Regular readers of this blog know that I have frequently been critical of organized religion and blame it for much of the conflict that mankind has endured throughout history: persecution, terrorism, war.
I recently learned of a so-called "peace camp," which brings together children of different religions so that they can get to know one another and learn about one another's religion. One premise is that Christians are very ignorant of Islam, Muslims are very ignorant of Christianity, and so forth. So the campers visit various houses of worship, learn about holidays and, presumably, religious texts and beliefs.
With such knowledge comes the discovery that the various religions have more in common than one might realize: all advocate peace, love, friendship, tolerance, and helping your fellow man.
The man who founded the camp says that when he looks at television, all he sees is religion depicted as motivating bombings. He wanted to counter that image. I'm sure he has a valid point.
But which is the correct view of religion? I don't want to say that either idea is totally false, even though they seem to be diametrically opposite. Well, how about this thought? Maybe religion is schizophrenic; you know, having a split personality, so that it can be both.
Maybe it depends on who is in charge, so to speak. Evidently the Koran both preaches love and tolerance, and also can be interpreted to favor violent strife against non-believers. The Judeo-Christian tradition may be similarly schizophrenic. Jesus (as I understand) advocated love, peace, forgiveness, helping the poor and disadvantaged; but the Old Testament which had been the basis for the Judaism out of which Christianity arose repeatedly contains violent images and the Old Testament god is a wrathful god who is always smiting his enemies.
Maybe it's all "in there," so to speak. Maybe it depends on what part of the text is being stressed or what a particular religious leader picks out to emphasize when he or she preaches. Sort of, who is in power right now.
To close with a little anecdote: I am reminded of a little episode from a drama I saw on TV some years ago, about a Jewish family of piano manufacturers, living in Germany in the 1930s just as the Nazis were coming to power. To reports of what was happening to the Jews, the wife says, "But how can this be happening? This is the country of Goethe, Lessing, Beethoven"--the idea being that those people represented enlightenment and tolerance.
Her husband replied, "Yes, but unfortunately they're not in power right now."
Copyright © 2011 Richard Stein
Monday, October 31, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
To-Do over Ben and Jerry's
There was a certain fracus about Ben and Jerry's (the ice cream company in Vermont) bringing out a new flavor called "Shweddy Balls." Some stores have refused to carry it; an organization of women--conservative women, as one might surmise-- has vowed to boycott Ben and Jerry's. And there was an online article about Ben and Jerry's "lewd" new flavor name.
So I have to weigh in with what I think. Ben and Jerry's, if they have any clue as to how vocal the conservative elements in America are, and how anti-sex they can be as well, certainly should have known that there would be some negative reaction. And assuming they did--and one almost has to ask, How could they not?--they deserve some credit for being daring and not risk-averse as so many businesses are. Though maybe their philosophy is like what Oscar Wilde once said: The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. So they are reaping lots of free publicity.
The sad truth is that America is pretty puritanical when it comes to sex. Some years ago I saw a debate on TV between two women, one conservative and one liberal. I think the topic was the banning of books. The woman from the conservative side was wearing a dress that buttoned high up to the neck. That her dress was not revealing was--well, revealing.
A few years ago, in Europe (I think it was in Vienna), I saw a advertisement on a sidewalk kiosk that showed an image of a couple of bare-breasted women, similar to those in a Gauguin painting. You don't--and wouldn't--see something like that in America. We're just too anti-sex and the-human-body-is-dirty-and-sinful in this country.
Have I bought the ice cream in question? No, but I might, depending on what it actually is. Ben and Jerry's makes yummy ice cream. But it's "super-premium" ice cream, high in fat content--and not for the weight-conscious or those who try to eat healthy, like me.
Update, December 24, 2011
With a little bit more to say about America's sexual puritanism I would make a new posting; but here are just two more examples:
1) When TV shows even an image (e.g. a painting or a statue--and note, NOT the real thing) of female breasts or buttocks, evidently the image has to be blurred out.
2) I learned that a Roman cup from around the time of the birth of Christ was not even allowed to be brought into the country in 1953 because it shows two pairs of male lovers.
Copyright (c) 2011 by Richard Stein
So I have to weigh in with what I think. Ben and Jerry's, if they have any clue as to how vocal the conservative elements in America are, and how anti-sex they can be as well, certainly should have known that there would be some negative reaction. And assuming they did--and one almost has to ask, How could they not?--they deserve some credit for being daring and not risk-averse as so many businesses are. Though maybe their philosophy is like what Oscar Wilde once said: The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. So they are reaping lots of free publicity.
The sad truth is that America is pretty puritanical when it comes to sex. Some years ago I saw a debate on TV between two women, one conservative and one liberal. I think the topic was the banning of books. The woman from the conservative side was wearing a dress that buttoned high up to the neck. That her dress was not revealing was--well, revealing.
A few years ago, in Europe (I think it was in Vienna), I saw a advertisement on a sidewalk kiosk that showed an image of a couple of bare-breasted women, similar to those in a Gauguin painting. You don't--and wouldn't--see something like that in America. We're just too anti-sex and the-human-body-is-dirty-and-sinful in this country.
