Monday the Thirteenth’s Forum

FILED UNDER: Open Forum
Steven L. Taylor
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog). Follow Steven on Twitter

Comments

  1. OzarkHillbilly says:

    An Indian man who tried to fake his death by murdering a builder and passing the body off as his own has been arrested, police said.

    He did it to avoid being tried for another alleged murder, they added – Sudesh Kumar was charged with but not convicted of the 2018 killing of his daughter, who had eloped.

  2. OzarkHillbilly says:

    A long read: She killed her ex-husband in self-defense. Can she now find peace?

    Rachel Bellesen shot and killed her ex-partner after he attacked her and tried to rape her. What followed was a public trial that would test the lengths necessary to prove self-defense, even after a lifetime of domestic abuse

    When Bellesen woke up the morning after the verdict, she didn’t feel the elation she expected. Instead, she was swallowed by depression.

    “I couldn’t figure out why I was feeling that way,” she says. “I’m like, ‘The best possible outcome that one could expect happened. I got what we fought so hard for. Why am I not happier?’”

    In ways big and small, the people around her were contending with similar feelings.
    ………………………….
    Still, Bellesen struggles to move forward as she seeks to redefine her life without the violence that shaped her. “All the way up until the day of the hearing really, I had spent all of my life just fighting against one abuse after another, one horrifying event after another,” she says.

    “When you go through things like that over and over and over and over again, it just becomes part of who you are. It’s written into your narrative, your internal belief system about yourself.”

    Her chin quivers. “I did not know how to live in a life where those things didn’t exist anymore.”

    Those feelings are beginning to subside, though the nightmares about Glace endure. Still, it pains her to see the people she cares about wrestling with the fallout of Glace’s death. At least one is battling mental health and substance abuse issues.

    On 8 October 2020, after Bellesen shot her abuser, she remembers thinking, “It couldn’t get any worse than this.” But now she says it can – and it has. “I can honestly say that I would rather go through October 8th every day for the rest of my life” than watch her loved ones suffer, she says quietly.

    Since her legal victory, well-wishers have congratulated her. “I bet you’re glad to have your life go back to normal,” they offer. But Bellesen knows life doesn’t go back to normal after domestic assault. There is no normal to go back to.

    The only thing she can think to do now is discover who she might be without violence in her life – and go forward from there.

    Well worth the time to read it all.

    6
  3. MarkedMan says:

    @OzarkHillbilly: I suspect some of these miscarriages of justice could be reduced as more women become legislators and need to focus on these types of issues. We have Red State legislators falling all over themselves to let teenagers with assault rifles roaming around looking for trouble to get off on a self defense claim. Surely the same could be done for a lifetime of abuse.

  4. Jay L Gischer says:

    @OzarkHillbilly: In this video, Adam Neely talks about a very common feeling of letdown, or perhaps “burnout” that musicians feel after they pull off the “big concert” or the important recording session. They get depressed, even though it went really well.

    As I was listening to Adam describe this, I got the feeling that what has happened is that it is a phenomenon that has some similarity to someone important in your life dying. There’s a bunch of your life, and indeed your brain, organized around that person or activity, and now all those connections are severed and dangling. Because that’s how these things work, many of them keep firing and have to be actively dismissed, etc.

    With Ms. Bellesen, someone did die, and then a big, important project (her trial) finished. Yes, it was a good result, but there are huge holes in her life and psyche where something used to be, and nothing to fill it up. It strikes me as similar neurologically to what Adam is describing, if a lot more horrifying.

    2
  5. Michael Reynolds says:

    @Jay L Gischer:
    I think it’s a bit less tragic than you suggest. The better analogy might be the tristesse that comes not after actual death, but merely le petit mort.

    Every writer I know has the same experience after finishing a book. You hit ‘send’ on the email, and almost immediately comes the self-doubt, the anxiety, the regret that you missed something because you were rushing, and of course the fear that whatever uncontrollable magic thing happened in your brain to make the book possible, won’t ever reappear.

    3
  6. CSK says:

    @Michael Reynolds:
    Indeed. And don’t forget the feeling that something big is missing. Because it is.

    3
  7. Michael Reynolds says:

    @CSK:
    It’s why editors exist: to make you feel like an idiot for missing something.

    1
  8. CSK says:

    @Michael Reynolds:
    Well, I meant the book itself. Suddenly your main preoccupation is gone. Vanished. Done. How do you fill in that huge hole?

