Obsidian Wings

The Devil is in the Details

by wj

We’re starting to see what some of the implementation challenges will be when we start to roll out the covid-19 vaccines. Some are pretty obvious. Others far less so, but no less important.

First up: priorities – who gets the vaccine first? ICU doctors and nurses, obviously. But do other doctors and nurses in a hospital go before, for example, ICU orderlies? And even after you get thru medical personnel, ambulance staff, and police and firemen, you still are going to be making priority decisions all the way thru the population. Do retail workers, who interact with lots of different people, come before office workers? Count on facing lots of people who will be unhappy at the state making decisions which, at least implicitly, say that they are less important than some other people.

Second, infrastructure. Two of the three vaccines require refrigeration. California is already working on getting enough refrigeration capacity together. Poorer states may not be able to acquire it. But that’s not all. You also have to have people to administer the vaccines. Considering how long the lines currently are to get tested, this may not be trivial. Especially in poor, rural counties where there may not be any medical infrastructure at all. (There’s a tendency to deal with these things at the county, rather than state, level. Which is fine if there is a country level. But in some places you can have a county with several thousand people, and just one doctor, and one ambulance driver. Period.)

And in addition, there is the detail that two of the three vaccines require a second vaccination. You have to track who is due for a second shot. And have some way to notify/remind them to come in. Email? Text messages? And for those who don't have that technology? Phone calls? Regular mail? And do you do personal follow-ups if they still don’t show? With what personnel?

AND you have to track who got which vaccine, so you don’t end up giving the second Pfizer vaccination to someone whose first vaccination was the Moderna vaccine, or vis versa. Plus, you need to track everybody who has been vaccinated, just so you can work out who still needs to be. Which means you need to figure out who "everybody" is. This may make the Census look like a walk in the park. And you need the software to do the tracking. (California has a state-wide Immunization Registry which we can use as a basis. Do other states? And how do you deal with people who move across state lines while all this is going on?)

Third, resistance. We’ve talked about the anti-vaxxers. Are they, or at least their children, going to be forced to be vaccinated? (Could be lots of fun, and lengthy, court cases on that. Not least because some of them may figure out that, with the current Supreme Court, claiming a religious justification might help their cause.)

But there is also a lot of resistance in minority communities, even though they are apparently hit harder than others by the virus. The Tuskegee Study casts a long shadow. A major sales effort may be required to overcome that history.

In short, even once we have a competent administration, which actually cares about getting the job done, it's going to be a mess.

Crystal ball time

by liberal japonicus

This article about the challenges that Biden will face in rebuilding in intelligence community makes me realize that the 4 years of sore orange loser baby has set up a conflict, which is rebuilding all this is going to probably be a battleground. If Biden draws too heavily on the infrastructure which was in place as Obama left the White House, which was often too complacent about problems around the world, many of the problematic aspects of US foreign policy would remain in place. But putting in people who are unfamiliar with the scope and size of that infrastructure brings its own problems. With the reports that Netannyahu meeting with MbS, beyond Bibi asking for recommendations on which bone saws to use, hints at the size of the problems coming down the road. Feel free to toss out ideas and make predictions here.

100 years on

by liberal japonicus

This popped up, be sure to check out the youtube video in the article

Bloody Sunday massacre at Croke Park still resonates in Irish sport 100 years later

On Racism and other isms.

by liberal japonicus

This is prompted by wj's query about what kind of racism I've seen in Japan. A caveat, I was finishing this up and I went back thru the comments and found I had skipped over a section, in particular, Donald and Russell's comments to the comment that started this out. I thought about going back and revising this, but it was too hard. So please don't take any of what I say as a direct response to what was written. I will address one point, Russell said that he wasn't 'hating on black people'. When I discuss this, I'm not accusing anyone of hating on anyone else. If racism were simply hatred, it would be a lot easier to deal with. But it isn't, it is a systematic way of looking at things that ends up causing problems. Anyway, onward.

I've said any number of times here, I think everyone is racist, including me, and overcoming that requires constantly checking what you are thinking and saying and doing. Or doing, saying and thinking. Because thinking about one's thinking is most important for the individual, but stopping the doing and then the saying, in that order, is most important for society. So if anyone takes umbrage at what I point out, know that I'm saying I'm subject to the same flaws. Recasting what I say as 'so you're telling ME I'm racist' is wrong. I'm saying that WE are all racist.

If you disagree with that, fine, but nothing I have seen in my 60 years on earth nor has anything anyone said here convinced me otherwise. I think because it is baked into our society and our lives in so many ways, and because it can be reinforced by any sort of communal differences, it's not going to disappear.

The argument of class v. race is an interesting one, but class is so protean that you aren't going to be able to trap the differences. That's because upper class enjoys pretending it's lower class, pulled myself up from my bootstraps, it was all me. Those designer distressed blue jeans don't sell themselves.

