JD Vance’s Words are Weapons

I listened, repeatedly, to JD’s convo about “the postmenopausal female,” so you don’t have to.

The most disturbing part of Vance’s exchange with Eric Weinstein, in my mind: neither man displays any interest in what the two women — Usha Vance, Esq., and her mother, Dr. Lakshmi Chilukuri (whom I am naming in part because neither is named in the clip) — wanted or needed. 

The child is also unnamed: Vance calls Ewen, his oldest son, “this baby” and “our son.”

Weinstein says that providing free child care is “the whole purpose of a postmenopausal female.” 

Unlike “woman,” which refers specifically to a human, “female” is also used for animals. Long-horned beetles, t-rexes, dolphins, gorillas, and more. Referring to people of color, and especially women of color, in animal terms has a long history. I’m not surprised — Vance has made, and endorsed, plenty of racist statements — but I’m still dismayed.

Vance clearly says “yes” after the host finishes saying the words. His response comes almost on top of the word “female,” but in plenty of time after “post-menopausal,” which Weinstein fumbles, and which can only refer to a woman, and before Weinstein finishes the sentence with “in theory.” 

Weinstein goes on to say that free child care is “a weird unadvertised feature of marrying an Indian woman.” Vance starts to speak, pauses to interject “yeah,” and continues.

Weinstein uses singular “they” to refer to Provost Chilukuri. Hang on — the ossified right thinks using “they” in place of “she” or, preferably, “he” opens the door to gay and trans rights, which they find pornographic. Ooops.

Vance’s idea that prioritizing earning power over everything else is “hyper-liberalized” and “a consequence of fundamental liberalism” that has “abandon[ed] … Aristotelian virtue politics for a hyper market-oriented way of thinking” is almost risible in its foundational wrong-ness. This describes, quite precisely, the Republican Party line since Reagan. 

The speed and vocal register of Vance’s speech suggest gravitas, especially in contrast to Trump’s jumpy, meandering tirades. But listening over and over again made me see just how repetitive and imprecise Vance’s speech really is. He uses big words and learned phrases to gesture casually at concepts, rather than carefully staking claims and providing evidence to develop arguments. Vance’s words are projectiles, designed — deployed — to destroy, not to build.

Giants, King Arthur, Olympic Athletes, and Misogynoir

In the (fictional!) History of the Kings of Britain (1136), Geoffrey of Monmouth invents Arthurian legend, drawing on (and vastly embellishing) an earlier collection of Biblical, Greek, and Norse lore and legend combined with geographical and historical information. 

According to Geoffrey, giants from Africa settled the British Isles and built Stonehenge. Later migrants, humans descended from the Greek Aeneas, slaughtered the giants, pitching their leader, Gogmagog, off a cliff to his death.

In naming the giant leader Gogmagog, Geoffrey draws on a long series of narratives about villains. In the Hebrew Bible, Gog is the leader of the armies of Magog, who threaten the Israelites but are vanquished by God (Ezekiel 38, 39). In the Book of Revelation, Gog and Magog become nations that join Satan in attacking the saints, but are consumed by fire from God (Rev. 20.8-9). 

In the Middle Ages, Africa and Asia were sometimes distinguished, and sometimes collapsed into one, but always described in ways that emphasize difference. Medieval maps typically locate Gog and Magog in Asia; the Hereford World Map (1300) names them twice, and identifies them with both “barbarous and filthy” Turks and “the cruellest people among the Scythians.” 

Geoffrey’s identification of Gogmagog as African rather than Asian connects with numerous texts and images that imagine monsters in Africa: the Hereford World Map places Gog and Magog in Asia, and identifies them explicitly in negative terms, it also contains several drawings and descriptions in Africa of monsters and human-animal hybrids.

So when Geoffrey says that Gogmagog is a giant from Africa, he associates him with a long trail of negative, and even Satanic, associations.

Fox Nation has just devoted an entire episode to resurrecting Geoffrey’s fantastic claim. An article promoting the episode says Geoffrey’s makes the first written reference to Stonehenge when he calls it “chorea gigantum” — a circle, or dance, of giants. But Henry of Huntingdon scooped Geoffrey in his Historia Anglorum (1129). Henry writes that no one can figure out how or why the huge stones of  “Stanenges” were set upright.

