Dog Log 6

So we have had Loki for three months now.  We're told that this is the milestone when we can be confident that we understand an adopted dog's "true personality."  If that's correct, then we have a wonderful dog.  

Loki is completely comfortable hanging out in our condo unit.  He likes to sleep in his upstairs bed at night and he hangs out with us in his living room bed while we read or watch videos.  During the day, he often keeps Becky company in the office or lounges around in the most trafficked location in the unit.  That would be at the spot connecting the kitchen, dining room, stairs, and front door.  It's the best place to be attuned to whatever is happening, but he's kind enough not to move when we need to step over him.  If I'm outside reading or playing my guitar, he'll often lie watching me from inside the sliding glass door.  

He's become more comfortable sitting outside with us, but he usually wants to get back inside unless both of us are out with him.  Even then, he'll soon prefer that we all go inside.  I suspect there are just too many surprising things happening outside: squirrels in the trees, leaves falling on the deck, flying insects, people walking by, etc.  He remains quite alert to the world when he's outside.  Nevertheless, he'll eventually agree to hang out with us as long as we like.  

He's also learning not to be so reactive to other dogs when we walk him.  This is largely a consequence of our giving him a small treat whenever he sees and comes close to a dog.  He is, though, still quite wary of other dogs and can lunge at them if surprised by them.  He remains a pretty nervous animal.  His separation anxiety seems to be abating, but he still assumes his post by the door whenever Becky leaves the house.  In the past, he would try to wake us by whimpering around 5:30, but he seems to be getting over that.

He occasionally comes around looking for attention or wanting to play.  There are times when he's quite excited and will play as long as we're up for it.  Other times, he quickly tires of the game (fetch) and just lies down to hoard his toy.  He's particularly fond of a plush toy in the shape of a lamb.  I guess we should expect that from a German shepherd, but he's also quite fond of a slightly spongy baseball which he'll pick up in his mouth, then drop it and bat it around the carpet with his front paws.

He seldom barks.  His main form of vocalizing is whimpering.  Understandably, he does bark when someone knocks on the door, but he'll also bark if he gets just a bit too excited about the prospect of going for a walk or when he's about to get his favorite treat a "Check Up."  Check Ups are crunchy bone-shaped treats that he gets daily to help reduce the buildup of plaque and tartar on his teeth.  We brush him while he chows down on the Check Up and he'll stand patiently for us to finish brushing him when he's done with the Check Up.  It's hard to know what the whimpering is about.  He'll do it in all manner of circumstances.  It might just be his way of getting our attention.

We feed him in the morning and again after our own dinner.  He'll usually lie patiently in the dining room until it's his turn to eat and then come quickly to the kitchen for his dinner.  He's remarkably alert to any sound that would suggest we're breaking into one of his treat bags, even if he's upstairs, and for reasons that are completely mysterious, he'll run upstairs to see me whenever I change from my jeans to my sweat pants or vice versa.  

Perhaps the biggest relief we've had recently is discovering that with enough treats (especially Check Ups), he'll tolerate a bath.  His first bath as a real fright.  His second bath was better, but his third bath was almost easy.  Again, it's all about treats.  Bribery is no crime in this house as long as it gets the job done.  We'll reduce his payments as he comes to understand what is required of him.  We are, after all, still trying to bring his weight down from 70 pounds to around 60.  Hopefully, treats will persuade him to climb into the car on his own when we need (or want) to drive him somewhere.  That's a challenge we haven't fully embraced yet.  

All in all, he seems to be a very a happy, well-adjusted boy who largely understands what we expect of him and is willing to accommodate us.  As a blonde German Shepherd, he's a pretty rare beast and his one floppy ear makes him truly special.  He adds so much joy to our lives.

The Dog Log 5

Well, it's been a month since I last posted news about our dog Loki.  He's doing well.  When we first got him, rescue groups and veterinarians told us about the "3-3-3 Rule."  It commonly takes an adopted dog about three days to get over the shock of getting placed in a new home.  It commonly takes about three weeks for a dog to start showing their true personality, and it take three months for their true personality to become complete revealed.  Well, we've had Loki for just shy of two months and he is definitely showing us new behaviors.  Before describing those behavior, let me catch you up on his medical conditions.

All of the health conditions he came with seem to be resolved, except for his gingivitis.  His hotspot is competely healed.  Vigorously brushing that spot doesn't bother him in the least.  His elbows are also completely healed.  His ear infection no longer seems like a problem, but he does scratch his face, ears, and other parts of his body now and again.  Were he only scratching his ears, I'd worry that the infection was not completely resolved.  His general scratching is, I suspect, the result of whatever allergy he has.  (We are bushing him daily and vacuuming our condominium unit every few days to keep dust mites at bay.  He produces a prodigious amout of hair!)  On one day when he was especially itchy, we gave him medication that puports to relieve the itch.  It seemed to work.

But on to the behavior changes.  When we first got Loki, he had no alpha dog qualities whatsoever.  He was, in fact, quite afraid of both people and dogs.  Over time, he has become pretty unconcerned about people, but his fear of dogs has lingered.  Over the past couple weeks, he has become a little more assertive in the face of other dogs, especially small dogs.  He occasionally will lunge to the end of his (short) leash and let out a sharp bark.  This happens especially in circumstances where we can't give the dog a wide berth.  It appears to me to be a defensive warning.  He still wants to run from clearly aggressive dogs that are his size or larger.  (Loki weighs 71 pounds -- a tad bit more than we would like.)  

More concerning, though, was his reaction to our 11-year old nephew, Mateo.  Loki had no problem with Mateo the first two times they met.  This might have had something to do with the fact that Loki was under a degree of sedation both times because of his health issues.  At their third meeting, Loki, unsedated, growled at Mateo and later snapped at him, while Mateo was calmly petting him.  (Loki behaved similarly to an overly enthusiastic child in a park some weeks earlier.)  Mateo was not doing anything that would justify defensive behavior on Loki's part, so I suspect that sometime in his past, Loki was treated badly by a child or children.  A few days later, we took Loki for his last visit to the vet, where he again growled.  This time, guarding a "puzzle treat" when the vet took it from him.    

We take this new behavior quite seriously, of course.  Most of all, we would like for Loki to be comfortable around Mateo so that they might become good friends.  To that end, we brainstormed ways we might slowly and safely acclimate Loki to Mateo.  To start, we bought Loki a muzzle.  We were pleased to find that he has little to no problem wearing it.  Mateo and his parents spent about three hours with us on Sunday (Mateo's fourth visit), while Loki was wearing his muzzle and slightly sedated.  It seems we do have a simple way to safely bring Loki and Mateo together.  The muzzle will also be useful, if (when) we need to have a vet provide health care that provokes too much anxiety for Loki.  Having a way for Mateo to be with Loki while everyone feels safe is a blessing.

Loki has developed a dislike of getting into our car.  Except for the first few times that we took him for a ride, I have had to physically lift him into the car.  I load him in via the hatchback.  This solved the immediate problem for a while, but recently, he's been trying to jump out as soon as I get him in.  We hope he will become comfortable getting into the car on his own, using a portable ramp (which is on order).  Unfortunately, that's looking less and less likely.  Without Loki's willing participation, it's unlikely that Becky will be able to take him anywhere in the car without me.   

Loki's separation anxiety appears to be diminishing, though he whimpers for the first five or so minutes after Becky leaves the house.  He'll wait by the door until she returns.  We're not sure how he is when we're both gone, but my presence (or absence) doesn't seem to be such a big deal for him.  It's likely that when we're both gone, he behaves pretty much as he does when just Becky leaves.

He has learned the signs for when we're about to take him for a walk.  He's usually very excited to be out the door.  He's good on a walk, staying close by my side and not straining at the leash.  If he gets out ahead of me, it only takes a light tug on the leash to bring him back to a heel position.  Sometimes he'll return to my side with just a verbal command.  The longest walk he's been on was just over 2 miles.  Not bad.  He'll obey a "sit" command pretty regularly and a "come" command without exception inside our condominum unit.  Outside, "come" is a bit more hit and miss.  It all depends on what's there to sniff.  "Stay" is still a challenge, particularly a "sit, stay."  He's inclined to either come to us or just lie down.

He has become more and more playful.  He loves to play fetch inside the unit with a couple of his toys,  and he's increasingly comfortable sitting with us outside on our little deck.  He's taken to sleeping in his bed in the office.  This is a blessing for me, as I'm less likely to trip over him in the dark as I go to bed or get up in the night. 

All in all, if we're seeing his "true personality" come to the fore, things look pretty good -- that is, if we can get him to be better with dogs and children.  Getting along with Mateo is a necessity, if he's to stay with us.  

Emptiness and the Tetralemma

Many people not raised as Buddhists have nonetheless heard of the Four Noble Truths.  It is often the only central topic of Buddhism that they know: (1) suffering is the state of existence, (2) suffering is caused by desire, (3) the path to the cessation of suffering is the elimination of desire, and (4) that path is composed of eight components (the Eightfold Path).  These truths are recorded in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta which is an account of the Buddha's first lecture following his enlightenment.

The Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta also recounts the Buddha's explanation of "dependent arising."  Its place in his first lecture suggests that it is equally important to understanding the Buddha's teaching.  Dependent arising is, however, a much more difficult concept.  While the Four Noble Truths provide a clear and simple account of basic human psychology, dependent arising refers to a puzzling metaphyiscal view.  On the surface, it describes a repeating sequence of changes to a person across successive reincarnated lives, but it also refers to the infinitely complex character of the objects of our experience, each moment in time.  It was this latter, metaphysical account of dependent arising that most attracted me to a more serious study of Buddhism.  

I had very little understanding of dependent arising until I read T.R.V. Murti's The Central Philosophy of Buddhism: A Study of the Madhymika System. Madhyamaka Buddhism was the first of the Mahayana Buddhist schools.  It broke from early Buddhism by recognizing "new" sutras, not in the original Buddhist canon.  The new sutras centered on two important ideas: the bodhisattva and sunyata (emptiness).  I found that by understanding emptiness, the metaphysical aspect of dependent arising made much greater sense.

The first and possibly most authoritative explanation of emptiness was advanced by the Madhyamaka's founding author, Nagarjuna.  Nagarjuna lived in the first and second century A.D.  He is sometimes refered to as the second Buddha.  His most import work, the Mulamadhyamakakarika sets up his account of emptiness by discussing a "tetralemma," which examines four possible states of affairs describing the basic facts of reality.  (1) The fundamental elements of reality exist (existence).  (2)  The fundamental elements of reality don't exist (nihilism).  (3) The fundamenatl elements of reality both exist and do not exist.  (4) The fundamental elements of reality neither exist nor do not exist.  Western logic tends to focus on only two ontological states: existence and non-existence.  Consequently, it seems a little odd to expand the options to four, particularly when the additional two are built upon existence and non-existence, but there's no harm done by considering all four.

Nagarjuna examined each of these possibilities and concluded that none of them stood up to criticism.  If that's true, then a clear understanding of reality is not possible, at least through rational investigation alone.  To begin, we can easily dispense with possibilities (3) and (4).  Consistent with Western analyses, (3) violates the Law of Noncontradiction:  no statement and its negation can be true at the same time.  (4) violates the Law of Excluded Middle:  for any statement, either it or its negation must be true.  This leaves us with options (1) or (2) as possibly describing the basic facts of reality.

We can dispense with (2) pretty quickly too.  The simple fact of consciousness tells us that the non-existence of the world is untenable.  Just as Descartes argued that thinking was sufficient to establish a thinker, consciousness establishes that there is some sort of reality.  Indeed, the argument for the existence of the world seems more certain than Descartes's argument for the existence of a thinker.  One might conclude then, that option (1) must be true, but Nagarjuna rejects (1) as well.  By doing so, he establishes that all things we might posit as composing reality are "empty."

So let's turn from the tetralemma to emptiness.  I understand the concept in two ways which I'll call "compositional" and "temporal."  Regarding the composition of reality:  what we take to be real is in fact constructed out of things that are ontologically more fundamental than what we perceive as real.  Consider any ordinary object, say, a coffee cup.  We think of it as an object, a thing, that exists in and of itself, but upon reflection informed by scientific examination, we know it not to be a thing, but instead, a collection of things -- atoms which in a sense are "more real" than any collection they might be a part of.  After all, the collection can only exist dependently upon its components.  We think of the atoms as having an existence in and of themselves, while the collection of atoms is just a lot of actual objects adhering in rather close proximity to one another.  

But we should recognize that the atoms that compose the cup are themselves a collection of smaller objects and don't really exist in and of themselves.  They are composed of protons, neutrons, and electrons.  Furthermore, protons and neutrons are composed of smaller particles still.  To get to what are the genuinely basic elements of the reality, we need to look deeper and deeper.  Modern science postulates fundamental elements (elementary particles), but only if they are part of a good explanation of our experience.  Currently, no physical theory can do that perfectly well.  So elementary particles, like quarks, leptons, and gauge bosons, are our best guess at the foundations of the physical world.  They are basically just practical conjectures.  

Madhyamaka Buddhism holds that everything that we might consider to be an object existing in and of itself, no matter how small, is in fact a compilation of yet smaller objects.  There are no elementary particles.  As the joke goes, "it's turtles all the way down."  Consequently, reality is not composed of anything that has permanent, independent existence.  Instead, realtiy is an ephemeral construction of infinitely smaller and smaller elements. Reality, as we see it, is sunyata or "empty" of true existence. 

It is quite reasonable to say that thinking that the world is composed of an infinite regress of smaller and smaller compound objects is a leap of faith.  In all likelihood, it's a non-falsifiable claim.  At the same time, it is also a leap of faith to say that reality is ultimately composed of elementary (uncuttable) particles.  We simply are attracted to this atomist view because we are used to thinking about the objects around us which we now understand are collections of infered objects and don't exist in and of themselves.  Upon closer reflection, there is no telling what the basic substructure of the universe is or if there even is a basic substructure.  

This is how we understand emptiness through an examination of the composition of objects.  We can also understand it temporally, through causal relationships.  Without going into much detail, the Madhyamaka concept of emptiness is based also on the notion that no object can be said to be either completely separate from or joined with its causes or its effects.  The temporal boundaries of apparent objects do not actually exist, despite the seemingly discrete existence of moments in time.  Reality is not a sequence of distinct states of affairs.  It is a smear of constant change, without objects in causal relations to one another.  Ultimately, the world is one, ever changing, effervescent phenomenon.  We cannot pin it down at any point in time and assert that what we have pinned down exists.

In short, Madhyamaka Buddhism asserts that there is no metaphysical theory that can conclusively establish anything as existing in and of itself, either compositionally or temporally.  So a full analysis of the tetralemma tells us that each of the four possible states of reality cannot be confidently asserted.  The examiniation of the tetralemma and the concept of emptiness leave us with a theoretical blank slate, upon which nothing can be written.  

So how does this help us understand dependent arising?  The answer is imbedded in those two words.  "Arising" refers to the fact that a world is undeniably present to us. "Dependent" refers to its character as empty. 

Madhyamaka Buddhists meditate on emptiness in order to become better disposed toward gaining enlightenment, i.e., freedom from delusion, desire (attraction), and hatred (aversion).  These three "poisons" are the causes of suffering.  Understanding that the world we experience is empty (devoid of objects that have an existence in and of themselves) holds the key to avoiding the delusions we naturally fall prey to.  Reflecting on emptiness also mitigates our desires and our hatreds for any specific thing or state of affairs, since we recognize that the objects of our desires and hatreds do not inherently exist.  This allows us to maintain a calm equinimity in difficult circumstances.  

On a personal note, I have found that by meditating on emptiness, I am -- as the Madhyamika suggests -- able to cope much better with whatever trial I face.  Additionally, the simple observation that my surroundings are rationally unintelligible and that they are in constant, effervescent flux, imbues the world with profound beauty.  There's no wonder to me that dependent arising was among the Buddha's most fundamental teachings.

The Dog Log 4

We had quite the ordeal yesterday.  Loki was due for his follow up ear medication.  Last week, we sedated him and had the vet apply the ointment.  This time, it was up to us.  There are three sedatives we are to use.  The first two are given in pill form.  We found an easy way to get him to take those.  The third ointment is applied to his gums and is more difficult to administer.  Loki does not like it when we try to lift his lip.  Last week, Becky was able to administer the third sedative.  As you might recall from Dog Log 3, the three sedatives made him completely limp.  

Since we were able to apply all the sedatives last time, I was pretty confident we could do it again -- fool that I am.  Loki put up quite a fuss.  He eventually fled from us whenever we approached him.  It was clear that the third sedative was not going to happen.  Since there was no way we would be able to apply his ear ointment unless he was completely knocked out, we gave up the effort.    

About an hour later, I noticed he was sleeping quite peacefully.  In fact, the first two sedatives had finally taken their full effect.  He was limp as a rag doll.  That allowed us to get the ear ointment in him with only a little difficulty.  From start to finish, it was nearly a five hour ordeal -- one we hope we won't have to repeat for a long time to come.  It's promising, though, that we might not need the third sedative in the future.  We have another appointment with his vet in two weeks for another round of vaccines, but the prescribed treatment for his ear infection is now complete, and his hotspot appears fully healed.  

The next hurdle is to give him a bath.  Becky ordered a "Wondurdog Dog Wash Kit," designed to divert water from our shower head to a hose with a flexible plastic shower head, essentially a handheld shower head.  My hope is that by slowly introducing Loki to water in this way, he'll tolerate bathing.  Installing the kit was not difficult, though it might need some adjustment in case it begins to leak.  Loki's discomfort in confined spaces complictes desensitizing him to all that will go into bathing.  We'll need to rely on patience and persistence.   

Loki no longer seems to have much of a desire to scratch himself.  It's nice to see him lurking around our unit without the collar cone, though he still wears it at night.  He's very compliant about donning the cone.  Speaking of the night, he again suddenly and very loudly barked in the middle of the night.  We've also seen him begin to softly bark/whimper while he is napping in the evening.  It makes me wonder whether dogs can tell the difference between their dreams and their waking life.

The Dog Log 3

Loki had his third visit to the vet yesterday.  More on that below, but let me first catch you up on the past week or so.  

The last major event in Loki's medical care was his ear cleaning.  We were able to super-sedate him to the point that he allowed (with some resistence) a liquid to be poured into his ear canals.  We then wiped up the accumulated wax and debris with a cotton ball.  Having completed that task, we decided to stop torturing him until we could get him to the vet nine days later.  She would apply a "longer lasting" treatment for his ear infection.  