I've been reading through Adolphe Reed, who is a class not race theorist. Here's a paragraph

So, we saw Rennie Davis traipsing around behind a pudgy, improbable guru and Abbie Hoffman exposing himself in the pages of People and Viva to reassure us that his underground tour—inspired by flight from a prison term for selling cocaine—had shown him balance in the "heartland of America" and a new awakening on the horizon. Jerry Rubin, lauding the "inner revolution," was equally sanguine about the lessons of his meandering journey within, announcing that he could now revel in his ever-youthful, evanescent Self—which thereupon became a stockbroker/consultant. Bob Dylan resurfaced as a fundamentalist Christian gospel singer; Mike Klonsky lingers as a de facto agent of whatever faction rules in China; and the FBI—four years before the Nyack, New York, Brinks robbery—proclaimed the Weather Underground to be no longer even worthy of prosecution. Obituaries of Marcuse, Sartre, and Paul Goodman were written also as obituaries of opposition. At the same time, on the other side of Du Bois's veil, Eldridge Cleaver—ever the media creature—returned to America as a latter-day Cold Warrior, holy roller, advocate of wife-beating (a mellowing of his earlier defense of rape?), and designer of pornographic pants. Huey Newton's name came to evoke suspicions of drug-dealing, murder, and extortion, and Bobby Seale was showcased as a nightclub comedian and cookbook author. H. Rap Brown returned to public view as a Muslim small businessman, consuming his time in prayer to Allah, Martin Luther King became a holiday and a postage stamp, a meal ticket for his widow and hobby for Stevie Wonder. In each case the message rings clear; opposition is the property of the image of "the Sixties," and it is, therefore, like bell-bottom pants, dashikis, and long hair, no longer appropriate.

While I think there are some interesting points, he seems to be animated by a spirit of no one is doing things right but him. Reed famously dismissed Obama with an example here

Yet the past 4 years of racism and resurgence leaves him convinced that he was absolutely right, and Obama was wrong. Sure, Obama should have pushed harder, he didn't always pick the right fights, but to fail to acknowledge that he wasn't hemmed in by this undercurrent that is now pretty clear for most to see, is to be blind to one's own blind spots. Reed's a racist insofar as he doesn't think race matters. And while that makes racism as protean as classism, classism is supported by the way everyone values themselves and then envisions that everyone else thinks like they do. Race, on the other hand, can dictate how people value (or fail to value) themselves, but I don't think it requires massive societal changes to get people to see value in what they bring (cf my post about the covid vaccine creators)

And a side note about sexism, it's also a problem, but since society has had a lot longer to deal with that, there has been a lot more time to find ways for women to develop alternative strategies. None of this is to suggest that racism is somehow worse than classism or sexism (or vice versa), but for me, it does suggest to me that racism is what society has to deal with first, with the caveat that mileage will definitely vary. Colbert's line (that I'm sure he didn't think of, he just amplified it) of 'I don't see color' doesn't really work as a punchline for classism or sexism. I guess a common fear among conservatives is that young people will start saying 'I don't see gender' (oh noes!) but this is where intersectionality is important, even though some don't want it explained to them.

But returning to the original prompt, there's a phenomenon here in Japan where white people here suddenly become aware of the 'micro aggressions' and begin to take umbrage at, well, everything. It's a real conundrum because the saying moves to doing quite easily, but the accusations are often 'This upset me' rather than 'this is something that will translate into actual problems so it would be nice if I could get you to stop it'. This intersects with the Japanese love of harmony and any disturbance of that is viewed as problematic. This can leave pretty atrocious ideas in place as long as they do not disturb the surface harmony. This can sometimes be like one of those Thanksgiving family dinners from hell, where everyone is compelled to keep away from the topics that are going to result in broken crockery.

As I have said before, I'm not sure if I'm taking the best approach, I leverage my father's side of the family and some often draw overly broad conclusions. 'Ahh, that's why your Japanese is so good' when they find out I have Japanese antecedents. Err, no, though I do realize that knowing what I was eating when I was a kid and wanting to communicate in the language of my grandparents has given me a leg up. But there are kids now who know a lot more than I did FOB just from a diet of manga and anime and often know a lot of things about Japan that I don't. For people with whom I want to continue to engage with, I try to suggest that what they are basing their notions on isn't quite right, but I definitely pick and choose who I open that can of worms with. I know more than a few people who get mad when the taxi driver speaks to them in Japanese. Or speaks to them in English. Or speaks to them. Or doesn't say anything. And I don't want to be one of them.

This sense of aggrievement can be taken too far, and privileging the injured, while the right thing to do, can often encourage people whose injury is slight to overstate. That it is often white people who are doing that troubles me, and often times, I see this vicious cycle where a person becomes angry and behave in ways that they feel justified but has Japanese pull back from them and a feedback loop occurs that eventually results in the person actually having a lot of cause for complaint, especially when they are running up against Japanese administration, which will never admit it is wrong.

These administrative issues can really be bad news because once the powers that be decide how they want deal with an issue, there is often very little that can be done. But they happen in a restrained fashion and are set up so that if you get angry and lose your temper, you've lost.

The kind of horrific events, like a George Floyd or an Ahmaud Arbery don't happen here for the most part、 which has Japanese feel that there isn't a problem. And you often get a phrase kubetsu ha sabetsu ja nai, which means making differences is not discrimination.

All this results in a situation where I don't have lots of horrific stories about racism. What I see is this tilt that makes sure the house wins. In fact, a casino is really a really good metaphor: The casino doesn't hate its customers, but it certainly isn't trying to make them rich. A 1% edge to the house that accrues over time.

These sorts of posts are difficult not because I lack things to write about, they are difficult because it is so hard to finish them. I realize that some readers here could assume that I am obsessed with race and they wouldn't be wrong. I tend not to claim I am bi-racial because I don't know what that means. But for me, thinking about racism is a way for me to figure out who I am. In fact, it seems like for me to get to that point, all roads run thru a consideration of it. If you are interested in considering it with me, join in. I'm not sure if it's a better discussion that talking about the state of the Democratic party, but it is a different one.