Anyone who reads my blog knows I've done a lot of criticizing the police, probably ad nauseam.
I try to be fair and present both sides. There was a news story today about an African-American family in Chicago who had a fire in their home and then found that they were burglarized while at the hospital being treated for smoke inhalation. A big-screen TV and Christmas presents had been stolen--and the single mom had worked hard to buy those presents and had recently lost her job.
A policeman (Caucasian) who was involved in investigating the case gave the family a $200 gift card to Sears, out of his own pocket, and other gifts as well.
I don't need to comment further.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Winter Wonderland
The other day this area had freezing rain. When I looked out my window, the trees and shrubs were encased in glass. Very pretty. I tried to take a picture, but it turned out to be one of those instances where, unless you are hugely talented as a photographer, it's very hard for the camera to capture what the eye sees.
Once the roads were no longer icy, I went out in my car. Stop signs and street signs had combs of little icicles hanging from them.
Today it's been snowing. I noticed that there were little footprints on my front porch. I opened the door and saw that an animal's paw prints went up the steps and onto the porch. I guess a furry visitor, probably a canine one, approached my front door but couldn't reach the doorbell.
Well, as I like to say, all this winter weather is very pretty; but cars and winter don't mix very well. I think I could live happily enough somewhere where it never snows. On the other hand, many people say they like the change of the seasons, and that it's boring and monotonous if the weather is always the same. I do have to say, once summer comes to Chicago, we value it and try to take advantage of it more than we would if we had it all year 'round.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Once the roads were no longer icy, I went out in my car. Stop signs and street signs had combs of little icicles hanging from them.
Today it's been snowing. I noticed that there were little footprints on my front porch. I opened the door and saw that an animal's paw prints went up the steps and onto the porch. I guess a furry visitor, probably a canine one, approached my front door but couldn't reach the doorbell.
Well, as I like to say, all this winter weather is very pretty; but cars and winter don't mix very well. I think I could live happily enough somewhere where it never snows. On the other hand, many people say they like the change of the seasons, and that it's boring and monotonous if the weather is always the same. I do have to say, once summer comes to Chicago, we value it and try to take advantage of it more than we would if we had it all year 'round.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Is the Right, Right?
Wall Street, bankers, insurance agents, doctors are just among the many American institutions that people used to be able to trust, but are not able to anymore. (I can't add politicians because there's plenty of anecdotal evidence that mistrust of politicians goes way, way back.) I hate to agree with the Right in any sense, but when they argue that ethics and morality have declined, I think I agree. But of course they include homosexuality (and marital infidelity and abortion) in with the evidence of moral decline, and of course there they and I would part company. They seem to be assured that anything having to do with sex is evil. One time I saw on TV a woman from a Phyllis Schlafly, Right-type organization debating a woman from the American Library Association on book censorship. The Right-wing lady was wearing a dress buttoned up to the neck, and I thought that said a great deal.
Proportion of Single Black Women: My Take
ABC News NightLine last night ran a very interesting news story. It said that young black women have a harder time finding a marriage partner than single white women in the same age range. In fact, they said that 54% of black women never marry, as compared to 21% of white women.
Demographics were given as a reason. You take away the black men who are unemployed, those who are incarcerated, etc., and there are comparatively few left. The black women interviewed for the show understandably want to find a black male with income and social class comparable to their own, so they certainly are not going to consider those men among the prison population or the unemployed or the menially employed.
Steve Harvey, comedian turned counselor, weighed in and mentioned that black men just have less responsibility toward their female partners and less inclination to marry.
I think there is another reason that nobody dares to discuss. The way I see it is this: More black women than black men have good jobs, and thus can be in the middle class. (In places I have worked, I have seen black women well represented and in good positions; but if there were in fact any black men, they were likely to have jobs like janitor.) Maybe this suggests that more black women than men attain college educations and it would be interesting to see if statistics would bear this out. I think there is another reason, though. I think black women face less discrimination in the workplace. (And now comes the really unpopular thing that nobody is willing to admit.) This is because the white race has always been afraid of blacks, and that fear is directed much more toward black males than black females, who are perceived as much less threatening.
If a white person is walking on the street, or waiting for the el, late at night, is s/he going to be afraid if there is no one about but a black female? or if there is no one about but a black male?
Yes, these are the stereotypes in the minds of white people. Racism (which is pretty much equivalent to stereotypes) does exist. We all believe, but often won't admit, that there is a basis in fact for our stereotypes. I'm not going to weigh in on that question; let the reader contemplate it for himself.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Demographics were given as a reason. You take away the black men who are unemployed, those who are incarcerated, etc., and there are comparatively few left. The black women interviewed for the show understandably want to find a black male with income and social class comparable to their own, so they certainly are not going to consider those men among the prison population or the unemployed or the menially employed.
Steve Harvey, comedian turned counselor, weighed in and mentioned that black men just have less responsibility toward their female partners and less inclination to marry.
I think there is another reason that nobody dares to discuss. The way I see it is this: More black women than black men have good jobs, and thus can be in the middle class. (In places I have worked, I have seen black women well represented and in good positions; but if there were in fact any black men, they were likely to have jobs like janitor.) Maybe this suggests that more black women than men attain college educations and it would be interesting to see if statistics would bear this out. I think there is another reason, though. I think black women face less discrimination in the workplace. (And now comes the really unpopular thing that nobody is willing to admit.) This is because the white race has always been afraid of blacks, and that fear is directed much more toward black males than black females, who are perceived as much less threatening.
If a white person is walking on the street, or waiting for the el, late at night, is s/he going to be afraid if there is no one about but a black female? or if there is no one about but a black male?
Yes, these are the stereotypes in the minds of white people. Racism (which is pretty much equivalent to stereotypes) does exist. We all believe, but often won't admit, that there is a basis in fact for our stereotypes. I'm not going to weigh in on that question; let the reader contemplate it for himself.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Cops Yet Again
I hope the subject is not getting tiresome to my readers, but I'm continuing to beat the drum about cops who abuse their office and/or commit crimes.
The latest: A policeman from a far suburb of Chicago was driving drunk in the Chicago area, hit another car, and killed a 29-year-old Vietnamese immigrant who held two jobs, went to college, and tried to hold his family together. The policeman refused a breathalyzer test at the scene but once he arrived at the hospital (he was injured but not critically), his blood alcohol was nearly three times the legal limit.
In another case, a 24-year-old man, again in the Chicago suburbs, was wielding an axe--in the streets, I believe. When he was ordered to drop the axe—and the man may have been an immigrant and may not have understood English—he was shot by a policeman. Four times. Fatally.
A friend or relative of the deceased man asked why he had to be shot fatally rather than, say, tasered. The police chief said that, since the axe was a lethal weapon, it was appropriate to respond with lethal force. I guess even to "respond" quadruply is considered appropriate.
In another instance, this one receiving national attention, a group of people in Washington, DC, were having a snowball fight—legally and harmlessly. One snowball happened to hit a Hummer, and the Hummer happened to belong to a police detective. The detective drew his gun on the snowball throwers. I guess everyone should know that you just don't mess with a dude's Hummer.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
The latest: A policeman from a far suburb of Chicago was driving drunk in the Chicago area, hit another car, and killed a 29-year-old Vietnamese immigrant who held two jobs, went to college, and tried to hold his family together. The policeman refused a breathalyzer test at the scene but once he arrived at the hospital (he was injured but not critically), his blood alcohol was nearly three times the legal limit.
In another case, a 24-year-old man, again in the Chicago suburbs, was wielding an axe--in the streets, I believe. When he was ordered to drop the axe—and the man may have been an immigrant and may not have understood English—he was shot by a policeman. Four times. Fatally.
A friend or relative of the deceased man asked why he had to be shot fatally rather than, say, tasered. The police chief said that, since the axe was a lethal weapon, it was appropriate to respond with lethal force. I guess even to "respond" quadruply is considered appropriate.
In another instance, this one receiving national attention, a group of people in Washington, DC, were having a snowball fight—legally and harmlessly. One snowball happened to hit a Hummer, and the Hummer happened to belong to a police detective. The detective drew his gun on the snowball throwers. I guess everyone should know that you just don't mess with a dude's Hummer.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Monday, December 14, 2009
How About These Products, Mr. Woods?
Tonight (12/14), ABC News NightLine, starting from the news item that Tiger Woods has lost some of his gigs as a "product endorser," examined the issue of whether he—and other athletes who have been somehow tainted by scandal—should continue as product endorsers.
Well, I think that Tiger emphatically should go on endorsing products. Maybe just a different set of products.
How about these?
Victoria's Secret ("I like all my ladies to wear Victoria's Secret lingerie!")
Lover's Lane (sex shops)
condoms
K-Y
mattresses
Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein
Well, I think that Tiger emphatically should go on endorsing products. Maybe just a different set of products.
How about these?
Victoria's Secret ("I like all my ladies to wear Victoria's Secret lingerie!")
Lover's Lane (sex shops)
condoms
K-Y
mattresses
Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Is America Headed for Fascism?
Newsweek magazine had a cover headline, when Obama got elected, "Now we are all socialists." I think that, quite the opposite, America may be headed toward Fascism.
I was recently watching a TV interview (I think it was Bill Moyers on PBS) with a historian named Howard Zinn. This guy Zinn is the author of A People's History of the United States and A People's History of American Empire. He was talking about populist movements, and made the point that populist movements on the right lead to Fascism. This happens whenever people feel they have no control over the situation they find themselves in. This of course reminds one of the circumstances of Hitler's rise to power. It is very scary to think that this might be what lies around the corner for America.
Remember what I wrote about the "teabaggers." (Okay, they don't like that label because the word has a slang sexual meaning. So what do they want to be called, Tea Partiers?) There is a lot of opposition to Obama, some maybe originating in people's own, genuinely home-grown ideas (such as racism) and some, as I believe, stirred up, manipulated, and exploited by power interests (political, corporate, etc.) for their own ends.
Also, here is a quote from a news item.
This is scary, too; very, very scary.
It suggests that the election of Obama has energized these groups. At a minimum, I think that the next presidential election is going to move the country to the Right—way Right. But maybe worse, consider that these militias stockpile weapons and train in military tactics. (Some of their members have had the benefit of training by the US military services.) They want to get enough power to control the US and impose their ideas on the rest of us. Of course that is the opposite of democracy. If these groups—many of which are neo-Nazi and thus racist, anti-Semitic, anti-gay, and God knows what all else—ever gain enough power, they are simply going to shoot any and all of those whom they don't like.
As I said, scary. Very, very scary.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
I was recently watching a TV interview (I think it was Bill Moyers on PBS) with a historian named Howard Zinn. This guy Zinn is the author of A People's History of the United States and A People's History of American Empire. He was talking about populist movements, and made the point that populist movements on the right lead to Fascism. This happens whenever people feel they have no control over the situation they find themselves in. This of course reminds one of the circumstances of Hitler's rise to power. It is very scary to think that this might be what lies around the corner for America.
Remember what I wrote about the "teabaggers." (Okay, they don't like that label because the word has a slang sexual meaning. So what do they want to be called, Tea Partiers?) There is a lot of opposition to Obama, some maybe originating in people's own, genuinely home-grown ideas (such as racism) and some, as I believe, stirred up, manipulated, and exploited by power interests (political, corporate, etc.) for their own ends.
Also, here is a quote from a news item.
Militia groups have seen a resurgence in popularity since Barack Obama was elected president, says Heidi Beirich, director of research for the Southern Poverty Law Center. "It's like they came out of nowhere with the election of Obama." she says.
Her group has found 50 new militias in 18 months. "We added a group yesterday with 60 new chapters."
This is scary, too; very, very scary.
It suggests that the election of Obama has energized these groups. At a minimum, I think that the next presidential election is going to move the country to the Right—way Right. But maybe worse, consider that these militias stockpile weapons and train in military tactics. (Some of their members have had the benefit of training by the US military services.) They want to get enough power to control the US and impose their ideas on the rest of us. Of course that is the opposite of democracy. If these groups—many of which are neo-Nazi and thus racist, anti-Semitic, anti-gay, and God knows what all else—ever gain enough power, they are simply going to shoot any and all of those whom they don't like.
As I said, scary. Very, very scary.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
What Is "True Love"?
In one of those inexplicable moments of strange memory or recall that we older folks start to get used to, a bit of a song came into my mind, with the phrase "true love." And that got me to thinking about the term.
It would seem that the term true love implies that there are different degrees of love, only one of which is "true" love. And all other kinds of love are lesser forms of love.
What is true love, and how do we know it? And what of all those degrees or varieties of love which are somehow not "true"?
How do we define or recognize "true love" and distinguish it from those other, presumably lesser (or counterfeit?) forms of love? It might be facile to say that any person who cheats on his/her spouse is not "truly" in love with the spouse.
But maybe the term (and concept) "true love" holds before us a true but unattainable, illusory ideal. I have read that many people enter into marriage with an unrealistic and highly romantic ideal, which no actual marriage is going to be able to live up to. This is not healthy, and might be a reason for our high rate of divorce.
Maybe we all need to see if we can be content with some variety of love which is not that highest, and maybe illusory, "true love."
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
It would seem that the term true love implies that there are different degrees of love, only one of which is "true" love. And all other kinds of love are lesser forms of love.
What is true love, and how do we know it? And what of all those degrees or varieties of love which are somehow not "true"?
How do we define or recognize "true love" and distinguish it from those other, presumably lesser (or counterfeit?) forms of love? It might be facile to say that any person who cheats on his/her spouse is not "truly" in love with the spouse.
But maybe the term (and concept) "true love" holds before us a true but unattainable, illusory ideal. I have read that many people enter into marriage with an unrealistic and highly romantic ideal, which no actual marriage is going to be able to live up to. This is not healthy, and might be a reason for our high rate of divorce.
Maybe we all need to see if we can be content with some variety of love which is not that highest, and maybe illusory, "true love."
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Department of Names for Things
Just in case my brain should become idle for a moment, I've turned it to thinking up names for products that don't exist, but maybe should.
Drugs for E.D.: Bonera, Cocosterone, Leteride
Drugs for Alzheimer's: Cenyla
Drug for macular degeneration: Cancya
Store that sells blenders: Whirl-Mart
Pet shampoo: ShamPoodle
Cat food: Kitten Kaboodle
Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein
Drugs for E.D.: Bonera, Cocosterone, Leteride
Drugs for Alzheimer's: Cenyla
Drug for macular degeneration: Cancya
Store that sells blenders: Whirl-Mart
Pet shampoo: ShamPoodle
Cat food: Kitten Kaboodle
Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein
Mr. Obama and Afghanistan
I am very disappointed in President Obama's decision to send more troops to Afghanistan. He has promised to get us out of Afghanistan. I hate to have to tell him, but sending in more troops is the opposite of pulling out.
As I have pointed out before, it greatly saddens me to see the parallels with the Vietnam War. Then the generals, and the Commander-in-Chief, kept saying, "If we just send in x thousands more troops, we will win this war." And this happened I-don't-know-how-many times, until over 56,000 American soldiers had been killed.
In Afghanistan as in Vietnam, we are propping up a corrupt government that does not have the backing of its citizenry.
Just as in Vietnam, the game plan was supposed to be that we would help to train that country's own soldiers so that they would be able to defend their own country—and then we could pull out.
In case anybody has forgotten—and can you remember, Mr. Obama?—it didn't work in Vietnam.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
As I have pointed out before, it greatly saddens me to see the parallels with the Vietnam War. Then the generals, and the Commander-in-Chief, kept saying, "If we just send in x thousands more troops, we will win this war." And this happened I-don't-know-how-many times, until over 56,000 American soldiers had been killed.
In Afghanistan as in Vietnam, we are propping up a corrupt government that does not have the backing of its citizenry.
Just as in Vietnam, the game plan was supposed to be that we would help to train that country's own soldiers so that they would be able to defend their own country—and then we could pull out.
In case anybody has forgotten—and can you remember, Mr. Obama?—it didn't work in Vietnam.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
I'm Tired
Recent news has been about an executive of the Police Sergeants' Union who has been accused of embezzling funds from his union--with the latest estimate of the amount now up to $1 million.
But I'm tired of the subject of crooked and criminal police persons.
Also, there's a story about yet another US federal legislator--one Sen. Ensign, a Republican from Nevada, who was one of those "family values" conservatives and now has had to admit to having an extramarital affair.
But I'm tired of one conservative hypocrite--ministers and legislators--after another who has been exposed as preaching one thing and practicing another. I scarcely want to note yet another one.
I just wish that the people in general would finally begin to learn not to grant any credibility to these people who rant against gay marriage and abortion and divorce and other things that they would have us believe are immoral and very likely are secretly practicing what they preach against--that is, secretly until they are exposed.
Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein
But I'm tired of the subject of crooked and criminal police persons.
