COP28, Ukraine and Gaza

It's already December, so it's time for my annual post to this blog. Before I get to the main issue I want to talk about, I feel I should say something about the issue that is the most important one of all, namely the climate crisis. The COP28 climate change summit just concluded, and the results were mixed. On the plus side, there was some progress on a number of issues, and for the first time, the final agreement made reference to transitioning away from fossil fuels, a first for one of these summits. To be sure, this is a lot weaker than an unequivocal call for a complete phasing out of fossil fuels, which is what we really need, and a lot of the language was very vague, leaving huge loopholes in the execution of the agreement. As usual, there were some who still consider their ability to keep making money off fossil fuels more important than the future of humanity (even the Western nations who were pushing for stronger language on fossil fuels insisted that references to reducing fossil fuels specify "unabated" fossil fuels, as they are still attempting to push useless concepts like "carbon capture"; there were problematic references to using "transitional fuels", which implies so-called "natural gas", a fossil fuel; and "renewable energy" as used in the agreement includes harmful biofuels). The failure of wealthy nations to commit the large amounts of funds needed to help developing nations transition quickly to renewable energy is also a big problem. The truth is, even if all the nations who participated in the summit actually achieved their stated goals (very unlikely), it would be far from sufficient to avoid serious consequences from climate change. Indeed, it's already to late to avoid them, as they are happening already, and they will get worse no matter what we do. The issue is rather how much worse the situation will get, as there's a huge difference between, say, a rise in average global temperatures of 2 degrees Celsius and a rise of 3 degrees Celsius. So while the progress made at this summit amounts to half-measures, in this situation even half-measures are better than nothing. 

But the issue that I want to address at length is the contrast between the two major conflicts that are occupying much of the world's attention (though I should note that these are far from the only conflicts happening; unfortunately, the others, even very serious ones like the one in Sudan, are mostly being ignored). Russia's war in Ukraine has been going on for almost two years now, but it looks likely to continue for some time yet. The conflict that has grabbed the greatest amount of attention - and generated by far the most divisive global reaction - in the past two months is of course the war in Gaza, launched by Israel in response to the violent surprise attack Hamas made against Israel in early October. These two conflicts are both currently the subject of intense debates, including over US aid to Ukraine and Israel. But in many ways, the two wars couldn't be more different.

The war in Ukraine is a relatively rare case of a war where there is really no question regarding which side has right on its side. Russia - more specifically, its dictator Vladimir Putin - launched an unprovoked assault on a smaller neighbor (claims by Putin apologists that Russia was somehow provoked into the attack are based on misinformation and outright lies). What's more, Russia has committed and continued to commit war crimes on a daily basis, whether it's launching indiscriminate missile and drone attacks on civilian areas, mistreating POWs and Ukrainian civilians, looting Ukrainian towns, or even engaging in brutal treatment of their own soldiers. While of course Ukraine hasn't been perfect in this regard, the contrast is still huge. Ukrainian soldiers have even been regularly recorded saving pet animals trapped in war zones, while Russian soldiers have slaughtered zoo animals. It is absolutely obvious that any decent person should want Ukraine to win this fight.

The war in Gaza, however, is far less black and white, though there are a number of points that are clear enough. The attacks that Hamas launched against Israel were unequivocally immoral, and cannot be justified by Israeli government oppression of Palestinians. Hamas did not just attack Israeli soldiers, but they killed, assaulted and abducted innocent civilians, including women, children and the elderly. That is acceptable under no circumstances. Likewise, Israel's indiscriminate bombing of Gaza, with little or no apparent effort to prevent harm to civilians, is also unequivocally immoral, and cannot be justified by what Hamas did. It should be noted that Hamas does share some of the blame for Israel's slaughter of innocent Palestinian civilians, as it is apparent that their own barbaric attack was intended to provoke an Israeli response that was at least as barbaric. But Israel and its leadership are ultimately responsible for their own actions, and even excuses like saying that Hamas deliberately uses civilians as human shields, which is almost certainly true (though probably not to the extent that Israeli propaganda claims), is no defense for even the definitively proven war crimes committed by Israel, much less some of the atrocities that remain unconfirmed. Basically, there is no good guy in this fight. Hamas is evil, and Netanyahu and his right-wing government are also evil. Innocent Israelis and Palestinians are caught in the middle, and the latter in particular are suffering from an assault that deserves clear condemnation, regardless of its initial impetus. Israel should be free to target Hamas, particular those of its members involved in the October attack, but that cannot be allowed to come at the cost of harming civilians in great numbers, as is happening now.

One of the most disturbing aspects of the conflict has been the extreme and often highly biased reactions by some elsewhere in the world, including numerous hate crimes against Jews, Arabs, and Muslims in other countries. It's absolutely disgraceful the way both Islamophobia and hostility towards Jewish people has been unleashed by this conflict. As an aside, I am not a fan of the term "anti-Semitism". For one thing, it was a term anti-Jewish hatemongers coined as a name for themselves. Why should we use their term? And etymologically, it particularly sounds absurd when applied to Palestinians and other Arabs, as they are "Semites" as well. Maybe there weren't any other Semitic people to speak of in Europe when the anti-Jewish people invented the term, but in this particular conflict both sides are Semitic, so it makes no sense to refer to one side as "anti-Semitic". Regardless of the terminology, any sort of prejudice or discrimination against any group is unacceptable and must be condemned. 

Conversely, freedom of speech must be upheld, except in the case of unequivocal hate speech or harmful disinformation. Generalized statements supporting the Palestinian people (not Hamas) without expressing hatred against Israelis should be considered acceptable, as should generalized statements supporting the Israeli people (not the Netanyahu government) without expressing hatred against Palestinians. And there is certainly room for a little nuance. Obviously, any call for genocide against Jews or Palestinians should be condemned without reservation, but only if that is clearly the intent. While a slogan like "from the river to the sea, Palestine must be free" is certainly problematic for anyone who actually knows the geography and the history of the region, not everyone who uses it is necessarily calling for genocide against Israelis. Many of them are simply ignorant of what it implies, and some may just be thinking of the parts of the region that are largely Palestinian when they use it, without necessarily calling for Israel to be wiped out. In any event, even a slogan like that is hardly the same as openly calling for one or the other group to be wiped out, as unfortunately has been done by people on both sides.

Generally speaking, anyone commenting on this conflict should make clear that they condemn war crimes committed by both sides and that they want peace and safety for all civilians on both sides. Admittedly, the longer the Israeli bombardment of Gaza goes on and the more stories of atrocities committed by Israeli forces leak out, the more the focus will tend to be on criticizing Israel and its actions. This is understandable, as at the moment it is Israel that is causing by far the most harm, and they are the ones who need to be stopped from doing more. However, Hamas should not be allowed to get away with what they've done either, especially since, as noted above, they are at least partly to blame for Israel's crimes, as they deliberately provoked them. That said, I agree with those who think that the main focus now should be reining in Israel. The United States has a particular responsibility in this regard, especially since it has sided too heavily with the Israeli government up till now, despite the fact that its response was clearly disproportionate from the first days of the conflict. In fact, while for the most part I think Biden has been an excellent president, this is one area where his performance has been inadequate, to say the least. I don't think he has been as bad as many Arab Americans (understandably) feel, as I think it's clear that he and his administration have been doing a fair amount of work behind the scenes, particularly in brokering the previous ceasefire and hostage exchanges. But his slowness to condemn Israel's indiscriminate bombing and his administration's failure to adequately assist Palestinian Americans trapped in Gaza or more generally to show that they consider Palestinian lives as important as Israeli lives has been a major disappointment.