In the mean time he showed a few unusual behaviors.  He twice refused to climb into our car.  The first time was when we were taking him home from his Saturday obedience training.  Eventually, I had to pick him up and put him in the back seat.  I thought he would struggle during the process, but he didn't.  He was completely compliant.  A few days later we wanted to drive him to a local park so that he had some good experiences following a car ride, but again, he refused to get in the car.  We abandoned the effort.  There are only so many stressful things one should do to anyone, and Loki was having more than his share.

One night, Loki decided to sleep downstairs.  Normally, he sleeps in our bedroom; however, an hour after the lights went out, we were awakend by his very loud, agressive barking.  Loki very, very seldom barks, so something quite unique set him off.  He might have been awakened by someone dumping recycling in a bin outside our open kitchen window.  He might have awakend simply to an unfamiliar place or he might have been having a bad dream.  He barked in the middle of the night once before, shortly after he came to live with us, and I have seen him barking softly in his sleep.  So any of the three explanations for his barking fit are plausible.  Hopefully, whatever sets him off will no longer be an issue as he settles in with us.

Anyway, on to the big news: Loki had his third visit to the vet yesterday.  The whole process started with us beginning his sedation at 1:00.  We gave him 1,800 mg of gabapentin and 300 mg of trazodone.  At first, he refused to swallow them, spitting them out from the "pill pockets" in which we hid them.  Later he swallowed them eagerly when we smeared them with a pepperoni flavored cream.  Two hours later we dosed him with 0.7 ml of dexmedetomidine which we applied to his gums.  He was more compliant with this than he had been when we cleaned his ears nine days earlier.  Once that was done, it was time to drive him to the vet.

When we took him to the car, he was barely able to stand.  That he could was critical as otherwise I wouldn't be able to lift him from the floor.  He's a pretty big dog.  But I did manage to load him into the car.  Once inside the vet's clinic, it was as if he had been given a general anasthetic.  He posed no resistence to anything done to him.  The vet applied the "longer lasting" medication into his ears and took his sedated state as an opportunity to draw blood for further tests and to trim his nails.  Throughout all the procedures, he didn't flinch.  Finally, the vet gave him a medication designed to help him recover from the dexmedetomidine.  We managed to get him into a position that allowed me to pick him up and carry him to the car.  It was 5:30.  He had been with the vet since 4:00.

Once home, it was a bit of a struggle to unload him out of the car, but we managed.  He was finally, safely home.  We were extremely pleased that we were able to pull all this off and get so much done for him, but as the evening wore on, he showed no signs of recovery.  We began to worry.  He was able to raise his head around 10:00 PM when we could feed him, but that was about it for any sign of voluntary movement.  We went bed at 11:00 with him inert on the floor downstairs, but at midnight, I heard him come into our bedroom.  It was a reassuring sign that all would be well.  

The next day, he was still pretty lethargic on his morning walk, but perked up just fine by afternoon.  His hotspot is healed, so we've taken his collar cone off which means he's now able to "investigate" more of our unit than before.  We'll need to monitor him as he might try to get into things he shouldn't.  Of coure, we are putting the cone back on over night when we can't watch him, but he hasn't shown any signs of wanting to scratch or bite at his skin enough to worry about.

Having dealt with his most pressing medical issue, the vet has now pointed out that he has some inflamed spots on his elbows.  They need to be treated with the same topical antibiotic that we used on his hotspot.  The inflamed elbows aren't severe problems.  I expect they'll clear up quickly.   

All in all, Loki is doing fine.  He's even become playful at times, though he remains pretty skittish on his walks. 

The Dog Log 2

On July 16th, Loki got his first visit to a local vet.  It went surprisingly well, probably because she gave him lots of treats through the early stages of the exam.  We were particularly interested in the progess of his hotspot which was deemed to be still enflamed.  The vet was able to clear away the remains of the scab on his hotspot without him objecting much.  That was a big surprise.  Since it's still enflamed, he'll need to stay in his collar cone for about a week or so.  Becky continues to treat it, but with some procedures she hadn't been doing previously.  

He also has an infection in both ears.  That will take some daily treatment which dogs generally don't like.  If he doesn't tolerate it, we might need to use a less effective, but "long lasting," medication.  His conditions led the vet to declare that he is indeed allergic to something.  It could be environmental or it could be ticks or fleas.  The ear infection suggests an environmental allergy.  His hotspot and that ticks were found on him in the Solano County shelter would implacte ticks.  She said that food allergies are rare. He also has gingivitis.  

During the visit, Loki spontaneously volunteered a stool sample which we're having examined to learn more about his condition.  We were pleased to learn that because his current dose of seditive is quite mild, we shouldn't expect significantly new behaviors when he comes off them.  All in all, there might be a good deal of daily care we'll need to give him for the time being to overcome these conditions.  We were glad to have a thorough exam done, and we look forward to getting him in good, healthy shape.  

The vet gave us the task of cleaning his ears and administering an ointment to clear up the ear infection.  Unfortunately, Loki strongly objected to the ear cleaning, even as he had 1,200mg of sedative in him.  Per the vet's instruction, we took him back to the vet to have them try to clean his ears.  They too were unsuccessful.  Today, however, we succeeded after upping the dose of sedative to 18,000mg and adding two more additional sedatives.  He was pretty much a rag doll when we administered the ear cleaner, objecting a bit at first, but allowing us to get the job done.  He was completely compliant when we administered the ear infection ointment.  We're very happy to have got that done.  We'll have to clean his ears periodically from now on, so hopefully we'll get him to tolerate it without the sedatives.  His hotspot continues to show progress healing, but he still needs his collar cone.  

He's also gaining some confidence being near other dogs.  Yesterday, we took him to his first day of obedience school where he was around ten other dogs.  He was quit apprehensive at first, but eventually calmed down a bit.  The trainer believes he'll do fine in the class.  We have "homework" for him to do before his second training session next week.  It amounts to a few simple behaviors: getting his attention, sitting, lying down, controlled walking, and recognizing his name.  We'll start his homework tomorrow after he has recovered from today's sedatives.  

Right now he's sleeping quite soundly, and we understand it's best to let a sleeping dog lie.  I'm hoping he's having a good dream.

The Dog Log

On July 8, Becky and I adopted a dog: Loki.  He has a sketchy history and probably some neuroses.  So I thought I'd make a record of how he adjusts to his new home.  Here's a little background on him.  

The Sonoma County police found him on April 16th abandoned in a crate without water along Highway 680, between the towns of Benicia and Cordelia.   Loki was estimated to be 5 years old.  At 55 pounds, he was very underweight and his fur was extremely matted.  Clearly, he had been badly treated or at least badly neglected.  He was taken to the Solano County animal shelter.  While there, he underwent a umbilical hernia operation.  He was neutered and vaccinated.  At one point, large ticks were found dropping from his coat.  Beyond his recent traumatic experiences, there's no telling just how hard his life was before being abandoned. 

On June 6th, Loki was rescued by CalPaws, a dog rescue group that looks out for German Shepherds in particular.  Loki is by no means a pure bread shepherd, but he's enough shepherd that CalPaws found him a foster home in Sacramento.  He had reached an adequate weight of 67 pounds.

When we first visited Loki on June 29th, he had healed from his surgeries, but a "hotspot" had reappeared on his rump, something that was an issue earlier during his care at the shelter.  It was about the size of a quarter -- not so serious as to change our decision to adopt him, but a few days later it expanded to at least 3 inches in diameter.  Apparently, he aggravated it overnight.  A vet in Sacramento put him on antibiotics, an anti-inflamatory, and a sedative to keep him healthy and comfortable.  The spot was now a more serious problem, but still not enough to change our minds about adopting him; so we brought him home.

We've had him in a recovery collar cone for over a week now to keep him from further aggravating the hotspot, and thankfully, it's healing nicely.  He continues to get twice daily doses of his meds which we feed him by hand, powderized and wrapped in treats at each meal.  I expect he'll be healed soon.  

He was extremely anxious during his first day with us.  He paced about our condominium unit.  On walks, he was cautious, if not frightened of every dog or human he saw.  Happily, he has calmed down and is more comfortable on walks; however today he actively opposed going for a walk.  He backed away from the open door and bit at the leash, trying to pull it from me.  When I got on my hands and knees to comfort him and remove the leash, he pinned my hands to the carpet with his paws, clearly trying to prevent me from getting up.  It was a very puzzling encounter.

We've convinced him that his bed is a good place to be, but he'll lie down just about anywhere.  He's not too particular.  He generally sleeps through the night at the foot of our bed, but on three occasions he woke and started barking in the darkness.  Sometimes he craves attention; other times, he avoids us.  He sometimes gets exuberant, but he wimpers a lot, especially when Becky leaves the house.  Separation anxiety is certainly one of his challenges, but he wasn't destructive when we both left him during a 90 minute trial separation.  It will be interesting to see how he behaves after his hotspot heals and he's off his sedative.  

Loki has a lot to learn and much more to teach.

