Coronavirus, science literacy, math, and behavioral psychology

A number of people have shared around that New York Times article of a few days ago that claims the COVID19 version of the coronavirus could kill as few as 200,000 Americans. Over the hours today, I've done some mental gestating, and realize that people need to think this through better. (And no, I'm not linking to the story, for several reasons, some of which will become apparent below.)

First, reactions to the story illustrate two things.

One is that Homo sapiens as a species is NOT "rational" by nature. Our australopithecine ancestors weren't and we didn't involve any hugely greater degree of rationality. Nor, contra the hopes and claims of some philosophies like Stoicism, has cultural evolution promoted a much greater degree of average rationality growth. That's simple fact.

Two is that the basic principles of behavioral psychology, per Dan Ariely's excellent book of that name, that show humans are "Predicably Irrational," are quite, quite true.

Specifically, per it and its related behavioral economics, humans do (on average, this is a social science) show predicable — and predictably irrational — behaviors in many scenarios. One of these is loss aversion. That means that we tend to overreact to many of our fears of losses. A related behavior is "loss attention." And, obviously, death is a loss. A huge loss, whether it's our own medical diagnosis or a statistical estimate.

With that, let's dig in.

(Update: Let's have some common sense while you're out shopping and other things, too, folks.)

First, you may say, "I heard about a New York Times story that coronavirus could kill as many as 10 million Americans."

That's the same story.

But, because of your loss aversion and related psychology, you noticed the 10 million. And probably read past the 200,000.

I also noticed the 200,000.

I had already, previously, based on estimates of both the virulence and lethality of COVID19, estimated 250,000 deaths.

That's not nothing, of course.

But PUBLIC health is about social statistics, not individual anecdotes.

Since seasonal flu kills an estimated 50,000 Americans a year, that puts this into some context.

Turns out I am not the only one spreading the "lessen the alarm" stance. Georgetown U. psychology prof Dr. Jelena Kecmanovic has some good stuff. She includes: Accept uncertainty, don't underestimate resilience, and, per what I've said, don't overestimate threats.

Further context?

Alcohol, from DWI fatalities to workplace fatalities to suicides to liver cancer to other cancers and ultimately to cirrhosis, kills almost 100,000 Americans a year. (That's more than all illicit drugs combined, and that number may be low; I suspect it is.)

Cigarettes kill almost 500,000.

So?

If you're overreacting to COVID19 while either smoking a Marlboro or else drinking one too many Buds or shots of Jack Daniel's, I don't want to hear from you. (And, in case you're wondering? Exact numbers are even harder to come by, but stroke, heart attack and other similar deaths, the numbers of them preventable from better diet and exercise, slot between alcohol and tobacco. So, if all the exercise you do is walking out the door to your car, I don't want to hear from you, either.)

Let's continue.

There's one other thing many Americans don't know about the experts estimating death rates of between 200,000 and 10 million. They probably think that means an average of 5.1 million. And they'd be wrong.

But, if they think of a simple brainteaser that stumps many of them, they'd maybe think they're wrong without knowing what the actual median might be, which I'll tell you in a minute.

That brainteaser is a simple one.

If bacteria in a petri dish double every minute, and the dish is filled in one hour, when is it half filled?

Most people divide one hour in half and say "30 minutes."

The correct answer, of course, is "59 minutes." It's half full in 59 minutes and in one more minute, with another doubling, it's full.

Many growth, or decline, and change issues in the natural sciences work by this "geometric progression" that involves multiplying growth, rather than an "arithmetic progression" that involves additive growth.

This is how half-lives of radioactive elements work.

It's also an issue in social sciences, as it's how compound interest works.

The geometric mean between 200,000 and 10 million is 1.4 million.

NOT 5 million.

That is still a lot of people. But it's a lot less than 5 million.

Personally, I think odds are less than 10 percent the US even hits 1 million, for a variety of reasons. That's still a lot of people. But it's a lot fewer than many people will expect.

But, I'm promoting your loss aversion.

So, let me give you MY geometric mean estimate. I think there's a 50 percent chance COVID19 deaths in the US stay below 400,000.

==

There are other factors at work.

Globally, elected politicians, once they see a critical mass on coronavirus worries in elective democracies, are going to tilt toward overreaction.

In the US, there's also an ignorance of population densities and population demographics.

If one takes the "Acela Corridor" and extends it 100 miles inland, that part of the US is as densely populated as the Benelux countries.

Elsewhere? Even at 327 million people? Not so much. Nationally, the US population density is about the same as Venezuela. See here. Cut out the Acela Corridor and, though more sprawled, the Southland of SoCal, but to be fair, whack Alaska as well. The rest of the "lower 48" is probably about the same as Peru on average.

