People that know me well know I love baseball statistics. I’ve even written about them once or twice before. Even though analytics have made their way into football and basketball, there is a special love between the analytically minded and baseball. It’s a more one on one sport, so it lends itself to that sort of thing. Like anything else, there has been a backlash to analytics from people we might classify as “get off my lawn” guy.

I’m not going to bore you with statistics like weighted on base average or hard contact rates or anything like that. Yet, there is a divide like that in society. At this point, many of the anti-vaxxers are jumping on the statistic that those that get COVID have at least a 97 percent survival rate. So, why sweat it?

Not coincidentally, these are the same folks that feel they need to carry a gun everywhere to keep themselves safe. This comes despite all of the available evidence to the contrary. The evidence is overwhelming. Guns are more often used or misused in the home for assaults, murders, and suicides than they are to thwart would be assailants. Yet, when you live outside the numbers you are free to believe anything I suppose.

The best analogy I have heard as it pertains to COVID is to imagine a bowl of M&Ms. We can even split the difference to make things easier. There are 100 of them in a bowl. Two of them will kill you. Sure, the odds are forever in your favor if you decide to eat one. Those of you adept at the math could calculate the odds if you choose to eat a handful. Everyone can calculate the odds if you choose to eat zero.

That’s really the whole point here. Dying at the hands of a rogue M&M is an unforced outcome. If you get vaccinated, wear a mask, and practice social distancing your death rate drops to nearly zero. It is almost like declining to eat any of the M&Ms. You know the outcome.

Yet, millions have chosen to eat the M&Ms anyway. Unwittingly, they’ve chosen to eat multiple M&Ms without even knowing it. They obviously don’t know how numbers work. If the death rate is one to three percent for everyone then that number includes vaccinated and unvaccinated Americans. The death rate for vaccinated Americans is practically zero even if they contract COVID. Therefore, logic would clearly dictate that the odds jump for unvaccinated Americans.

I’m not an expert on health related statistics and I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I can harbor a guess that if roughly half of the population is vaccinated then unvaccinated people might see their odds roughly double. So, one to three percent becomes two to six percent (or some similar number).

Overlooking some of these obvious facts is par for the course. They do the same thing with their guns and likely do the same thing with their health in other areas. We even see combinations that would be comical if they weren’t so tragic. Let’s combine alcohol and guns just to see the multiplication effect. The actuary tables on these Americans has to be entertaining for people who are into that sort of thing.

As much as I enjoy baseball statistics, I don’t make it a habit to delve into these. No one is hurt when a hitter strikes out or a pitcher is pulled from the game. All these numbers do is describe pain and suffering. Every note on a page describes someone’s tragedy and it is impossible to derive any enjoyment from that. However, a basic understanding is helpful. As the computer in War Games said, “the only winning move is not to play.”

Last week marked one of those moments everyone dreads every year. You combine three things that no teacher likes. First, the Astros were in the playoffs and we were stuck here at school. Secondly, it was faculty meeting day. Those are always fun as you test out the combination of stuff that no one needs to hear, stuff that could be conveyed in an email, and stuff that people will confuse and ask several ridiculous questions about.

Yet, it was the third reason why this moment was a special kind of hell. It was the benefits meeting we have every year. In this case, “benefits” is a fancy, ubiquitous word that actually means health care insurance. If you saw the specifics you wouldn’t see much of a benefit.

See, the district has its own plan. Sure, Aetna runs it, but they have put all of the employees into a pool and the insurance rates are based purely on how much we spent the year before. Obviously, the district isn’t trying to make money off of us, but Aetna sure is. Since people spent more money last year (gee, why would that happen) they hiked our rates 25 percent. I’ve never been so happy not to be a part of that insurance plan.

It was impossible not to somehow extrapolate this situation outward. Citizens over 65 get the benefit of Medicare. It is a government insurance program that is designed to break even. Millions of Americans are part of a pool that is also based on average costs across the pool. Older (or more experienced) Americans are more apt to get sick and need expensive medical procedures. Yet, somehow they end up spending less per month than teachers in our district. Keep in mind that district makes a contribution to “defray” the costs of the insurance.

It’s up against this backdrop that we bring up the concept of Medicare for all. The process is actually simpler than people might imagine. It isn’t free health care. We know the program works because we have been using it for years. The caveat is that it might actually become cheaper. You are currently basing rates on the amount of risk and that risk is greater for people 65 and over. If you expanded it to include everyone you’d include healthy children, young adults, and relatively healthier middle aged Americans.

