Sometimes we need to just rely on "story power"

The clear strategy being used to encourage hold-outs to get the Covid vaccine relies on the power of storytelling. Journalists/interviewers connect with patients who are lying in hospital beds and who are willing to share their fears and regrets.

The most effective of these videos and written reports incorporate some personal background and some references to other family members. Then the inevitable statements like, "I never thought I would get sick" and "I doubted how widespread the virus was."

Those, by themselves, are unsupported claims. The power of these testimonies lies in the support, in the shared worries and hopes of readers/viewers and those giving the testimony. 

For some people, the statistics and the advice of experts is enough to persuade. But for everyone, nothing beats a good story, one with a setting, characters, conflict, and resolution.

These Covid stories tend to feature hospital rooms with lots of tubes and machines. The characters are the suffering patient, with off-stage appearances from grieving and worried family members. The conflict is obviously the collision of human and disease. 

Unfortunately, the most powerful of these stories end with death as the resolution, though we all realize that death will not end the suffering of those who loved the folks who gambled and lost.

We are now at 75 percent of American adults with at least one shot. 

The power of stories may yet produce happy endings.

Empty threats get attention, but no more than that

From the "Power Up" newsletter on the Washington Post website, here is the first graf of the lead story:

For the second time in the organization's history, the League of Conservation Voters political action committee last night alerted all Congressional Democrats it will only consider endorsements for members who support key climate provisions in the $3.5 trillion spending blueprint, according to a letter shared with Power Up.

These sorts of threats seem both desperate and dangerous. Maybe the power of these conservation voters is enough to sway election results, or maybe not, but as long as we have a two-party system, and one party is clearly and loudly anti-conservation, the threat seems like self-harm.

Most people like being able to lord it over somebody (anybody!) and brag and threaten, but this sort of letter seems like bluster without bite, doesn't it? So called environmentalists cost Al Gore victory over two decades ago, and lack of common cause allowed Trump to squeak out a win in 2016. I wonder if environmentalists are pining for more Republican rule of the government. 

But at least they can stand proudly, sticking to their principles as their cause languishes (or maybe even causes a backlash among those not quite so radical).

Of course, extremism is back in vogue in our politics and it's tough to get the media to pay attention when there is so much chaos to cover, from floods to fires to drought to collapsing structures to a pandemic that won't ever end.

My most recent line of thinking on the state of the nation is absorbed by the question, "How does it all end, or at least calm down?"

I have not been able to even imagine an event or turn of history or natural disaster that would make significant changes in the nation.

But I still have faith in the bedrock selfishness of most people (including me, I guess). If government can deliver some needed and important services, government can regain a bit of status.

I see that an unprecedented report endorsed by 200 medical journals states that climate change is the "greatest threat to global health." This may be logical and may take the proper longer view of health trends, but this report seems as likely to effect change as the Conversation Voters' letter. Those medical journals are all tools of Satanic baby-eaters, after all.

But, by all means, let's focus on academic journals and arguments that span multiple human lifetimes in terms of policies and repercussions.

Yes, they SHOULD help guide decision makers, but that's not how politics works.

Let's run the numbers, one more time

Far be it for me to criticize the news media (ha!), but today's New York Times Morning Report highlights the fact that the odds for a fully vaccinated person in the U.S. getting Covid is 1 in 5,000. For places that boast higher overall vaccination rates, that can jump to 1 in 10,000.

I often point out that most news tends to be bad news, and the fact that a large chunk of the country overestimates the likelihood of being infected, even if vaccinated, should remind us that news often is not only bad but represents something out of the ordinary.

There are hundreds of putouts in Major League Baseball games each day, for instance, but only the most unusual and even spectacular will make the ESPN SportsCenter highlights reel each night -- a great example of "the expected" not making news very often.

Most people spend most (or all) of their days "acting right." A very small percentage of people don't act right. Guess who makes the news?

I'm sure the government, the media, political parties, and social media all contributed to this, but we are now living in a country where a large percentage of the population fears the pandemic too much, while another large percentage fears it too little.

The full report makes for reassuring reading. 

Playing the odds is sort of fun, and sort of pointless. After all, the chances of any one person catching one disease in one restricted period of time don't really help us plan our daily lives.

The chances of a 71-year-old white male living at least another 10 years is 71.8 percent. Not perfect, but a decent reason for me to have waited until age 70 to begin taking social security. There is certainly a chance that I won't live long enough to make the wait for maximum benefits to pay off. But simply surviving the next decade really pays off for me. I took that bet.

