Alice Embree :
Injunction allows voting by mail in Texas

Posted on April 20, 2020 by Thorne Dreyer

Attorney General Ken Paxton set to fight
it in court.

By Alice Embree | The Rag Blog | April 20, 2020

AUSTIN (Breaking News) — Texans should apply for their mail-in ballots ASAP. An injunction went into effect April 20, 2020, that allows all voters to apply to vote by mail. Previously, you could only qualify if you were 65 or older, would be out of the county on Election Day, are in jail or disabled. According to the court ruling, you can check disabled because voting in person can cause bodily harm.

The Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will fight this in court, but until another order is in place, all applications that are processed will be valid. You can visit your County Clerk’s site to download the application for Ballot by Mail. The Travis County site is here.

Check the box for “Annual Application” if you want this to apply to all elections. Check the party affiliation box and “Any Resulting Run-off” box, if you want to vote in the primary run-off now scheduled for July.
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Bruce Melton :
COVID-19: The tale of two graphs

Posted on April 20, 2020 by Thorne Dreyer

Careful what you see and believe.

COVID-19 virus. Image from Center for Disease Controll (CDC), modified by author.

By Bruce Melton | The Rag Blog | April 20, 2020

In my work as a professional engineer, as an environmental researcher, and now as the director of the oldest independent climate science education organization in the world, I understand graphs. This is why I was concerned a few days ago when I saw a log (logarithmic) scale graph of confirmed COVID-19 cases on MSNBC. It looked like the top of the curve we have heard endlessly about was here, that the peak was at hand and we would soon be free of the curse of the exiles. The state of this disease today is that we may be peaking; please Great Spirit, let it be so. But presentation of a graph with a log scale to the public without explanation of what a log scale is, does not represent reality.

A logarithmic scale or a “log” scale graph is a tool many professionals and science workers use to visualize data that is similar to a normal “linear” scale graph in one way, but radically different in another. The “log” graph below is what I am talking about, presented on MSNBC April 13 (and updated to April 19 for this article). Compare the first graph (log scale) to the second linear scale graph. They are the same graph using the same data on the web same page. The first is with the log scale, the second with the linear scale. The skyrocketing red United States line in the linear scale graph is the same as the apparently curving line in the log scale graph, only presented without the exaggeration of the logarithmic scale.

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Anne Lewis :
PHOTO ESSAY | Playing cards with the devil

Posted on April 19, 2020 by Thorne Dreyer

They are gathered. The sermon begins.

By Anne Lewis | The Rag Blog | April 19, 2020

AUSTIN — This story is a compromise between common sense and documentary instinct. Every photograph is socially distanced. The quotes come, in part, from the courage of the workers at Fox 7 News and the channel, which posted live footage.

Thursday at 11:45 a.m., Congress Avenue at the Governor’s Mansion is empty aside from a state trooper who motions me through a red light. I walk into a parking lot. The faces look familiar — perhaps from other right-wing rallies I’ve documented. Two men stare at me as I take this picture. One has his hand on his gun. I wonder if full beards might provide protection from Covid-19.

A car arrives blaring vaguely familiar music. It’s the song of angry men from Les Misérables, sounding downright Wagnerian in this context, a recording brought to us by a part of the Alex Jones’ cast.

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Joshua Brown :
POLITICAL CARTOON | Not a problem

Posted on April 18, 2020 by Thorne Dreyer
Previous installments are archived at
http://www.joshbrownnyc.com/ldw.htm
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James Retherford :
POLITICAL CARTOON | No worming out of this one

Posted on April 17, 2020 by Thorne Dreyer
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Roger Baker :
METRO | Austin area transportation planning update

Posted on April 16, 2020 by Thorne Dreyer

Now is a good time to pause and reflect.

I-35 in downtown Austin. Photo by Todd Morris / Flickr / Creative Commons.

By Roger Baker | The Rag Blog | April 16, 2020

AUSTIN — The federally-required CAMPO planning process has gotten continually less credible over recent decades, and is now, IMO, being used strategically as a way to keep TxDOT and the regional suburban sprawl developers politically dominant in shaping Austin’s growth future. Now is a good time to pause and reflect.

(CAMPO is the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority. TxDOT is the Texas Department of Transportation.)

The recent inability of the CAMPO Regional Arterial Study to win CAMPO Policy Board approval was an important planning failure in this regard. The CAMPO planning process has degenerated into an embarrassing non-transparent mess without a price tag. It is arguably worse than the new letter from the Travis County Commissioners Court to CAMPO implies. This broad criticism primarily applies to CAMPO’s road planning and funding.
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Wayne Coe :
POLITICAL CARTOON | The Trump Virus

Posted on April 12, 2020 by Thorne Dreyer
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Allen Young :
BOOKS | ‘Red Scare in the Green Mountains’

Posted on April 12, 2020 by Thorne Dreyer

Political paradox in Vermont is narrated with insight in Rick Winston’s book.

Image from Red Scare in the Green Mountains.

By Allen Young | The Rag Blog | April 12, 2020

ROYALSTON, Mass. — There are paradoxes in the politics of Vermont.

When a liberal majority in the state’s legislature in 2000 approved a history-making law authorizing same-sex “civil unions,” conservative Vermonters expressed their outrage by placing “Take Back Vermont” anywhere they could.

Then, in 2009, Vermont became the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage, the first to do so by legislation rather than a court ruling. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling on this topic didn’t occur until 2015. Now, few people in Vermont, if any, are fretting over this matter.

In the 2016 and 2020 Democratic primaries, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who identifies as a “democratic socialist,” became wildly popular, inspirational to many. He began serving in the U.S. Senate in 2006, and was reelected in 2012 with 71 percent of the vote, and in 2018 with 67 percent.
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James Retherford :
POLITICAL CARTOON | The more things change, Dept.

Posted on April 8, 2020 by Thorne Dreyer
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Charlie Loving :
POLITICAL CARTOON | Keep ’em moving…

Posted on April 4, 2020 by Thorne Dreyer
Huge public response to officials’ call for Americans to die to
save the economy.
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Joshua Brown :
POLITICAL CARTOON | Life During Wartime: Covid-19 Edition: Complainers

Posted on April 3, 2020 by Thorne Dreyer
Previous installments are archived at
http://www.joshbrownnyc.com/ldw.htm

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Allen Young :
A remembrance of Gene Bishop and
Herman Goldfarb

Posted on March 30, 2020 by Thorne Dreyer

Two doctors who were activists for peace.

Herman Goldfarb, left, and Gene Bishop. Photos courtesy Allen Young.

By Allen Young | The Rag Blog | March 30, 2020

ROYALSTON, Mass. — Every time I read about a monument being erected to honor soldiers, I remember conversations I’ve had with friends about the need we feel for a monument of some sort to acknowledge those of us who were soldiers of a different sort — marching against war, specifically the Vietnam War.

Most followers of The Rag Blog are aware of this anti-war movement, a central pillar of the legendary “Sixties,” and this article is a memorial tribute to two activists, both of whom were also medical doctors. Both died recently, and linking them in this article is part of my own process of mourning for them.

They are Gene Bishop, M.D. (1947-2020), and Herman Goldfarb, M.D. (1927-2019).
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