Category Archives: Insight

History, Insight, Opinion

The One Good Thing

If there is one good thing that came from the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s the wearing of masks. Now wait. Hold on a minute. I know the mask wearing thing was quite controversial. Just let me explain. This isn’t what you think.

During the pandemic, the idea was suggested that some people might want to wear a mask as a means of precaution. As time went on, masks soon became the norm. People all over the country, and all over the world, began to wear them as a precautionary measure.

As the Covid-19 virus kept spreading and mutating, many people questioned on whether the masks even worked at all. Many people had differing opinions on the matter. Some people believed that they were effective. Some people believed that they didn’t work at all. I personally believe that masks work. Maybe not 100%, but that they do help in the spread of viruses. The issue, in my personal opinion, is that people were not wearing the right type of mask. I mean, let’s face it, as long as people covered their face with something, it was deemed as acceptable.

The CDC has constantly updated their mask information page giving people the best information possible, yet, no one seemed to follow those guidelines. I saw almost everything imaginable from, cloth masks, bandana’s, plastic face shields (with no mask underneath), etc. One time I even saw a woman that had wrapped paper towels around her face. No joke. I hardly ever saw people wearing the recommended surgical, KN95, or N95 masks, which the CDC said offered the best protection.

Everywhere you went you could buy the cloth masks which the CDC said offered some of the least protection. Even if people were wearing the masks, they just wore them around their chin, or just covered their mouth and not their nose. I saw countless people have the surgical masks around their cars rearview mirror, meaning that they were reusing a mask that was recommended as a one time use mask. And let’s not forget Alyssa Milano’s famous crocheted mask. However, this isn’t a knock on Alyssa Milano, because tons of people had these.

The point is that everything that we could have done wrong in terms of proper masking and proper use of masks, we did. We literally failed on masking in the biggest way possible. Nevertheless, I have hope. I do see one good thing that has come from this all too real tragedy. One that may be beneficial to us now and into the future. That is…drumroll, please…more mask wearing. Well, sort of.

If there is one good thing that has come from the entire mask wearing, it’s this. I’ve noticed that, in general, more and more people are wearing masks when they are sick. Whether it be from Covid, the Flu, or even the common cold. People just tend to wear a mask as a precaution towards others. Some people will wear a mask when they simply think they might be getting sick, but they haven’t been officially deemed sick. Another plus is that if people are wearing masks, they seem to be the most effective masks like surgical, KN95, or N95 masks. Pretty much everybody has stopped selling cloth masks since the virus seems to be on the decline. If you do have to buy a mask at the store, there is a good chance that all you can buy is the best kind. That’s a positive note.

With so many people wearing a proper mask when they are sick, we might in fact see a decline in sickness in the future. It’s possible. I guess only time will tell. If it works great. I’m willing to bet that it has some sort of impact. Even if it is minor. Who knows? In 50 years, people might just wear a mask when they are sick not knowing why they are doing it other than, it’s just the right thing to do.

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Insight, Opinion, Vehicles

Electrify California

Last week, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) passed a plan that requires all new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the state to be electric vehicles or plug-in electric hybrids by 2035.

Five days later, California is telling people not to charge their electric vehicles due to a heat wave that is hitting the state over the next several days.

I’m left scratching my head wondering what in the world is going on. California cannot even get their power grid under control, and yet they want to ban all new sales of gas-powered cars and light trucks within the state in the next thirteen years. This seems like a huge stretch. Possible? Anything is possible. Likely? I highly doubt it.

California averages around 2 million new car sales a year according to the California New Car Dealers Association (CNCDA). In 2017 and 2018, California sold over 2 million new cars. With Covid hitting, California new car sales dropped slightly by 2020 down to 1.6 million, however went up to 1.8 million in 2021. According to the CNCDA, California is expected to either exceed 2 million new car sales by the end of 2022 or come extremely close to that mark. According to Wikipedia, as of December 2021, cumulative plug-in car registrations in the state since 2010 totaled 1.072 million units. So, while California sells an average of 2 million new cars per year, it’s taken them 11 years to sell just 1 million electric cars, some of which are undoubtedly hybrids.

California sells more EV’s than any other state in the union. According to Inside EV’s, plug-in vehicle registrations in 2021 increased by about 79% year-over-year to 237,618, which is 12.8% of the total market. There’s no doubt that Californians are adapting to electric vehicles. The issue here is that CARB’s plan to make all new car and light truck sales fully electric by 2035 puts sales of EV’s into overdrive at a rate that I’m not so sure their grid can keep up. The sales of EV’s going into 2035 is going to come in phases.