So this brings us to the question of US aid to Ukraine and Israel, currently being debated in Congress, with the White House heavily involved in the negotiations as well. The absolutely disgraceful aspect of this has been Republicans questioning further aid to Ukraine when they don't seem to have an issue with aid to Israel. As I've said here, the one party in these two conflicts that clearly deserves wholehearted support is Ukraine. And even aside from the clear moral superiority of the Ukrainian cause, there is the fact that Ukraine needs US (and European) support, because they are fighting a much larger and stronger enemy. While Russia's military has proven to be incompetent and corrupt, they still could conceivably eventually overcome Ukraine, or at least force it into a permanent and bloody stalemate, by sheer force of numbers. Israel, on the other hand, is militarily much stronger than Hamas. Granted, if the war there expanded to involve other forces hostile to Israel, especially Iran, Israel might really need support, and probably should get it (though the US should still insist on conditions such as not using the provided weapons on civilians, something it has so far failed to do). At this point, however, Israel doesn't particularly need military assistance, and frankly, as long as it is indiscriminately bombing civilians, it doesn't deserve it. As an aside, I should mentioning that naturally I think the third country that has been included in this aid package, Taiwan, fully needs and deserves the help. But even we don't need it as urgently as Ukraine does. 

Of course many of the Republicans claim that they are willing to help Ukraine, but will only do so if the Democrats and the White House agree to "secure the border". A number of them have said things like "our own security comes first", insisting that they can't help other countries without addressing border issues first. But this is totally ridiculous. First of all, they are two separate issues and can easily be addressed separately. Even more to the point, the border situation, despite all the fearmongering by the right wing, is nowhere near as urgent as Ukraine's fight against Russia, and they are on totally different levels. The US is not being "invaded" just because thousands of asylum seekers, many of them women and children, are trying to come into the country. To act as if a bunch of people fleeing deadly situations in their home countries are an invasion like the one Ukraine is fighting against is frankly disgusting. Using them as an excuse to block aid to Ukraine is disgraceful. And all that is aside from the raging hypocrisy of their assertion that spending money on Ukraine is wasteful, while they almost all have voted in lockstep for military budgets that exceeded even the huge amount the Pentagon itself was asking for. I can only hope that enough Americans understand that and give Republicans (and their loud-mouthed, vulgar, fascistic leader) the electoral drubbing they deserve. It is clear that despite the Biden administration's mixed performance on the Gaza conflict, if the US is going to give Ukraine the support it deserves and take any steps at all to address climate change (not to mention avoid falling under the rule of a vengeful and erratic authoritarian), next year Americans need to reelect Biden and give Democrats control of Congress. 

It's Been a Long Half Century Since We Went to the Moon...But We May Finally Be Going Back

Exactly fifty years ago at this time, American astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt were on the surface of the Moon while fellow astronaut Ronald Evans orbited the Moon in the command module. Cernan and Schmitt were the eleventh and twelfth people to walk on the Moon, while Evans was one of another twelve to fly to the Moon without landing on it. Cernan and Schmitt spent over three days on the Moon, and nearly a day of that was spent outside actually walking or driving out on the surface, with both their total time and time outside exceeding the records set in previous missions. But on late on December 14, 1972 (Coordinated Universal Time; in Asia and much of Europe and Africa it was early December 15), Cernan and Schmitt lifted off in the lunar module to rendezvous with Evans a few hours later. Late on December 16, the three left lunar orbit for the return journey to Earth. 

Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan with the Lunar Rover (NASA)

Since that time half a century ago, humans have not been back to the Moon. Of the twelve people who walked on the Moon, only four are still alive: Schmitt, Apollo 11's Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 15's Dave Scott, and Apollo 16's Charlie Duke. Of the twelve others who flew to the Moon without landing, six are still alive: Frank Borman (Apollo 8), Jim Lovell (Apollos 8 and 13), Bill Anders (Apollo 8), Tom Stafford (Apollo 10), Fred Haise (Apollo 13) and Ken Mattingly (Apollo 16). The three youngest are Mattingly (86), Duke (87) and Schmitt (87); most of the others are over 90. For that matter, everyone who can actually remember watching or hearing about the Moon landings at the time they were happening is well over fifty now; those of us who recently hit that milestone were too young at the time to have any memory of it, and anyone younger was of course not even born yet. Human exploration of the Moon is not yet gone from living memory, but it is becoming more and more distant in the past. 

This is very unfortunate. Not so much because being in the distant past will make it easier for some to claim it never happened; people who claim such things are idiots and fools — after all, only a tiny handful of people alive today are old enough to have even a vague memory of World War I, but only complete idiots would claim that World War I never happened. However, humans landing on the Moon was, at least in terms of physical exploration of our surroundings, our peak achievement as a species, and it is something of a tragedy that in half a century since we have not even managed to replicate it, much less surpass it. 

But that may finally be about to change. As those who still manage to keep abreast of a wide range of headlines — or those whose information bubbles include news relating to science and technology — may have heard, the US space agency NASA, responsible for the Apollo missions half a century ago, recently launched the Artemis 1 mission to the Moon, this time with major contributions from the European Space Agency. While this mission was uncrewed, the Orion spacecraft that flew to and orbited the Moon over the past few weeks, returning to Earth exactly 50 years to the day and almost to the hour after Cernan and Schmitt landed on the Moon (December 11 UTC), is designed to eventually carry humans, and if all goes well, the next Artemis mission will take humans back to the Moon again. We will have to wait until at least 2024 for this to happen, and that first mission back, like Apollo missions 8 and 10 (and 13, though for less fortunate reasons), won't involve landing on the Moon, just flying there and coming back. But that's far more than we've done in half a century, and the mission after that, perhaps in 2025 or 2026, should see humans landing on the Moon once more, and this time those going will include women and people of color, unlike the Apollo missions, which were exclusively crewed by white men. 

I fervently hope that most of the remaining Apollo astronauts will still be around to see humans return to the Moon. But just as importantly, I hope that once we as a species do get back to the Moon, we will continue to explore it regularly, and even go beyond it, to Mars or the asteroids. Of course if we want to maintain a regular presence in space beyond low Earth orbit (there have already been in low Earth orbit continuously for the entire 21st century) for decades or even centuries, we will have to solve the many problems we have created for ourselves down on Earth, including the climate crisis, the biodiversity crisis, and many more. But despite what some people might say, and indeed have been saying since the Apollo era, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be going to the Moon. Going to the Moon and solving problems on Earth are not mutually exclusive goals; in fact, our exploration of space, including figuring out how to sustain human life far from Earth, can be directly useful in finding ways to deal with Earth-bound problems (and it can also just provide inspiration — the famous Blue Marble photo of Earth, which helped inspire the environmental movement, was taken by the Apollo 17 astronauts).

So let's celebrate the anniversary of Apollo 17 with the hope that in the next two or three years, humans will finally follow in the footsteps of Cernan, Schmitt, and their fellow Apollo astronauts, and we will get to see people walking on the Moon, not as distant history but as part of our present.

The Worst US Presidents in History

A few weeks ago, the Siena College Research Institute's Presidential Expert Poll of 2022 was published. This poll has been conducted regularly since 1982 in the second year of the first term of every president beginning with Reagan. I always find these surveys of historians fascinating, as it is always instructive to learn the current views of the experts regarding past presidents. There are a lot of interesting things to note about this latest survey, such as that Franklin D. Roosevelt won out in the usual contest between him, Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington for the top spot. Andrew Jackson and Ronald Reagan rightfully dropped a few places (though they arguably are still too highly ranked) and Lyndon B. Johnson and Barack Obama moved up several spots. Obama ranked the highest of all presidents since LBJ (who was the last of a string of five presidents who all came in the top 10 overall), followed by Bill Clinton, Reagan, Joe Biden and George H. W. Bush (the latter three all coming in the lower part of the second quartile). Jimmy Carter was still ranked in the third quartile, but he was at the very top of it (just below Jackson, who was in the exact middle of all 45 presidents ranked), so he was only half a dozen spots below his successor Reagan, and several places ahead of his predecessors Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. George W. Bush landed at the top of the fourth quartile, well below all other recent presidents except one, but ten spots above the bottom. However, it's those presidents who came in at the very bottom in both this and past surveys of historians that I want to focus on. 

