Ed Kilgore often annoys me because of his New Democratic outlook on politics. Just the same, he is a keen observer who posts 12 articles a day. So he is required reading if you want to know what’s going on in partisan politics. But what bugs me most about him is what I see as cynical defeatism. He is very much part of crowd that argues we have to move to the center to get those mythical swing voters. But today, we are of one mind, How to Get Marginal Voters to the Polls.

The biggest challenge facing Democrats this year is the falloff of base voter participation in midterm elections. There are two approaches to fixing this. The first is the “inspire” approach. The idea is that if the Democrats rally around an exciting issue like increased funding for Social Security, the base will come running to the polls. The second is the “nuts and bolts” approach to getting out the vote (GOTV). The idea here is simply to knock on doors and provide drivers to get people to the polls.

Although I do think it is important to inspire Democratic voters, this is more about the party’s long term prospects and my desire to have actual liberal policy instead of the usual “not quite as bad as the Republicans” policy that so often defines the Democrats. When it comes to winning elections, I don’t think the Democratic Party should much worry about policy at all. As I say all the time: our policy ideas are popular, so if a lot of people vote, we win. It’s as simple as that.

As Kilgore points out, it isn’t as though we can’t do both. But if I had to pick just one, it would be enhanced GOTV efforts. Kilgore has his own reasons for favoring this. But I think it is as simple as the fact that the reason that Democratic voters don’t show up in midterms is that their lives are more scattered and it is harder to make time to vote. It isn’t that they aren’t interested in voting. And if there is one thing I’ve learned over the years from small time organizing, it is that a simple phone call makes a huge amount of difference. Knowing that even one actual human being cares that they show up makes people much more likely to do so.

So the news that the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee is going to spend nine times as much on its GOTV efforts than it did in 2010 is huge. All you have to do is look at turnout patterns over the last few elections and you will see it all. The Democrats lost in 2010, but not because the people turned against them. They lost because the people who liked them in 2008 didn’t show up in large enough numbers in 2010. And if the Democrats lose this year, it will be for the same reason.

My understanding is that the Democratic Party as a whole is going to be focused on trying to overcome the base voter turnout. Just the fact that they are trying to address the problem is cheering news. Too often in the past, it has seemed that the Democratic establishment has just sat on its hands grumbling that the voters weren’t showing up. The Koch brothers can spend their millions on blanket advertising. What else can they do? Their policies aren’t popular and the people who like them already vote in high numbers. The Democrats are the party of the people (or as close as we are going to get in our two party system). Leave the wholesale politics to the Republicans. We can win with retail politics.

I have only been the primary caregiver to two cats: Pulitzer and Deadline. They were both black cats with small amounts of white. That’s probably just a fluke, because I’m not a racist when it comes to cats. I judge them on the content of their personalities not the color of their fur. But apparently, I am in the minority. According to Alissa Scheller at The Huffington Post, white cats are almost three times as likely to get adopted as black cats.

This seems especially strange to me, because totally black cats are probably the most beautiful of all. In fact, according to the article, one Nevada shelter started a campaign to “Adopt your own mini-panther.” And all of their black cats were quickly adopted. There’s no surprise to that. Black cats do seem especially sleek and dexterous, even if it is just an optical illusion. But I would think people would pick up on that without having to be told.

It is true that some people are superstitious about black cats. In fact, some shelters will not allow black cats to be adopted around Halloween for fear that they will be mistreated. But only 13% of Americans are superstitious about black cats—not nearly enough to explain the discontinuity. What’s more, in England, it is considered to be good luck to give a bride a black cat. In Scotland, seeing a black cat indicates that you are going to get some money. And doubtless, some percentage of Americas would want to have a black cat because of its association with witchcraft. So I doubt any of mythology about black cats really has much to do with the adoption rates.