Have I bought the ice cream in question? No, but I might, depending on what it actually is. Ben and Jerry's makes yummy ice cream. But it's "super-premium" ice cream, high in fat content--and not for the weight-conscious or those who try to eat healthy, like me.
Update, December 24, 2011
With a little bit more to say about America's sexual puritanism I would make a new posting; but here are just two more examples:
1) When TV shows even an image (e.g. a painting or a statue--and note, NOT the real thing) of female breasts or buttocks, evidently the image has to be blurred out.
2) I learned that a Roman cup from around the time of the birth of Christ was not even allowed to be brought into the country in 1953 because it shows two pairs of male lovers.
Copyright (c) 2011 by Richard Stein
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Not Conservatives but Libertarians (Who Don't Believe in Paying Tax)
In an earlier blog posting, I talked about conservatives who believe that they should not have to pay any taxes. I confess to an error: people who believe that should be called libertarians. I am going to try to be fair in presenting their political philosophy as regards taxation.
The argument goes like this: A person owns his labor, because it is a part of his person, and he owns his person.
Therefore he owns the fruits of his labor, that is, his wealth. And they believe that a man's right of possession of his wealth is so absolute that the government does not have the right to confiscate it.
First of all, the US Constitution says that the government shall not seize a man's property without due process of law--and the qualification, in italics, is very important.
And, as far back in human history as the ancient Egyptians, rulers and governments of every type have levied taxes. In the early days of the United States, a Supreme Court decision established the right of the government to assess taxes to pay for high schools. Also for a very long time, there have been those who resisted this or that particular tax. Look at the various "tax rebellions" in American history, as an example.
However, I would like to ask the folks who argue against taxes how they expect the fire department to be paid for, or the police, or the army, or the building of roads.
I saw a very interesting program on TV. It seems that a Harvard law professor had been speaking before a very large audience of students on various political philosophies, including Libertarianism in, presumably, a modern incarnation. He then asked three students who identified as libertarians to come forward and deal with a few questions.
One of the questions was, Should a man be prosecuted for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family? At least one of the students said Yes, maintaining that the man's theft violated another man's property rights, so he should be punished. Apparently, to this man, the right of property is so absolute that there can be no mitigating circumstances. I can't help but be reminded of 19th-century (or maybe 18th-century) England, where the thief in question would definitely have gone to prison. Personally, I have to say, "That is not a nice young man. He has no humanity."
Copyright © 2011 by Richard
The argument goes like this: A person owns his labor, because it is a part of his person, and he owns his person.
Therefore he owns the fruits of his labor, that is, his wealth. And they believe that a man's right of possession of his wealth is so absolute that the government does not have the right to confiscate it.
First of all, the US Constitution says that the government shall not seize a man's property without due process of law--and the qualification, in italics, is very important.
And, as far back in human history as the ancient Egyptians, rulers and governments of every type have levied taxes. In the early days of the United States, a Supreme Court decision established the right of the government to assess taxes to pay for high schools. Also for a very long time, there have been those who resisted this or that particular tax. Look at the various "tax rebellions" in American history, as an example.
However, I would like to ask the folks who argue against taxes how they expect the fire department to be paid for, or the police, or the army, or the building of roads.
I saw a very interesting program on TV. It seems that a Harvard law professor had been speaking before a very large audience of students on various political philosophies, including Libertarianism in, presumably, a modern incarnation. He then asked three students who identified as libertarians to come forward and deal with a few questions.
One of the questions was, Should a man be prosecuted for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family? At least one of the students said Yes, maintaining that the man's theft violated another man's property rights, so he should be punished. Apparently, to this man, the right of property is so absolute that there can be no mitigating circumstances. I can't help but be reminded of 19th-century (or maybe 18th-century) England, where the thief in question would definitely have gone to prison. Personally, I have to say, "That is not a nice young man. He has no humanity."
Copyright © 2011 by Richard
Friday, October 21, 2011
When Personal Is Really Nothing of the Sort
It all started more than 60 years ago, when television was beginning to enter a lot of American homes. The host of the show would break from the regular show content, turn to face the camera, hold up a pack of cigarettes, and start to extol the advantages of that particular brand of cigarettes (yes, they used to have cigarette commercials on TV, and yes, rather than "breaking" to have a well-demarcated commercial that was shot on another set, the host—say, Arthur Godfrey, for anyone old enough to remember him-- performed the commercial.
The brilliant idea of the people who made TV—or the sponsors who paid for it—was to make the commercial message "personal" by having it seem that the host was speaking directly and specially to you.
By now we are so used to these devices that we don't give them any thought. If we did, we'd find them pretty ridiculous. The other day I saw a commercial for a cough remedy. A guy in bed is talking to the camera to complain that the over-the-counter medication he took didn't help his cold symptoms. Who is he talking to? Me? The cameraman? Why doesn't he say, "Hey, who are you and what are you doing in my bedroom?" Is he used to strange people in his bedroom?
And a voice explains that what he took doesn't work for coughs. Hey, who the hell is that? Not only, presumably, yet another person in the guy's bedroom—since whoever owns that voice heard what the guy said—but someone we can't see. Why doesn't the guy in bed say, "Whoa, now I've got invisible people in my bedroom!"
