Atlanta Shooting: Religion or Race?, The Long Term Effects of Ohio's Devastating Loss of a Ford Plant, Media Blackout at the Border, Vacations Banned Post COVID? (The Five for 03/19/21)
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Before we begin.
As California moves to re-open, the state is banning “screaming on roller coasters” as a means to prevent COVID spread. Ummm…what?!
21 states are now suing the Biden Administration over canceling the Keystone XL pipeline. The company that runs the pipeline claims 11,00 jobs were lost, although it’s worth noting that many were temporary. A 2014 study found the pipeline didn’t “significantly contribute to carbon pollution,” but critics claim the project threatens forests and rivers in Alberta, Canada.
YouTube is rolling out a service to compete directly with TikTok. Critics have accused the popular Chinese-developed social media app of possibly scraping user data illegally…and even outright spying.
“I want to propose to President Biden to continue our discussion, but on the condition that we do it basically live, as it’s called. Without any delays and directly in an open, direct discussion” -Russian Presiden Valdimir Putin challenging Biden to a debate. The Biden Administration declined.
[one]
The headlines have been dominated this week by a 21 year old* from Woodstock, GA shooting eight people in Atlanta area spas. Cherokee County Sheriff Frank Reynolds says the killer may have frequented the spas for prostitution services and allegedly told police he was "trying to take out the temptation” of his sex addiction.
The situation further heated up when Cherokee County Captain Jay Baker told the media the killer “had a really bad day when he did this.” This comment led to the public discovery that Baker was seliing t-shirts that read “COVID 19 Virus imported from Chy-Na.” Since most of the victims were Asian, an outcry went up about bias in the investigation, since Baker seemed to be going soft on the killer.
Allsides.com did a good job of capturing the right/center/left angles the media took when covering the story:
CNN: White Supremacy and Hate Are Haunting Asian Americans (Left)
Washington Examiner: White House says Trump's COVID language elevated threat to Asian Americans (Right)
The worst take I read came from Katelyn Beaty,** who more or less blamed the shooting on the Southern Baptist denomination’s focus on “purity culture” in an opinion piece in the Washington Post despite the fact that the killer attended Crabapple First Baptist Church (there’s more than one denomination called “Baptist” and I couldn’t’ find anything online confirming Crabapple as a Southern Baptist Church)
At this point, there’s very little information out there about motive beyond a single statement he uttered to (a likely biased) police captain. So, Beatty blamed a denomination that the killer may not have been a part of for a motive that’s still not confirmed.
If you don’t much exposure to Christian teachings, “purity culture” is the teaching that Christians should abstain from sexual activity before/outside of marriage. Critics have (at times, rightly) pointed out that the idea can take a dark turn and blame childhood victims of sexual abuse for their trauma and/or condemn teens who later regretted sexual experimentation and later regretted the decision as branded for life.
Important questions Beatty didn’t try to answer:
What’s the difference between the beliefs of Crabapple Baptist and the Southern Baptist Denomination? (I have no idea about the particulars of Baptist beliefs, and I’m a professed Christian/lifelong church attendee).
How prominent is “purity culture” in current Southern Baptist culture today? Is this a current teaching, or relic of the past? Are there any examples of what’s being taught today? Would those same things have been taught at Crabapple First Baptist Church?
What about the racial element here? The killer murdered mainly Asian women at a time when hate crimes against Asians are up significantly? It’s it possible the Captian Baker, who’s shown Anti-Asian sentiments, could be covering for the killer’s racist motives?
The killer’s church (linked above) has a lengthy statement worth reading, which deals with the killer’s membership at their congregation, condemns his actions and specifically rejects the killer’s stated motive:
Q. Do you teach that women are responsible for men’s sexual sin against them?
A. We categorically reject this idea. Each person is responsible for his or her own sin. In this case, the shooter is solely responsible for his heinous actions, not the victims who were targeted.