Also, there's a story about yet another US federal legislator--one Sen. Ensign, a Republican from Nevada, who was one of those "family values" conservatives and now has had to admit to having an extramarital affair.
But I'm tired of one conservative hypocrite--ministers and legislators--after another who has been exposed as preaching one thing and practicing another. I scarcely want to note yet another one.
I just wish that the people in general would finally begin to learn not to grant any credibility to these people who rant against gay marriage and abortion and divorce and other things that they would have us believe are immoral and very likely are secretly practicing what they preach against--that is, secretly until they are exposed.
Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Yes, I Want It in My Back Yard
I was looking at a little mailing--sort of a newsletter--from my congressman. He boasts of "bringing home" federal dollars for projects in his district. The sort of news that gladdens his constituents. We all want to be sure we're getting a piece of that incredibly huge federal pie, don't we? When it's "my back yard," we want all the good stuff and none of the bad stuff.
But if it's someone else's congressman and his district that federal money is going to, we call that "pork barrel legislation," and deplore it.
Are we perhaps being a bit inconsistent? A guy I used to know would use the expression, "It depends on whose ox is being gored." Yes, it matters whether it's us or someone else.
You might call this inconsistent, or hypocritical. Or, how about selfish? I have long maintained that very many people--maybe the average persons--care very little about what goes on beyond the four corners of their lot. Okay, one qualification to that: they care about their children's schools. But, human nature being what it is, everybody's interest is mainly in their personal welfare and their immediate family's, and their physical home.
There are the Mother Theresas and others who have wide horizons and truly want to save the world. But many folks, when they leave their suburban houses in the morning to go to work, and look up and down the street and see two cars in every driveway, truly feel that all is well with the world. Well, maybe it's the working of those needs hierarchies that we learn about in Psych 101. Again, human nature.
Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein
But if it's someone else's congressman and his district that federal money is going to, we call that "pork barrel legislation," and deplore it.
Are we perhaps being a bit inconsistent? A guy I used to know would use the expression, "It depends on whose ox is being gored." Yes, it matters whether it's us or someone else.
You might call this inconsistent, or hypocritical. Or, how about selfish? I have long maintained that very many people--maybe the average persons--care very little about what goes on beyond the four corners of their lot. Okay, one qualification to that: they care about their children's schools. But, human nature being what it is, everybody's interest is mainly in their personal welfare and their immediate family's, and their physical home.
There are the Mother Theresas and others who have wide horizons and truly want to save the world. But many folks, when they leave their suburban houses in the morning to go to work, and look up and down the street and see two cars in every driveway, truly feel that all is well with the world. Well, maybe it's the working of those needs hierarchies that we learn about in Psych 101. Again, human nature.
Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Excuse Me, But--Aren't Catholics a Minority?
Some voices on the political Right are complaining against those who, in their view, advocate imposing "minority mores" on the rest of us. I have to think that they are talking about things like gay rights and same-sex marriage.
Consider that, recently, it was the influence of Roman Catholics who succeeded in getting the Stupak amendment added to the health-care reform bill in the U.S. House of Representatives. This amendment prohibits coverage for abortion in any federally-administered health insurance.
And a week or so earlier, U.S. Roman Catholic bishops, donated $185,000 to further the passage, in Maine, of Proposition 1, which overturned same-sex marriage in that state. Plus, the Catholic bishops had done much the same in California, helping to assure passage of Proposition 8, which overturned same-sex marriage in that state. They not only used dollars but lobbied heavily--and in California they were notably joined in that effort by the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons).
Leave aside for the moment the issue that, supposedly or theoretically, church groups are barred from political action or advocacy, at the peril of losing their tax-exempt status—which is apparently never enforced against the Catholic Church or any right-wing church, although an action for removing the tax-exempt status was brought against a minister who had spoken on the other side of the aisle during the reign of George W. Bush.
The people complaining, as quoted above, about "minorities" who want to impose their mores on the majority must not have been talking about U. S. Roman Catholics—although, last I heard, Catholics were a minority—as are Mormons, for that matter. Catholics just happen to be a wealthy and well-organized minority, not to mention sufficiently powerful that they will not be ignored by politicians.
So, as always, the Right is hypocritical: they inveigh against the very things that they themselves are guilty of. It's "if you want rights, you are a minority who does not speak for Us. But when it's us—well, disregard the fact that we are not the majority, just because we happen to be right!"
Well, if they mean Right—Amen to that.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Consider that, recently, it was the influence of Roman Catholics who succeeded in getting the Stupak amendment added to the health-care reform bill in the U.S. House of Representatives. This amendment prohibits coverage for abortion in any federally-administered health insurance.
And a week or so earlier, U.S. Roman Catholic bishops, donated $185,000 to further the passage, in Maine, of Proposition 1, which overturned same-sex marriage in that state. Plus, the Catholic bishops had done much the same in California, helping to assure passage of Proposition 8, which overturned same-sex marriage in that state. They not only used dollars but lobbied heavily--and in California they were notably joined in that effort by the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons).
Leave aside for the moment the issue that, supposedly or theoretically, church groups are barred from political action or advocacy, at the peril of losing their tax-exempt status—which is apparently never enforced against the Catholic Church or any right-wing church, although an action for removing the tax-exempt status was brought against a minister who had spoken on the other side of the aisle during the reign of George W. Bush.
The people complaining, as quoted above, about "minorities" who want to impose their mores on the majority must not have been talking about U. S. Roman Catholics—although, last I heard, Catholics were a minority—as are Mormons, for that matter. Catholics just happen to be a wealthy and well-organized minority, not to mention sufficiently powerful that they will not be ignored by politicians.
So, as always, the Right is hypocritical: they inveigh against the very things that they themselves are guilty of. It's "if you want rights, you are a minority who does not speak for Us. But when it's us—well, disregard the fact that we are not the majority, just because we happen to be right!"
Well, if they mean Right—Amen to that.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Capital Punishment: A Dilemma
This is not going to argue the case for or against capital punishment, per se, but merely to look at some of the methods of capital punishment employed in modern times and see whether they are humane.
The following methods of execution are used in the 37 states that have a death penalty: lethal injection, electrocution, lethal gas, firing squad, and hanging. The electric chair is probably not as common as it used to be. Indiana, for example, has dropped the electric chair in favor of lethal injection. Nebraska is the only state where it is still the primary method of execution. However, in 2008 the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that the use of the electric chair as a method of execution violates the Nebraska Constitution. Electrocution may be less widely used because of a number of horror stories about, for example, the number of jolts required before the condemned expired; the condemned's body catching fire; and so forth.
But lethal injection, now the preferred method in many states, has its problems as well. The same writer says, "The first execution [by lethal injection] was conducted in 1982 and is now the preferred execution method in every state except one (Nebraska still only performs electrocutions). Lethal injections involve three consecutive drugs; the first sedates the prisoner, the next relaxes the chest muscles to stop breathing, and the third stops the heart."*
Among the problems with lethal injection are that the drugs are sometimes not administered in the proper amounts, and sometimes the agony of the prisoner, when he is unable to breathe, is obvious. Also, as the same article points out, the people who administer the IV are prison guards, not medical professionals—medical professionals typically consider participating in executions to be against the Hippocratic Oath they have taken—such that at times the injected substances have gone into muscles rather than veins, and have left visible chemical burns on the flesh.
The same article says that we are not comfortable with any method of capital punishment that results in a corpse giving any appearance other than that of a natural death. We don't want to have to confront any evidence of what we have done, that is, to murder a human being.
Addendum published Dec. 9, 2009: Here is an article about the State of Ohio switching to a single-drug lethal injection, the first such to be used in the US (and their first execution with this method just occurred, according to today's news). Nebraska will be watching carefully. The reason for the switch is the botched executions referred to above, one of which took two hours because the executioners could not find veins in the condemned.
http://news.aol.com/article/ohio-inmate-kenneth-biros-to-get-1-drug/705937?icid=main|htmlws-main-n|dl1|link6|http%3A%2F%2Fnews.aol.com%2Farticle%2Fohio-inmate-kenneth-biros-to-get-1-drug%2F705937
*Daniel Guarnera, "Hard to Kill: Why Can’t the U.S. Find a Suitable Execution Method?" Internationalist Review, 2007-01-04.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
The following methods of execution are used in the 37 states that have a death penalty: lethal injection, electrocution, lethal gas, firing squad, and hanging. The electric chair is probably not as common as it used to be. Indiana, for example, has dropped the electric chair in favor of lethal injection. Nebraska is the only state where it is still the primary method of execution. However, in 2008 the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that the use of the electric chair as a method of execution violates the Nebraska Constitution. Electrocution may be less widely used because of a number of horror stories about, for example, the number of jolts required before the condemned expired; the condemned's body catching fire; and so forth.
This device [the electric chair]—considered progressive and compassionate when it was introduced—has fallen almost completely out of favor because it frequently results in vomiting, violent muscle spasms, and burning flesh. Even after having a century to perfect the procedure, the heads of two prisoners in Florida caught on fire during their executions in the late 1990s, prompting the governor to scrap the state’s electric chair altogether.*
But lethal injection, now the preferred method in many states, has its problems as well. The same writer says, "The first execution [by lethal injection] was conducted in 1982 and is now the preferred execution method in every state except one (Nebraska still only performs electrocutions). Lethal injections involve three consecutive drugs; the first sedates the prisoner, the next relaxes the chest muscles to stop breathing, and the third stops the heart."*
Among the problems with lethal injection are that the drugs are sometimes not administered in the proper amounts, and sometimes the agony of the prisoner, when he is unable to breathe, is obvious. Also, as the same article points out, the people who administer the IV are prison guards, not medical professionals—medical professionals typically consider participating in executions to be against the Hippocratic Oath they have taken—such that at times the injected substances have gone into muscles rather than veins, and have left visible chemical burns on the flesh.
The same article says that we are not comfortable with any method of capital punishment that results in a corpse giving any appearance other than that of a natural death. We don't want to have to confront any evidence of what we have done, that is, to murder a human being.
Addendum published Dec. 9, 2009: Here is an article about the State of Ohio switching to a single-drug lethal injection, the first such to be used in the US (and their first execution with this method just occurred, according to today's news). Nebraska will be watching carefully. The reason for the switch is the botched executions referred to above, one of which took two hours because the executioners could not find veins in the condemned.
http://news.aol.com/article/ohio-inmate-kenneth-biros-to-get-1-drug/705937?icid=main|htmlws-main-n|dl1|link6|http%3A%2F%2Fnews.aol.com%2Farticle%2Fohio-inmate-kenneth-biros-to-get-1-drug%2F705937
*Daniel Guarnera, "Hard to Kill: Why Can’t the U.S. Find a Suitable Execution Method?" Internationalist Review, 2007-01-04.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Who Is Behind the Conservative Backlash?
According to the news, there are a lot of organized gatherings and demonstrations of conservatives who are angry. A few weeks ago we heard of the shouting at health care reform meetings held by congressmen; and there were the "tea parties."
I said then and I say again that these groups are largely staged. Last night (11/2), on ABC News NightLine, Terry Moran interviewed Dick Armey, who used to be a (very conservative) congressman from Texas and is now organizing these protests. He refused to answer Terry's questions about corporate funding of his organization.
If he doesn't want to discuss something, that certainly looks like he does not want the answer revealed. U.S. corporations, almost without exception, take a conservative position: for example less government regulation, lower corporate (and personal) taxes. And wealthy Americans also want to hold on to their money, rather than allow the government to take some of it and spread it around; so these people naturally support—and very handsomely fund—right-wing causes. I have to think that many Americans—those in these groups and demonstrations that we are seeing—if they are truly the "little" or "average" Americans that they claim to be, are being made dupes by these corporate interests. They are saying they want to hold onto their money—though I don't see Obama raising taxes—and their guns and their freedom. I don't see that the threats that they are afraid of are real ones; they have been manufactured by cynical conservative and corporate interests.
Large U. S. corporations are caught in a dilemma and are playing a dangerous game. On the one hand they are supporting and probably in fact organizing (if indirectly) these gatherings and protests. But the protests are protesting "Obama-nomics" measures such as bailouts of banks and corporations. Corporations are aiding, abetting, and even organizing protests against "big government" when government policies have in fact benefitted them. Their game must be subtle, devious, and cynical. I think it's, "Anything for the larger conservative cause, and against a liberal president, even if some of those policies have benefitted us."
I have to think that, although the business-corporate and banking-investment communities have benefitted from bailouts under the Obama administration, in spite of this fact they still would not want to in any way be supportive of a Democratic administration because they believe they would pay a price of being more closely regulated under a Democratic administration, whereas Republicans are traditionally—some say notoriously—in favor of laissez-faire.
The little guy or average American who we see in these protesting crowds somehow fails to see, or forgets, that the Republican party is the party of those who have wealth and power—the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant heterosexual male—and want to hold on to it.
Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein
I said then and I say again that these groups are largely staged. Last night (11/2), on ABC News NightLine, Terry Moran interviewed Dick Armey, who used to be a (very conservative) congressman from Texas and is now organizing these protests. He refused to answer Terry's questions about corporate funding of his organization.
If he doesn't want to discuss something, that certainly looks like he does not want the answer revealed. U.S. corporations, almost without exception, take a conservative position: for example less government regulation, lower corporate (and personal) taxes. And wealthy Americans also want to hold on to their money, rather than allow the government to take some of it and spread it around; so these people naturally support—and very handsomely fund—right-wing causes. I have to think that many Americans—those in these groups and demonstrations that we are seeing—if they are truly the "little" or "average" Americans that they claim to be, are being made dupes by these corporate interests. They are saying they want to hold onto their money—though I don't see Obama raising taxes—and their guns and their freedom. I don't see that the threats that they are afraid of are real ones; they have been manufactured by cynical conservative and corporate interests.
Large U. S. corporations are caught in a dilemma and are playing a dangerous game. On the one hand they are supporting and probably in fact organizing (if indirectly) these gatherings and protests. But the protests are protesting "Obama-nomics" measures such as bailouts of banks and corporations. Corporations are aiding, abetting, and even organizing protests against "big government" when government policies have in fact benefitted them. Their game must be subtle, devious, and cynical. I think it's, "Anything for the larger conservative cause, and against a liberal president, even if some of those policies have benefitted us."
I have to think that, although the business-corporate and banking-investment communities have benefitted from bailouts under the Obama administration, in spite of this fact they still would not want to in any way be supportive of a Democratic administration because they believe they would pay a price of being more closely regulated under a Democratic administration, whereas Republicans are traditionally—some say notoriously—in favor of laissez-faire.
The little guy or average American who we see in these protesting crowds somehow fails to see, or forgets, that the Republican party is the party of those who have wealth and power—the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant heterosexual male—and want to hold on to it.
Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Voices Opposing More Troops for Afghanistan
A gentleman named Hoh, a civilian career diplomat stationed in Afghanistan, recently resigned his post because he does not believe that current U.S. policy in Afghanistan is productive, and he does not support increasing troop levels. He has stated that he feels that the Afghan population views U.S. troops as military occupiers.
And another voice of opposition comes from U.S. Representative Jane Harmon of California, who seems to be saying that, since the administration of Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai is corrupt and riddled with cronyism, it does not have the backing of the Afghan people; and that the U.S., in backing Karzai, thus cannot have the support of the Afghan people either.
As I have said before, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have parallels in the Vietnam war, from which we apparently learned little or nothing. In Vietnam (if anyone still remembers), the French had pulled out after being defeated at Dien Bien Phu. They were succeeded by the Americans. This parallels Afghanistan in that the Russians were in Afghanistan and pulled out; and somehow, the U.S. now is there to again show the Afghans that foreigners want to control their country.
In Vietnam, the U.S. just increased and increased troop levels. Now we are doing that in Afghanistan. Also, the U.S. was propping up the unpopular, dictatorial government of Ngo Dinh Diem which violated the Geneva Accords on Vietnam that were established when the French withdrew. (Source: Encarta Encyclopedia s.v. Ngo Dinh Diem)
Another parallel: U.S. forces are supposedly training Afghan forces so that they will be better able to fight the Taliban. In Vietnam, U.S. troops supposedly were to be withdrawn once South Vietnamese army forces had become able, with U.S. training, to take over the battle against Communist forces. It didn't work then; is it going to work this time? Can you say "rhetorical question"?
Also, note that we are not fighting al-Quaeda in Afghanistan, we are fighting the Taliban. These are bad guys, I'd agree. They want a fundamentalist theocracy in Afghanistan, and these are the boys who blew up the ancient, colossal Buddhist statues--surely a crime against world culture. And they keep infiltrating Pakistan, or have bases in Pakistan. But these are issues for the Afghan and Pakistani governments. It's not clear that the U.S. has a direct interest here, in spite of what American soldiers believe because they have been told so.
Again, I can't wholeheartedly support "our troops" when, remember, they are volunteers and they are doing what they are doing under the mistaken idea that they are fighting for their country or, at least, their country's interests.
Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein
And another voice of opposition comes from U.S. Representative Jane Harmon of California, who seems to be saying that, since the administration of Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai is corrupt and riddled with cronyism, it does not have the backing of the Afghan people; and that the U.S., in backing Karzai, thus cannot have the support of the Afghan people either.
As I have said before, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have parallels in the Vietnam war, from which we apparently learned little or nothing. In Vietnam (if anyone still remembers), the French had pulled out after being defeated at Dien Bien Phu. They were succeeded by the Americans. This parallels Afghanistan in that the Russians were in Afghanistan and pulled out; and somehow, the U.S. now is there to again show the Afghans that foreigners want to control their country.
In Vietnam, the U.S. just increased and increased troop levels. Now we are doing that in Afghanistan. Also, the U.S. was propping up the unpopular, dictatorial government of Ngo Dinh Diem which violated the Geneva Accords on Vietnam that were established when the French withdrew. (Source: Encarta Encyclopedia s.v. Ngo Dinh Diem)
Another parallel: U.S. forces are supposedly training Afghan forces so that they will be better able to fight the Taliban. In Vietnam, U.S. troops supposedly were to be withdrawn once South Vietnamese army forces had become able, with U.S. training, to take over the battle against Communist forces. It didn't work then; is it going to work this time? Can you say "rhetorical question"?
Also, note that we are not fighting al-Quaeda in Afghanistan, we are fighting the Taliban. These are bad guys, I'd agree. They want a fundamentalist theocracy in Afghanistan, and these are the boys who blew up the ancient, colossal Buddhist statues--surely a crime against world culture. And they keep infiltrating Pakistan, or have bases in Pakistan. But these are issues for the Afghan and Pakistani governments. It's not clear that the U.S. has a direct interest here, in spite of what American soldiers believe because they have been told so.
Again, I can't wholeheartedly support "our troops" when, remember, they are volunteers and they are doing what they are doing under the mistaken idea that they are fighting for their country or, at least, their country's interests.
Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Another Polce Officer Who (Allegedly) Is a Criminal
A few months ago, a Chicago police officer was driving his Lexus SUV while his blood alcohol level was three times the legal limit. He crashed into an SUV stopped on the shoulder, setting it afire and killing two young men who were inside.
Then he tried to calmly, slowly, nonchalantly walk away!
Fortunately he was apprehended. Now the policemen's union (the Fraternal Order of Police) is hosting a benefit event to raise money for this man's defense. This, I think, shows how the police stick together, never disavowing one of their number. They simply cannot or will not ever acknowledge that one of their number is a wrongdoer.
Then he tried to calmly, slowly, nonchalantly walk away!
Fortunately he was apprehended. Now the policemen's union (the Fraternal Order of Police) is hosting a benefit event to raise money for this man's defense. This, I think, shows how the police stick together, never disavowing one of their number. They simply cannot or will not ever acknowledge that one of their number is a wrongdoer.
Monday, October 19, 2009
The French Have a Word for It
Have you ever had the experience of thinking, "I should have said such-and-such," or "I wish I had thought of saying such-and-such"? Of course you have; it's a very common experience.
Well, the French have a word for it, l'esprit de l'escalier, which literally means 'the spirit of the staircase'. The idea, presumably, is that you've just left someone's apartment and you've started down the stairs, and you think of what you should have said.
Well, today I thought of something I should have said--a couple of years ago! I know it sounds odd to be thinking of a situation that long ago. If I explained the association, or what triggered the memory, it might make more sense (trust me on this).
What I thought of as what I should have said would have been the perfect putdown to a person who was being obnoxious. It not only would have shut him up, I would have gotten a laugh, I'm sure, from the rest of the people at the table.
It's enough to make you wish you could travel back in time, so that you could have another chance to say what you should have said!
Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein
Well, the French have a word for it, l'esprit de l'escalier, which literally means 'the spirit of the staircase'. The idea, presumably, is that you've just left someone's apartment and you've started down the stairs, and you think of what you should have said.
Well, today I thought of something I should have said--a couple of years ago! I know it sounds odd to be thinking of a situation that long ago. If I explained the association, or what triggered the memory, it might make more sense (trust me on this).
What I thought of as what I should have said would have been the perfect putdown to a person who was being obnoxious. It not only would have shut him up, I would have gotten a laugh, I'm sure, from the rest of the people at the table.
It's enough to make you wish you could travel back in time, so that you could have another chance to say what you should have said!
Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Why Do Some Things Cost More?
At one time, when buying a car, cloth upholstery on the seats was standard, but for extra cost, you could get vinyl upholstery. At a later period, vinyl was the standard or base choice, and cloth was an extra-cost option.
In the Middle Ages, white bread was more expensive and was perceived as a luxury. Today dark bread costs more than white bread.
In these two cases, the price is not determined by the cost that the manufacturer or provider incurs in producing a product, as the same thing probably is not cheaper to make at one time and more expensive to make at another time. So with some items, at least part of the price is determined by what the buyer will pay (or is expected to be willing to pay).
Why does one bottle of wine cost $7.50 and another $75? There may be greater cost incurred in producing the more expensive wine in that the vintner may pay more for better quality grapes. But most wine experts will acknowledge that price and quality don't have a perfect correlation.
Pricing on the part of a capitalist is to some degree a function of cost of production, but clearly not always. A car, for example, is priced by a major automaker such that, if they make (and sell), say, 100,000 cars, they make a profit. If they sell fewer, they lose money. If they sell more, they make a greater profit. The cost of designing the model, testing it, etc., is amortized over a certain number of units sold. So if a car, or anything else that has design and development costs, stays in production for years, the sale price contains more profit since development costs have already been recouped. Sometimes, even—probably rarely—once the manufacturer's development costs have been recouped, the price may come down, as happened with the Model T Ford.
So is the $75 bottle of wine worth its price, or is it overpriced? Are high-priced items in general worth what they cost?
I can tell you that, as price goes up, the increment in quality is not proportional. For example, what is the difference between a $200 men's suit and a $500 men's suit? You may guess that the more expensive suit is not two and one-half times as "good" in any sense. The latter might have, say, $30 more cost in the cloth and maybe another $20 or so in added labor (more steps or slower and more careful workmanship). So the maker puts in $50 of additional cost and can raise the price $300.
So is that $500 suit a rip-off? Can a $300,000 Ferrari be worth the cost? To some degree you pay for labels and nameplates. Some brands (and stores) have greater profit margin. A Tommy Hilfiger shirt that might cost four times as much as a shirt at Target is still made in Third World countries, with low labor costs. Guess what? It's got greater profit margin. The store that is selling that Hilfiger shirt in an end-of-season sale, at half price, is still not losing money.
In the case of the Ferrari, this is a low-volume car, and largely hand-made. That partly justifies the cost. To the buyer, I'd say: If you can perceive and appreciate the difference between a Ferrari and a Chevrolet, or the subtleties in that premium bottle of wine, and you can afford it, go for it. We need you to keep the economy rolling.
One footnote: I have not attended business school. My information on the suits used as an example comes from very good authority. And I think I'm on solid ground in the rest of what I say here. But if a reader can show me that I am wrong at some point, I hope s/he will tell me so in a comment.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
In the Middle Ages, white bread was more expensive and was perceived as a luxury. Today dark bread costs more than white bread.
In these two cases, the price is not determined by the cost that the manufacturer or provider incurs in producing a product, as the same thing probably is not cheaper to make at one time and more expensive to make at another time. So with some items, at least part of the price is determined by what the buyer will pay (or is expected to be willing to pay).
Why does one bottle of wine cost $7.50 and another $75? There may be greater cost incurred in producing the more expensive wine in that the vintner may pay more for better quality grapes. But most wine experts will acknowledge that price and quality don't have a perfect correlation.
Pricing on the part of a capitalist is to some degree a function of cost of production, but clearly not always. A car, for example, is priced by a major automaker such that, if they make (and sell), say, 100,000 cars, they make a profit. If they sell fewer, they lose money. If they sell more, they make a greater profit. The cost of designing the model, testing it, etc., is amortized over a certain number of units sold. So if a car, or anything else that has design and development costs, stays in production for years, the sale price contains more profit since development costs have already been recouped. Sometimes, even—probably rarely—once the manufacturer's development costs have been recouped, the price may come down, as happened with the Model T Ford.
So is the $75 bottle of wine worth its price, or is it overpriced? Are high-priced items in general worth what they cost?
I can tell you that, as price goes up, the increment in quality is not proportional. For example, what is the difference between a $200 men's suit and a $500 men's suit? You may guess that the more expensive suit is not two and one-half times as "good" in any sense. The latter might have, say, $30 more cost in the cloth and maybe another $20 or so in added labor (more steps or slower and more careful workmanship). So the maker puts in $50 of additional cost and can raise the price $300.
So is that $500 suit a rip-off? Can a $300,000 Ferrari be worth the cost? To some degree you pay for labels and nameplates. Some brands (and stores) have greater profit margin. A Tommy Hilfiger shirt that might cost four times as much as a shirt at Target is still made in Third World countries, with low labor costs. Guess what? It's got greater profit margin. The store that is selling that Hilfiger shirt in an end-of-season sale, at half price, is still not losing money.
In the case of the Ferrari, this is a low-volume car, and largely hand-made. That partly justifies the cost. To the buyer, I'd say: If you can perceive and appreciate the difference between a Ferrari and a Chevrolet, or the subtleties in that premium bottle of wine, and you can afford it, go for it. We need you to keep the economy rolling.
One footnote: I have not attended business school. My information on the suits used as an example comes from very good authority. And I think I'm on solid ground in the rest of what I say here. But if a reader can show me that I am wrong at some point, I hope s/he will tell me so in a comment.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Thursday, October 15, 2009
A Cheesy Subject
I recently happened to think about "The Whiffenpoof Song" (don't ask why!), and it occurred to me to wonder what some of the words referred to. So I went to that wonder of the modern, on-line world, Wikipedia. I found there some info on the song and also on "The Whiffenpoofs," who were (and still are!) a Yale singing society.
The Wikipedia entry immortalized (in infamy) a man who was a contestant on Jeopardy! Here is the quote from Wikipedia:
"On one episode of Jeopardy!, aired July 23, 2009, contestant Stefan Goodreau responded to the Final Jeopardy! clue of 'This cheese was created in 1892 by Emil Frey & named for a New York singing society whose members loved the cheese' with 'What is Whiffenpoof cheese?' He was incorrect (the correct response was 'What is Liederkranz?') and lost $20,065 but still won the game."
Even if Mr. Goodreau did not know that Liederkranz means "circle of song" (and probably he does not know German), it seems to me he still might have known that the "Whiffs" whom he was thinking of are not a "New York singing society" but a Yale (and thus New Haven) singing society.
Anyway, of course there is no such thing as "Whiffenpoof cheese," but this got me thinking about Liederkranz, and wanting some. I happen to like ripe cheeses. I didn't find any Liederkranz in my local supermarket (I know another store at which I could be pretty sure of finding it), but I merely bought Limburger, instead, because I think it's similar. They both are, shall we say, odiferous, and that no doubt keeps a lot of people away. I, on the other hand, love stinking cheeses--might be the German in my ancestry--and I am enjoying my Limburger, thank you very much.
Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein
The Wikipedia entry immortalized (in infamy) a man who was a contestant on Jeopardy! Here is the quote from Wikipedia:
"On one episode of Jeopardy!, aired July 23, 2009, contestant Stefan Goodreau responded to the Final Jeopardy! clue of 'This cheese was created in 1892 by Emil Frey & named for a New York singing society whose members loved the cheese' with 'What is Whiffenpoof cheese?' He was incorrect (the correct response was 'What is Liederkranz?') and lost $20,065 but still won the game."
Even if Mr. Goodreau did not know that Liederkranz means "circle of song" (and probably he does not know German), it seems to me he still might have known that the "Whiffs" whom he was thinking of are not a "New York singing society" but a Yale (and thus New Haven) singing society.
Anyway, of course there is no such thing as "Whiffenpoof cheese," but this got me thinking about Liederkranz, and wanting some. I happen to like ripe cheeses. I didn't find any Liederkranz in my local supermarket (I know another store at which I could be pretty sure of finding it), but I merely bought Limburger, instead, because I think it's similar. They both are, shall we say, odiferous, and that no doubt keeps a lot of people away. I, on the other hand, love stinking cheeses--might be the German in my ancestry--and I am enjoying my Limburger, thank you very much.
Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein
Friday, October 9, 2009
Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize
Apparently many conservatives are unhappy that President Obama is to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I don't want to be ranked with conservatives, not for a moment! But I have to agree it seems a problematic choice.
I have no doubt that Mr. Obama is a very admirable man. I think that, in time and with a retrospective view, he might even be viewed as a great man. But note that I said retrospective, not prospective.
This is not a case of looking back over a man's long career. Mr. Obama is still a rather young man, not to mention that he has been President for less than nine months.
It might seem less startling if, at least, the award had come after he had been in office for five or six years. Most Nobel prizes--for example, those in Physics--come only several decades after the work or discovery that they are being given for.
Mr. Obama, to his credit, might even be a bit embarrassed by receiving the award, and in his speech he himself pronounced himself unworthy, saying it was really for the nation's efforts to establish a new path for international relations.
Give that man very high marks--no, a prize!--for modesty.
Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein
I have no doubt that Mr. Obama is a very admirable man. I think that, in time and with a retrospective view, he might even be viewed as a great man. But note that I said retrospective, not prospective.
This is not a case of looking back over a man's long career. Mr. Obama is still a rather young man, not to mention that he has been President for less than nine months.
It might seem less startling if, at least, the award had come after he had been in office for five or six years. Most Nobel prizes--for example, those in Physics--come only several decades after the work or discovery that they are being given for.
Mr. Obama, to his credit, might even be a bit embarrassed by receiving the award, and in his speech he himself pronounced himself unworthy, saying it was really for the nation's efforts to establish a new path for international relations.
Give that man very high marks--no, a prize!--for modesty.
Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein
Monday, October 5, 2009
The Dumbing (Down) of America
The TV news weather segment includes a "future cast"; what do the producers think the fore- in forecast means?
The TV weather also now speaks of "rain chance" instead of "precipitation probability"—which I guess is too big a word for people to deal with. Also, the heat index is now called "feels-like" temperature. Less brains are required to grasp that, I'm sure.
Another personage on TV, who hosts travel shows, usually does not say, for example, "eighteenth century" but "the seventeen hundreds." Again, I guess that they are assuming a pretty low level of public intelligence.
I just bought a new supply of mouthwash. The previous bottle was called "antiseptic oral rinse," but this one (same product, new label) is "antiseptic mouth rinse." Some marketing exec figures we are all too dumb to know the word oral. Jeez!
And objectively, we in America are getting dumber. Test scores keep falling. Students do not learn to read and write (and spell!) in grade school and are passed on to high school. They do not learn to read and write in high school and are passed on to college. Are they taught to read and write in college? Maybe the colleges try—I for one have taught "developmental" (what we used to call "remedial") reading to college students. But, of course these students should have learned much earlier, and it is a disgrace that it should fall to colleges to make a last-ditch effort to teach what are elementary-school skills.
And many colleges—scandalously—have very lax standards for admission and for graduation, and they will confer degrees on these students—who still can barely read and write!
We keep hearing that what is at risk is America's ability to "compete." I am sure that students in those countries which we fear as competitors—Japan, China, Taiwan, even India—can do a much better job of reading and writing their own languages, even though students in Japan—and even more so in China—have to learn a writing system with far more characters than English has.
I think I have given some of my ideas on what is wrong with American education in another blog posting. Here I will simply say that, when we have very low expectations for the intelligence and knowledge on the part of the public, as we seem to, those expectations become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
The TV weather also now speaks of "rain chance" instead of "precipitation probability"—which I guess is too big a word for people to deal with. Also, the heat index is now called "feels-like" temperature. Less brains are required to grasp that, I'm sure.
Another personage on TV, who hosts travel shows, usually does not say, for example, "eighteenth century" but "the seventeen hundreds." Again, I guess that they are assuming a pretty low level of public intelligence.
I just bought a new supply of mouthwash. The previous bottle was called "antiseptic oral rinse," but this one (same product, new label) is "antiseptic mouth rinse." Some marketing exec figures we are all too dumb to know the word oral. Jeez!
And objectively, we in America are getting dumber. Test scores keep falling. Students do not learn to read and write (and spell!) in grade school and are passed on to high school. They do not learn to read and write in high school and are passed on to college. Are they taught to read and write in college? Maybe the colleges try—I for one have taught "developmental" (what we used to call "remedial") reading to college students. But, of course these students should have learned much earlier, and it is a disgrace that it should fall to colleges to make a last-ditch effort to teach what are elementary-school skills.
And many colleges—scandalously—have very lax standards for admission and for graduation, and they will confer degrees on these students—who still can barely read and write!
