Program Archive - Capital District Humanist Society

Blair Horner has been a leading legendary figure in the New York Public Interest Research Group since 1979, recently as Executive Director. His topic was the workings of New York State government budgeting, which really encompasses mostly all public issues in the state. (Please don’t yawn and turn the page.)

The state’s fiscal year begins April 1, and a budget is supposed to be in place by that date. It’s typically been late in modern times.

The process starts with the governor submitting a budget proposal to the legislature, by the third Tuesday in January. The Assembly then prepares a “Yellow Book,” and the Senate a “Blue Book,” with their analyses on the governor’s submission. These provide the templates for public debate. Then they hold hearings in which, Horner said, legislators pretend to be interested in the issues. These hearings are the only opportunities for the public to provide input. Meantime, based upon this process, the governor has 30 days in which to amend the submitted budget proposal.

The final version is subject to negotiation between the governor and the Assembly and Senate leaders — the “three men in a room” system — though currently two of the three are non-men.

In those negotiations, the governor has the upper hand, able to hold up the whole thing in order to force approval of non-budget legislation. Meantime, the governor already had the ability to get, into the budget, various policy initiatives (which typically do entail expenditure of money). And then, in the end, the legislature does not actually have any ability to amend the package; instead it must approve or reject the whole budget in toto. Not much of an option.

This is the system we have, embedded in New York’s constitution, making the governor practically all-powerful. The two legislative leaders do have a little power. All the other 200+ legislators are really just window-dressing.

A big controversial issue lately has been Medical Aid in Dying (or assisted suicide). The legislation had passed, and the governor said she would sign it — with some changes, making the system more restrictive (and hard for people to actually utilize). She finally did sign it on February 6 — the last possible day under the state’s rules — and with so little fanfare it was not even noted in the Albany Times-Union’s Saturday print version.

Other big issues coming up include utility rate affordability (an old mainstay); auto insurance (the system rife with fraud); and rollback of the state’s climate targets. A 2019 law aimed for net zero emissions by 2050. We’re not biting that bullet, or even licking it. Horner noted that while Germany’s power supply is 50% solar, in New York it’s not even 5%. He saw no political will to get serious on the issue — with proposals for rollback representing capitulation.

Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow’s book is Atomic Dreams: The New Nuclear Evangelists and the Fight for the Future of Energy. It’s about reviving nuclear power in the U.S.

The author explains that she started from a mindset of antipathy toward nuclear power, bedazzled instead by clean renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and batteries, as the ultimate and favored solution for climate change. Nuclear just gave her bad vibes, as dangerous, costly, tainted by its sheer bigness, and entailing the problem of nuclear waste. She noted that this is a widespread feeling, with many people associating nuclear energy with nuclear weapons, and Godzilla. Soured by accidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. And the issue seemed to have receded since for a long time no new atomic power plants were being built. New York had shut down two, at Indian Point and Shoreham.

But as she chronicles, there’s a new and growing awareness of the technology’s importance if we’re serious about combating climate change. Renewables like wind and solar are great, but just cannot fill all our energy needs. She was influenced by information coming from sources she could trust, like the Union of Concerned Scientists, and an article whose lead author was James Hansen, the renowned NASA scientist.

Nuclear power has three big pluses: 1) virtually zero carbon emissions, thus truly clean energy; 2) it’s “baseload power” that can operate 24/7, unlike solar and wind power dependent on the weather gods; and 3) greater “energy density,” or less land use, producing much more power per unit of whatever than burning coal or oil or people.

The nuclear waste issue is actually not that big a deal. Nobody’s ever been harmed by it. While on the other hand, people aren’t alive to the very real and greater risks of fossil fuel energy production, causing air pollution that kills great numbers of us, but below the radar.

She noted that after closing Indian Point, with natural gas power production filling the gap, New York’s nasty emissions rose. Nearer her home in California, the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant was slated for closure. But then, in 2022, overcoming pushback from the state’s legions of tree-huggers, Governor Newsom got that decision reversed. There’s meantime been a lot of progress in designing cheaper, better, and safer nuclear power technologies.

Jennie Erin Smith is a journalist who’s authored the book Valley of Forgetting. It’s about an extended rural Colombian family, with 6,000 members, in which early onset Alzheimer’s disease is endemic. Smith spent seven years in Medellin working on this.

The family’s cause of illness is a genetic mutation, which kills sufferers in the 45-50 age range. Smith’s main contact point was Dr. Francisco Lopera, a neurologist, who focused his career working on this particular problem. The effort was complicated by pervasive political violence in Colombia during the 1980s. Also part of the story was Dr. Ken Kosik, who identified the gene involved.

One family that Smith spent much time with had two girls whose mother died of the ailment at 49 —one of seven siblings, out of ten, who died before age 50. Smith noted that even many in the larger family who were spared the gene, and the illness, had their lives derailed by having to care for prematurely afflicted elders.

Dr. Lopera spearheaded a clinical trial, concentrating on this family, using a drug called Crenezumab, to see if it could prevent the onset of illness in people having the otherwise deadly mutation. There was hope that this work could also be helpful with regard to late-onset Alzheimer’s. Unfortunately, the trial ultimately failed.

However, meantime, they started seeing people having the mutation who did not get sick. It turned out that there was a separate mutation that counteracted the first one. Showing the complexity of the problem.

Fresh trials, with different drugs, are currently underway; and prelapsarian U.S. authorities in fact approved a medicine which does seem to combat Alzheimer’s symptoms. However, a problem for Colombian sufferers is that they can’t afford its stiff cost.

Recap prepared by Frank S. Robinson

Dr. Joseph Gerson spoke about U.S. policy on China. He called it “U.S.-China Relations
101,” tracing the historical background, the current issues, and prospects going forward.
Gerson sees intense competition for supremacy in military, geopolitical, and economic
spheres. And likened the global picture to the rules of the game among mafia families. He
sees parallels between today’s situation and that which led up to World War I.
Gerson said that China’s thinking is still heavily influenced by what it sees as its past
“Century of Humiliation,” with “hegemonic forces” (meaning America, mainly) trying to
hobble its rightful place at the forefront of the world. And he said China has in fact risen,
drawing more or less even with the U.S. on measures like GDP, manufacturing capacity,
military might, technology, etc.
While Trump is actually shredding America’s power and influence. His path is defined by
enriching his family and cronies; promoting white supremacism; with an attitude of
“Sovereigntism,” meaning doing what we want, and to hell with others. While he
undermines the reasons why America previously commanded respect and admiration — its
rule-of-law institutional foundations. With an anti-foreigner gestapo-like force, attacks on
science and universities, etc., and bludgeoning our former friends with tariffs and other
hostile policies. All this reduces our influence and increases China’s.
While China strives to build a neighborhood sphere of influence, pushing its way into
nearby seas, this is still countered by what Gerson called a “latticework” of U.S. alliances
— centered upon Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and Australia. With Taiwan a
particular hinge-point.
The island has been effectively independent since 1949, but China derangedly insists on
“reunification,” to be achieved militarily if nothing else works (and nothing else will). This
will come to a head in not too many years; the confrontation will be decisive.

Recap prepared by Frank S. Robinson

Whitney Phillips and Mark Brockway spoke about their book, The Shadow Gospel — How Anti-Liberal Demonology Possessed U.S. Religion, Media, and Politics.

Well, not all of it, but a big part. Phillips said what’s involved here is not love of God but hatred of the “liberal devil.” Today’s American right does thrive on conflating “liberals” (and Democrats) with Satan. Indeed, for them the category extends even to some conservatives and Christians not fully on board with their political project.

But another key point is the complexity of this political landscape, with some of the issues involved not being obviously political. For example, DEI, obsessively demonized by today’s American right. Phillips opined that the DEI idea shouldn’t even be politically divisive. [Perhaps a naive notion — FSR.] Anyhow, she suggested that this rightist movement is fear-driven, while it’s not even clear what the threat is — a “fight against shadows,” she called it.

Brockway traced today’s anti-liberal demonization as the successor to 1950’s anti-communism, with its fears of subversion. He also cited a 1942 preacher gathering identifying “liberalism” as a threat to the Christianity they valorized, thus rejecting the “social gospel” of compassion for the disadvantaged. Schools pushing such ideas seen as a particular threat — the preachers felt a need to save children’s souls from Satan. Which was linked with communism. Still today (despite the USSR’s demise) invoked as a bogeyman by the right, the name “Marx” ubiquitous in their messaging.