Project 2025: The Roadmap to a Unitary Executive

In April of 2023, The Heritage Foundation, along with a number of other conservative think tanks, published Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, a compendium of policy recommendations for a the next conservative president.  It is popularly known as Project 2025. Commentators have suggested that Project 2025 is an attempt to avoid repeating the dysfunctional presidential transition of 2016, when Donald Trump unexpectedly won the White House.  At that time, no serious transition plans were in place.  This delayed any attempt by the new administration to affect public policy changes.  Conservatives saw it as a missed opportunity -- one they would not repeat.  I read much of Project 2025 on an 11 hour flight to Copenhagen.  I doubt I would have read so much of it were I not trapped on that flight, but what I read was quite revealing.   

Project 2025 is composed of 30 chapters detailing policy recommendations for a long list of executive departments and regulatory agencies.  Its authors include former Trump Administration staff members, advisors, and allies across a galaxy of conservative organizations.  Many of the recommendations call for the reinstatement of the Trump Administration's policies that were reversed by the Biden Administration.  Other recommendations call for policies the Trump Administration was unable to implement.  Some even go well-beyond what the Trump Administration envisioned.  In nearly every respect, it is undoubtedly an extraodinarily conservative manifesto.  Democrats have successfully exposed it for what it is.  Enough so that Trump and his campaign are insisting that it does not represent a blueprint for their agenda, but the extent to which the report advocates core Trump Administration policies reveals their disingenuousness.  

At the same time, the Trump campaign is establishing closer relations with another, less-prominent conservative policy shop: The America First Policy Institute (AFPI).  The Trump team has appointed the chair of the AFPI, Linda McMahon, to the Trump transition team.  I understand that the AFPI has authored its own policy report for a new conservative president.  Reporting suggests that the Heritage Foundation and the AFPI are on quite unfriendly terms.  Whether this means their policy prescriptions are significantly different or that they are simply separately ambitious policy advisors isn't clear to me, but the best evidence is that their recommendations are quiet similar, if not all but identical in the most important aspects.

Project 2025 is divided into five sections titled, (1) Taking the Reigns of Government, (2) The Common Defense, (3) The General Welfare, (4) The Economy, and (5) Independent Regulatory Agencies.  The first section is perhaps the most significant.  

In "Taking the Reigns of Government," Project 2025's authors believe that staff members hired in non-political, professional positions (career civil servants) have become entrenched in their offices and wield authority over policy that reflects only their own interests.  Consequently, career civil servants are thought to constitute an unelected fourth branch of government.  This is particularly worrying for the authors in that they believe career civil servants are overwhelmingly liberal and will not conscientiously implement the policies of a conservative president.   

Following the maxim, "personnel is policy," the authors recommend instituting rules that will allow the president to replace career civil servants in a host of departments and agencies with political appointees dedicated to the conservative president's policy agenda.  In the final months of his term in office, Trump signed an executive order (known as "Schedule F") which would reclassify many career civil servants and bring them under the direct control of the President.  Notably, Schedule F was the brainchild of James Sherk who later came to work for the AFPI.  Shortly after his election, Biden rescinded Trump's executive order.  

The authors of Project 2025 also propose the elimination or consolidation of a number of agencies and offices along with a drastic reduction in funding and staff in those that remain.  Together, these strategies are aimed at disempowering regulatory agencies by depriving them of resources and ensuring that they are staffed by people hostile to government regulation.  It is ironic that these proposals are described as an effort to de-politicize the civil service, as though promoting a conservative policy agenda under the direct control of a conservative president is apolitical.

Were the recommendations in "Taking the Reigns of Government" put in place, the power of the president would significantly increase.  The role of the president would become that of a "unitary executive," wielding more or less direct authority over every agency in the executive branch, regardless of the charge those agency received upon their creation by Congress.  In most instances, the work of regulatory agencies is to implement the will of Congress as expressed in necessarily vague legislation.  This often requires technical expertise that would be undermined by the political agenda of the sitting president's political appointees.  

According to Project 2025, presidential control over the executive branch should extend even to the Department of Justice which historically has maintained a degree of independence from the White House.  The loss of that independence would turn our justice system into a tool for political power and erode the basic rule of law.  In light of the recent Supreme Court ruling in Trump v. the United States which has made the president immune from prosecution when exercising "core powers" of the presidency, direct control over the Justice Department would be an extraordinary expansion of presidential power.  It would provide presidents with a legal sword to complement their recently acquired legal shield and would create extraordinary powers no president has ever had.

The main thrust of "Taking the Reigns of Government" is the expansion and consolidation of power in the hands of the president.  Given the weakness of Congress over the last sixty years, it's hard to argue that the balance of power would be improved by a stronger executive.  Of course, the authors of Project 2025 argue that their prescriptions have less to do with division of power between branches of government and more to do with the un-elected fourth branch of government: "the deep state;" but in light of the rise of authoritarian movements in the U.S. and in Europe, a stronger executive is precisely the tool that these movements would use to undermine our democratic traditions.  

The latter four sections of Project 2025 drill down to offer specific proposals for the restructure and even the elimination of Cabinet departments and agencies.  Furthermore, they go beyond making structural recommendations to propose specific public policies commonly advocated by the extreme rightwing of our body politic.  

Much of the content here is deep, deep, deep in the weeds of government and would require highly specialized, professional expertise to assess its consequences, but some things do stand out even for lay readers.  My own interest in the climate crisis prompted me to read the chapters on the Department of Energy, the Department of the Interior, and the Environmental Protection Agency.  It is clear that the main thrust of these chapters is to promote the production of fossil fuel energy in whatever way possible.  Lip service is given to alternative energy sources, but Project 2025 comes just barely shy of baldly asserting the slogan "drill, baby, drill."  Primary goals are to expand the production and export of liquid natural gas (liquid methane), to open up additional federal lands for oil and gas exploration, and to weaken regulations protecting against environmental harms from fossil fuel production and the extraction industries. 

The last of these goals deserves special attention.  Project 2025 envisions a significantly reduced role for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  The EPA would, at most, become a junior partner to state environmental protection offices.  By giving state environmental offices the primary decision making authority in regulatory environmental matters, the fossil fuel industry and other extraction industries would be in a strong position to ensure that specific states would accommodate their interests.  

Weakening the EPA in this manner dovetails with two recent Supreme Court rulings.  In 2023, the Court ruled in Ohio v. EPA to block an air emission requirement known as "the Good Neighbor Rule," which protects downwind states from pollutants originating from upwind states.  Later, in 2024, the Supreme Court ruled in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo to sharply reduce the authority of regulatory agencies under the "Chevron deference" doctrine, named after the landmark court case Chevron v. NRDC.  Chevron deference recognized the expertise of regulatory agencies in interpreting legislation.  Loper gutted deference to the agencies and elevated the standing of industry plaintiffs.  Consequently, decision making that often requires highly technical expertise now lies in the hands of judges who often are not equipped to adjudicate the facts.  

Between blocking the Good Neighbor Rule and enfeebling the Chevron deference, the Court has significantly weakened the EPA.  It would be a final, fatal blow to environmental protection were a unitary executive to make the EPA a junior partner to state environmental offices.  Opponents of the EPA have long sought these policies.  Some have even suggested eliminating the EPA out right.  In 2017, freshman Congressmember Matt Gaetz introduced a bill to do just that.  Indeed, the extent to which Project 2025 intends to limit the authority of the EPA, along with proposed significant budget and personnel cuts, amounts to the Agency's near elimination.

Despite his denials, a future Trump administration is likely to adopt, at very least, the main thrust Project 2025.  Much of Project 2025 is critical of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the executive branch.  It calls for eliminating the Department of Education, reversing FDA approval of mifepristone used in medical abortions, prohibiting the mail delivery of abortion medication, equipment, and other materials, ending birthright citizenship, deporting millions of immigrants, and numerous other extreme policies.  Trump can be expected to follow through on those plans. 

In a recent speech in Wisconsin, Trump expressly proposed reforms that would bring the Department of Justice under the direct control of the President and firing civil servants charged with carrying out policies he disagrees with.  Trump also announce that he would appoint Elon Musk to head a new government efficiency commission "tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms."  He went on to criticize federal agencies of committing fraud and making costly improper payments.  His criticism of waste in government (without identifying specific examples) are consistent with Project 2025's justification for merging separate executive office, reducing their funding and staffs, and in many cases eliminating offices entirely.  

While the aims of Project 2025 are consistent with -- even identical to -- Trump's aims, the document should not be read simply as Donald Trump's platform.  The Heritage Foundation and the galaxy of conservative think tanks and academics who authored Project 2025 have given us the clearest picture of the rightwing agenda in American politics.  Furthermore, the close alignment of Trump's policies with Project 2025 and his embrace of the AFPI, suggest that America's rightwing is broadly unified around this agenda.  It would behoove political analysts to dig deep into the weeds in Project 2025 to understand the political terrain of the decade ahead, regardless of the results of November's election. 

Democracy, Plutocracy, and Oligarchy

Democrats have been sounding the alarm that Donald Trump and the movement behind him poses a threat to democracy.  The concern is real, of course, but we should note that it threatens an already flawed democracy -- a democracy more accurately called a "plutocracy."  Our plutocracy is a result of public elections being funded through virtually unlimited private contributions.  Unlike our school districts, our police departments, our fire departments, and other public sector institutions, our electoral system lies squarely in the private sector and is subject to all the inequities in that sector.