We keep hearing that what is at risk is America's ability to "compete." I am sure that students in those countries which we fear as competitors—Japan, China, Taiwan, even India—can do a much better job of reading and writing their own languages, even though students in Japan—and even more so in China—have to learn a writing system with far more characters than English has.
I think I have given some of my ideas on what is wrong with American education in another blog posting. Here I will simply say that, when we have very low expectations for the intelligence and knowledge on the part of the public, as we seem to, those expectations become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
The British Are Invading--Again!
It's generally recognized that British English and American English have significant differences--mainly in pronunciation and vocabulary. Winston Churchill famously called the U.S. and Britain "two countries separated by a common language."
Of course we live in an age of instantaneous global communication. The British have been viewing our movies for decades, and an enormous volume of such exchange should serve to "level" (in the jargon of linguists) the differences. And I think that the British now are acquainted with many terms which had been Americanisms.
However, the influence can work both ways. Americans have come to use a few terms that had been mainly British in their use.
First, fridge for refrigerator. This is now so common in America that we hear it and don't give it a thought but (trust me, I can remember!) there was a time when this was used only in Britain.
Another is to go missing. News broadcasts in America seem to be full of stories about a person or a pet who has "gone missing." Now, here's the interesting part: What did we say before we used that expression? I don't remember. It's funny how that works, once a term becomes well-established, we don't even remember how we got along without it.
Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein
Of course we live in an age of instantaneous global communication. The British have been viewing our movies for decades, and an enormous volume of such exchange should serve to "level" (in the jargon of linguists) the differences. And I think that the British now are acquainted with many terms which had been Americanisms.
However, the influence can work both ways. Americans have come to use a few terms that had been mainly British in their use.
First, fridge for refrigerator. This is now so common in America that we hear it and don't give it a thought but (trust me, I can remember!) there was a time when this was used only in Britain.
Another is to go missing. News broadcasts in America seem to be full of stories about a person or a pet who has "gone missing." Now, here's the interesting part: What did we say before we used that expression? I don't remember. It's funny how that works, once a term becomes well-established, we don't even remember how we got along without it.
Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein
Still More on the Police
I don't really want this blog to become solely about the police, or even mainly about the police, but I can't resist the urge to disseminate word about the latest incident of police misconduct.
In this case, a Chicago police officer has been hit with a civil suit by 21 plaintiffs who charge that the officer unjustifiably arrested them for Driving Under the Influence. It is charged that he picked his targets by observing them coming out of gay bars. One of the plaintiffs said (in an interview shown on TV news) that the officer said to him, "You've got two strikes: you're black and you're a fag."
What is this officer's motivation, other than his biases and prejudices? He makes money. When he appears in court in these cases, even if the case gets thrown out, the officer is paid time and half.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving has given this officer a reward because of his uncommon number of drunk-driving arrests--300. It's sad that single-issue constituencies like MADD so typically only scratch the surface of an issue and see only what they want to see. I think they deserve a new acronym, maybe IDIOT, standing for Idiotic Dames Inflicting Obnoxious Temperance.
Chicago has a (relatively) new police superintendent who came to his position with great promise of cleaning things up. So far he has shown too much inclination to defend the police officers under him, rather than getting at the truth and doing something about these abuses of police power.
Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein
In this case, a Chicago police officer has been hit with a civil suit by 21 plaintiffs who charge that the officer unjustifiably arrested them for Driving Under the Influence. It is charged that he picked his targets by observing them coming out of gay bars. One of the plaintiffs said (in an interview shown on TV news) that the officer said to him, "You've got two strikes: you're black and you're a fag."
What is this officer's motivation, other than his biases and prejudices? He makes money. When he appears in court in these cases, even if the case gets thrown out, the officer is paid time and half.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving has given this officer a reward because of his uncommon number of drunk-driving arrests--300. It's sad that single-issue constituencies like MADD so typically only scratch the surface of an issue and see only what they want to see. I think they deserve a new acronym, maybe IDIOT, standing for Idiotic Dames Inflicting Obnoxious Temperance.
Chicago has a (relatively) new police superintendent who came to his position with great promise of cleaning things up. So far he has shown too much inclination to defend the police officers under him, rather than getting at the truth and doing something about these abuses of police power.
Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Some Linguistic Musings
First, a couple of words of which the original meanings have been forgotten through maybe several "rounds" of meaning change:
First, jock originally meant 'penis'. Then jock became short for jockstrap, and then it came to mean an athlete through a natural association with jockstrap.
Joystick also originally meant 'penis'. The next meaning was for the control stick of an airplane, and then it came to be used for the similar controllers for video games and so forth.
Scumbag originally meant 'condom'. You can get the "bag" part of it, so guess what the scum part denoted.
Now, maybe what is another subject and not related at all.
Some diseases that people used to talk about (and which presumably doctors used to diagnose) are not heard of at all. The words have totally fallen into disuse.
Chilblains. Defined in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Ed. as "an inflammatory swelling or sore caused by exposure (as of the feet or hands) to cold."
Ague. Defined in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Ed. as "a fever (as malaria) marked by paroxysms of chills, fever, and sweating that recur at regular intervals."
La grippe or the grippe. Defined in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Ed. as "an acute febrile contagious virus disease; esp. influenza."
Now, these are all things that you would expect people would still get. People do in fact get malaria, although it is not common in the U.S. any longer; but it is in fact common in certain warmer parts of the world. Maybe there people still talk about having an ague.
As to the other two words, again you'd think you would still hear the words because people must still get those conditions; but you don't in fact hear the words--ever. I think it's a case of, if you have the word for it, you can get it. Without the word in current use, you won't get it. Sort of a mind-body issue.
Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein
First, jock originally meant 'penis'. Then jock became short for jockstrap, and then it came to mean an athlete through a natural association with jockstrap.
Joystick also originally meant 'penis'. The next meaning was for the control stick of an airplane, and then it came to be used for the similar controllers for video games and so forth.
Scumbag originally meant 'condom'. You can get the "bag" part of it, so guess what the scum part denoted.
Now, maybe what is another subject and not related at all.
Some diseases that people used to talk about (and which presumably doctors used to diagnose) are not heard of at all. The words have totally fallen into disuse.
Chilblains. Defined in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Ed. as "an inflammatory swelling or sore caused by exposure (as of the feet or hands) to cold."
Ague. Defined in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Ed. as "a fever (as malaria) marked by paroxysms of chills, fever, and sweating that recur at regular intervals."
La grippe or the grippe. Defined in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Ed. as "an acute febrile contagious virus disease; esp. influenza."
Now, these are all things that you would expect people would still get. People do in fact get malaria, although it is not common in the U.S. any longer; but it is in fact common in certain warmer parts of the world. Maybe there people still talk about having an ague.
As to the other two words, again you'd think you would still hear the words because people must still get those conditions; but you don't in fact hear the words--ever. I think it's a case of, if you have the word for it, you can get it. Without the word in current use, you won't get it. Sort of a mind-body issue.
Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Monks and Priests: Preservers--and Destroyers--of Learning
Medieval monks, as is widely known, collectively spent untold hours working in their scriptoria, copying and thus preserving the manuscripts of much literature. In this way some of the works of the classical writers, Greek and Roman, were preserved (although the Byzantines and their successors in a sense, the Islamic scholars, may have preserved even more).
However, on the other side of the issue, medieval monks also destroyed a lot of literature, especially anything they came across that, rightly or wrongly, they classed as "pagan." In this way much was lost--it's virtually a crime against culture.
When the Spanish conquered most of the New World, Spanish priests destroyed most of the written records of the Maya--again because it was "pagan" and, in their eyes, little short of Satanic and demonic.
There is no way of telling how much has been lost to posterity by this kind of destruction; but book burning, of course, is not unknown to more recent and supposedly more enlightened times.
However, on the other side of the issue, medieval monks also destroyed a lot of literature, especially anything they came across that, rightly or wrongly, they classed as "pagan." In this way much was lost--it's virtually a crime against culture.
When the Spanish conquered most of the New World, Spanish priests destroyed most of the written records of the Maya--again because it was "pagan" and, in their eyes, little short of Satanic and demonic.
There is no way of telling how much has been lost to posterity by this kind of destruction; but book burning, of course, is not unknown to more recent and supposedly more enlightened times.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Police Receive Lenient Treatment by Courts
To my loyal followers: I should have told you in advance that Mourning Dove Hill was going to be on vacation. Anyway, it was, but now I, and it, happily are back.
This is kind of an addendum to the posts on the police (I could have done this as a comment). Recently, in pretty quick succession, our local news here in Chicago has had two or, I think, three stories about policemen being convicted of wrongdoing. In at least two of these cases the police officers in question received probation. That amounts to a mere slap on the wrist, I feel. I believe that courts are far too sympathetic to police and almost excuse their wrongdoing. One reason might be that if a policeman ever received what he deserved for his wrongdoing, the police union would be all up in arms. They claim that punishing any police officer undermines all the others in their doing of their jobs.
I for one am tired of police abusing their power and authority. Even when it is conduct that falls far short of a serious crime, why should they even run red lights (when not responding to a call and without their red-and-blue lights on) or otherwise violate traffic laws? Because they are the law, they are above the law.
This is kind of an addendum to the posts on the police (I could have done this as a comment). Recently, in pretty quick succession, our local news here in Chicago has had two or, I think, three stories about policemen being convicted of wrongdoing. In at least two of these cases the police officers in question received probation. That amounts to a mere slap on the wrist, I feel. I believe that courts are far too sympathetic to police and almost excuse their wrongdoing. One reason might be that if a policeman ever received what he deserved for his wrongdoing, the police union would be all up in arms. They claim that punishing any police officer undermines all the others in their doing of their jobs.
I for one am tired of police abusing their power and authority. Even when it is conduct that falls far short of a serious crime, why should they even run red lights (when not responding to a call and without their red-and-blue lights on) or otherwise violate traffic laws? Because they are the law, they are above the law.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Interesting Comments from Laura Bush
The conservatives, as the media acknowledge, have been vocally stating their opposition to Obama's speech to school children. They claim it's "indoctrination." When Ronald Reagan did the same thing, or George H.W. Bush, were they crying out about "indoctrination"? I don't remember hearing any such thing, and I'd wager I'm not just forgetting.
And the Republicans marshalled people to turn out at the town meetings on health care reform and be very vocal and literally yell and scream and shout down the speakers.
And now we have the "tea parties," more of the same thing. I'd like to know who is organizing and funding these things. I doubt that they are really grass-roots or spontaneous upwellings of popular sentiment.
Evidently in a recent interview with CNN, former First Lady Laura Bush has acknowledged how partisan and polarized the country is getting. She said her husband did not succeed in "reaching across the aisle" in Congress as he had been able to do as governor of Texas; he did not expect national politics to be different from Texas politics. Maybe back in Texas he didn't have the same cronies doing the same kind of dirty work as in Washington (I won't mention any names but I've already blogged about a former Vice President--and then there was Rove).
Mrs. Bush says that the reason for all this shrillness, stridency, partisanship, and polarization is because we now have more congressmen from energetically liberal or energetically conservative (my word, not hers) districts. I don't know if that's true, but it's interesting. My own idea would have been that the Republicans are just trying to stir things up with battle cries of "socialism" and "socialized medicine" because they are already preparing for the 2012 elections.
Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein
And the Republicans marshalled people to turn out at the town meetings on health care reform and be very vocal and literally yell and scream and shout down the speakers.
And now we have the "tea parties," more of the same thing. I'd like to know who is organizing and funding these things. I doubt that they are really grass-roots or spontaneous upwellings of popular sentiment.
Evidently in a recent interview with CNN, former First Lady Laura Bush has acknowledged how partisan and polarized the country is getting. She said her husband did not succeed in "reaching across the aisle" in Congress as he had been able to do as governor of Texas; he did not expect national politics to be different from Texas politics. Maybe back in Texas he didn't have the same cronies doing the same kind of dirty work as in Washington (I won't mention any names but I've already blogged about a former Vice President--and then there was Rove).
Mrs. Bush says that the reason for all this shrillness, stridency, partisanship, and polarization is because we now have more congressmen from energetically liberal or energetically conservative (my word, not hers) districts. I don't know if that's true, but it's interesting. My own idea would have been that the Republicans are just trying to stir things up with battle cries of "socialism" and "socialized medicine" because they are already preparing for the 2012 elections.
Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Science Fiction Becomes Science Fact; or, The Next Arms Race
I recently viewed a History Channel program about the development of a new class of weapons called Directed Energy weapons. These are "Star Wars"-type laser weapons and "death rays"—extraordinarily high-power lasers that not only could kill an individual from a distance but destroy an airplane or tank or much more.
It's not clear to me why we need these awesome devices, and, as the TV program admitted, the deployment of such weapons is likely to usher in another arms race. Have we learned, yet—in thousands of years—that every new development in weaponry is matched or even exceeded by the results of countering efforts on the other side?
We must always have newer and more dreadful weapons because the Pentagon boys love their toys—and their toys are destructive. These are people who have never outgrown their boyhood fascination with blowing things up. This viewpoint was beautifully and satirically put forth in the 1964 film Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
I was very saddened by this TV program. These weapons are being developed in my name and, supposedly, on my behalf, and I certainly don't want them. Over the years and decades, we've had a rubber-stamp Congress that gives the Pentagon whatever they want, and Congressmen, a White House, and a public who will rationalize any new weapons, no matter how horrible, as needed for "national defense" or security. And there is the question that was raised after the development of the atomic bomb: Should scientists lend scientific research and knowledge to destructive aims? I think they should not, but it seems we always have plenty of scientists who will work on weapons with few or any qualms of conscience. As an example of their lust for advancing science while, with ivory tower aloofness, shutting their eyes to any real-world implications of their work: I learned from another TV program—no, I do not want to be perceived as having learned all I know from television—that a German Jewish scientist in the Nazi era, incredibly, allowed his research to be used in the development of the Nazis' atomic bomb.
Remember that once upon a time the United States government Executive Branch included a War Department? Instead of that more honest name, now it's euphemistically called the Defense Department, supposedly to manifest the myth that the United States only wages war as defense. (To digress a bit, to see an example or two of how that is not correct, look at how the U.S. acquired some of its territories, especially those from Spain and Mexico: it was simple conquest.)
We probably would have a more peaceable world, as has been suggested, if the world were controlled by women. Men are definitely more aggressive and more prone to war and conflict. A friend of mine has coined the lovely term "testosterone poisoning."
And this can only get worse as a generation raised on video games matures and becomes the new population of the Pentagon. They will have already been well schooled in vicious things to do to your "enemy."
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
It's not clear to me why we need these awesome devices, and, as the TV program admitted, the deployment of such weapons is likely to usher in another arms race. Have we learned, yet—in thousands of years—that every new development in weaponry is matched or even exceeded by the results of countering efforts on the other side?
We must always have newer and more dreadful weapons because the Pentagon boys love their toys—and their toys are destructive. These are people who have never outgrown their boyhood fascination with blowing things up. This viewpoint was beautifully and satirically put forth in the 1964 film Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
I was very saddened by this TV program. These weapons are being developed in my name and, supposedly, on my behalf, and I certainly don't want them. Over the years and decades, we've had a rubber-stamp Congress that gives the Pentagon whatever they want, and Congressmen, a White House, and a public who will rationalize any new weapons, no matter how horrible, as needed for "national defense" or security. And there is the question that was raised after the development of the atomic bomb: Should scientists lend scientific research and knowledge to destructive aims? I think they should not, but it seems we always have plenty of scientists who will work on weapons with few or any qualms of conscience. As an example of their lust for advancing science while, with ivory tower aloofness, shutting their eyes to any real-world implications of their work: I learned from another TV program—no, I do not want to be perceived as having learned all I know from television—that a German Jewish scientist in the Nazi era, incredibly, allowed his research to be used in the development of the Nazis' atomic bomb.
Remember that once upon a time the United States government Executive Branch included a War Department? Instead of that more honest name, now it's euphemistically called the Defense Department, supposedly to manifest the myth that the United States only wages war as defense. (To digress a bit, to see an example or two of how that is not correct, look at how the U.S. acquired some of its territories, especially those from Spain and Mexico: it was simple conquest.)
We probably would have a more peaceable world, as has been suggested, if the world were controlled by women. Men are definitely more aggressive and more prone to war and conflict. A friend of mine has coined the lovely term "testosterone poisoning."
And this can only get worse as a generation raised on video games matures and becomes the new population of the Pentagon. They will have already been well schooled in vicious things to do to your "enemy."
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
U.S. Involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan
Before the Vietnam War ended, some 56,000 American soldiers had been killed, to say nothing of a perhaps-unknown number—but hundreds of thousands--of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians. Plus enormous suffering and property damage—loss of families' homes and environmental devastation.
