The other day I happened to hear about the invention of the garbage disposal. Also at around the same time I heard about when the first automatic washer came on the market, and the first hermetically sealed refrigerator—these latter two a little before my time.
I was somewhat astonished to realize that I had never thought about when the garbage disposal was invented. It's one of those things that you take for granted.
Of course what you are aware of as an innovation within your own lifetime, and what you take for granted, depends on your age.
Children today—well, probably anyone under about 30—have always known computers, so they don't even think about a time when home computers didn't exist. And cell phones are only a bit more recent so kids take them for granted, too, and have no notion that they didn't always exist.
In my family, some fairly well-off relations got some gadgets at a time when they were not yet really common: the automatic washer, air conditioning, even TV. My own family was the third one on our block to get TV, in December 1950. My grandparents, aunt and uncle, and several of my friends already had it in their homes. Everyone wanted one—of course it was something of a status symbol—even though we had one channel, and there was no 24-hour broadcasting, so when there was no program we actually stared at the "test pattern" on the screen. I suppose it sounds like some third-world country but it really was just a smallish city in Pennsylvania.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Skinny: A Memoir
When I was an adolescent I was very slender. When I had to register for the draft—I think that was age 18—the weight that got put on my draft card was 127 pounds--at a height of about 5'10".
Maybe I was very thin even before my adolescence, because I remember that as a child I didn't seem to want to eat, and my parents pretty much had to cajole me into eating—"Take a bite for Grandma" or one for Uncle Willy; "eat this Brussels sprout named Agamemnon" (yes, really).
One of my older female relatives called me a lange luksh—Yiddish for "long noodle." My grandmother once said that she only wished that she would live to see me gain weight (I don't think she did).
My high school Biology teacher predicted that I would never be heavy because, as he put it, I don't have the frame to hang fat on.
Well, right now—pushing the age of 70—I'm hardly obese but I'm not really slim, either. Depending on what figures are taken for my height and weight, my BMI (body-mass index) is right at the edge of the overweight zone. I have gained about 50 pounds in 50 years—maybe a better record than many, in this age of epidemic obesity, but certainly taking me far from the skinny category.
Still, I am small-boned, and I hope that, since people of a certain age seem to tend to be very thin, I may yet again be slim, even as I once was.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
Maybe I was very thin even before my adolescence, because I remember that as a child I didn't seem to want to eat, and my parents pretty much had to cajole me into eating—"Take a bite for Grandma" or one for Uncle Willy; "eat this Brussels sprout named Agamemnon" (yes, really).
One of my older female relatives called me a lange luksh—Yiddish for "long noodle." My grandmother once said that she only wished that she would live to see me gain weight (I don't think she did).
My high school Biology teacher predicted that I would never be heavy because, as he put it, I don't have the frame to hang fat on.
Well, right now—pushing the age of 70—I'm hardly obese but I'm not really slim, either. Depending on what figures are taken for my height and weight, my BMI (body-mass index) is right at the edge of the overweight zone. I have gained about 50 pounds in 50 years—maybe a better record than many, in this age of epidemic obesity, but certainly taking me far from the skinny category.
Still, I am small-boned, and I hope that, since people of a certain age seem to tend to be very thin, I may yet again be slim, even as I once was.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Population Control, Conservatives, and Christianity
I have written about the problems of growing world population before. The current estimate of the number of people on Earth has reached 7 billion. The human species, compared to other species with which we share the planet, has been extremely successful in these last couple hundred years and human populations have exploded as medicine has reduced infant mortality, conquered many diseases, and lengthened life expectancy.
Through advances in agriculture (use of new strains of crops, use of fertilizers and pesticides, etc.), productivity of food crops has been increased miraculously, so that the population disaster that was predicted at the end of the eighteenth century has been staved off. But for how long can population growth continue without bringing on catastrophe? Short-term and local droughts and famines are already causing starvation in many places on Earth. And millions more are malnourished.
