Toyota Hearings: Return of Regulation?

I don’t expect much from the Congressional hearings on the Toyota accelerator problem. It’s just the obligatory dance that Representatives and corporate barons do for their audience of voters and consumers.

However, I hope that it is a subtle sign that serious regulation is back. For decades, Republicans worked to dismantle and cripple the regulatory regime that protects consumers, and Democrats too often lent a hand. Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress have disappointed progressives in almost every way, but perhaps they will return to pre-Reagan values on regulation.

Republican Mobs

Right-wing organizers and media personalities have been mobilizing their audiences to attend and disrupt town hall meetings of Democratic legislators. Paul Krugman writes:

Some commentators have tried to play down the mob aspect of these scenes, likening the campaign against health reform to the campaign against Social Security privatization back in 2005. But there’s no comparison. I’ve gone through many news reports from 2005, and while anti-privatization activists were sometimes raucous and rude, I can’t find any examples of congressmen shouted down, congressmen hanged in effigy, congressmen surrounded and followed by taunting crowds.

And I can’t find any counterpart to the death threats at least one congressman has received.

In general, I think that ordinary people need to get more involved in politics and hold their elected officials to account. However, what is happening on the right is very different from the examples of activism I admire. For one thing, violence and the threat of violence have no legitimate place in citizen activism. There are times when fighting is necessary, but moving us in that direction is reckless and irresponsible.

Another difference between responsible activism and the mob is education. I don’t mean schools and degrees, but instead an understanding of at least the basics of whatever is at issue. We have examples of disinformation, like the “kill Granny” scare. We also see plain ignorance, like seniors shouting for government to stay out of Medicare. It’s sad to see people used as pawns to fight against their own interests.

Let’s Stop with the Tanning Already

BBC News reports:

Previously, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) assessed sunbeds and sunlamps as “probably carcinogenic to humans”.

But it now says their use is definitively “carcinogenic to humans”.

Duh! Did anyone not know this? I heard someone in the business saying something about a gradual tan being protective and that it’s sudden, high exposure to UV that’s harmful. I didn’t argue, but I knew it had to be a crock of shit.

It made its decision following a review of research which concluded that the risk of melanoma – the most deadly form of skin cancer – was increased by 75% in people who started using sunbeds regularly before the age of 30.

In addition, several studies have linked sunbed use to a raised risk of melanoma of the eye.

Melanoma will kill you, boys and girls. Looking good for a few years isn’t worth it. Besides, people who tan a lot develop tough, leathery skin. Think about your appearance in 10 or 20 years. Or how good you will look with all the scars from excised moles and without any hair because of chemotherapy.