Lee.org

I think that old guy cracked his skull open on the pavement on purpose so he could make the police look bad.*

Have you ever noticed how glowing the reviews on Berkeley Parents Network are? I found out first-hand that the reviews are all so good because negative reviews are prohibited. When you choose to visit a doctor or daycare because they received 10 good reviews on BPN, you should very legitimately be worried that the provider may also have 100 bad reviews that were all rejected. By not allowing negative reviews, they hide any and all problems that an organization may have. Imagine for a moment if Amazon.com only allowed 3-star or better reviews.

Berkeley Parents Network is a popular website that has user submitted reviews of businesses in the East Bay with a connection to parents and kids. They also have a parent advice column. We’ve used their reviews to help guide our family.

I found out about BPN’s no-negative-reviews policy after a friend posted her personal experience with a pediatrician in Berkeley on the Berkeley Family Friends Facebook Group (link). I suggested she post her experience to  Berkeley Parents Network. Her post to BPN was denied, the moderator citing their “No negative reviews” policy.

I had an email discussion with the director of Berkeley Parents Network, Ginger Ogle about the no-negative-review policy. Her argument for why they have such a policy was very circular. Essentially it’s “We accept unsolicited positive reviews but negative reviews must be in answer to a question, though there is no reliable way to ask a question on BPN.”

I’ll let you decide, here is the discussion we had:

Lee on 11-17-19:

I’ve been using Berkeley Parents Network for many years and have trusted it to find local professionals for our daughter.

A friend and neighbor told me about a very negative, long term experience she had with a doctor in Berkeley. She tried to post her review on BPN but was denied, citing your “No negative reviews” policy. This has deeply undermined my belief in the utility of your site. How can a review site exist if negative reviews are prohibited? I know that the members of BPN care deeply about the mission of the website. How can this issue be reconciled?

Ginger’s response on 12-7-19:

BPN’s policies have been developed over 25 years. They are published on our website. Please read them. I gave you and your friend a link, but it seems you have not read the policy. We do our best to apply the policies fairly for all subscribers… People who don’t agree with BPN’s policies usually choose not to subscribe.

Lee’s response on 1-13-20:

I read the policy. The negative review in question met most of the requirements of your policy though your policy explicitly makes it impossible for any negative review to meet all of the requirements. Most notably your rule about “Negative reviews are accepted only in response to a relevant question”. This rule means that while positive reviews are accepted at any time, negative reviews are only accepted in the narrow window of time when there is a relevant outstanding question in your system, which is, in all practical terms, never. Do you think her review failed any of the other tests in your Rules for Posting a Negative Review?

A rating system is not valid if it only accepts positive reviews. It sounds like you disagree with me on this.

>People who don’t agree with BPN’s policies usually choose not to subscribe.
A major problem is that only people that find out about the no-negative-review policy are people that try to post negative reviews. I’ve spoken with a few people who use BPN and none knew of this policy. All showed me deeply furrowed eyebrows of concern when they recognized the perils of such censorship.

Ginger’s response on 1-14-20:

You are misunderstanding how BPN works. Your friend posted an *unsolicited* review, which is unusual on BPN. Very few of the tens of thousands of reviews on our website were unsolicited reviews. I would guess less than 1% of all our reviews. The unsolicited reviews are all positive since we don’t accept *unsolicited* negative reviews. 99% of the tens of thousands of reviews on our site were posted in response to a question. Some of them are negative, most of them are positive.

.

I welcome you, dear reader to honor Ginger’s advice. “People who don’t agree with BPN’s policies usually choose not to subscribe”.

I should note that I tried to create a question about Claudine’s doctor’s office but it was rejected because, the moderator wrote, there was already enough information on the BPN site about the doctor’s office.

Claudine’s Negative Review
Here is the negative review that my friend wrote about Berkeley Pediatrics. I think you will agree that, with her factual, informative, neutral tone, this negative review, and any like it should definitely be seen by potential clients and customers. Here is what she wrote on the Berkeley Family Friends Facebook Group (link) and to BPN:

We are very disappointed with our experience at Berkeley Pediatrics over the course of 5 years specifically regarding our 6 year old. The negligence and mistakes they made were apparent immediately upon switching providers.