Per state rankings, Texas is about the same as Columbia. East Texas is about the same as Iran, which has had some worries, yes. Or maybe halfway between Iran and Spain. But it's far below Italy, far far below Northern Italy where the coronavirus worries hit there, and WAY below South Korea.

OK, the biggies? Since both have densely populated coastal areas, but lost of mountains and deserts? US at 34 people per square mile vs China at 145 people per square mile? No contest. Going more granular? Wuhan itself is 8 million people or so and the metro area is 19 million and it's more densely populated than US metro areas, with the possible partial exception of a NYC or Bay Area. It's in Hubei province, which at 78,000 square miles is about 12-13 percent bigger than Oklahoma, but with 58 MILLION people. Understand?

Population density is no guarantee in offering a measure of protection, and of course, I'm not claiming that it offers anywhere near full protection. But, in much of less-populated America, it DOES offer a measure of protection, in my guesstimate.

===

Update: Per a Facebook discussion which I just exited, this is part of why it's not totally fair to compare "the West" to "Asia." The person is, for now, still a FB friend but he's been moved to "acquaintances."

As far as Asian countries controlling it well? China's been lying since the start and I wouldn't trust its numbers. Singapore and Hong Kong are city states, one still semi-authoritarian and the other under the thumb of Beijing. South Korea is, it seems, doing a good job, but it's the size of Indiana with 50 million people. Taiwan is the size of Maryland. So, that alone isn't fair.

Nor is looking at only the US and Italy and saying that's "the West." As I told said person before exiting the conversation, that ignores countries like Germany that are handling it well.

Hobby Lobby punked by fake Dead Sea Scrolls

I am SO FUCKING LAUGHING, as I tweeted, over confirmation that a set of 16 alleged Dead Sea Scrolls fragments at The Museum of the Bible, owned by Hobby Lobby prez Steve Green, are forgeries.

And crude ones at that.

Ancient leather. Yeah, it's ancient, but leather, not parchment.

Modern ink.

Some purchased from William Kando, son of the primary discoverer of the actual scrolls. Others may trace back to him indirectly. The independent researchers hired by the museum in 2017 to investigate believe, but aren't sure, that all the forgeries were created by the same person or persons.

I've mentioned it elsewhere as the "BAR effect."

That's as in Biblical Archaeology Review, which promoted Holy Land-itis among evangelical Christians and has long run a thriving display advertising service for antiquities, as well as running puff pieces on things like the fraudulent James Ossuary.

Evangelicals with big bucks were easy marks, as the Greens have proven on stolen antiquities looted from invaded Iraq, as well. As the National Geographic piece notes, the landscape changed after 2002. The invasion of Iraq was part of that change. And it wasn't just the Greens who bit.

==

I will have a more technical piece on this story, including comments by the museum's chief curatorial officer, Jeff Kloha, whom I know personally, at my second blog.

American Exceptionalism crumbles in the face of coronavirus

As school districts around the country propose closing for three weeks, with two weeks of extended spring break, followed by a week of online learning, this looks like a bunch of ex post facto actions that nobody has any idea of whether they will work that well or not, either in terms of quasi-quarantine, or in terms of addressing what they're disrupting, like school attendance.

Let's start with that, per a set of tweets of mine from last night.

First, the extended spring break? That will work out how well?

Sooo .... more and more school districts are going to take an extended spring break? And during the actual second week of spring break before a third week of online classes, teens w/cars, esp. ... will ...
Go to the movies?
Do we force Cinemark to close next?
Go to malls? 1/x

— Biden Screwed Bernie's Pooch 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) March 13, 2020

Seriously. I'm not joking.

I don't know about younger students, but teens will likely go to the movies, or what's left of malls in America if they've got wheels. Are we really going to push malls and movie theaters to close? If they don't, are we going to expect capitalist corporations like Cinemark to invest a buttload of extra money into sanitary measures?

If you're a regular reader here, you know the answer to that.

And, if you DO do that, then what next? Especially with teens of the male gender, are you prepared for a rise in petty vandalism and hoodlumism out of frustrated boredom? Or are you prepared for a bunch of teen boys and girls with three weeks straight of hang-out time? Religious Right parents, are you ready for a new outbreak of preggers daughters?

Now, about that week of online classes afterward?

As for wk of online classes many school districts propose after 2 weeks spring break?
If y're a poor family wi/no home puter, you do what?
If y're a school dist, how do you fix this?
Buy them all puters & Net access? Money from??
Have group streaming? Oops, defeated purpose. 2/x

— American Exceptionalism, meet coronavirus 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) March 13, 2020

And, you know the typical school district is pretty tightly strapped. Many of them don't even have enough cheap-ass Chromebooks to pull something like this off. And, here in Tex-ass? The Texas Education Agency ain't helping out, and with an every-other-year Lege, ain't in position to do so anyway. All this is going to do is further expose the "digital divide" section of American income inequality.