The intrusion of vast sums of private money into our elections privileges the wealthiest individuals among us.  When campaigns rely on private funding, a candidate must gain the support of those people in control of significant wealth to run an effective campaign.  Candidates who cannot, simply can't compete.  Privately funded electoral systems undermine ostensibly equal political liberties in which each person's political preferences weigh equally.  They inevitably produces a plutocracy:  a system in which the wealthy political donor class collectively guarantees the viability of candidates that protect their class interests.  In a plutocracy, a person's potential political power is equal to their wealth.  This is bad enough, but recently, our plutocracy has begun devolving into an even more undemocratic system:  an oligarchy:  a system in which not a broad, wealthy social class, but super-wealthy individuals exercise extreme influence on political campaigns.  

According to OpenSecrets, up through the 2010 election cycle, no individual or couple made contributions to federal elections of more than $20 million in a single election cycle; however, as a result of the 2010 ruling in Citizens United, the American oligarchy got underway.  In the 2012 election cycle, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson made political contributions amounting to $93.1 million, Harold and Annette Simmons contributed more than $27 million, and Bob and Doylene Perry contributed $24.5 million -- all to Republican candidates or Republican causes.  Democratic oligarchs responded in the following election cycle.  Tom Steyer contributed $75.4 million and Michael Bloomberg contributed $28.5 million -- all to Democratic candidates and Democratic causes.  After that, well, Katie bar the door.

The U.S. private system of campaign finance has given super-wealthy individuals the power to affect elections that no ordinary citizen has ever had.  Since Citizens United, 33 individuals or couples contributed more than $20 million to candidates and political causes in a single election cycle.  In the 2020 cycle, 15 individuals or couples contributed a combined total of $912 million.  In the 2022 cycle, 19 individuals or couples contributed $861.9 million.  Based on data released by the Federal Elections Commission on Feb. 2, 2024, in the 2024 cycle, 12 individuals or couples had already contributed $542.2 million.  Since Citizens United, people donating $20 million or more in a single cycle have contributed over $3.3 billion to candidates and political causes.

The partisan breakdown of donations is also revealing.  After Citizens United, Republican donors contributed over $1.95 billion.  Democratic donors contributed $1.42 billion.  One might conclude from this that while the Republicans have an edge, the rough equality of these numbers means that our system is not especially skewed against either political party; but that overlooks the bias against candidates who aren't popular among wealthy donors.  There can be vigorous disagreement between Republicans and Democrats regarding many issues, but there will never be serious threats to the wealth of oligarchs or the system that created it.  According to the Pew Research Center, roughly a third of Americans have a favorable view of socialism.  It's unlikely that a third of our oligarchs have a similarly favorable view.  

Only a few politicians will succeed by taking positions that are critical of the private interests that fund our elections.  Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are notable here.  Their success, however, is due to the size and demographics of their constituencies.  Ocasio-Cortez represents a single, urban congressional district, populated by an electorate that is unlike the wider U.S. population.  As such, she is more able to defeat the influence of big money.  The same is true for Sanders.  After all, Vermont's population is no larger than a single congressional district.  Consequently, Sanders is able overcome the interference of outside, big money; but the general political economy of campaign finance ensures that Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders will be rare exceptions. 

Opensecrets.org has done a good job of examining campaign finance records to identify the most prominent oligarchs.  To make the short list, I have set a bar of contributions of at least $20 million in a single election cycle going back to 2010 -- the earliest data published by OpenSecrets.   Here are the 33 campaign finance oligarchs that make the cut and their total individual contributions since Citizens United:

1. Sheldon & Miriam Adelson (Rep.)  $542,711,025 
2. Michael Bloomberg (Dem.)  $350,224,779
3. Tom & Kathryn Steyer (Dem.)  $312,394,765
4. Richard & Elizabeth Uihlein (Rep.)  $293,341,633
5. George Soros (Dem.)  $221,066,069
6. Timothy Mellon (Rep.)  $216,884,270
7. Kenneth Griffin (Rep.)  $215,446,668
8. Jeffrey & Janine Yass (Rep.) $157,449,281
9. Fred Eychaner (Dem.) $97,154,090
10. James & Marilyn Simons (Dem.)  $97,067,551
11. Donald Sussman (Dem.)  $95,845,250
12. Paul Singer (Dem.) $87,383,278
13. Dustin & Cari Moskovitz (Rep.) $77,569,612
14. Stephen & Christine Schwarzman (Rep.) $72,857,142
15. Karla Jurvetson (Dem.) $58,905,366
16. Laura Perlmutter (Rep.)  $44,461,791
17. Sam Bankman-Fried (Dem.) $40,743,790
18. Peter Thiel (Rep.) $35,373,342
19. Lawrence Ellison (Rep.) $31,007,943
20. Rob Bigelow (Rep.) $29,641,500
21. Shirley Ryan (Rep.)  $28,206,300
22. Harold & Annette Simmons (Rep.)  $27,066,900
23. Diane Hendricks (Rep.)  $25,742,500
24. Reid Garrett Hoffman (Dem.)  $25,701,401
25. Robert & Diane Mercer (Rep.)  $25,620,300
26. Bernard & Billi Wilma Marcs (Rep.)  $24,736,435
27. Felicia Horowitz (Both)  $24,529,147
28. Bob & Doylene Perry (Rep.)  $24,509,200
29. Marc Andreessen (Both)  $24,452,665
30. Ryan Salame (Rep.)  $24,053,000
31. James & Mary Pritzker (Dem.)  $22,305,000
32. John & Marlene Ricketts (Rep.)  $21,555,750
33. Deborah Simon (Dem.)  $20,006,173

As mentioned before, the total amount donated by these 33 oligarchs exceeds $3.3 billion, but these totals do not include the vast amount of money that the oligarchs might well be channeling through "dark money" committees that are not required to disclose their donors.  Nor do these totals include donations to state and local elections; so, for example, the $323.6 million J.B. Pritzker spent of his own money on his two campaigns for governor of Illinois are not included.

One way to support democracy and mitigate the power of oligarchs is to remove political campaign funding from the private sphere and establish a workable system of publicly financed elections.  The best method I know of for doing this was suggested by Lawrence Lessig in his 2011 book, Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress and How to Stop It.  See my review of it at books, etc.

Briefly, Lessig proposes that each voter be granted a $50 voucher they can use to contribute to any candidate or candidates they choose.  Additionally, any voter may contribute an additional $100 of their own money as long as they make no other, political donations.  This would ensure that candidates that are genuinely popular are able to run effective campaigns.  Assuming every registered voter made use of their voucher, it would cost the Treasury about $8.4 billion which is about 58% of the total expenditures for all federal elections in 2020.  Under this system, elections would be funded by voters, not oligarchs.

      

Law and Disorder

Donald Trump was convicted of Class E felony charges related to the falsification of business records with the intent to cover up other unlawful actions. This has put a spotlight on our judicial system and has raised a concern among many pro-Trump Americans that the judicial system has become corrupted by political ambitions.  It adds to their concern that the FBI and the Department of Justice have become tools to persecute Donald Trump and that the 2020 election was stolen.  Many pro-Trump Americans believe that our democracy is on the ropes.  

Ironically, Americans who oppose Donald Trump agree that our democracy is on the ropes, but for quite different reasons.  They point to concerns ranging from attacks on our electoral processes, disinformation spread by both traditional and social media, and violations of the law by Trump and his supporters during the January 6th assault on Congress.  Anti-Trumpers are especially concerned about the use of mob violence and intimidation by Trump supporters to achieve political goals. 

One does not have to take sides on which of these critiques is valid to recognize that our democracy is genuinely under stress.  The very fact that the two dominant political parties in the country each are squaring off to defend American democracy is a prescription for disaster.  When so much is at stake, scruples might seem like a luxury.  Consequently, it's worth looking carefully at what democracy is and asking what currently are the most significant genuine threats to it.  

Three features characterize a (liberal) democracy:  (1) free and fair elections, (2) protections for basic civil rights, and (3) the rule of law.  Societies in which these characteristics are comparatively robust can be described as democratic.  These features distinguish democracy from other forms of political authority, e.g., aristocracy, theocracy, ethnocracy, plutocracy, and oligarchy.

Free and fair elections help to ensure that governing authorities will exercise power with the consent of the people or at least with the consent of most of the people.  With a mandate from the majority, we can expect officials will implement public policies that are in accord with the will of the majority.  This, of course, will not always be true, but free and fair elections are our best avenue toward the implementation of popular public policies.  

Granting unlimited, sovereign power to the majority is not, however, an unambiguous good.  As modern liberal democracies came into being centuries ago, many people expressed concern that the majority might pursue its favored public policies at the unjustified expense of the minority.  Such a circumstance was labeled, "the tyranny of the majority."  To guard against this, democratic societies established lists of civil rights which were to be protected against the majority will.  The U.S. Bill of Rights and the French Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizen are two such lists.  These new democratic states were founded on both the will of the majority and the rights of individuals and minorities, thus creating an unavoidable tension.  Where the authority of the majority ends and the rights of the individual and minorities begin will always be contested.

Finally, the rule of law is foundational not only to democracy, but to any well-ordered society.  It is nearly axiomatic that in a liberal democracy, no one is "above the law."  Each person must be subject to the law equally.  Their rights as individuals or as members of minorities must not be abridged, and their right to participate in the selection of government officials must be guaranteed equally.  