And what was gained in return for all this loss? If anyone can still recall, or even care, 30 or 40 years later, the purpose of the Vietnam War was supposed to be to keep South Viet Nam from being taken over by the communists of North Vietnam. And what happened in the end, after all that loss? No one seems to like to think about it, but Vietnam was reunified. In other words, the North Vietnamese did in fact take over the South, the very thing the war was supposed to prevent. So, to put it very plainly and even harshly, the war was for nothing. But no one wants to dwell on the fact that many American lives were sacrificed for, in the end, no purpose.
During the Bush years I kept thinking of parallels between the Vietnam War and the Iraq war. In both wars, Congress and the American Public had been manipulated by the White House and the Defense Department into supporting the war by means of false and distorted information. It became clear that the danger to America from Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction" was trumped up. (And Colin Powell, who was U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, has said he regretted the speech he gave to the U.N. about Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" because he was unwittingly basing it on incorrect information.) Plus, another reason the Government used to try to sell the war, the link between Saddam Hussein and al Quaeda, was also very dubious.
So the original rationale for the war was very questionable. Yet once Hussein was toppled, we had to keep Iraq from descending into a religious civil war. Thus we are still there, after—what is it now, eight years? And we no longer even hear the statistics on how many Americans have been killed in Iraq. Last I heard, it was over 4,000, but that was quite a while ago.
And there's Afghanistan. How many Americans could immediately and clearly tell me why we are fighting in Afghanistan? Waging a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan might have a little more direct connection to the security of the U.S. than was the case with invading Iraq. But again, consider this: The Russians left Afghanistan in defeat and the U.S. succeeded them. It's too similar to the U.S. taking over in Vietnam after the French withdrew in defeat. It's a very sad fact that the lessons of history are not learned.
Living in an area which is in some ways rather conservative—it's pretty much believers in "God and Country"—I see a lot of bumper stickers saying "Support Our Troops." Since I was opposed to the U.S. invasion of Iraq from the very beginning, some people would say to me, Well, you can support the troops even if you don't support the war.
I have a problem with that logic. I'd say Yes, I agree—if the troops were all there involuntarily. Then they'd just be poor pawns, as was the case in the Vietnam War. However, remember that we do not presently have a draft. Every Army soldier, National Guardsman, Marine in Iraq is a volunteer. Many of these men enlisted because they felt their country called, and they should respond. That's putting the best construction on it—rather than saying, for example, that their belief that they were defending their country was based on incorrect information they had been fed by the Government.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
And what was gained in return for all this loss? If anyone can still recall, or even care, 30 or 40 years later, the purpose of the Vietnam War was supposed to be to keep South Viet Nam from being taken over by the communists of North Vietnam. And what happened in the end, after all that loss? No one seems to like to think about it, but Vietnam was reunified. In other words, the North Vietnamese did in fact take over the South, the very thing the war was supposed to prevent. So, to put it very plainly and even harshly, the war was for nothing. But no one wants to dwell on the fact that many American lives were sacrificed for, in the end, no purpose.
During the Bush years I kept thinking of parallels between the Vietnam War and the Iraq war. In both wars, Congress and the American Public had been manipulated by the White House and the Defense Department into supporting the war by means of false and distorted information. It became clear that the danger to America from Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction" was trumped up. (And Colin Powell, who was U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, has said he regretted the speech he gave to the U.N. about Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" because he was unwittingly basing it on incorrect information.) Plus, another reason the Government used to try to sell the war, the link between Saddam Hussein and al Quaeda, was also very dubious.
So the original rationale for the war was very questionable. Yet once Hussein was toppled, we had to keep Iraq from descending into a religious civil war. Thus we are still there, after—what is it now, eight years? And we no longer even hear the statistics on how many Americans have been killed in Iraq. Last I heard, it was over 4,000, but that was quite a while ago.
And there's Afghanistan. How many Americans could immediately and clearly tell me why we are fighting in Afghanistan? Waging a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan might have a little more direct connection to the security of the U.S. than was the case with invading Iraq. But again, consider this: The Russians left Afghanistan in defeat and the U.S. succeeded them. It's too similar to the U.S. taking over in Vietnam after the French withdrew in defeat. It's a very sad fact that the lessons of history are not learned.
Living in an area which is in some ways rather conservative—it's pretty much believers in "God and Country"—I see a lot of bumper stickers saying "Support Our Troops." Since I was opposed to the U.S. invasion of Iraq from the very beginning, some people would say to me, Well, you can support the troops even if you don't support the war.
I have a problem with that logic. I'd say Yes, I agree—if the troops were all there involuntarily. Then they'd just be poor pawns, as was the case in the Vietnam War. However, remember that we do not presently have a draft. Every Army soldier, National Guardsman, Marine in Iraq is a volunteer. Many of these men enlisted because they felt their country called, and they should respond. That's putting the best construction on it—rather than saying, for example, that their belief that they were defending their country was based on incorrect information they had been fed by the Government.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Politically correct language
The latest is, Is the term master bedroom offensive? Well, how about calling it a mistress bedroom instead?
Seriously, as regards "non-sexist" language, I have no problem at all with saying police officer instead of policeman, fire fighter instead of fireman, letter carrier instead of mailman. But what about manhole? I think I did actually come across some ridiculous substitute for that, perhaps personnel hatch. This from a book publisher, terrified of having the wrath of the feminists unleashed upon them.
What about manhunt? I bet the feminists are perfectly happy to leave that one alone, since only males are bad enough to be hunted for, right?
At the University of _____ (okay, I'm leaving out the name but probably should let the opprobrium be applied), they have an "ombudsperson." This is political correctness going way too far. They presume to take a Swedish word and open it up and change part of it, a word that just happens to be the same in Swedish as it is in English—man—and substitute a morpheme which is not Swedish, person.
And I don't like changing alderman to alderperson. My objection here is that alderman is a fine old word—in fact, very old, going back maybe 1500 years to Anglo-Saxon times—and I hate to see it morphed. But maybe that is not all of my objection to it since I don't like congressperson, either.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Seriously, as regards "non-sexist" language, I have no problem at all with saying police officer instead of policeman, fire fighter instead of fireman, letter carrier instead of mailman. But what about manhole? I think I did actually come across some ridiculous substitute for that, perhaps personnel hatch. This from a book publisher, terrified of having the wrath of the feminists unleashed upon them.
What about manhunt? I bet the feminists are perfectly happy to leave that one alone, since only males are bad enough to be hunted for, right?
At the University of _____ (okay, I'm leaving out the name but probably should let the opprobrium be applied), they have an "ombudsperson." This is political correctness going way too far. They presume to take a Swedish word and open it up and change part of it, a word that just happens to be the same in Swedish as it is in English—man—and substitute a morpheme which is not Swedish, person.
And I don't like changing alderman to alderperson. My objection here is that alderman is a fine old word—in fact, very old, going back maybe 1500 years to Anglo-Saxon times—and I hate to see it morphed. But maybe that is not all of my objection to it since I don't like congressperson, either.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Friday, August 21, 2009
Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
I only watched the TV show, "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," a couple of times, but I have to say that I agree with its premise: that when it comes to matters like style and grooming, gay men know what they are doing, and straight men are clueless.
Let's just take haircuts or hair styles. I used to observe, on the commuter train, that so many men had just dreadful haircuts. I'm sure these guys go to barbers (no barber has cut my hair for maybe 40 years) and get a very poor haircut. You have to wonder why their wives don't tell them and try to get Hubby to get a better haircut. (Well, come to think of it, it probably wouldn't do any good—although these same men are ruled by their wives when it comes to clothes. What percentage of men let their wives pick out their clothes? Do I have to tell you?)
Today I had my hair cut. I go to a stylist. Most of those chain or franchise haircut places aren't very good; their people either can't or won't cut my hair the way I expect it. Nevertheless, one of those outfits--maybe a little better than its competitors-- is where I've been having my hair cut for some months now. I've generally been satisfied with the cut I get there or, you can be sure, I wouldn't go there. 'Cause I'm a gay man and I care about things like how my hair looks. (But, so as not to be over-generalizing, let me admit that I have some geeky gay friends who are just as bad as any straight.)
As I was waiting for my stylist to finish another customer, I was watching the cut this guy was getting: Very closely trimmed on the sides, with the clippers, and longer on top. I thought it was very unbecoming. There's no excuse for a haircut like that unless you're in the Marines. I was considering saying to the stylist, When a guy comes in and asks for a cut like that, you should tell him that you can't do it, because it's illegal.
And, as my hair was being cut, I saw a fairly nice-looking dude come in and sit in the chair of another stylist. His hair, I thought, looked good just the way he had it when he came in. But with this one, too--out came the clippers, and after a bit of buzzing, his hair was too short to look good on him. Little short of a tragedy. Gawd, I wish I could tell these people what they don't seem to be able to see.
And while we're on men's hair, let's talk about facial hair. It's been the fashion for some time for younger guys to have these "goatees" (the quotes are because that term properly applies to a pointed beard, like a goat's). I think that, in about 96% of cases, these are not becoming. Darker-haired guys, like Latinos, often look very sinister with moustaches and goatees. And the guys with lighter hair, if they have a longish tuft of hair on their chins, it simply looks disgusting.
Many guys have long hair together with full beards. Hair just surrounds their faces. There was one like that at a place I was working. Every time I passed him, I wanted to say, Too much hair!
So, sadly, straight guys just can't judge what is or is not good for their appearance. Now, when do I get on that TV show?
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Let's just take haircuts or hair styles. I used to observe, on the commuter train, that so many men had just dreadful haircuts. I'm sure these guys go to barbers (no barber has cut my hair for maybe 40 years) and get a very poor haircut. You have to wonder why their wives don't tell them and try to get Hubby to get a better haircut. (Well, come to think of it, it probably wouldn't do any good—although these same men are ruled by their wives when it comes to clothes. What percentage of men let their wives pick out their clothes? Do I have to tell you?)
Today I had my hair cut. I go to a stylist. Most of those chain or franchise haircut places aren't very good; their people either can't or won't cut my hair the way I expect it. Nevertheless, one of those outfits--maybe a little better than its competitors-- is where I've been having my hair cut for some months now. I've generally been satisfied with the cut I get there or, you can be sure, I wouldn't go there. 'Cause I'm a gay man and I care about things like how my hair looks. (But, so as not to be over-generalizing, let me admit that I have some geeky gay friends who are just as bad as any straight.)
As I was waiting for my stylist to finish another customer, I was watching the cut this guy was getting: Very closely trimmed on the sides, with the clippers, and longer on top. I thought it was very unbecoming. There's no excuse for a haircut like that unless you're in the Marines. I was considering saying to the stylist, When a guy comes in and asks for a cut like that, you should tell him that you can't do it, because it's illegal.
And, as my hair was being cut, I saw a fairly nice-looking dude come in and sit in the chair of another stylist. His hair, I thought, looked good just the way he had it when he came in. But with this one, too--out came the clippers, and after a bit of buzzing, his hair was too short to look good on him. Little short of a tragedy. Gawd, I wish I could tell these people what they don't seem to be able to see.
And while we're on men's hair, let's talk about facial hair. It's been the fashion for some time for younger guys to have these "goatees" (the quotes are because that term properly applies to a pointed beard, like a goat's). I think that, in about 96% of cases, these are not becoming. Darker-haired guys, like Latinos, often look very sinister with moustaches and goatees. And the guys with lighter hair, if they have a longish tuft of hair on their chins, it simply looks disgusting.
Many guys have long hair together with full beards. Hair just surrounds their faces. There was one like that at a place I was working. Every time I passed him, I wanted to say, Too much hair!
So, sadly, straight guys just can't judge what is or is not good for their appearance. Now, when do I get on that TV show?
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Rev. Donald Wildmon and Same-Sex Marriage
I recently saw Donald Wildmon, head of the anti-gay American Family Association, being interviewed in a film. The film was several years old and Wildmon was predicting that God would punish Massachusetts for legalizing (and legitimizing) same-sex marriage.
Well, it has not happened--not yet, anyway. The Netherlands was the first country to marry same-sex couples, in 2001. By now there have been six other countries and three U.S. states, with same-sex marriage set to start in three more states. I haven't noticed any divinely-ordained catastrophes striking any of these states or countries.
If God wanted to punish the Netherlands, it ought to be pretty easy for Him to cook up a big storm that would cause the sea to breach the Netherlands' extensive system of dikes that keep the water out of many hundreds of square miles of below-sea-level land. Doubtless, if pressed, Rev. Wildmon could explain What God Is Waiting For. Guess that when you become a rev., there's some piece of paper you get that certifies, "Knows What God Is Thinking."
If Wildmon, and people of his ilk, believe what they say, when they say things like that, then they are big fools. I am not sure, though, that they do believe what they are themselves saying. If that's the case, then they are mendacious liars and downright evil, trying to manipulate their followers for their own advancement. (And how many of these preachers have made themselves rich? How many anti-gay preachers and politicians have been arrested in public washroooms or in some other way been shown to be big hypocrites? If you follow the news, I don't need to start enumerating them.)
For more on Wildmon, see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Wildmon
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Well, it has not happened--not yet, anyway. The Netherlands was the first country to marry same-sex couples, in 2001. By now there have been six other countries and three U.S. states, with same-sex marriage set to start in three more states. I haven't noticed any divinely-ordained catastrophes striking any of these states or countries.
If God wanted to punish the Netherlands, it ought to be pretty easy for Him to cook up a big storm that would cause the sea to breach the Netherlands' extensive system of dikes that keep the water out of many hundreds of square miles of below-sea-level land. Doubtless, if pressed, Rev. Wildmon could explain What God Is Waiting For. Guess that when you become a rev., there's some piece of paper you get that certifies, "Knows What God Is Thinking."
If Wildmon, and people of his ilk, believe what they say, when they say things like that, then they are big fools. I am not sure, though, that they do believe what they are themselves saying. If that's the case, then they are mendacious liars and downright evil, trying to manipulate their followers for their own advancement. (And how many of these preachers have made themselves rich? How many anti-gay preachers and politicians have been arrested in public washroooms or in some other way been shown to be big hypocrites? If you follow the news, I don't need to start enumerating them.)
For more on Wildmon, see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Wildmon
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Jews, Germany, and the Holocaust
I am Jewish, and I want to talk about the attitude of Jews toward Germany. Many Jews hold a very strong animus toward Germany because of the killing of millions of Jews during the Holocaust. Some Jews would not buy a Mercedes or fly Lufthansa or drink a German beer, if they could avoid it.
So I want to tell a little about what feelings I have come to have, where Jews, Germany, and the Holocaust are concerned.
I would never use the word "forgive" because, human nature being what it is, forgiveness surely is asking too much for anyone who has been closely touched by the Holocaust. (In the interest of disclosure, relatives of mine who were still in Europe at the time were killed, but I only heard about this from my mother and I did not know those people. On the other hand, I did know cousins who survived the concentration camps and still had their concentration camp numbers tattooed on their arms.)
I do believe, though, that I have heard some such as the famous writer and concentration camp survivor Elie Wiesel say they can forgive but they can never forget.
For much of my life I just did not know how one should feel about Germany. By now, though, I have had a number of decades in which to form my thoughts.
First, killing of Jews, over the hundreds and thousands of years, was not a new idea conceived by the Nazis.
From pogroms in Russia in the late Czarist era, going back and back: country after country in Europe, where Jews dwelled, at one point turned anti-Semitic and expelled the Jews. In 1492—not coincidentally the same year that Columbus sailed because that was the year that Ferdinand and Isabella completed the Christian "reconquest" of Spain from the Islamic Moors—the Jews of Spain, who had for the most part enjoyed very favorable conditions under the Moorish rulers of Spain, were given an ultimatum: convert to Christianity or get out. Of course many did leave, very large numbers, the ancestors of all the world's Sephardic Jews. Some converted--sometimes not sincerely, thus becoming crypto-Jews or "Marranos" (literally 'pigs'). Some remained and then were tortured to death by the Inquisition.
During the Crusades, it was not uncommon for Crusaders, on their way to the Holy Land, to slaughter any Jews they happened to come upon along the way. All in the course of carrying out their holy mission as urged by the Pope.
During the plagues of the Middle Ages, the Jews often were blamed for causing the plagues. I happened to come across a letter from the bishop of one town to the bishop of another (one of them, if I recall, was in Switzerland), advising his clerical colleague to burn the town's Jews in order to keep the plague away.
(To digress a bit, that kind of thinking is not as outdated as we might hope. Witness the modern preachers who blamed Hurricane Katrina's devastation of New Orleans on that city's "sinfully" permissive attitudes toward gays, etc. And a right-wing member of the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) recently said that earthquakes in Israel were caused by homosexuals. Seems we never learn.)
So, over a thousand years and more, killing of Jews has gone on. The anti-Semitism and persecution of the Jews by the Nazis was nothing that new, and anti-Semitism could be found in France, England, Hungary, Bulgaria—well, everywhere. The Germans simply applied their characteristic thoroughness and efficiency, although to even say this certainly conjures up gruesome images.
So what is the attitude toward Germany that I have arrived at? I find it hard to believe that there can be such a thing as an intrinsic flaw in the German national character. Germany had been the most cultured and enlightened country in the world. (There was a TV drama about the experiences of a Jewish family in the 1930s as the storm clouds gathered around them. The wife said to her husband, "This can't be happening here. This is the country of Lessing [a playwright who preached tolerance in his play about a Jew, Nathan der Weise], Goethe, Beethoven." The husband replied, "Unfortunately, none of them is in power right now.")
So, Germany was okay before a certain time, and I'm willing to presume that now, after three generations—when few mid-century Nazis are still alive—that it's okay now. They have paid reparations to the Jews, they have erected monuments to Holocaust victims.
True, some of the Nazis directly involved, like concentration camp commanders, were monsters—and in a way, or on a scale, that boggles the mind. I prefer to think these few Germans were a minority. Other Germans risked their lives to save Jews—for example, Otto Schindler, about whom the movie, "Schindler's List," was made. A list is kept of "Righteous Gentiles" who helped save thousands of Jews, often at risk to their own lives. Four hundred fifty-five Germans are on this list* but it must be admitted that there are more individuals on the list from nine other countries.
There was also a very interesting story about a German woman who had to learn, only much later, in her adulthood, about her father and his role as a concentration camp commander. There was no loyalty to, or defense of, her father, but only revulsion, horror, and shame. (In this case, and even in the larger issue of how we feel toward the country, we might ask whether we agree with the stern edict in the Bible which says, "The sins of the father are visited upon the children.")
And there have been other examples of genocide in human history. Some meliorists believe that the human race has been evolving, but it's not clear to me that genocide has become less common in modern times. One example, on nearly the scale of the Nazi extermination of the Jews, is that the Turks, over three years starting in 1915, wiped out perhaps 1.5 million Armenians. More recently we've had genocide in Rwanda. And Stalin in the Soviet Union and Pol Pot in Cambodia killed hundreds of thousands of their own people.
Any nation, any group of people, has its good and bad eggs. For a variety of reasons, which I won't go into, it was easy for Nazi propaganda to stir up hatred against the Jews. (No, I do not think it was easy because the Germans were inherently more prone to such manipulation. View other postings on this blog which discuss the use of propaganda, and dehumanizing of "the other," to arouse hatred of an enemy.) I am not sure that it couldn't happen as well somewhere else, even here. We certainly have neo-Nazi hate groups here, today. Look at the Netherlands, often pointed to as a country that always remained hospitable toward the Jews during World War II. The other side of that is that the Dutch Nazi Party had 15,000 members—a small number, but it's a small country. And some fine, upstanding Dutch person turned in Anne Frank and her family.
So, I feel what is to be concluded is that the Germans are not somehow inherently flawed, nor any worse, as a group, than the general run of humans. However, I do not presume to tell anyone how they should think. You can't, really. This is only a summation of the point I have arrived at, after many years in which to think about this issue.
_______
* From Wikipedia: "Including Oskar Schindler, the businessman who saved over a thousand Jews by employing them in his factory, and Hans and Sophie Scholl, sibling members of the White Rose resistance movement, Captain Gustav Schroeder who commanded the "Voyage of the Damned", and German army officer Wilm Hosenfeld."
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
So I want to tell a little about what feelings I have come to have, where Jews, Germany, and the Holocaust are concerned.
I would never use the word "forgive" because, human nature being what it is, forgiveness surely is asking too much for anyone who has been closely touched by the Holocaust. (In the interest of disclosure, relatives of mine who were still in Europe at the time were killed, but I only heard about this from my mother and I did not know those people. On the other hand, I did know cousins who survived the concentration camps and still had their concentration camp numbers tattooed on their arms.)
I do believe, though, that I have heard some such as the famous writer and concentration camp survivor Elie Wiesel say they can forgive but they can never forget.
For much of my life I just did not know how one should feel about Germany. By now, though, I have had a number of decades in which to form my thoughts.
First, killing of Jews, over the hundreds and thousands of years, was not a new idea conceived by the Nazis.
From pogroms in Russia in the late Czarist era, going back and back: country after country in Europe, where Jews dwelled, at one point turned anti-Semitic and expelled the Jews. In 1492—not coincidentally the same year that Columbus sailed because that was the year that Ferdinand and Isabella completed the Christian "reconquest" of Spain from the Islamic Moors—the Jews of Spain, who had for the most part enjoyed very favorable conditions under the Moorish rulers of Spain, were given an ultimatum: convert to Christianity or get out. Of course many did leave, very large numbers, the ancestors of all the world's Sephardic Jews. Some converted--sometimes not sincerely, thus becoming crypto-Jews or "Marranos" (literally 'pigs'). Some remained and then were tortured to death by the Inquisition.
During the Crusades, it was not uncommon for Crusaders, on their way to the Holy Land, to slaughter any Jews they happened to come upon along the way. All in the course of carrying out their holy mission as urged by the Pope.
During the plagues of the Middle Ages, the Jews often were blamed for causing the plagues. I happened to come across a letter from the bishop of one town to the bishop of another (one of them, if I recall, was in Switzerland), advising his clerical colleague to burn the town's Jews in order to keep the plague away.
(To digress a bit, that kind of thinking is not as outdated as we might hope. Witness the modern preachers who blamed Hurricane Katrina's devastation of New Orleans on that city's "sinfully" permissive attitudes toward gays, etc. And a right-wing member of the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) recently said that earthquakes in Israel were caused by homosexuals. Seems we never learn.)
So, over a thousand years and more, killing of Jews has gone on. The anti-Semitism and persecution of the Jews by the Nazis was nothing that new, and anti-Semitism could be found in France, England, Hungary, Bulgaria—well, everywhere. The Germans simply applied their characteristic thoroughness and efficiency, although to even say this certainly conjures up gruesome images.
So what is the attitude toward Germany that I have arrived at? I find it hard to believe that there can be such a thing as an intrinsic flaw in the German national character. Germany had been the most cultured and enlightened country in the world. (There was a TV drama about the experiences of a Jewish family in the 1930s as the storm clouds gathered around them. The wife said to her husband, "This can't be happening here. This is the country of Lessing [a playwright who preached tolerance in his play about a Jew, Nathan der Weise], Goethe, Beethoven." The husband replied, "Unfortunately, none of them is in power right now.")
So, Germany was okay before a certain time, and I'm willing to presume that now, after three generations—when few mid-century Nazis are still alive—that it's okay now. They have paid reparations to the Jews, they have erected monuments to Holocaust victims.
True, some of the Nazis directly involved, like concentration camp commanders, were monsters—and in a way, or on a scale, that boggles the mind. I prefer to think these few Germans were a minority. Other Germans risked their lives to save Jews—for example, Otto Schindler, about whom the movie, "Schindler's List," was made. A list is kept of "Righteous Gentiles" who helped save thousands of Jews, often at risk to their own lives. Four hundred fifty-five Germans are on this list* but it must be admitted that there are more individuals on the list from nine other countries.
There was also a very interesting story about a German woman who had to learn, only much later, in her adulthood, about her father and his role as a concentration camp commander. There was no loyalty to, or defense of, her father, but only revulsion, horror, and shame. (In this case, and even in the larger issue of how we feel toward the country, we might ask whether we agree with the stern edict in the Bible which says, "The sins of the father are visited upon the children.")
And there have been other examples of genocide in human history. Some meliorists believe that the human race has been evolving, but it's not clear to me that genocide has become less common in modern times. One example, on nearly the scale of the Nazi extermination of the Jews, is that the Turks, over three years starting in 1915, wiped out perhaps 1.5 million Armenians. More recently we've had genocide in Rwanda. And Stalin in the Soviet Union and Pol Pot in Cambodia killed hundreds of thousands of their own people.
Any nation, any group of people, has its good and bad eggs. For a variety of reasons, which I won't go into, it was easy for Nazi propaganda to stir up hatred against the Jews. (No, I do not think it was easy because the Germans were inherently more prone to such manipulation. View other postings on this blog which discuss the use of propaganda, and dehumanizing of "the other," to arouse hatred of an enemy.) I am not sure that it couldn't happen as well somewhere else, even here. We certainly have neo-Nazi hate groups here, today. Look at the Netherlands, often pointed to as a country that always remained hospitable toward the Jews during World War II. The other side of that is that the Dutch Nazi Party had 15,000 members—a small number, but it's a small country. And some fine, upstanding Dutch person turned in Anne Frank and her family.
So, I feel what is to be concluded is that the Germans are not somehow inherently flawed, nor any worse, as a group, than the general run of humans. However, I do not presume to tell anyone how they should think. You can't, really. This is only a summation of the point I have arrived at, after many years in which to think about this issue.
_______
* From Wikipedia: "Including Oskar Schindler, the businessman who saved over a thousand Jews by employing them in his factory, and Hans and Sophie Scholl, sibling members of the White Rose resistance movement, Captain Gustav Schroeder who commanded the "Voyage of the Damned", and German army officer Wilm Hosenfeld."
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Cheney and Palin Redux
I have previously written about Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin. Unfortunately, both are still in the news. They will not lower their profile, shut up, or go away as I have hoped they would.
The latest on Cheney is that he was being interviewed on TV. The interviewer said that 73 percent of Americans, according to a poll, have said that they have to question whether the initial decision to invade Iraq was worth the cost to date in American lives. Cheney paused a moment, gave a dismissive gesture—I'd have to see it again to see if it warrants being called a shrug—and said, "So what?" In other words, We are the Emperor, we make the decisions and don't have to give a damn about what the people think.
And Sarah Palin has distorted what is in the health-care reform bill when she claims it includes a provision for a "death panel" that would decide when to pull the plug on the terminally ill and elderly.
This is a very serious distortion, a misreading of what the bill says. A commentator on MSNBC said he'd call that intellectual dishonesty, except that he does not want to use the word "intellectual" in the same sentence as the name of Palin.
Ms. Palin quoted a Washington Post columnist to support what she claims. If she had quoted just one more sentence—that is, the sentence following the quote—she would have included words that attack and discredit her.
On the former point, we can't be sure whether her misreading of the health-care reform bill was deliberate or simply lack of understanding it properly. I'm willing, rather than accusing her of malice, to assume it's her lack of adequate comprehension of what she was reading. However, when she reads and quotes the Washington Post, and goes no further in quoting than suits her—that is deliberately taking what she quotes out of context, and there's no mistaking intention there.
I see now (news a little bit more recent) that Obama has said she's wrong, but she refuses to back down. Why, oh why, can't everyone see her for the clown that she is?
So, even though I'm pretty sure my saying this yet again will do no good: Palin, Chaney, just shut up. Go away. I am sooo sick of you both.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
The latest on Cheney is that he was being interviewed on TV. The interviewer said that 73 percent of Americans, according to a poll, have said that they have to question whether the initial decision to invade Iraq was worth the cost to date in American lives. Cheney paused a moment, gave a dismissive gesture—I'd have to see it again to see if it warrants being called a shrug—and said, "So what?" In other words, We are the Emperor, we make the decisions and don't have to give a damn about what the people think.
And Sarah Palin has distorted what is in the health-care reform bill when she claims it includes a provision for a "death panel" that would decide when to pull the plug on the terminally ill and elderly.
This is a very serious distortion, a misreading of what the bill says. A commentator on MSNBC said he'd call that intellectual dishonesty, except that he does not want to use the word "intellectual" in the same sentence as the name of Palin.
Ms. Palin quoted a Washington Post columnist to support what she claims. If she had quoted just one more sentence—that is, the sentence following the quote—she would have included words that attack and discredit her.
On the former point, we can't be sure whether her misreading of the health-care reform bill was deliberate or simply lack of understanding it properly. I'm willing, rather than accusing her of malice, to assume it's her lack of adequate comprehension of what she was reading. However, when she reads and quotes the Washington Post, and goes no further in quoting than suits her—that is deliberately taking what she quotes out of context, and there's no mistaking intention there.
I see now (news a little bit more recent) that Obama has said she's wrong, but she refuses to back down. Why, oh why, can't everyone see her for the clown that she is?
So, even though I'm pretty sure my saying this yet again will do no good: Palin, Chaney, just shut up. Go away. I am sooo sick of you both.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Human Infants Compared to Dogs, etc.
A recent online article was headlined "Dogs as smart as tots, study says."
I'm not terribly surprised. The intelligence of extremely young human beings should not be overestimated. For example, at birth, a human infant and a chimpanzee infant are really very similar in their cognitive abilities. Of course at some point–and I forget what age this is—the development of the human infant really takes off and leaves the chimp far behind.
And, as to dogs, anyone who knows and loves dogs knows they are smart. The study cited in the article says "Even the average dog has the mental abilities of a 2-year-old child."
A lot of birds, too (such as parrots) are very smart. And then you’ve got dolphins. And squirrels.
So, to look again at the human infant: at some point, at least, being human is more about potential than about present skills and abilities.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
I'm not terribly surprised. The intelligence of extremely young human beings should not be overestimated. For example, at birth, a human infant and a chimpanzee infant are really very similar in their cognitive abilities. Of course at some point–and I forget what age this is—the development of the human infant really takes off and leaves the chimp far behind.
And, as to dogs, anyone who knows and loves dogs knows they are smart. The study cited in the article says "Even the average dog has the mental abilities of a 2-year-old child."
A lot of birds, too (such as parrots) are very smart. And then you’ve got dolphins. And squirrels.
So, to look again at the human infant: at some point, at least, being human is more about potential than about present skills and abilities.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Saturday, August 8, 2009
The Fallacies of Astrology
I recently had a date with someone who believes in astrology—not the first time this has happened, but maybe this time I was a bit too outspoken in expressing the derision in which I hold astrology. I say I may have been too outspoken; that is, at least as far as my interest in securing a second date was concerned.
The man in the street often is not clear as to the difference between astronomy and astrology. (I've worked with the astronomical community and have had ample evidence of this.) One big difference: astronomy is a science, and modern; astrology is a pseudo-science, and ancient.
Astrology is to astronomy what alchemy is to chemistry—an ancestor, you could say. Try making modern medicines or plastics with alchemy instead of chemistry and you'll appreciate the difference between a modern science and an ancient superstition.
Astrology is based on the assumption that the stars and planets influence our lives here on earth—that the configuration of the heavens at the time of our birth—in other words our "sign"--establishes certain traits we will have throughout our lives; and then from day to day, the motions of the planets in the skies determine, for example, what kind of day we will have, what actions we should avoid, and so on. Astrology says the stars spell our destiny.
Astrologers may draw up elaborate and impressive-looking charts. But astronomers, who are the genuine scientists, keep trying to tell the public that this is all nonsense. Astronomers point out that the stars and planets are too far from Earth to exert any influence on Earth, and on us who dwell on Earth.
Also, here is another fallacy of astrology: Everything is now about one sign off. Let me try to explain that. According to astrology, at any one date, we are in a certain "sign"; that is, the Sun is in one of the zodiacal constellations, meaning the background of stars against which the Sun is seen.
The trouble is, astrology is very ancient, and since the zodiacal signs were determined, things have shifted so that, according to the facts of astronomy, the Sun is actually about one sign away from where astrology says it is. So, your real sign is not what astrology says it is!
The implication of all this is, even if the position of the Sun in the plane of the ecliptic—that is, what sign the Sun is in—had any meaning, what astrology tells us for one particular sign should actually apply to a different sign.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
The man in the street often is not clear as to the difference between astronomy and astrology. (I've worked with the astronomical community and have had ample evidence of this.) One big difference: astronomy is a science, and modern; astrology is a pseudo-science, and ancient.
Astrology is to astronomy what alchemy is to chemistry—an ancestor, you could say. Try making modern medicines or plastics with alchemy instead of chemistry and you'll appreciate the difference between a modern science and an ancient superstition.
Astrology is based on the assumption that the stars and planets influence our lives here on earth—that the configuration of the heavens at the time of our birth—in other words our "sign"--establishes certain traits we will have throughout our lives; and then from day to day, the motions of the planets in the skies determine, for example, what kind of day we will have, what actions we should avoid, and so on. Astrology says the stars spell our destiny.
Astrologers may draw up elaborate and impressive-looking charts. But astronomers, who are the genuine scientists, keep trying to tell the public that this is all nonsense. Astronomers point out that the stars and planets are too far from Earth to exert any influence on Earth, and on us who dwell on Earth.
Also, here is another fallacy of astrology: Everything is now about one sign off. Let me try to explain that. According to astrology, at any one date, we are in a certain "sign"; that is, the Sun is in one of the zodiacal constellations, meaning the background of stars against which the Sun is seen.
The trouble is, astrology is very ancient, and since the zodiacal signs were determined, things have shifted so that, according to the facts of astronomy, the Sun is actually about one sign away from where astrology says it is. So, your real sign is not what astrology says it is!