Our son was recently diagnosed as being completely deaf in his left ear despite passing his hearing screen (as perfect in both ears) at Berkeley Pediatrics and showing behaviors of single-sided deafness for years. I consistently expressed my concerns over his language development regarding conversations and making friends as well as his difficulties with auditory processing. All of these were passed on as being behavioral issues or needing more sleep. They basically convinced me that his hearing was perfect when in fact MRI has now shown his left ear has likely been deaf since he was a baby.

In addition to this negligence the reaction I received when informing our former pediatrician was “I don’t know what to think about that.” No one ever followed up with their concern or expressed that they would investigate what went wrong so that no other child will fall through their cracks like ours did. We called back yesterday to try to understand what went wrong and why they failed to diagnose a deaf child that had been with the same pediatrician since he was 18 months only to be met with defensiveness. Finally after almost an hour on the phone she agreed to have a meeting about this situation and review the pure tone hearing screen administrations.

Since we are no longer patients at Berkeley Pediatrics I feel like I have an obligation to alert any of you that are patients, of our experience.

There are nationwide protests and riots related to the murder of a man named George Floyd at the hands of a police officer. It has become a huge racial issue and the president has threatened to turn the military on the protesters. It’s a shit-show. We are a country divided. How the hell did that happen so quickly?

Trump declared himself “your president of law and order” and proceeded to tear-gas peaceful protesters across the street from the white house so he could get a a photo-op in front of a church. Note at the end of the first video he says he is going someplace. In the second video he goes there.

Religious persons were not amused. Here’s an interview with the Episcopal Bishop of Washington DC and a Jesuit priest.

The president later said that tear gas wasn’t used. Here is a live-streamed video of the protesters being pushed out of Lafayette park, please note all the talk of pain in the eyes at 6:10, 7:09 and elsewhere.

This, of course, escalated the violence.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley told the president he can’t have the military for his war on Americans. No, he didn’t say that, he wrote (via)

As members of the Joint Force – comprised of all races, colors and creeds – you embody the ideals of our Constitution. Please remind all of our troops and leaders that we will uphold the values of our nation, and operate consistent with national laws and our own high standards of conduct at all times.

And just in case you are thinking, “Ah ha! they aren’t protesters, they’re looters! Milley is an ally of Trump! We’re gonna bust some heads!” Ask yourself, why did Milley write this letter now? Why did he say that thing about all races, colors, and creeds?

Followup, June 11th: Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Milley apologizes for appearing with Trump at church photo op … “I should not have been there,” Milley said in a video commencement address to National Defense University

You can now go outside! But only during the day!

Yesterday, Contra Costa County declared a mandatory curfew due to riots. (link)

Today, the COVID-19 Shelter-in-Place orders are being partially lifted. (link)

“Contra Costa County residents can go back to work, shop at local retail stores, get childcare and hang out with small groups of loved ones starting June 3.

Indoor retail shopping, business offices, outdoor museums and pet grooming are among the businesses that will reopen in Contra Costa County under the latest shelter-in-place order released today. The order also permits services that don’t require close customer contact, such as housekeeping, car washes, plumbing and pet grooming.”

A friend was writing on Facebook about Trump’s inflammatory response to recent protests-turned-riots in response to the death of George Floyd.

In the discussion, someone asked “What -should- Trump have said?” Here is my response and furthering of the discussion

My friend also wrote: (1) The outside rioters and instigators don’t care about the BLM cause, but rather have their own warped agenda. The best way to deal with them it to avoid giving them the publicity. As much as their rioting may make for good “TV news” the less air time their actions get the better. (2) Bringing in the military only fans the flames and gives the rioters even more of the attention they crave. I can’t see it’s doing anything but giving the rioters a bigger platform.

————————————————–

Whenever a riot happens, I find myself trying to intellectualize why it is happening. “What do they want? How are they using this riot to achieve their goals?”

I participated in some protests years ago and I saw how there were people in it, heart and soul, for a variety of reasons. I wanted to participate in an organized, peaceful civil disobedience to achieve a goal. Some of the people I met were “into protesting” (I found that very weird!). And some just wanted to f- things up because the world is f-ed up. Ergo, a good portion of the protesters didn’t have easily enumerated goals!

So, you say that some don’t care about the BLM cause… I’d say that you’re right… and not right. Two of the groups I mentioned don’t need to find a connection with BLM except to feel the sympatico and join with it.