The demographic that follows Fox is also the one that made recent attacks on female Olympic athletes of color as “trans” go viral. White misogynists have a problem with capable women, and they have a huge problem with capable women of color. It’s why Serena Williams endured years of racist attacks; she was called monstrous and depicted as an animal or a man.

The folks at Fox do nothing by accident. Moya Bailey, a Northwestern University professor, coined the word misogynoir to reference the “unique anti-Black racist misogyny that Black women experience.”  

Highlighting the idea that Stonehenge was built by African giants led by a guy whose name is synonymous with evil makes perfect sense in the context of Fox’s ongoing programming. Network hosts and the people they platform make ad hominem attacks on black women politicians, and misrepresent and lie about their record, rather than addressing policy and substance. Fox articles refer repeatedly and uncritically to a discredited Russian test claiming Imani Khalif is not a woman.

It all connects back to very, very old narratives about monstrosity. 

Post Exertional Symptom Exacerbation: Don’t Blame the Sick Person

Man, did I need this today. 

Often post-exertional symptom exacerbation (PESE) is not triggered by overactivity. Showering, getting dressed, walking, loud noises, busy environments, or multi-tasking is not overactivity. Saying post-exertional symptom exacerbation is like a Boom-and-Bust cycle is patient blaming and unhelpful.

One of my hardest Long Covid symptoms is fatigue. It’s not like doing a long bike ride or a hike, a triathlon or a road race, or even pulling out all the stops to write an article or a syllabus, and then needing to rest up. 

It’s more like I do a little too much of basic normal activity and then I feel like I’ve been walloped by a giant wave. All I can do is wait out the days — usually four — until I revert to post-covid “normal.”

Yes, absolutely, I have been blaming myself for PESE, more commonly called post-exertional malaise, even if no one else does. The word “malaise” lingers in my head like a bad earworm. It makes me feel like a helpless, fainting stereotype of romance fiction. 

When I was diagnosed with Long Covid, I was referred to a physical therapist, who was very friendly and encouraging, but like most people, didn’t have much experience with Long Covid. She assigned balance and strength exercises, and to avoid over-exertion, told me to track my heart rate carefully: stop immediately if it went over 130, and rest after every set until it went below 90.

My balance improved and I stopped needing the rolling walker. But the brain fog — lousy short-term memory, struggling for words, toiling to come up with whole sentences, difficulty reading academic books and articles, and very wonky vision — was fierce.

The individual exercises didn’t feel hard, especially with so much rest between them. But the thing I didn’t understand about PESE is that it doesn’t emerge until many hours after exertion. Cognitive fatigue hits me immediately and hard, but the fatigue from exercise doesn’t appear until the next day.

Only months later did I stumble across an article about the problems with Graded Exercise Therapy.

Exercise was making me worse.

It finally dawned on me to stop.

The brain fog started to lift. Slowly. Too slowly. More cognitive energy turned out to mean crashing even faster, having to be even more careful. Academic writing, serious reading, a conversation about something I used to teach every year — 45 minutes in, and I’m stuttering, struggling for sentences, freezing up.

After some sedentary weeks, I started back on exercise at one minute. Yeah. ONE MINUTE. I’ve worked back, most days, to a ten-minute walk with the dog (she sniffs many things and makes sure I take lots of breaks) and ten minutes of yoga, mostly seated and prone poses. 

The RECOVER research protocol for the Long Covid fatigue sub-group calls for a baseline of 10 minutes or less, depending on ability, of aerobic activity. It also warns, strongly, that people in the trial should stop exercising if they get PESE. 

Reading that gave me a lightning-bolt shock of relief. 

I’m better at sitting down when I start getting light-headed, or stopping when I’m trying to write an email (or a blog post) and I start to feel the clamp around my head, or not exercising at all if I feel worn out. It’s a work in progress. 

It was so helpful to see the written words that say I’m not pushing myself too hard, but — 

the basic activities of everyday life are too hard for me.

Deep breath.

I have not been able to recover from Long Covid through sheer force of will. 

It’s okay.