One thing I hate, and don't quite grasp the reason for: At some point TV "spokespersons" who do commercials began the practice of talking for a good minute or two and only then saying, "Hi, I'm Ann Hoggis Torde." Why don't they start out saying Hi and introducing themselves?
Written things are personalized to or for us, also, in ways we don't give much thought to. It's been part of technology for a long time that not only can form letters addressed to us have our names and addresses in the same type as the rest of the letter (this is a feature called "mail merge" and goes back to the early days of word processing and even before, when there started to be sophisticated typewriters that could read name-and-address records from a paper tape—if I'm remembering this stuff correctly). A similar technology lets catalogs be printed with your address, and those form letters, again, have your first name in the middle, so that, supposedly, you feel they're written personally and especially to you. Of course we don't believe that at all, but maybe when these things were first used, the recipients really believed that.
Recently I joined a web site (for which you have to pay, or subscribe) that gives you ratings of home remodeling businesses, plumbers, professional services, and so forth. Then I got a mailing from them that says, "Welcome to A___ L__, we're ridiculously happy to have you." Not just happy, but "ridiculously" happy. Wow, they must think I'm really special, I guess.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
The brilliant idea of the people who made TV—or the sponsors who paid for it—was to make the commercial message "personal" by having it seem that the host was speaking directly and specially to you.
By now we are so used to these devices that we don't give them any thought. If we did, we'd find them pretty ridiculous. The other day I saw a commercial for a cough remedy. A guy in bed is talking to the camera to complain that the over-the-counter medication he took didn't help his cold symptoms. Who is he talking to? Me? The cameraman? Why doesn't he say, "Hey, who are you and what are you doing in my bedroom?" Is he used to strange people in his bedroom?
And a voice explains that what he took doesn't work for coughs. Hey, who the hell is that? Not only, presumably, yet another person in the guy's bedroom—since whoever owns that voice heard what the guy said—but someone we can't see. Why doesn't the guy in bed say, "Whoa, now I've got invisible people in my bedroom!"
One thing I hate, and don't quite grasp the reason for: At some point TV "spokespersons" who do commercials began the practice of talking for a good minute or two and only then saying, "Hi, I'm Ann Hoggis Torde." Why don't they start out saying Hi and introducing themselves?
Written things are personalized to or for us, also, in ways we don't give much thought to. It's been part of technology for a long time that not only can form letters addressed to us have our names and addresses in the same type as the rest of the letter (this is a feature called "mail merge" and goes back to the early days of word processing and even before, when there started to be sophisticated typewriters that could read name-and-address records from a paper tape—if I'm remembering this stuff correctly). A similar technology lets catalogs be printed with your address, and those form letters, again, have your first name in the middle, so that, supposedly, you feel they're written personally and especially to you. Of course we don't believe that at all, but maybe when these things were first used, the recipients really believed that.
Recently I joined a web site (for which you have to pay, or subscribe) that gives you ratings of home remodeling businesses, plumbers, professional services, and so forth. Then I got a mailing from them that says, "Welcome to A___ L__, we're ridiculously happy to have you." Not just happy, but "ridiculously" happy. Wow, they must think I'm really special, I guess.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Some Roots of the Conservative Mindset in America
Norway may be the classic example of what at one time in America was called the welfare state. The government provides for many human needs, including health care; and in turn, taxes are high.
A majority of the people in Norway—of course not everybody—think it's a good system and are happy with it.
This would never fly in America. I even think that if Social Security were up for a vote in our Congress right now, it would not pass.
There is a lot of anti-government feeling in America and even a conviction that the government cannot do things well because it is too bureaucratic and wasteful of taxpayers' money. Conservatives would like many things left to private enterprise and, for example, would like to privatize Social Security.
Okay, maybe you know all this. Let's look at sort of a history of ideas in America for a bit. I've blamed Ronald Reagan for boosting the idea that big government is a bad thing. But he didn't originate that way of thinking, it's a result of the history of this country. For a long time there's been an ethos in America that esteems personal independence and self-reliance. It's the vision of the pioneer on the frontier who might have had no one around to aid him. Maybe even the Army or Cavalry was not available, most of the time, to help him defend himself against hostile Indians.
So the noble American pioneer is the very picture of self-reliance. He does it all himself, building his house, plowing his fields, making most of what he needs, etc.
But this figure is pretty much obsolete. And why should not needing the government mean despising the government and saying that the government should not aid that guy over there? I'm not sure, but there seems to be a strong idea of "What I need and want (or don't want) should be okay for you, too."
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
A majority of the people in Norway—of course not everybody—think it's a good system and are happy with it.
This would never fly in America. I even think that if Social Security were up for a vote in our Congress right now, it would not pass.
There is a lot of anti-government feeling in America and even a conviction that the government cannot do things well because it is too bureaucratic and wasteful of taxpayers' money. Conservatives would like many things left to private enterprise and, for example, would like to privatize Social Security.
Okay, maybe you know all this. Let's look at sort of a history of ideas in America for a bit. I've blamed Ronald Reagan for boosting the idea that big government is a bad thing. But he didn't originate that way of thinking, it's a result of the history of this country. For a long time there's been an ethos in America that esteems personal independence and self-reliance. It's the vision of the pioneer on the frontier who might have had no one around to aid him. Maybe even the Army or Cavalry was not available, most of the time, to help him defend himself against hostile Indians.
