On the Use of the Pardon

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The soon-ex-president held the traditional turkey pardon yesterday which was followed by pardoning a metaphorical turkey, Michael Flynn. Earlier pardons in Trump’s administration include letting a racist murderer off the hook.

The news media are filled with speculation about how many more pardons will be issued and whether and how he might try to pardon himself. Several conservative commentators noted that Democrats have also issued controversial pardons. Omitted from their observations is that none of these pardons were actually designed to protect the president himself from prosecution.

In fact, even Richard Nixon declined to use his power to pardon those who were convicted of helping him by committing crimes. Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell and Dean all served their sentences and never received pardons. Nixon may have been himself a criminal, and certainly needed Ford’s pardon in order to avoid his own prosecution, but evidently as corrupt as Nixon was he understood that pardoning his abettors would be an inexcusable abuse of power.

Consider that despite all the shouting of “Lock her up” for five years now, Barack Obama did not choose to issue a pardon for Hillary Clinton. I think he had two reasons for this. First, as a fine constitutional scholar in his own right, Obama would have regarded such an act as an abuse of power. Second, he certainly didn’t consider her guilty of any crimes and thought there to be no possibility that she would ever be charged. Indeed, the lack of charges against her, even from arguably the worst Attorney General in US history, proves that point.

What we are seeing now, like so many other deplorable things associated with this administration, is an unprecedented abuse of power. He is literally paying off those who assisted him in multiple criminal offenses and defrauding the citizenry.

There is rampant speculation that Trump will resign shortly before January 20 in order to allow Pence to pardon him. While that would not surprise me, I don’t think it’s all that likely. First, I’m not sure Pence would do it. Pence is one of the few people in the administration who probably has not committed a crime. I disagree with him on almost every political issue, but I don’t think he’s a crook. And second, that would require Trump to resign–and I don’t think he’s mentally able to do that.

Another strategy that is the subject of speculation is the possibility that he would try to pardon himself. So far every constitutional scholar I’ve seen comment on this has argued that such a pardon would be unconstitutional on several different grounds such as the technical definition of the term “grant.”

This issue is one of the most important reasons that Mr. Biden should not pardon him. It will probably take some sort of constitutional amendment to fix the possibility of abuse of power via the pardon and we all know how difficult that process can be. So we need other ways to caution a president against such abuses of power. The obvious remedy is impeachment, but we have learned from Mitch McConnell that that remedy can be politically unavailable. Since we have learned that the remedy the Founders provided to end public corruption can be flouted, we need presidents to understand that they may still be subject to prosecution.

One aspect of this issue that is interesting is one that I thought Trump understood, but perhaps not. Many commentators argued that the reason why Trump commuted Roger Stone’s sentence rather than pardoning him was that had he pardoned him, Stone could no longer plead the 5th amendment against self-incrimination in any subsequent court actions against Trump. That also implies that Michael Flynn, pardoned yesterday, loses that protection. In other words, Flynn can be summoned to court and compelled to testify. If he refuses, he can be charged with obstruction of justice, impeding a prosecution, etc If he lies, that’s a new crime he can be prosecuted for. So there is at least a chance that could lead to more factual revelations about Trump’s guilt in his official duties.

Finally, it is crystal clear that that one reason Trump is so desperately trying to cling to power is that he does understand that indictment in State court is imminent, and no one believes he can pardon himself for the multitude of crimes he has committed in NY State. Recall that he had to shut down his charity and pay a $2M fine because he ran it as his personal piggy bank. Sadly, he ran the entire US Treasury as his personal piggy bank, and it is long past time that we prove that no one in the US is above the law.

Honoring RBG

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Today on Facebook I’d like to publish a fundraiser to honor the memory of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. There are many charities that you can choose to do this, but I’m suggesting that this one has special meaning in several aspects of RBG’s life: The National Tay-Sachs and Allied Disease Foundation (NTSAD).

Tay-Sachs disease is a 100% fatal disease that is concentrated in two populations, Jews of Eastern European ancestry like RBG, and the Cajuns of Canada and Louisiana. TS does occur more generally, but those two groups see it the most often.

Tay-Sachs disease is a nightmare. Because it is rare, physicians do not generally test pregnant women for it, and even in the main populations where it is more common, it is often not detected until late in a pregnancy. If a child is born with it, that child is doomed to a maximum of 4 years of life. Every day of that life will be filled with pain. The child will often scream in agony for hours on end, and the signs of their discomfort never stop. There is no possibility of anything resembling a normal childhood, or a normal life for the family.

Tay-Sachs disease also has terrible social consequences. Parents who cannot afford round-the-clock nursing care have to do it themselves. Over half the parents with a Tay-Sachs child wind up in divorce proceedings. You might be able to imagine what this might mean for the other children of those marriages.

I have a personal connection to Tay-Sachs: I am a carrier of the gene. The disease occurs when both parents are carriers and a child is born with a double dose of the gene. If one parent has the gene, they can pass the gene to a child, but the child then becomes a carrier rather than a victim. Even if both parents have the gene, there is just a 25% chance that a child will actually develop it. My grandmother lost the lottery. She bore 6 children in the WW1 era Europe, and 3 of them died before age 2. When I asked my father and one surviving aunt what killed them, all they would say is that they died of a horrible disease. Although it is not possible to say with certainty that this was Tay-Sachs because this preceded genetic testing, given that we are carriers and the family had decent economic status (so there was no malnutrition at that point), TS is a reasonable surmise.

There is another connection to Ruth Bader Ginsberg here. Tay-Sachs disease is one of the conditions that makes it imperative to preserve Roe v. Wade. Parents should have a choice about whether to bring a Tay-Sachs baby into the world. As I watch various states pass anti-choice bills, I look at their provisions to see what would happen if parents discover they have a Tay-Sachs fetus in the 3rd trimester. As of yet, I haven’t seen a single one of these bills that would allow a termination under these circumstances. Some of those bills allow for termination for rape or incest, but not a one to spare parents from a child’s agony, family bankruptcy and divorce.

