There recently was a segment on the TV Program "60 Minutes" (which I viewed online, as you can as well) about a group or movement called "sovereign citizens."* These individuals are somewhat like some of the extreme right-wing militia groups we've got in the US. Based on erroneous ideas about the philosophies that prevailed in the late eighteenth century, they question the legitimacy of the US government as it currently exists. They refuse to acknowledge the authority of the government, or the police, over them. They won't carry driver's licenses. They draw up documents declaring they are "sovereign," so in effect each of these sovereign citizens is his own country. They believe--and this is downright silly--that if they draft these documents in a certain way—for example, putting the text diagonally across the page, or writing with orange crayon or signing with a fingerprint in blood--that this makes their sovereignty documents valid and they can't be challenged.
These people are scary, especially when you combine their extremist ideas with the wide availability of guns—and even assault weapons—in America. One sovereign citizen who was profiled on the program was stopped, along with his son, by police for a traffic violation. The man and his son opened fire with assault weapons—getting off something like 22 shots. A police officer was killed and I think both the sovereign citizen and his son were killed.
People who consider themselves sovereign citizens are estimated to number as many as 300,000. This is scary but of course it's only one American in 1,000. So hopefully most Americans would see these people as extremists and wack jobs. Still, they're only one or two steps farther to the right than some people I have known and talked to.
Some of the latter have told me they don't feel they should have to pay taxes. Such people need to simply read our Constitution, where Article 8 clearly gives Congress the power to impose taxes.
A "no taxes at all" view is extreme, still; but some would simply say they are loath to see their taxes ultimately benefit (or, in their minds, be paid to) any less fortunate individual. I could understand the conservative "no tax money of mine to help the less fortunate" position if their argument went something like, "Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs didn't work. Rather than throw money at social problems like urban poverty, let's wait until they're better understood, and/or we know what sort of measures work." But their argument is simply, "It's their [the people needing assistance] fault that they are in the situation they're in." I guess if I objected, "What about victims of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods. . . ?" they'd reply, "Well, it's their fault for living in the wrong place."
______________
*If you go to youtube.com and search for "sovereign citizens," about 128 listings will appear, many of them from the viewpoint of the sovereign citizens themselves, who feel they are persecuted when the government lists them as terrorists. Paranoia is one element of the whole phenomenon of the sovereign citizens.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Further Dialog on Conservatives (or, Rant Against Conservatives. Part III or Part IIA)
Regular readers of this blog may be aware that one posting, "A Rant Against Conservatives. Pt. II," has provoked some comments.
To one poster of a comment, I posted a comment replying to him. It seems that his and my dialogue could continue to go back and forth, but I don't want to see the Comment feature used in that way.
I do, however, want to write about one or two of his ideas. First, he says that the fact that I got some free work done by the painter whom I mentioned shows that conservatives can be "compassionate." Well, two things in reply to that, if indeed this example supports any generality: First, the freebie thing can't be taken too far. Yes, he did one thing for me and refused compensation. Another thing that he offered to do for me, he did not follow through on. He never called to arrange a return visit—but I'm okay with that; it's reasonable and natural and even almost expected.
But also, I think that a point I made is still supported: I mentioned that conservatives might be nice (whether "compassionate" is the appropriate word, I'm not at all sure) when they know the person involved. So they're nice to family, friends, neighbors, fellow church members, customers. But I still say that it's very different when we're talking about people who they don't know, who are distant, different, etc.--for example, the poor or people of another race or ethnicity.
I said that I feel this is like people in small towns who might be thought to be warm, neighborly, the salt of the earth, and all that. Yet they're suspicious and even hostile toward strangers or any "outsiders."
I said also that this is a matter of "we" versus "they." And I believe even more strongly that I was right about that, in view of something I saw on TV a couple days ago. There was a PBS program called "The Human Spark," hosted by Alan Alda, who first became known to many from starring in the TV show M*A*S*H. (This program was originally shown last January, and anyone reading this may view the program on the PBS web site, pbs.org.)
This program showed some experiments with very young children. In one, it was first established which of two foods the child preferred, between some "slimy" green beans or graham crackers. Then two puppets were shown to the child; one puppet was presented as liking and disliking the same food choices as the child (liking the crackers, disliking the beans; and then vice versa for the other puppet). Then the child was offered the choice of which puppet he wanted to play with, and nearly all the children picked the puppet who had the same food preferences as himself.
This is what is to be inferred: We like, and presumably identify with, those (puppets and presumably people) who we think have the same preferences as ourselves, who are like us. The experimenter (Karen Wynn of Yale) infers, this shows we have an instinct to affiliate with those who are like ourselves. Paul Bloom* phrased it only slightly differently: we have "an inclination to bond with others who are like us."
