variety post, mid-week edition
I Have a cold. Grrr.
Interesting Reading (i.e. not just topical)
Zygmunt Bauman, Sociologist, Philosopher. Intriguing figure about whom I knew little. (Phil Ebersole) – https://philebersole.wordpress.com/2018/09/27/learning-to-live-in-liquid-modernity/
Test scores vs Nutrition / Debunking neo-racial interpretation of test score statistics (Policy Tensor) – https://policytensor.com/2018/09/27/cognitive-test-scores-measure-net-nutritional-status/
Politics
Re-links to older posts from this blog.
Senate elections (individual state poll links).
Kavanaugh (developments in confirmation vote and scandal). Apologies for the cynical attitude[1] in that Kavanaugh post. Dude’s a creep.
News Items / quick take
Nafta 2.0 / USMCA – Trump admin exceeding rock-bottom expectations, and got an agreement. Probably overhyped. May have some impact on the senate. TN, MO, IN are auto states. Schumer supports, interestingly.
Amazon $15/hour – Bernie, once again proving a more capable politician than the Democratic party.
Other international-ish
Chomsky on Brazil – https://theintercept.com/2018/10/02/lula-brazil-election-noam-chomsky/
Julian Assange, to be abandoned by Ecuador? – Jimmy Dore show, 2018-10-01 episode (video). Wikileaks. Ending with a “lighter” format here, but just as serious.
footnote[1] , Re: Kavanaugh and Ford.
We see top positions given to a torturer (Haspel), fraudulent warmonger (Bolton), and proud urban carpet bomber (Mattis). Relatively minor protest, Mattis is even regarded as the “adult in the room”. By the way, that trio could act with impunity thanks to the legal framework that Kavanaugh helped put together for the Bush Administration.
Then of course there’s the BLM / cops shooting unarmed black people in the back. We got a much needed “discussion”, but it was pretty polite and tame compared to Ford’s case.
I guess I’m saying: Ford is standing in line with a lot of other equally frustrated victims. Strong cases, conveyed by the media with a fraction of the passion we have now. None of this is to downplay the significance and scuminess of Kavanaugh’s behavior if the accusations are true.
Pete's Politics and Variety 
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