Why was this not mentioned in the Beaty’s Washington Post article? Finally, it’s worth noting that the Southern Baptist Denomination has been in steep decline in membership and influence for decades, so how far do these teaching reach? The Moral Majority movement died in the 80’s but Beatty’s piece seems to infer much more power today that Southern Christian denominations hold in culture.
The common thread between Beatty’s take and the biased headlines above is that all three start with the “villain” they want to blame and construct the story around that…rather than following the facts all the way down. (Beatty seems to have set out to blame Southern Baptist teaching, CNN wanted to blame White Supremacists and the Washington Examiner wanted to blame Trump critics).
The only thing I know for sure is that this week has further cemented my belief that there’s very little integrity (or, at the very least, attention to detail) left in modern journalism.
Two more notable points before we move on. The first is that there has been an increase in hate crimes against Asian Americans since COVID started, and there’s a massive uptick in Asian gun ownership. According to Forbes, the primary motivation is self defense against the aforementioned hate crimes.
The second thing to note is that, as long as those new Asian gun owners purchase a gun safe to go with their new firearm, society is not less safe with more guns in circulation. The Washington Post reported this week that 80% of guns used in crimes are stolen or obtained illegally, not purchased at a retail store.
To be fair, in this case the killer did purchase a gun at a store and kill eight people the same day. But, going on the statistics, we would do more to reduce murders with guns by mandating storage in locked safes than by passing legislation about which models of guns can be owned.
*The Five will not report on the shooter’s name, as one of the things mass shooters want is fame.
**Full disclosure, I believe I met Katelyn a time or two at events when we were both journalists in Chicago (although I hardly remember anything beyond a casual hello)…and I have taken issue in the past with the accuracy of her work…so I went into reading this piece with some bias. But that bias did not come from past personal interaction.
[two]
Ford is moving $900 million in new vehicle production to Mexico from Ohio.
The Hill reports:
United Auto Workers (UAW) Vice President Gerald Kariem addressed a letter to Ford workers in Avon Lake, Ohio, in which he accused the automaker of violating a contract agreement with the union with its plans to build a next-generation vehicle in Mexico instead of the Ohio Assembly Plant (OHAP).
The letter, sent with the union’s letterhead, cited a 2019 four-year contract deal in which Ford committed $900 million for the assembly plant in Avon Lake, including adding production for a next-generation product in 2023.
The UAW said the agreement would secure the assembly plant's “employment well into the foreseeable future” but that Ford “has decided it will not honor its promise.”
“Ford management expects us to just hang our heads and accept the decision,” Kariem wrote in the letter dated Friday. “But let me be clear, we are making a different choice.”
“We 100% reject the company’s decision to put corporate greed and more potential profits over American jobs and the future of our members,” he continued. “We expect the company to honor its contractual commitments to this membership and when it fails to do so we will take action.”
Quick observations:
Despite all the new trends in technology jobs, middle America rises and falls with manufacturing. If we don’t want a country with rich coast and a hollowed out center, we need to make stuff here.
It’s entirely possible the union pushed too hard, making it impossible for Ford to build vehicles in Ohio without losing money.
The UAW Union throwing a fit and saying “we 100% reject the company’s decision” aint going to bring the plant back.
The loss of blue collar jobs with strong wages is closely correlated with hard drug use, domestic abuse and child sexual abuse. Poverty comes to town and drugs, beating women and raping children move into the neighborhood as well.
This is a bigger loss than most can comprehend.
[three]
NBC News reports a complete news blackout during the border crisis:
The Biden administration is restricting the information Border Patrol agents and sector chiefs can share with the media as a surge of migrants tests the agency's capacity at the southern border, according to four current and two former Customs and Border Protection officials.
The officials say the restrictions are seen as an unofficial "gag order" and are often referred to that way among colleagues. The officials requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media about the topic.
Border Patrol officials have been told to deny all media requests for "ride-alongs" with agents along the southern land border; local press officers are instructed to send all information queries, even from local media, to the press office in Washington for approval; and those responsible for cultivating data about the number of migrants in custody have been reminded not to share the information with anyone to prevent leaks, the officials said.