And the ability of the world to feed its booming population is by no means the only reason to be concerned about the growth in numbers of humans. More people means more demand not only for food but also for water, timber, fiber, and fuel. Destruction of rain forests to produce timber and to make new farmland accelerates global warming because it means fewer trees to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere.
The larger share of population growth has been in less-developed countries. But as living standards increase, these populaces have greater expectation of eating a Western-style, meat-heavy diet (and along with that, consuming more energy and producing more greenhouse gases). And the production of animals for meat uses more grain—several times as much, depending on the animal—than if that grain were consumed directly by people.
What needs to be done is to control fertility. The modern world can offer a number of tools for preventing pregnancy. But Republicans in Congress have shown opposition to (1) funding of birth control pills by health insurance, as will be provided by the recent health-care reform law when its provisions go into effect; and (2) funding of family planning in other countries by the US, directly and via the United Nations.
One columnist for The Washington Times was quoted in The Reporter, a publication of Population Connection:
So we learn from this that birth control is not only anti-Christian but anti-God. He uses the accusations "socialist," atheist, and even "pagan." It's hard to believe that even one person believes this.
For many such extreme conservatives and Religious Far-Right types, any ideas of stewardship of the planet—recycling and conserving resources, protection of wildlife habitat, avoiding overfishing, and so forth—are at best unnecessary because of their views that (1) the Bible says that God gave Adam the right to use (and presumably exploit to any degree whatsoever) the Earth and all its creatures; (2) we don't need to be so concerned about Earth because this is all a transient and transitory existence and we should focus on the next world.
Another reason is one I have suggested earlier: they are simply anti-sex and believe (this has been, as I see it, a strain in Christianity since very early times and, pending anyone correcting me on this, I ascribe it to St. Paul) that any sex is evil, and sex—and only in certain positions—is less bad only if performed within monogamous, heterosexual marriage.
Unfortunately this is not a new trend in American social and political life, and there were in fact laws making contraception illegal that were enacted in 1873 and overturned by the US Supreme Court only in 1965. Like Prohibition, these have been instances where an extreme strain of moralizing has been successful in passing laws that affect us all.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
Through advances in agriculture (use of new strains of crops, use of fertilizers and pesticides, etc.), productivity of food crops has been increased miraculously, so that the population disaster that was predicted at the end of the eighteenth century has been staved off. But for how long can population growth continue without bringing on catastrophe? Short-term and local droughts and famines are already causing starvation in many places on Earth. And millions more are malnourished.
And the ability of the world to feed its booming population is by no means the only reason to be concerned about the growth in numbers of humans. More people means more demand not only for food but also for water, timber, fiber, and fuel. Destruction of rain forests to produce timber and to make new farmland accelerates global warming because it means fewer trees to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere.
The larger share of population growth has been in less-developed countries. But as living standards increase, these populaces have greater expectation of eating a Western-style, meat-heavy diet (and along with that, consuming more energy and producing more greenhouse gases). And the production of animals for meat uses more grain—several times as much, depending on the animal—than if that grain were consumed directly by people.
What needs to be done is to control fertility. The modern world can offer a number of tools for preventing pregnancy. But Republicans in Congress have shown opposition to (1) funding of birth control pills by health insurance, as will be provided by the recent health-care reform law when its provisions go into effect; and (2) funding of family planning in other countries by the US, directly and via the United Nations.
One columnist for The Washington Times was quoted in The Reporter, a publication of Population Connection:
Free birth control. . . is about consolidating the sexual revolution. The post-1960s left has been at war with Christianity. Its aim is to erect a utopian socialist state—one built on the rubble of Judeo-Christian civilization. In fact, liberals want to create a world without God and sexual permissiveness is their battering ram. Promoting widespread contraception is essential to forging a pagan society based on consequence-free sex.
So we learn from this that birth control is not only anti-Christian but anti-God. He uses the accusations "socialist," atheist, and even "pagan." It's hard to believe that even one person believes this.
