Captain Phil interviews Paul Levinson about his New Album 'Welcome Up', and Trump

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 123, in which the inimitable Captain Phil (on WUSB Radio) again interviews me about my new music, latest science fiction, and Donald Trump. But this time, there's my brand new album of science fiction related songs, Welcome Up: Songs of Space and Time (now releasing by Old Bear Records), to talk about.  And we're right in the middle of the impeachment trial of Donald Trump (author Bill McNulty joins us for the first part of this discussion).  Phil also plays, at the start and end of the episode, two songs from Welcome Up.
Helpful links:

• a taste of Welcome Up on YouTube
• lyrics to all the songs on Welcome Up
• free digital complete album on Bandcamp
• advance order multi-color limited pressing vinyl (100 copies) from Light In the Attic Records
• CDs

Check out this episode!

William H. McNeill and The Logic of Universal Health Care

With the Republicans chafing at the bit to repeal Obamacare, and replace it with who knows what, I thought it was time to roll out an argument I made in favor of government-financed heath care back in 2008.

It comes from an unlikely source, and he doesn't provide an argument in favor of universal, government supported healthcare himself or per se.  But his histories of modern civilization - unusual, anthropological, widely respected - lead to just that.

In two books, both of which I read shortly after they were written, decades ago, William H. McNeill provides the following templates for understanding human history.  Throughout our existence as a species, he explains and demonstrates, we humans have done all we could, mustered all the knowledge and technique at our disposal, to counter two kinds of parasites: macro-parasites and micro-parasites.

A macro-parasite is anything in our general size range - wild animals, other humans.  Parasitical humans can attack individually, as in someone who murders, robs, or otherwise assaults someone else, or en mass, as when a horde or army or airplane force attacks.  In order to counter such attacks, everyone recognizes that we must rely on government - in general, police against individual marauders, military against mass invaders.   Even conservatives who want to limit government spending acknowledge and support this need.   Only a stone-cold anarchist would deny it.

Micro-parasites, as the name suggests, are bacteria, viruses, and tiny things that make us sick, and can kill us.   Most people do recognize that, at very least, the government is needed to help research these illnesses, develop vaccines and cures, etc.

And that is where McNeill's analyses, presented in two books - Plagues and Peoples and The Pursuit of Power - ends.

But I would now add: where is the logic in not extending government support and financing for personal medical care?   What is the difference between paying for a police force, and paying for a force of doctors - the first to help protect from macro-parasites, the second from micro-parasites?

I hope Republicans think about this question as they seek to do away with the Affordable Care Act.

Why CNN and Fox Wrongly Reported the Supreme Court Health Care Ruling

The initially incorrect reporting by Fox and CNN of the US Supreme Court health care ruling yesterday will go down in history and long be cited in journalism courses along with Dewey beating Truman in 1948 according to the infamous Chicago Tribune banner headline and other examples of premature breaking news.  It was the most enjoyable part of the ruling other than the ruling itself.

But why did this happen?  The superficial answer, true enough, is that neither Fox nor CNN read far enough in Chief Justice Roberts' opinion to see he was upholding the mandate in the Affordable Health Care law as a tax, after rejecting its constitutionality under the commerce clause.

But there are deeper reasons.

CNN has fallen to a weak third place in the 24/7 all-news cable line-up.  It attracts not only the lowest number of viewers but likely staff and interns at all levels who would rather be someplace else.  Marshall McLuhan observed this sinking ship phenomenon in media when major newspapers began going on strike in the 1960s - they were going on strike, temporarily shutting down, McLuhan noted, as prelude to their permanent shut down, because fewer people were reading them, anyway.  Lack of audience and lack of production acumen feed one another in a vicious, downward, mutually destructive cycle. McLuhan not only saw the decline of newspapers in response to the screens of television, but accurately foresaw their decline in response to 21st century social media, which are now also challenging cable.

CNN is not about to shut down, but it is already in this cycle of decline, and needs to take special care not to feed it.

Fox, still in first place in cable news land, made the miscall for a very different reason.   Fox, despite its "fair and balanced" moniker, has long seen and reported the world through right-wing glasses.   Its top talent - Shep Smith, Bret Baier, and even Bill O'Reilly - can and do have independent views.  But its staff at all levels wears ideological blinders.  Fox not only misread the Supreme Court decision by stopping too soon in its reading, but likely did that because that's what the Fox people who did the reading wanted it to say.   They read as much as they needed to confirm their hopes.  Seeing support for one's views can be a powerful source of distortion when encountering new material.

I suppose the same could be said for MSNBC, which didn't want to see the ruling strike down Obamacare and reported the ruling correctly.   On the other hand, Pete Williams, who brought the opinion to MSNBC air, is one of the sharpest legal reporters in the business.  Given the decline of CNN and the ideology of Fox, it is unlikely he'd be anywhere other than reporting for MSNBC.