Multiple news organizations, including NBC News, have requested access to or photos from inside overcrowded border processing facilities holding unaccompanied migrant children; they have been denied. The DHS press office released one photo late Tuesday of a mother and child undergoing a health screening inside a border facility, but no wider shots to show conditions or sleeping arrangements.
Reuters captured a photo of migrants picked up during illegally crossing the Rio Grande being processed under a bridge in Granjeno, TX after all local facilities were over capacity.
[four]
One of the more interesting (weird/creepy/disturbing) things I’m observing at the moment is the trend for some people intend to never return to “pre-COVID” life.
In many ways, I think the pandemic has been used as an excuse for some people to severe social and familial connections they couldn’t find a polite reason to end before this, and didn’t have the backbone to just do it.
We’re now at the point where even the idea of vacation needs to be defended as something that’s reasonable.
Brown University’s Emily Oster writes for The Atlantic:
At least one group feels left adrift, however, and potentially behind: parents. Vaccines for children under 16 are not yet available. Trials have begun, but realistically, children won’t receive a shot in the arm until the fall or winter. Parents are wondering if, after a year of remote school, no playdates, and a lack of grandparent visits, they’ll still have to socially isolate while everyone else enjoys their BBQ.
But the best available research indicates that families with young children don’t, in fact, have to live like it’s 2020 until 2022. Parents can go ahead and plan on barbecues and even vacations. The explanation for why lies in the resilience of kids to COVID-19, and in herd immunity.
Children are not at high risk for COVID-19. We’ve known since early in the pandemic that they are much less likely to fall ill, especially seriously ill. Although scientists don’t quite understand why, kids seem to be naturally protected. As a result, you can think of your son or daughter as an already vaccinated grandparent.
I hesitated to write about this when it first happened, but I suffered an allergic reaction to the first Moderna shot, which I got early because my company is deemed essential. I got as much info as I could about anaphylactic reactions that were happening when people with severe food allergies got the COVID vaccine.
In the end, I believed it was probably better to take the risk so that my co-workers didn’t feel uncomfortable with me if I didn’t go through with it.
Before getting the shot, I had this exchange with the nurse:
”Are you allergic to shellfish.”
”Severely, and I’ve been in urgent care over it.”
”Don’t worry, it doesn’t matter.”
”Then why would you bother asking?”
And…I had an a reaction. My throat started to close. Thankfully, the effects were reversed with Benadryl.
So, I’ll never be “fully vaccinated” as I’m not going through that again.
You know what I’m going to do.
Employ the same strategy as when the pandemic broke out…assume I’ll get COVID.
I’m serious. My goal is to make myself as healthy as possible so I’ll roll through the disease. The death rate for people under 40 is .01%.
SEO Entrepreneur Nat Eliason (BTW, you should subscribe to his Monday Medley email) lays out the strategy I’m (at least trying) to follow:
But I expect that my decision not to risk life-threatening anaphylaxis with the second shot will permanently destroy at least a few personal connections.
The economic scars of a year of COVID lockdowns will fade, but I’m concerned that the social and interpersonal scars will remain. I wonder how much of this is about the disease/vaccine and how much is about the underlying anger and quiet sense of hatred our society has been running on for years.
I can’t find the source at the moment, but there was an interesting editorial I read several years ago about fistfights at Chicago Cubs vs. White Sox games. Chicago has a large population of people of Northern Italians, the more affluent, urban, gentrified region of the nation.
(Southern Italians tended to congregate more in Wisconsin upon immigrating. The cultural divide is deep enough the country considered splitting in the 2000’s…a good look at the economic and cultural divide within Italy here).
Northern Italians share little cultural common ground with the rough and tumble Irish immigrants of Chicago’s south side (particularly Beverly and Mount St. Greenwood, if you live/have lived in Chicago).