35% percent of new cars and light trucks sold in the state must be zero-emission, plug-in hybrid or hydrogen-powered vehicles by the year 2026. The sales of these vehicles will increase to 68% by the year 2030 and will end up at 100% by the year 2035. To put that into perspective, if California stays at selling 2 million cars per year through 2035, that means by 2026 they must be selling 700,000 EV’s or hybrids per year, 1.36 million by 2030, and a full 2 million by 2035. In order to be able to do this, California is going to have to go through a huge overhaul in their electrical infrastructure. Not only that, but a ton of electrical stations are going to have to be put all over the state to accommodate for those who travel.

According to The Sacramento Bee, there’s plenty of concern from experts concerning such a fast transition into a full EV market within the next decade. Among them: that electric cars will be too expensive, charging stations won’t be plentiful, and an all-electric fleet will put additional pressure on the state’s fragile power grid. According to the article, the Western States Petroleum Association said, “electrification of the transportation sector will increase demand by around 300,000 gigawatt-hours statewide,” which would amount to doubling electricity demands.

However, officials from the California Energy Commission are pushing back against this idea saying that, charging electric vehicles will “add only a small amount of demand onto the grid” and they believe that electricity demand is forecasted to make up less than 3% of energy use during peak hours in 2030. I just find that simply ironic since they are telling people right now to not charge their electric vehicles because of demands, but here in 8 years everything is going to be fine and will make up only about 3% of the total energy use. Can California revamp their electrical infrastructure that fast? The demand is only going to increase year after year as more people buy EV’s. At some point, every household in California will have at least 1 EV. Some may have 2. Some people with kids may have more. Millions upon millions of EV’s charging at the same time has got to put a strain on the electrical grid. You can say goodbye to your electrical discount that most providers give during overnight hours when demand is low.

Another major issue if America’s power grid itself. New technology has increased the need for electricity over the past couple decades including cell phones, tablets, tech watches, and much more. According to an article by The Wall Street Journal titled “America’s Power Grid Is Increasingly Unreliable”, the U.S. electrical system is becoming less dependable, not more. According to the article, the pace of change, hastened by market forces and long-term efforts to reduce carbon emissions, has raised concerns that power plants will retire more quickly than they can be replaced, creating new strain on the grid at a time when other factors are converging to weaken it. Also, according to the article, large, sustained outages have occurred with increasing frequency in the U.S. over the past two decades. In 2000, there were fewer than two dozen major disruptions, the data shows. In 2020, the number surpassed 180. To be fair, the article does say that aging power lines and climate change, if you believe in that, are factors to the increased outages. However, it does say that going green is also a cause.

California is just one of many states that are committed to going fully electric over the next decade or so. The demand to change at such a rapid pace will undoubtedly have its challenges. California already has enough problems trying to keep the lights on during major heat waves and other situations of electrical high demand. To execute a major overhaul of the California’s entire electrical infrastructure within the next 13 years to support the millions upon millions of EV’s coming into the market is going to be extremely tough. Extremely is an understatement. Can they do it? It’s possible, but it doesn’t seem probable.

California should have started increasing their grid long ago before demanding that its citizens convert to fully EV’s over the next decade. Instead, they took the backwards route and are demanding that its citizens convert to EV’s before even having an infrastructure to support them. California only has about 3.5 years to make a significant change before tons of new EV’s come pouring into the market when the 35% mark of all new car sales must be EV’s becomes a reality. My guess is that by 2035, with all the demands that California is making, EV’s in the state will explode to 10+ million. That’s a huge increase from the 1 million they have now. California has their work cut out for them. I wish them the best of luck, but I won’t be surprised if this is one of the worst failures in modern American history.

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Celebrities, Insight, Opinion

Oppression Olympics

op·pres·sion

/əˈpreSHən/

noun

  1. prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or control.
  2. the state of being subject to unjust treatment or control.
  3. mental pressure or distress.

Oppression. We’ve all heard the word. It seems to be making it’s rounds around the world right now and more and more people are using it. However, I don’t think that people even know what the word means. I don’t even know what it means in the context that they are using it in. They just like to throw it around like they do.

Recently, at MTV’s Video Music Awards, Lizzo made the claim that there were laws in the United States that were “oppressing us”. She had just won the award for “Music Video for Good”. In acceptance speech she said this…

“I don’t know what Music Video for Good means, but I do know what your vote means, and that’s a fucking lot. Your vote means everything to me, it means everything to making a change in this country. So remember, when you’re voting for your favorite artist, vote to change some of these laws that are oppressing us.”

Now of course, I have no idea on what laws she was referring to because she never mentioned one. Like everyone else now a days they just say they are being oppressed without specifically mentioning how. In this case Lizzo sited laws that were oppressing people. Specifically black people. I’m curious on what laws she was referring to.