This is a very close paraphrase of some of what Bloom said:
As yet another scholar said, this is why we have holy wars like the Crusades.
_______________
* Paul Bloom is the spouse and collaborator of Karen Wynn, who is also quoted here.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
To one poster of a comment, I posted a comment replying to him. It seems that his and my dialogue could continue to go back and forth, but I don't want to see the Comment feature used in that way.
I do, however, want to write about one or two of his ideas. First, he says that the fact that I got some free work done by the painter whom I mentioned shows that conservatives can be "compassionate." Well, two things in reply to that, if indeed this example supports any generality: First, the freebie thing can't be taken too far. Yes, he did one thing for me and refused compensation. Another thing that he offered to do for me, he did not follow through on. He never called to arrange a return visit—but I'm okay with that; it's reasonable and natural and even almost expected.
But also, I think that a point I made is still supported: I mentioned that conservatives might be nice (whether "compassionate" is the appropriate word, I'm not at all sure) when they know the person involved. So they're nice to family, friends, neighbors, fellow church members, customers. But I still say that it's very different when we're talking about people who they don't know, who are distant, different, etc.--for example, the poor or people of another race or ethnicity.
I said that I feel this is like people in small towns who might be thought to be warm, neighborly, the salt of the earth, and all that. Yet they're suspicious and even hostile toward strangers or any "outsiders."
I said also that this is a matter of "we" versus "they." And I believe even more strongly that I was right about that, in view of something I saw on TV a couple days ago. There was a PBS program called "The Human Spark," hosted by Alan Alda, who first became known to many from starring in the TV show M*A*S*H. (This program was originally shown last January, and anyone reading this may view the program on the PBS web site, pbs.org.)
This program showed some experiments with very young children. In one, it was first established which of two foods the child preferred, between some "slimy" green beans or graham crackers. Then two puppets were shown to the child; one puppet was presented as liking and disliking the same food choices as the child (liking the crackers, disliking the beans; and then vice versa for the other puppet). Then the child was offered the choice of which puppet he wanted to play with, and nearly all the children picked the puppet who had the same food preferences as himself.
This is what is to be inferred: We like, and presumably identify with, those (puppets and presumably people) who we think have the same preferences as ourselves, who are like us. The experimenter (Karen Wynn of Yale) infers, this shows we have an instinct to affiliate with those who are like ourselves. Paul Bloom* phrased it only slightly differently: we have "an inclination to bond with others who are like us."
This is a very close paraphrase of some of what Bloom said:
At every point we're splitting the world into those who are allies and those who are enemies.. . .People have an inclination to bond with others who are like us. . . .
People unite with others like themselves, e.g. with the same religion, and help each other. . . .they may wear the same clothes and eat the same foods. That means being united against those who are "over there" or who practice different beliefs.
As yet another scholar said, this is why we have holy wars like the Crusades.
_______________
* Paul Bloom is the spouse and collaborator of Karen Wynn, who is also quoted here.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
A Balanced View of American Labor Unions
With the recent news of efforts in Wisconsin and several other states to undermine the power and influence of labor unions—even taking away, by fiat, the rights of unionized workers in public employ to bargain collectively—it might be a good time to give some thought to unions.
I have a certain sympathy for unions and the labor movement. A hundred years ago, give or take, labor unions filled a great need. Workers may have worked long hours, for poor wages, and under unsafe conditions. There was no OSHA (US Occupational Safety and Health Administration) to ensure safe conditions in the workplace.
When workers unionized and attempted to use their main tools--the strike and picket lines--to better their working lives, they were often met by thugs hired by the factory owners and even the police, who cracked heads and even at times killed some of the picketers.
But by my lifetime—by the middle of the twentieth century—things had changed radically. Many factory workers were well enough paid to live middle-class lives. Organized workers had good benefits such as health plans and pensions.
In fact, you might even say that unionized workers' aims backfired. As American workers achieved good pay, they were not particularly thinking globally. They did not realize that their pay needed to be viewed in comparison with workers' pay in other countries. So what has happened is that labor costs for American manufacturing is higher than those in any other countries, so even American companies were having their products made by foreign labor. There is essentially no more clothing being made in the US. There are essentially no shoes being made in the US. A big shoe factory here in Chicago with a widely known name in shoes--was first turned into a warehouse, stocked with shoes made abroad. Then the building lay empty and was available for redevelopment and was, I think, when I last drove by, being turned into condominiums.
So, sadly—as no one, least of all the rank-and-file worker and not even their leaders—foresaw, the American industrial worker priced himself out of the world market.