However, non-democratic forms of government also can operate under the rule of law, just a different rule of law.  In non-democratic societies, laws might be established solely by members of a certain political party or elite, unelected religious leaders, members of a specific ethnic group, the wealthiest class of citizens, a few extremely wealthy individuals, or even by a single totalitarian ruler.  In each of these societies, the will of the majority and/or the rights of individuals are not fully respected.  So if we prize liberal democracy, we must defend a rule of law that is consistent with liberal democracy, not just any rule of law.  

Beyond protecting the will of the majority and basic civil rights, valid democratic laws are the product of institutions that are characteristic of a democratic order.  Imagine a society ruled by a benign dictator who just so happens to enact popular policies and protects basic civil rights.  While this might be superficially satisfactory, such a society is not democratic.  Its benefits are contingent upon the will of the dictator.  In contrast, a society governed by institutions designed to protect the power of the majority to enact public policy and to protect basic civil rights provides a more stable guarantee of democratic legitimacy.  Laws and judicial decisions that are a product of such institutions enjoy the presumption of validity, and the authorities acting within those institutions have a prima facia claim to legitimacy.    

Returning, then, to the concerns of both pro-Trump and anti-Trump Americans, which group has a better claim to understanding the real threat to democracy?  The answer seems clear.  Pro-Trump Americans assert that the institutions of democracy have become corrupted.  They claim that mail-in balloting which was expanded during the covid pandemic allowed voter fraud to undermine our elections.  Additionally, or perhaps as a result, they claim that millions of ineligible voters cast ballots in our past two presidential elections.  They say at very least, enough voter fraud occurred to defeat Donald Trump and elect Joe Biden.  Furthermore, they claim that a Democratic "deep state" intent on prosecuting Donald Trump and his allies have "weaponized" the Justice Department and the FBI, including state and federal prosecutors and judges.  

The complaints made by pro-Trump Americans are aimed at both the electoral system and judicial protections of civil rights.  Pro-Trumpers have, however, provided little to no evidence that significant changes to our institutions have taken place beyond Biden's victory and the indictments and convictions of Trump and his allies.  The results of an election and/or the prosecution of any individual or individuals alone provide no reason to believe either that our institutions have or have not been corrupted.  Without evidence, these attacks on our institutions themselves constitute a threat to democracy.

Our electoral system has been in operation for more than two hundred years.  It has, over time, been reformed again and again by competing interests to help ensure that it accurately counts our votes.  Elaborate mechanisms monitored by everyone involved in the electoral process help ensure its integrity.  This gives our electoral system a strong prima facia claim to accuracy.  To date, every examination of the electoral processes in 2020 (and 2016) have uncovered no reason to doubt its accuracy. 

Pro-Trump criticism of our judicial processes also fall flat, even if they contain a kernel of truth.  Disdain for Trump by Democratic prosecutors might well be a motivating factor in bringing charges against him and his allies, but just as with our electoral system, our judicial system has been shaped and reshaped over more than two hundred years in an effort to reach fair and accurate judgments.  Most importantly, it includes trials by juries.  The determination of the guilt or innocence of the defendant is entirely separate from the motives of the prosecutor.  In the case of criminal charges, the prosecutor must convince each of 12 jurors -- selected with the input of the defendant -- that there is no reasonable doubt of the defendant's guilt.  Any prosecutor motivated by political goals will need to demonstrate their case within these established procedures.  Trump's prosecutors have done just that.  It is noteworthy that at the time of this writing, 42 jurors have found Trump guilty of charges against him with none dissenting.

What differentiates pro-Trump and anti-Trump concerns about our democracy is their relationships to our institutions.  Pro-Trump criticisms rely on the claim that our institutions have become corrupted.  Anti-Trumper reply that those complaints about our institutions are unjustified.  Until pro-Trumpers can offer evidence to support their views, it is reasonable to assume our institutions have not meaningfully changed over the course of the last eight years.  Whatever legitimacy they afforded the election of past presidents, they afford Joe Biden.  And whatever legitimacy they afford the countless judicial decisions made daily, they afford decisions in the Trump trials.

The concern about the fragility of our democracy among anti-Trumpers stems not from the state of our institutions, but from the direct attacks on them.  Those threats are undeniable.  Trump repeatedly has voiced unsupported attacks on our political and judicial institutions and encouraged political violence.  He, furthermore, has made statements threatening to transform our institutions by putting in place procedures that undermine their democratic nature.  Tellingly, many of his supporters openly advocate disregard for the law in a misguided effort to defend democracy.  They appear to be willing to push our political system toward what they might see as a temporary, benevolent dictatorship, but a dictatorship nonetheless.  They seem unconcerned that their actions would in fact deny the will of the majority, shred protections for civil rights, and undermine the rule of democratic law without guaranteeing an avenue back to democracy.  

We should recognize, however, that actual societies are never purely democratic or non-democratic.  They can only be characterized more or less so.  Forms of authority are not like tree species.  Maple trees are different from oak trees which are different from pine trees, etc.  For all common purposes, any individual tree can be categorized as squarely within one or another species of tree.  In contrast, categorizing a political order as democratic, plutocratic, ethnocratic, oligarchic, etc. admits of degrees.  All states are a mixture of at least some of these forms.  At best, we can compare existing political orders to each other and describe one as, say, more democratic than another.

So just as there are non-democratic features to our current political and judicial institutions, e.g., privately financed political campaigns and unequal access to a capable legal defense, there will remain democratic features to any political order instituted by a second Trump administration.  In the event Trump is again elected president, we must make the most of these democratic features to limit what damage he does.

The Political Geography of Chance

What are Joe Biden's and Donald Trump's chances to win the 2024 election?  The answers depend on their ability to win in seven "swing states" that collectively account for 93 electoral votes:  Pennsylvania (19 votes), North Carolina (16 votes), Georgia (16 votes), Michigan (15 votes), Arizona (11 votes), Wisconsin (10 votes), and Nevada (6 votes).  Setting these states aside, Biden can expect 226 votes and Trump can expect 219 votes from the “safe states.”  

The results in each of the swing states in 2020 were extremely close.  Each was decided by less than 3% of the vote, giving both candidates a realistic chance of winning any of them this year.  What follows is an a priori assessment of the candidates' chances based on two assumptions:  (1) outcomes are in doubt in only the seven swing states listed above and (2) Biden and Trump have an equal chance of winning any of them. 

With seven swing states, there are 128 possible scenarios that could produce the final Electoral College totals. These range from Biden winning all seven to Trump winning all seven and any win-loss combination between.  Among these scenarios, Biden wins in 71 and Trump wins in 57.  This gives Biden a 55% (71/128) chance of winning and Trump a 44.5% (57/128) chance.

The "coin flip" assumption I am making, giving each candidate an equal chance of winning in any particular swing state, is important.  Most prognosticators look beyond the mere logical possibilities and speculate as to why one candidate or another has a greater or lesser chance of winning in a swing state.  They look at polling results, economic conditions, concurrent ballot initiatives, campaign spending, and other factors to handicap the race.  That is, they look for reasons to reject the coin flip assumption.

This is a perfectly good enterprise, but with more than seven months until Election Day, it's hard to know how political conditions will unfold in any particular swing state.  Furthermore, any argument I have seen for or against Biden or Trump comes with noteworthy caveats.  Right now, a coin flip doesn't seem to be a bad estimate of the chances in any particular swing state.  

In any case, the coin flip assumption provides a baseline upon which we can do additional analyses.  For example, we can see how a candidate's chance of winning it all changes when we assume a victory in any one of the seven swing states.  Recall, considering only safe states, Biden's chance of winning is 55.5% and Trump's is 44.5%.  If we assume a candidate wins one swing state, the possible scenarios are reduced to 64, and his chance of winning it all increases as follows.

If Biden wins PA, his chance increases to 79.5% (51/64).
If Biden wins NC, GA, or MI, his chance increases to 72% (46/64).
If Biden wins AZ or WI, his chance increases to 65.5% (42/64).
If Biden wins NV, his chance increases to 61% (39/64).

If Trump wins PA, his chance increases to 69% (44/64).
If Trump wins NC, GA, or MI, his chance increases to 61% (39/64).
If Trump wins AZ or WI, his chance increases to 54.5% (35/64).
If Trump wins NV, his chance increases to 50% (32/64).

We can do a similar calculation assuming a candidate wins not just one swing state, but two.  Assuming a candidate wins two states, the possible scenarios are reduced to 32.  Since PA is the biggest prize, we’ll assume it is one of those two states.

If Biden wins PA and NC, GA, or MI, his chance increases to 94% (30/32).
If Biden wins PA and AZ or WI, his chance increases to 90.5% (29/32).
If Biden wins PA and NV, his chance increases to 81% (26/32).

If Trump wins PA and NC, GA, or MI, his chance increases to 87.5% (28/32).
If Trump wins PA and AZ, WI, or NV, his chance increases to 78% (25/32).

Some of the 128 possible scenarios result in very close electoral outcomes.  There are four in which a change in just one electoral vote alters the outcome.  This would bring the results in Maine and Nebraska into the calculation, because Maine and Nebraska allot some of their electors by congressional district.  

