When they tell you who they are, believe them

Matt Keefer is running for the school board in Zion, Indiana. He just admitted who he is on Facebook.

Keefer responded by saying, “All Nazis weren’t ‘bad’ as you specify. They did horrible things. They were in a group frenzy in both cases you site.” He goes on to write, “Who is to say if we were both there in the same place and time, that we wouldn’t have done the same thing.”

Do you know why they say “never forget”? It’s so you don’t do the same thing if you find yourself in similar circumstances.

Just to make it even more fun, he goes on to suggest that someday people will look back on the people who responded to the pandemic with sane health measures in the same way we see Nazis today. And he’s an MD?

You know, everyone should scrutinize their local school board candidates carefully. The wackaloons all know that school boards are a great entry point to inject all kinds of lunacy into a community.

Rebel’s Pratfall

Theodore Beale AKA Vox Day is in the news again. A few years ago, sick of all those comic book movies full of good guys and liberal ideals (I’ve got news for him: most of them are violent libertarian fantasies), he decided to promote and raise money for his idea of a good comic book story: Rebel’s Run, a Confederacy-themed anti-woke superhero pissed off at a world that has made hate crimes a, well, crime. How dare they?

Then, of course, it was an idea from rabid Vox Day and his legion of frothing mad, walking talking hate crimes. There was a chance he could pull it off.

There was reason to think Beale and his fans could realize their dream of going from comic books to cinema, if only through sheer fanaticism. His devoted followers call him the “Supreme Dark Lord of the Evil Legion of Evil,” and describe themselves as his “minions.” Beale’s supporters, who frequently complain about supposed progressive “social justice warrior” influence creeping into fields like video games and science fiction, had already funded a handful of comic book issues and stirred up a controversy at science fiction’s premiere awards.

Beale’s history of racism could have made it difficult for Rebel’s Run, which stars a character sometimes depicted in a Confederate flag bustier, to find traditional financing. He has claimed that certain races are more likely to commit violence and called one of his foes in the science-fiction dispute, a Black author, a “half-savage.” Beale has affiliated himself with the Gamergate movement, opposes women’s suffrage, and once described homosexuality as a “birth defect.”

He even made a teaser trailer. They didn’t actually have any movie footage — it hadn’t been made or cast or anything — so basically it’s a clip of a woman in a convertible firing a pistol at some stock footage of cops. It’s not at all impressive but it got the conservative donors fired up.

Rebel's Run Teaser Trailer from Galatia Films on Vimeo.

He raised a million dollars from his minions, which is small potatoes in the big screen superhero world, but hey, it was seed money. He just needed to invest it somewhere safe, build on his now-demonstrated ability to raise funding, persuade some investors to grow it, and…uh, ooops.

Given that track record, he instead turned to Utah-based Ohana Capital Financial, a business aimed at customers that would struggle to get money elsewhere.

As Ohana’s promotional materials put it, according to prosecutors, the firm offered “banking [to] the unbankable.” On Nov. 5, 2020, Beale transferred the $1 million to Ohana to be held in escrow in advance of future film funding.

Ohana was the creation of James Wolfgramm, a self-described cryptocurrency billionaire who posted pictures of sports cars that supposedly belonged to him on social media. But in fact, according to a federal indictment filed last month, Wolfgramm’s wealth was a sham. The sports car pictures, for example, were pulled from other websites. Wolfgramm’s business also sold what were billed as high-tech cryptocurrency mining rigs — but those too were a hoax, according to prosecutors, with their screens just running on a loop to create the illusion of mine.

Unbeknownst to Beale and his supporters, the indictment alleges, Wolfgramm was deeply in debt to one of his business’s other clients. That client had paid Ohana more than $4 million in September 2020, several months into the Covid-19 pandemic, as part of what was meant to be a payment to a Chinese manufacturer of personal protective equipment. Instead of carrying out the transaction, prosecutors allege, Wolfgramm spent the millions on his own unrelated business issues.

Oh. He trusted a cryptocurrency grifter with his seed money. It’s gone. All of it, vanished into the pockets of con artists and conservatives…but I repeat myself. The movie is not going to be made.

But don’t you worry about Vox Day. He’s already blaming the libs. It was a conspiracy, don’t you know, to destroy his dreams.

