Monday Open Thread

19 thoughts on “Monday Open Thread”

1. Really interesting comparison of gun deaths based on cultural regions of the US.

   Much of the South, he wrote, was settled by “swashbuckling Cavaliers of noble or landed gentry status, who took their values . . . from the knightly, medieval standards of manly honor and virtue” (by which he meant Tidewater and the Deep South) or by Scots and Scots-Irish borderlanders (the Greater Appalachian colonists) who hailed from one of the most lawless parts of Europe and relied on “an economy based on herding,” where one’s wealth is tied up in livestock, which are far more vulnerable to theft than grain crops.

   These southern cultures developed what anthropologists call a “culture of honor tradition” in which males treasure their honor and believed it can be diminished if an insult, slight or wrong were ignored. “In an honor culture you have to be vigilant about people impugning your reputation and part of that is to show that you can’t be pushed around,” says University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign psychologist Dov Cohen, who conducted a series of experiments with Nisbett demonstrating the persistence of these quick-to-insult characteristics in university students. White male students from the southern regions lashed out in anger at insults and slights that those from northern ones ignored or laughed off. “Arguments over pocket change or popsicles in these Southern cultures can result in people getting killed, but what’s at stake isn’t the popsicle, it’s personal honor.”

   Pauline Grosjean, an economist at Australia’s University of New South Wales, has found strong statistical relationships between the presence of Scots-Irish settlers in the 1790 census and contemporary homicide rates

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   1. In these same regions this aggressive proclivity is coupled with the violent legacy of having been slave societies. Before 1865, enslaved people were kept in check through the threat and application of violence including whippings, torture and often gruesome executions. For nearly a century thereafter, similar measures were used by the Ku Klux Klan, off-duty law enforcement and thousands of ordinary white citizens to enforce a racial caste system. The Monroe and Florence Work Today project mapped every lynching and deadly race riot in the U.S. between 1848 and 1964 and found over 90 percent of the incidents occurred in those three regions or El Norte, where Deep Southern “Anglos” enforced a caste system on the region’s Hispanic majority. In places with a legacy of lynching — which is only now starting to pass out of living memory — University at Albany sociologist Steven Messner and two colleagues found a significant increase of one type of homicide for their 1986-1995 study period, the argument-related killing of Blacks by whites, that isn’t explained by other factors.

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   2. A similar thing was mentioned in this Hidden Brain podcast episode: Made of Honor

      Stories help us make sense of the world, and can even help us heal from trauma. They also shape our cultural narratives, for better and for worse. This week, we revisit a favorite 2021 conversation with psychologist Ryan Brown, who explores the phenomenon of “honor culture” and how it dictates our beliefs and behaviors.

      The link includes the podcast episode as well as links to other resources if any of us wish to spend an entire <unspecified amount of time> of productivity on the subject.

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   3. "It would be my sincere and highest honor to put a bullet in your head (for insulting my home by putting your discolored index finger on my doorbell)."

      I wish I could put my finger on the primary reason that there are so exceedingly many more shootings and gun deaths in America, than there are in, say Scotland, or any other "honor culture" (Japan, China, Arabic countries, etc.) in the world??

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      1. I see this as a thought-game. People's brains work with categories and stereotypes which give us a framework for looking at the world. 

         It is important to review whether your framework or stereotypes are accurate.

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2. Sam Dean (I won't link to twitter)

   Bed Bath & Beyond blew one billion dollars on stock buybacks, a direct cash transfer to shareholders, in 2021. 

   Now it's bankrupt, in no small part because of that $1B hole, and….no severance for workers who've been there for 20 years.

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   1. And the former CEO who led the march into the abyss is suing for $6M+ in unpaid severance  https://www.thestreet.com/retailers/heres-how-much-bed-bath-beyonds-ex-ceo-wants-in-severance

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3. Look else is going bye-bye: https://thehill.com/homenews/media/3966300-tucker-carlson-and-fox-news-part-ways/

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   1. Jeez, really, I wonder where they’re going to find the next lying, pandering racist homophobic misogynistic fascist to replace him??? . . . 

      (Guess his recent lying apologies and squirmings didn’t really offset the sting of those uncovered texts?)

      . . . The Greatest Next Real American Propagandist Search, hosted by The Chosen One, Monday – Friday at 7:00 p.m. on FOX …

      Thank you, Dominion!!!!

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4. Jenna Ellis announced via Twitter last night she has moved to FL. The average IQ of the Colorado attorney pool just went up.

   LIFE UPDATE: Just touched down in the FREE STATE OF FLORIDA! For the first time in my entire life, I’m changing residency and voter registration. Dear @GovofCO, I just massively upgraded to @GovRonDeSantis

   Will we ever recover?

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   1. She considers Desantis an "upgrade" over Polis? 

      Wonder if she'll share what she's been smoking. Sounds like really potent stuff.

      Also wonder if she really wants to live in a state where the far right tries to control young female vaginas.

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   2. Good.  The Colorado Bar will be much better off with her permanently gone from the state.  She'll fit in well with the fascist people's republic of Florida

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   3. I’m gonna’ wager there’s a fairly good chance she’ll still try to cast her vote in the next Colorado elections?

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   4. Has Jenna Ellis stopped trying to "be nice" to everyone in Florida's list of candidates for the Republican nomination?  At one point, there was a question about whether she would be moving on from her previous client, TFG of Margo Lardo. 

      I'm wondering if she is settling in for the "upgrade" who might be willing to pay her during a campaign?

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5. $rmp published private correspondence from the future King of England, without his permission.

   The letters, from then-Prince Charles, and Diana, are pretty anodyne and scandal free.

   I'm just surprised that the Mango Maniac didn't simply try to auction the letters off on ebay.

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6. More breaking news: Nick Campion just withdrew from the Denver Council 7 race: https://www.denver7.com/news/local-news/a-curveball-that-i-wasnt-expecting-nick-campion-drops-out-of-district-7-city-council-runoff-in-denver

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   1. Apparently, Campion will be busy raising a one of the new generation of Democrats — says he’ll be a new father and doesn’t see how he would be able to carry on the schedule.

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7. Late, but perhaps people will see this.  Today, Daily Kos featured Colorado's own:

   Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day: Greg Lopez

   it's a 4 paragraph summary, so won't contain news to the readers here at Colorado Pols.  It ends:

   "Republican voters are still  enamoured with terrible people being their picks to “own the left”.  Lopez got 46% of the vote in the GOP Primary, and may continue to be a perennial candidate for years to come.   "

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   1. That's a lot coming from the guy who lost to Hiedi Heidi "Stop the Furries" Ganahl.

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