As can be seen from the chart on Wikipedia summarizing historical rankings of US presidents by scholars, until recently, three presidents have traditionally "competed" for last place: James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, and Warren G. Harding, with Franklin Pierce and William H. Harrison (when he's included) also coming in near the bottom, but never in last place.* Of course now there is a new contender for the bottom spot, namely the person who left office at the beginning of 2021, who we'll call DJT. DJT had already placed last in one of the previous three surveys in which he was included, and he was third and tied for third from the bottom in the other two. He came in third from the bottom in this latest Siena survey as well. While Johnson came in last in this latest survey, with Buchanan coming in at second to last, the president who has most frequently come in last in more recent surveys is Buchanan (Harding consistently came in last in surveys prior to 2000, but since then it has usually been Buchanan, except for a few times when it has been Johnson and once when it was DJT), and there are some interesting parallels between him and DJT. 

The Wikipedia article "Presidency of James Buchanan" states that: "Buchanan and his allies awarded no-bid contracts to political supporters, used government money to wage political campaigns and bribe judges, and sold government property for less than its worth to cronies. According to historian Michael F. Holt, the Buchanan administration was 'undoubtedly the most corrupt [administration] before the Civil War and one of the most corrupt in American history.'" This should sound familiar to all of us who observed the actions of the DJT administration. But an even bigger and more deadly parallel is seen in the way they left office. Buchanan is most noted for his failure to prevent the Civil War, which erupted just after he left office. While publicly opposed to secession, he did little to stop the Southern states from seceding, and blamed abolitionists and the North for the crisis. Seven Southern states had seceded by the time Buchanan left office, and the best that can be said for him is that he didn't surrender the federal forts in South Carolina, though even that may have been in part due to pressure from Northern members of his cabinet. While some historians argue that he was merely incompetent, indecisive or caught between conflicting loyalties, historian Jean Baker gave a much harsher verdict in her biography James Buchanan: "Americans have conveniently misled themselves about the presidency of James Buchanan, preferring to classify him as indecisive and inactive.... In fact Buchanan's failing during the crisis over the Union was not inactivity, but rather his partiality for the South, a favoritism that bordered on disloyalty in an officer pledged to defend all the United States.... In his betrayal of the national trust, Buchanan came closer to committing treason than any other president in American history." But as bad as Buchanan's performance was, it seems obvious that after January 6, 2021 and the events leading up to it, that last sentence is no longer true of him, since DJT's attempt to launch a coup to overturn the election results and stay in office were an even more blatant case of treason than Buchanan's actions in 1860 and 1861. 

Also, to be fair to Buchanan, he did at least support the Union once the Civil War began, unlike former president John Tyler, who was actually elected to the Confederate House of Representatives, though he died before taking office, and who was the only US president whose death was not officially recognized in Washington, DC, and whose coffin was not draped with the US flag but with the Confederate one. Still, Tyler's renunciation of his allegiance to the US came long after he was out of office. Given his behavior in office, there's no reason to doubt that DJT, despite his occasional public fondling of US flags, would betray the country in an equally blatant manner if it suited him -- in fact, his actions after he lost the 2020 election were as conspicuous a betrayal as Tyler's and, as I already noted, worse than Buchanan's.   

Harding was probably the worst president of the 20th century, and he resembled DJT in that he was both incompetent and presided over a corrupt administration. But from what I can recall, there is little evidence that he himself was personally corrupt, and it seems that he at least had the self-awareness to know that he wasn't qualified for the office he held. Neither of these things is true of DJT, and of course Harding didn't attack the most basic tenets of democracy by refusing to accept electoral defeat (to be sure, since he died in office, he never faced reelection, but there's no reason to believe he would have tried to overturn the results had he lost reelection). So while Harding was a lousy president, it is still clear that the experts are right to rank him above DJT. 

As for Andrew Johnson, he has a few things in common with DJT as well. The most obvious is that they were both impeached, with Bill Clinton being the only other president to actually be impeached (Nixon, of course, resigned before the House could vote on impeachment). The impeachment of Clinton was frivolous partisanship, but the impeachments of Johnson and DJT were on more solid grounds. While DJT was impeached twice and is the only impeached president who had members of his own party vote to convict him in the Senate, Johnson came closest to being convicted by the Senate, being acquitted by only one vote, as at the time the Republicans had 45 of 54 seats (ten Republicans voted to acquit Johnson).

It might be argued that in Johnson's case the grounds for impeachment (violation of the Tenure of Office Act for trying to fire the Secretary of War, who had been appointed by Abraham Lincoln and opposed Johnson's handling of Reconstruction) were somewhat flimsy, if more solid than those for Clinton's impeachment. But even so, it is largely because of his poor handling of Reconstruction and his obstinate refusal to compromise with the Republicans that he now has such a bad reputation. He hindered Republican efforts to ensure voting rights for freed slaves (even vetoing the Freedman's Bureau bill and the Civil Rights Act of 1866), and when his more lenient treatment of the Southern states resulted in the latter passing the infamous Black Codes and allowed many former Confederate leaders, including the Confederate vice president Alexander Stephens, to win election to Congress, Johnson acquiesced, while the Republicans were outraged and refused to seat the Southern legislators. Johnson not only refused to work with the more moderate Republicans, but made a speech in which he attacked the leaders of the Radical Republicans and accused them of plotting to assassinate him. It was soon after this that he vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, a veto that destroyed any hope of compromise with the moderates (who then joined the Radicals in overriding Johnson's veto), and cementing his disastrous legacy as the President who fought the efforts of Congress to ensure full rights for African Americans.

While Johnson, despite having racist views himself, did not actually agree with the more harsh efforts to suppress blacks in the South in the wake of the Civil War, his willingness to acquiesce in these racist actions is reminiscent of Mitch McConnell and his wing of the Republican party; they might criticize the more extreme actions of DJT, but they wouldn't do anything at all to stop him. But in other ways Johnson was reminiscent of DJT himself. In the same hour-long speech in which he made wild accusations against Radical Republican leaders, Johnson referred to himself over 200 times, even though the speech was supposed to be in honor of George Washington, whose birthday it was. This sounds very like DJT, who talked about himself on every occasion. Johnson also made speeches in which he compared himself to Jesus Christ. One recent historian referred to Johnson's "enormous sense of self-importance". Likewise, what the same historian calls "his complete mishandling of Reconstruction policy" might be compared to DJT's complete mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic. But it's hard to imagine that even Johnson was as utterly narcissistic as DJT, and though his racism and his callous attitude toward African-Americans were as bad as DJT's and due to the historical circumstances even more harmful, Johnson didn't engage same sort of blatant corruption that DJT did, and he is generally credited with having some degree of intellectual ability (though poorly applied), something which can't be said of DJT. Finally, though his leniency towards former insurrectionists against the United States was inexcusable, at least he himself was not one, unlike DJT. 

In conclusion, while I will admit that I don't really have the thorough knowledge of US history that the experts who took part in these scholarly surveys have, based on the more superficial knowledge that I do have, it seems to me that DJT probably should be ranked even below presidents like Buchanan and Johnson. But of course it should be pointed out that the final rankings are an average of the scores given by the scholars in 20 individual categories. The scholars were also asked to rank the presidents according to their "present overall view" of that individual, and in that ranking, which in some sense is more reflective of the scholars' actual views**, DJT was second to last and Buchanan was last. Also, the survey consulted 141 scholars in all, so we can be pretty sure that many of them did put DJT in dead last. He did come in last overall in five of 20 individual categories, including "Integrity", "Intelligence", "Executive Appointments", "Foreign Policy Accomplishments" and "Background". The only categories he faired well in (coming in around the middle of the pack) were "Luck" and "Willing to take risks". The former, which unlike the other categories says nothing about the individual president's ability, may alone have been enough to keep him from the very bottom. Buchanan and Johnson both ranked very low on "Luck", and indeed Lincoln and Biden both ranked lower than DJT in this category. As for being "Willing to take risks", it is arguably true that DJT was a risk taker, though I might add that most of the risks he took were bad ones. Overall, it's generally pretty reassuring that most of the experts agree with what seems obvious to most of us - DJT was the worst president since the 19th century and one of the worst presidents ever. Now if only his supporters could get that uncomfortable truth into their heads....