And, will expose plain old inequality.

Are school districts going to give poor parents who are working during school hours money for a week or two of extra child care? Doubt that one, too. Help out if they're on free, or even reduced, lunch program? You know the answer there as well.

But, this is just symptomatic of a larger disease. If you're a regular reader, you know its name. 

A lot of this seems ill-conceived as well as semi-panicky. Doorknob forbid an actual Spanish flu hit today rather than #coronavirus.
This really is symptomatic of American exceptionalism. Pretend bad things won't happen, or good things magically stay in place after bldg. 3/x

— American Exceptionalism, meet coronavirus 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) March 13, 2020

By the "bldg" at end, I mean things like highways and bridges, sewer and water infrastructure, and so forth. On a lot of civil engineering, America is great at building stuff.

And it's atrocious at maintaining stuff.

Sprawl, white flight, NIMBY-ism and many other things contribute. But so does a part of American Exceptionalism, that, as I said, believes American shit is built tougher than Ford tough or whatever.

It ain't.

Per the issue at hand, coronavirus and control, I was asked — rhetorically — on Twitter if I have either kids or parents at home.

No, I don't. And my own age, and vulnerability likelihood, are irrelevant in a sense anyway.

Public health, and public health policy, is about  PUBLIC issues.

N=1 stories, whether the 1 is an individual or a family, are real.

They're also anecdotes, and private anecdote.

I don't apologize for being unafraid to publicly state that some over-reaction seems to be happening, while at the same time rejecting denialism. It's my take on public health and public policy about public health.

Beyond that, re the specific issue of school closures, I also have professional knowledge to relate of multiple school districts that I know of that ramped up precautionary measures weeks ago. Maybe Houston ISD and Fort Bend ISD are that incompetent. At the same time, I know of a local community college district that's already gone the panic route. (Students in college are much more likely to be wired for a week of online classes, at least.)

In addition, we're in Tex-ass. Respiratory viruses in general lose communicability in warmer weather. Colds and other coronaviruses we already have more information on tend to recede with the seasons; most infectious disease experts believe the same is likely (though not known for sure) with COVID-19.

But, it's not just Texas. Denver is closing its schools for this time period. So is all of Ohio and all of New Mexico. Panic? Yes, given that the normal isolation time is 14 days, not 21.

That said, IF school districts had better prepared in advance, this wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea. It might even be good to very good. But that's a counterfactual.

That's on top of New Mexico banning all public gatherings of more than 100 people. Really? You gonna arrest people in Santa Fe, Taos and elsewhere a month from now when they gather to watch Penitentes over Holy Week? Have fun with that.

But, let's move back to the big picture, per my fourth Tweet in the thread:

Then, when the eggshell of #AmericanExceptionalism crumbles, as it did after 9/11 just as with the #CoronavirusPandemic say "oh shit" and engage in ex post facto actions that may or may not work that well.

Off to blog. May add to thread. 4/x

— American Exceptionalism, meet coronavirus 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) March 13, 2020

And it did crumble then, and is crumbling today, in something not a lot stronger than a light breeze.

We can point to Trump being a Republican as well as an idiot, and to Bush being a Republican and a semi-idiot. But, despite Obama having some now-gutted preparedness issues in place, who knows if the same hysteria, overall, wouldn't have happened when he was president? Or 50 percent of it, at least? And, state and local governments aren't Trump or Obama. And all have had months to think of something since China, and several weeks since Iran and Italy.

I haven't even touched on the bullshit of the Fed's $1.5 trillion quantitative easing plus.

That's because nobody inside the duopoly would support my idea of nationalizing the shit out of some companies.

Meanwhile, as I note in a second post, there's plenty of science and math illiteracy among the general populace, and there's even more irrationality, not because some people are idiots but because lack of rationality really is default human nature.

And, in a third post, I talk about medical lying and Chinese nationalist conspiracy-mongering, all part of Xi Jinping Thought.

Still Green, not a Bernie-or-Green Buster

I have recently tweeted a fair amount of pro-Bernie Sanders stuff, and done even more retweeting. But I've also tweeted a lot of critical stuff, like old blog posts about him and F-35s, or him and BDS. In other words, I don't support Sanders uncritically.

Want more? Much more?

Per this piece:
1. Sanders voted against the Iraq War — but FOR the Patriot Act.
2. He has supported drone war, and used NATO and other fig leafs to support bombing Libya.
3. In 2016, he called out GOP-backed coups, but not Dem-backed ones.. That's why James Carville being the latest with "he's not a Dem" claims is laughable. Since then, he's been squishy on Venezuela.
4. Related to the above, he seems to still accept the establishmentarian foreign policy line on Syria and who used chemical weapons and when.