And please understand that while Cajuns and Ashkenazi Jews suffer disproportionately from this scourge, it (and similar genetic disorders) can and does hit everyone.

[This article was posted as a Facebook fundraiser.]

Please consider a donation to this wonderful organization today. When Facebook tells me that the donation period has concluded, I’ll try to make sure the Foundation knows that it was in honor of Ruth Bader Ginsberg. And Terri and I will start the ball rolling with a $75 contribution.

Teddy Bear

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Today is the 9th anniversary of the passing of my mother, Mrs. Stella Love (as she preferred to be known), pictured here during the 1970s.

In 1958 as I was about to begin 1st grade, I awoke from sleep to the sound of a commotion. I wandered out to our living room and witnessed a cop dragging my mother out of our apartment by her hair. That was the last I saw of her for 10 months.

She spent those 10 months in Rockland State Hospital, my father placed me in a private boarding school. On one of his visits, he brought me a teddy bear my mother had sewn. As you can imagine, that bear became my most prized possession.

At the end of the school year, my father brought Stella home from the hospital and me from the boarding school. Teddy remained with me at all times. Until one day when Teddy disappeared. I looked everywhere. Then my father told me that I was too attached to Teddy, so he had decided to throw him away. I was inconsolable for hours and perhaps days.

My father abandoned our family when I was 15 to move to Israel and my mother and I made do on our own. Two years later I headed off to the University of Wisconsin and Stella stayed in New York earning a living as an office staff person. Then in 1978 she had a relapse of her mental condition and I was forced to make the decision of letting her go to some other hospital or taking care of her–which meant at least temporarily giving up on my PhD. As most of you know, I took a leave of absence from grad school, packed my mother up in New York, and brought her out to live in the San Francisco Bay Area. Stella became a fixture in Sproul Plaza, dancing to the music, and visiting Larry Blake’s Rathskeller.

For me, marriage and children followed, and from time to time we had to pack Stella up and move her to a new living situation. Stella’s last residence was the Evangelical Home of Michigan in Saline. At first I was a bit dubious about placing her in a Christian home, but as it turned out there were other Jews there and the non-judgmental love they showered on Stella made me understand that I had made the best choice.

On that final stop, we went through her belongings to see what might be donated to charity, and look what we found. My father hadn’t thrown Teddy away after all, just placed him with Stella for safe-keeping. And he is with me to this day.

Blessed is the True Judge. May Stella’s memories be bound with ours so that she lives on forever through us.

ברוך דיין אמת

Today is the 9th anniversary of the passing of my mother, Mrs. Stella Love (as she preferred to be known), pictured here during the 1970s.

In 1958 as I was about to begin 1st grade, I awoke from sleep to the sound of a commotion. I wandered out to our living room and witnessed a cop dragging my mother out of our apartment by her hair. That was the last I saw of her for 10 months.

She spent those 10 months in Rockland State Hospital, my father placed me in a private boarding school. On one of his visits, he brought me a teddy bear my mother had sewn. As you can imagine, that bear became my most prized possession.

At the end of the school year, my father brought Stella home from the hospital and me from the boarding school. Teddy remained with me at all times. Until one day when Teddy disappeared. I looked everywhere. Then my father told me that I was too attached to Teddy, so he had decided to throw him away. I was inconsolable for hours and perhaps days.

My father abandoned our family when I was 15 to move to Israel and my mother and I made do on our own. Two years later I headed off to the University of Wisconsin and Stella stayed in New York earning a living as an office staff person. Then in 1978 she had a relapse of her mental condition and I was forced to make the decision of letting her go to some other hospital or taking care of her–which meant at least temporarily giving up on my PhD. As most of you know, I took a leave of absence from grad school, packed my mother up in New York, and brought her out to live in the San Francisco Bay Area. Stella became a fixture in Sproul Plaza, dancing to the music, and visiting Larry Blake’s Rathskeller.

For me, marriage and children followed, and from time to time we had to pack Stella up and move her to a new living situation. Stella’s last residence was the Evangelical Home of Michigan in Saline. At first I was a bit dubious about placing her in a Christian home, but as it turned out there were other Jews there and the non-judgmental love they showered on Stella made me understand that I had made the best choice.

On that final stop, we went through her belongings to see what might be donated to charity, and look what we found. My father hadn’t thrown Teddy away after all, just placed him with Stella for safe-keeping. And he is with me to this day.

Blessed is the True Judge. May Stella’s memories be bound with ours so that she lives on forever through us.

ברוך דיין אמת

 

Stella Love
Stella Love in the '70s
Teddy Bear
Teddy

Moderate Your Own Social Media Postings

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In recent weeks two of my friends have found themselves amid controversy and an enormous amount of time might have been saved by taking a few simple steps before pressing the “post” button. Let me say at the outset that this is not a “left” versus “right” issue. Anyone who has a political viewpoint and is willing to discuss their viewpoints on platforms like Facebook or Twitter is vulnerable to this problem.

First of all, understand what is going on here. People who are usually paid operatives for things like presidential campaigns or their allies are constantly scanning social media looking for people who can be tricked into becoming their spokesperson. They understand that the only people who tune into (for example) a Trump campaign site are people who are likely to vote for Trump. But if they can convince some of those people to echo their claims or “share” the Trump info they might be able to reach into places they normally cannot get to–your family and friends. This is the social media multiplier effect, and it is a very powerful tool.

Next, understand the methods these people and parties employ. They are almost always deceitful. One clever type of deceit they employ is to use something that happened, or video of an event, but present it ways that distort the original event.

