Longer Step: Ideas for Justice and Sustainability

  The greenest car is a plug-in hybrid . It allows electric-only driving for almost all your day to day driving (while you can use the gas engine for long trips, avoiding the still-immature, sometimes-not-working national recharging system). And its batteries are much smaller than those in all-electric cars, which scores much better in the "let's not destroy the Earth too much" test. Someday we'll have greener (and safer) car batteries, but for now PHEV may be a smart choice.

  Heard a great piece on NPR this morning, about a growing group of Dems and Independents in Michigan who will vote "Uncommitted" in that state's primary (tomorrow?). They are protesting Biden's support for, and enabling of, Israel's slaughter of 30,000 Gazan civilians, and growing. Biden could stop that genocide with one phone call, but instead he's had the money tap wide open, giving whatever Israel asks for, but asking for no limitations whatsoever on Israel's conduct. It's our money that's killing innocent people over there. Anyway, I love the idea of voting Uncommitted. In WA, it wouldn't matter, but in MI, it matters a huge amount--it's a swing state. If the Uncommitteds don't see some change in Biden's behavior, they are promising they will not vote for him in the Fall. Neither will I-I'm leaning towards Jill Stein of the Green Party. When asked 'But what if your strategy results in Trump winning?' the spokesperso...

  Nex Benedict was a non-binary person in a Tulsa-area high school. Nex was born female (according to what I've read). As I understand it, the girls' bathroom is the one which Oklahoma's Anti-Trans law says Nex should use. So I find it particularly ghoulish that Nex was beaten to death by fellow students, when using the girls' restroom. Note that Oklahoma's cruel, inhumane "Anti-Trans Bathroom Law" wouldn't apply to this situation (I think), because it would've stopped a trans girl (a person born a boy) from using the girls' bathroom, but Nex was not a trans girl (right?) and had been born (according to articles I read) with girl anatomy. So we could say that Nex was killed despite complying with the law. It appears that Nex was beaten, and died, because Nex used the gender pronoun "they." Apart from how shocking it is--to kill a peer who uses a pronoun different from yours, it will be interesting to see what charges are brought agai...

  Heard an expert on classism-vs-racism. Most of the minority kids admitted to schools like Harvard and Berkeley, under their Affirmative Action programs, were from fairly well-to-do families, so that the AA program didn't do as much to help poor kids as it could have. Yet the schools got credit for "helping the poor kids." But not all kids from minority group families are poor (of course). A better way to address inequity, in every phase of life (housing, schools, education, healthcare) would be to address classism (rich-vs-poor) as much as racism. I personally think it would really help this country if kids from less-educated families could be given high-end, free worldwide education for many years. They would earn more, and would learn how to think critically, and how to set and achieve goals for themselves, and they would be much less susceptible to conspiracy theories and the mind-tricks of would-be dictators. This (liberal) researcher had negative things to say abo...

 We live in a world where everything is being dumbed-down because not enough of us know how to think: 1. It is unwise to buy a Kia or Hyundai automobile, because thieves are aware that (due to a very stupid decision by those automakers) some of their models don't have a chip immobilizer in the key and ignition switch, and those models are much easier to steal. Most Kia and Hyundai cars DO have a chip immobilizer (including all the new ones). But the thieves are either lazy or indifferent to that, and they break in anyway and try to steal the car. So, if you buy a Kia or Hyundai, even if it has the chip system, you are at much higher risk of its being broken into (smashed glass and damage to ignition area), even if it can't be driven away. The break-in rate on Kias and Hyundais is stratospheric. And, insurance companies have hugely boosted the premiums on Kias and Hyundais. So it really doesn't make sense to buy one, no matter how much I might like the Hyundai plug-in hybrid...