Maine Congressional District 1 and Nebraska Congressional District 2 could possibly become meaningful.  Neither district is within the 3% threshold I am using to identify swing states, but I suspect congressional districts are more volatile than whole states; so these two districts might well vote differently in 2024 than they did in 2020.  Biden lost ME-1 in 2020.  If he wins it this time, he'll win in three more scenarios among the 128.  Trump lost NE-2 in 2020.  If he wins it this time, he'll win in one more scenario.  If both districts flip this year, then they will have no combined effect on the outcome.  This suggests that the Maine and Nebraska districts have only a very small chance of coming into play, but never say never.

One final comment:  Biden and Trump normally need to win at least four swing states to win it all, but there are some scenarios  in which they will prevail by winning just three swing states:  Biden wins it all by winning PA and any one of NC, GA, MI, plus one of the remaining five big electoral vote states ( (NC, GA, MI, AZ, or WI).  He also prevails if he wins NC, GA, and MI (without PA).  This gives him 11 3-state paths to victory.  In contrast, Trump has only three 3-state paths to victory which are by winning PA and two of NC, GA, or MI.  

So the math is pretty clear:  PA is uniquely critical to the outcome of the race.  

The results in PA have been razor thin whenever Trump has been on the ballot.  In 2016, Trump won PA by 0.724% (44,292 votes).  In 2020, Biden won PA by 1.165% (80,555 votes).  Of course, much has happened since the Election Day 2020, but as we have a rematch of the same, very well-known and polarizing candidates, PA is likely to be both close and decisive.  If we want to look beyond the a priori coin flip possibilities and examine substantive reasons why one of the candidates might win it all, looking at Pennsylvania is the best place to start.

Biden, Michigan, and Gaza

Last September, I posted to my other blog, "books, etc.," an analysis of the electoral paths to victory for Joe Biden and Donald Trump.  I assumed no significant change in historical voting trends which meant five "swing states," Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Nevada would determine the result of the election.  Allocating the remaining "safe states" to their likely victors left Biden with a slight mathematical advantage over Trump.  

I also considered North Carolina and Michigan in my calculations, but I found good reason not to include them as swing states.  Trump seemed a pretty strong favorite in North Carolina and Biden was in a very good position to win Michigan.  This last conclusion no longer seems so likely in light of Biden's response to Israel's war against Gaza.

There are roughly 300,000 Michigan voters who claim Middle Eastern or North African ancestry and roughly 200,000 Muslim's registered to vote in the state.  Add to these voters younger Michiganders who disproportionately oppose Biden's policies toward Israel and Palestine and the total is quite significant. Recall, Biden's margin of victory in Michigan in 2020 was only 154,188 votes.  

In Michigan's Democratic primary, 100,000 voters cast their ballot for "Uncommitted" in protest of Biden's support for Israel's war against Gaza; and just to underscore the depth of feeling on this issue, 19% of Minnesota Democratic primary voters (more than 45,000) cast their votes for "Uncommitted" one week later.  It's hard to say whether a reversal in Biden's policies toward Israel will win over voters aggrieved by the war, but if Biden's policies regarding the war do not change before November, Michigan will certainly become a swing state and completely change the electoral math.

Conversely, it's unlikely that Jewish support for Israel's war will salvage Biden's prospects in Michigan.  The Jewish adult population of Michigan is about 100,000.  They overwhelmingly are or lean Democratic, and they are not uniformly in support of Israel's war against Gaza.  Furthermore, polls have shown that most Jewish voters do not make support for Israel a critical factor in their voting behavior.  

These are, however, unique times, and the past might be no indication of the future.  The reported rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the US has the Jewish community palpably frightened.  Given Trump's support for Israel, any perceived accommodation to pro-Palestinian concerns by Biden might be enough to swing votes away from Biden.  

The most significant pool of electoral support for Israel is, however, not the Jewish population.  It is Evangelical Christians, but they are the most loyal Trump voters of all, and aren't likely to make the war a decisive issue in their decision making one way or another.  Biden's current support for Israel is not likely to gain him any additional votes in Michigan and is likely to lose him a significant number of votes.

Leaving aside any judgement about the war, and considering only his political fortunes, Biden would do well to moderate his support for Israel's war on Gaza.  The growing international call for a ceasefire and the call by the International Court of Justice for an end to the killing, wounding, and terrorizing of the Palestinians in Gaza creates an opening for him to reconsider that support.

Pronouns

In 1978, I was in my college library tracking down journal articles via Psychological Abstracts.  I loved the experience of being surrounded by its huge blue volumes, discovering tantalizing titles, and tracing them to our library's holdings.  It was then that I first encountered the use of "she" as a gender neutral pronoun.  At the time, the idea of "he" being used in a gender neutral way was certainly criticized, but no serious replacement was commonly offered.  "He or she," or sometimes "she or he," have become common, obvious options.  Some authors mix the use of "he" and "she" in their writing or simply make occasional use of "she" examples when "he" might be expected, but I saw none of that until after my first experience of this little bit of linguistic, gender rebellion in the psychology literature.

Reading the gender neutral "she" in a peer reviewed article was quite mind expanding.  It made me take the whole pronoun question more seriously.  Eventually, I came to adopt "s/he" in my writing.  It was short. It didn't generate the numerical ambiguity that "they" creates, and it could easily be read as "she" while simultaneously preserving a masculine element; but it doesn't really work in conversation.

It's amazing that it took almost 50 years for a gender neutral alternative, i.e., "they," to really begin to take root.  Granted, I encounter mostly liberal and progressive people in my Zoom meetings, but people now very frequently indicate their preferred pronouns in those meetings.  It shows a growing sensitivity to the experience of non-binary people and the problems our language creates.  The increasing use of "they" is certainly a good thing.

Nevertheless, I remain not entirely comfortable with it.  Old linguistic habits really do die hard.  "They" is likely the best we have, but, yes, it creates a clumsy, numerical ambiguity.  This isn't unique.  Consider the singular and plural uses of "you."  Numerical ambiguity here doesn't usually pose a huge problem, but different places do make distinctions.  Some regions make use of "y'all," other regions make use of "yous guys" to indicate plurality.  

I've never heard a term that gives a satisfactory solution to the gender neutrality/numerical ambiguity problem, but in thinking about alternatives, I tried out "we."  Like "they," "we" (and "us," "our," "ours," "ourself," and "ourselves") are gender neutral, but also creates numerical ambiguity.  "We" really isn't an improvement over "they."  In fact, "we" is worse.  "They" preserves the third person character of "he" and "she," while "we" replaces third person pronouns with a first person pronoun.  Despite this -- or actually because of this -- I noticed a very peculiar shift in my thinking when considering "we" as a third person pronoun.

Using "we" instead of "he" and "she" had me identifying with the person I was referring to.  So instead of thinking, "he rang up the groceries," I thought, "we rang up the groceries."  I seemed to be doing the job with him.  I was inside his skin.  Instead of "she fell down the steps," I thought, "we fell down the steps."  Using the first person plural to refer to a separate, other person creates a feeling of commonality or at least intersection -- a shared being.  It breaks down the psychic barriers between people.  I think it fosters empathy.

Imagine if everyone used "we" this way.  I suspect our world would become quite different.  The gender neutral use of "he" provides subconscious support for patriarchy; the use of "he" and "she" normalizes a binary conception of gender; but a ubiquitous use of "we" as a third person pronoun just might produce a widespread sense of community, human connection, and empathy.  It just might make it clear that our lives and our fates really are shared.  

When Is a Ceasefire Order Not a Ceasefire Order?

 

On Jan. 26, 2024, the World Court ruled against Israel.  It determined that South Africa’s allegation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza is plausible.  The Court then ordered Israel to take measures to ensure that it is not committing genocide while the Court considers the merits of the case. 

The Court ordered that Israel must take all measures within its power to prevent 

• the killing of Palestinians,
• causing bodily or mental harm to Palestinians, 
• deliberately inflicting on Palestinians conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, and 
• imposing measures intended to prevent births among Palestinians. 

Additionally, Israel must "ensure with immediate effect that its military not commit any of the acts" described in the order above, and it must "take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip."  

Press agencies around the world are asserting that the Court "stopped short of calling for a ceasefire."  This is a stunning misrepresentation of the Court’s ruling.  It's true that the Court made no use of the term “ceasefire” nor did it directly quote South Africa’s request that Israel “immediately suspend its military operations in and against Gaza,” but Israel cannot comply with the Court's orders and continue its military operations against Gaza.  

Israel has been ordered to immediately ensure that its military not kill, wound, or terrorize Palestinians.  The Court has specified no condition under which Israel may be excused from these requirements.  The Court has effectively -- in the first and second directives of its ruling -- ordered an immediate and unconditional ceasefire.  Despite this, Israel is continuing its war and continues to prevent urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance from reaching Palestinians in Gaza. 

Israel's response should be no surprise.  In advance of the Court proceedings, Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu announced that Israel would disregard any adverse ruling from the World Court, saying, “Nobody will stop us.”  If he is right, it will be because the Biden Administration will continue to provide military and diplomatic support for Israel’s war.  During an earlier press conference, Netanyahu thanked Biden for his support, saying the U.S. has provided an essential “diplomatic Iron Dome,” without which Israel could not carry on its war.  He also thanked the U.S. for “constantly sending us vital munitions” and for deploying two aircraft carriers, a submarine, and support vessels to the Eastern Mediterranean.  As long as Israel continues to receive U.S. support, Netanyahu is right: no one will stop them.