They have very good intelligence on what sort of things will motivate you to share their propaganda. For example, thanks to the ability to sort data on social media platforms, they can tell if you are strongly pro-Israel and target you with memes showing how anti-Israel or even antisemitic various Democrat supporting folks are. An example of how deceitful that tactic can be is the recent congressional resolution condemning violence against synagogues. All four Democratic Party members who are the frequent targets of this type of malicious propaganda voted in favor of the resolution, but twenty-three Republicans voted against it. This proves two things. First, that regardless of Party, the overwhelming majority of Congress are willing to vote in favor of causes important to Jews, and second, that the distributors of pro-Trump propaganda will never present anything in perspective.

Another favorite tactic of the propagandists is to misrepresent what they are posting. For example, most reputable newspapers allow opinions on their editorial page which are contrary to the stated opinion of the publication’s editors. What they will do is provide a link to the opinion with a title suggesting that the newspaper itself is endorsing that opinion–they know that >90% of readers won’t bother to click the link and see the truth of it.

Another favorite tactic is the false equivalent. People hostile to Donald Trump often mention his notorious sexual offenses and escapades. That Trump has committed egregious acts is beyond question. But if you can convince people that his opponent has as well, you might be able to blunt the force of the criticisms of Trump. As I write this there is a YouTube posted about Joe Biden which calls him a pedophile in the title. A very serious allegation. But the accusation is based entirely on photographs of Biden over the decades hugging fully clothed people. Nothing even remotely as noxious as Trump eying his own daughter lasciviously. That’s a perfect example of the false equivalent. On the one hand a person who has admitted to serial adultery against all three of his wives, invaded the personal space of nude 15-year-old girls, and bragged about committing sexual assault. On the other, a man who is undoubtedly guilty of hugging people too much. Exactly the same thing, right? Wrong.

Which brings me to the subject of links. NEVER click a link unless you are absolutely certain it comes from a reliable source. Over and over again I have found links that purport to be something like “news@nytimes.com” but when you hover over the link most email or browsers will show you the real source which might be “scams@f*ckyou.com”. I rarely censor my Facebook page, but one trigger for me is a correspondent who posts one or more links–I don’t want to risk my friends getting snagged in a scam, so I will delete those sorts of posts as soon as  I see them.

Another extremely common tactic is deflection. If you can’t defend something your candidate is clearly guilty of, talk about how people on the “other side” have done equally awful things–whether or not those allegations are true. Even if they are blatant falsehoods, they figure they can exhaust their opposition with senseless side discussions. A recent example of this strategy is attempting to convince people that other politicians are more to blame for the pandemic than Trump. This has led to an avalanche of social media posts condemning Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York. This is hardly the place to examine Gov. Cuomo’s actions (I may do that elsewhere), but suffice it to say that Cuomo should not have had to do anything about the epidemic because Trump’s federal team had the responsibility to do that before it ever became the catastrophe that afflicted New York. But getting people to talk about Cuomo instead of Trump is the goal of the strategy.

Yet another strategy is sewing discord within the ranks. If the discussion is about how corrupt a given politician might be, throw out some allegations by others. For example, if you’re discussing the private trip that Trump made to a private island with the pedophile and sex trafficker Jefferey Epstein, try to steer the conversation by talking about how Bill Clinton and other Democrats also went to Epstein events.

What can you do to avoid the pitfalls of playing into the hands of propagandists? Actually, quite a bit. First, if a post or meme appeals to you, check it out before you share it. Does it come from a reliable source? Do you even recognize the real source? You are usually safe to link your posts to good faith actors like the NY Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, the Economist, the Guardian, Le Monde, etc. Large general circulation newspapers, news sites such as CNN and MSNBC. On Fox News it’s a mixed bag–a few of the general news hosts are safe, but some of their commentators are willing to venture into dangerous territory–I would suggest avoiding Fox for that reason and not because I disagree with their politics, which of course I do. But be fair: I never share memes I get from sites that often appeal to my progressive politics. For example, you won’t find a single post of mine shared from Act Blue or MoveOn.Org even though I largely agree with their points of view because they are very political and sometimes use the same sorts of tactics I criticize in other sites.

Finally, use a little common sense. How reasonable is it that people marching for social justice are going to be dragging innocent people out of their cars and abusing them? How likely is it that people committed to social justice are going to be slinging racist or antisemitic slurs? If you are presented with a statement or even a video which claims such things, you need to vet the source even more strongly. Chances are you are being pranked or worse–deceived into supporting a cause you might not support if you knew the truth.

Of Weddings and Other Odd Circumstances

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There are several weddings among my family and friends on the immediate horizon and the fact that we are living through a rather unusual set of circumstances which does affect weddings in a major way leads me to reflect on my own wedding, now some 37 years past.

At the time that I proposed to my beautiful bride I was 30 years old and serving as the Associate Director (AD) of the Hillel Foundation (a service organization for Jewish students) at the University of California at Berkeley. Terri was a post-Doc in Neuroscience at that same University.

Terri relaxing

Terri on the Day, How could I have been so lucky?

As everyone in the States knows, the custom here is that the bride’s family will bear most of the cost of a wedding, but that was not in the cards for us for several good reasons. Most importantly, Terri had been married before which generally releases the bride’s family from further financial obligations. In my case, there was never any possibility that my parents could have helped pay for a wedding. Both my parents lived day-by-day on meager Social Security checks. So we were on our own for figuring out how to do a wedding. Terri found a suitable dress in a local thrift shop. As the AD of Hillel, I had the option of using Hillel as both the chapel and location of the celebration. My boss, Rabbi Martin Ballonoff of blessed memory, happily agreed to perform the service. He, by the way, was getting married himself exactly one week before me, which had some interesting consequences for Terri and me. But more on that in due course.

