Blood from a Turnip

On January 31, 84 year old Nancy Guthrie of Tucson, Arizona, after having taken an Uber to her daughter's home for a Saturday evening dinner was dropped off back at her home by her son-in-law at 9:48 pm.  When she did not attend church Sunday morning her family was called.  After failing to find her at home, the family placed a 911 call to report her missing.  On finding signs of forced entry, police suspected foul play and first publicized the disappearance at 6:48 PM.  CNN's first report of the story was broadcast Monday morning, February 2, centering the interest on the detail that Nancy Guthrie is the mother of NBC Today Show host Savannah Guthrie.  On Monday evening, a local Tucson station and tabloid news outfit TMZ each reported receiving a ransom note for the elder Guthrie, demanding money with a deadline of Thursday evening and a second deadline of Monday February 8.  On Thursday, February 5, police reported that blood found on the front porch of the home was determined by DNA testing to be Nancy Guthrie's.  The FBI offered $50,000 for information leading to a resolution of the case. On Friday, the Tucson television station reported receiving a new email whose contents it was unable to discuss.  On Monday, the Guthrie family released a new plea for their mother's return with no mention of a ransom note. With the Monday deadline passed with apparently no ransom money changing hands, the FBI disclosed that it was unaware of direct communication between the family and any party claiming to be responsible for the disappearance.   On Tuesday, February 10, police released footage from Nancy Guthrie's front door camera showing a man about 5'9'', average build wearing a ski mask and what police later described as a black, 25-liter “Ozark Trail Hiker Pack” backpack, attempting to cover up the camera with a plant dug up from the front yard.   The same day, police questioned a man detained at a traffic stop south of Tucson and then released him, giving no information by the next day about why he was stopped or released.  On Thursday, February 12, the FBI doubled its reward for information leading to the arrest of person or persons responsible for Nancy Guthrie's disappearance to $100,000.  Recently it has been reported that Savannah Guthrie will take an extended leave of absence from hosting the Today Show to be with her family and deal with the situation.

You now know everything there is to know about the disappearance of Savannah Guthrie's mother from her Tuscon Arizona home between 9:48 PM Saturday January 31 and 11:00 am Sunday morning February 1.   So why has CNN for the past two weeks done nothing but report on Savannah Guthrie's mother's disappearance?*   What have they reported on and what have we learned?  Let's focus for a minute on Jake Tapper, the nasal voiced totem of CNN's particular brand of late neoliberal capitalist mediocrity whom CNN sent to Tucson for breathless on-the-scene milking of the fibers of a story that has refused to develop.

I asked Google and got this list of professional experts and a few individuals whose proximity to the events plausibly conferred witness status (for the purposes of filling airtime) that Tapper has questioned: 

• Jeff Lamie: A neighbor of the Guthrie family, who discussed the neighborhood's reaction and provided observations on the case.
• Shari Botwin (LCSW): A trauma expert and licensed social worker, discussing the emotional toll on the family and the significance of finding potential clues after 10 days.
• Bryanna Fox: A former FBI agent, who analyzed the challenges of verifying potential ransom notes.
• Nick Barreiro: A forensic analyst who examined new surveillance footage from the home.
• Richard Kolko: A former FBI special agent and crisis negotiator, who discussed the, at times, unverified messages sent to local media.

And what did Tapper ask all these experts and on what has he been reporting?   Again Google supplied a summary of the highlights:

• On the Evidence: Tapper reported on the "chilling" doorbell camera footage showing a masked, armed person at the front door and the discovery of blood on the porch.
• On the Investigation: He has questioned the validity of tips and reported on the massive number of leads (over 30,000) being investigated.
• On the "Influencers": Tapper has delivered sharp criticism of social media influencers and individuals spreading unverified, false, or "nonsense" information about the case.
• On the Search: He highlighted the, at times, difficult, 24/7 search by the FBI and local authorities, including the searching of desert terrain and the examination of DNA.