Per this piece, Sanders, and even more, head of the family Jane:
1. Practice nepotism at the Sanders Institute.
2. Take dark money at Our Revolution.

And, I'm getting tired of BernieBros and BernieBarbies with the lying denials about point 2 immediately above.

Per this piece, Sanders still opposes BDS.

I'm not a single-issue voter, unlike, say, a fair chunk of ardent pro-choicers or pro-lifers. Or, gun nutz. (That said, I am not sure how many truly single-issue voters there are.)

But I am, pretty much, a three-issue voter. One domestic, one foreign, and one combination.

The domestic one is single-payer. And, as I get older, but not yet that close to federal government finish lines, it becomes more and more important. And, within Democratic candidates, Sanders is the only one who clearly, and regularly, backs single-payer. Warren schwaffles, and she probably has a plan for that. Gabbard has openly supported both single-payer and a public option. Yang did NOT support single-payer, contra his own claims. Buttigieg and Biden both support nothing more than improved Obamacare.

Foreign policy? Israel, Palestine and the Middle East, along with broader bipartisan foreign policy establishment stances that need to be rejected. Sanders is the "least bad" on Palestine, things like Venezuela's Juan Guaido, etc. But he ain't great.

The foreign-domestic issue? Climate change. Again, Sanders is the "least bad" but not great. Howie Hawkins' original Green New Deal is better than AOC's Democrat version, which has been watered down since she proposed it — as well as being personally undermined by her by example. No Democrat policy here treats this with the needed amount of alarm.

Nothing has changed since then.

That's why I called him, there, the best Democrat, but said I was still voting Green. And, yes, contra some Greens, or some BernieOrGreen folks, I'll vote for Dario Hunter in some circumstances. The likely one would be if he gets the Green nomination over Howie, and Hawkins is NOT available via write-in on the SPUSA ticket.

I do have one "vote against" issue. I hate gun nuts. And, Bernie in his past was kind of a schwaffler on this issue.

Meanwhile, if you are indeed a #BernieOrBust person, I've got some hypotheticals for you. Hit the polls at right.

I offer all this information, along with the polls, because Bernie DID SHEEPDOG back in 2016 and pledged to do so in advance. If he doesn't win, he'll sheepdog again, bet on it. And if he does get the Dem nomination, he may throw sharper elbows at Hawkins and third-party supporters than did Hillary Clinton.

Texas Progressives — contamination-free version

Texas Progressives hope Ted Cruz gets healthy — and stays totally quiet while in his coronavirus quarantine cocoon, while wishing that other wingnuts like Matt Gaetz had at least this level of common sense on occasion.

In the meantime, dig into the contamination-free version of the Texas Progressives roundup.


State coronavirus

A Frisco coronavirus case is reportedly the first in the state contracted domestically.

There will be NO SXSW this year. With more and more vendors already pulling out over coronavirus fears, Austin Mayor Steve Adler pulled the plug. More on economic impact from Texas Monthly; Austin Chronicle notes that it was NOT insured for an occasion such as this, which will add to the economic impact. The alt-weekly adds that (in part because of this) that organizers didn't want to pull the plug themselves, nor did they want the city to do it. Up in Dallas, before the plug was officially pulled, Jim Schutze thought the idea was going too far. Since this post went up, the Houston Livestock Show also bit the dust, while the NBA seasons of the Mavs and Rockets, along with the rest of the Association, were put on hold.

Too much? I think largely indoor events with large crowds maybe do need this level of concern. Largely outdoor events, especially as weather warms? Probably less concern.


Texana

SocraticGadfly says that, contra past fearmongering by Greg Abbott, and contra recent bad reporting by Atlantic based on worse reporting by the Dallas Snooze, Texas is not being Californicated.

The Observer says gentrification is making central cities look like each other and the cookie-cutter suburban subdivisions that surround them.

The idiots following the wrong route — and possibly indulging real estate grifting in Roans Prairie — for high-speed rail in Texas claim they could begin construction by the end of the year. I've blogged about real-estate grift in Dallas, as well as in Roans Prairie, and more, long ago.

The Dixie Chicks are back.

 Rick Casey reminds us that Texas was the first Southern state and the ninth in the nation to ratify the 19th amendment, granting women the right to vote.

Texas politics

The Texas Democrat (sic) Party is so butt-hurt over various things that it's suing the Secretary of State to restore straight-ticket voting. Per Ballot-Access News, ignoring the stupidity of a U.S. District Court in Michigan, it has no leg to stand on. In any case, get in line behind real voting issues lawsuits, like the Greens and Libertarians over HB 2504 and related. Kuff reviews the filing and offers his own thoughts. Note to state Dems: If Kuff ain't doing handsprings over it, it's a turkey for sure.