*Millard Fillmore has likewise consistently been in the bottom quartile, but always a few spots above the bottom (he has always ranked slightly above his successors Pierce and Buchanan). John Tyler usually has been ranked similarly to Fillmore, though he made the third quartile twice. Zachary Taylor (who died just over a year after taking office) has tended to rank at the top of the fourth quartile or the bottom of the third. Ulysses Grant was consistently ranked in the bottom quartile in earlier surveys, sometimes below Pierce, Johnson, or Buchanan, but his reputation among historians has improved since and he has risen to the third quartile and even in a few surveys, including two of the last three, the second. Calvin Coolidge likewise was consistently ranked in the fourth quartile (though above Grant) in earlier surveys but has since always ended up in the third, largely reversing positions with his successor Herbert Hoover, who landed in the third quartile in early surveys but recently has usually been in the fourth. The only other early presidents to occasionally fall into the fourth quartile are Martin Van Buren, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield (who is sometimes excluded entirely due to his short time in office), Chester A. Arthur, and Benjamin Harrison. As for more recent presidents, Richard Nixon has always been in either the third or fourth quartile (though he's tended to fare better in recent surveys), Jimmy Carter was ranked in the fourth quartile on three surveys but also made the second in three others; in all others he's been in the third. Gerald Ford has always been in the third, except for once when he was in the fourth. George W. Bush ranked in the middle in the two surveys conducted while he was still in office but was in the fourth in the surveys conducted in the two terms after he left office, in a few cases near the bottom. Probably not coincidentally, in the last three surveys (the first ones to include DJT), he's done somewhat better, landing in the lower third quartile, though in the latest Siena poll he fell back to the top of the fourth quartile. 

**Since the overall rankings are an average of the rankings in the individual categories, they incorporate areas such as "Luck", which as I note elsewhere, may have helped boost DJT's final ranking despite not having anything to do with his actual ability or performance. Also, in their "present overall view", scholars may also be weighting categories differently or taking into account aspects of a president's record that aren't covered by the individual categories. Though in most cases there is not much difference between where the scholars ranked the presidents according to their "present overall view" and the final, overall rank, one notable exception is Nixon, who came in a lot lower in the former category than in the latter. Presumably this is because the scholars felt the Watergate scandal and the flaws that it brought out outweighed his more positive achievements. It's interesting to note that Nixon's lowest ranking was for "Integrity", where he came in second to last -- dead last being occupied, of course, by DJT. 

Statistics and Right Wing Logic Failures

 I have continued to neglect this blog, but as I've managed to make at least one post in each of the past few years, I didn't want to let 2021 go by without posting anything. The following is something I recently wrote after noticing a common thread in the claims and arguments made by anti-vaxxers, climate change deniers, anti-immigrant xenophobes and so forth.

One defining characteristic of right wing extremists (and left wing extremists as well - but they are far less numerous and influential, and usually can be safely ignored) is an inability to grasp nuance. A related deficiency is a complete inability to understand the concept of statistical odds and their importance in evaluating information about public matters. This can be seen over and over again in relation to a wide variety of issues. For example, they experience a few cold days or even a cold winter in their particular location, and they claim that it proves the world is not heating up. They hear about a few isolated instances of undocumented immigrants committing crimes and they claim it proves immigrants in general are a dangerous threat. They read about a tiny handful of people voting illegally and declare voter fraud to be rampant. A very tiny minority of people happen to die shortly after receiving a covid-19 vaccine, and they claim that all of them were killed by the vaccine. Similarly, a few vaccinated individuals die of covid-19 and they claim it proves that vaccines are useless. In every one of these cases, the actual statistics prove the exact opposite of what they claim, but they insist on treating statistical outliers as absolute proof of their beliefs. 

This total failure to understand numbers also appears in their arguments in favor of whatever irresponsible behavior they want to engage in. This is most clearly seen recently in arguments about vaccines and mask wearing. They will say things like, "If you have been vaccinated/are wearing a mask, why should you care about what I do? Isn't your mask/vaccine supposed to protect you?" But of course masks and vaccines, like seat belts, motorcycle helmets, and bullet proof vests, do not offer absolute and total protection, they just greatly reduce the odds of the danger in question affecting you. Other people's behavior also affects those odds, in a very substantial way when it comes to a contagious virus. Even a person who is fully vaccinated and wears a mask in public will have higher odds of catching the virus and possible becoming seriously ill if they are repeatedly exposed to unvaccinated, unmasked carriers of the virus. A poor grasp of the concept of relative odds is also seen in arguments about other issues. For instance, while scientists generally won't say that a particular weather event is "caused" by climate change, they will say that climate change increases the odds of certain events occurring or increases their severity. So of course heat waves, droughts and hurricanes have always occurred and would still be occurring even if we hadn't altered the climate. But global heating has caused increased the chances of such event happening and made them more severe. 

Going back to issues related to the pandemic, we frequently see right wing idiots and other anti-vaxxers make claims about thousands of people dying from the Covid-19 vaccines. Even if these claims were true, it would be clear from the relative numbers (number of deaths/number of Covid-19 cases versus number of deaths/number of people vaccinated) that getting Covid-19 is far, far more dangerous than getting vaccinated. But the claims themselves show a failure to understand (or a deliberate misuse of) basic statistics. Hundreds of thousands of people die every day. If you randomly select a group of a million people, it is guaranteed that some of them will die in the next few days. At this point, the vaccine has been given to billions around the world, and over two hundred million in the US. So statistically speaking, we would expect some of them to have died soon after getting the vaccine. That doesn't mean the vaccine had anything to do with their deaths. In fact, if out of all those vaccinated *no one* died within a week of getting the vaccine, that would mean the vaccine was not only safe but was some kind of miraculous protection against death. Of course in reality it only protects against death from Covid-19 (and even there it is not quite 100% protection), so it couldn't stop other things from killing those who got it. But anyone who attributes all deaths that happened to occur soon after vaccination to the shots is guilty of either an extremely poor grasp of statistics or malicious falsehood.

For another example, there is claims about voter fraud, which I already mentioned above. I once saw someone trying to argue that voter fraud was rampant by listing dozens of supposed cases. While that might have swayed someone who didn't stop to think about it, just a little thought was enough to show the flaws in this "evidence". Even assuming that every case was genuine, by the poster's own account these cases occurred over a span of a number of years (I forget the exact time period, but it was about a decade, or even more). In that period many tens of millions of votes were cast in national elections. Even a few hundred cases of actual voter fraud would have had a completely negligible impact on the results of those elections. But again, an inability to understand numbers could lead some people to a conclusion that is contrary to reality. 

Similarly poor logic is seen in anti-immigrant rhetoric. Xenophobes will point to cases of violent crimes committed by undocumented people to fearmonger about immigrants as a whole. But there are over ten million undocumented people in the US, so of course out of all those people, there will be a few who commit serious crimes. But statistics show that on average, immigrants are actually less likely to commit major crimes than native-born Americans. It's just that people don't use examples of crimes committed by native-born Americans to make broad claims about natives -- unless of course we're talking about Black Americans, in which case some of the same people who fearmonger about immigrants will claim crime cases involving Black people prove that they are "criminally prone". Interestingly, these people do the opposite when police officers commit egregious acts; first they will bend over backwards to defend them, but if even they are forced to admit that in this case a police officer has committed an indefensible act, they will claim it's just one "bad apple". Even ignoring the fact that the original saying is "one bad apple spoils the bunch" and that unlike the situation with a group like immigrants, with police officers we are dealing with an institution where bad behavior can easily become part of a common culture, it is ridiculous that the same people who want to punish all immigrants for the crimes of a few not only reject the very possibility that the crimes of a few police officers might be indictive of a wider problem, they fight even holding those "bad apples" accountable. But then even their usual blanket defense of the police gets dropped when the latter act in opposition to right wing extremists, as in the case of the assault on the Capitol at the beginning of this year. 

Another example of right wingers using isolated cases to paint with a broad brush in a law and order context is the Black Lives Matters protests last year. The vast majority of those protests were totally peaceful, and where violent clashes did take place, they were in many cases instigated by the police or in a few instances right wing provocateurs. But because there were a few cases of rioting and looting by protesters, the right built a narrative in which America's cities were aflame due to rampaging Black Lives Matter protesters and "antifa", another group that they have turned into a bogeyman that bears very little resemblance to the reality.  