For many such extreme conservatives and Religious Far-Right types, any ideas of stewardship of the planet—recycling and conserving resources, protection of wildlife habitat, avoiding overfishing, and so forth—are at best unnecessary because of their views that (1) the Bible says that God gave Adam the right to use (and presumably exploit to any degree whatsoever) the Earth and all its creatures; (2) we don't need to be so concerned about Earth because this is all a transient and transitory existence and we should focus on the next world.
Another reason is one I have suggested earlier: they are simply anti-sex and believe (this has been, as I see it, a strain in Christianity since very early times and, pending anyone correcting me on this, I ascribe it to St. Paul) that any sex is evil, and sex—and only in certain positions—is less bad only if performed within monogamous, heterosexual marriage.
Unfortunately this is not a new trend in American social and political life, and there were in fact laws making contraception illegal that were enacted in 1873 and overturned by the US Supreme Court only in 1965. Like Prohibition, these have been instances where an extreme strain of moralizing has been successful in passing laws that affect us all.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
Saturday, November 19, 2011
The New Fuel Economy Standards for Cars
An article on new federal fuel-economy standards for cars to take effect in 2025 appeared online, and it was interesting to read the comments.
Of course we have those who are decrying it as unneeded government intervention in our lives, and blasting Obama--conveniently forgetting that fuel economy standards were enacted by Congress in 1975, so I don't see that they come from Obama.
One argument against greater fuel economy is that the standards will cause cars to become smaller, and smaller cars are less safe. Yet light trucks are the vehicle class with the poorest safety,* and the US, with the biggest cars in the world, has the worst traffic fatality rate of any first-world nation.* Also, the standard, as applied starting in 2011, actually gives a break to larger vehicles.* There is a so-called "footprint" standard for calculating vehicle mileage, and it encourages production of larger vehicles.
So, once again, what we might call "popular opinion" is based on a lot of wrong ideas. Too often, opinion precedes being informed, rather than the other way around. Since the objecting ideas are clearly what we might consider conservative, I'd like to blame conservatives, but I have to concede that the Right has no monopoly on ill-informed opinions.
__________
* All these facts are from the Wikipedia article, "Corporate Average Fuel Economy."
Copyright (c) 2011 by Richard Stein
Of course we have those who are decrying it as unneeded government intervention in our lives, and blasting Obama--conveniently forgetting that fuel economy standards were enacted by Congress in 1975, so I don't see that they come from Obama.
One argument against greater fuel economy is that the standards will cause cars to become smaller, and smaller cars are less safe. Yet light trucks are the vehicle class with the poorest safety,* and the US, with the biggest cars in the world, has the worst traffic fatality rate of any first-world nation.* Also, the standard, as applied starting in 2011, actually gives a break to larger vehicles.* There is a so-called "footprint" standard for calculating vehicle mileage, and it encourages production of larger vehicles.
Proponents of higher CAFE standards argue that it is the "Footprint" model of CAFE for trucks that encourages production of larger trucks with concomitant increases in vehicle weight disparities, and point out that some small cars such as the Mini Cooper and Toyota Matrix are four times safer than SUVs like the Chevy Blazer.[54] They argue that the quality of the engineering design is the prime determinant of vehicular safety, not the vehicle's mass. In a 1999 article based on a 1995 IIHS report, USA Today said that 56% of all deaths occurring in small cars were due to either single vehicle crashes or small cars impacting each other. The percentage of deaths attributed to those in small cars being hit by larger cars was one percent.[55] [Wikipedia, s.v. Corporate Average Fuel Economy]
So, once again, what we might call "popular opinion" is based on a lot of wrong ideas. Too often, opinion precedes being informed, rather than the other way around. Since the objecting ideas are clearly what we might consider conservative, I'd like to blame conservatives, but I have to concede that the Right has no monopoly on ill-informed opinions.
__________
* All these facts are from the Wikipedia article, "Corporate Average Fuel Economy."