So the noble American pioneer is the very picture of self-reliance. He does it all himself, building his house, plowing his fields, making most of what he needs, etc.
But this figure is pretty much obsolete. And why should not needing the government mean despising the government and saying that the government should not aid that guy over there? I'm not sure, but there seems to be a strong idea of "What I need and want (or don't want) should be okay for you, too."
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
A Word for Conservatives
Ronald Reagan, when he was running for president, did a pretty good job of convincing a lot of Americans that "government is the problem," and we'd all be better off with less government regulation, smaller government bureaucracy, and so on. A lot of people believed what he said, and still, some 30 years later, it's common to hear people say that government is bad.
To these people I say, if you don't like government, let me make a suggestion for you. Move to Mississippi, where there are very low taxes. Also--just coincidentally--they have the worst education, the lowest literacy, the lowest life expectancy, the greatest rate of obesity. They rank at the bottom of almost every list. All because of very low government spending--which correlates with the low taxes they have.
At the other extreme might be a country like Norway, where taxes are very high but the government provides nearly everything everyone could want, pretty much cradle-to-grave.
Maybe, my imaginary anti-government friends, once you've abolished the government, you might find you need to try to get together with your neighbors to arrange for fires to be put out, criminals to be caught, roads to be built, traffic lights and stop signs to be put up--oh, and how about trying to ensure the safety of the food you eat, the medicines you take. . .
Sure, you could form some kind of association with your neighbors to do these things--but then you'd have a government!
By the way, I posted this (in pretty much these words) as a comment on an AOL/Daily Finance article on the Republican candidates--and a reply to my comment called me a "commie." Nice, reasonable refutation of my ideas.
Copyright (c) 2011 by Richard Stein
To these people I say, if you don't like government, let me make a suggestion for you. Move to Mississippi, where there are very low taxes. Also--just coincidentally--they have the worst education, the lowest literacy, the lowest life expectancy, the greatest rate of obesity. They rank at the bottom of almost every list. All because of very low government spending--which correlates with the low taxes they have.
At the other extreme might be a country like Norway, where taxes are very high but the government provides nearly everything everyone could want, pretty much cradle-to-grave.
Maybe, my imaginary anti-government friends, once you've abolished the government, you might find you need to try to get together with your neighbors to arrange for fires to be put out, criminals to be caught, roads to be built, traffic lights and stop signs to be put up--oh, and how about trying to ensure the safety of the food you eat, the medicines you take. . .
Sure, you could form some kind of association with your neighbors to do these things--but then you'd have a government!
By the way, I posted this (in pretty much these words) as a comment on an AOL/Daily Finance article on the Republican candidates--and a reply to my comment called me a "commie." Nice, reasonable refutation of my ideas.
Copyright (c) 2011 by Richard Stein
Reading HuffPost: How Any Liberal and/or Gay Can Get Very Disheartened
I mentioned in an earlier posting that I have been spending time reading articles on AOL/HuffPost, reading other readers' comments, writing my own comments and replying to other comments.
I think I spend too much time doing this and I am resolving to stop doing it, not because of the time I'm spending but because it's too discouraging to read what other people think and say.
For one thing, there are so many conservatives who want to bash Obama and the "libs" (or, one time, "libbs"). They demonstrate the stereotypes and animosity they hold. Of course they are entitled to their opinion, and I must recognize that there are people out there—and even a great many people—who do not or would not agree with some of my ideas. But it's looking like America is getting to be very polarized; there could almost be another civil war, I sometimes think.
Secondly, any time there is an article relating in any way to homosexuality (and HuffPost has a subsection called "Gay Voices"), all the homophobes come out of the woodwork. They are quick to state their opinion that homosexuality is wrong, it's immoral, it's a sin (their Bible tells them that). One woman said thinking about it "makes her skin crawl."
It's a disease, a disorder, it's sick, it's unnatural, it's evil. We've heard all this before. We've been hearing it for many years. And all this anti-gay prejudice is one reason why being gay is still difficult (even though, supposedly, things have gotten better in the last 50 years), and why there is a much higher rate of suicide among gay teens than for non-gay young people in the same age group.
And people will chime in with their disbelief about climate change and their antipathy to illegal immigrants (as I said elsewhere, this usually boils down to "we hate Mexicans").
All in all, I see so much bigotry, ignorance, close-mindedness, belief in misconceptions and discredited ideas. (It is a sad characteristic of human beings that they are capable of believing things that are not so.) And, as I have said before, the rhetoric of the Right often includes asserting things which they even know to be incorrect. As an example, a Right-wing anti-abortion group was actually slapped with a lawsuit for incorrectly asserting that "Obamacare" (as they delight in calling it) includes taxpayer funding of abortion.
I wrote in another blog posting about my overall, philosophical view of humanity and its prospects. I think I have become more pessimistic: I don't think we're much further along than the days when people who were nonconforming or in some way odd were burned as witches.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
I think I spend too much time doing this and I am resolving to stop doing it, not because of the time I'm spending but because it's too discouraging to read what other people think and say.