Flying under my radar, Ryan Sitton got upset in the GOP primary for his Railroad Commission seat. Jim Wright is still a Rethug, but if he holds off whatever Doink wins the runoff to face him, it can't be but an improvement, at least at initial glance.

Paradise in Hell is enjoying the fight between Dan Patrick and George P. Bush over the Alamo.

Kenny Boy Paxton's PAC has taken money from Juul even while the state is now suing it.

Dallas

Rent-a-Center got busted for conspiring with competitors, but got a slap on the wrist.

Sheriff's deputies were busted for looting at a store they were guarding that was wrecked by last fall's tornado.

John Wiley Price's hand-picked serf from a decade ago to run Dallas County Elections officially admits screwing up.


Houston

Dos Centavos explores the strange story of The Ghost of HD142.

Craig Hlavaty finds the four nerdiest items in Houston.

Durrell Douglas documents how #ProjectOrange is helping inmates at the Harris County Jail exercise their right to vote.

National

In Brains' presidential check-in, he, like many alleged pergressives on Twitter in the previous week, bemoans the DNC throwing elbows at Tulsi without talking about who Tulsi really is. I had thought of changing my featured post away from the Tulsi Kool-Aid one, but as long as the likes of Brains and JV Graz are pouring it, it stays up until she officially leaves the race. No, she's not a Putin puppet; she's a Hindutva harridan. Some of her stanners know this and ignore it; many are just ignorant, period.

And, Mini Tuesdasy, Second Tuesday, or whatever one calls it? It seems to have confirmed the Super Tuesday narrative that Bernie can't get out the vote — and that specifically, he can't get out the youth vote. I had a brief discussion with one stanner Tuesday morning, who said "but all those youth at rallies." I didn't directly use the word "slacktivism," but I think that's some of what we're seeing. Worse for Sanders? Exit polls in Michigan had Biden beating him among whites without a college degree. He's in trouble. Period.

Also on Second Tuesday? Andrew Yang proved himself to be Just.Another.Politician.™ by endorsing Biden. I laughed on Twitter at Yang Gangers. The "Math" man kind o flunks with the claim that Biden is the prohibitive favorite. And, Mr. UBI touter flunks the idealism test that he let loose in the Yang Gang suckers.

Ted Rall actually enters blind squirrel finding acorn territory, or does better than that. He says part of Sanders' problem was "framing." He may be right; did "Medicare for All" captivate that many? That said, he's not all right. I'm unaware of the MSM attacking Bernie for talking about GOTV problems with youth. Both he and Jacobin caution not to write Sanders off yet. But, the Jacobin piece has no problem writing off "ill-fated third party attempts." I told Howie Hawkins he needs to talk to the author, a fellow Teamsters rep.

Charles Bowden, warts and all

America's Most Alarming Writer: Essays on the Life and Work of Charles Bowden by Bill Broyles

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


And, he had warts. An alcoholic drinker perhaps worse than Cactus Ed Abbey. As much a womanizer as Cactus Ed, despite his callout of Abbey in "Red Caddy." A fair amount of that book comes off as psychological projection; only on racism does Bowden seem truly clean of what he charges against Abbey. Maybe that's why he didn't have it published until after his death. But I digress. (Borderzine, from Tucson Citizen, has the best obit on Bowden. It does note he had quit smoking, had cut back on the womanizing and had maybe cut back on the drinking. A 2010 piece for Harper's sheds more light on his personality.)

Note: This is a greatly expanded version of the Goodreads review. Beyond the first paragraph, about half of this is additional material going behind the book at hand.  So, we're going to go back to Red Caddy and digress more.

In that book? He’s right that Abbey was, or certainly seemed to be, racist. And, I know, from what I see, that Bowden isn’t on Hispanics or Indians. Dunno about blacks. But, yes, the rest seems like projection. Including that both of them were guilty of at least emotional abuse, if not also physical abuse, against wives and girlfriends. And, in most cases, with both of them, they eventually ended things. (Clarke Abbey? Cactus Ed may have mellowed more and more the longer they stayed together; but, just as he never quit drinking, I doubt he ever fully mellowed. Her life is her own, and she can tell, or not tell, that story some day in the future. I'm done digressing now.)

This collection of essays talks about Bowden the journalist, which is what he saw his books as being — book-length reporting. Fellow authors, editors, agents and others all weigh in on his skills, his insights, his craft.