But the bigger bogeyman now is homosexuality and, especially, transgenderism. The new thing they want to protect children against in schools. Here again, coded as being associated with the liberal left. And here too, Brockway suggested such matters shouldn’t even be political issues. He questioned what the term “liberal” even really means anyway. The right treats it as referring to everything in American culture they loathe, especially anything having to do with sexuality.

Trump was quoted talking about kids’ gender being changed in schools without parental consent. But the right cloaks its crusade in language about “local control, school choice, and protecting parents’ rights” which, Brockway said, “sounds much less nuts.”

Recap by Frank Robinsn

Journalist Murray Carpenter has authored the book Sweet and Deadly – How Coca-Cola Spreads Disinformation and Makes Us Sick.

He cited a growing body of research showing that sugar-sweetened beverages are a leading cause of U.S. ill-health. Coca-Cola [originally named for an ingredient you can guess – FSR] is a big part of that picture. This is a major global company with $47 billion in annual revenue, $300 billion market value, and 21 “billion dollar brands.”

Carpenter said chronic “diseases of lifestyle” are becoming more endemic. Obesity a big part of this. He noted that drinking one 12 ounce can of Coke daily increases the risk of Type 2 Diabetes by 25%.

That can has 39 grams of sugar. A 20-ounce can has 65 grams, and Carpenter showed a plastic bag holding that much sugar. He could hardly lift it (slight exaggeration; but it’s a lot of sugar).

It was also noted that Coke has a lot of caffeine — in fact, sodas comprise a bigger share of global caffeine consumption than coffee and tea.

Carpenter asserted that Coca-Cola has followed the “tobacco playbook,” a public relations strategy to counter scientific information. Other examples are Exxon Mobil and Purdue Pharma.

A further relevant strategy is “price mixing,” offering the product in containers of different volumes, including “mini-cans,” the aim being to get the most money per unit of volume.

Another problem ingredient endemic in modern food products is high fructose corn syrup — it’s very abundant and cheap (and makes things taste good). But in health terms, calorie-for-calorie it’s worse than plain old sugar, because the body metabolizes it differently.

Asked about Diet Coke, Carpenter said he strongly favors it as a halfway-house alternative to the Full Monty. However, he said it tricks the brain into thinking it’s getting sugar, and pointed out that it actually has more caffeine than regular Coke.

Recap prepared by Frank Robinson

Dr. Tyina Steptoe is an Associate History Professor at the University of Arizona. Her presentation was titled “Big Mama Thornton, Little Richard, and the Queer Roots of Rock ‘n’ Roll.” (Note: sometimes written as “Rock and Roll,” but mine is the correct orthography.)

Steptoe started with a nod to the Great Migration of southern Blacks moving north, invoking a “Second Great Migration” toward the west. Her story really begins in Houston, whose Bronze Peacock night club spawned the Peacock Records company around 1950, technological advances making it easier and cheaper to produce mass-market records.

Willie Mae Thornton (1926-84), later known as “Big Mama,” started singing in bars in her native Alabama at a very tender age, then joined a traveling “theater group” with motley performers and thereby wound up in Houston and connected with Peacock. Her metier was “Rhythm & Blues,” a largely Black thing, later bleached as “Rock ‘n’ Roll” for wider audiences. Thus her first hit song in 1953, “Hound Dog,” became a much bigger hit in 1956 when Elvis Presley (1935-1977) did it.

Steptoe’s interest was kindled by finding a family photo of her grandfather with Big Mama. A rare one showing her in male garb, which she actually favored; most of her pics have her in dresses, which she normally performed in. She never married; lesbianism is inferred. Steptoe played a recording of her singing, described as “low register,” in other words, sounding very male.

A counterpoint to Mama’s bigness was the littleness of Richard Penniman (1932-2020). Little Richard’s gayness was more flamboyant, though not publicly acknowledged for decades. His early drag-like persona onstage was called “female impersonation” and was a fairly common shtick, with homosexuality anathematized in those 1950s. Even associated with hated Communism. Thus the Civil Rights movement tried to steer clear of anything smacking of queerness.

Steptoe noted that some Little Richard hit songs were redone by Pat Boone (1934 – ), made even bigger hits, though Boone’s renditions were pretty weak tea compared with Richard’s electric performances. But Boone was white and straight. A signature Little Richard song was “Tutti-Frutti;” Steptoe played an excerpt, noting that the hit version’s lyrics were sanitized of the original’s overtly sexual content (“good booty” etc).

Prepared by Frank Robinson (1947 – )