Lastly, what have we learned from Tapper's extensive reporting?:

• No Clear Suspect Initially: For nearly two weeks, there were no named suspects or persons of interest, although a man in a mask, seen on camera, was identified as a key suspect.
• Evidence and Clues: The investigation centered on a masked person at the home, a missing camera, and blood found on the property. A "significant" DNA breakthrough was later reported, with investigators finding DNA that did not belong to anyone in close contact with Guthrie.
• Suspect Description: The FBI described the suspect as a male, 5'9" to 5'10", wearing a black, 25-liter "Ozark Trail Hiker Pack" backpack, which is sold at Walmart.
• A "Thriller" Stuck on Buffer: Tapper's coverage reflected the frustration of a case where, despite the high-profile nature, information was slow to materialize, leading to a "tight-lipped" approach from authorities.
• Ransom Hoax: It was confirmed that at least one person was charged with sending a fake ransom note, which was a "distraction" from the actual investigation.
• FBI Focus: The FBI increased its reward to $100,000 for information leading to a resolution. On the Ransom Notes: Tapper reported on the, at times, unverified messages demanding Bitcoin and the subsequent arrest of an individual for sending a fake threat. 
• Law Enforcement: Tapper has regularly cited information from Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos and the FBI. 

To summarize: We've learned that there isn't much that we've learned.