Bowden indeed told it like it was, from the destruction of desert habitat to the destruction of Mexico by NAFTA, which lies behind his series of books, articles for magazines and more, about Juarez in particular and the borderlands in general.

Arguably the most provocative essay is by Leslie Marmon Silko.

She says that already in Blue Desert, he was writing in a way that would become what she said of Gertrude Stein, Truman Capote and others — the non-fiction novel. She went on from there to his borderlands books, where she indicated that he had a lot of novelizing, and that this is part of why no Juarez drug lords offed him. He made them look so scary that they liked the PR. Same thing on the other side, she says. She made the DEA look so tough in fighting this that they liked the PR, too. She adds that she things she did much of the writing about this in Tucson, Las Cruces and spots in between, not in Juarez. In fact, she thinks that he didn’t actually stay in Juarez that long that often, especially after his first couple of books.

Silko doesn’t claim he made it all up. Nor does she claim that, at the start, he made much of it up. She uses the word “exaggerate,” not “made up,” to introduce this section of thought. And, this is as much as guess of hers as anything. Nonetheless, as she notes that even while claiming to live in Tucson, his actual whereabouts were often a mystery, who knows?

I definitely don't think she's all wet. Clara Jeffrey, after all, notes that editing Bowden sometimes required a lot of whacking, and that Bowden knew it (as with the ee cummings style in his PhD thesis) when submitting.

That said, I think Silko misreads Bowden in another way, in one section of her distinguishing between Bowden the person and CB the literary narrator he created. She said he once, in a book, called environmentalists “prostitutes” but in real life was best buds with Dave Foreman of Earth First. Well, Foreman, like Abbey and probably like Bowden, would identify as “anarcho-libertarian” or something similar first. Bowden probably did think indeed that the likes of Sierra Club leadership were prostitutes. And so, “CB” thinking women should wear high heels and makeup? I’m sure Bowden did too.

This gets back to Abbey more.

They were, other than their different takes on the border (and maybe on birth control) two peas in a bod. Both rejected — and rightly (rightly in the sense of who they were, not necessarily rightly on the idea) — the label of environmentalist. Neither of them was one, whether in a neoliberal Gang Green sense or a more truly radical sense. While both lamented the destruction of desert for its own sake, I think both lamented its losses more as losses for their own escapism, or the desert as an anarcho-existentialist place. (Ditto for Foreman, IMO.( Bowden didn’t get drunk and wreck vehicles trying to drive them in places in the desert they didn’t belong, unlike Abbey; nor did he throw tires off the rim of the Grand Canyon. Beneath his anarchism, and beneath his drinking, there was a deeper thinker and feeler. Bowden, per Silko talking about his relation with Santa Muerte, and other picking up on why he seemed to like the drug war narratives, reminds me a bit of Chris Hedges. More than a decade ago, Hedges said he was worried about getting addicted to war journalism. So, he decided to get out. And did.

Bowden himself talked about “the children,” especially. But, whether he wanted to, or not, and per Silko, whether part of not getting out was staying in by proxy, he never got out.

But, let's go to Bowden the writer.

Some samples in the book, beyond what I know best from Blue Desert, show that at times, he had just the right feel for words.

But, at other times, he feels stilted. Sounds stilted. Almost wooden. I know that's a shock to the cult of Bowden, but I stand by it. (Not as wooden as spoken-word Abbey, but still, wooden.)

One commenter, journalism professor Todd Schack, said that he, as a professor, now assigns his class to listen to Bowden being interviewed before reading Blood Orchid, to get a better feel for the man.

I thought, I’ve never done that. So I googled, and got him being interviewed by Amy Goodman for Democracy Now over Juarez, the drug war, the factories and NAFTA. Beyond the voice was the facial expressions. About every 3 minutes, after making what he had as a serious point, he raised his left eyebrow. It seemed not fully conscious. I took it as a mannerism, and because I believe in multiple levels of subconsciousness, took it as not fully unconscious, but subconsciously deliberate. It seemed about more than making a point. It seemed that Bowden was trying to indicate he was letting Goodman in on a small part of an inside secret. But no more than that. (Sidebar: Another essayist talks about Bowden's "cotton soft" voice. Really?)

This, too, somewhat reinforces Silko's take on Bowden. He's a Hermes, but perhaps more delightful in crueler mischief-making, like a Loki, or at least like a Krishna at his worst.

Laura Paskus offers this short piece at High Country News, saluting the book precisely for having people like Silko in it, as well as for having two of his ex-partners talk about editing him.

To "qualify myself," I own Blue Desert and have re-read it more than once. I've read Desierto. I've read Bowden in magazines from Harper's to High Country News.

A good short take on his thoughts about the border and Mexicans coming north is here.

