‘The Heat Was Hot And The Ground Was Dry’

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In The Atlantic today, a journalist asks “When will the Southwest become unlivable?” Yesterday, I perused temperatures in the heat dome over the southernmost part of the (dis)United States. Phoenix, Arizona stood out. The LOW yesterday was 92 degrees Fahrenheit (33 degrees Celsius) at 6a.m. The expected high Saturday is 117 Fahrenheit (47 degrees Celsisus).

Note to the author, the Southwest is already unlivable, at least in July.

Enough Money To Pay Twice—Revisiting the Private School Myth

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I bought a new bike. This will cause some, like DanDantheRetiredTranspoMan, to go apoplectic. Let me beat him to the punch.

“Another bike?! What was wrong with the one you just bought?! How many do you need? You’re a sad(sick) guy.”

If someone buys a new bike every 20 years, then yes, it may seem like I just bought Blanca. In actuality it was January 2020, so this is season four with her. I confess, that is a short upgrade cycle especially since nothing is wrong with Blanca. She’s still exceptional. The purchase is really some cycling friends’ fault for getting me thinking about a slightly lighter version of her. The whole idea is getting into a better rhythm on long climbs. What’s more important in life than that?

And as to number of bikes, I will be selling Blanca, keeping the quiver to a grand total of two or a fraction of the number most cycling enthusiasts have in their garages.*

You may be thinking maybe I should just train harder, lift more weights, cut back on the Costco Tuxedo cake, but all that requires more discipline and work than wiring Eric in Portland some scratch.

I met Eric at Starbucks in Woodland, WA. Recently, when he got his dream job at Specialized, as the head of their design team, he immediately put in an order for one of their nicest/lightest bikes. Shortly afterwards, he got whacked, which meant he could no longer afford the nice, light bike still in the box. Then he had to find a needle in a haystack. More specifically, someone 6’2″ with some spare change. I turned out to be his needle.

Eric revealed that a part of the problem of being laid off is they have their children in private schools. “How old are they?” I asked. “12 and 15.” When you send your kids to private schools, you’re paying twice—property taxes which fund the neighborhood schools you drive past, and of course, the private school’s tuition. That requires something Eric’s family is currently lacking, a lot of disposable income.

I thought about sending him this post,”The Private School Myth“, from way back in the day, but obviously I don’t know him well enough.

Because I didn’t need to purchase his bike, he may have taken a loss on it even factoring in his work discount. If somehow he finds that post, accepts my premise, and decides with his wife to send his kids to public schools, they’d be on their way to bouncing back. Here’s hoping.

*I really do need a hardtail mountain bike.

The Bear

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On Hulu. So, so good. Best thing I’ve seen since Shtisel. The story of a dysfunctional family and a Chicago eatery peaks in a cameo-filled season 2 episode 6, which at an hour, is twice the normal length of episodes. Jamie Lee Curtis, among others, will win an award for that episode.

Each character’s story pulls at the heartstrings. A truly touching love story is evolving on top. Television at its best.

Liberals Are Being Crybabies

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I’m a liberal so I can say that. Or maybe my extreme privilege disqualifies me from pontificating in that manner. Here goes anyways.

Among other recent devastating losses for liberals, the Supreme Court undid Roe, race cannot be factored into college admission decision-making anymore, Biden lost the loan forgiveness fight (for now), and businesses can discriminate against LGBTQ people.

Liberal discontent with the Supreme Court’s recent decisions and disillusionment with the conservative majority makes perfect sense especially given all their right wing nutter billionaire friends. And of course, the 2016 McConnell-Garland bullshit still lingers.

But come on. We’re still a democracy, meaning executive, legislative, and judicial power constantly shifts. The only constant is change, well as much change as two parties can muster. Sometimes majorities vote Republicans into office.* Fairly and squarely. Sometimes Republican Presidents pick conservative Supreme Court justices. Sometimes enough to create conservative majorities on the Court. Sometimes liberals lose.

What to do? Or more specifically, how to deal with it?

For example, what’s the left to do with a Court that says a web designer can refuse to make wedding websites for gay couples?** There are several problems with this decision, the most obvious being that it’s the first time the Court has made it okay to discriminate against a protected group. The primary concern is of course for LGBTQ Americans, but the less obvious concern is for the possible rollback of protections for other groups based upon race, national origin, or religion. The Court has cracked open the public discrimination door that was famously shut in 1955.

The lashing out is understandable, but what does it accomplish in the medium-long term? How do LGBTQ people and their millions of allies win the “hearts and minds” battle for equal dignity so that any business that discriminates against them has no chance to survive in our free market economy. I’m not gay, but if you won’t do business with LGBTQ people, I won’t do business with you. Times one hundred million. Or two hundred million. Or three.

It’s just like all the businesses over the last 30 years who got religion about the environment. The vast majority of corporations didn’t do it out of the goodness of the heart, they only went green because it was in their self interest. Consumers and shareholders demanded it.

Could a web design business exploit a niche as the “go to” place for soon-to-be married, anti-gay straight people looking to create gay-free wedding websites. Theoretically yes, but most people in the (dis)United States of America would join with me in not doing business with any entity that denied LGTBQ people equal dignity. How do we turn “most” into the vast majority?

By pivoting from complaining incessantly about a huge step backward in the arc of the moral universe bending towards justice and collectively acting in ways that make explicitly discriminatory businesses completely unviable. By voting, everyday, with our rainbow colored pocketbooks.

*cue the anti-Electoral College activists

**adding to the frustration, the case is based on a made-up hypothetical

The Southern Baptist Convention Is Long On Misogyny

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In today’s Wall Street Journal there’s an essay titled “The Competition for Believers in Africa is Transforming Christianity and Islam.”

Here’s how it begins:

“On a recent Sunday morning in Lagos, Nigeria’s biggest city, members of the faithful clutched their hymn books and chanted God’s praises as they danced to the beat of tambourines. A preacher led the congregation in praying for the health of their children and success at work.

The service resembled Pentecostal Christianity, a movement that originated in the U.S. and has swept Africa in the last few decades. But the participants weren’t Christians. They were Muslims, practicing an ecstatic style of worship that has developed in response to the challenge posed by Pentecostalism. Across sub-Saharan Africa, religion today is in ferment as different versions of Christianity and Islam vie for believers—a contest that is transforming both faiths and disrupting long-established terms of coexistence.”

If one accepts the premise that world religions are in a competition of sorts, maybe it also makes sense to think of Christian denominations as being in a type of competition. If you’re a pastor, how do you get people to attend your church and not those that are closer?

And if you’re Southern Baptist, how do you get people who believe men and women are created equal, are of equal intellect, work equally hard, and are at least as good leaders, to attend your church when your denomination explicitly excludes women from leadership?

A quick google search for “What do Baptist believe about women’s role?” produces this gem:

“Southern Baptists believe that God created man first, then woman; consequently, this sequence renders women subordinate to men, and undeserving of authority or leadership over them.”

How convenient for the patriarchy.

Banking their future on gender inequality, the Southern Baptist Convention is long on misogyny. Imagine the New York Times trying to compete against the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times with only male reporters. Or imagine Microsoft trying to compete against Meta and Apple with only male software engineers. Or imagine an all-male publishing house or independent bookstore competing against ones with equal numbers of smart, capable, hardworking women. Similarly, fill in the blanks for any public sector organization seeking to maximize their contribution to the common good.

I understand why so many SBC men buy into and promote the male superiority paradigm, but I don’t understand at all how so many SBC women passively accept the related conclusion, that they are inferior.

Rise up SBC women. The future of your denomination depends upon it.