Long Covid: All the Doctors

In a survey of patients’ experience with Long Covid that I completed recently, one question was, describe your experience with medical professionals. 

By the way, without Catherine I’d have neither health insurance nor income, so I wouldn’t be seeing any doctors. Plus I’d be lost without her help making appointments, remembering details, and explaining things to doctors, not to mention grocery shopping and cooking and so much more.

By far the majority of the many medical professionals I’ve seen since I got Covid listened well, were thoughtful and kind, and knew enough about Long Covid (or learned) to understand what I’m going through.

My GP has been an absolute rock through all of this. She’s reading research, listening carefully to me, helping me get to appropriate specialists, and helping me understand some of the possible treatments. After covid, my asthma was no longer controlled by the medication I was taking. It was ameliorated, but I still had fairly substantial difficulty breathing, pretty much all the time. She suggested a different medication.

The insurance company: No. 

The occupational therapist listened when I said my eyes were messed up. She ran a bunch of physical tests, documented the kinds of problems I was experiencing, had me do exercises, and recommended a neuro optometrist. 

The neuro-optometrist prescribed fancy eyeglasses and assigned more and different eye exercises. He tells me my eye muscles are very strong now. Problem is, my brain still can’t correctly join the input from my two eyes. 

The neurologist tested for peripheral neuropathy and balance problems, and prescribed duloxetine. My balance is okay if I’m not too tired, and the neuropathy isn’t gone, but it’s not as bad. better. She reads articles I bring her. She listens carefully when I talk about anecdotal evidence from social media about low-dose naltrexone, nicotine patches, and a raft of other supplements, and tells me what she thinks.

Pulmonologist #1 said my lungs would get better soon, and recommended smell training. Many months later, I thought to look up smell training, and found that there was no evidence it helped with general brain recovery. I asked why she suggested smell training. She said to improve my sense of taste and smell. I told her my sense of smell wasn’t great, but no worse than before covid. “Oh.”

Pulmonologist #2, whom I saw many months later because #1 was out that day, listened to me when I said I still had difficulty breathing despite using a rescue inhaler several times a day, and changed my medication. Insurance company agreed, because specialist. It made a big difference.

Cardiologist said I just needed to get up off the couch and get some exercise. 

The psychiatric nurse practitioner reads research on what medications have given some people relief from cognitive symptoms of long covid. She recommends medications, talks me through alternatives, and works with me on trying to optimize dosage. They’ve knocked some of the sludge out of my brain. I have to be careful though, because thinking faster also tires me out faster.

The talk therapist helped me to find my way back to some level of hope and self-acceptance despite losing my job, my avocation, my energy, my mental acuity … all of this.

The physical therapist gave me exercises for balance and strength. She had me track heart rate, stop after every set, wait for it to go below 90. I had been in excellent condition prior to covid and my muscles were still strong, so the individual exercises seemed easy. My balance got better, except when I’m tired. But eventually, I realized that spending that much time on them, even though the individual activities felt easy, was actually contributing to fatigue. 

Everything I do is tiring. 

Eating, showering, getting dressed, fixing the simplest of meals. Organizing, remembering, and taking medications. Unloading the dishwasher is a heck of a lot of movement. Plus eye exercises smell training, and stretching before bed so I don’t wake up in pain. Plus I was trying to play the piano every day because that’s also supposed to be good for the brain. 

I finally realized it was just all too much.

I stopped smell training, after asking the doctor about it. I stopped worrying about doing the eye exercises all the time. I stopped all of the exercises except short walks and yoga, subscribed to Kindle Unlimited Limited, and spent more time reading mystery novels. I stopped worrying about doing all the exercises all the time and prioritized resting. With time, this is helping me feel very gradually less fatigued, at least some of the time. Sometimes I add some standing yoga poses.

Priority #1 is rest.

How much longer will it be like this? Who knows. I’m at maybe 35% of pre-covid normal. The stats on recovery aren’t great, after a year and a half, but I do keep getting very slightly better, and I keep hoping for a research breakthrough.

Long-term disability insurance company: We are ignoring everything your doctors said. You do not qualify for disability insurance.

The dogs are not medical professionals, but it’s hard to express how much better my life is with them in it.