The same thing happens to dogs. Although if you look at the research, it is far less pronounced an effect than it is for cats. So it is interesting that this behavior is known as “Black Dog Syndrome.” As my sister would note, this is just another example of our cultural bias against cats. But I’ll leave that issue to another time. When it comes to dogs, it seems the problem is to some extent just outright racism: people think black dogs are more aggressive. It’s just terrible.

I think that people may assume that black cats and dogs are less emotional. It is true that it is harder to determine the details of their faces. It is also possible that black animals at shelters don’t stand out in their little cages. If they are less likely to be noticed, they are less likely to be adopted.

All black animals (Including rats!) are adorable and deserve our love. So if you are planning on adopting a pet, you really should look for a black one. This isn’t just something you should do out of altruism. The fact that black animals stay at shelters longer means that you are likely to get a better pet that is black. The syndrome also affects other darker colored animals, so check them out too. You’ll be glad you did.

Afterword

Also: go to a no-kill shelter. Most shelters do little but kill animals.

Jonathan Chait caught something important buried in a long (pay-walled) report in Congressional Quarterly, You’ll Never Guess What Just Happened to Paul Ryan’s Promise to Tackle Poverty. It seems that Ryan’s new budget will contain policy proposals that he supposedly researched in his 204-page poverty report. Chait is one of the most insightful writers when it comes to Ryan, and he concludes that the problem is just that Ryan (along with his Republicans colleagues) has irreconcilable contradictions.

I am not inclined to be so nice. To me, Ryan’s poverty report was no kind of honest look at the research on poverty. It was an effort at propaganda. He went through all the research with no intention but to show that poverty programs don’t work and to argue that the best thing for the poor is to abandon them. Chait even mentioned this, saying that “it used selective, one-sided methods to indict the safety net.” There was no way that when Ryan started work on his report that he was going to find that safety net programs work.

The whole thing reminds me of those cargo cult tribes. After World War II, the people built replicas of airplanes and other things associated with war activity to bring back the cargo. Understandably, they were confused about correlation and causation. We get the same thing from Paul Ryan. Serious people study issues and write reports. He wants to be seen as serious so he goes through the motions of doing serious work.

Image via Atlas Obscura

That’s the thing about all of Paul Ryan’s supposed “wonkery.” Long ago, he decided that his budgets and reports didn’t need to add up or make sense. It is just the idea that he has a plan that impresses the reporters. And indeed, his budgets are not only cruel to the poor, they would be catastrophic for the economy. But they were applauded in the media. And it’s the same thing with his poverty report. The media treated it as though Ryan were seriously looking at the issue of poverty rather than simply justifying his hostility toward poor people.

So it is not so much that Ryan’s commitments to military spending and tax cuts trump poverty elimination. Rather, Ryan’s current interest in poverty is only for the purpose of coming up with justification for cutting it. So his new budget does deal with poverty. As Chait noted, “At least two thirds of the cuts in last year’s Ryan plan come from programs for poor people.” From Paul Ryan’s perspective, that is a poverty program! Because what the poor really need is a kick in the butt, not a helping hand. And that goes double for those freeloading kids.

Having fought with a major networking problem all weekend long, I’m kind of tired. So you must forgive me for taking the easy way out and noting that Vincent van Gogh was born on this day in 1853. I put it that way, because van Gogh is probably the most overrated painter in history. I don’t say that because he wasn’t a great painter; he was very much a great painter. Nor do I say it just because his paintings commonly sell for around $100 million dollars a piece. I say it because of which paintings sell. It is generally his weaker paintings.

Of course, it is a matter of opinion. I like van Gogh most when his painting is more like Gauguin. The less impressionistic his work is, the better. When he was doing his usual style—the one that people seem to like so much—he was incredibly repetitive. I especially don’t like his explicit lines in most of that work. But things like Bedroom in Arles are transcendent. And I’m especially impressed with The Zouave (half-figure) (although the full-figure is arguably even better):

I am especially interested in van Gogh’s relationship with his brother Theo. I think it is wonderful that the two were so close and that Theo was so dedicated to Vincent’s art. But then, I have a tendency to romanticize van Gogh. I saw a documentary that proposed what is probably an unlikely theory: that some boys accidentally shot van Gogh, and he didn’t say anything in order to cover for them. So: no suicide, just an honorable man doing his best for some youths. Even if it’s just a story, I prefer to believe it.