When climate change is mentioned, you will sometimes see deniers make sarcastic comments about everybody holding their breath to reduce CO2, even though the exhalations of all the humans in the world contribute a negligible amount to the overall carbon budget. More commonly, as I mentioned above, they'll use cold weather in some place as "evidence" that the world is not warming, when of course global heating doesn't mean that cold weather or even record-setting cold will never occur, just that in any given year, far more new record highs will be set than record lows, which is in fact what has been occurring (of course, major alterations in climate may even cause certain regions to become colder overall, even as most of the world becomes hotter). And since the warming trend has become so obvious that even deniers are finding it harder to act as if it isn't happening, many of them have now shifted to claiming that humans are not responsible, because, as they say, the climate is "always changing". But this again demonstrates an ignorance of the actual numbers involved as well a basic failure of logic. The latter comes from the fallacy in claiming that because climate change has happened from non-human causes, that somehow proves that humans can't cause it. Many other phenomenon, such as wildfires, happened before humans existed, but obviously that doesn't mean humans never cause them. But the other point is that while climate change has happened before, on Earth and on other planets, the changes that are occurring now are unnaturally rapid and correlate very closely to the dramatic increase in greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere resulting from human actions. 

Among more recent examples, other than absurd claims about Covid 19 and the vaccines against it, there was another situation where the extreme right has themselves talked about "statistical odds" in making outrageous assertions, and that was the 2020 presidential election. Some guy who had studied math but was not a professional mathematician or statistician of any sort claimed that he had found trends in the vote count that were mathematically improbable on a scale of a quadrillion to one or some other absurdly exaggerated number, and this claim was spread all over by right wing conspiracy theorists. But it wasn't necessary to be a math expert to find such claims extremely dubious. Both the final vote counts and the way the results in different states trended in first one direction and then another were entirely consistent with polling, past results and pre-election predictions (most prominently, that in places where mail-in ballots were counted later, the initial results would favor the orange idiot, but later results would favor Biden). In every election, there are sudden shifts in the numbers when results start coming in from places that strongly favor one candidate. For example, if results from rural voting precincts come in first, the Republican may take a large lead, but then when urban precincts start reporting, the Democrat may quickly catch up and leap ahead. This is completely normal and anything but "statistically improbable". Nor was the huge number of votes for Biden surprising, considering the strong motivation felt by a majority of the country's people to vote the former guy out of office. If any number related to the election struck me as improbable, it was the number of votes for the latter. How that many people could look at the corruption and utter incompetence on display in the previous four years and actually come out to vote for more of it is difficult to fathom - but then so are the failures in basic logic that I've discussed here.

Naturally, it would be unreasonable to expect the average person to have enough knowledge to make precise judgments about statistical odds in any given situation. But in the cases above, what we see is complete failure to grasp even the most basic concepts involved, the sort of thing that anyone with a modicum of common sense should be able to understand. I have written before about the importance of critical thinking ability, and how the lack of it is at the root of many of the problems we face today. This is a subset of that. Unfortunately, it's a lot easier to diagnose the problem than it is to solve it. But if a way can be found to educate at least the majority of people to better understand these concepts, it would go a long way toward reducing the problems we face. 

A Trip to New Zealand as the Fight Against the Coronavirus Was Ramping Up

This blog has been badly neglected for a couple of years now, but since I did managed to make a single post last year, I didn't want to let this year go by without posting at least one entry. Of course there are a wealth of topics I could go on and on about, whether it's the US finally voting out the worst president in its history (and him promptly making an even further disgrace of himself by refusing to accept the results), numerous events around the world, developments in space exploration, the more than three dozen books I've read since I last wrote on that topic, and more, I decided to make it easy on myself and post something that I'd already written more than half of: an account of a trip we took to New Zealand in March and how the growing coronavirus pandemic affected it. While we, like the vast majority of people around the world, won't be able to make any foreign trips for at least a few more months yet (at least here in Taiwan domestic travel is no problem), our last one was memorable enough to last us for some time yet.

A Trip to New Zealand as the Fight Against the Coronavirus Was Ramping Up

In March, we went on a previously planned vacation to New Zealand. Though the coronavirus situation globally worldwide was worsening, it didn’t even occur to us to cancel our trip. My wife had bought the tickets (non-refundable, of course) the previous December as a family treat, and for us it was a big expense, the type we can only afford every couple of years. Once the epidemic hit, our main worry was that travel restrictions would prevent us from going. We weren’t particularly worried about the virus itself. Taiwan had only about 50 cases (out of a population of 23 million), despite well over a month and a half having passed since the first case was reported in late January, and there were only a handful of confirmed cases in New Zealand at the time we departed (I think it was eight on the day we departed). Without any community spread to speak of in either country and a direct flight between them, the chances of encountering anyone with the virus seemed extremely low, though we would have to take a little extra care in the airports, since that was the one place we were likely to encounter travelers from places where the virus was more widespread.

As it happened, the airports weren’t a big issue either, since a lot of flights had already been cancelled, and with a lot fewer people around, social distancing wasn’t too difficult, except on the flight itself (which of course mainly held people from Taiwan, who were very unlikely to have the virus). But we had to leave a day later than planned, because our original flight had been cancelled, though the airline put us on the next day’s flight without charge. Then on the way to the airport, we read that New Zealand had just announced that incoming travelers from all but a handful of countries would be required to self-isolate for 14 days on arrival. However, the policy would only go into force at midnight on the night after our arrival, meaning it didn’t apply to us. When we got to Auckland, everything seemed to be business as usual. Everything was open, people were out and about, and we only saw a single person (possibly a tourist) wearing a mask. It looked like our vacation could proceed as planned.

We set off to some of the major tourist spots, and for most of the trip, things were fairly normal. The coronavirus did come up a lot in conversation. On a day tour from Rotorua to the Waitomo Caves and the Hobbiton movie set, our driver and a young British couple and I started discussing the situation. The British couple had been in the country for some time, but they now weren’t sure when they’d be leaving, as the next stage on their journey through that part of the world was Indonesia, which their government was advising against visiting. The driver said their company had no bookings for the coming weeks, and she feared she was going to be laid off. Another driver who we hired to take us from Turangi (where the long-distance bus stopped) into the Tongariro National Park a day or two later also said there were a lot of cancellations, though the national park itself seemed to have a fair number of visitors. While we were in the national park, we saw on the local news that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had announced that non-residents would be banned from entering the country beginning from midnight that night, though people on planes that were already in the air would be allowed in even if they landed after midnight. We also learned that Taiwan was now requiring most incoming travelers to self-quarantine for 14 days after arrival, a restriction that would apply to us. In both countries, there’d been a fairly sharp uptick in cases, though they nearly all involved incoming travelers, not community spread.

The next day we arrived in Wellington. Life still seemed to be going on mostly as normal, though two women sitting behind me on the bus were discussing the coronavirus situation. We stayed in a hotel that dated back to the 19th century (Queen Elizabeth apparently stayed there in the 1960s). The woman at the hotel reception counter was initially hesitant about letting us check in, since she thought we were supposed to be self isolating (they had a sign saying that anyone arriving after the 15th was supposed to self-isolate; on seeing our March 15 entry stamps, she apparently forgot about the “after”), but she relented, though she asked us to avoid the common room. The next day we found that all the museums were closed indefinitely, though when we walked to the waterfront and hiked up to the Mt. Victoria lookout there were plenty of people in both places. On our second full day, we started to see a few more people with masks (though still a small minority), and when we ate in at a restaurant in the evening we had to write down our contact information. I also noticed a few people making an extra effort not to touch things, for example using their elbow to press the pedestrian crossing button at intersections (something I started doing myself). It was clear things were getting a bit more tense. 

The next day (March 23) we flew from Wellington back to Auckland. We had only booked the tickets right after arriving in Wellington, and the plane wasn’t full. As it turned out, this was our second lucky break as far as timing went, after just gotten in ahead of the self-isolation requirement. On arrival at the Auckland airport’s domestic terminal, we got a round trip ticket on the airport bus, figuring that we’d be coming back in just a few days (as it turned out, we should have just gotten a one-way ticket into the city). As the bus passed the international terminal, we saw that it was packed with people; apparently foreign travelers were already trying to get out while they could (we later heard that the airport ended up limiting entry to people who had tickets for flights leaving in the next five hours).