Copyright (c) 2011 by Richard Stein
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Not the Real Thing
I just saw a photo of a castle, and the teaser for the article said, "If you're thinking Disney, you're right." Well it's not Disney and that's not what I thought of. I thought of the original, or the real thing, if you will: Neuschwanstein, "Mad King Ludwig's" castle in Bavaria, Germany.
Similarly, I was watching a figure skating competition on TV. As one skating couple's performance started, the commentator identified the music as "2001 A Space Odyssey." Wrong! The music is Also Sprach Zarathustra, by Richard Strauss--though as it happens, that music was used in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.
And I guess that in the same vein, another bit of music, in people's minds, might be thought of as "The Lone Ranger," though hopefully more people might recognize that it's the William Tell Overture-- if for no other reason than that The Lone Ranger has not been a current TV show for a very long time, so maybe the music has sort of reverted to its original identity.
I wonder if people see a picture of the Eiffel Tower and think of Las Vegas instead of Paris. Or a picture of a pyramid and think of Memphis, Tennessee, instead of Egypt. We are getting so used to copies, reproductions, derivatives, and so forth that we ignore the real thing.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
Similarly, I was watching a figure skating competition on TV. As one skating couple's performance started, the commentator identified the music as "2001 A Space Odyssey." Wrong! The music is Also Sprach Zarathustra, by Richard Strauss--though as it happens, that music was used in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.
And I guess that in the same vein, another bit of music, in people's minds, might be thought of as "The Lone Ranger," though hopefully more people might recognize that it's the William Tell Overture-- if for no other reason than that The Lone Ranger has not been a current TV show for a very long time, so maybe the music has sort of reverted to its original identity.
I wonder if people see a picture of the Eiffel Tower and think of Las Vegas instead of Paris. Or a picture of a pyramid and think of Memphis, Tennessee, instead of Egypt. We are getting so used to copies, reproductions, derivatives, and so forth that we ignore the real thing.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
Sunday, November 13, 2011
War Creates a Climate Hostile to Liberals
In the last decade we've seen the "9/11" attack and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (and possibly we can add Libya). The terrorist attacks and the wars have given a boost to a brand of conservative, hawkish patriotism that does not want to brook any criticism of America.
After 9/11 we saw lots of cars flying American flags. Where I live, and where we have many older people who tend to be conservative, you can still see cars flying American flags. Time was, any car flying the American flag was the President's car or the car of an American ambassador abroad.
So 9/11 stirred up a lot of patriotism. I think partly it was an expression of defiance to the terrorists but also perhaps sort of having a chip on America's collective shoulder. Just as my sister, living in Germany with her US Army husband around 1955, wore a Jewish star around her neck, sort of saying, "I dare you to discriminate against me—because I'm American, we whipped your Nazi, anti-Semitic ass, and now we're occupying your country."
As a bit of a digression: The wars we've been engaged in have produced a lot of "Support Our Troops" decals and bumper stickers on cars—and they're still there. I'd like to reply to the "support our troops" crowd that I support the troops by advocating bringing them home. Certainly they'd be safer that way and we'd save all the human suffering of war injuries and deaths. On the other hand, it's undoubtedly true that some soldiers want to be "over there." Some will say they want to defend their country--but my feeling is that that's based on incorrect ideas. It's not clear to me that the US invaded Iraq because our country was being threatened (remember, the "weapons of mass destruction" were never found).
Being engaged in a war calls up patriotism. This is fine except that, along with that patriotism there often can be an intolerance of criticism of the country. I remember during the Vietnam War I was told things like, "We don't need your kind in this country," and "Why don't you get out of the country if you don't like it?" People were saying, "My country, right or wrong"—which I thought was a well-nigh appalling idea. Quite recently, in response to a comment I wrote on Huffington Post, I was called "commie"--which if nothing else strikes me as a rather anachronistic term. I thought the McCarthy Era was long past and that we had stopped calling people "commie."