Beale claims, without evidence, that the alleged con was carried out to disrupt his right-wing fanbase.

I strongly suspect that this whole thing was a targeted operation intended to break our community, Beale said in the video he published last week.

And he’s bouncing back with another fantastic anti-woke plan.

Beale isn’t done with movies yet, though. In a video to his fans, he told them he’s working on a script starring his friend, antisemitic former comedian Owen Benjamin. In this new movie, Beale plans to cast Benjamin—who believes the moon landing was faked—as the head of NASA.

Somewhere out there, another cryptobro is rubbing his hands in glee, anticipating another windfall of a million or more from the gullible minions of the Supreme Dark Lord of the Evil Legion of Evil.

We got a letter from the Board of Regents

This is actually the kind of letter I like to see.

Dear Chancellor Ericksen and the University of Minnesota Morris community:

Today, I want to extend my sincere apology on behalf of the Board of Regents following Regent Sviggum’s apology yesterday. As you know, last Thursday Regent Sviggum asked a question regarding Morris enrollment. We all bear responsibility for speaking up and condemning the question, whether on Thursday or in our Friday meeting. As the leader of our board, I should have done better and I am not proud of my inaction.

Our Board is committed to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and it is a central anchor of the president’s MPact 2025 strategic plan, which the Board has fully endorsed. We are inspired every day by the diversity of thought, of inquiry, of vision, and of presence that drives our institution forward.

In March of 2023, we will hold the Board of Regents meeting on the Morris campus. With the full Board on campus, we will focus on engaging with the Morris community, including students, faculty, staff, and the broader Morris region.

In addition, I am committing today to provide DEI training to the entire Board of Regents that will help us more fully understand and reaffirm the power that different perspectives bring to our shared success. Diversity is not a challenge, it is a strength that makes our institution—and Morris—one of the most highly regarded universities in the country.

Consistent with the educational mission of our great University, the Board of Regents recognizes that we must acknowledge our failings and learn from them. Hopefully, our sincere efforts to do so will serve as an acknowledgement of our responsibility and commitment as Regents to advance the University’s land grant mission of teaching and service for the benefit of all Minnesotans.

Our mission is your mission. We look forward to meeting with you in March to further discuss the importance of diversity and how we, as a Board, can support you in your efforts, as well as to listen to your stories of the many ways that the Morris campus embraces the University mission and inspires us all.

With thanks,

Ken Powell, Chair
Board of Regents

I think maybe Sviggum was chastised by the board — I don’t think he is well liked.

Although…they’re all coming out to Morris in March? We’ll still be frozen and under the snow, and we don’t have a star chamber quite as intimidating as the one they’ve got in the Twin Cities. Maybe they can meet in my lab, surrounded by spider cages instead.

The wrath of the pandemic is falling on Republicans now?

An interesting/sad fact about COVID death rates: there’s been a demographic reversal. Where before black communities suffered most, now white people are dying off faster.

The Post analysis revealed the changing pattern in covid deaths. At the start of the pandemic, Black people were more than three times as likely to die of covid as their White peers. But as 2020 progressed, the death rates narrowed — but not because fewer Black people were dying. White people began dying at increasingly unimaginable numbers, too, the Post analysis found.

In summer 2021, the nation saw some of the pandemic’s lowest death rates, as vaccines, shoring up the body’s immune response, became widely available.

Then came the delta variant. The virus mutated, able to spread among the vaccinated. As it did, an erosion of trust in government and in medicine — in any institution, really — slowed vaccination rates, stymieing the protection afforded by vaccines against severe illness and death.

After delta’s peak in September 2021, the racial differences in covid deaths started eroding. The Post analysis found that Black deaths declined, while White deaths never eased, increasing slowly but steadily, until the mortality gap flipped. From the end of October through the end of December, White people died at a higher rate than Black people did, The Post found.

Maybe now Republicans will start caring? Nope.

The nature of the virus makes the elderly and people with underlying health conditions — including hypertension, diabetes and obesity, all of which beset Black people at higher rates and earlier in life than White people — particularly vulnerable to severe illness and death.
…
The virus also attacks unvaccinated adults — who polls show are more likely to be Republicans — with a ferocity that puts them at a much higher risk of infection and death.

