The art of creativity is the ability to see relationships between things where none exist.

~Thomas Michael Disch, Hugo Award Winner

 

If Disch is correct, yesterday was the mother lode. Usually, these connections involve two or maybe, at most, three distinct events. To set the stage, here are just a few of the news stories which appeared in newspapers and on television this March 15th.

• An attack by a white supremacist at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand resulting in at least 49 deaths.
• Investigators found additional evidence at the crash site of an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 which suggests the cause of this tragedy may be similar to the Lion Air disaster last October in Indonesia.
• Donald Trump denies white supremacy is a threat stating, “I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems.”
• Trump issues his first veto, nullifying votes by both the Democratic controlled House and Republican controlled Senate rejecting his call for a national emergency to siphon money from other programs to fund his wall along the southern border.
• Scientists react to Trump’s retweet of climate denier Patrick Moore’s assessment, “The climate crisis is not only Fake News, it’s Fake Science.”
• Pharmacy Times reported HIV patients who use opioids for pain relief have a higher chance of mortality.

What do these six stories have in common? The relative threat associated with each can be measured by the mortality rate. So, let’s look at the facts.

• As of this writing, 49 worshipers at the Al Noor Mosque and the Linwood Mosque have died.
• Within the last six months, 346 individuals died in two plane crashes involving Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft.
• Counting the 13 victims at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and yesterday’s attack on the two Mosques in New Zealand, 62 people has died at the hands of white supremacists since October. And except for the ineptitude of the MAGA-tron who mailed pipe bombs to the Democratic leadership and media outlets, the toll would have been higher.
• Twenty three Alabamans died as a result of a series of EF4 tornados on March 3rd and 83 Californians died in the Camp fire last December.
• An average of 130 Americans die of opioid overdoses EVERY DAY.

But Dr. ESP, that is just the loss of life associated with five of the six stories listed above. What about the national emergency at the Mexican border?

I thought I’d save that for last. After all, Trump and Republican members of Congress think this is such a looming disaster they are willing to shred Article I of the U.S. Constitution to fund the wall. Rather than draw on one of those “enemies of the people” such as the Washington Post or CNN, I found an article on the Cato Institute’s website titled, “There Is No National Emergency on the Border, Mr. President.” Yes, the same Cato Institute which publishes the Pocket Constitution which all of those Republican constitutional purists pull out when they feel threatened by Democratic overreach.

The article includes a table of crimes committed by “illegal immigrants apprehended by Border Patrol.” The number of homicides and manslaughter committed by illegal immigrants totals 26. Not in one day. Or one week. Or one month. Or even one year. The period covered by this statistic is October 1, 2014 through August 31, 2018. The source of this information? The U.S. Department of Customs and Border Protection.

That’s correct. When compared to the deaths caused by white supremacists, inadequate regulation of airline manufacturers, opioids or climate change, your chances of being killed by an illegal immigrant are intestinal. And that is why I called this post, “The Odds of March.” It was on March 15 in 44 BCE when Caesar asked his supposed ally, “Et tu, Brute?”

Too bad, our wannabee modern day Caesar does not not see the betrayal of a long-time confederate (pun intended) and inquires, “Et tu, Cato?”

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP