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 In Vietnam, U.S. troops supposedly were to be withdrawn once South Vietnamese army forces had become able, with U.S. training, to take over the battle against Communist forces.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

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.

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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