Aaron Carroll brought my attention to some alarming but unsurprising information, “As of this week, 45 children have died of influenza-related illness so far this season.” Further, during the last week of 2014, influenza and pneumonia accounted for 8% of all deaths. That’s above the “epidemic threshold” for that time of the year. So the flu is especially nasty right now. Carroll thinks we should all get flu shots and he is attacking the current claim that they are “only” 23% effective, “I’d like a list of all medicines people take, diets they go on, behaviors they change, devices they employ, and procedures they undergo which are better than 23% effective.” So get your flu shot — I can’t afford to lose any readers!

But that’s not what I want to talk about here. I want to talk about why it is that people don’t care about a disease that has killed 45 children so far this season, but they freaked out because one guy died of Ebola. There are a number of issues, of course. For example, the media care about unusual stories. “One man dies of Ebola” is interesting, “lots of kids die of the flu” is not. But the media largely reflect their audiences. And so I think the fundamental issue has to do with purity.

Influenza is our disease. Ebola is their disease. Of course, this isn’t true. Both these diseases move around the global. But the perception is that Ebola is foreign. So the fear is not about death, but rather the manner of death. Death by influenza is just one of those unfortunate things that kills our kids and parents. But Ebola is like a terrorist attack. It doesn’t belong in America. It is like a knife jabbing at us from the country of Africa. (Yes, that was a joke!)

You are probably familiar with those tests where you have to associate positive and negative words with different groups to test your subconscious bias. Not long ago, I took one related to young and old people and found that I am biased quite a bit in favor of old people — unlike our society generally. But many years ago, I took this kind of test regarding the countries Japan, China, and India. I was surprised that subconsciously, I had the lowest opinion of India. It seemed strange, given how many great friends and colleagues I’ve had from India. But once I thought about it, I realized that my default image of India was of this rather dirty place. This is unfair, but that’s what’s so terrible about our brains: we aren’t in nearly as much control as we think.

It seems to me that people have this same kind of subconscious bias against Africa. I’m sure if I took the same test comparing Africa with Asia, I would end up with a strong bias toward Asia and against Africa. So it just makes sense that a virus coming from Africa would cause a far more irrational fear than a virus that came from Asia. It is more or less the same thing as the constant conservative push to make laws banning Sharia law. I don’t think most people even know what Sharia law is. But it, like Ebola, is an impurity from, as Ricky Gervais says in Ghost Town, “a scary country.”

I guess Ben Carson is serious about running for president. I suspect that it is like more people who run for the Republican presidential nomination: he’s really just trying sell some books and maybe get a Fox News program. But he wants to be taken seriously. That’s why on Thursday, National Journal reported, Ben Carson to the GOP Establishment: I’m Not “Crazy.” It seems that the only reason that people think he’s crazy is because of the mainstream media. You see, they are always looking for gotcha moments. Like when Huffington Post reported, Ben Carson Likens Islamic State to American Patriots’ Willingness to Die for Cause. And why? Just because he, you know, likened ISIS to the founding fathers.

It brings up an interesting question. Why is it that the Republican presidential nomination is such a freak show when the Democratic one is not? I’m not talking about Rick Santorum. He is part of a long and glorious tradition of “issue” candidates. The Democrats have those too. In fact, Howard Dean had intended to be an issue candidate, but his campaign took off. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m talking about candidates like Herman Cain, Carly Fiorina, and now Ben Carson. You just don’t see major Democratic candidates for president who are comparable. In order to be taken at all seriously as a Democrat, you must have actually, you know, been in government before.

Part of this is just based upon the fact that Republicans have no shame and they will do anything for a buck. The best example of this is Newt Gingrich. He clearly ran for president in 2012 simply to sell whatever it is that he sells. When he managed to win two state primaries, it doubtless came as an unpleasant shock to him. Unlike issue candidates like Santorum, Bachmann, and Paul, I don’t think he was interested in being president. But I don’t think this desire on the part of Republicans — small and mighty — to cash in is the main thing that drives the freak show. I think it is more philosophical than that.

Republicans believe that governance requires no skill. And by and large, when they are in charge, they demonstrate that technically, you really can be the president and not know what you are doing. As I’ve discussed before, political amateur Arnold Schwarzenegger showed that being smart and committed was not enough to properly run the state of California. We needed a professional, and we got one when we elected Jerry Brown.

