major newspapers and collectively account for a large percentage of original news reports produced in the United States. The methodology essentially preordains that a large percentage of coverage captured by Google will be what the study defines as "left." which is wrong. 

We rate the statement False.

No surprise there, in case you were wondering.

Moving on to more fun wondering, what will it look like when some 100 pink Cadillacs line the street at Aretha Franklin's funeral?  The word was sent out to Mary Kay consultants across the land, and really to anyone else who has a pink Caddy, and they're coming from as far as Texas and Florida. That surely will be a sight to see, don't you think?

In a remarkable effort to help other people, NFL star JJ Watt raised over $41M for Hurricane Harvey relief, via a GoFundMe page.  This week, the first anniversary of Harvey, Watt said that he had distributed all of the money through eight groups; their efforts, according to the Houston Texans,

have been used to clean up and rebuild more than 600 homes and 420 childhood centers, distribute more than 26 million meals and provide health care to more than 6,500 people. 

In a statement, Watt said

As I reflect on the events of Hurricane Harvey one year ago, the memories of destruction and devastation remain, but they are accompanied by memories of hope, selflessness and the beauty of the human spirit. The actions of professional first responders and everyday citizens alike were an inspiration to the world and a shining example of the inherent good that lies within us all...

While a great deal has been accomplished in the past 12 months, there is still much work to be done. Moving forward, there will be more of the same, as we continue to work with our incredible nonprofit partners to provide as much help and support as we possibly can for those affected by Harvey. I cannot thank everyone enough for your support and generosity.

A couple of things come to mind reading about this tremendous effort: first, what an amazing accomplishment, to contribute so much and get others to contribute as well, to help perfect strangers.

At the same time though, it's painful wondering what the folks in Puerto Rico must be feeling, a couple of weeks shy of the anniversary of their nightmare, Hurricane Maria.

The big new number for them is not record millions of dollars of charity being distributed, it's an almost overwhelming adjustment to the official death toll of the storm. The original number, 64, was widely hailed by the president as a success story for the federal effort after the storm; the new number, an estimated 2975 storm-related deaths, came from a study by George Washington University.

The study let to renewed criticism across multiple fronts.

Wondering on Wednesday (v128)

Wondering, wondering, wondering.

Guns don't kill people. Backpacks kill people. Now, no one has actually said that seriously, as far as I know, but this week students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School were handed clear plastic backpacks, to replace any they might have had previously that were not see-through.

I wonder, does anyone see the irony here? We inject transparency into book bags, put fences around schools, and require students to wear IDs, but we can't find a way to inject more clarity into the background check process, or even insure that everyone undergo one before purchasing a gun?  We make kids carry their belongings for all to see, but we look to enforce one state's concealed carry rules on every state in the nation, including those who are not interested?

Poor Ethan has been released from jail, after serving a couple of years for probation violation. Poor Ethan is Ethan Couch. You remember him, right? The teenager who killed four people while driving drunk, but was pronounced by a mental health professional to be suffering from a severe case of affluenza, and avoided jail time as a result? Affluenza only infects the wealthy, who because of their upbringing never learn right from wrong, and don't understand consequences and stuff like that.  I wonder, is he still suffering from his affliction, or did his time in jail (for violating his probation) provide a cure?

Here's a question for you: What do you call the White House? Seriously. what do you call the White House?  Do you call it, I don't know, the White House?  I wonder why the president couldn't pull that out of his hat when talking to kids and their parents at the White House Easter Egg Roll about, well, about the economy, and the military, and how they keep the building (or whatever) in tippy-top shape?

And finally, sticking with the Easter Bunny and Easter eggs, neither of these have much of anything to do with religion, or the 'reason for the season,' as they say, but we 'celebrate' them none-the-less, and have been celebrating them since the 1800s at the tippy-top shape place.

One thing that was not celebrated, I learned, was Easter in a Google doodle. And apparently, the doodlers haven't doodled for Easter since 2000, when they used two candy eggs for the OO in Google.

How did I learn this, you might wonder?  From Fox News. As you regular readers know, I try to learn about different sides of issues, no matter how painfully Red or painfully Blue the slant, because it's my job as a citizen to understand what the heck's going on and what is important other than what I think is important, or people like me think is important.

And for Fox News, and many similarly-thinking folks, this is a big darn deal.  Mind you, candy eggs in the doodle have nothing to do with the resurrection, and have nothing to do with religion - but they sure as heck count on the plus side of the ledger when you're fighting the war against Christianity, which is what Fox et al believe they're doing.

Google told Fox

We don't have Doodles for religious holidays, in line with our current Doodle guidelines. Doodles may appear for some non-religious celebrations that have grown out of religious holidays, such as Valentine's Day, Holi's Festival of Colors, Tu B'Av and the December holiday period, but we don't include religious imagery or symbolism as part of these. 

And Fox told me

Among the holidays the tech giant regularly celebrates with Google Doodles other than Easter Sunday are Earth Day, Martin Luther King Day, Lunar New Year, Halloween, St. Patrick's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas...

I wonder how I missed all of these 'holidays' before...particularly Earth Day, coming from the Trump News Network - irony dripping on the floor with that one, right)

And, I wonder, why it would have been better to celebrate by showing fake candy as fake eggs, given the importance of the holiday to believers? Is that really better than nothing?

And, I wonder, dare I tell Fox News that I once got a Google Doodle for my birthday?