Marty Ballonoff

Rabbi Martin Ballonoff

One of my Hebrew students, Ms. Cathy Citron, was learning how to be a caterer, so she offered to cook any food we  wanted as long as we covered the cost of the food. And the food she prepared was absolutely delicious! Wedding cakes are very expensive, but Rabbi Ballonoff offered to donate the second sheet of his wedding cake. A few of my students who played instruments added some live music to our event, and my life-long friend Marty Lehrner spent many hours putting together a music tape for us. I had (and still have) two huge Klipsch loudspeakers which we took to Hillel, so the music could be played at deafening levels. My dear friend Ed Starkie and his father John were excellent amateur photographers, and they snapped away throughout the event. No professional photographer needed!

As we all know if we’ve been down this road, there is always the thorny question of guests. My family is very small, Terri’s medium sized by her community’s standards (she has five siblings and untold numbers of cousins). My father was in Israel and couldn’t possibly afford the trip, my sister had just moved from Illinois to Long Island and a cross-country trip for her would have been a hardship. What that meant was that my family would be represented by my mother alone, whom we all loved, but who obviously suffered from severe bipolar disorder. But Stella could always be counted on to dance! Much to my surprise and great pleasure and gratitude, Terri’s parents both decided to make the trip along with one of her siblings and his wife. I first became involved in Hillel as an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin, and I was thrilled that the man who served as Associate Director (my title at Berkeley) and his wife would travel from Los Angeles for our marriage. Along with my close friends from the Berkeley community, we expected about 50 people.

The Saturday before a wedding is the occasion for the uffruff a tradition in which the groom rises to accept the honor of reading from the Torah scroll. As it happened, a huge storm had rolled in through the Bay Area knocking out power to the whole area. Our chapel was located in a part of the building where there was very little natural light, so I had to read from the scroll in darkness. Terri, who had completed the process of becoming a Jew-by-choice three weeks before, read the prophetic reading of the day in Biblical Hebrew with the appropriate melody (trope). Things were just getting back to normal on the Sunday of our wedding, but Terri decided to make breakfast for all our out of town guests. That means that just a couple of hours before the event, Terri, partially dressed for the wedding already, was running around cooking up a storm for 20 or so people.

And so at last the time arrived and Terri and I arrived at Hillel for our big day. The first thing that was obvious was that something had gone wrong with our guest count. The chapel was completely full and people were waiting outside. Fortunately, the chapel featured a folding wall which could be opened out to the auditorium, and that was done–then people started setting up folding chairs far out into the auditorium. By the time we were ready to get under way, there were about 500 people settled in. Terri noticed that a half dozen or so of my former girlfriends were in the crowd, but I have to say I was pretty oblivious to that. How could all this have happened?

We found out after the wedding that the rabbi had made a bit of an error. He had intended to invite the community to witness his own wedding, which you will remember occurred the week before ours. But he worded the invitation such that he invited everyone to our wedding as well! About 400 of the people crowding in were my current or former students. One of Terri’s few guests, Prof. Irving Zucker, asked her, “Do you know these people?” and Terri replied, “Almost none of them.” Fortunately for us, they understood that they were only there for the ceremony and not for the food and music afterwards–or we would have been wiped out.

The service ran without a hitch, and I’m pretty sure all our guests had a wonderful time. Fabulous food, except for that wedding cake sheet which was quite possibly as stale as actual concrete–but it’s the thought that counts! Great music, being lifted up on chairs for that now traditional Hassidic dance tradition, and all the trappings of a joyful Jewish wedding. It was, like so much of our lives, a bit on the crazy side (Terri prefers the term “unscripted”), but I wouldn’t trade one minute of that experience for anything else.

So my advice for my family and friends fretting through these unsettling times: make the best of whatever circumstances hand you–and the love you feel for the partner you are about to be joined with will carry you through all of it.

Leadership in the Age of the Virus

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A friend often likes to compare what happened in New York to other states, and specifically blames Andrew Cuomo for the devastation that New York has experienced. This has now come up several times–and not just with this one friend. I’m suspicious that this is part of a disinformation campaign designed to deflect from the massive culpability of the Federal government for the now more than 2 million infections in the USA and 118,000 fatalities.

I want to be clear that I’m not suggesting that my friend is deliberately taking up a disinformation campaign. We know that the Trump re-election campaign and various allies periodically seed the news and social media with misinformation, people who like those sources (eg, Fox News) pick up on these things, and many of them simply don’t know that they have become the agents of tricksters.

We know that Trump and his administration received numerous warnings about the pandemic beginning in December 2019. We know that Trump not only ignored these warnings, but actively discouraged the agencies which are responsible for protecting our health–for example, by telling the CDC that they could not have any public news conferences. These are undeniable facts. The Trump administration took no public action on the virus until the drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average seems to have informed him that a problem did indeed exist. After that, for most of the month of March, the Administration committed blunder after blunder engendering chaos throughout the country, and completely failed in its most important obligation: to protect the citizens of the United States from this disease.

Without question, New York State, and the New York Metro area has experienced the worst effects of the pandemic in the USA so far. I don’t have the expertise to judge whether State or local governments did everything that could have been done, but each time this issue has come up, I have tried to avoid the fog of the political cloud by asking a couple of simple questions. Every state in the USA is dependent on national resources. In this case, among the most important are the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and FEMA. And so my most basic question is: which recommendations issued by these organizations for the prevention of COVID did New York Metro Area governments fail to follow? Given that I have been asking this question for more than two weeks now, and I’ve received exactly zero replies, my conclusion has to be that Cuomo and the governors of NJ and Connecticut, as well as local authorities followed all guidelines and instructions they received from the relevant health authorities.