I see that about 72 percent of American drivers will get in at least one car accident in their lifetime, and that drivers average 3-4 accidents over their lives. Most accidents don't result in death, but they are not pleasant and usually expensive and can disrupt our lives.

But most of us don't think twice about leaping into the vehicle for a quick errand.

For the vaccinated, Covid looks to soon become just another fact of life. Like driving, where we stay alert, follow the rules, and anticipate weird actions by others, so keeping ourselves healthy should prompt us to wear a mask, even if vaccinated, in crowded places and to stay home when feeling sick, etc.

In Seattle on an average recent day, about one out of every one million vaccinated residents have been admitted to a hospital with Covid symptoms. That rate is beyond tiny. That makes driving look like a crap shoot, particularly during rush hour on I-5.

For the unvaccinated, the rates in Seattle over the same period jumped 900 percent. Those odds don't guarantee getting sick, but wearing a seat belt doesn't guarantee surviving a car wreck.

There are few guarantees. Smart people look for best odds, however.

Is doing the right thing bound to be punished?

There is an old saying among the elite commentators: Good policy is not good politics. I saw a version of this in a column about how President Biden's approval ratings have fallen despite overwhelming approval for some of his administration's biggest initiatives.

I read a commentary today about how Democrats may suffer in future elections due to advocating for more competitive legislative districts, effectively eliminating gerrymandering. That writer thought Colorado might end up losing two Democratic seats in 2022. Maybe that was exaggerated, and the writer certainly has no idea of what will happen. After all, a commission has only now released a first draft of a redistricting plan.

That would be disappointing to the clear Democratic majority in the state and would mimic the national problem of rural areas having far more political power than raw numbers suggest.

No good deed goes unpunished, as another saying goes.

So let's flip the old saying to "Bad policy is bad politics." Do politicians regularly lose when they make poor decisions or simply create laws that are bad for the majority of voters? 

There is little evidence of that. Most legislative seats don't change parties no matter how bad individual decisions turn out.

Or how about flipping the saying to "Bad policy is good politics." Ah, maybe that's were we find ourselves right now, particularly in Republican-led states which seem to be creating laws that the majority of voters in their own states oppose (or at least are not passionate about).

Texas is ground zero for this laboratory studying cause and effect in politics. 

As the anti-mask gang continues to rage and the anti-vaccine mob continues to scream about freedom, it's tough to NOT see the combination as "bad policy," though politicians are unlikely to swim against either stream.

Of course, much like the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, a logical way out of the pandemic is to simply let Nature take its course. After all, the current crisis is restricted to the unvaccinated when it comes to serious repercussions from the virus. And many people have gotten sick and may have some acquired immunity from variants. And viruses TEND to weaken as they mutate, but not always, as the delta variant (now the only strain) shows.

At this point, the virus is here to stay. We have chosen that course as a country. Maybe there were no solid options. At some point, we will have to live with yet another of the hundreds of diseases that might get us. 

As for Mr. Biden, one other truth about American politics is that the voters have goldfish-like attention spans and memories. Grumbling and outrage will continue, of course, but Americans have little appreciation for history and whatever happens NEXT summer will have much more to do with the 2022 midterms. 

I would continue to opt for good policy if I were president. Everyone loses when the game is played cynically, or without any regard for rules at all.

Do some good today. Do some good tomorrow. That seems like a solid strategy for life.

Individuals vs. The Common Good

Tax revenue last fiscal year in Colorado exceeded the somewhat arbitrary Tabor Amendment cutoffs by about $450 million. That means there will be refunds for many taxpayers in the coming year.

The average per joint return? $166.

Nobody is likely to refuse even that paltry sum, of course. Heck, I still make it a point to stoop down in a parking lot and pick up a nickel. Logic and basic math be damned.

Colorado remains stuck in a tight place between crumbling and inadequate highways, water systems, etc., and growing population, so there are still lots of unfunded needs.

I guess I could contribute my $166 to pave, what, an inch of highway? Or to make sure a light rail driver gets paid for working next Tuesday morning. But there's no mechanism to do that and even writing it down seems silly.

This refund illustrates one major reason for government. Individually, our small "donations" or simply tax dollars, can do little. But in aggregate... well, even $450 million isn't enough to cover our highway and bridge repair needs, but that chunk of change certainly could make a bigger dent than, I guess, nothing.

Yes, that $166 is/was my money. I paid it in taxes. I never really expected to get it back and it comes to an extra $13.80 per month... so no big deal.

I am trying not to be elitist here, and am sympathetic to arguments that even a small amount of unanticipated income could make a difference for a struggling family. But what if the entire $450 million were invested in making a difference reducing some specific problem? Like homeless housing or mental health support.