So who cares that Alan Keyes (2008) or Herman Cain (2012) or Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina (2016) have no actual political experience! The Republican Party don’t need no stinking experience. It probably isn’t a coincidence that all of these candidates are members of under-represented groups in the Republican Party. Since the party doesn’t especially appeal to minorities and women, it doesn’t have “farm teams.” Look at the list of African Americans in the House of Representatives. There are currently two Republicans — and they just got in. If the party isn’t going to vote for you anyway, you might as well run for president.

Even among supposedly real candidates, there isn’t much seriousness on the part of the Republicans. Sarah Palin couldn’t even wait for a full term in office. That still amazes me. I know that she is a fairly stupid, incredibly ignorant, and shallow person. But if you had just been through a very damaging presidential election, wouldn’t you go back to work as governor and try to prove all your detractors wrong? But even Mitt Romney — who actually got the nomination — left the governorship as soon as he could. These are people who are not interested in governing. It reminds me of the end of Primary Colors, when Stanton says:

Those people who do it just for the prize? They are the Republicans. They don’t value what the president does, but they want to honor of having the job. Get ready for the circus. It’s coming soon to a television near you.

As we all know, Fox News will bring on any kook as long as the kook is willing to say what the conservative network wants to push for the day. So last weekend, they brought on Nolan Peterson. He doesn’t seem especially like a kook, but the nonsense he was spouting was definitely pretty kooky. In the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, Fox News was pushing this idea that France had 741 “no-go zones” where Islamists had de facto control. According to Peterson, these areas are “pretty scary,” which says something because he’s “been to Afghanistan, Iraq.” And at times, he claimed, it felt like those places. He also said that he saw young men wearing Osama bin Laden t-shirts. And then Elisabeth Hasselbeck brought up the ridiculous poll that says that one in six French people support ISIS. Peterson said that this too was “scary.” Peterson is apparently a very frightened guy.

For the record, these supposed “no-go zones” are zones urbaines sensibles. This translates to “sensitive urban zones.” They are what we would call “urban renewal zones” or “opportunity zones.” They are, in other words, poorer areas that the government is trying to improve economically. And many of them are clearly seeing much gentrification. But in the conservative mind, poor person and terrorist are pretty much the same anyway.

The whole thing blew up in the face of Fox News. This is especially true after the French television program Le Petit Journal made fun of the whole thing. (For the video, see News Corpse.) Fox News displayed a map of the “no-go zones” in France. So, in a brilliant bit of satire, Le Petit Journal sent to people into these areas dressed like stormtroopers with motorcycle helmets. The areas — Surprise! — are very nice — even trendy. And the French people interviewed seemed to think that the comparison of their neighborhoods for Afghanistan and Iraq as pretty funny. Vive la France!

This morning, Fox News issued a apology of sorts. For the record, I think the whole “apology” and “retraction” and “update” business is a joke. A newspaper prints an above the fold story, “Obama Is Secret Terrorist.” And then, the next day, at the very bottom of page 16, they print, “Yesterday, we incorrectly claimed that Obama is a secret terrorist. We apologize for this error.” But in the case of Fox News, it is rarely even that good. In the following correction, there is no context and the apology is razor thin. The viewer is left with the idea that the only thing wrong with the story is that some of the areas labeled were wrong:

Earlier this week, Nolan Peterson wrote an article on Blue Force Tracker, To the People of France. It is not so much an apology as an apologia. But in its way, it is even worse than what Fox News did. In it, he explained that he wasn’t talking about these areas as they normally were, but rather as they were “during the 2005 riots.” But he never said anything about riots during the Fox News segment. In fact, he didn’t even provide any caveats like, “When I was there, I saw…” He was very clear: these 741 “no-go zones” were areas where Islamic extremists are able to recruit with impunity. There was no lack of clarity; he knew what Fox News want to hear and he said it.

Afterword

I don’t know the details of what he thinks should be done, but Nolan Peterson has a liberal attitude about how Muslims have been marginalized in French society. He seemed very eager to talk about this, but Elisabeth Hasselbeck was not interested.

Update (19 January 2015)

Wow. Fox News put out an actual correction:

Over at New Republic yesterday, Brian Beutler made an important but obvious point, If the Midterms Were Held Today, Gas Prices Might Have Saved the Democrats’ Skin. He even provided a nifty graph that shows that as gas prices have gone down, Obama’s approval rating has gone up. Now we all know that correlation is not causation. What’s more, in off-year elections, economic conditions are not well correlated with how people vote. (I suspect that it is correlated with how people would vote if they did vote.) But there is no denying that if the election were held today, the Democrats would do a lot better because of the way the economy has improved over the last two and a half months.

