The Problem with the Police

The United States clearly has a problem regarding its police. Too many people are being killed during arrests and even traffic stops.

I don't believe this phenomenon occurs to the same degree in other countries. Currently there is a proposed law before the US Congress that would legislate standards for things like use of choke holds by police, no-knock search warrants, etc. (Even though policing is not federal--except for the FBI, we have no federal police; rather, policing is done at the local, county, and state level.)

So some measures to fix this problem might be forthcoming. But has anyone tried to figure out the cause--why this problem exists?

Many people in American society feel that the problem is racism--that the police are prejudiced against minorities such as African Americans and thus more likely to use harsh measures on individuals belonging to those groups.

This may be true and I don't want in any way to deny the likelihood that this is true. But I want to ask, is there a deficiency in the training that police receive? Do police forces attract individuals who harbor serious aggressive tendencies? It seems that, if and when they shoot someone--possibly with justification--they shoot not once but four or five times, making it more likely that their shots will be fatal. And, as we know, there have been beatings, choke holds, and other possibly unnecessary or excessive assertions of physical force.

I suggested, in a letter to the editor, a long time ago, that maybe we need to administer psychological tests to prospective police officers to identify those candidates who might have more and unnecessary aggressive tendencies.

Look at this: we give police power and authority. We give them weapons: batons ("billy clubs"), tasers, and guns. What are they told about using the power, authority, and weapons that we endow them with?

Certainly in America there are too many guns such that people get shot during arguments, road rage incidents, and even accidentally. The enormous, incredible gun population makes it more likely that the police will encounter a gun, that the "offender" or "perp" or suspect will have a gun. So that is part of the problem, too. We certainly don't and can't expect the police to be totally outside of and removed from America's "wild west" gun culture (as I have called it elsewhere).

So this, I hope, will raise some questions, point out some issues that I feel need to be thought about.This a problem that we must not deny and must work on.

Copyright © 2021.

It's a Queer World--or at Least English Is Queer

Eggs don't grow on an egg plant.

Shoes don't grow on a shoe tree.

Flowers don't sleep in a flower bed.

Taste buds never open up to be taste blossoms.

If you want to raise questions--say in academe or public affairs-- you need to have a question farm.

Trees have a bark but it must be a very quiet one because I've never heard it.

It can rain cats and dogs but you never see those animals pooling in the gutter. (The weather man predicted cats-and-dogs rain and said it would be "soggy." Maybe he should  have said "doggy.")

Fish occur in schools but I don't think they learn very much there--at least not how to avoid being caught.

"Peace of mind" and "a piece of my mind" are pretty different but sound pretty similar and might confuse someone learning English.

Copyright (c) 2021.

The Future of Our World--Should We Be Optimistic?

Global warming and climate change; species extinction and loss of biodiversity; world population growth. These are all inter-related, and the experts keep warning us that unless we do the right things--and stop doing the wrong things--the world is headed for disaster.

Some people who have weighed in with their view of humanity's future have been optimistic, confident that the right things will be done, and done widely and in a timely manner.

I feel unable to share this optimism. We have seen how wealth and power--for example the fossil fuel industry--has used its power and money to try to undermine science and spread disinformation about climate change--not to mention politicians who in one way or another have an interest in the status quo, and religious institutions opposed to any efforts to control human fertility.

Copyright © 2021

Immortality and Musings Thereupon

It's pretty widely known that the ancient Egyptians were obsessed with immortality. They developed mummification, an elaborate series of procedures for preserving the human body after death. And with mummification, prayers, and suitable entombment they hoped to ensure that a person who had died--particularly, but not only their kings--would continue on in the afterlife with a happy existence.

The Vikings believed that a brave warrior would enter Valhalla and "live" there with much feasting and drinking of mead.

The seventeenth-century English writer Sir Thomas Browne saw fit to reflect on immortality when a Roman burial site was discovered in his county of England. He reflects that, for example, having your epitaph in half a dozen languages is no guarantee of immortality; only the Christian promise of resurrection, he concludes, is a sure way of achieving immortality.

It occurs to me that today we can have immortality. My musings--different from Browne's--began with my seeing a TV program with Jack Hanna, a famous zoo keeper and conservationist. The program might have been pretty old. Hanna, as seen on TV, doesn't get any older--so having a film or video of oneself keeps you at a certain age; you don't get any older.

And Alex Trebek died two months ago but episodes of the TV show Jeopardy!, which he hosted, are still being broadcast.

So, among all the incarnations of immortality that humans have dreamed of over the centuries and millennia, today we might actually have a means--a technological means--of preserving a person, in a manner of speaking, such that they won't age or we can see (and hear) them after they have died.

Copyright © 2021

2021 a New, but Maybe not Better Year

Supposedly, there is an ancient Chinese curse that says, "May you live in interesting times." Well, certainly 2020 was an "interesting" year, what with the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused wrenching disruptions to individuals, families, schools, companies, institutions--to nearly all people and in nearly all places on Earth.

Plus, in 2020 the United States had a presidential election, defeating a man adored by some and reviled by (perhaps) many more.

And for me personally, 2020 was eventful just because early in the year I had surgery to remove a cancer.

So, probably literally billions breathed a sigh of relief when 2020 ended, believing, or at least hoping, that the new year, 2021, just had to be better than the one ending.

After just six days of this new year I don't know that we can be very sure of that. Bad news is that the virus in the United States is not abating--far from it--and now we need to be worried about variants in the virus caused by mutations.

And today, which was to have seen a rather routine and boring vote by Congress to accept the vote (for president) of the Electoral College, the U.S. Capitol, the seat of the Legislative branch of the US government, was attacked, besieged, breached, etc., by supporters of Donald Trump.

I am not a historian but I'm pretty sure this was unprecedented. The transition of power from the administration of one US president to the next, incoming one usually proceeds completely peacefully. That is how it is supposed to work. But nothing that Trump has had a hand in--and this riot--or "insurrection," as President-Elect Biden called it--was indeed inspired, preached, urged by Trump--has followed the pattern or expectations for a normal presidency.

 Copyright © 2021