    As for editors, I was lucky; most of mine were sensational. I recall, though, getting calls from them after they’d received my manuscript saying “Love it. Terrific. Now here’s what you have to do.”

    I’d be enraged for a nanosecond, then calm down, and realize that, 90% of the time, the editor was right. Their suggestions did improve the book.

    I did have one editor who was always trying to pretty up the stuff I and her other authors wrote. But I won those debates practically always. I wasn’t a prima donna or a self-infatuated lunatic, for which I think they were all grateful.

  9. DrDaveT says:

    Apologies if this has already been noted — I’m only able to peek in now and then these days.

    After poking fun at my profession many times, xkcd has finally poked fun at Dr. Taylor’s as well.

    2
  10. flat earth luddite says:

    Conversation this weekend involved a friend’s mother, who has been diagnosed with lymphoma. Family member commented that they bet the J&J vaccine she got 6 months ago was responsible. AAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!

    OTOH, an ugly 9-month case I was working on for the last 3 weeks finally settled yesterday, cancelling a 4-day trial scheduled this week. Now I can check my email inbox.

    3
  11. Joe says:

    @Jay L Gischer: Anyone who has worked in theatre – and probably any highly collaborative project that has a set termination date – is familiar with the post show depression. You literally learn to check in on people. The project is an ever more organizing and animating part of your life culminating in fully occupying existence for the length of the run. Then, it’s just over and you are not doing what you were doing and not seeing who you were seeing. It can be devastating.

    1
  12. Mu Yixiao says:

    @Joe:

    Anyone who has worked in theatre – and probably any highly collaborative project that has a set termination date – is familiar with the post show depression. You literally learn to check in on people. The project is an ever more organizing and animating part of your life culminating in fully occupying existence for the length of the run. Then, it’s just over and you are not doing what you were doing and not seeing who you were seeing. It can be devastating.

    Not if you’re a stage hand. 🙂

    “Yo! Actors! Get off the damn stage so we can rip this fucker down and go home!”

    NEXT!

    😀

    5
  13. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Mu Yixiao: I always felt relief at the end of a performance run/season that it was over. Then again, performing was my hobby not my life. (And there was always another season–until I moved back to Western Washington and had no place to play anymore. No, I don’t miss it.)

    2
  14. CSK says:

    Nothing, absolutely NOTHING, says “I am a genius” like trashing the Capitol and bragging about it on Facebook.

    http://www.rawstory.com/capitol-rioters-sentenced/

    1
  15. flat earth luddite says:

    @CSK:
    These f******* (fine folks, one and all) remind me of Bulwinkle saying, “Hey, Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!” Or the folks who complained when I was working at the public defender’s office about being profiled because they were spotted running out of a house at 2 a.m. – with a television on their shoulder.

    3
  16. CSK says:

    @flat earth luddite:
    Einsteins, I’m tellin’ ya, they’re real Einsteins.

    I recall how proudly they were boasting about being True Patriots in the immediate aftermath of Jan. 6, looting and trashing the place and trying to hang Mike Pence and shoot Nancy Pelosi. Then they started getting arrested, and all of a sudden they were yelling about how it was Antifa and BLM who caused all the mayhem and destruction. The True Patriots were just strolling through the Capitol like any law-abiding citizens.

    Morons.

    1
  17. Kathy says:

    I wonder if Ted noticed Mitch didn’t depart for Cancun, nor returned to Kentucky.

  18. dazedandconfused says:

    The fun is mostly in the winning, not the wonning.

  19. Sleeping Dog says:

    Preservationists Want to Save Penn Station. Yes, That Penn Station.

    For those of you who have never been subject to traveling through Penn Station, just imagine arriving somewhere and needing to walk through a dumpster to get outside.

    Of course the purpose of the preservation status isn’t that Penn Sta is worth saving, but that it will crush a larger development project for the area.

    This was the final public hearing before the $7 billion development bid goes up for federal review — debate notwithstanding, the Penn Station plan is priced to move. But it was here, at the eleventh hour, when New York preservationists decided to go for the nuclear option, to make their last stand. New York’s State Historic Preservation Office has said that 2 Penn Plaza, Madison Square Garden and Penn Station — dank, dark, dim, dismal, depressing, dangerous Penn Station — should be added to the National Register of Historic Places.

    Next it will be the Port Authority Bus Depot.

  20. dazedandconfused says:

    On the difference between crazy-brave and the phony-tough.