Of course, the problem is more complicated than that Republicanism is a mark of doom — although I think you could make a case that Republican policies are at the root of wrecking the pandemic response for everyone. There’s a whole array of factors that are killing conservative Americans.

Resilience gave way to fatigue. Holes left by rural hospital closures deepened. Medical mistrust and misinformation raged. Skeptics touted debunked alternatives over proven treatments and prevention. Mask use became a victim of social stigma.

Many Republicans decided they would rather roll the dice with their health than follow public health guidance — even when provided by President Donald Trump, who was booed after saying he had been vaccinated and boosted.

It’s also racism. Deep down, ugly, visceral racism.

Researchers at the University of Georgia found that White people who assumed the pandemic had a disparate effect on communities of color — or were told that it did — had less fear of being infected with the coronavirus, were less likely to express empathy toward vulnerable populations and were less supportive of safety measures, according to an article in Social Science & Medicine.

A growing body of research, outlined in the book “Caste,” by Isabel Wilkerson, shows that even the most anodyne of social exchanges with people of different races, such as glancing at faded yearbook photos, can raise White people’s blood pressure and cortisol levels.

Not all white people, I hope. I’m at a too diverse university, remember.

For some white people, though, it’s all too much, and it’s going to kill them.

As Metzl conducted research for his book in 2016, a 41-year-old uninsured Tennessean named Trevor who was jaundiced and in liver failure told him “I would rather die” than sign up for the ACA. When asked why, Trevor, who was identified by first name only, said: “We don’t need any more government in our lives. And in any case, no way I want my tax dollars paying for Mexicans or welfare queens.”

Oh, Ronald Reagan, you were truly a curse on this country.

Everyone: get vaccinated. Even if you’re a Republican.

Proud to be part of the coalition of chaos

The Tories are getting all het up over there in the UK. Suella Braverman put on a fine display.

it’s the Labour Party, it’s the Lib Dems, it’s the coalition of chaos, it’s the Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati, dare I say, the anti-growth coalition that we have to thank for the disruption that we are seeing on our roads today.

I do read the Guardian, and I quite like tofu — I had a marvelous spicy tofu-and-shrimp soup from an Indian kiosk this past weekend — so I fail to see what her complaints are all about. I’m not sure that a party that hates immigration so passionately should be accusing others of being anti-growth.

By the way, just this morning it was announced that Ms Braverman is out of a job. Chaos! More chaos! The current UK government is truly the epitome of chaos!

So far…the US has midterm elections next month, and I expect even more chaos here.

Her departure was a resignation.

She was specifically irate that they weren’t dispatching those dirty immigrants fast enough to suit her.

Boy, the Truss government sure is crumbling rapidly.

It’s called accountability, ever hear of it?

JK Rowling, transphobic hack, is angry with Graham Norton, amusing talk show host.

Rowling wrote: Enjoying the recent spate of bearded men stepping confidently onto their soapboxes to define what a woman is and throw their support behind rape and death threats. You may mock, but takes real bravery to come out as an Old Testament prophet.

Neither Norton nor Bragg referenced rape or death threats in their statements.

He didn’t even mention Rowling! Here’s the horribly offensive thing that Norton said.

“If people want to shine a light on those issues then talk to trans people. Talk to the parents of trans kids, talk to doctors, talk to scientists. Talk to someone who can illuminate it in some way.”

How awful. Doesn’t he know the proper authorities on trans rights are cranky neo-fascists?

Then he went further.

The phrase “cancel culture” has become a ubiquitous catchall that celebrities may cling to after they make a controversial or offensive statement.

But Graham Norton doesn’t think that’s the correct description for what really happens when fans criticize “canceled” people. The right word, he says, is “accountability.”

Norton, the host of a titular BBC talk show, tackled the thorny topic of “cancel culture” at the Cheltenham Literature Festival this week. Speaking to interviewer Mariella Frostrup, Norton decried the concept of “canceling” anyone who still has a sizable platform from which to speak.

“You read a lot of articles in papers by people complaining about ‘cancel culture,’” he told Frostrup. “You think, in what world are you canceled? I’m reading your name in a newspaper, or you’re doing an interview about how terrible it is to be canceled.”