Tapper has since returned to New York, but not before being asked by a Pima County sheriff's deputy to leave the Guthrie property where a search was ongoing.  While we sincerely hope for the safe return of Nancy Guthrie to her family, the squeezing of water from the stone of this story continues unabated.

~~~~~~

* With brief respites updating developments in the Bad Bunny halftime show controversy thrown in.

I.Q. Zoo

Argos the dog can look where I point if I spot the toy he's looking for before he does.  If I spot the toy in the kitchen, I can go to the living room and tell him where it is and he'll retrieve it.  He invents games and teaches his humans how to play them.   He knows each of us by name.  He's so good at understanding our speech that we frequently have to spell words in front of him if we don't want him to know what we're talking about, but he's beginning to learn how to spell.  

He can't operate a door.   If a door he needs to traverse is opened a width he can't fit his face through he will stand patiently by until one of us pushes it open for him.  It doesn't matter how badly he wants to be on the other side of it.  He will not operate the door himself.  It's almost pathetic.  Is he stupid?  He is demonstrably not.  Our theory is that when he was a puppy, some parts of the house were off limits to him but not to our cats who preceded him in the family, so we propped the doors open a cat's width with weights on either side of them and he learned (unintentionally on our part) that the door was not a technology that he was permitted to use even as more doors became open to him.  He's not stupid; he's polite.

My cats on the other hand, generally unconfused by the workings of hinges on a cracked door,  have a predilection for an open closet.  If one is unattended for even a minute, there is a good chance a cat will be inside of it when the door is closed and latched.  Whenever this happens, it goes generally unnoticed until the furthest reaches of sleep are disturbed suddenly by the awareness, vague at first, then increasingly certain of meowed calls of distress that force you to rise in search of the source.  The regret that I feel on rescuing a cat from a situation I may well have made by carelessly closing a closet door without first getting a visual on both cats can be repeated as soon as the following night, but it will be revisited over and over again, no matter how heartwrenching the cries the last time the same cat was trapped.  How could the universe have failed to give the cat a mechanism to avoid what was surely traumatic by, for instance, teaching it to steer clear of any open closet door that it comes across in the future.

The answer is not obvious but eventually it comes to me.  The cat is not traumatized or trapped.  The incident happens on purpose.  The closet is entered because it beckons.  The closing of the door is part of the pleasure.  There's no need to panic-- scream loud enough and a human will come.

I tend to believe that the answer to the problem of how humans seem to have gotten the greater part of the available supply of intelligence on the planet is that humans have gotten the human brand of intelligence.  Bees have the bee intelligence.  Haddock have all the haddock intelligence.  To say that human intelligence is superior to ostrich intelligence is to miss the point.  A salamander with requisite salamander intelligence is as gifted salamanderily as an intelligent human is humanly. It takes bat intelligence that I do not have to locate moths by sonar.  It takes human intelligence to conceive, invent, build and operate a door, but dog intelligence is equipped to experience a door doggily just as cat intelligence is all a cat needs to know how to summon a human to open the damn door for it.  

The popularity of dogs has a lot to do with the communing that we do with them.  Dogs engage and experience us with their intelligence and we return the effort with our own.  Cats don't have to impress us with their ability to display human intelligence which takes a certain kind of empathy to appreciate.  They will get attention on their schedule.  They have other priorities.  

Prairie Power

From 2016, the Prairie Fire Choir of Minneapolis with guest artist Matt Latterell sing Lou Reed's Satellite of Love.

Count to ten

Everybody just needs to take a deep collective breath, and chill out for ten seconds.  Here are a few ways to do it:

• English - zero, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
• Kalalisut (Greenlandish)- nul, ataaseq, marluk, pingasut, sisamat, pingasut, sisamat, arfineq, arfinillit, qulit.
• Tswana (Botswana) - lefela, nngwe, pedi, tharo, nne, tlhano, thataro, supa, robedi, robongwe, lesome.
• French - zéro, un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, dix.
• Spanish - cero, uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho, nueve, diez.
