Seasonal Gradations

In the same vein as my post about the color green, I had a thought today about seasons.

Today is August 28, and we're in the middle of a heatwave here in Portland. This doesn't seem especially remarkable. It's August, the dog days of summer -- of course it might get hot.

However, once September rolls around -- just a few days from now -- then it would seem worthy of remark. September is fall. Fall is cool. A hot day in September isn't shocking, but it's not something taken for granted like a hot August day is. September is fall. Fall is cool. A hot day in September yields comments like "man, it's stayed hot late this year!"

August is summer and September is fall, and there is not a smooth gradation between them. February and March, aka winter to spring, is the same. Snow on February 28? Sure, it's February -- dead of winter. Snow on March 1? That's spring snow -- weird!

November/December (fall/winter) is a little less disjointed, but still has a clear break. Snow in December is completely normal, snow in November feels very early for snow.

The only seasonal break that, for me, has a truly smooth gradation is spring into summer over May and June. I can't think of a weather event in May that I'd think "wow, it's early for that" or one in June that I'd think "wow, it's late for that" (save something truly extreme like June snow). And that made me realize that I think of summer and spring as basically the same thing -- summer is spring, only more so.

Spring and summer are the warm seasons, and winter and fall are the cool seasons. Winter and fall further get divided into snow/no snow, but spring and summer have no such divisions. So spring can fade smoothly into summer without anything feeling weird about it -- the only such smooth gradation amongst all the seasons.

Things People Blame the Jews For, Volume LXXIII: Los Angeles Wildfires

The raging fires that have torn through the Los Angeles area are gripping the world's attention. Natural disasters like these don't typically have a direct culprit to blame, though of course, in a more abstract sense changing weather patterns brought on by global climate change play a role.

Or, you know, it's a Jew thing.

Jewish control over the weather is well-known trope to readers of this series, and few can forget congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene contributing "Jewish space lasers" to the antisemitic dictionary. But a variety of far-left groups now are making their own entry into the genre by tying the fires to America's support for Israel. For some, the rhetoric seems to be one of divine retribution, akin to how Mike Pence thinks of hurricanes ("When US taxes go to burning people alive in Gaza, we can’t be surprised when those fires come home."). Others play the game where America's foreign aid budget is presented as dollars out of hard-working American pockets, or, in this case, the Los Angeles Fire Department budget -- never mind that those pots of money have nothing to do with one another and in any event the widespread meme that the LAFD faced a draconian budget cut last year appears to be false (the fire budget is actually $53 million more than it was last year, but if I fact-checked every subclaim in this series I'd never get any sleep at all).

More broadly, I was just thinking about how the immediate right-wing pivot to blame the fires on "DEI" (by which they mean, the fire department has women in its leadership) reminded me of classic antisemitic conspiracy theorizing -- the immediate impulse to find the Jewish connection and shriek "this explains everything!" Whereas some pin every bad thing in the world on "the Jews", others do the exact same thing but plug in "diversity" or some other analogous buzzword as their "explanation of first, middle, and last resort". Remember when the Wall Street Journal blamed the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank on the fact that it had one (one!) Black director in its board? It's the same play. The conspiracy theory "explains everything" because it always "explains everything", because that what a conspiracy theory is -- it is a way to immediately, reflexively, and automatically explain anything and everything by reference to whatever it is you hate.

The "wildfires are caused by DEI" takes the rhythm of an antisemitic conspiracy theory and applies it to a new context. But while I certainly enjoyed basking in that familiarity, it is always reassuring to know that someone would go the OG route and blame the Jews and Jewish institutions directly. Not that I had any doubt it would go that way -- it always does, sooner or later.

The Ice Weasels Cometh

As some of you may know, Portland has been hit by a brutal ice storm this weekend that's knocked out power throughout the city. Over 200,000 customers lost power initially, and though that's now down below 80,000, my house is alas in that unfortunate cadre, with no reports about when the electricity will be restored.

Since we've only been in Portland a few years, we don't have a full read on how "normal" this is (though the zeitgeist I've seen seems to indicate "not normal"). It is my growing impression that Portland weather is generally quite mild for 359 days of the year, but twice a year -- once in the summer, once in the winter -- we get absolutely blitzed with an extreme event (109 degree temperatures and chaotic evil ice storm, respectively).