And then I think about our president and… (stay with me here) he’s pretty much an asshole, right? Did you see him getting his photo-op in front of St. John’s Church today? I hate him on principle in the same way that the church ministers that were tear-gassed described (https://www.npr.org/2020/06/01/867532070/trumps-unannounced-church-visit-angers-church-officials). So, when a demagogue like Trump taunts people, most of the types of protesters that I ran into in my civil disobedience days would naturally be drawn into a fight against him.

So, if I were president and I wanted to stop protesters-come-rioters, I would play it cool. I’d say little, say gentle, humanity-affirming things, welcome people to believe they need to protest, welcome people to believe everything isn’t f-ed up… and wait for people to cool off.

I also want to address your statement about publicity and “the attention they crave”. In my (limited!) experience, I’m not sure that most protesters are crave attention per se. But you know, I’m trying to put this into words and having a hard time. Maybe your shorthand “publicity” -is- good phrasing. I believe the main motivation is an internal desire to right a wrong… to “do something”. Of course, Americans generally have a strong believe that putting an issue into the open helps resolve it: publicizing a problem -is- doing something. If people see me getting beat up by riot police because of my beliefs, then people will sympathize with me and my cause all the more…

There I am, intellectualizing the rioting again.

How about some good news? It starts less-good but keep reading: On 5-22 a hair stylist in Missouri was reported as serving 84 clients while symptomatic while wearing a mask. A second hairstylist at the location tested positive, exposing 56 more clients. But as of 5-29, contact tracing hasn’t discovered any people getting COVID-19!

Original article

Followup article

The moral of the story is, wear a mask! Don’t be indoors with people with COVID-19 for long periods of time!

I’ve heard it said that states may be cooking their books with regard to COVID-19 vs flu & pneumonia deaths. The theory is that states want to appear “ready to open” when, in fact they are not. I looked into it and the CDC’s Fluview website shows a modest increase in flu & pneumonia deaths this year. But it doesn’t show a big, smoking gun of hidden COVID-19 deaths.

A well-meaning friend forwarded a fabricated image about the matter today. I spent an hour figuring out that it was fake.

Here is why I believe the data is fabricated. I went to the CDC’s Fluview site as mentioned by Andy Slavitt here. I downloaded the data for Florida in 2018-2020. The numbers on the CDC website regarding pneumonia deaths don’t look suspicious like it does in the above image! In Florida, in weeks 5-21 I count this many pneumonia related deaths in these years:
2020: 5291
2019: 3890
2018: 3999

That is MUCH different than the fabricated image.

There’s a lot of things I don’t know about this pandemic. But now there’s one thing I think I -do- know.

I plan on looking back at this article in 10 years and saying “Heh, yup, that was 4 years of wackyness. We got to the edge of democracy, looked over the precipice and… [well, here in May 2020, I don’t know how it ends!]”

Article posted on NPR.org on May 28, 2020
Stung By Twitter, Trump Signs Executive Order To Weaken Social Media Companies

May 28, 20204:59 PM ET
Bobby Allyn

President Trump on Thursday signed an executive order aimed at limiting the federal legal protections that shield social media companies from liability.
Evan Vucci/AP
Updated at 6:04 p.m. ET

President Trump signed an executive order Thursday aimed at limiting the broad legal protections enjoyed by social media companies, two days after he tore into Twitter for fact-checking two of his tweets.

“We’re here today to defend free speech from one of the gravest dangers it has faced in American history, frankly,” Trump said from the Oval Office. “A small handful of powerful social media monopolies control the vast portion of all private and public communications in the United States.”

The president said the tech companies have “unchecked power to censor, restrict, edit, shape, hide, alter” a large sphere of human interaction. “They have points of view,” he said.

The Trump administration hopes the order will eventually set the stage for new regulations on tech platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

But legal experts said they were doubtful the move would have any practical effect on the tech giants. Legal observers described the action as “political theater,” arguing that the order does not change existing federal law and will have no bearing on federal courts.

The president’s latest confrontation with Twitter was set off after the tech company placed fact-checking warnings on two of his tweets that claimed, without evidence, that casting ballots by mail allows for voter fraud. Voting by mail has been used for years in both Democratic and Republican states without reports of widespread fraud.

Trump lashed out at Twitter, comparing the fact-checking labels to censorship and accusing the social media giant of stifling conservative voices, though the president did not provide any examples to back up his assertion.