It is, of course, an understandable and rational question to wonder why New York suffered so much more intensely and with so many more fatalities than other areas of the country. Is that because governors in places like my state of Tennessee, Florida, Nebraska, etc were more competent than Cuomo? It’s going to take months and maybe years to get the complete story on this question, but the evidence is already pretty clear that New York’s fate was sealed a month earlier than Cuomo could possibly have acted. Genetic markers for COVID have demonstrated that the West Coast (California and Washington State) illness was brought into the country via Asia, while the source of the New York infections were from Europe. Without a Federal shutdown to all travelers from these places, the virus was going to hit the New York Metro area because it is the primary recipient of air traffic from Europe. No governor and no mayor had that authority. That was the responsibility of the US federal government, and for the months of January and February, no part of that federal government was actively considering preventative measures.

New York and the West Coast were hit the earliest, and the population density of New York, the reliance on mass transit (some quibbling over this, but I think it’s just basic logic), and the delay in shutting things down to control the spread of the virus meant that New York couldn’t avoid the worst any more than it could have if an atomic bomb had been detonated there. That delay is where a lot of the complaining is sourced, but it’s always great to be able to argue from 20-20 hindsight. Back when Cuomo and the other authorities were moving to get things shut down, there was significant reaction. We can talk about the strained relations with Hasidic Jews who were at first reluctant to abide by the restrictions some other time. The fact is that tens of millions of people were not going to give up their livings and their social lives overnight. As for the mortality rate, no secret there either. Because New York was the first, and because the virus was strong and concentrated there, it took a long time for medical authorities to develop protocols, triage, and treatment. The rest of the country is now benefitting from the knowledge developed in New York and Seattle.

The essence of the question of the culpability of actors like Trump and Cuomo is a variation on the theme that we heard over and over again during the Watergate era, first uttered by Tennessee Senator Howard Baker: “What did the president know and when did he know it?” The clear answer to this question is that Trump was told about the issues months before he chose to act but detractors cannot cite a single instance where Cuomo did not act in accordance with his executive duties.

Now we are in a different phase of the crisis. Those who would like to deflect from Trump’s culpability are pointing to and lauding states (mostly) led by Republicans where there have been far fewer infections and fatalities than New York. All over the world, the overwhelming majority of western democracies are beginning that same return to normal life—and every, single one of them has done immensely better than Trump’s feeble response to the crisis. Only the dictator of Brazil is giving Trump a run for his money.

As I write this, the virus is spreading with increasing speed through several Republican stronghold states. The worst case for the moment seems to be Arizona where the governor, Doug Ducey, lifted restrictions two weeks ago. Ducey is refusing to consider reimposing restrictions even as dozens of restaurants in Phoenix have voluntarily closed their doors because of the many cooks and staff who have become ill.

Meanwhile, in Florida, the state to which Trump is moving the Republican convention, the state is reporting its third consecutive >2,000 new cases per day. Governor Desantis is apparently unconvinced that this is any sort of a problem.

In Arkansas, a very small state, restrictions were never seriously imposed and have now been entirely lifted. I wouldn’t have expected a dramatic increase since things really haven’t changed that much there, but I would have been wrong. Apparently, people see the restriction easing as an excuse to go back to pre-virus behavior which I’m surmising because the cases in Arkansas have spiked up. There are now active cases in every Arkansas county (save one), and the state experienced its worst single-day increase (761) since the epidemic began.

After all this, which governors are doing their jobs and acting to safeguard the health of their citizens?

 

 

The Facebook Algorithm

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We all get a little paranoid–that is if we care about whether anyone is reading the posts we labor over–about the Facebook algorithm. I thought I might share a little of what I know about this phenomenon so my friends can know what it’s about and why it’s worth anyone’s concern. My comments come from no secret corner of the Dark Net, they are just the musings of a person who had a pretty long career in Information Technology and who has been concerned about social media since about 1985.

Perhaps the first thing to understand about the algorithm is that it actually is necessary for all of us. That’s because of the way Facebook is structured. Older social media was structured by threads. Everyone would always see every post that was made to a given thread. For example, in the old UseNet there was a discussion group called soc.culture.jewish, and under that header there would be topics and everyone’s posts to those topics would be listed in chronological order.

Facebook has a different structure. Facebook wants each of us to display the variety of concerns we might have–family, profession, hobbies, politics–everything is under one header, namely our individual names (of course, organized as Facebook IDs). Each Facebook user has anywhere from several dozen to several hundred (or even more!) “friends.” If we saw every posting of every one of these when we logged in, finding what we care about would be hopeless.

Facebook gives each of us a bit of control over how things show up. You can choose to “follow” people or designate people or sites as “close” or “show first.” Of those, in my experience, only “show first” makes much of a difference. But if you follow many people, indicate many are close friends, or designate many as “show first” you’ll soon find your Facebook feed inundated with things you probably don’t want to see.

Enter the Facebook algorithm. Keep in mind that Facebook wants you to be happy. You haven’t paid a dime to use Facebook, right? So how does Facebook make money? And most of you probably know the answer is advertising. Facebook is an entertainment company much like TV stations, and it depends on revenue from advertisers. Facebook wants you to be happy for the same reason that CBS, NBC and ABC want you to be happy–they only receive money when ratings companies tell them that they have lots of viewers, and Facebook only receives money when advertisers know that there is some chance you are looking at their ads.

But Facebook has one huge advantage over those networks. You have to log in to Facebook, which means that Facebook knows every single thing you choose to look at. It knows what you’ve pressed “like” on, it knows what you think is important enough to comment on. If you put in a link to Amazon in a Facebook post or comment, that can signal to Amazon that you are worth their attention for ads. If you start talking about Grey’s Anatomy, you’ll probably notice ads from ABC or various sponsors of that show showing up in a panel on Facebook. If you complain about taxes, you just might find ads from anti-tax politicians showing up in your feed.

Quite a few people know and understand this and don’t like it. They obviously might choose to abandon Facebook entirely, or limit their posts, never “like” anything, that sort of thing. That does deprive Facebook of information, but it also means Facebook’s algorithm doesn’t have what it needs to try to show you things you might like. Perhaps more importantly, it won’t know which of your friends’ posts you might like to see.