Also, labor unions nearly completely killed railroads at one point. Nearly all railroad passenger service had to be taken over by Amtrak in 1971. Freight railroads have had to merge and consolidate. The reason? Railroads were being forced, by union "work rules" to run trains with crews of a certain size—essentially, with more crew members than were needed. This was a practice known as "featherbedding." Needless to say, that meant unnecessary cost to the railroads which they couldn't do anything about. It was purely a matter between the unions and the railroads.
There was also a bad situation in Chicago regarding a huge convention center. Trade shows and exhibits finally were refusing to hold their shows in Chicago. This was because of union work rules: it might have required one union to string some wires for a light, a different union to screw the light bulb in, and so forth. (That is a hypothetical example, but the reality was very much like that.) Of course this multiplied the number of workers involved. More workers, more cost. The unions were gouging the people holding the shows.
All my life, it seems, I've been noticing that anytime there's a work crew—say, working on roads or, as I saw yesterday, working on railroad tracks—there are one or two workers who clearly are working, and maybe five or six who seem to be essentially standing around, doing little more than watching, at best. It finally occurred to me that this is also probably a matter of union "work rules"—meaning more workers than are needed must be allowed to be on the job—and, of course, paid.
Many labor unions have been tarred by scandal. Some of their leaders were stealing union funds, such as pension funds. So that the unions were not operating for the benefit of their rank-and-file members but rather, the union leaders were feathering their own personal nests. A couple unions come to mind as having gotten a reputation for corruption but I'm not going to name them here.
Now I don't want to go so far as to say that, although 100 years ago labor unions were needed—and in fact, union workers and organizers and strikers were often heroic—today the story is completely the opposite. Unions have lost a lot of their strength and power: fewer workers are in unions these days. That's partly a matter of the decline of American manufacturing which I mentioned above. But many unions are still powerful, and I think it's still true that any worker who is in a union is likely to be well paid. Unions have served their members well, and maybe even too well, sometimes. But they probably do not have the power and influence they once did, so maybe many of the excesses have been corrected.
Except I do still see those over-manned work crews.
Update, October 12, 2011
The City of Chicago, under its new mayor, Rahm Emmanuel, is struggling to deal with a deficit in the city budget. One difficulty Emmanuel is having is trying to get the unions that represent city workers to agree to changes in work rules.
Another problem is with the city's transit system. I heard that many trains and buses have to be canceled, because of absenteeism--which of course makes the public--the riders--suffer. I know that in jobs I have held, if I or any co-worker was absent excessively, we'd be in danger of losing our jobs. But then, we were not unionized.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
I have a certain sympathy for unions and the labor movement. A hundred years ago, give or take, labor unions filled a great need. Workers may have worked long hours, for poor wages, and under unsafe conditions. There was no OSHA (US Occupational Safety and Health Administration) to ensure safe conditions in the workplace.
When workers unionized and attempted to use their main tools--the strike and picket lines--to better their working lives, they were often met by thugs hired by the factory owners and even the police, who cracked heads and even at times killed some of the picketers.
But by my lifetime—by the middle of the twentieth century—things had changed radically. Many factory workers were well enough paid to live middle-class lives. Organized workers had good benefits such as health plans and pensions.
In fact, you might even say that unionized workers' aims backfired. As American workers achieved good pay, they were not particularly thinking globally. They did not realize that their pay needed to be viewed in comparison with workers' pay in other countries. So what has happened is that labor costs for American manufacturing is higher than those in any other countries, so even American companies were having their products made by foreign labor. There is essentially no more clothing being made in the US. There are essentially no shoes being made in the US. A big shoe factory here in Chicago with a widely known name in shoes--was first turned into a warehouse, stocked with shoes made abroad. Then the building lay empty and was available for redevelopment and was, I think, when I last drove by, being turned into condominiums.
So, sadly—as no one, least of all the rank-and-file worker and not even their leaders—foresaw, the American industrial worker priced himself out of the world market.
Also, labor unions nearly completely killed railroads at one point. Nearly all railroad passenger service had to be taken over by Amtrak in 1971. Freight railroads have had to merge and consolidate. The reason? Railroads were being forced, by union "work rules" to run trains with crews of a certain size—essentially, with more crew members than were needed. This was a practice known as "featherbedding." Needless to say, that meant unnecessary cost to the railroads which they couldn't do anything about. It was purely a matter between the unions and the railroads.
There was also a bad situation in Chicago regarding a huge convention center. Trade shows and exhibits finally were refusing to hold their shows in Chicago. This was because of union work rules: it might have required one union to string some wires for a light, a different union to screw the light bulb in, and so forth. (That is a hypothetical example, but the reality was very much like that.) Of course this multiplied the number of workers involved. More workers, more cost. The unions were gouging the people holding the shows.