==

The Charles Bowden Reader by Charles Bowden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a great collection of the best of Bowden. As the editorial note says, material comes from several of his books — Killing the Hidden Waters, Blue Desert, Desierto: Memories of the Future, Blood Orchid, Blues for Cannibals, A Shadow in the City, Inferno, Exodus, and Some of the Dead Are Still Breathing — and a number of magazine articles. I've read Blue Desert more than once and read Desierto and his writing for High Country News and elsewhere.

One of the best pieces for me was "Snaketime." His description of a life of daily silent intercourse with a blacktail rattler, along with tagalongs with a rattlesnake biologist friend, invites the reader to a new perspective on an animal that many humans loathe with fear and revulsion. As such, it's probably a symbol for Bowden's writing as a whole — shove fear, loathing and revulsion forward and challenge the reader to think, and feel, anew.

That said, there are errors about animals in the book. Claims that animals besides humans don't engage in war? Perhaps out of date at the time of this particular essay; definitely out of date later. Chimps have intertribal warfare, for example.

Similar on blacktail rattlesnakes. The idea that ethics says we should never consider animals as more than forms or whatever? Bowden could have read Peter Singer before he died, or even someone less radically utilitarian on animal rights and realized his "ethics" claim was at minimum, painting with a broad brush and at maximum a straw man. But, it's set within a larger, beautiful peace about living "snaketime," his summer of something personally kind of like Australian dreamtime.

I get where he was coming from. It's kind of like Mark Twain in "Mysterious Stranger," challenging people for elevating humans above animals for having this "moral sense." But, as Twain was saying human were no better than animals, I think Bowden was taking it too far on the warfare issue; we're not worse, either.

Disagreements with Bowden's thoughts would be fine. I'd still 5-star the book with just that at issue.

But, the editors get it dropped a star. They offer no explanation about what drove their division into five sections. Either give an explanation or don't make any such division. Also, I know it's essays from many original sources. Nonetheless, a mini-index, at least, would have been nice.

That said, on a sidebar? It IS interesting that many of the pieces have Bowden talking about his dad's drinking near the end. Was he trying to tell us something about the "why" of his own well-known drinking history?

And, was long-time girlfriend Mary Martha Miles, the primary editor, trying to tell us something with these precise choices?


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Finally?

The Red Caddy: Into the Unknown with Edward Abbey by Charles Bowden
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The best bio of Cactus Ed there is, because Bowden portrays him warts and all (while allowing for Whitmanian multitudes to be part of his contradictions, which I'll partially buy) and also because Bowden rejects "the cult of Abbey" — while indicating at the same time that most of Ed's multitudes would probably do so as well, but yet, some small slice of Ed would love this.

On the warts and all? Contra both "friends" biographies and the more formal one by Cahalan (I've read all plus seen the "friends" movie bio Bowden references), Bowden notes that, without using the word "alcoholic," this is most likely what Ed was. And, albeit indirectly more than directly, he notes that Ed's womanizing continued through most of his marriage to his last wife, Clarke. He also notes it seemed to surprise Ed that he didn't drive her off, almost as if he not only expected this, but some part of him wanted that to happen. Bowden also seems to indicate, again indirectly, that Clarke kind of buys into the cult of Ed, and that she probably does so in part because of marketing Abbey. Sic semper capitalism, and remember this, folks, whenever you hear Clarke Abbey talking about Ed. Surprised that Bowden didn't appear to put 2 + 2 together and note that this is precisely WHY Ed couldn't drive off Clarke.

It's great for specific dismantling of the cult of Ed, including how some of these friends, more, even far more than Clarke, pushed and promoted the cult of Ed. I suspect this is part of why Chuck didn't go to Ed's desert burial. He suspected the "church" would get started, and he'd get sick — or even get into a fight or two at the burial. (Bowden makes clear both that he was invited and that he clearly and explicitly turned down the invite. And, more implicitly, that he avoided being at "Ed's Last Supper," too, even though that invite came from Abbey himself.)

Finally, it's great because, per the editorial review, it IS a "literary" biography. The material in italics in this book read like stream of consciousness snippets from a dystopian futuristic novel involving Ed as a dystopian Nietzschean ubermensch. Ed would have loved to play that role.

Read this book.

On paper, it's about Abbey. Really, it's about Bowden as much as Abbey. And that makes it all the more worth reading.

That said, while I five-starred it, I disagree with part of what I identified as its premise — that many Cactus Ed fans would agree with him in rejecting the Cult of Ed. At least at the time he wrote the book, I think this was far from the case. It's still not totally the case. Note Bowden seemingly getting it wrong about Clarke. And, capitalism and selling slices of the cult may be a driver for fans, not just his wife.