Those who have studied this tell me that the actual algorithm is fiendishly complicated and for good reason. If others can figure out how it works, they can game it to make their posts more popular than others. Nevertheless, a few things are clear. Again, Facebook wants you to be happy because they know that will keep you tuned in longer. So they do pay close attention to what you press “like” on, what you comment on, that sort of thing. One of the subtleties is whether pressing “sad” or “happy” or “angry” makes it more likely or less likely to see things which Facebook deems comparable. And that’s the sort of thing Facebook can change up to disrupt those that are trying to game the system.

The algorithm is definitely smart enough to spot trends. For example, I recently posted a birthday photo of myself that quickly drew a dozen “likes.” Facebook sees that this is likely to be a popular post of mine and shares it out to many of my friends–and even people it decides might want to become my friends. I would also hazard a guess that the algorithm is clever enough to spot congratulatory responses. In other words, it figures that if some folks are saying “Congrats” or “Mazel Tov” that other friends likely want to see it as well. So it quickly snowballs into a hundred or more “likes” and many comments. Other posts of mine–ones that I might think are more important–only garner a couple of likes or comments after an hour or two, and Facebook deprecates them and doesn’t bother showing them to the vast majority of my friends. Even though may of them would probably prefer them over the birthday photo.

One of the most infuriating aspects of the algorithm is that people with whom you feel a close connection–even people you know in “real life” not just online–can suddenly drop out of view. It is possible to combat some of this by the simple approach of searching for and clicking on their name. Facebook will then show you most if not all of your friend’s posts. And if you “like” or “comment” and the friend responds, the Facebook algorithm will usually return to showing  most of that friend’s posts.

One technique to make sure targeted friends will see your post is to actually refer to their Facebook ID , either in the post or in a comment below. If you’ve been around Facebook for awhile, you’ve probably seen comments that look like @friend1, @friend2, @friend3. From time to time, bringing a post to a specific person’s attention might make sense. But overusing this technique can be annoying to your friends, and Facebook doesn’t always cooperate by sending the post their way.

The one approach that I think does not work unless you just don’t care to read the posts of your friends is to ignore things you see that you actually do like. Many people think this is a great way to frustrate Facebook, but  it’s the proverbial cutting off your nose to spite your face. As I mentioned at the beginning, Facebook wants you to be happy, and it will try to show you things that will keep your attention on Facebook. If you don’t provide that feedback, then you won’t be seeing most of your friends’ posts either.

You might be wondering why I say that no one understands the algorithm since most of what I’ve surmised is considered pretty likely among those who discuss it. The answer is that the actual algorithm is fiendishly complex. It has all sorts of traps designed to foil attempts to game it. It has ways of deciding how long to wait to show you a post–which is why I often hear from my readers, “You posted this a week ago, but Facebook just showed it to me now.”

And we should acknowledge one more thing. Sometimes it is not Facebook, it’s us. You might think that someone is your good friend, but if you could look at their side of the Facebook ledger, you just might find that they’ve “unfollowed” you or otherwise told Facebook they don’t care much to interact with you.

I’m looking forward to seeing comments about this article below, or on Facebook where I will also be linking this. I’ll try to update it with thoughts and suggestions as they arise.

Of Cuomo, Trump and Trolls

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This weekend I saw a topic mentioned on Facebook several times and it looks suspiciously like the work of Trolls to me. The basic notion is that President Trump handled the Corona virus situation very well for the United States as a whole, but incompetent Democrats like Andrew Cuomo caused most of the epidemic and fatalities because of failings local to their states.The tactic is devilishly clever because New York is obviously lost to Trump, but he can take advantage of the prejudices against New Yorkers which remain pervasive in other parts of the country. I doubt that Trump is aware of this, but the origin of most of those prejudices is some sense that New York is a place for Blacks and Jews. And ironically enough, because some Jews, particularly in the Orthodox community, have misgivings about both Cuomo and New York City Mayor de Blasio, they can be counted upon to help spread these kinds of falsehoods.

The notion that Andrew Cuomo is somehow more culpable in allowing the worst outbreak of COVID-19 in the world spread in the USA than Donald Trump is an absurdity. It is undoubtedly true that Cuomo might have taken steps that would have prevented things from getting as bad as they did–if he had the kind of intelligence that we know was being given to Trump. There is not a scintilla of evidence that that is true.

Here is what I would suggest asking anyone peddling this story.

      • Please show me Andrew Cuomo ignoring a single recommendation of the CDC or the NY State health authorities at any time or failing to promote any such recommendations.
      • Please show me Andrew Cuomo dismissing any public official in the State for disagreeing with some point Cuomo was making.
      • Please show me a single instance of Cuomo castigating a health department official for attempting to do their duty.
      • Please show me a case where Cuomo has walked off the podium rather than reply in full to a reporter’s question.
      • Please tell me if the press in New York State has had anything less than full access to State medical authorities.
      • Please show me a case where Cuomo touted unproven medical treatments for COVID-19.
      • Has Andrew Cuomo advised, against competent medical authority, an early return to pre-virus behavior?

I’m guessing it would be pretty easy to add to this list. And I think you all know that Trump has done every single thing I’ve listed above. So my point is this: while it is certainly true that Andrew Cuomo is the governor located where the epidemic in the USA has been the fiercest (along with others in the NY Metropolitan Area), and while I’m sure he and the others might have managed things better, there is not a shred of evidence that he did not try his best to protect the citizenry. Donald Trump was told in January about the virus, and he denied it was important. He refused to take any notice of it even as the CDC was warning him that it could be serious. You can watch him say that it’s only one “Chinaman” and “believe me” “we’ve got it completely under control.” The most scathing criticism I think you can make against Andrew Cuomo is that he did take Trump at his word for too long a time.