It comes with other advantages as well. One of the reasons why rates are so high is that we are footing the bill for everyone that cannot afford care. It’s a similar concept to Wal-Mart building in the cost of theft into their inventory. They will pass the costs onto the consumer. If everyone is covered then there’s no reason to jack up the costs.

It means that you don’t have to worry about whether your doctor is in network or out of network. They are all in the network. You don’t have to worry about changing jobs or possibly going to work for yourself. Companies save millions as they can defer all of the money spent on “benefits” into actual benefits. What would honestly happen if they folded over the district’s contribution to our insurance into our salary?

Who is against this? Obviously the insurance industry is against it. They make between a 20 to 30 percent markup for running the system. Decisions are based on profit margins and stockholder considerations. You talk about your death panels. One considers sustainability of the whole system. The other considers whether Daddy Warbucks will get a dividend this year.

This is basic math and basic common sense. Yet, we are told how complicated it is. We are told that it’s socialism. We are told that the only industrialized country in the world that still has for profit health care insurance is somehow the system that makes sense. If you dare question that they’ll be calling you a radical, a liberal, or fanatical criminal.

Last night I was sitting in mass minding my own business (my personal favorite phrase) when our pastor announced that there would be an informational meeting about critical race theory this week. It wasn’t going to be a debate, but Catholics should go because they need to be “informed” if they have school age children.

Of course, he couldn’t help get in the dig that the school attached to the church was never going to teach critical race theory, but the public schools can obviously do what they want. Obviously, I’m not optimistic about the level of information that is going to be offered at this meeting.

I’ve written about matters of faith here before and even though this involves the church this isn’t really about that. The church has stances on discrimination and racism and for the most part they are on point. However, those stances come from a purely faith perspective and that is an area where one either believes or doesn’t believe.

Far be it from me to dispute learned theologians and Biblical scholars on the fine points of faith. They have far more training than I do. All I have is my near perfect score in my Bible course in college and a few decades of private study that goes along with my time as a catechist. That can’t compare to nearly a decade of intense study and then a lifetime of working within the faith.

However, the church has long inserted themselves into opinions on science as it combines with faith. While they clearly understand the faith implications of any number of issues, they clearly are not up to date on the science. They have done this with stem cell research as well as other things that pertain to health and science. Critical race theory is an academic theory that is not being taught in public high schools or junior highs. There is certainly no reason why it would be taught in elementary schools.

So, what the church is likely to present has little to do with critical race theory. They are likely to present a perversion because that is what has been bandied about elsewhere on Fox News and other conservative outlets. A narrow and focused concept has been somehow bastardized into a catch all debate about whether we should tell our kids that they are racists.

Obviously, the approach varies depending on how nuanced the presenter is. The most common sophisticated approach is to point out that racism and discrimination used to exist (it’s impossible to deny Jim Crow) but that it no longer exists because we are better now. So, there is no need to burden our children with the sins of our parents. After all, it might make them feel bad.

Where CRT comes into play is that many of these discriminatory practices were codified into law. These laws have long-lasting effects even if the intention wasn’t there. We can erase those laws. We can change those laws. We can speak out against those laws, but those laws have a lasting effect. Those effects can last generations.

We have somehow taken these simple truths and somehow perverted it into an overly simplistic “white man evil” message. That is the conception that has somehow been attached to CRT. It’s purely an academic theory that was perhaps only somewhat related to other social commentary. Something primarily taught in undergraduate programs and law school programs has suddenly become the bogeyman that the church now appears it needs to address for some reason.

We have the usual caveats about keeping politics out of religion and religion out of politics but this is somehow worse than that. This involves taking something we don’t understand, hastily throwing something together, and then rendering an opinion that has the weight of the church behind it. I’m not attending this informational meeting. I already know what’s coming and I need to keep my blood pressure down.

Okay, so here’s the deal. Trump attorney Lin Wood is a big rolling ball of wackadoodle.  Sometimes you gotta wonder which comes first – being weird or being a Trump attorney. Somehow, I think one causes the other no matter which end you begin.

So, Lin Wood made an announcement.  He said that he’s damn near certain that Majorie Taylor Greene is a communist. A communist. Of all the things I suspect that Majorie Taylor Greene is, that wasn’t on the list. Not even at the bottom. Communist. Nope. Not there.

“In my opinion, Marjorie Taylor Greene is a communist,” Wood said in Friday remarks.

Okay, so I know that’s just in his opinion, so it really doesn’t bother me all that much. I do, however, wonder if Wood, who is an attorney which ups the odds of him having read a book, know what communist means.  Personally, I believe he thinks it’s just general insult, like dumb, ugly, obnoxious, Trump lawyer, putrid, sloppy, well, you get what I mean.