The streets of Auckland were already noticeably different from the way they had been just a week earlier. Quite a few people were wearing masks, though still a minority, and some places were closed. My wife had booked a short-stay apartment, which was quite nice while still being only a little more expensive than the backpacker hostel we’d stayed at previously. Most importantly, it had a fully equipped kitchen, which turned out quite handy. But for lunch we went to a nearby Nando’s (a South Africa-based chain restaurant). This turned out to be our last meal in a restaurant for the trip. My main goal for the last two days was to shop for local music (I’d already bought some in Wellington) and check out the secondhand bookstores. The record store we visited first was open (and had a lot of good stuff), though the bookstore up the road a ways from it turned out to be closed.

It was probably only upon returning to our apartment that we heard the news. Covid-19 cases had continued to creep up over the past few days, and they had just passed 100. In addition, two of the cases were suspected to involve community spread. This prompted the prime minister to announce that the country was immediately entering level 3 on their newly instituted alert system, and would be entering level 4 — a complete lockdown — at 11:59 on March 25. Realizing that we could expect even more restaurants to be closing down, we decided to go buy several meals worth of food at a supermarket. We had seen stories about panic buying at supermarkets, so we weren’t too surprised to see that they were only letting people into the store in batches, and that there were signs stating that for most items you could only buy two. But while there were certainly some bare shelves, there was also a fair amount of food available, and we were able to get some frozen pasta, bread, fruit, and other items. But rather than immediately eating our new supplies, for dinner I went out for takeout pizza, though notably some restaurants were already completely shut down.

The next day, we went back to the record store we’d visited and had take out from a nearby Subway, chatting briefly with the ethnic Indian couple who ran it about the virus situation. In the afternoon, we decided to have a last bit of touristy adventure. We went down to the port and caught a ferry across to Devonport, a pleasant little suburb of Auckland. There was a used bookstore there that was still open, and we browsed there for awhile (I bought a few books, including a couple I’d been searching for) and took a walk along the waterside before catching a ferry back to central Auckland. We had noticed that while most of the fast food places and some other restaurants were still open, everything was now takeout only. The streets were also even less crowded then they had been a day earlier, though they weren’t quite deserted. We were able to do a little bit of shopping at the stores that were still open; I bought a few new CDs at an electronics store.

We spent March 25, our last full day in Auckland, walking about the central city. There were still people on the streets, but almost all the stores and restaurants were closed, including all the fast food places. I did stop in one of the few restaurants that was still open for take out for a milkshake, but we ate our meals at our apartment, using up the food we’d gotten at the supermarket previously. We spent some time in a park not far away from the apartment and we checked out the local buildings; I was impressed to note that there were quite a few old buildings in everyday use, such as one with 1909 carved on the lintel that had a pharmacy on the first (or as they would say ground) floor. But while it was a pleasant day and there were still people around, the whole atmosphere was strange and slightly tense due to all the closed shops and knowledge of the impending lockdown.

Through these last few days, we had of course been keeping an eye on our flight, but fortunately it was one of the few that hadn’t been canceled. And to say that it was fortunate is an understatement, as after March 31, there would be no flights to Taiwan (or many other places) at all. But there was still the matter of getting to the airport in order to catch the flight. As I mentioned earlier, we’d bought round-trip tickets on the airport bus when we’d arrived on the flight from Wellington, but when we first heard that the lockdown would be starting at midnight the night before (our flight was on the morning of March 26), I became worried about whether the buses would be running. On the 24^th, we’d stopped by the airport bus ticket office in central Auckland to check, and it turned out I’d been right to worry; the airport bus wouldn’t be operating during the lockdown. So how where we to get to the airport? The fact that our flight was leaving as scheduled wouldn’t do us any good if we couldn’t catch it.

Luckily, we found out that there was also a shuttle service to the airport, and that was still going to be running. So early on the 26^th, we waited for the shuttle bus (a van, actually) outside the apartment building. It came on time, and we rode with a few other travelers out to the airport through quiet streets. Admittedly, since it was only just getting light (I forget the exact time, but it was probably before 7), it was kind of hard to tell how different things were under lockdown. The difference was more obvious once we got to the airport itself.

At the airport, things were still pretty subdued, except at the few operating check-in counters. These were a small hive of activity in an otherwise empty departure hall. A guy from one young family was desperately arguing with the airline staff, but I didn’t hear enough to be able to tell what their situation was. The rest of us got checked in smoothly enough, and after getting through the passport and security checks we had an hour or more before boarding time in what was an almost empty airport. Every shop and restaurant was closed, and the departure board was filled with canceled flights. There was a flight to Tokyo leaving some time before ours, but that was the only other flight anywhere near our departure time that was still going. So the only people we saw hanging around in the empty airport besides those who would be on our flight were some from that one. One consolation was that at least until we got to the gate, social distancing wasn’t a problem.

After hanging around in a mostly empty airport for an hour, the boarding gate was a study in contrasts, even if many of the people we saw in both places were the same. At the gate, everyone was crowded together, but not only was practically everyone wearing masks, some were wearing two, and a few people were wearing things that looked almost like hazmat suits. Frankly, I thought this was overdoing it a bit, as even at this point New Zealand had only around 200 cases, and the odds that any of us actually had the virus were pretty small. Still, I probably shouldn’t fault people for erring on the side of caution – though many of them undercut their own efforts to a degree when the plane finally landed at Taoyuan International Airport in Taiwan, as they crammed together in the aisle waiting to get off, without any effort at social distancing.

Now we were safely back in Taiwan, but our adventure wasn’t entirely over yet. Like all other arrivals in Taiwan, including everyone else on our flight (well, except for three people who were stuck at the airport for a day, since they had intended to transfer on to other destinations, something Taiwan was no longer allowing; eventually they were allowed to do it anyway, though the airline was fined for letting them on in the first place), we now had to go into quarantine for 14 days. Fortunately, we could to this at home. We got into our designated taxi after being sprayed with disinfectant and were taken straight to our building. Once back in our apartment, we had to remain there for the next two weeks, and family and friends who brought us food had to leave it outside our door for us to take in after they’d left.

The quarantine caused a few complications – I had to record a couple of my radio shows on my computer and I had to reschedule a class I’d been supposed to teach on the very last day of the quarantine – but for the most part it wasn’t too bad. Of course back in New Zealand, people had to endure a much longer period of being stuck at home, though they were not completely banned from going outside, as long as they stayed away from others. The long lockdown proved worthwhile, of course, as New Zealand eventually managed to bring the virus under control and eliminate local transmission. As for Taiwan, despite a relative surge in cases during the time we’d been in New Zealand and then in quarantine, with measures like the quarantine we and other arrivals from abroad went through, it remained relatively free of the virus without having to enter any kind of lockdown. Even at the time I’m finishing this off at the end of the year, Taiwan has only had about 800 cases total, with seven deaths, even fewer than New Zealand, despite a much larger population. The only certain case of local transmission in Taiwan since April occurred in late December. So as it happens, what was true at the time we went to New Zealand is even more true now: Taiwan and New Zealand are probably the best places in the world to be as far as the pandemic is concerned.

Nevertheless, as great as New Zealand was and still is, we were very fortunate in that we happened to get out just as the lockdown started. Who knows what we would have done if we’d actually been stuck there with no way of getting back home? But all’s well that ends well, and we look forward to visiting New Zealand again someday – but we hope next time it won’t be in the midst of a global pandemic.  

 

Reflections on the 50th Anniversary of the First Moon Landings

It's been quite some time since I've written anything here; while I've felt the inspiration to write something on a few occasions, I've always ended up distracted by something else. But the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing really is too good an opportunity to pass up. A few years ago I posted something on the last Moon landing, which took place in December 1972; since I am writing this without referring to that piece, I may repeat myself on a few points, but then they are likely to be worth repeating.