We've been sheltering in a hotel since Saturday afternoon, but tomorrow we're heading home in hopes that power (and with it, heat) will be restored soon-ish. If not, we'll try to find another hotel (the one we're in now has no more vacancies, alas). While the snow stopped today, it's not supposed to get above freezing until Tuesday, and (in true Portland fashion) Tuesday also is slated to see a resumption of sleet. So on top of everything else, the roads are probably going to be hell for awhile. Classes are still scheduled to resume on Tuesday, but I may have to cancel mine depending on how things go.

Hope everyone here is staying warm and safe, and wish us luck as we begin our sojourn home.

Things People Blame the Jews For, Volume XLVI: Clear Skies and Earthquakes

Weather-related Jewish conspiracy theories seem to be having a moment.*

In rapid succession this week, we got an Iranian general saying that Israel was stealing his country's clouds, followed by an ultra-Orthodox Israeli MK blaming an earthquake on Reform Jews.

On the former: When faced with real problems (like drought), it isn't wise to get, shall we say, sidetracked away from scientific investigation and instead waste time on nonsense like this. So long as one can blame the neighborhood Jew for all of one's ails, one avoids having to actually investigate the root causes of one's problems.

That said, since random Iranian conspiracy theories are now grist for the President's mill, I look forward to seeing this one appear on Trump's twitter feed within the week.

On the latter: As my friend Richard Goldwasser observed, this is just as absurd as any other "Jews control the natural world" whacko comment we've seen in recent months, and so there's no reason to give it a pass just because the speaker is an Israeli government officer. Indeed, when an Iranian official says stuff like this, it's to be expected. We should if anything be more worried when Israeli politicians start parroting the same nonsense.

* Yes, yes, I know an earthquake isn't really "weather". Sue me.

Things People Blame the Jews For, Part XLIV/Rate That Apology, Part 8: DC Weather Edition

It's another two-fer!

Yesterday, two separate people texted me asking if I'd see the D.C. Councilman, Trayon White Sr., who blamed the Rothschild's for manipulating the weather in Washington and causing recent snowstorms. And I'm like -- dammit, I just wanted to enjoy my weekend. But alas:

“Man, it just started snowing out of nowhere this morning, man. Y’all better pay attention to this climate control, man, this climate manipulation,” he says. “And D.C. keep talking about, ‘We a resilient city.’ And that’s a model based off the Rothschilds controlling the climate to create natural disasters they can pay for to own the cities, man. Be careful.” 

Okay, first of all, as a long-time resident of the DC metro area, I can attest that I don't care one bit about snowfall -- the weather pattern that's worth developing a conspiracy over is our 95 degree/9000% humidity summers. That's hell on earth. Second, I don't think we've had a weather-related entry in this series since Jews created the tsunami that hit the Fukushima reactor in Japan, so way to give us a throw-back!

Anyway, because I'm old and slow and can't respond to things how I used to, I wasn't able to blog on this until after Councilman White issued his apology.



I actually really like this one. Let me explain why.

The first reason I like it is based on something perhaps not evident in the four corners of the apology itself, but which I've confirmed from other sources: White took it upon himself to reach out to Jews United for Justice (a DC-area Jewish group) to ask them what he had done wrong and how he should make amends. Now, just to be clear, this is not an "I-have-Jewish-friends" defense (that's bad). It wasn't even "after Jews reached out to me, I realized I was wrong" (better). It's "after realizing I hurt them, I took it upon myself to take the initiative and reach out to Jews to figure out what I should do better" (best).

But the bigger reason I like it is that it commits to the idea that White needs to learn. Yes, we can roll our eyes at the prospect that someone is utterly unaware of how "Rothschild" stands in for antisemitic conspiracies. But even if they somehow managed to be ignorant on the subject, that's no excuse unless it's coupled with a recognition that one clearly needs to learn more if one is to be a good ally to Jews. And that's what this apology does quite well. It speaks of how JUFJ is "helping me to understand," and that he is "committed to figuring out ways [to] continue to be allies with them." It doesn't claim that he's already exemplary on the subject, and that the video was some inexplicable blurt that shouldn't sully an otherwise perfect record. The contrast to, say, the Harvard Law Student who gave a decent apology for allegedly inadvertent antisemitism but didn't indicate that he thought he had more to learn on the subject is striking, and cuts strongly in White's favor.