But let me conclude where I began–Trump and his minions will be attempting to use Cuomo and other Democrats as punching bags for his own failings. Watch for Trolls spreading this kind of propaganda–and just ask a few questions as I did above. You’ll find out soon enough how much truth there is in any of their claims.

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Life Since WUJS

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Received word from some of my old friends from the program I attended in 1973 in Arad, Israel that we are going to attempt a class reunion. They asked for an update on what we’ve done since graduating. This will likely be repetitive for many of my friends and family, but here goes…

The reason I enrolled in WUJS was that I had been accepted to Graduate School in History at Tel Aviv University, but at that point knew only the Hebrew that was taught in two semesters at my undergrad institution, the University of Wisconsin (Madison). It was a terrific way to build my Hebrew and also participate in a program designed to introduce college graduates to the entire country. Almost a half century later I still treasure the memories of our visits from Rosh HaNikra in the far north to Beersheva and the agricultural settlements south of Arad.

The indelible memory of that year was seared in place by a major conflict known to most people as the Yom Kippur War which effectively ended WUJS instruction for me. Despite offers of repatriation from the US embassy, along with many others in WUJS, I signed up to do what I could. It wasn’t much–one of my memories from that experience was a kibbutznik too old to bear arms who would lean over and tell me in the dining hall, “You eat more than you’re worth.” And friends, I was skinny in those days!

When the war ended, some students remained at WUJS, but it was time for me to begin my studies at Tel Aviv U. My favorite class was elementary Latin (“You mean you want to study ancient history, but you have no Latin?!”). We were the first class at Tel Aviv U. which enjoyed learning Latin via a textbook written in Hebrew. Before that, students had to use a teaching book written in English. Lucky me! But really, it was a huge boost in my Hebrew comprehension.

At the end of that school year, I accepted an offer from the U of California (Berkeley) and began studying for an M.A. in Near Eastern Studies in the Fall of 1974. I completed that degree in December, 1976 and received “permission to proceed” to the Ph.D. But first, I felt that I still needed more coursework, and there was nothing left to take, so I applied to and was accepted as graduate fellow at Hebrew University of Jerusalem beginning in the Fall of 1977.

That academic year, Anwar Sadat stunned the world by coming to Jerusalem. I sometimes quip that my two years in Israel were, “War and Peace.”

I took as many course as I could at Hebrew U, and then it was time to return to the States. But my graduate advisor at Berkeley told me that given that only 4 PhDs in History at UCB had managed to find positions, I ought to consider other alternatives. So I applied to the Rabbinical program at HUC – Cincinnati. Oddly enough, they advised me to join the History PhD program there because I would receive a much better fellowship that way. And so I went from Jerusalem to Cincinnati. The most important scholar there for my interests was Samuel Sandmel. When I got to Cincinnati, I was his only student. During the semester he informed me that he had accepted a position at the U of Chicago and asked me to consider joining him. But the chancellor pulled me aside and cautioned me that Sandmel might not be alive much longer, so I declined his offer and indeed he passed away in February having made the move to Chicago just a month before.

Without Sandmel, staying in Cincinnati didn’t seem worthwhile although I did very much enjoy my studies in Talmud with Ben Zion Wacholder. Life intervened and I received word that my mother was in dire straits and needed my help. So I returned to Berkeley, made arrangements to settle my life down a bit, and then went to New York City to see how I might help my mother. She had had a severe episode of her long standing bipolar disorder and as a result lost her job. She was in danger of running out of money for the rent. My father, her husband, had abandoned us years before–ironically perhaps to move to Israel. I was an only child to her (my sister was born to a different mother) so it was me or no one. I packed her up and took her to California.

Continuing with the PhD program was now out of the question. I took a job as the Assistant Director of the Berkeley Hillel Foundation which involved leading religious services, teaching Hebrew courses and running the rather extensive Hebrew language program of the Lehrhaus Judaica which was co-housed in the Hillel building, and being responsible for the financial part of the foundation. To do that effectively I enrolled in Accounting classes at a local community college.

This was supposed to be a stop-gap until I got my mother settled, but we all know how that goes. I enjoyed my job, I enjoyed having the stability of a real income. In 1979 I purchased my first house in Oakland with the help of the Lehrhaus director. A couple of years later I met the woman who would become my wife of now 36 years.

We sold that first house to buy a house in Berkeley (this time together with our Hillel office manager who went on to be the leader of the Unitarian Universalists west of the Mississippi). And 1985 saw the birth of our first child, Shoshana. In 1987 the University of Michigan offered Terri a tenured position in their Psychology Department, and as much as I loved our lives in the fabled San Francisco Bay Area, we both agreed that moving to Ann Arbor was the sensible thing to do. So in 1988, Terri’s mom came out and helped Terri, Shoshana and our pet rabbits move to Michigan. I came a couple of months later with our dog. And a couple of months after that I moved Momma to Michigan.

Of course I was hoping for a job teaching Hebrew, but Hillel was staffed up and my mere M.A. wasn’t good enough for the U, so I was unemployed for awhile. I had learned a considerable amount about both accounting and database management, and a friend mailed me–quite out of the blue–a T-Shirt emblazoned with the word “Oracle.” One day, I felt a tap on my shoulder as I was picking Sho up from day care, and the father of one of the other kids asked me, “Do you know anything about Oracle?” I replied that “Yes, I had successfully deployed an Oracle database at my former employer in California.” He hired me on the spot to do a training session for his group at the University’s IT department because they had just paid $600k to license Oracle, but no one knew how to use it. After the session, he hired me as an external consultant to help them design databases, and after three years of that they decided it would be cheaper just to give me a job. That’s how I became an employee of the U of Michigan in 1992. In 1995 Ephraim joined our family, and shortly thereafter the College of Engineering hired me away from the IT department. I rose through those ranks and eventually was leading three departments within the College.

I decided to retire from the University when I turned 58 because I was qualified for benefits, they were running an early retirement program, my investments had done well, and really, I didn’t need the headaches any longer. I accepted a voluntary position as the first Executive Director (unpaid) of the County’s NAMI program.