The editorial theorized that the fights during the games were never really about baseball, but instead were the flare ups of two cultures that clashed. But it was more socially accepted to hit someone in a baseball stadium than to do the same on the street.
In my opinion, that’s what COVID has become. An excuse to weaponize long held anger in the form of canceled social events, gatherings and outright shunning. I don’t see that changing just because the disease is waning.
The more time we spend apart, the less likely we are to get back together and discover common ground.
[five]
Let’s head into the weekend with a pop culture roundup:
Amanda and I watched the first 50 minutes of the four hour Justice League Snyder Cut on HBO Max. After geeking out over the possibility of this alternate release seeing the light of day, the most apt comparison I can make…is that it has a Lord of the Rings feel.
If you care about film (vs. just movie watcher) you owe it to yourself to check out this conversation from Ben Affleck (who’s directed The Town, Gone Baby Gone and Argo) with director David Fincher (Gone Girl, Seven, The Social Network). Fincher is known for doing 100+ takes of the same scene, which he and Affleck dive into. Fincher famously shot 20+ takes of this scene in Gone Girl, resulting in dozens and dozens of brand new laptops being smashed. One can only imagine this greatly annoyed the movie studio.
Well, this is a strange one. Garth Brooks had one of the biggest runs in popular music from 1989-1998, which included huge singles, best selling albums and in-demand stadium tours. Then, in 1999, Garth Brooks debuted “Chris Gaines,” an alter ego name to release pop music. The album essentially destroyed Brooks’ career and led to his retirement from music. But, like the George Lucas Star Wars prequels of the same era, mockery and critical panning slowly transformed into fans reconsidering the quality of the project. In 2019, the Chris Gaines album entered the pop culture lexicon again when R&B/hip-hop star Childish Gambino (also an alter ego persona of actor/comedian Donald Glover) covered the Gaines single “Lost in You.” Now, more than two decades after the first Chris Gaines album, Brooks is once again penning music for a new “Chris Gaines” project, with powerhouse country songwriter Ashley McBryde. This has to be one of the strangest left turns for an artist, but I’m looking forward to it.
Morgan Wade’s new album Reckless is out today. Her sound falls somewhere between Americana and 90’s alt rock. Start with this live cut of her single “Wilder Days.” Other new albums I’ll be streaming today include Lana Del Rey, Justin Bieber and Loretta Lynn.
The next attempt to create another Game of Thrones phenomenon drops April 23rd with the Netflix exclusive Shadow and Bone, which is more or less a Russian folklore inspired take on G.O.T./The Witcher. The series has reportedly been renewed for season 2 already, which means Netflix thinks they have a huge hit on their hands (but then again, Netflix thought the historical epic Marco Polo would capture the attention of G.O.T. fans, and wound up with a $90 million flop). See the first trailer for Shadow and Bone here.
In gaming news, the last three Tomb Raider games will be tweaked and repackaged and the franchise will also continue to expand into other entertainment ventures with an animated series as well as a live action sequel to the 2018 Alicia Vikander version of Tomb Raider on the big screen (my 2018 review of the movie for Relevant here). Finally, Outriders, the next looter-shooter game in the vein of Destiny will hit XBOX Game Pass when it launches April 1, another blow to Playstation in the next-gen console war.
[epilogue]
In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I wanted to share a bit of the story of Thomas Francis Meagher. An Irish Revolutionary who fought against the British government, Thomas was schedule to be drawn and quartered (execution by being chopped into pieces) when his sentence was reduced to banishment.
He escaped from exile in Tasmania and made his way to the U.S., where he led the Irish Brigade for the Union Army at Battles of Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. Thomas planned to take the Union Civil War vets back to Ireland and use their experience on the battlefield to overthrow British rule. However, fate led him to a position as acting governor of the Montana territory, where he was most likely assassinated by a political rival in a land dispute.
Meagher’s biography, The Immortal Irishman, is one of the best history books I’ve ever read.
Until the next one,
-sth