The president, who often uses Twitter as a megaphone to tout his victories and blast his critics, responded to the fact-checking labels by threatening to shut down social media companies despite not having the sole authority to do so.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said on Wednesday that that platform will continue to warn users about factual distortions on the platform.

“This does not make us an ‘arbiter of truth,’ ” Dorsey wrote on Twitter. “Our intention is to connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves. More transparency from us is critical so folks can clearly see the why behind our actions.”

Dorsey’s comment was an apparent response to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who told Fox News earlier Wednesday that social media companies should stay out of the business of weighing in on what is true or not.

“Private companies probably shouldn’t be, especially these platform companies, shouldn’t be in the position of doing that,” Zuckerberg said.

Regulator: Turning the FCC into “the President’s speech police is not the answer”

The White House order takes aim at a 1996 law passed by Congress that has often been at the center of political fights over regulating speech on social media platforms: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

The law protects Internet companies from being sued over content that appears on their platforms and allows for content moderation, determining when a post should be removed to be left up to the internal rules of companies such as Twitter and Facebook, provided those decisions are made “in good faith.”

Courts have repeatedly upheld the law in favor of technology companies, even when the statute was used to defend websites advertising children who were forced into sex trafficking.

Trump’s order seeks to chip away at that protection by offering a new interpretation of the law. The order argues, in essence, that if the social media companies restrict certain voices on their platforms, the companies should be stripped of their legal immunity, opening the doors to a wave of lawsuits over content seen as defamatory.

Legal experts greeted the order with heavy skepticism, saying, absent a new law passed by Congress, it would not be legally binding.

“It flies in the face of 25 years of judicial precedent, that has been federal precedent in almost every circuit court,” said Kate Klonick, a law professor at St. John’s University School of Law in New York. “It’s not the role of the president to interpret federal law.”

To Klonick, the order was “a very, very clear piece of political theater,” she told NPR, adding that the action is “unlikely to have any kind of weight or authority.”

The order directs the Federal Communications Commission to start a rule-making process to clarify when social media companies should keep protections under the law.

Height Capital Markets analysts Chase White and Clayton Allen described the executive order as “mostly noise without any teeth.”

In a note to investors, they wrote that the FCC only exerts limited control over social media companies, which are not regulated like traditional broadcasters. And historically, the FCC has been opposed to social media regulation, White and Allen pointed out.

Already, some of the five members of FCC are expressing concern about the White House’s action.

“This does not work. Social media can be frustrating. But an Executive Order that would turn the Federal Communications Commission into the President’s speech police is not the answer,” Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement. “It’s time for those in Washington to speak up for the First Amendment. History won’t be kind to silence.”

Kate Ruane, senior legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, called the order an attempt to punish social media companies for posts that displease the president.

“Ironically, Donald Trump is a big beneficiary of Section 230,” Ruane said. “If platforms were not immune under the law, then they would not risk the legal liability that could come with hosting Donald Trump’s lies, defamation and threats.”

GOP’s Hawley: Companies that act like publishers should be treated like publishers

Backers of Trump’s order, such as Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said adding warning labels to the president’s tweets is an editorial decision that shows the social media platform is acting more like a publisher than an Internet forum and that the company should lose its special protection.

“It makes little sense to treat companies that publish their editorial comments about others’ content as if they are mere distributors. Companies that act like publishers should be treated like publishers,” Hawley wrote in a letter to Twitter’s Dorsey.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., supports Twitter’s initiative to flag tweets that contain falsehoods. She said Trump’s order directs the federal government to “dismantle efforts to help users distinguish fact from fiction.”

She said the order does not address the proliferation of disinformation on social media, an issue central in the 2016 presidential election and one that’s expected to be influential in November.

“Again and again, social media platforms have sold out the public interest to pad their corporate profits. Their business model is to make money at the expense of the truth,” Pelosi said.

NPR’s Shannon Bond contributed to this report.

The source material:

Trump’s tweets with the notices:

Twitter’s “get the facts” page:

Where do you get your COVID-19 news and epidemiology?
Right now, I get it from:
– https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/
– Medscape News Alert “Where the doctors go!” https://www.medscape.com/today
– https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html and the pages on the site like this one https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality
– https://www.npr.org/ (the most non-political news site I could find)
– links from Facebook friends
– https://www.erinbromage.com/post/the-risks-know-them-avoid-them
– https://www.sltrib.com/news/2020/05/23/your-guide-how