Netanyahu's remarks underscore Biden’s complicity in what is, according to the Court, plausibly genocide.  If Israel continues to kill, wound, and terrorize Palestinians or ignore other orders of the Court, further military support from the Biden Administration will make the U.S. a party to the violation of the Court's orders.  Moreover, if the Court ultimately rules that Israel is indeed committing genocide, the U.S. will be complicit in that crime and will be vulnerable to the legal and reputational consequences.

The U.S. can avoid this by immediately suspending military assistance to Israel.  It could then argue that while it supported Israel’s war when genocide was still in question, it withheld that support once the World Court ruled that Israel plausibly is engaged in genocide and enjoined Israel from killing any more Palestinians.  It's highly unlikely that Biden will follow this course, but a lot depends on what he does, particularly for the people in Gaza.

For the record, here is a summary of the key judgements made by the World Court.

• South Africa has standing to bring a complaint against Israel for genocide. 
• South Africa’s case that Israel is committing genocide is plausible. 
• Some of the provisional measures South Africa is asking the Court to order are relevant to Israel’s alleged genocide; however, the Court has the authority to order whatever provisional measures it deems appropriate.
• The threat to the purported rights of Palestinians in Gaza is urgent and capable of causing them irreparable harm.
• Conditions exist that justify ordering provisional measures to protect the purported rights of the Palestinians in Gaza. 
• The World Court orders that

(1) The State of Israel shall, in accordance with its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, in relation to Palestinians in Gaza, take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of Article II of this Convention, in particular:

a.      killing members of the group;

b.      causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

c.      deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and

d.      imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (15-2)

(2)  The State of Israel shall ensure with immediate effect that its military does not commit any acts described in point 1 above; (15-2)

(3)  The State of Israel shall take all measures within its power to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide in relation to members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip; (16-1)

(4)   The State of Israel shall take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip; (16-1)

(5) The State of Israel shall take effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts within the scope of Article II and Article III of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide against members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip; (15-2)

(6) The State of Israel shall submit a report to the Court on all measures taken to give effect to this Order within one month as from the date of this Order. (15-2)

Propaganda, All Is Phony?

How do you know?  That's epistemology's central question.  

Rene Descartes inaugurated the modern era of epistemology with two important works, Discourse on Method (1637) and Meditations on First Philosophy (1641).  In Meditations, he systematically challenged anything we might think we know, leaving his readers to doubt everything.  Then with his now famous argument, "I think, therefore I am," he claimed to have salvaged one bit of knowledge:  his own existence.  From this, he claimed to prove the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the reliability of our perceptions of the external world.  Later that century, others developed principles for uncovering truths about the world, thereby establishing the basis of the scientific method.

Scientists and philosophers of science have been developing and refining the method ever since.  Consequently, our understanding of the physical world has advanced by leaps and bounds, but the rigor employed to investigate the physical world can not always be applied to the social world.  We commonly find ourselves with unique, anecdotal perspectives, subject to information thrust upon us by agenda-driven mass media and largely unregulated social media.  In this context, methods for justifying beliefs about the social world are hard to formulate and even harder to put into practice.  For many of our beliefs, the question remains:  how do you know?  

I. Epistemic Constraints

There was a time when most of us were told about the world by three television news departments, a few radio stations, and a local paper.  The topics they covered and the how they covered them were often fairly indistinguishable.  Some people lament the days when this small number of media sources provided us with a common set of beliefs that gave us a shared understanding of the world.  The Fairness Doctrine, abolished in 1987, required licensed broadcasters to present controversial issues in a manner that fairly reflected different views.  This alleviated most people's concerns about the systematic indoctrination of the public.

In their book Manufacturing of Consent (1988), Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky explain why the Fairness Doctrine had been incapable of preventing a small number of media corporations from narrowing the boundaries of public discourse.  Their central thesis was that media corporations constituted an oligopoly.  Its main purpose was to sell audiences to advertisers.  To be as profitable as possible, they would have to attract a wealthy audience, and their programing would have to ensure that the audience would have a favorable view of the companies that bought time for ads.  Limited time for advertisements meant that most of the nationwide advertising was done by large national corporations.  Consequently, a media ecosystem arose in which large media corporations sold wealthy audiences to other large corporations.  News departments were, of course, free to broadcast what they wanted, consistent with the Fairness Doctrine; but the system in which they operated precluded any serious, consistent criticism of corporate America. 

The proliferation of cable stations began to destabilize the ecosystem.  It became even more unstable with the advent of Web 2.0 in which anyone could become a content creator.  Suddenly, millions of people operated in the system without a monetary stake.  Optimists believed that over time, Web 2.0 would democratize the system.  People would be able to publish information and ideas that were not constrained by the media oligopoly; but this information utopia never arrived.  

Previously marginalized voices remain marginalized, since only large corporations have the resources to reliably reach a mass audience.  Ordinary individuals can reach anyone on the internet, but in practice, they are lost in the ocean of other ordinary individuals.  Just as once upon a time, marginalized voices could mimeograph their message and distribute it on streetcorners, they now can establish their own domain where they can post reports and opinions.  That is, they can distribute their message on their own little cyber-streetcorner.  In contrast, well-financed content creators can push their content to a wide, mass audience.  Web 2.0 has not given us an information democracy.

II. Epistemic Chaos

The failure of the democratic promise is not, however, the worst outcome.  Social information siloes have formed as social media platforms intentionally partition the consumer market to sell specific markets to advertisers.  By customizing search results to feed different information to different people, they create more or less mutually exclusive consumer communities, with natural relationships to specific political messages.  For example, people in the market for guns are a target for NRA propaganda.  People in the market for electric cars are a target for green energy propaganda.  

Parasitic on these consumer/political communities, Web 2.0's millions of new content providers have produced a cacophony of often dubious information sources on the Web, some having no integrity at all.  The lack of any serious online interaction among these information sources and the persistent influence of confirmation bias among people searching the Web have created more than a few contradictory siloes of self-indoctrinating communities. 

It's here that epistemic chaos is born in the creation of "information bubbles."  As described above, bubbles come about through both our own search habits and the algorithms used by search engines.  The result is that different segments of the population are presented with different caricatures of the world containing contradictory basic facts.  People in each bubble come to think their own beliefs are obvious and well-justified.  Anyone outside one's bubble appears to be utterly deluded.  It is true that some bubbles are more misguided than others, but none have a god's eye view of the world.

Beyond these systemic distortions, conscious efforts to shape public opinion are not new in the U.S.  In 1917, Woodrow Wilson created the "Committee on Public Information," aimed at generating support for U.S.'s involvement in World War I.  Since then, the U.S. government has engaged in numerous efforts to influence public opinion.  A briefly declassified 1979 Army field manual on psychological operations (PSYOPS) describes three types of propaganda: white, grey, and black.  White propaganda is truthful information disseminated to conscientiously inform people, grey propaganda is truthful information which, by not telling the whole story, leads people to false beliefs, and black propaganda is, well, simple flat-out lies.  

The PSYOPS manual explicitly forbade targeting the U.S. population with black propaganda; however, in his book, In Search of Enemies, former CIA agent John Stockwell described the common use of black propaganda in foreign countries.  Stockwell worked for the Agency for 12 years in Congo, Burundi, Vietnam, and Angola.  He noted that black propaganda disseminated in foreign countries would inevitably be picked up in the domestic media when they report stories sourced abroad.   

With the advent of Web 2.0, the problem has become compounded by individuals and private organizations -- including political parties and campaign committees -- that intentionally promulgate grey and black propaganda.  With specific strategies to make their messages "go viral," individual and corporate disinformation is passed on unwittingly by others.  In the new Web 2.0 ecosystem, truth has taken a backseat to persuasion, and openly lying about the most well-established facts has become common in politics. 

The license to lie is bad enough without the advent of artificial intelligence.  The internet has been a cesspool of disinformation in politics for a number of years now, but AI now provides people with the ability to create "deep fakes," i.e., fabricated images, videos, and sound recordings that will escape all but the most sophisticated digital forensic scrutiny.  The likely result of the widespread use of AI is that people will have even greater reason to reject any evidence that they choose to disagree with.  We will all become more and more deeply entrenched in our information bubbles, falling prey of confirmation bias and immune to counter arguments.  The answer to the question, "how do you know?" will become, "Well, you never do;" so you might as well believe what is commonly accepted in your social milieu. 

III. Epistemic Virtues

Is there a way to retain some semblance of a connection to reality?  I think at this point the answer is more or less "yes," but one must make a diligent effort to cultivate epistemic virtues.  That's a fancy way to say, one must create habits that allow you to recognize unfounded claims and to establish reliable beliefs.  This involves many things, including the vigorous examination of one's sources of information, their prior perspectives, their institutional limitations, and their track record for accuracy.  It involves high standards for accepting testable claims, appropriate respect for expertise, and the recognition of gradations of justification.  Most importantly, it requires a healthy dose of critical self-examination.  

Maintaining a system of beliefs that roughly conforms to reality is like gardening.  You must prepare the soil to create good conditions for desirable beliefs.  You must keep them healthy and remove any weeds as soon as they appear; but the real problem is global epistemic chaos.  None of us alone can solve that, no matter how diligently we tend our personal gardens.  If there's a broader, social response that can mitigate the growth of the chaos, it certainly isn't clear to me.