For one thing, there are so many conservatives who want to bash Obama and the "libs" (or, one time, "libbs"). They demonstrate the stereotypes and animosity they hold. Of course they are entitled to their opinion, and I must recognize that there are people out there—and even a great many people—who do not or would not agree with some of my ideas. But it's looking like America is getting to be very polarized; there could almost be another civil war, I sometimes think.
Secondly, any time there is an article relating in any way to homosexuality (and HuffPost has a subsection called "Gay Voices"), all the homophobes come out of the woodwork. They are quick to state their opinion that homosexuality is wrong, it's immoral, it's a sin (their Bible tells them that). One woman said thinking about it "makes her skin crawl."
It's a disease, a disorder, it's sick, it's unnatural, it's evil. We've heard all this before. We've been hearing it for many years. And all this anti-gay prejudice is one reason why being gay is still difficult (even though, supposedly, things have gotten better in the last 50 years), and why there is a much higher rate of suicide among gay teens than for non-gay young people in the same age group.
And people will chime in with their disbelief about climate change and their antipathy to illegal immigrants (as I said elsewhere, this usually boils down to "we hate Mexicans").
All in all, I see so much bigotry, ignorance, close-mindedness, belief in misconceptions and discredited ideas. (It is a sad characteristic of human beings that they are capable of believing things that are not so.) And, as I have said before, the rhetoric of the Right often includes asserting things which they even know to be incorrect. As an example, a Right-wing anti-abortion group was actually slapped with a lawsuit for incorrectly asserting that "Obamacare" (as they delight in calling it) includes taxpayer funding of abortion.
I wrote in another blog posting about my overall, philosophical view of humanity and its prospects. I think I have become more pessimistic: I don't think we're much further along than the days when people who were nonconforming or in some way odd were burned as witches.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Immigration Laws and Tomatoes in Alabama
We hear a lot about "immigration reform" in the US. As the term has been used by the White House, it has typically carried with it some sort of proposal as to how illegal immigrants currently in the US could gain legal status and some form of amnesty.
States, however, have been passing harsh anti-immigrant laws which target Spanish-speaking immigrants mainly from Mexico and Central American countries.
First we had one from Arizona. Alabama has an anti-immigrant law that recently went into effect.
I have heard some of the rhetoric from groups like the Minutemen who have advocated for these laws. They usually boil down to "We don't like Mexicans."
There have been periodic, recurrent waves of anti-immigrant sentiment (maybe I ought to say "fever") in the US. At one point there was huge anti-Chinese sentiment and laws were passed barring Chinese immigration. Chinese men who had entered the US were unable to bring their wives to this country until the law was repealed.
It's ironic that everyone seems to forget that, unless he happens to be a Native American, he and all of us stem from immigrants. So it's a matter of, once you are in, pull up the ladder so no one else can come in.
In the case of Alabama, it's becoming clear that the law is having some bad and probably unforeseen consequences. Without immigrant agricultural workers Alabama's tomato farmers haven't got the manpower to harvest their crops and tomatoes are too ripe on the vine to successfully ship, or they're falling to the ground and rotting. I'm not sure what percentage of Alabama's gross state product comes from raising tomatoes, but Alabama may have shot itself in the foot.
Frankly, if legislation motivated by bigotry, ignorance, short-sightedness, etc., backfires, I find it hard to be sympathetic.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
States, however, have been passing harsh anti-immigrant laws which target Spanish-speaking immigrants mainly from Mexico and Central American countries.
First we had one from Arizona. Alabama has an anti-immigrant law that recently went into effect.
I have heard some of the rhetoric from groups like the Minutemen who have advocated for these laws. They usually boil down to "We don't like Mexicans."
There have been periodic, recurrent waves of anti-immigrant sentiment (maybe I ought to say "fever") in the US. At one point there was huge anti-Chinese sentiment and laws were passed barring Chinese immigration. Chinese men who had entered the US were unable to bring their wives to this country until the law was repealed.
It's ironic that everyone seems to forget that, unless he happens to be a Native American, he and all of us stem from immigrants. So it's a matter of, once you are in, pull up the ladder so no one else can come in.
In the case of Alabama, it's becoming clear that the law is having some bad and probably unforeseen consequences. Without immigrant agricultural workers Alabama's tomato farmers haven't got the manpower to harvest their crops and tomatoes are too ripe on the vine to successfully ship, or they're falling to the ground and rotting. I'm not sure what percentage of Alabama's gross state product comes from raising tomatoes, but Alabama may have shot itself in the foot.
Frankly, if legislation motivated by bigotry, ignorance, short-sightedness, etc., backfires, I find it hard to be sympathetic.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
Friday, October 14, 2011
The ABC's of Street Names and Car Names
There are a number of famous streets with names beginning with "B": Bourbon Street and Basin Street in New Orleans; Beale Street in Memphis (famous for bluegrass music, I believe); Broadway in New York City. And probably a few I can't think of at the moment.
When it comes to cars, Chevrolet has favored names beginning with "C": Corvette, Camaro, Corvair, Chevette, Cavalier, Cobalt, Caprice, Chevy II (several of those are forgotten models and probably justly so).