This is sad. As Beutler noted, “That’s a sobering reflection of the capricious nature of politics…” But surely it doesn’t come as a surprise to him. This is the way that our politics always works. This is the reason that the Republican Party has been able to to move to the far right without paying much of a political price for it. It has, after all, abandoned basic competence for a commitment to ideology. And as I hammer away all the time here, we know that it will be able to win the White House in 2016 as long as the economic conditions turn bad. In the simplest of terms: if gas prices go way up in a year and a half, Scott Walker could be our next president.

Of course, it isn’t specifically about gas prices. We’ve been seeing reasonable job growth for about a year now. It is only recently that people have noticed it. I am not saying, however, that Obama and the Democrats should get credit for the improving economy. But given that the electorate blamed the Democrats for the bad economy before, they should credit the Democrats now. And I’m sure they do. Beutler is right: if the election were held today, the Democrats would do much better.

It’s hard not to take this conclusion and throw your hands up, “It’s impossible!” Indeed, it is pretty much random. But the positive side of it is that it frees the Democratic Party in terms of ideology. Many Democrats are afraid that if Elizabeth Warren runs for president, we will lose because she’s too liberal; instead, we must run Hillary Clinton. But in a general election, it will make almost no difference. If the economy is booming in the first three quarters of 2016, we win; if it isn’t, we lose. So we Democrats ought to nominate the person we most like and not the person who we think is most “electable.”

Beyond this, the economic effects on voting patterns is very troubling. It basically means that we live in an oligarchy. The person most important to who becomes the next president is the chair of the Federal Reserve. If she wanted to, Janet Yellen could sabotage the Democrats in 2016 by raising interest rates and tanking the economy. It’s interesting that Paul Volcker did just that to Jimmy Carter — which is what Carter wanted him to do. It was a selfless act on Carter’s part. But what people remember about Carter was that he was a hopeless president, and all the credit due him goes to Ronald Reagan, who actually hurt the economy.

This is American politics. And if you aren’t terrified, you aren’t paying attention.

Everyone here in California was so happy in December. The rain was so intense that many parts of the state were flooding. We got enough rain that we were up to expectation for the end of January. But I was still worried: what if it stopped raining. Well, it stopped raining. We are now in the second half of January and we’ve gotten less than a tenth an inch of ran thus far this month. We are coming off an unprecedented drought. We need more than “normal” rainfall and we aren’t even getting that. And the weather for the rest of the month looks like the weather thus far this month: nothing.

To me, global warming has always been about rain. A warmer world means more rainfall. But sadly, all the models and historical data indicate that a hotter world leads to more useless rainfall — dropped over the oceans. So the California drought has been a constant reminder of global warming. I don’t see the drought as an unfortunate anomaly; I see it as the new normal, and that’s why I see California very likely being a ghost state in a century — or maybe less — maybe a lot less.

So it didn’t really add much to my understanding to read this morning, It’s Official: 2014 Was the Hottest Year in Recorded History. And from a scientific standpoint, it doesn’t mean anything. One year doesn’t really matter. And this, of course, is what the global warming denialists will say. Of course, they would take a cold year as confirmation that there is nothing to global warming. But what are the odds of them getting that? Instead, they use a cold winter as justifying their opinions. But really, what can you say about this:

That graph is terrifying! But it is also comical. How can it be that half the nation thinks that this is nothing? That this is just a delusion of Al Gore? That the billions of dollars made every year by the oil companies makes them honest brokers of the truth while the crappy middle class jobs of environmental activists make them biased? This is madness. And it has been clear for 25 years. But in response, we do what we always do: nothing. The truth is that we have waited too long. And our ignorance and hubris will be punished. This is all about the fall of the American empire. All I can say is that Americans should enjoy the illusion of power now while we can because soon the cold light of reality will hit us.

Over the next half century, we will see the world’s food basket move from the United States to Canada and Siberia. I’m sure that the United States will fight against it with our drones and our financial weapons. But we are a dying empire. We will not be able to keep up. And it will serve us right for dragging our feet these decades. If the United States had led, we might have been able slow and even prevent the coming change. But not now. All we can do now is mitigate the damage.

The sad thing is that half the nation denies global warming, not because they benefit from it, but because a tiny number of people who they trust benefit from it. And in the end, those who have benefited from it will be able to use their money to move where the weather is nice and they will be able to afford the cost of food — whatever that may be. But the average conservative will suffer, just like the average liberal. This is just as it has always been: the rich thrive and the poor suffer. But there never was a time when the poor were so inclined to follow and even worship the rich.

Now if you will forgive me, it’s almost time for Shark Tank.