If you walk around downtown Denver, you can "fight homelessness" a few bucks at a time, dropping some money in a hat or cup. We've done that for many years, and that approach clearly does not work. 

I guess I could mail a check for my refund amount to some social net program but would that office even know what to do with my paltry donation? 

I sometimes wonder why we don't do more crowdfunding for things like repairing highways. Politicians seem to be able to tap into vast numbers of very small donations to come up with plenty of campaign cash.

All my wondering is in search of what is recently called "counterfactuals," or potential results of other choices. The word is not clear until we get some context, as it on the surface might be some version of "fake news." But I'm coming to embrace it.

After all, without well-supported counterfactuals, how can any progress be made? How can goals be established? No one likes the way the war in Afghanistan ended, but are there useful counterfactuals (options not chosen) that MIGHT have made things better?

Devising compelling counterfactuals is key to many arguments, particularly when some law or policy or activity is being criticizes. 

Persuasive writers need the capacity to wonder, "What if?"

Devolving into a simple conflict: powerful vs. powerless

Here is the lead to today's Dana Milbank column in the Washington Post:

Texas this week showed us what a post-democracy America would look like.

Thanks to a series of actions by the Texas legislature and governor, we now see exactly what the Trumpified Republican Party wants: to take us to an America where women cannot get abortions, even in cases of rape and incest; an America where almost everybody can openly carry a gun in public, without license, without permit, without safety training and without fingerprinting; and an America where law-abiding Black and Latino citizens are disproportionately denied the right to vote.

The use of three specific examples is powerful and a vivid demonstration of "the rule of three," where three examples seems to be the right number of supporting details.

One example or incident is clearly not enough to establish a pattern. Two examples could simply be coincidence. Four examples starts to feel like piling on, though there is a strategy for supporting a claim that relies on a LONG list of examples (indicating overwhelming evidence).

Milbank argues that these Texas laws are undemocratic by citing Texas state polls that indicate that none of these laws enjoys the approval of the people who live in the state. That is frustrating if you disagree with the laws and cheering if you do approve. After all, who doesn't like a good underdog story, where good triumphs over evil despite being faced with overwhelming opposition?

The problem lies in whether those Texas laws are on the side of good. And good is clearly relative. I have no doubt that many who support those restrictive (or expansive, in the case of guns) laws have their own reasons. Few people do not act in self-interest.

Of course, that means we must cast Texas white Republicans as the underdogs, and that characterization doesn't hold up to much scrutiny.

But here's how idealistic I remain, despite years of disappointments: Democracy CAN work, but only if voters participate and -- this is key -- appreciate the power of people to make changes. If voters become cynical and simply shrug and ignore government and more powerful people creating laws that they disagree with -- after all, what's the point of fighting the money and privilege? -- then the anti-democratic tendencies of many states will continue.

When the dog finally catches the car it is chasing, what then? (The Taliban suddenly NOT being at war after two decades and needing to run a country is a classic example.)

I keep thinking that elections and representatives needing to respond to their constituents' needs will eventually triumph. 

I also keep thinking that politics is all about power, but that "absolute power corrupts absolutely," and that the more brazen the power play, the more voters will object. Perhaps there is a line that even the most suppressed and confused and isolated voters just can't stomach.

Have some politicians crossed that line? Is anyone paying attention?

Sporting events are always about more than the score

Ever wonder if high school sports have gotten a bit out of hand? If you were still not certain, last week's ESPN national game between a tiny Ohio charter school and a Florida powerhouse program, both of which represented schools that were essentially founded to provide top-notch football competition and which ended with a 58-0 blowout by the Florida school should be the decider.

It turns out that the Ohio school is only three years old, founded by the head coach, and had played just TWO DAYS before this nationally televised "contest."

Everyone is embarrassed. The announcers early on recognized that the rosters they had been provided did not match uniform numbers and that the ten Division I prospects the coach had boasted about did not exist.

I have not even begun to get into all the craziness involved in this, but you might want to read this article to get some sense of it all.

What did not seem to rise to the level of "news" is the very existence of high school football programs that play national schedules and that act as feeders for hot shot college programs. Education officials in both Ohio and Florida should be ashamed and tax payers should be outraged. Neither will occur because this is America and, you know, freedom.

Back in the dark ages when I played high school sports, there were no club teams, no charter schools... heck, my high school did not have a weight room! I was able to play at a mediocre level in three sports, but that is now so rare as to deserve a special story in the local press.

My guess is that the new Ohio charter school will soon be disbanded. Good. But there WILL be a next time.

If there is money to be made, Americans always find a way.