You can view the current climate in this post-9/11 US as an upsurge of patriotism. But it might be that America has moved to the Right. One of my professors used to be fond of saying that the prevailing philosophy is a pendulum that continually swings between liberal and conservative.
And now I learn of some of the things that were said by the Republican Presidential candidates in their most recent debate. They strike me as militaristic, chest-beating comments. (We used to hear the terms hawk and hawkish, in the Vietnam War era.) Mitt Romney mentioned that attacking Iran should not be out of the question, and Cain said he wants to bring back waterboarding of prisoners or detainees:
(To again digress: I have to comment on that term. My reply to Cain is that "enhanced interrogation technique" was an abominable euphemism coined by the Bush administration simply to call torture by some other name. Politicians know very well the power of words, the power of a name, that what you call something matters. When the United States was supporting anti-government fighters in Nicaragua during the Reagan administration, they were "freedom fighters." Whether people fighting against their government are "freedom fighters" or "rebels" simply depends on whether our government views them as on our side or not.)
I wish I could figure out why advocating cruel things like waterboarding and capital punishment seems to correlate with holding a number of other views. Is it a matter of very general personality type or world view? In an earlier post I mentioned a student who called himself a libertarian and was defending property rights to the degree that he favored punishing a man who stole a loaf of bread to feed his starving family. Extreme conservatives like that--in my view, at least--have no humanity, no empathy, or no imagination that would enable them to see themselves in the other person's shoes.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
After 9/11 we saw lots of cars flying American flags. Where I live, and where we have many older people who tend to be conservative, you can still see cars flying American flags. Time was, any car flying the American flag was the President's car or the car of an American ambassador abroad.
So 9/11 stirred up a lot of patriotism. I think partly it was an expression of defiance to the terrorists but also perhaps sort of having a chip on America's collective shoulder. Just as my sister, living in Germany with her US Army husband around 1955, wore a Jewish star around her neck, sort of saying, "I dare you to discriminate against me—because I'm American, we whipped your Nazi, anti-Semitic ass, and now we're occupying your country."
As a bit of a digression: The wars we've been engaged in have produced a lot of "Support Our Troops" decals and bumper stickers on cars—and they're still there. I'd like to reply to the "support our troops" crowd that I support the troops by advocating bringing them home. Certainly they'd be safer that way and we'd save all the human suffering of war injuries and deaths. On the other hand, it's undoubtedly true that some soldiers want to be "over there." Some will say they want to defend their country--but my feeling is that that's based on incorrect ideas. It's not clear to me that the US invaded Iraq because our country was being threatened (remember, the "weapons of mass destruction" were never found).
Being engaged in a war calls up patriotism. This is fine except that, along with that patriotism there often can be an intolerance of criticism of the country. I remember during the Vietnam War I was told things like, "We don't need your kind in this country," and "Why don't you get out of the country if you don't like it?" People were saying, "My country, right or wrong"—which I thought was a well-nigh appalling idea. Quite recently, in response to a comment I wrote on Huffington Post, I was called "commie"--which if nothing else strikes me as a rather anachronistic term. I thought the McCarthy Era was long past and that we had stopped calling people "commie."
You can view the current climate in this post-9/11 US as an upsurge of patriotism. But it might be that America has moved to the Right. One of my professors used to be fond of saying that the prevailing philosophy is a pendulum that continually swings between liberal and conservative.
And now I learn of some of the things that were said by the Republican Presidential candidates in their most recent debate. They strike me as militaristic, chest-beating comments. (We used to hear the terms hawk and hawkish, in the Vietnam War era.) Mitt Romney mentioned that attacking Iran should not be out of the question, and Cain said he wants to bring back waterboarding of prisoners or detainees:
But Cain also provided one of the most striking moments when he argued in favor of the use of "enhanced interrogation" -- including the now-rejected technique of waterboarding -- in the fight against terrorism, a proposal that is likely to outrage many who thought the era of American-sponsored torture was over.