The implication of all this is, even if the position of the Sun in the plane of the ecliptic—that is, what sign the Sun is in—had any meaning, what astrology tells us for one particular sign should actually apply to a different sign.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Thursday, August 6, 2009
No Such Thing as Dirty Words
I don't believe there is such a thing as "dirty words." Think about it, why are some words "dirty"? What makes them dirty?
Words are not intrinsically good or bad. Do you believe in magic words? To believe in dirty words is the flip side of a belief in word magic.
Word magic is a very old human superstition. Look at abracadabra, hocus-pocus, open sesame. In Old English (or Anglo-Saxon) times, there were charms you could say, for example, to cure a stitch (a pain in one's side), and there were curses (magic spells placed on a person whom you wanted to harm). Hopefully we don't believe in charms and curses anymore, yet we still insist on ascribing a magical power (rather than absolute neutrality) to some words. (If you want to stop and analyze human behavior in which we ascribe special efficacy to words, blessings are an example of "good" magic words that many believe in. Note that much worship is done in a special or even dead language--Hebrew, Latin, Coptic, Old Church Slavonic--and the priest knows the special, or "magic," words to say.)
The aversion to many "dirty" words is really just a matter of our being uncomfortable with talking about certain things—specifically the sex act, body parts, body functions, and bodily secretions. An English anthropologist has a very interesting theory to explain some of this: he says we are uncomfortable with bodily secretions (for example) because they pose an ambiguous case as to whether they are "me" or "not-me." One might reply to this that we ought to be similarly uncomfortable with hair clippings and fingernail clippings. And maybe we are: Orthodox Jews will flush fingernail clippings down the toilet while saying a special prayer.
But why are the "clinical" terms (for example, urine) somehow nicer than the four-letter, Anglo-Saxon words (for example, piss)? Somehow the clinical words are more detached, since they are "learned," often Latin words.
Note: This posting is an abridgement and reworking of an article titled "Dirty Words and Magic Words," IDEAS, Dec. 1990.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Words are not intrinsically good or bad. Do you believe in magic words? To believe in dirty words is the flip side of a belief in word magic.
Word magic is a very old human superstition. Look at abracadabra, hocus-pocus, open sesame. In Old English (or Anglo-Saxon) times, there were charms you could say, for example, to cure a stitch (a pain in one's side), and there were curses (magic spells placed on a person whom you wanted to harm). Hopefully we don't believe in charms and curses anymore, yet we still insist on ascribing a magical power (rather than absolute neutrality) to some words. (If you want to stop and analyze human behavior in which we ascribe special efficacy to words, blessings are an example of "good" magic words that many believe in. Note that much worship is done in a special or even dead language--Hebrew, Latin, Coptic, Old Church Slavonic--and the priest knows the special, or "magic," words to say.)
The aversion to many "dirty" words is really just a matter of our being uncomfortable with talking about certain things—specifically the sex act, body parts, body functions, and bodily secretions. An English anthropologist has a very interesting theory to explain some of this: he says we are uncomfortable with bodily secretions (for example) because they pose an ambiguous case as to whether they are "me" or "not-me." One might reply to this that we ought to be similarly uncomfortable with hair clippings and fingernail clippings. And maybe we are: Orthodox Jews will flush fingernail clippings down the toilet while saying a special prayer.
But why are the "clinical" terms (for example, urine) somehow nicer than the four-letter, Anglo-Saxon words (for example, piss)? Somehow the clinical words are more detached, since they are "learned," often Latin words.
Note: This posting is an abridgement and reworking of an article titled "Dirty Words and Magic Words," IDEAS, Dec. 1990.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
People = Polution
Humans are killing the planet by their sheer numbers.
As we all know, global warming is caused by greenhouse gases from our cars and from power plants. Pollution of the air, land, and sea is caused by chemical plants and other industrial sources that generate toxic chemicals, and the use of pesticides and fertilizers, and so forth.
There's also destruction of the environment and extinction of plant and animal species due to increased farming, which sometimes means removing the tropical rainforests that absorb CO2 from the atmosphere; and increased "development" to make shopping malls and housing tracts. There's depletion of the oceans' fish due to over-fishing.
The real and ultimate cause of all these things is not "industry" or some abstract entity; it's people. Individually and collectively, we are destroying the Earth. It's people that cause pollution and destroy the environment.
Small human groups typically have a small impact on the environment. Hunter-gatherer societies usually harvest only sustainable amounts of plants and animals, meaning not more than can be replaced by those organisms' natural reproduction. But it's a very different situation when human societies number in the billions.
The human species has been too successful, and population growth is the ultimate threat to our species' own survival. When we pave over our land for parking lots and deplete the oceans of fish for our tables, this should make us think about the consequences of uncontrolled growth of human populations. Even a bacterial colony will multiply and grow until all its nutrient resources are gone; and then it will completely die from lack of available food.
The solution to this problem is to be found in virtually every home, every human habitation on the planet. The human species needs to control its own fertility.
China has gone from a country perennially threatened by mass starvation to a very prosperous country. How? By limiting population growth. Chinese families are not allowed to have more than one child.
By contrast, in America, we value individual rights and choices. It's inconceivable to Americans that the government should ever dictate how many children a family has. And we feel, "If I can support my family, I have the right to have all the kids I want." But those kids will need more houses, more refrigerators, more cars, more schools, more roads, more parking lots. But heck, America is a big country, we still have lots of room.
Well, very much of all that "room" or space in America is not good for anything (well, to be more accurate, it's good for whatever nature is adapted to living there, and it should be left that way). Have you seen the vast emptiness of the West? Humans have already invaded the deserts and made huge efforts to make them habitable. We have, with incredible massive irrigation projects, made desert areas like Los Angeles and Las Vegas habitable. But it's been at a price. To supply Los Angeles with water, we divert rivers, we use up lakes and completely destroy them—all with tragic ecological impact. The water must continually be brought from farther and farther away.
We need to change the ethos by which we give positive approval to families with many children. Politicians running for office list, as if a credential, the number of children they have (at least where I live, maybe just to demonstrate to the voters—heavily Irish or Polish and Catholic--that they have a "good Catholic family").
We cheer and applaud and congratulate people for having children, even if it's the fifth or sixth or seventh. We have to stop doing that. Any couple who have more than three children should be met with disapproval, not approval.
Also, the U.S. federal income tax system subsidizes having children by giving parents a tax break—a deduction—for every "dependent." If we were ever to get serious about addressing population problems, I think even this would have to be examined.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein.
As we all know, global warming is caused by greenhouse gases from our cars and from power plants. Pollution of the air, land, and sea is caused by chemical plants and other industrial sources that generate toxic chemicals, and the use of pesticides and fertilizers, and so forth.
There's also destruction of the environment and extinction of plant and animal species due to increased farming, which sometimes means removing the tropical rainforests that absorb CO2 from the atmosphere; and increased "development" to make shopping malls and housing tracts. There's depletion of the oceans' fish due to over-fishing.
The real and ultimate cause of all these things is not "industry" or some abstract entity; it's people. Individually and collectively, we are destroying the Earth. It's people that cause pollution and destroy the environment.
Small human groups typically have a small impact on the environment. Hunter-gatherer societies usually harvest only sustainable amounts of plants and animals, meaning not more than can be replaced by those organisms' natural reproduction. But it's a very different situation when human societies number in the billions.
The human species has been too successful, and population growth is the ultimate threat to our species' own survival. When we pave over our land for parking lots and deplete the oceans of fish for our tables, this should make us think about the consequences of uncontrolled growth of human populations. Even a bacterial colony will multiply and grow until all its nutrient resources are gone; and then it will completely die from lack of available food.
The solution to this problem is to be found in virtually every home, every human habitation on the planet. The human species needs to control its own fertility.
China has gone from a country perennially threatened by mass starvation to a very prosperous country. How? By limiting population growth. Chinese families are not allowed to have more than one child.
By contrast, in America, we value individual rights and choices. It's inconceivable to Americans that the government should ever dictate how many children a family has. And we feel, "If I can support my family, I have the right to have all the kids I want." But those kids will need more houses, more refrigerators, more cars, more schools, more roads, more parking lots. But heck, America is a big country, we still have lots of room.
Well, very much of all that "room" or space in America is not good for anything (well, to be more accurate, it's good for whatever nature is adapted to living there, and it should be left that way). Have you seen the vast emptiness of the West? Humans have already invaded the deserts and made huge efforts to make them habitable. We have, with incredible massive irrigation projects, made desert areas like Los Angeles and Las Vegas habitable. But it's been at a price. To supply Los Angeles with water, we divert rivers, we use up lakes and completely destroy them—all with tragic ecological impact. The water must continually be brought from farther and farther away.
We need to change the ethos by which we give positive approval to families with many children. Politicians running for office list, as if a credential, the number of children they have (at least where I live, maybe just to demonstrate to the voters—heavily Irish or Polish and Catholic--that they have a "good Catholic family").
We cheer and applaud and congratulate people for having children, even if it's the fifth or sixth or seventh. We have to stop doing that. Any couple who have more than three children should be met with disapproval, not approval.
Also, the U.S. federal income tax system subsidizes having children by giving parents a tax break—a deduction—for every "dependent." If we were ever to get serious about addressing population problems, I think even this would have to be examined.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Americans Can't Spell Anymore
Nowadays, people's competence in English spelling is very poor, at least to judge from what I see people writing in online chat rooms and so forth. No one knows the difference between your and you're. There's also ignorance of the differences among to/too/two, there/their/they're, and even then/than. Hardly anyone, anymore, respects the distinction between it's and its. (This problem, or mistake, has become well-nigh universal.)
Some of these things are not new. I very well remember, when I was teaching college freshman English, some 40 years ago, writing (over and over and over) on student themes, "It's = it is." And it seems no one knows, anymore, how to spell a plural possessive (no, it's not the same as the singular possessive).
To my mind, the blame for this situation rests squarely with teachers. Decades ago (but after I was in school), teachers adopted a philosophy of allowing students to write with no correction or criticism of "mechanics" by the teachers—because it was thought that requiring students to pay attention to mechanics would distract them from expressing themselves and stifle their creativity.
This is part of a larger phenomenon of what is wrong with education. Teachers (and "educationists," those educators with Ed.D. degrees) want to turn all learning into a game and have enormous dread, and avoidance, of ever having to tell their pupils that something must simply be learned by applying a little effort. All out of (to my mind) an exaggerated fear of stifling the kids' fragile little psyches. Maybe this is why, according to many measures, America's kids can't keep up with those in some other countries.
However, if everybody begins to write your when they mean you are, I don't really believe that will mean the end of the world is upon us. Because of my linguistic training, I know that orthography (spelling) is arbitrary, to a degree--with English orthography being more arbitrary than that of many other languages. To spell or write homonyms the same or differently is not going to matter a great deal—unless maybe you want to worry about whether, at some future time, people won't be able to read older literature anymore. Maybe today's authors will be as hard to read, in the future, as Chaucer or even Shakespeare is for us today.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Some of these things are not new. I very well remember, when I was teaching college freshman English, some 40 years ago, writing (over and over and over) on student themes, "It's = it is." And it seems no one knows, anymore, how to spell a plural possessive (no, it's not the same as the singular possessive).
To my mind, the blame for this situation rests squarely with teachers. Decades ago (but after I was in school), teachers adopted a philosophy of allowing students to write with no correction or criticism of "mechanics" by the teachers—because it was thought that requiring students to pay attention to mechanics would distract them from expressing themselves and stifle their creativity.
This is part of a larger phenomenon of what is wrong with education. Teachers (and "educationists," those educators with Ed.D. degrees) want to turn all learning into a game and have enormous dread, and avoidance, of ever having to tell their pupils that something must simply be learned by applying a little effort. All out of (to my mind) an exaggerated fear of stifling the kids' fragile little psyches. Maybe this is why, according to many measures, America's kids can't keep up with those in some other countries.
However, if everybody begins to write your when they mean you are, I don't really believe that will mean the end of the world is upon us. Because of my linguistic training, I know that orthography (spelling) is arbitrary, to a degree--with English orthography being more arbitrary than that of many other languages. To spell or write homonyms the same or differently is not going to matter a great deal—unless maybe you want to worry about whether, at some future time, people won't be able to read older literature anymore. Maybe today's authors will be as hard to read, in the future, as Chaucer or even Shakespeare is for us today.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Americans and Energy Use
An interesting statistic that I came across the other day is that Americans make up 4% of the world's population but use 25% of the world's energy.
The most obvious place where that energy goes is our cars: we have more cars and bigger cars, and we drive a lot.
But, here is an interesting exercise: I know this sounds weird and geeky, so yeah, okay, I am: but one time I tried counting up all the electric motors in my house. Give this a try, and go room by room. It's very hard not to overlook any: I came up with around 60 or 70.
First, nearly every appliance in your kitchen has an electric motor. Your blender, mixer, coffee grinder, electric can opener, knife sharpener. There may be one or two in your microwave. Your refrigerator has a motor. Don't overlook the vacuum cleaner, washer, dryer. Your furnace has a blower motor and if you have central A/C, that's at least two or three motors.
In your bathroom—have you got an electric toothbrush, hair dryer, electric shaver, Water-Pik? Exhaust fan? Count even the battery-operated devices.
A CD player or DVD player has an electric motor. If you still have a VHS recorder or an audio cassette recorder, one of those has one or more motors. Any DVR will have a motor. Digital camera? A motor for the zoom action.
In the home office--inside your computer, your hard disk drive and any floppy drive each is a motor. Got a printer, too? Guess what, a motor. Paper shredder?
Include your garage. There's your electric garage door opener, one motor. In your car, you've got any number of motors: probably a number of electric motors under the hood, such as for the cooling fan and maybe fuel pump. And there's the heater motor, the starter motor; each power window. power mirror, or power seat has a motor. And your car has an audio system, which uses at least one motor for the tape and CD players. Then there's the car's air conditioning, at least a couple more.
Where is your count now? Dozens, I'm sure, maybe nudging 100. Now, how many motors does a person in a third-world country have, do you suppose?
Another exercise is to count the light bulbs in your house. Here, too, it may be hard not to overlook a few. Unless you live in a small studio apartment, the number is likely to be in the dozens.
Don't forget your closets, the outside of your house. Inside your microwave, your oven, your refrigerator (my refrigerator has three). The headlight on your vacuum cleaner. (You don't have to count LEDs, those tiny red and green and blue indicator lights that are so ubiquitous these days; those use a negligible amount of electric power.)
Think you're done? Oh, and there's the. . . .
So what was your total?
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
The most obvious place where that energy goes is our cars: we have more cars and bigger cars, and we drive a lot.
But, here is an interesting exercise: I know this sounds weird and geeky, so yeah, okay, I am: but one time I tried counting up all the electric motors in my house. Give this a try, and go room by room. It's very hard not to overlook any: I came up with around 60 or 70.
First, nearly every appliance in your kitchen has an electric motor. Your blender, mixer, coffee grinder, electric can opener, knife sharpener. There may be one or two in your microwave. Your refrigerator has a motor. Don't overlook the vacuum cleaner, washer, dryer. Your furnace has a blower motor and if you have central A/C, that's at least two or three motors.
In your bathroom—have you got an electric toothbrush, hair dryer, electric shaver, Water-Pik? Exhaust fan? Count even the battery-operated devices.
A CD player or DVD player has an electric motor. If you still have a VHS recorder or an audio cassette recorder, one of those has one or more motors. Any DVR will have a motor. Digital camera? A motor for the zoom action.
In the home office--inside your computer, your hard disk drive and any floppy drive each is a motor. Got a printer, too? Guess what, a motor. Paper shredder?
Include your garage. There's your electric garage door opener, one motor. In your car, you've got any number of motors: probably a number of electric motors under the hood, such as for the cooling fan and maybe fuel pump. And there's the heater motor, the starter motor; each power window. power mirror, or power seat has a motor. And your car has an audio system, which uses at least one motor for the tape and CD players. Then there's the car's air conditioning, at least a couple more.
Where is your count now? Dozens, I'm sure, maybe nudging 100. Now, how many motors does a person in a third-world country have, do you suppose?
Another exercise is to count the light bulbs in your house. Here, too, it may be hard not to overlook a few. Unless you live in a small studio apartment, the number is likely to be in the dozens.
Don't forget your closets, the outside of your house. Inside your microwave, your oven, your refrigerator (my refrigerator has three). The headlight on your vacuum cleaner. (You don't have to count LEDs, those tiny red and green and blue indicator lights that are so ubiquitous these days; those use a negligible amount of electric power.)
Think you're done? Oh, and there's the. . . .
So what was your total?