Here is Jonathan Richman doing his very sweet homage to the artist:

Happy birthday Vincent van Gogh!

Last week, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported, FBI Smashes Alleged Radical-Right Terror Plot in Texas. It told the story of Robert James Talbot Jr, who seems to be a right wing nutjob. He was soliciting people via Facebook to recruit men “to restore America Pre-Constitutionally and look forward to stopping the Regime with action by bloodshed.” His rhetoric is all like that. For example, he wrote, “[W]e will send that white house worthless piece of dirt and his Muslim brotherhood a message they will never forget.” Charming stuff.

What’s bothersome, but hardly surprising, is that there is nothing very different from what he wrote than what one hears on right wing hate radio. He is talking about armed rebellion. But otherwise, it is filled with the same nonsense about the Muslim Brotherhood and how the current government—”Regime”—is invalid. And most of all, there is just a loony amount of anger.

It all reminds me of the end of Pulp Fiction, where Jules tells Pumpkin, “The truth is you’re the weak.” I see Talbot as the weak—a lost soul who doesn’t know what to think or to do. And he’s been marinating in a toxic stew of conspiracy theories and anger. What, in the end, are Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage ranting about? If things really are as terrible as they say, is Talbot so wrong to think that revolution is the answer?

None of this is to apologize for Talbot. There is little doubt that he is a very bad guy. I can well imagine him torturing small animals as a child. But one doesn’t become a revolutionary in a vacuum. How long as a society are we going to allow the conservative rage machine to continue on? I’m not talking about laws here. I’m talking about making such rhetoric socially unacceptable.

Two years ago, after Andrew Breitbart died, I wrote, Death as Public Good. In it, I criticized those liberals who said, “Sure, he published vile things and made society a worse place. But in person, he calmed down and was a nice guy.” That’s the problem. Look at Bill O’Reilly. He pays no social price for the venom he spews publicly. He’s still invited onto The Daily Show and accepted as a normal member of society. And when someone like Talbot goes on tilt, no one blames O’Reilly or the social system that created him.

Conservatives are fond of ranting about radicalization of Muslims. But every day on television, radio, and the internet, there are very loud voices radicalizing conservatives. And it is generally not mentioned. It is off limits because those doing the radicalizing are not clerics or politicians; they are celebrities making millions of dollars. O’Reilly claims he is just “playing a character.” And that’s why we all have to pretend that he’s a good man, whereas Talbot is supposedly just a bad apple. While it may be true that Talbot was born bad, the billion dollar right wing outrage machine made him worse.

Afterword

There is another, and quite different, aspect of the story that bothers me. Talbot only managed to recruit three guys—all of them undercover agents. In this case, I’m glad they got him and that now he’s in a jail cell where he can’t hurt anyone. He could easily have become another nut with a gun murdering people at a shopping mall. But this is hardly a terror plot that was foiled. For example, the acts of terrorism Talbot was plotting depended upon the agents providing the tools—in this case C-4 explosives. This is what we see in almost all such cases. It would appear that potential terrorists are also quite incompetent.

Paul Krugman is surprised about, The ACA Surge Blackout. In it, he noted that the media were all over the website problems as they should have been. But they seem especially disinterested in covering the fact that the website was fixed and enrollment is way up. It is quite possible that the program will meet its initial (pre-website) projections for signups. So there ought to be celebration about this and instead there are only yawns.

I know why the media don’t care about the story. It’s the same reason that we generally have bad coverage of political issues: false equivalence. Since reporters don’t want to be accused of bias, they report every issue as though the Democrats and the Republicans are equal and opposite ends of the debate. The problem is especially bad on economic issues, where the Democrats aren’t anywhere close to being liberal. But even accepting the two ideological poles, it is rarely the case that they are both equally valid.