• Italian - zero, uno, due, tre, quattro, cinque, sei, sette, otto, nove, dieci.
• Romansch - nulla , in, dus, trais, quatter, tschintg, sis, set, otg, nov,  diesch
• Romanian - zero, unu, doi, trei, patru, cinci, șase, șapte, opt, nouă, zece.
• Romani - nulo, jekh, duj, trin, shtar, panzh, shov, efta, oxto, inja, desh.
• Hindi - शून्य, एक, दो, तीन, चार, पांच, छह, सात, आठ, नौ, दस।(shoony, ek, do, teen, chaar, paanch, chhah, saat, aath, nau, das.)
• Maltese - żero, wieħed, tnejn, tlieta, erbgħa, ħamsa, sitta, sebgħa, tmienja, disgħa, għaxra.
• Lithuanian - nulis, vienas, du, trys, keturi, penki, šeši, septyni, aštuoni, devyni, dešimt.
• Estonian - null, üks, kaks, kolm, neli, viis, kuus, seitse, kaheksa, üheksa, kümme.
• Hungarian - nulla, egy, kettő, három, négy, öt, hat, hét, nyolc, kilenc, tíz.
• Finnish - nolla, yksi, kaksi, kolme, neljä, viisi, kuusi, seitsemän, kahdeksan, yhdeksän, kymmenen.
• Igbo (Nigeria) - efu, otu, abụọ, atọ, anọ, ise, isii, asaa, asatọ, itoolu, iri.
• Arabic - صفر، واحد، اثنان، ثلاثة، أربعة، خمسة، ستة، سبعة، ثمانية، تسعة، عشرة. (sifr, wahd, aithnan, thalathat, 'arbaeat, khamsat, sitat, sabeat, thamaniat, tiseat, eashra.)
• Persian - صفر، یک، دو، سه، چهار، پنج، شش، هفت، هشت، نه، ده.  (safar, yek, do, seh, chehar, panj, shesh, npaft, npasht, nah, dah.)
• Navajo (Diné Bizaad) - názbas/ádin, tʼááłáʼí, naaki, tááʼ, dį́į́ʼ, ashdlaʼ, hastą́ą́, tsostsʼid, tseebíí, náhástʼéí, neeznáá.
• Icelandic - núll, einn, tveir, þrír, fjórir, fimm, sex, sjö, átta, níu, tíu.
• Dinka (South Sudan) - guɛw, tök, rou, diäk, ŋuan, dhiëc, dhetem, dhorou, bɛ̈t, dhoŋuan, thiäär.
• Turkish -  sıfır, bir, iki, üç, dört, beş, altı, yedi, sekiz, dokuz, on.
• Swahili -sifuri, moja, mbili, tatu, nne, tano, sita, saba, nane, tisa, kumi.
• Hebrew - אפס, אחד, שתיים, שלוש, ארבע, חמש, שש, שבע, שמונה, תשע, עשר. (afes, achad, shti'im, shlosh, arba, chamesh, shesh, shba, shmona, tisha, asher.)
• Albanian - zero, një, dy, tre, katër, pesë, gjashtë, shtatë, tetë, nëntë, dhjetë.
• Russian - ноль, один, два, три, четыре, пять, шесть, семь, восемь, девять, десять.(nol', odin, dva, tri, chetyre, pyat', shest', sem', vosem', devyat', desyat'.)
• Chinese - 零、一、二、三、四、五、六、七、八、九、十。 (líng, yī', èr, sān, sì, wǔ, liù, qī, bā, ji, ǔshí.)
• Japanese - ゼロ、一、二、三、四、五、六、七、八、九、十。 (zero, ichi, ni, san, shi (or yon), go, roku, shichi (or nana), hachi, kuu (or kyuu), juu.)
• Korean - 영, 하나, 둘, 셋, 넷, 다섯, 여섯, 일곱, 여덟, 아홉, 열.  (yeong, hana, dul, ses, nes, daseos, yeoseos, ilgob, yeodeolb, ahob, yeol.)
• Lakota - tákuni , waŋží, núŋpa, yámni, tópa, záptaŋ, šákpe, šakówiŋ, šaglóǧaŋ, napčíyuŋka, wikčémna
• Esperanto - nul, unu, du, tri, kvar, kvin, ses, sep, ok, naŭ, dek.
• Malay - sifar, satu, dua, tiga, empat, lima, enam, tujuh, lapan, sembilan, sepuluh.
• Basque -zero, bat, bi, hiru, lau, bost, sei, zazpi, zortzi, bederatzi, hamar.
• Greek - μηδέν, ένα, δύο, τρία, τέσσερα, πέντε, έξι, επτά, οκτώ, εννέα, δέκα. (midén, éna, dýo, tría, téssera, pénte, éxi, eptá, októ, ennéa, déka.)
• Zulu - u-zero, oyedwa, ababili, abathathu, abane, abahlanu, abayisithupha, abayisikhombisa, abayisishiyagalombili, abayisishiyagalolunye, abayishumi.
• Danish - nul, en, to, tre, fire, fem, seks, syv, otte, ni, ti.
• Quechua - cero, huk, iskay, kimsa, tawa, pichqa, suqta, qanchis, pusaq, isqun, chunka.
• Hawaiian - ʻole, ʻekahi, ʻelua, ʻekolu, ʻehā, ʻelima, ʻeono, ʻehiku, ʻewalu, ʻeiwa, ʻumi.
• Maori - kore, tahi, rua, toru, whā, rima, ono, whitu, waru, iwa, tekau.
• Rapa Nui (Easter Island) - kore, tahi, rua, toru, hā, rima, ono, hitu, va’u, iva, ho’e ’ahuru
• Georgian - ნული, ერთი, ორი, სამი, ოთხი, ხუთი, ექვსი, შვიდი, რვა, ცხრა, ათი. (nuli, erti, ori, sami, otkhi, khuti, ekvsi, shvidi, rva, tskhra, ati.)
• Telugu (Southeastern India) - సున్నా, ఒకటి, రెండు, మూడు, నాలుగు, ఐదు, ఆరు, ఏడు, ఎనిమిది, తొమ్మిది, పది. (sunnā, okaṭi, reṇḍu, mūḍu, nālugu, aidu, āru, ēḍu, enimidi, tom'midi, padi.)
• Nahuatl (Aztec) -  ahtle, ce, ome, yei, nahui, macuilli, chicuace, chicome, chicuei, chiconahui, mahtlactli
• Q'eqchi' (a Mayan language of Guatemala) -zero, jun, wiib’, oxib’, kaahib’, oob’, waqib’, wuqub’, waqxaqib’, nueve, lajeeb’.
• German - null, eins, zwei, drei, vier, fünf, sechs, sieben, acht, neun, zehn
• Latin - nullus, unus, duo, tres, quattuor, quinque, sex, septem, octo, novem, decem.

Ice ICE, Baby