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Saturday, July 25, 2009
The Gates Affair: Like Obama, I don't know enough to keep quiet
President Barack Obama got into hot water for his comments on the affair involving the arrest, as his home, of African-American Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Gates, as you recall, was trying to "break into" his own home because the door got stuck. A neighbor saw "two African Americans" trying to break in, and called the police. (First, I gotta wonder—and no one has mentioned this—why the neighbor didn't recognize Gates. Dr. Gates, it's time to get acquainted with your neighbors, so that they will recognize you!)
I wasn't there, and neither was Obama. That isn't deterring either of us from sticking in our two cents. Obama has learned he should have kept quiet, but hey, I'm not the President, I don't have to worry about making the news and getting embroiled in controversy like he does.
What should have happened is this: Policeman: "Oh, this is your house, Okay, I'm sorry."
And that should have been the end of it. Apparently Gates did show his ID, but presumably the policeman was (1) not as impressed as Gates expected him to be to learn who he was (Gates is pretty well known but maybe not quite a household name); (2) not quick enough to apologize; and (3) not deferential enough. All this in Gates' view.
I know a fair amount about Gates and I can imagine that he sort of has a chip on his shoulder, and is too quick to see racial bias where there is none. It's come to light that the policeman in question has actually taught a police class in racial profiling and had the endorsement for doing so from an African American colleague on the police force. Also, this is Cambridge, Mass., a relatively liberal city, certainly not Mississippi.
Cambridge has a lot of professors living there, both from Harvard and MIT. So maybe the police are not that likely to be overawed by finding out that someone is a Harvard professor.
The two men who were "breaking in" were Gates and his driver. His driver?? How many professors have drivers? I have never known of any. I used to see Saul Bellow, who was an award-winning writer (National Book Award) and college teacher, driving between his University of Chicago and Northwestern University gigs. He had a Mercedes, but he drove himself.
So what kind of Imperial professor is this Gates? I think he simply was angered, not merely at the injustice of being accused of breaking into his own house—which is fairly understandable, and many would wish their neighbors to be as vigilant as Gates' neighbor was being—but also annoyed that the cop was not sufficiently impressed when he learned who Gates was.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Gates, as you recall, was trying to "break into" his own home because the door got stuck. A neighbor saw "two African Americans" trying to break in, and called the police. (First, I gotta wonder—and no one has mentioned this—why the neighbor didn't recognize Gates. Dr. Gates, it's time to get acquainted with your neighbors, so that they will recognize you!)
I wasn't there, and neither was Obama. That isn't deterring either of us from sticking in our two cents. Obama has learned he should have kept quiet, but hey, I'm not the President, I don't have to worry about making the news and getting embroiled in controversy like he does.
What should have happened is this: Policeman: "Oh, this is your house, Okay, I'm sorry."
And that should have been the end of it. Apparently Gates did show his ID, but presumably the policeman was (1) not as impressed as Gates expected him to be to learn who he was (Gates is pretty well known but maybe not quite a household name); (2) not quick enough to apologize; and (3) not deferential enough. All this in Gates' view.
I know a fair amount about Gates and I can imagine that he sort of has a chip on his shoulder, and is too quick to see racial bias where there is none. It's come to light that the policeman in question has actually taught a police class in racial profiling and had the endorsement for doing so from an African American colleague on the police force. Also, this is Cambridge, Mass., a relatively liberal city, certainly not Mississippi.
Cambridge has a lot of professors living there, both from Harvard and MIT. So maybe the police are not that likely to be overawed by finding out that someone is a Harvard professor.
The two men who were "breaking in" were Gates and his driver. His driver?? How many professors have drivers? I have never known of any. I used to see Saul Bellow, who was an award-winning writer (National Book Award) and college teacher, driving between his University of Chicago and Northwestern University gigs. He had a Mercedes, but he drove himself.
So what kind of Imperial professor is this Gates? I think he simply was angered, not merely at the injustice of being accused of breaking into his own house—which is fairly understandable, and many would wish their neighbors to be as vigilant as Gates' neighbor was being—but also annoyed that the cop was not sufficiently impressed when he learned who Gates was.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Monday, July 20, 2009
What Do Teachers Know?
Vincent van Gogh was kicked out of his art class at the Antwerp Academy.
Julia Child was judged not qualified to attend the famous Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris.
Albert Einstein was judged a mediocre student in school.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Julia Child was judged not qualified to attend the famous Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris.
Albert Einstein was judged a mediocre student in school.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Presumed Stupid, until Proven Otherwise
Stupid people will assume you are stupid—like themselves. Seems they can't imagine an intelligence greater than their own.
Smart people, like members of Mensa, are used to the majority of people being stupider than they are—so they will assume you are stupid (even if they know you are another Mensa member).
People like doctors get used to dealing with the lowest common denominator, so they assume you are stupid.
So—sort of like innocent until proved guilty--you are presumed stupid until proved intelligent.
Maybe I am the sort who tends to hide his light under a bushel. I have found people who seemed to interpret everything I said as evidence that I was stupid.
It doesn't help that I stutter. This can have two consequences: One, what I'm saying is not understood (maybe because the steady rhythm of normal speech is very important and, if you interrupt it, communication is inhibited). Two, many people, simply out of ignorance, associate impaired ability to communicate with subnormal intelligence.
Copyright © Richard Stein
Smart people, like members of Mensa, are used to the majority of people being stupider than they are—so they will assume you are stupid (even if they know you are another Mensa member).
People like doctors get used to dealing with the lowest common denominator, so they assume you are stupid.
So—sort of like innocent until proved guilty--you are presumed stupid until proved intelligent.
Maybe I am the sort who tends to hide his light under a bushel. I have found people who seemed to interpret everything I said as evidence that I was stupid.
It doesn't help that I stutter. This can have two consequences: One, what I'm saying is not understood (maybe because the steady rhythm of normal speech is very important and, if you interrupt it, communication is inhibited). Two, many people, simply out of ignorance, associate impaired ability to communicate with subnormal intelligence.
Copyright © Richard Stein
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Sarah Palin, Please Just Go Away!
I don't like Sarah Palin, and I never have. From the moment she burst upon the public's consciousness (that is, the public outside of Alaska), when she was announced as McCain's choice for Vice Presidential nominee, I said, That woman is a bimbo, a bozo, and a fruitcake. And I have never seen any reason to change my mind.
Once the McCain-Palin ticket was defeated in November, I hoped that Palin would quietly slip from the radar screen and return to that obscurity that she so richly deserves. That she has not is the fault of the media, and of the public as well. The media always insist on milking any story for all it is worth. When someone of note dies, we keep hearing about that person for days or a week afterward. It is not enough to run an obituary and suitable eulogies; they cover any funeral, etc. The person may be dead, but he or she is not gone (from our TV screens) and certainly not forgotten. We are destined to go on hearing about Micheal Jackson for a long time, it seems.
And I say it's the fault of the public because of a phenomenon akin to what has been termed the "Hollywoodization of America." There is a truly bottomless interest in any celebrities, whether political, entertainment, or sports (evidently they used to call this "hero worship").
Are celebrities larger than life, or a special class of beings? The image that they are goes back probably to the 1930s or 1920s when the Hollywood movie studios started publicity departments to keep their stars in the public eye. These publicity departments managed to conjure up larger-than-life personae for these movie stars. The stars were given glamorous clothes and glamorous settings for their publicity photos, whether the setting was a movie premiere or a Riviera resort.
These efforts were very successful in creating in the public eye the idea that these celebrities were not ordinary human beings. Maybe we all need idols or demigods. But it ought to be clear to anyone who thinks about it for a bit that many of these people are not superior beings. Typically they are not smarter than the average human being. The move stars can't maintain their marriages. Many seem to have died of drug abuse. Many times (look at sports "stars") they run afoul of the law. To be charitable, some of the problems these individuals seem to exhibit are that they can't handle fame or its concomitants such as continually being in the eye of the public, being in the lens of the paparazzi, and so forth.
Anyway, back to Ms. Palin: Far from my being able to forget about her, she seems to crop up everywhere. As revenge for my having a poor opinion of her, and having said nasty things, she's haunting me. I see her face where it is not. Photos of so many women look to me, for a moment, like Sarah Palin. Oh, how I want to beseech her, Sarah Palin, please just go away!
Copyright © Richard Stein
Once the McCain-Palin ticket was defeated in November, I hoped that Palin would quietly slip from the radar screen and return to that obscurity that she so richly deserves. That she has not is the fault of the media, and of the public as well. The media always insist on milking any story for all it is worth. When someone of note dies, we keep hearing about that person for days or a week afterward. It is not enough to run an obituary and suitable eulogies; they cover any funeral, etc. The person may be dead, but he or she is not gone (from our TV screens) and certainly not forgotten. We are destined to go on hearing about Micheal Jackson for a long time, it seems.
And I say it's the fault of the public because of a phenomenon akin to what has been termed the "Hollywoodization of America." There is a truly bottomless interest in any celebrities, whether political, entertainment, or sports (evidently they used to call this "hero worship").
Are celebrities larger than life, or a special class of beings? The image that they are goes back probably to the 1930s or 1920s when the Hollywood movie studios started publicity departments to keep their stars in the public eye. These publicity departments managed to conjure up larger-than-life personae for these movie stars. The stars were given glamorous clothes and glamorous settings for their publicity photos, whether the setting was a movie premiere or a Riviera resort.
These efforts were very successful in creating in the public eye the idea that these celebrities were not ordinary human beings. Maybe we all need idols or demigods. But it ought to be clear to anyone who thinks about it for a bit that many of these people are not superior beings. Typically they are not smarter than the average human being. The move stars can't maintain their marriages. Many seem to have died of drug abuse. Many times (look at sports "stars") they run afoul of the law. To be charitable, some of the problems these individuals seem to exhibit are that they can't handle fame or its concomitants such as continually being in the eye of the public, being in the lens of the paparazzi, and so forth.
Anyway, back to Ms. Palin: Far from my being able to forget about her, she seems to crop up everywhere. As revenge for my having a poor opinion of her, and having said nasty things, she's haunting me. I see her face where it is not. Photos of so many women look to me, for a moment, like Sarah Palin. Oh, how I want to beseech her, Sarah Palin, please just go away!
Copyright © Richard Stein
Attention: Robin Staging Area
It seems that, since Swiss Family Robin has made its home in the nest above my coach light (formerly known as One Mourning Dove Lane), my front porch has become their staging area. Papa or Mama Robin, with food for the young'uns in their beaks, seem to rest for a few moments on my front porch or its railing. I just looked out through the sidelights of my front door only to see a robin staring back at me.
Well, I was happy to be a grandpa to mourning dove chicks two or three times, so I guess I should be just as glad that now it's robins.
Actually, the Robin family chose a poor place to raise their Robinsons and Robindaughters. They used a nest that had been built by mourning doves the previous year (and used again by the doves earlier this season).
The mourning doves seem more adapted to being around human beings. The nest they built, atop a coach light right next to my garage door, is pretty close to human activity. The doves pretty much took it in stride when my car entered and left the garage, but it bothers the robins more: they often fly away when the car comes in or goes out. (I think actually it's not the car that spooks them but rather that they can see and recognize a human inside the car.)
So, given the robins' relative skittishness, that's a poor place for them to nest (although I guess it was okay in the end since they successfully hatched their eggs). But I feel akin to the robins here because I may have chosen my home poorly, too. Guess I'm no smarter than the robins. Call me bird brain.
Copyright © Richard Stein
Well, I was happy to be a grandpa to mourning dove chicks two or three times, so I guess I should be just as glad that now it's robins.
Actually, the Robin family chose a poor place to raise their Robinsons and Robindaughters. They used a nest that had been built by mourning doves the previous year (and used again by the doves earlier this season).
The mourning doves seem more adapted to being around human beings. The nest they built, atop a coach light right next to my garage door, is pretty close to human activity. The doves pretty much took it in stride when my car entered and left the garage, but it bothers the robins more: they often fly away when the car comes in or goes out. (I think actually it's not the car that spooks them but rather that they can see and recognize a human inside the car.)
So, given the robins' relative skittishness, that's a poor place for them to nest (although I guess it was okay in the end since they successfully hatched their eggs). But I feel akin to the robins here because I may have chosen my home poorly, too. Guess I'm no smarter than the robins. Call me bird brain.
Copyright © Richard Stein
Friday, July 3, 2009
50 Years After High School
For me, it's fifty years since high school. My graduating class is having a fifty-year reunion this summer. I probably won't go. I've never gone to a high-school reunion (I won't go into the reasons now), but the class has a web site, and there are photos posted of luncheon gatherings the class has held the last two summers.
Those fat, old, gray-haired people can't possibly be the same people as the slim, young people I knew in high school. I can only identify them by the captions to the pictures; I'd never know a single one. Some of them look better than others. There's the quarterback of the football team: he looks like he's in good shape and stands very erect. But so many are overweight. Two are in nursing homes (no, they're not in the photos), others use canes or oxygen bottles. A number—too many—sadly have passed away.
I am sure that I don't look like they do. Somehow—good genes, clean living (okay, stop laughing!)—I escaped thirty years of aging.
Now, if you believe that. . . .
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Those fat, old, gray-haired people can't possibly be the same people as the slim, young people I knew in high school. I can only identify them by the captions to the pictures; I'd never know a single one. Some of them look better than others. There's the quarterback of the football team: he looks like he's in good shape and stands very erect. But so many are overweight. Two are in nursing homes (no, they're not in the photos), others use canes or oxygen bottles. A number—too many—sadly have passed away.
I am sure that I don't look like they do. Somehow—good genes, clean living (okay, stop laughing!)—I escaped thirty years of aging.
Now, if you believe that. . . .
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Television makes us fat
You've probably heard over and over—it's even discussed elsewhere on this blog—that Americans are increasingly becoming overweight and even obese. There's been a lot of discussion among experts as to what the causes are.
I want to suggest that television is at least one possible cause. No, I don't mean the inactivity of sitting and watching TV; I mean the advertising of food on television.
Just to make a very rough and random sample, in three or four days of my own televiewing, I saw commercials for some half-dozen fast-food chains (one of them at least four times), one for yogurt, two for sausages (one of those at least twice), ice cream, a pancake house, raw chicken, baked beans—and paper plates, piled high with food to show that they can hold it. This is not an exhaustive list. The Fourth of July is approaching so the sausages and paper plates are to be expected, I guess.
My theory is that watching food commercials—seeing the sponsors' food items shown, often in close-up, in their best make-up (and that's not totally facetious: food is doctored for still photography, as in magazines, and I'm sure something similar is done for TV) so as to look as appetizing as possible—doesn't this make us hungry? Some social scientist needs to do a study to show just how often seeing a TV commercial for food makes the viewer get up during a commercial break and go to the refrigerator. Meanwhile, I've got this bit of advice: the next time a food commercial comes on, showing that double cheeseburger, quickly change the channel, look away--anything but watch it and start to salivate.
And then there are the cooking shows on TV and other food programs. I know that those make me hungry, maybe more so that the food commercials. I'm pretty much immune to most of the food commercials because I almost never eat fast food and I eat almost no red meat. So because of how I have conditioned myself, that close-up shot of a big, juicy burger isn't going to do it for me. But I'm in the minority.
Update, June 28, 2012
Yesterday the TV news reported on a study done by the University of Southern California that shows that TV ads for fatty foods make the viewer crave fatty foods. I feel this shows that I was right in what I said in 2009.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
I want to suggest that television is at least one possible cause. No, I don't mean the inactivity of sitting and watching TV; I mean the advertising of food on television.
Just to make a very rough and random sample, in three or four days of my own televiewing, I saw commercials for some half-dozen fast-food chains (one of them at least four times), one for yogurt, two for sausages (one of those at least twice), ice cream, a pancake house, raw chicken, baked beans—and paper plates, piled high with food to show that they can hold it. This is not an exhaustive list. The Fourth of July is approaching so the sausages and paper plates are to be expected, I guess.
My theory is that watching food commercials—seeing the sponsors' food items shown, often in close-up, in their best make-up (and that's not totally facetious: food is doctored for still photography, as in magazines, and I'm sure something similar is done for TV) so as to look as appetizing as possible—doesn't this make us hungry? Some social scientist needs to do a study to show just how often seeing a TV commercial for food makes the viewer get up during a commercial break and go to the refrigerator. Meanwhile, I've got this bit of advice: the next time a food commercial comes on, showing that double cheeseburger, quickly change the channel, look away--anything but watch it and start to salivate.
And then there are the cooking shows on TV and other food programs. I know that those make me hungry, maybe more so that the food commercials. I'm pretty much immune to most of the food commercials because I almost never eat fast food and I eat almost no red meat. So because of how I have conditioned myself, that close-up shot of a big, juicy burger isn't going to do it for me. But I'm in the minority.
Update, June 28, 2012
Yesterday the TV news reported on a study done by the University of Southern California that shows that TV ads for fatty foods make the viewer crave fatty foods. I feel this shows that I was right in what I said in 2009.
Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein
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