In the case of Obamacare, the two poles are reasonable because we are talking about a specific government policy. On one side, the Democrats point out that there has been a surge in enrollment and it is close to the original projections. On the other hand, we have Republicans literally screaming that these numbers are all lies. There are many ways they do this like claiming that just because someone signed up, doesn’t mean they are actually going to pay for the insurance. And then there is the largely contradictory claim that the signups have only been for the Medicaid expansion and so they don’t count. And on and on.

Reporters see this and figure, as they always do, “Who can know the truth?” After all, on one hand, you have government statistics that have been quite accurate over the last 200 years. On the other side, you have partisans who hate Obamacare and throw everything at it hoping that something will stick. These people have been shown again and again and again to be spouting nonsense. How could a reporter ever figure out what the truth is?!

I suspect when the official numbers come out, they will get a decent amount of coverage. But it will be filled with caveats about how Republicans say the program is doing poorly. Unfortunately, we will have to deal with this until they give up their disinformation campaign. Of course, after that happens (and it will take years), those involved in the campaign will not pay a price in reduced credibility. The media will still listen to the garbage they spew and pretend that it is just one completely valid side of the debate.

As you may know, I am a big fan of rats. And now, the long maligned animal may finally get justice. The Guardian just reported, Black Death Was Not Spread By Rat Fleas, Say Researchers. According to a number of different studies, it seems that the “rat flea” theory is wrong. The plague moved much too fast to be transmitted via bites.

I was interested to find out that “bubonic” refers to the location that the disease manifests. The actual bacteria is Yersinia pestis. Bubonic refers to “bubo,” which is “an inflammatory swelling of a lymph gland especially in the groin.” The scientists claim that what killed all those people in the late 14th century was actually pneumonic plague, meaning it attacked and was transmitted through the lungs. You know: the normal way.

There are many other unusual things about the Black Death. According to research on wills, fully 60% of the residents of London died due to it. They say that so many people died largely because they were already very unhealthy. “The skeletons at Charterhouse Square reveal that the population of London was also in generally poor health when the disease struck. Crossrail’s archaeology contractor, Don Walker, and Jelena Bekvalacs of the Museum of London found evidence of rickets, anemia, bad teeth and childhood malnutrition.” Without the poor health, the plague would not have been nearly as bad.

Another amazing thing is that there was a recent outbreak of the disease in Madagascar that killed 60 people. When they compared the disease with that of the 14th century strain, they found no difference in terms of its virulence. That is a critical element. It seems before it was thought that the 14th century strain of Yersinia pestis was so virulent that rat fleas explained it.

In the end, I suspect that rats will not be exonerated regardless. Even the “rat flea” theory includes the potential for air transmission. And let’s face it: people love to hate rats. I think it is that they are too much like us: too successful. If we looked at humans from the outside, we would hate them too. Some of us on the inside aren’t too keen as well.

Today, Brendan Gleeson turns 59 years old. He is a great Irish character actor. He has the distinction of being the only living Irish character actor to never appear in an episode of Ballykissangel. I really like him because he’s so amazingly likable up there on the screen. And that’s even true when he’s playing hard characters. Some kind of humanity always comes through.

Most recently, I saw him in In Bruges, where he played the thoroughly decent assassin Ken. As I wrote earlier, “I felt very connected with him: an older man who has lived a mixed life and who now just wants to enjoy the little things that are left.” Gleeson also puts in layered performances, although he usually doesn’t have such rich material to work as Martin McDonagh’s script. Here’s a nice bit:

Gleeson is probably best known for playing Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody in that worker’s project for English-ish character actors known as the Harry Potter films. I think there are 29 of them now, but Gleeson is only in three of them, and he dies at the beginning of the third. Here he is in the only one I’ve managed to get all the way through, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, although all is not as it appears:

Happy birthday Brendan Gleeson!