2011 was a momentous year for our family. Ephraim had decided to make aliyah and complete his education in Israel. My mother sadly left us that year. And Terri received an offer to become the Dean of Arts and Sciences at the U of Tennessee, Knoxville. After a visit to check it out, we decided to take the offer. We sold our Ann Arbor house at which point Ephraim changed his mind and decided he would stay in Ann Arbor, but we held to our plan and we went to Knoxville while he remained in Ann Arbor.

A few months after our arrival, the Religious Studies Department was notified that faculty members they had hired to teach Hebrew had elected not to come and the director of Judaic Studies and the Head of the Religious Studies department asked me if would teach Biblical Hebrew for the year. And after that first year, they have hired me ever since, seven years now.

Of course they really wanted me to have a PhD, so I was approached by someone who offered to be my mentor for completing that project. She averred that given all my prior course work, it would probably only take me a year to start writing my dissertation. But the Grad School had other ideas about whether they were going to accept decades-old courses. I stuck with it and earned my PhD in History in December 2019.

Our daughter Shoshana now lives in Albuquerque, NM with her husband Karl and our two grandchildren, Clara and Alexander. My son Ephraim joined us in Knoxville after completing his BA at U of Michigan. He’s now in the later stages of a PhD in social geography and spatial statistics, and he is engaged to a woman who is also working on a PhD in the biological sciences.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Added 4/13/20:

My father was a child of the beginning of the Soviet Union, his father was a highly educated Orthodox Jew (musmah Kishinev). My grandfather came to the States first and established a business selling second hand steel in Cleveland, OH. Then he was busted for selling stolen property and after spending everything to avoid jail moved to Detroit. Meanwhile, my great-grandfather, my grandmother’s father, found the cash to ship my Bubby and her three surviving children (three others seem to have died of Tay-Sachs) to Detroit. It’s not entirely clear that my grandfather, the Grand Rabbi, was all that happy to see them.
 
My mother of blessed memory was born in Brooklyn. Her mother had five children of whom my mother was the youngest. She passed when my mother was 14 and my maternal grandfather (who was a Sanitation Dept employee) fostered her out to people who were cousins of ours. Through Facebook I have been able to make contact with that branch of the family and they are all wonderful folks. In those days there was no healthcare and no real pension for city employees, so when my grandfather couldn’t work owing to a savaged back, he eked out a living as fortune teller setting up on the street. He passed the year before I was born. My middle name, Francis is for my mother’s next-in-line sister Frances  who was electrocuted in shock therapy at a Brooklyn hospital, also the year before I was born. I know, many of you don’t want to hear details like this, but if you want to be honest about life, these are the kinds of things that happen.
 
After my pretty typically Orthodox bar-mitzvah, I didn’t want to have anything to do with Judaism. Like Perry, I was impressed with the events of the 6-Day-War. My father decided to make Aliyah–I think as a way of getting away from us as we were not invited to accompany him–and that was the last I saw of him until I got to WUJS (he was in Tel Aviv). In 1971  I had a serious health emergency and my life was literally saved by the invention of colon fiberscope. I was only the 3rd person to undergo that procedure. The doctors found the polyps that were the cause of my issue and extracted them. I’m telling you this because when I woke up the town (Madison, WI) hazzan was waiting by my bedside. A doctor had asked him to come because he recognized that I was reciting the Sh’ma in my delirium.
 
After my recovery, I started hanging out at Hillel and discovered that the rabbi there was both brilliant and not crazy. It was the first time I think I realized that one could be intelligent and religious at the same time. We became lifetime friends–just spoke with him last week–and I’ve been part of Conservative Judaism ever since. It was at this Hillel that I met the “shaliah” who recommended that I go to WUJS. Not to say that “I got religion”–I was agnostic before, during, and after all this. But I found great comfort in being part of a community, and I discovered that I love ritual even if I don’t think it’s going to save any possible soul I might have.

Passover 2020

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As most of us will doing this year, Terri and I will be celebrating a limited Seder. There may only be four (or two) of us, but we hope that many of our friends will be joining us via this marvelous technology (Zoom).

Please note that there have been security concerns with Zoom. We are using the zoom server provided by the University of Tennessee; we can therefore say we are safe at our end of things. This cannot guarantee that your own computers are completely safe from hackers.

If you would like to follow along with us, you can find this year’s version of my Haggadah here:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3rt0g8tay87r9kq/AACgIyAbQJUp5TpyuxYgCvXja?dl=0

In addition to the Haggadah, there is a short document which explains the people mentioned in memoriam on page 2 of the Haggadah.

If you would like a printed copy of this Haggadah, you’ll need either a laser printer or an inkjet printer, preferably one that can print “duplex” (both sides of the page). You will also need either the full Adobe PDF program, or a good clone of it. In the print menu, use the setting for “booklet.” If you don’t have that setting, your printer might not be able to handle this job. But ideally, that’s all you’ll have to do. Printing duplex, you only need 10 sheets of paper which will then become the 40 pages of the booklet.

If you would like to join us for Passover, here is the Zoom information you will need. If you have access to via the Internet:

https://tennessee.zoom.us/j/760146144

If you live in an area with no Internet, or poor Internet, you might be able to dial-in with your phone. These are the numbers for that, but be aware that your phone company might charge you for this connection:

Telephone:
Dial:
+1 312 626 6799 (US Toll)
+1 646 876 9923 (US Toll)
+1 253 215 8782 (US Toll)
+1 301 715 8592 (US Toll)
+1 346 248 7799 (US Toll)
+1 669 900 6833 (US Toll)
Meeting ID: 760 146 144

The link should become active about 6:45pm both evenings and we are planning to begin at 7pm.

Have a Happy and Kosher Passover!

Jack and Terri