Ford Motor Company favors "E" for its SUVs: Explorer, Expedition, Escape, Edge. There was another one; was it Endeavor?
And many of Ford's sedan model names have begun with "F": Focus, Fiesta, Fusion. And long ago there were the Falcon and the Fairlane. Maybe Ford likes F-names because of the alliteration with "Ford." (Ford's Mercury division has built the Mercury Marquis, Mercury Mariner, Mystique, and Marauder--again, all alliterative names.)
And Ford's pickup trucks are F-150 and F-250, but maybe the "F" is just supposed to suggest "Ford." Since the initial is pronounced "eff" and therefore, when spoken, begins with a vowel, I can't say that that's alliteration.
On the other hand, there's a phenomenon recognized by scientists called "phonetic symbolism." This means that some words convey or connote something just by their sound. I can't say what words starting with "C" or "F" might connote, but it's easy to believe that the manufacturer wants names with certain sounds to be associated with the brand identity that they try so hard to build.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
When it comes to cars, Chevrolet has favored names beginning with "C": Corvette, Camaro, Corvair, Chevette, Cavalier, Cobalt, Caprice, Chevy II (several of those are forgotten models and probably justly so).
Ford Motor Company favors "E" for its SUVs: Explorer, Expedition, Escape, Edge. There was another one; was it Endeavor?
And many of Ford's sedan model names have begun with "F": Focus, Fiesta, Fusion. And long ago there were the Falcon and the Fairlane. Maybe Ford likes F-names because of the alliteration with "Ford." (Ford's Mercury division has built the Mercury Marquis, Mercury Mariner, Mystique, and Marauder--again, all alliterative names.)
And Ford's pickup trucks are F-150 and F-250, but maybe the "F" is just supposed to suggest "Ford." Since the initial is pronounced "eff" and therefore, when spoken, begins with a vowel, I can't say that that's alliteration.
On the other hand, there's a phenomenon recognized by scientists called "phonetic symbolism." This means that some words convey or connote something just by their sound. I can't say what words starting with "C" or "F" might connote, but it's easy to believe that the manufacturer wants names with certain sounds to be associated with the brand identity that they try so hard to build.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Modern Life Compared with Early Humans'
We often hear about the stresses of modern life, and how they lead to heart attacks and so forth. So I decided to give a little thought to what stresses or worries are present in modern life, and what stresses our early human ancestors had to cope with.
First, early humans had these risks to life and limb present in their world:
Now--in contrast to our ancestors--we are subject to little risk to life and limb from wild animals. (The risk definitely still exists for people in some parts of the earth.) But, for too many, modern life has added some new hazards such as being killed in an auto accident or in a shooting (hopefully the odds of dying due to being shot by some civilian's gun are not large).
As to the last item in the first list: in modern, western countries, fewer people rely on their own hunting or even farming for their sustenance, so they may not worry about starvation. (But people who do produce their own sustenance are still at some risk, and it's only 150 years ago that large numbers in Ireland died due to the massive failure of the potato crop.)
But, to the two items in my second bulleted list, we need to add some worries which, if not usually fatal, certainly add to the stresses that we moderns often live with:
So, are we more or less stressed than our ancestors very long ago? It may be a wash. I somehow tend to think that the worries of modern life are more insidious.
Copyright (c) 2011 by Richard Stein
First, early humans had these risks to life and limb present in their world:
- Being made ill or killed by disease
- Being killed or maimed in war with other tribes
- Being killed or maimed by wild animals
- Fear of hunger or starvation if the hunt or the crop failed
- Despite medical advances, we are still subject to diseases, many of which (cancer, heart disease, etc.) can kill us.
- We still have wars, and certainly, worldwide, thousands are still killed in wars each year.
Now--in contrast to our ancestors--we are subject to little risk to life and limb from wild animals. (The risk definitely still exists for people in some parts of the earth.) But, for too many, modern life has added some new hazards such as being killed in an auto accident or in a shooting (hopefully the odds of dying due to being shot by some civilian's gun are not large).
As to the last item in the first list: in modern, western countries, fewer people rely on their own hunting or even farming for their sustenance, so they may not worry about starvation. (But people who do produce their own sustenance are still at some risk, and it's only 150 years ago that large numbers in Ireland died due to the massive failure of the potato crop.)
But, to the two items in my second bulleted list, we need to add some worries which, if not usually fatal, certainly add to the stresses that we moderns often live with:
- Financial worries such as lack of money due to unemployment.
- Worries about mortgage foreclosure, which can mean loss of one's home.
So, are we more or less stressed than our ancestors very long ago? It may be a wash. I somehow tend to think that the worries of modern life are more insidious.
Copyright (c) 2011 by Richard Stein
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Is This Progress?
This is about three instances of "progress" recently made in our rapidly evolving world—that don't look like progress to me at all.
Writing was invented a hundred years or so before 3000 BC. It took another thousand or two thousand years before someone had the clever idea to somehow mark where one word ended and another began, and/or where one sentence ended and another began. Before that, everything was run together. With the new invention of the separations, writing became easier to read.