  21. MarkedMan says:

    I’ve just taken it for granted that almost all COVID deaths in the US have been in the older population. And while that it technically true, the numbers aren’t as overwhelming as I thought. 25% of deaths overall have been for those younger than 65 – 200K! And for the month of September it was 40%!

  22. MarkedMan says:

    It is surprisingly hard to find meaningful statistics on how much more likely you are to die if you are unvaccinated. Rough numbers are 6 times more likely, but they don’t take age into account and the young are much more likely to be unvaccinated than the old. According to the CDC even at this late date and with all the treatments, people from 75-85 are 65X more likely to die than those 18-29, and over 85 is 370X. And according to this CDC data virtually everyone 65 and up have had at least one dose of a vaccine, and 89% of 65-74 age group has had a complete series. For some reason that drops down to 84% above 75. In contrast, the 18-24 cohort is only 58% fully vaxed. What does all this mean? Who knows! What I’m really looking for is a simply deaths per 100K for the vaccinated and unvaccinated, by age group.

    1
  23. MarkedMan says:

    OK, here are some statistics from Washington State:

    Summary
    Unvaccinated 12-34 year-olds in Washington are
    • 5 times more likely to get COVID-19 compared with fully vaccinated 12-34 year-olds.
    • 16 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 compared with fully vaccinated 12-34 year- olds.
    Unvaccinated 35-64 year-olds are
    • 5 times more likely to get COVID-19 compared with fully vaccinated 35-64 year-olds.
    • 17 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 compared with fully vaccinated 35-64 year- olds.
    Unvaccinated 65+ year-olds are
    • 6 times more likely to get COVID-19 compared with fully vaccinated 65+ year-olds.
    • 10 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 compared with fully vaccinated 65+ year- olds.
    • 11 times more likely to die of COVID-19 compared with fully vaccinated 65+ year-olds.

    For whatever reason, Texas is very different. On their site, the have the age rate differential vaxed vs unvaxed for deaths as the following:
    1-29 99X
    30-39 48X
    40-49 63X
    50-64 45X
    65-74 57X
    75+ 30X

    And people who are unvaxed in the 18-29 cohort are just as likely to die of COVID as those who are vaxed and in the 50-64 cohort. As comparison, that older cohort the unvaxed are roughly 40 times more likely to die of COVID than the 18-29 bunch.

    One last number that is much more startling than it appears: In Texas, there have been 3 times as many unvaxed as vaxed deaths in the 65-74 year old age range, despite the fact that the pool of unvaxed in that age group is only 1/6th of the vaxed.
    These two sets of statistics are so different I really don’t know what to make of them

    1
  24. Kathy says:

    Here’s my stupid question for the day:

    Should Russia have been invited to join NATO? Maybe in the 90s, and with better reason after 9/11? Were they invited, even?

    I’ve been wondering about this since the first batch of former Warsaw Pact joined NATO, lo these many years ago.

  25. Gustopher says:

    @MarkedMan: You’re comparing different date ranges — the first set of data from Texas is for Jan 1st to October 1st, while WA presents October to November data.

    Using data from a few pages on, September to October in TX, Unvaxxed 50-64 year olds are 28x as likely to die from covid, not the 45x.

    Meanwhile, the Washington data is October to November, right before boosters.

    The states break out their data differently by age range in those tables, but 65+ death rate in WA is 11x higher, and in TX 65-74 were 28x higher and 75+ 11x higher.

    Washington tended to vaccinate earlier, so waning immunity might be an issue (again, this data is right around the time boosters started, or so), and there are different levels of community exposure in TX vs. WA.

    1
  26. reid says:

    @Jay L Gischer: Yes, for lots of people, the worst thing to have in their life is nothing.

  27. Mu Yixiao says:

    @Sleeping Dog:

    Of course the purpose of the preservation status isn’t that Penn Sta is worth saving, but that it will crush a larger development project for the area.

    Go check out California and its “Environmental Impact” law–the ultimate NIMBY weapon.

  28. Mu Yixiao says:

    The Equation for a Triangle

    I half understand 25% of this. But… damn do I find it fascinating.

    If you haven’t seen Stand Up Maths on YouTube, I highly recommend it.

  29. MarkedMan says:

    @Gustopher: thanks!

  30. Sleeping Dog says:

    @Mu Yixiao:

    Yup.

    The iron law of unintended consequences.

    1
  31. grumpy realist says:

    @Mu Yixiao: There are also some wonderful graphical explanations showing the difference between contra variant and covariant tensors.

    I knew how they worked mathematically, but never had a visual hook to explain them.