I like to mix things up when I'm reading.  If I've just finished a book on genetics, it might be time for a show business autobiography.  But somehow I've managed to read two books in a row about the extreme right wing-- its ideology and theoretical foundation as well as its designs on the American political system.  The first, Furious Minds by Laura K. Field is about the recent history of particularly 4 strains of far right conservatism which she calls Claremonter (i.e., Straussian "Ideas First" foundational theory coming out of the Claremont Institute and its ideological affiliate Hillsdale College), Post-Liberalism, National Conservatism and the Hard Right all of which have come together in spite of quibbles in their approaches to support and influence Trump in contrast to the more genteel Never-Trumper faction of more mainstream and establishment conservatives.  The second is Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes du Mez, which has as its subject the rise in America of a hyper masculinized Christian Nationalist Fundamentalism.  The obsession of these damaged aggrieved men plagued with inadequacies real and imagined for an idealized notion of  the manhood of other men could be channeled into something healthy like self-awareness but instead it is tamped down into a regressive compensatory fantasy of a rancid, stunted, flaccid male-centered world order that they are bent on imposing on the rest of us.  There is certainly overlap in the themes and content of both books.  Unfortunately, it is also bleeding into and saturating current events.

I keep getting haunted by the thought that ICE is a black hole that is being brandished against the American people.  If there is one thing to take to heart from the themes explored in Field and du Mez's books, it's that there is a thick strain on the right that would like to Holocaust the left, and it’s not hard for me to believe that the gigantic plaything called ICE that they now have at their disposal thanks to Trump and their mutual enablement is piloting the clampdown.  I don’t know ultimately how well this is going to go over with "average Americans" though. I think the idea of an American Gestapo having carte blanche to kill citizens, even "radical lesbian" citizens is probably not going to sit well with people’s ideas of what America should be like.  I don’t know though.  How deep do the right’s tentacles go?  Am I being paranoid?  I think it’s a big agency with theoretical impunity and prosecutorial immunity that is not getting a lot of oversight out of the administration, an administration run by the most proudly horrible human beings whose horribleness is bolstered by a large network of like-minded academics, theologians, opinion makers and knuckleheads.

Jessica Burbank, who also goes by Ka, raised an interesting thought experiment on which she solicited opinions from her podcast audience.  Her question was "What do you think about ICE Agents quitting for moral reasons?  Do you forgive them?  What questions do you have?"  The conversation struck me as being the evil cousin of the Graham Platner oppo reveal controversy that tested the mettle (and familiarly rent the fabric) of online leftism last fall. As with that earlier stink, Burbank's audience seemed split between forgiveness and vengeance.  

My advice to any ICE agents who suddenly wake from their incel repressed homoerotic Nazi dream and want to walk away:  Do it.  Don't ask for permission or forgiveness from the Americans whose tax dollars you have taken to wage war against.  Just come back from the darkness.  Join us on the streets that you will have made that much safer.

Gaye Su Akyol - İstikrarlı Hayal Hakikattir

From the Turkish singer, painter, bus driver -- and anthropologist!-- Gaye Su Akyol comes a reminder (and none too soon) that Stable Dreams Are Reality (which is to say: Reality is a stable dream):

Lyrics: 

Of, bu ne biçim hayat
Bu nasıl bi kafa?
Yatırır adamı, hop falakaya
Dere gibi akar, dertte yüzeriz
Uçuyoruz evet, çünkü güzeliz
İstikrarlı hayal hakikattir
Ölüm var mı yoksa bir rüya mı?
Derdim derdine ortak olsun
Aşk şarabın, düşle dolsun
Al, sazım anlat ben yoruldum
Sığamadım her yerden kovuldum
Denize yakışan martı gibiyiz
Nereye eserse oraya gideriz
İstikrarlı hayal hakikattir
Ölüm var ve bu bir rüyadır
Derdim derdine ortak olsun
Salla be hayat rock'n roll
İstikrarlı hayal hakikattir
Ölüm var ve bu bir rüyadır
İstikrarlı hayal hakikattir
Ölüm var ve bu bir rüyadır
Derdim derdine ortak olsun
Salla be hayat rock'n roll

In English*: 

Stable Dreams Are Reality

Oh, what kind of life is this?

What kind of mindset is this?

It lays a man down, then throws him on the rack

It flows like a river, we swim in sorrow

Yes, we're flying, because we're beautiful

Stable dreams are reality

Is there death or is it just a dream? Let my sorrow be shared with yours

Let love be filled with wine and dreams

Take my instrument, tell me, I'm tired

I couldn't fit in, I was chased away from everywhere

We're like seagulls suited to the sea

We go wherever the wind blows

Stable dreams are reality

Death exists and this is a dream

Let my sorrow be shared with yours

Shake it up, life, rock'n roll

Stable dreams are reality

Death exists and this is a dream

Stable dreams are reality

Death exists and this is a dream

Let my sorrow be shared with yours

Shake it up, life, rock'n roll

~~~~~

* I dabble in Turkish, but this translation is unedited from Google Translate.