Now, interestingly, in this age of the Internet we are back to where we were three or four thousand years ago. Web site addresses (URLs), email addresses, and screen names often run words together. This occasionally makes for interesting possibilities to misread, but it almost always means we're having to learn to read writing that once again doesn't use spaces—thus going back thousands of years in the history of writing.
I remember when I was very young. During World War II no cars were being manufactured, so shortly after the war my family still owned a pre-war car, a LaSalle. To start that car, you pressed a button. Then at some point, a car's starter was activated by turning the key. That seemed like a good advance. Now, however, cars once again are "featuring" a button to start them. I don't see that this is an advance and can't see a reason for this—other than to imitate the hybrid cars which have a start button.
Another interesting trend is that now a lot of men's underwear is made without flies.
Frankly, I think flies are a good thing. Maybe I need not, or should not, go into detail on this one. I'll just call it another instance of very dubious "progress."
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
Writing was invented a hundred years or so before 3000 BC. It took another thousand or two thousand years before someone had the clever idea to somehow mark where one word ended and another began, and/or where one sentence ended and another began. Before that, everything was run together. With the new invention of the separations, writing became easier to read.
Now, interestingly, in this age of the Internet we are back to where we were three or four thousand years ago. Web site addresses (URLs), email addresses, and screen names often run words together. This occasionally makes for interesting possibilities to misread, but it almost always means we're having to learn to read writing that once again doesn't use spaces—thus going back thousands of years in the history of writing.
I remember when I was very young. During World War II no cars were being manufactured, so shortly after the war my family still owned a pre-war car, a LaSalle. To start that car, you pressed a button. Then at some point, a car's starter was activated by turning the key. That seemed like a good advance. Now, however, cars once again are "featuring" a button to start them. I don't see that this is an advance and can't see a reason for this—other than to imitate the hybrid cars which have a start button.
Another interesting trend is that now a lot of men's underwear is made without flies.
Frankly, I think flies are a good thing. Maybe I need not, or should not, go into detail on this one. I'll just call it another instance of very dubious "progress."
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Hank Williams, Jr., Gets in Trouble
It seems this guy called Hank Williams, Jr., has gotten himself in trouble for something he said and in fact lost his gig singing before football games or something like that.
Let me say at the outset that I have no bias in this man's favor. I hate country music--so naturally I never listen to it, and at the most I might sometimes know that Such-and-such is a country singer. In this case I didn't even know who this guy was and had to go look him up in Wikipedia. (Turns out I am familiar with some of the songs that his father, Hank Williams, Sr., wrote and which might get sung by Junior.)
Anyway, I have to say that I think that he has been misunderstood. He said that for John Boehner (Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives) and Barack Obama to get together to talk—which in fact they did—would be like Hitler and Netanyahu (Israeli Prime Minister) getting together.
This is not, as was claimed, comparing Obama to Hitler. What was meant was that the relationship between Obama and Boehner is like the relationship between Hitler and Netanyahu (if they ever were anywhere near one another) in that they constitute a pair of adversaries. That is, both pairs similarly are adversaries. (People who have taken the SAT tests are familiar with this sort of "analogy," with this one being able to be paraphrased as "Obama is to Boehner as Hitler is to Netanyahu.)
I've seen in the past this kind of misunderstanding of something someone has said, and I think it's deliberate. I suspect it's someone on TV, maybe someone on Fox News who goes around gleefully saying "So-and-so said such-and such": "Hank Williams, Jr. compared Obama to Hitler!" This is not reporting, it's school-child tattling, and just as malicious. (I know, Williams said this on Fox, but who is responsible for quoting him and/or commenting on what he said and (mis)representing his intention?)
Again, what he said is not saying Obama is like Hitler, it's a comment only on the unlikeliness of a pair such as Obama and Boehner getting together to talk. Now, is the general American public smart enough to grasp this, or is it going to fall victim to the sensationalism of our media?
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
Let me say at the outset that I have no bias in this man's favor. I hate country music--so naturally I never listen to it, and at the most I might sometimes know that Such-and-such is a country singer. In this case I didn't even know who this guy was and had to go look him up in Wikipedia. (Turns out I am familiar with some of the songs that his father, Hank Williams, Sr., wrote and which might get sung by Junior.)
Anyway, I have to say that I think that he has been misunderstood. He said that for John Boehner (Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives) and Barack Obama to get together to talk—which in fact they did—would be like Hitler and Netanyahu (Israeli Prime Minister) getting together.
This is not, as was claimed, comparing Obama to Hitler. What was meant was that the relationship between Obama and Boehner is like the relationship between Hitler and Netanyahu (if they ever were anywhere near one another) in that they constitute a pair of adversaries. That is, both pairs similarly are adversaries. (People who have taken the SAT tests are familiar with this sort of "analogy," with this one being able to be paraphrased as "Obama is to Boehner as Hitler is to Netanyahu.)
I've seen in the past this kind of misunderstanding of something someone has said, and I think it's deliberate. I suspect it's someone on TV, maybe someone on Fox News who goes around gleefully saying "So-and-so said such-and such": "Hank Williams, Jr. compared Obama to Hitler!" This is not reporting, it's school-child tattling, and just as malicious. (I know, Williams said this on Fox, but who is responsible for quoting him and/or commenting on what he said and (mis)representing his intention?)