I wonder if she was referring to one of these:

Civil Rights Act of 1957

Civil Rights Act of 1960

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Economic Opportunity Act of 1964

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Or maybe she was referring to one of these:

Civil Rights Act of 1968

The Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972

Equal Credit Opportunity Act (1974)

Community Reinvestment Act (1977)

Civil Rights Act of 1982

Or better yet, maybe one of these:

Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987

Civil Rights Act of 1991

Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (1995)

Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act (2007)

Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act (2009)

Emmett Till Antilynching Bill (2020)

I mean, who knows what laws she was talking about? I do find it ironic that she was talking about her being oppressed while receiving an award. That did seem a little strange to me.

If Lizzo is oppressed, I just wonder by how much? How much oppression is she suffering from? I figure for her to say such a thing, it must be a lot. I decided to dig in and find all the oppression that I could find when it came to Lizzo.

Maybe it’s her salary. Is there a law that I am unaware of that limits her salary? 12 Million is a lot of money. She could probably get more. Maybe it’s her housing. This would seem to go against the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which prohibited discrimination in housing. Who knows? Maybe a 26 Million dollar home is just too small. Maybe Lizzo feels that being chauffeured around in a Bentley just wasn’t her style. She would probably have been less oppressed if she were in a Rolls-Royce. After all, Bentley’s are for chumps. Maybe it’s her clothing. Walking around the Grammy’s in a mint-green dress and diamond earrings worth more than $45,000 is hardly worth it. She deserves way more than that. $45,000 is like poor people’s money. It’s like pocket-money. Chump change. Her fashion designer should be fired immediately and replaced with someone who will get her good dresses that cost what she’s worth.

Let’s not fool ourselves. Lizzo is one of the top-rated artists in today’s music industry. She’s a multi-millionaire that lives a life that most people only dream of having. She lives in a house that most people will never even come close to living in. She has everything you could ever want. The one thing that is for sure is that Lizzo is not oppressed. She would never be where she is today if there were these so called “laws” that were oppressing the black community. Lizzo should be the poster child for the black community on why she is successful and how others can be too. What a powerful message that would be.

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History, Insight, Politics

The Separation of Church and State Explained

At one point or another, you have heard the words “separation of church and state.” The words make their way into the mouths of people on a regular basis. With the overturning of Roe vs Wade, these words have made their way back into those same mouths, and have ended up on the news, Facebook, Twitter, and many other social media sites.

I’ve noticed that many people who quote the phrase, take the entire thing out of context. It’s widely misused and even more misunderstood. Most people I talk to believe the phrase is mentioned somewhere in the U.S. Constitution. Spoiler alert, it’s not. In fact, the phrase, “separation of church and state” appears nowhere in the Constitution or any other founding document. So where did this phrase come from?

When the First Amendment was written, it provided what is called the “establishment clause.” The establishment clause separates church from state, but not the way most people seem to think.  A huge hunk of people think that separation of church and state means that there can be no religion in politics whatsoever. If a member of Congress or a member of a state leadership expresses their belief in God or says that they pray to God before making a decision, you always seem to hear people scream about how wrong these people are for doing so because of separation of church and state. However, the establishment clause only separates church from state, not religion from politics or even public life.

The phrase “separation of church and state” is found in a letter that was written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association of Danbury, Connecticut. The Danbury Baptist Association was concerned that their state constitution lacked specific protections of religious freedom. In the letter they wrote, “Our sentiments are uniformly on the side of religious liberty‐‐that religion is at all times and places a matter between God and individuals‐‐that no man ought to suffer in name, person, or effects on account of his religious opinions‐‐that the legitimate power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbors; But, sir, our constitution of government is not specific.” They go on to say, “…what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the state) we enjoy as favors granted, and not as inalienable rights; and these favors we receive at the expense of such degrading acknowledgements as are inconsistent with the rights of freemen.”

Thomas Jefferson wrote back and said, “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ʺmake no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,ʺ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.”

What Jefferson was saying is the religion lies between a man and the God that they believe in, and that no government could dictate who, or how, or when, or where, or even why a man or woman practiced religion. No federal, state, or local government had the right to interfere with a person’s religious beliefs, therefore, creating a wall of separation between church and state.

Now you know the origins of where the phrase “separation of church and state” came from. So, the next time you hear someone take the term out of context, you’ll know. Just remember that the separation of church and state is in reference to a government body not being able to interfere with a person’s religious beliefs. It doesn’t mean that a person, or even an elected official, cannot use religion as a way of decision making.

If you’re interested in reading the letter from the Danbury Baptist Association to Thomas Jefferson and Jefferson’s response, you can read both letters here.

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