"I will trust the judgment of our military to determine what is torture and what is not torture," Cain said. Asked about waterboarding in particular, he replied, "I would return to that policy. I don't see it as torture, I see it as an enhanced interrogation technique." [HuffPost: Politics]
(To again digress: I have to comment on that term. My reply to Cain is that "enhanced interrogation technique" was an abominable euphemism coined by the Bush administration simply to call torture by some other name. Politicians know very well the power of words, the power of a name, that what you call something matters. When the United States was supporting anti-government fighters in Nicaragua during the Reagan administration, they were "freedom fighters." Whether people fighting against their government are "freedom fighters" or "rebels" simply depends on whether our government views them as on our side or not.)
I wish I could figure out why advocating cruel things like waterboarding and capital punishment seems to correlate with holding a number of other views. Is it a matter of very general personality type or world view? In an earlier post I mentioned a student who called himself a libertarian and was defending property rights to the degree that he favored punishing a man who stole a loaf of bread to feed his starving family. Extreme conservatives like that--in my view, at least--have no humanity, no empathy, or no imagination that would enable them to see themselves in the other person's shoes.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Is the Stock Market Stacked Against the Small Investor?
It's often said that only big investors can make money in the stock market, and that things are stacked against the little guy, the small investor.
While I don't think the first part of that is true, the second part is. More is possible for you if you are a big investor. Hedge funds and some mutual funds are only open to people who have a large sum to invest, such as a million dollars.
A stark example, which has stuck in my mind for many years: When Apple Computer was first going public--having its IPO (initial public offering of stock), in the jargon—I called my stockbroker and said I wanted to invest in it. He explained to me that he was allotted only a certain amount of stock that he could sell, and, he said, "It's going to my big customers—and I mean big, million-dollar accounts." The example really needs no comment.
Many fees, such as brokerage fees or account maintenance fees, are flat fees so that they are proportionately less (per share, for example, in the case of brokerage fees) for larger transactions or larger accounts.
Not to mention that, once you get into the really, really big money, really big investors can own a large enough proportion of a company's stock that they can influence the running of the company by getting themselves or their own candidates on the board of directors. Then, presumably, they look after their own interests, whatever they may perceive those interests to be.
And when it comes to taxes on their income, again the wealthy have an advantage. A lot of tax-advantaged investments, such as municipal bonds, are most beneficial for wealthy investors. And the very wealthy can get better tax advice and guidance by hiring very savvy tax attorneys, and thus they can largely or entirely avoid paying income tax.
Someone once said that it's easy to make a lot of money and hard to make a little money. I heard that a long time ago and I keep realizing, more and more, how true that is. But usually you need money to make money.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
While I don't think the first part of that is true, the second part is. More is possible for you if you are a big investor. Hedge funds and some mutual funds are only open to people who have a large sum to invest, such as a million dollars.
A stark example, which has stuck in my mind for many years: When Apple Computer was first going public--having its IPO (initial public offering of stock), in the jargon—I called my stockbroker and said I wanted to invest in it. He explained to me that he was allotted only a certain amount of stock that he could sell, and, he said, "It's going to my big customers—and I mean big, million-dollar accounts." The example really needs no comment.
Many fees, such as brokerage fees or account maintenance fees, are flat fees so that they are proportionately less (per share, for example, in the case of brokerage fees) for larger transactions or larger accounts.
Not to mention that, once you get into the really, really big money, really big investors can own a large enough proportion of a company's stock that they can influence the running of the company by getting themselves or their own candidates on the board of directors. Then, presumably, they look after their own interests, whatever they may perceive those interests to be.
And when it comes to taxes on their income, again the wealthy have an advantage. A lot of tax-advantaged investments, such as municipal bonds, are most beneficial for wealthy investors. And the very wealthy can get better tax advice and guidance by hiring very savvy tax attorneys, and thus they can largely or entirely avoid paying income tax.
Someone once said that it's easy to make a lot of money and hard to make a little money. I heard that a long time ago and I keep realizing, more and more, how true that is. But usually you need money to make money.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
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