Again, what he said is not saying Obama is like Hitler, it's a comment only on the unlikeliness of a pair such as Obama and Boehner getting together to talk. Now, is the general American public smart enough to grasp this, or is it going to fall victim to the sensationalism of our media?
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
When Republicans Were the Good Guys
For some time I have been reading online articles on AOL/HuffPost; and for maybe a couple of months I have been doing quite a bit of commenting--sometimes adding a new comment but more often replying to someone else's comment.
So that has given me an avenue for venting my views in addition to this blog.
One commenter recently was defending the Republican Party by pointing out that the Republican Party gave us Lincoln and the freeing of the slaves by means of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. She also said that Democrats in the U.S. Congress were the source of a lot of opposition to Civil Rights laws.
Of course she is absolutely correct. After the Civil War, many ill-advised actions and policies were part of so-called Reconstruction. Reconstruction attempted to go very quickly--in fact, instantly--to full integration of the recently-freed slaves into the political society. Not to defend white Southerners, but the extremely sudden and radical--and even punitive-- changes that they were expected to countenance under Reconstruction created an enormous backlash and groups such as the Ku Klux Klan formed to try (for example) to halt the new voting power of African-Americans.
One result of all that upheaval was that white Southerners pretty much rebelled against the Republican party and, for about the next 100 years, would only vote Democratic. Thus the U.S. Congress had Southern congressmen and senators who were so-called "Dixiecrats"--Democrats who could be counted on to oppose any civil rights laws such as school desegregation or protection for the voting rights of Blacks.
However, that has changed, and the present reality is that the South elects Republicans to Congress. Just a couple of examples are senators such as Trent Lott of Mississippi (resigned in 2007 but his successor is another Republican) , Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and many others.
So, even though it may once have been the other way around, now it's Republican congressmen who represent anti-civil rights positions and who are likely to vote to keep the entrenched power structures (such as the white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, heterosexual male).
Also, I recently learned something interesting: for 14 years--from January 1920 into the 1930s--the United States had something called Prohibition (prohibition of the manufacture and sale of all alcohol for drinking purposes). Republicans nowadays can often be heard to claim that they defend individual liberty and oppose extensions of government power-- but where the enactment of Prohibition was concerned, again it was the very opposite of that, and not only did Republicans help to enact Prohibition but also Republican presidents Coolidge and Hoover supported the continuation of Prohibition--Hoover even once it was clear to everyone that Prohibition was not working.
And anyone with a little knowledge of American history knows that Prohibition, among other bad effects, caused organized crime in the U.S. to indeed become organized and strong and pervasive throughout the country. Also, it created widespread disregard, disrespect, and defiance of the law-- maybe the origin of the disregard of law that I see so often when drivers ignore "minor" traffic/driving ordinances like "no parking," "no left turn," etc.
Copyright (c) 2011 by Richard Stein
So that has given me an avenue for venting my views in addition to this blog.
One commenter recently was defending the Republican Party by pointing out that the Republican Party gave us Lincoln and the freeing of the slaves by means of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. She also said that Democrats in the U.S. Congress were the source of a lot of opposition to Civil Rights laws.
Of course she is absolutely correct. After the Civil War, many ill-advised actions and policies were part of so-called Reconstruction. Reconstruction attempted to go very quickly--in fact, instantly--to full integration of the recently-freed slaves into the political society. Not to defend white Southerners, but the extremely sudden and radical--and even punitive-- changes that they were expected to countenance under Reconstruction created an enormous backlash and groups such as the Ku Klux Klan formed to try (for example) to halt the new voting power of African-Americans.
One result of all that upheaval was that white Southerners pretty much rebelled against the Republican party and, for about the next 100 years, would only vote Democratic. Thus the U.S. Congress had Southern congressmen and senators who were so-called "Dixiecrats"--Democrats who could be counted on to oppose any civil rights laws such as school desegregation or protection for the voting rights of Blacks.
However, that has changed, and the present reality is that the South elects Republicans to Congress. Just a couple of examples are senators such as Trent Lott of Mississippi (resigned in 2007 but his successor is another Republican) , Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and many others.
So, even though it may once have been the other way around, now it's Republican congressmen who represent anti-civil rights positions and who are likely to vote to keep the entrenched power structures (such as the white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, heterosexual male).
Also, I recently learned something interesting: for 14 years--from January 1920 into the 1930s--the United States had something called Prohibition (prohibition of the manufacture and sale of all alcohol for drinking purposes). Republicans nowadays can often be heard to claim that they defend individual liberty and oppose extensions of government power-- but where the enactment of Prohibition was concerned, again it was the very opposite of that, and not only did Republicans help to enact Prohibition but also Republican presidents Coolidge and Hoover supported the continuation of Prohibition--Hoover even once it was clear to everyone that Prohibition was not working.
And anyone with a little knowledge of American history knows that Prohibition, among other bad effects, caused organized crime in the U.S. to indeed become organized and strong and pervasive throughout the country. Also, it created widespread disregard, disrespect, and defiance of the law-- maybe the origin of the disregard of law that I see so often when drivers ignore "minor" traffic/driving ordinances like "no parking," "no left turn," etc.
Copyright (c) 2011 by Richard Stein
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