Apollo 11 lifted off on July 16, 1969 and entered lunar orbit on July 19. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin went down to the surface in the lunar module on July 20, leaving Michael Collins in the command module, and Armstrong and then Aldrin stepped out onto the surface a few hours after landing (the time was late in the evening on July 20 in the US, but in most of the world it was July 21). After a few hours on the surface, Armstrong and Aldrin returned to the LM and then ascended from the surface to rendezvous with Collins for the return to Earth, which they reached on July 24, fifty years ago today. This was indeed a momentous journey, arguably the greatest single achievement by humans in the few hundred thousand years we've been in existence. But despite the attention that Apollo 11 as a mission and Aldrin and especially Armstrong as individuals receive, it's worth remembering that this was not the only mission to the Moon, and Armstrong and Aldrin were not the only people to walk on its surface.

Though Armstrong and Aldrin were the first to walk on the Moon, they and Collins were not the first humans to travel there. The first flight to the Moon took place in December 1968 during the Apollo 8 mission, with Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders becoming the first people to orbit the Moon. The Apollo 9 mission stayed in Earth orbit, as had the Apollo 7 mission (both were still important tests of the hardware needed for the later missions), but Apollo 10 was a full dress rehearsal for the first Moon landing, in which Tom Stafford, Gene Cernan, and John Young flew to the Moon and did everything short of actually landing, including taking the lunar module down towards the surface before returning to the command module. The lunar module's ascent stage was sent into orbit around the Sun, unlike later ascent stages, which were left in lunar orbit to later crash on the Moon's surface, meaning the Apollo 10 ascent stage is the only derelict once-crewed spacecraft still somewhere in space (a recent study indicates that the asteroid 2018 AV2 is probably the spacecraft). This Apollo mission has special significance for me personally, since I was born while it was taking place.

Not only were there missions to the Moon before Apollo 11, but there were quite a few afterwards. From Apollo 12 in November 1969 to Apollo 17 in December 1972, there were five more successful Moon landings in which Pete Conrad, Alan Bean, Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, David Scott, John Young, Charlie Duke, Gene Cernan, and Harrison Schmidt walked on the Moon, in the later cases staying for as long as three days on the surface of the Moon. The one mission without a Moon landing was Apollo 13, in which an explosion in the service module forced an emergency return to Earth, though they have to fly by the Moon in order to gain the velocity to make it back to the Earth. This meant that Jim Lovell, who commanded the mission, became the first person to fly to the Moon twice (Young and Cernan did it later), and the only one to go twice without landing. In all, in addition to the 12 people mentioned above who walked on the Moon, there were 12 more, including Lovell, Borman, Stafford, Collins, et al, who flew to the Moon without landing. What's unfortunate is that of the 12 who walked on the Moon, only Aldrin, Scott, Duke and Schmidt are still alive, though eight of the 12 who flew to the Moon without landing are still alive (oddly enough, the only Moon mission with all three members of its crew still alive is the earliest, Apollo 8; on the other hand, all three astronauts who flew on Apollos 12 and 14 have died). Lovell and Borman are 91, and Aldrin at 89 is the oldest of the remaining moonwalkers. Charlie Duke is the youngest, but even he is 83. As I noted in my previous post on the subject, there's a danger that if humans don't make it back to the Moon in the near future that there will come a time when there's no one alive who has been there. For now, at least, many of them seem to be in good health for their age. Late last month I attended the Starmus festival in Zurich, and Aldrin, Duke, Schmidt, and Al Worden (command module pilot on Apollo 15) all attended and seemed in good shape. Collins was supposed to come but his trip was vetoed by his doctor, though it was seemingly nothing serious. Regrettably, I didn't manage to meet any of the Apollo guys, though I saw them all up close and did interact a bit with a few of the other speakers.

Incidentally, I have almost finished reading Michael Collins' autobiography Carrying the Fire, which is widely regarded as one of the best if not the best Apollo astronaut autobiography, and is also notable for being written by Collins alone, without help from a ghostwriter or co-author. It is indeed very good and is fascinating reading, doing much to support a reference I once saw to Collins as the most articulate of the Apollo astronauts. He certainly comes across as very knowledgeable on a variety of topics. While a professional co-author might have smoothed out some of his transitions in topics, in many ways his occasional tangents and throwaway remarks make the book more interesting than they would be otherwise. He also manages to inject a fair amount of humor as well as managing to keep up the pacing throughout the book. There are a few bits that are not exactly politically correct by today's standards, but are pretty standard fare for the time it was written in the early 1970s. Collins himself said in a recent interview that he hasn't read it in years and if he did would probably find things he thought were wrong or that he disagreed with, and perhaps those might include his slightly disdainful attitude towards hippies or his relief that women weren't recruited into the Apollo program (his chief reasons were the need to redesign the spacesuits and the awkwardness of having to relieve oneself in mixed company). On the other hand, he expressed regret that they didn't have any black astronauts in the program, and other parts of the book show that he had a fairly progressive outlook for the time.

One of the most impressive parts of the book was the very end, where he talks about the effect that going to the Moon had on him personally; delves into the question of whether the Apollo program was worth it, giving an even-handed overview of the arguments on both sides, though naturally concluding that it was; explains the foolishness of an "either/or" mentality ("Either cure cancer or fly in space") when it's possible to try to do both; and talks about the fragility of Earth as a planet, including the danger of polluting it without restraint (he refers to the pollution residues from use of fossil fuels as "unholy evidence of our collective insanity") and how our common interest in keeping our home planet habitable outweighs the things that separate us. Another impressive part of the book was his prefaces to the 40th and 50th anniversary editions, which make even more apparent that he has a clear and even progressive view of the world's major problems. For instance, he stated in 2009 and restated in 2019 that "we need a new economic paradigm to produce prosperity without growth", a sentiment I heartily agree with, "socialist" though some might think it. He also cited rising global temperatures as a serious problem in his 2019 preface, a refreshing change from a few of his fellow Apollo astronauts, who despite being otherwise very intelligent have in a couple of cases made comments indicating they are (or at least were) climate change deniers. Collins, on the other hand, very wisely recognizes that global warming, overpopulation and endless, unsustainable growth are serious problems.

But to return to the Moon landings, it is easy to underestimate their importance. Yes, to a large extent they were a one-off (even though there were six of them), an outgrowth of the Cold War that were motivated as much or more by geopolitics as a genuine urge to accomplish the incredible. But nevertheless, not only did they force a much more rapid advance in many areas of technology than might have occurred (among many other things, computers had to be miniaturized far beyond what had been previously achieved, though of course now Apollo-era computers seem incredibly primitive), but they inspired a whole generation of scientists, engineers, and innovators, something which is far more important than people realize. Apollo also showed that with a concentrated effort by many intelligent, dedicated people we can things that seem almost impossible at the outset. This is a lesson that we should take to heart today.

Of course, even at the time, there was considerable opposition to the Apollo program, and both then and now people talk about the contrast between the amazing achievement of putting humans on the Moon and the enormous problems that we can't seem to solve on Earth, a contrast that is captured well in John Stewart's contemporary song "Armstrong". Many argued and sometimes still argue that the money spent on Apollo would have been better spent on Earth. But this criticism was and is misguided. Yes, both then and now, more should be spent on addressing poverty, disease, and environmental degradation, among other things. But there are many much more wasteful things that we could take money from to do so, whether it's public spending on the military or tax breaks for the wealthy, or private spending on frivolities like sports and cosmetics. Space exploration, on the other hand, provides profound benefits to humanity, both practical and abstract, and is worth every penny. And as Michael Collins stated in his speech to a joint session of Congress a few months after Apollo 11, "We cannot launch our planetary probes from a springboard of poverty, discrimination or unrest; but neither can we wait until each and every terrestrial problem has been solved." As he says, we can both work to solve our problems on Earth and continue to explore space at the same time.