In Republicanism, ugly is to socialism what very ugly is to communism.

Okay, so I am dancing all around this so let’s get to the meat of this: why does Wood think Greene is a communist?  In his own words …

Marjorie Taylor Greene is running around saying ‘impeach Biden,’ that says that Biden won—he didn’t,” the attorney said. “And you would never impeach him with a communist Congress. It’s a waste of time.”

So, a call for impeachments means that you must believe that Biden is an actual president. Calling Biden a president – that’s communism. Shame all over her. I guess she just crossed the Republican line.

Y’all, you might want to read the whole article because the two of them are in a word slapping contest on Twitter.

Screw that.  Somebody please tell them that Twitter is the tool of communists. They should do as our forefathers did –  I call for a duel.

I have a neighbor who wears his MAGA hat 24/7.  I think he sleeps and showers in the damn thing.  Every day when he takes a walk he slows down in front of my house and stops to face my front window just because he knows it pisses me off.

I am often moved to open the front door and sass him.  Like the time I asked him to please clean up his dog’s poop.  “I don’t own a dog,” he hollered back. “Oh dear Lord,” the devil forced me to reply, “you’re crapping in my front yard?” I asked in faux horror.

Or the time I yelled at him, “Honey, you have a defective hat.  It ain’t keeping your brains from falling out.”

Sometimes I stay up at night thinking of things to say to him.

Yesterday I announced from my front steps, “Sweetie, thank you for becoming living proof that a side effect of Ivermectin is cow butt.” I’m really a mean person.

Do you think he’ll be able to read this from the sidewalk?  If so, I’m going to order it.

“Lay down the law, don’t let em’ cross the line. Under the hood, got the bad and the good, everybodies doing time.” — Mike Post

These lyrics came from the theme song for the sitcom “Hardcastle and McCormick”. Post made a career of writing sitcom jingles and this is probably one he would rather forget. The show ran for two seasons during the mid 1980s and it is one I remember watching. In the old days, that would put the show on the scrap heap of history. A show has to be on the air for several years before episodes will officially go into syndication. So, this show joined “Buck Rogers” and “Battlestar Gallatica” (the original one) in the relative dust bin of television history.

Through the miracle of YouTube and other streaming services, these shows have been brought back to life. I have not found full episodes of this particular show yet, but we found the theme song and opening credits. That alone was good enough for a trip down amnesia lane.

At this point, you are probably wondering what this has to do with anything. That’s a fair question. I suppose the point is that nostalgia is a powerful feeling. In this sense, we are just talking about old shows. We remembered them being good because we were younger and because there wasn’t anything better to offer.

As long as those shows exist only in our memories they continue to be as good as we want to remember them. The moment we watch those old episodes (as you can with Buck Rogers and Battlestar Gallatica) we suddenly realize how stupid they were. It isn’t even so much that they were stupid, but that they seem so stupid now. Our sensibilities have changed and so our tastes in entertainment have changed.

I’m sure the perceptive ones among you realize where this is going. One of the allures of conservative politics is the whole idea of nostalgia. The concept of MAGA depends on the notion that America really was great and isn’t anymore because of what those damn liberals have done. It counts on you remembering the past like it was a Hardcastle and McCormick episode. Man those days were cool.

The problem is that they are tapping into a feeling and not any sort of reality. Reality (much like those old shows) was never quite as good as we remember. Oddly enough, it was also far different than what we remember. So, some wax on about how good the Reagan years were when everyone was free and the government didn’t mandate you do anything.

Unfortunately, we can’t YouTube the distant past, so we can only fact check actual rules and regulations. We can’t re-watch a memory. We can’t experience what life was like again to test our memories. The powers that be have managed these conditions well. They’ve used the old west in addition to our childhoods to create a world that never really existed, but know must be true. So, many rail against the present in a not so quiet bout of desperation. It makes so little sense until you consider they are working from false memories or faux nostalgia.

So, they rail against vaccine mandates and quarantine rules that have actually been used in the past. We just don’t remember them. We don’t want to remember them. If we don’t remember them then they must have never happened. If they never happened then all of these mandates now are an obtrusion that’s new. We somehow tack that onto the stuff that actually is new because we live in an ever evolving society.

Life was simpler then. Our shows were simpler then. Everyone knew their place and everyone was a lot happier. If we try hard enough we can train ourselves to really believe that. We can convince ourselves that those were good shows that never should have been cancelled. We can convince ourselves of a lot of things. When forced to face the reality we understand how truly foolish that is. Some just don’t want to face reality.