“I think [‘cancel culture’] is the wrong word,” he continued. “I think the word should be accountability.”

Exactly right.

And now Graham Linehan, Rowling sycophant, oblivious toady, and professional hate-monger, has been sucked into the conflict, the poor man.

Speaking to GB News’s Andrew Doyle at the Battle of Ideas festival in London, Linehan said he was “disappointed” by the comments from Norton. He said: “I find Graham Norton personally such a betrayal, because one of the first things he did was his role on Father Ted, there is no way he cannot know about what’s happened to me.

“For him to say there’s no cancel culture, I don’t know what to say about it, but he’s really disappointed me.”

Linehan also addressed being dropped by Hat Trick Productions from involvement in a musical version of Father Ted because of his views. He said: “The way I look at it is, it’s preemptive cultural vandalism. It’s something that’s been cancelled before it even appeared.

“I don’t really know what to say except they’ve never told me what I’ve done wrong. They’ve never told me what I’ve said that they disagree with.

“When I asked once, someone in the room rolled their eyes, as if it was obvious. Well, actually, it’s not obvious.”

Actually, it is obvious. We could start with your willingness to go on GB News, but also…

He had also been a very active and prolific tweeter on popular micro-blogging website Twitter, and in recent years had focussed on attacking trans people and being a general TERF. He opposed the trans charity Mermaids in a rather transphobic post on Mumsnet (a parenting website known for rabid transphobia), and was called out for this by hbomberguy in the latter’s famous marathon charity livestream to raise money for Mermaids, in which he raised over $340,000.

On June 27 2020, Graham Linehan was permanently banned from Twitter, due to violating several of their hateful conduct policies. On March 9, 2021, he announced that his anti-trans activism had caused “such a strain that my wife and I finally agreed to separate”.

You mean his wife never told him what he’d done wrong? I can believe it.

GL’s Wife: Graham, I’m divorcing you.

GL: What? Why?

GL’s Wife: Because you wallow in self-pity, and you’ve become a hateful twit forever ranting about where people should go to the bathroom…

GL: Someone is using the wrong bathroom? Quick! To the Twitter machine! Sorry, dear, this is important, we’ll talk later.

Shorter explanation: you’re being held accountable for your transphobia, Glinner. Obliviousness is not an excuse, and neither is “cancel culture”.

Sviggumated

Sviggum rhymes with Wiggum, you know.

The row continues. There is now an open letter from UMM faculty and staff laying out the flaws in Sviggum’s assertions.

We’ve also made the pages of the Washington Post. I think this is great PR for us — I like being known as the campus that is so open and diverse that a Republican criticized us for having a student body that wasn’t white enough. Please consider attending this university if you value new perspectives!

I was snookered

You may recall that I suggested that Yvon Chouinard, founder of the Patagonia retail store, might be that mythical beast, a good billionaire. Do me a favor, will you? Forget I ever mentioned it. As it turns out, his donation of his entire company to a charitable trust dedicated to protecting the environment was a sham — it was a maneuver to get some massive profit from tax breaks, and the trust was actually a way to put his money in a 501c4 that would be controlled by his heirs and himself, and would allow him to meddle in politics freely. He was simply abusing the system and undermining democracy in that special way that capitalism grants the filthy rich.

I should have known. You don’t get to be a billionaire by being a good person, you have to have a thick, deep core of corruption running through your heart in order to cheat the system and gather that much money. At least Chouinard knows that the reality of his existence is so thoroughly shot through with evil that he has to work so hard to put up the illusion that he’s a good man.

I won’t be fooled again. You’re a billionaire? You’re by definition bad.

Home again

It was a long weekend in Hoquiam, Washington, where I attended my brother Jim’s remembrance. It was a quiet event, no ceremony, just friends and family gathered and talking and looking over old photos, feeling sad.

Here’s a young Jim.

He always was better looking than me, although I never admitted that to him. He told me often enough.

For comparison, here’s a photo of the Myers kids sometime around 1970. Nobody call attention to my ugly teeth, please.

All that’s left of that handsome boy now are ashes, nicely stowed away in his old work thermos.

Now I’m getting sad again. Must stop.