One thing that it is often hard to remember for for those of us committed to fighting antisemitism is that our end-goal isn't to fight antisemitism, it's to beat it. And one corollary of that goal, then, is that any campaign against antisemitism worth its salt has to account for -- indeed, actively desire -- the possibility that some people who said or believe genuinely antisemitic things will, at some later date, change their minds. Put another way, we have to have strategies through which, when encountering antisemitism, we actually change minds. Naz Shah is a great example of how much power can emerge when this works.

I'm not saying that Councilor White has earned his stripes yet. That remains to be seen based on what he does going forward; one apology (even a genuine one) issued in the moment will not and should not suffice.

But it's a start. And as a start, it's a pretty good.

Grade: 9/10.

Two Feet of Snow

Lolz.

This is Why We Think You're Dumb

There's a piece coming out in the WaPo complaing that liberals are so condescending to conservative ideas.

American liberals, to a degree far surpassing conservatives, appear committed to the proposition that their views are correct, self-evident, and based on fact and reason, while conservative positions are not just wrong but illegitimate, ideological and unworthy of serious consideration.

I think the real split here is that liberals think conservative ideas are moronic and bigoted, whereas conservatives think liberal ideas are traitorous and immoral. But I digress. Matt Yglesias notes that it's not really a bad thing to try and link your own ideas to "fact and reason":

If I thought my views weren’t correct and based on fact and reason, I would adopt different views—correct fact-and-reason based ones. Does Alexander really think that conservatives don’t think their views are correct? Does Alexander not think his own views are correct? Not based on fact? Not based on reason? I’m not sure it’s possible to be condescending enough to this op-ed.

Meanwhile, the Virginia GOP is using the DC snowmaggedon to demonstrate once more that Republicans don't understand the difference between weather and climate. Is there any other way to respond to such an ad other than "you people are morons"?

The Day After Christmas

Instead of blogging today, I wrote emails! I was supposed to have a snowball fight, but Mother Nature conspired to melt all the snow. The sad.

The two, rather lengthy emails, were in response to this Andrew Sullivan post, and a query of Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, leader of the Gaza Freedom March, regarding the possible participation of COSATU and Bongani Masuku.

Tonight, I'm heading off to a hockey game. My beloved New Jersey Devils face the Caps. It should be great -- Brodeur versus Ovechkin is a great matchup under any circumstances, and this year the Caps and Devils are two of the best teams in the league.

Sunny Day

Weather.com reports that it is "sunny" here in Chicago, with a temperature of -5 degrees (but feels like -16!).

Oh, mid-west. How could I have ever contemplated leaving you?

Canada is Just a Northern Province of Minnesota (or Vice Versa?)

An Ontario woman was miraculously found alive after being buried in snow for three days during a blizzard. But it's her statement to rescuers that comes straight out of the Land of 10,000 Lakes:

"She was lucid, and said, 'Wow. I've been here a long time!' and then she apologized and said, 'I just wanted to take a walk, I'm sorry to have caused you any trouble,' " said Staff Sgt. Mark Cox of the Hamilton Police Department, one of the leaders in the hunt. "And we're all thinking this is incredible, this is really something."

Oh, Canadians. I feel such an affinity towards you.

Rain Rain Go Away

I want to stress that there is nothing funny about the crippling drought that is currently affecting the state of Georgia. It's truly hurting a lot of people, and that's no laughing matter.

The timeline of Sonny Perdue's rain-prayer, however, is quite funny:

1. Georgia is in severe drought
2. Governor Perdue decides to pray for rain on Tuesday
3. Forecast called for rain Tuesday
4. Prayer service goes ahead as planned
5. Skies completely clear up immediately following prayer service
6. No rain

Maybe God doesn't like ostentatious displays of religiosity? Or maybe he just doesn't like Sonny Perdue?

PS: I was going to tag this post "climate", but then had to correct myself and write "weather", as the former would have been technically inaccurate. Score one for my Conservation Biology course!