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Beyond all of the above, this 2014 High Country News piece by author, journalist and Bowden friend Scott Carrier is well worth a read.

Is the Texas economy fixing to implode?

The so-called Texas Miracle, whether under Rick Perry's name or Greg Abbott's, has always been based on two things:

1. Robust oil profits;
2. Lots of cheap immigration.

Well, wingnuts of the Dan Patrick stripe, along with Trump federally, have gnawed away at the second.

And now, the first looks in trouble. (As does the smaller scale Permian-driven "New Mexico miracle"; see end of post for more.)

Non-coronavirus bad news for the Texas economy popped up Friday. Talks between Russia and Saudi Arabia for extending the OPEC+ expanded oil producers agreement broke down, and oil prices tanked along with it. WTI had been below $50/bbl before that, making the great majority of fracking wells in the Permian Basin unprofitable. We're now officially in Ponzi scheme territory, where the only reason companies will drill is fear of losing overvalued leases that cannibalize each other as is, as I've blogged about in recent weeks. Whether it will get as bad as what Aubrey McClendon inflicted on Chesapeake in the gas biz remains to be seen. It's not likely, but it's certainly possible.

And, at end of biz on Friday? West Texas Intermediate was at $42/bbl. And, it got worse over the weekend. The Saudis, after initial indications that they couldn't afford to fight the Russians, started doing so, first with a price splash. By last night, WTI was trading around $30 a barrel. There will be some bounce-back, to be sure. But, no way it gets back above $45 for some time.

And even that isn't likely any time close to soon. Goddam Sachs said oil could drop into the $20s, at least with spot dips, and its prediction is that WTI will remain in the $30s for the rest of the second and third quarters.

“The prognosis for the oil market is even more dire than in November 2014, when such a price war last started, as it comes to a head with the significant collapse in oil demand due to the coronavirus,” the firm added.

In addition, the Dallas Fed has already reported that hiring is flat out in the Permian. And, related to that, that rents have finally flattened.

Russia made clear, per that first link, that it wants this. Remember, the Saudis tried to force such a collapse a few years ago under MBS' pushing, but couldn't pull it off. Russia is less dependent on oil as a somewhat smaller sector of its economy and can take lower oil prices.

Update, Monday evening —

Oh, goodie! We get to read Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar give us some PR spin a passel of lies about the state of the Texas economy:

“The fundamentals of the Texas economy remain strong. The agency is monitoring weakness in financial markets, including commodities and energy markets. We have been tracking revenues carefully since markets began to soften. 

 "Certainly, Texas has exposure if oil prices remain depressed for a sustained period of time, and slowdowns in economic activity related to the COVID-19 outbreak could also be a headwind. We are still only six months into the current budget cycle, however, and it is too early to tell with certainty how current fluctuations will impact long-term economic performance and state revenues."

Yeah, nice try, Glenn. With half the new oil in the Permian actually being halfway to condensate, and between that and increasing water cuts, half the new drilling in the Permian being underwater, this would be a lie even before last Friday. OilPrice.com is predicting a daily surplus of 3 million barrels by the end of the second quarter.

That said, the amount of trouble oil majors as well as oil minors already face over economically unviable fracking says that the Saudis three years or whatever ago actually pulled it off more than they knew. Don't think the Russians don't know that, as well.

There's also the geopolitical angle. As it looks to extend its reach in Syria in particular and the Middle East in general (Yemen, anybody?) Putin wouldn't mind weakening Saudi Aramco, and some of the government it supports, just as much as ExxonMobil. Or it wouldn't mind continuing to help the legitimate government of Venezuela.

The flip side is that nationally, Larry Kudlow has already made murmurings of selective business help in the country's economy as needed. This also, of course, shows that other than in libertarian wet dreams, and the public speaking out of them, that the Platonic idea of capitalism simply doesn't exist.

I guess a silver lining is that a slowdown in drilling, per that second link, will delay Peak Permian by a couple of months. That said, at the fringes of the Permian, reinforcing what I said about companies seeking out marginal drilling, Apache is withdrawing from the Balmorhea area after claiming it had the secret sauce to find deposits in the Alpine formation there.

Another silver lining? This is possibly the best refudiation yet of #TheResistance that claims Trump is and has been colluding with Russia.

Update, March 30: DeSmog Blog now notes that many refineries are likely to be shuttering in weeks ahead. The typical refinery can't cut production below about 65 percent without shutting down whole units. The problem is a complex one, and more complex than in previous hydrocarbon gluts. A number of these refineries are on the Texas Gulf Coast, including one in Baytown that Exxon has already announced it is shutting.

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And, despite Joe Monahan's denialism, the problems (and rightful concern) are spreading to New Mexico. Update: The state has officially banned public gatherings of more than 100 people.