Another point worth remembering is that while Apollo shows what we can do if we put our minds to it, that doesn't mean that even an all-out, Apollo-type effort will be met with the same success if we try it in other areas. Despite the immense difficulty of landing people on the Moon, it had the advantage of being a clear goal that would either be achieved or not, with no ambiguity. If we set out to eliminate poverty, on the other hand, not only would we be taking on a task that is even more massive than going to the Moon, we would have to agree not only on how to do it, but how to know if we'd succeeded. After all, it's not as if there's even a consensus on how to define poverty. Another advantage we had with Apollo was that there was no active opposition in the sense of people working directly against the goal, though there were many who considered it a waste of resources. But if we set out to bring carbon emissions to zero by a certain date, as indeed we should, while the goal is clear enough there will be many forces actively trying to work against it, such as the powerful interests that make their money from fossil fuels. This is not to say that we shouldn't use Apollo as inspiration for future transformative projects like addressing the climate crises, just that we should understand that as hard as Apollo was, it was considerably easier than some of the things we should now be trying to do.

Finally, there's the question of going back to the Moon itself. Of course this is something I'd like to see happen, and the sooner the better, since as noted above it's hard to tell how much longer the last few living moonwalkers will be around and I'd like to see someone get to the Moon while at least one or two of them are still alive. I will admit that I'd rather it not be the Chinese who get there first, though if they make it there afterwards is fine, and I also certainly wouldn't want to see the current US administration get credit for an American return to the Moon. While it'd be nice to view the exploration of space as something that transcends politics, the truth is even a wonderful achievement like going to the Moon could be misused, particularly by nationalist types like those running both the Chinese and US governments. Of course if the US doesn't have a new president in less than two years we're all in trouble anyway. But I digress. As I said above, space exploration is definitely worth the money, so ideally we'll see more of it by the US, the European Union, Japan, India, and, yes, China too, alongside private companies like Space X and Blue Origin. There are a lot of serious questions to be addressed as soon as possible, like how exploitation of resources in space will be regulated and what measures we need to take in terms of planetary protection (i.e., the contamination of other places by Earth organisms or vice versa), but those should only affect how we explore space, not whether we do so. After all, while the Apollo missions to the Moon may be the pinnacle of human achievement so far, we don't want them to always be so. 

Farewell to 2018

So another eventful year is coming to an end, but unfortunately one in which I've mostly neglected to update this blog. Like so many other things, once I'm out of the habit of doing it, it's hard to get back into it. Still, I hope to at least occasionally manage to make a few entries next year. And whether I do or not, let's hope there're are at least a few good things to write about, such as cool new astronomical discoveries, or good political developments or election results (i.e., more like this year's US congressional and governor races or the elections in the Maldives, less like Taiwan's local elections or the presidential election in Brazil). So we'll just have to see what the future brings. In any case, happy new year!

2018 US Elections - My Ballot

Unlike many other Americans, I didn't have to be shocked into voting by the disastrous results of the previous election, as I already generally made an effort to vote, even in mid-term elections (though I may have missed one or two in the years I've been overseas). But as is true for many other people I know, this time around, there's an extra edge of urgency. Fortunately I got my ballot fairly early this year, so I was able to mail it back to the US in plenty of time. I don't want to make any predictions this time, as my last somewhat cautiously optimistic predictions didn't exactly pan out well (in my defense, most people and most polls made similar predictions - if only they had been right...). I of course hope that the Democrats do well enough to take back the House and Senate, but given all the gerrymandering, vote suppression, and of course all the lies and distortions funded by right wing money (not to mention the stubborn ignorance of a substantial portion of the voting public), it won't be easy, even if they win the majority of the votes. As for the people I'm voting for, given Texas's conservative tilt, it's unlikely that many of them will win except in the case of a few local races, though there are a few that have a shot in the statewide races.

My ballot this year is simplified considerably by the fact that there are Democrats running in all but one race on it, and there are no Green candidates at all. As I mentioned in my discussion of my votes in the previous election, while in theory I would be happy to see a progressive/liberal alternative to the Democrats, particularly one that advocated stronger action on the environment, this should not be at the cost of throwing the election to the Republicans, which is what would inevitably happen in most races in Texas if a Green candidate drew a significant number of votes. But this time, the only alternatives in most races are a Democrat, a Republican and in some cases a Libertarian. At this point, there is no way I would vote for anyone who identifies themselves as a Republican. The party is so far gone that on the national level, the so-called "moderate" Republicans are people like Susan Collins, whose voting record is in fact mostly very right wing, even to the point of voting to confirm a blatant liar, obvious partisan hack, and likely (former) sexual predator to a seat on the Supreme Court. No one with even a modicum of principles and sense should willingly be identified with the extremist disaster the Republican party has become. As for the Libertarians, while I tend to agree with many of them on a few specific issues, on many other issues they are as bad as the Republicans. Indeed it's only for the sake of thoroughness that I'm bothering to look at their positions. Really, for pretty much every race it just comes down to making sure the Democrat is not obviously terrible.

Indeed, this is an instance where I decided it probably makes sense to just vote a Democratic straight party ticket. What I ended up doing was filling in the ovals for pretty much every Democrat in a contested race and then going back and filling in the straight party oval for the Democrats for good measure. Straight ticket voting won't be an option in near future races, as Texas is getting rid of it (I suppose the Republicans who control the legislature decided that it helps the Democrats more than it does them). Normally, I wouldn't vote a straight party ticket, since as a matter of general principle I think it best to look at each race separately, judging each candidate on their individual merits, but I have become so disgusted with the Republican party that in the absence of a true progressive alternative (and not a spoiler) the Democrats are the only game in town. When the stranglehold that the Republican extremists have on Texas is finally broken there will time enough to start seriously considering alternatives to the Democrats.

Below I have listed the candidates in the main races and my choices, which were as noted above all Democrats. Though there actually is some variation in how terrible the individual Republican (and Libertarian) candidates are and how good (or mediocre or just lacking in information) the Democratic candidates are, I didn't bother going into detail this time around.

US Senator

Beto O'Rourke (D)

Ted Cruz (R)
Neal Dikeman (L)

My Vote –  Beto O'Rourke

US Representative, District 24
Jan McDowell (D)
Kenny Marchant (R)
Mike Kolls (L)

My Vote – Jan McDowell

Governor
Lupe Valdez (D)
Greg Abbott (R)
Mark Tippetts (L)

My Vote – Lupe Valdez

Lieutenant Governor
Mike Collier (D)
Dan Patrick (R)
Kerry McKennon (L)

My Vote – Mike Collier

Attorney General
Justin Nelson (D)
Ken Paxton (R)
Michael Harris (L) 

My Vote – Justin Nelson

Comptroller of Public Accounts
Joi Chevalier (D)
Glenn Hegar (R)
Ben Sanders (L)

My Vote – Joi Chevalier

Commissioner of the General Land Office
Miguel Suazo (D)
George P. Bush (R)
Matt Pina (L)

My Vote – Miguel Suazo

Commissioner of Agriculture
Kim Olson (D)
Sid Miller (R)
Richard Carpenter (L)

My Vote – Kim Olson

Railroad Commissioner
Roman McAllen (D)
Christi Craddick (R)
Mike Wright (L)

My Vote – Roman McAllen

Justice, Supreme Court, Place 2
Steven Kirkland (D)
Jimmy Blacklock (R)

My Vote – Steven Kirkland

Justice, Supreme Court, Place 4
R.K. Sandill (D)
John Devine (R)

My Vote – R.K. Sandill

Justice, Supreme Court, Place 6
Kathy Cheng (D)
Jeff Brown (R)

My Vote – Kathy Cheng

Presiding Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals
Maria T. (Terri) Jackson (D)
Sharon Keller (R)
William Bryan Strange III (L)

My Vote – Maria T. (Terri) Jackson

Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 7
Ramona Franklin (D)
Barbara Parker Hervey (R)

My Vote – Ramona Franklin

Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 8
Mark Ash (R)
Michelle Slaughter (L)

My Vote – None (this was the only race without a Democrat, and the other two choices were awful)

Member, State Board of Education, District 11
Carla Morton (D)
Patricia Hardy (R)
Aaron Gutknecht (L)

My Vote – Carla Morton

State Senator, District 16
Nathan Johnson (D)
Don Huffines (R)

My Vote – Nathan Johnson

State Representative, District 103
Rafael Anchia (D)
Jerry Fortenberry (R)

My Vote – Rafael Anchia