All my life, it seems, I've been noticing that anytime there's a work crew—say, working on roads or, as I saw yesterday, working on railroad tracks—there are one or two workers who clearly are working, and maybe five or six who seem to be essentially standing around, doing little more than watching, at best. It finally occurred to me that this is also probably a matter of union "work rules"—meaning more workers than are needed must be allowed to be on the job—and, of course, paid.
Many labor unions have been tarred by scandal. Some of their leaders were stealing union funds, such as pension funds. So that the unions were not operating for the benefit of their rank-and-file members but rather, the union leaders were feathering their own personal nests. A couple unions come to mind as having gotten a reputation for corruption but I'm not going to name them here.
Now I don't want to go so far as to say that, although 100 years ago labor unions were needed—and in fact, union workers and organizers and strikers were often heroic—today the story is completely the opposite. Unions have lost a lot of their strength and power: fewer workers are in unions these days. That's partly a matter of the decline of American manufacturing which I mentioned above. But many unions are still powerful, and I think it's still true that any worker who is in a union is likely to be well paid. Unions have served their members well, and maybe even too well, sometimes. But they probably do not have the power and influence they once did, so maybe many of the excesses have been corrected.
Except I do still see those over-manned work crews.
Update, October 12, 2011
The City of Chicago, under its new mayor, Rahm Emmanuel, is struggling to deal with a deficit in the city budget. One difficulty Emmanuel is having is trying to get the unions that represent city workers to agree to changes in work rules.
Another problem is with the city's transit system. I heard that many trains and buses have to be canceled, because of absenteeism--which of course makes the public--the riders--suffer. I know that in jobs I have held, if I or any co-worker was absent excessively, we'd be in danger of losing our jobs. But then, we were not unionized.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
A Rant against Conservatives. Part II
This posting will attempt to make two points. First, that conservatives will put forth arguments that they know to be false. Second, I want to look at the idea they often put forth, trying to justify their opposition to any aid to the poor by saying, "I pulled myself up out of poverty, why can't they?"
My painter, last week, among other things, started to say that taxes--his taxes, naturally--go to pay for unemployment compensation. I pointed out that unemployment benefits are funded through an insurance scheme into which employers pay. Turns out he knew that. (In Part I, I mentioned another example of this same guy using something that he probably knew was incorrect in arguing.) Also he said, in so many words, about those bad people who collect unemployment benefits and get food stamps, "Why can't they just go and get a job?" I failed to remind him that jobs, just now, are hard to get. He'd probably insist that anyone who really wants a job can get one.
On the national scene, one Senator Kyle publicly claimed that Planned Parenthood spends 90% of the funding it receives from the government on abortions. When it was pointed out to him that the correct figure actually is 3%, he (or his lackeys) said of his assertion, "That was not intended to be a factual statement." What??? As I think about that, the only "translation" I can make of that absurd statement is, "It was a lie and I knew it at the time."
The myriad organizations that lobby against rights (such as marriage rights or non-discrimination in employment) for gay people very egregiously use false information: half-truths and out-and-out untruths. I think they use this tactic cynically and calculatingly, and know that they're lying. The belief (or simple prejudice) comes first, and then the wide reach to find something to support the belief. (As an aside, a University of Chicago law professor named Martha Nussbaum has said that she beliefs that nearly all anti-gay prejudice has at its base a disgust at the thought of sex acts between two people of the same sex.) Anyway, their tactics work in fund-raising letters. (Sadly, the "other" side may use at least broadly similar, "the-sky-will-fall-unless-you-send-money," tactics in its fund-raising letters.)
Now, my other point. I think a lot of conservatives are your stereotypical up-from-poverty, Horatio Alger* types. One might think that someone who lived amidst poverty or other disadvantage in childhood might have more sympathy for others who have had similar struggles. But it doesn't seem to work that way. It becomes, "If I could do it (get up and out of the ghetto, or whatever), then why can't they?"
Some people are afflicted by poverty. Some by drug or other additions. Some by disabilities or other liabilities. And some people show wonderful success in how they deal with these problems; others do not.
Also, even if you look at, for example, those with the problem of drug or other addiction, it would seem that, even for a single individual, there might be times when they can deal with the problem successfully and times when they cannot. They might go along for months or years before they somehow become ready, willing, and able to change.
I wrote about this once. But, since I personally never have never had to deal with an addiction, I would have liked a person who has done so to tell me more about what had to first change within them before they could make progress in fighting their addiction.
But it's not completely clear that escape from poverty is analogous to shaking off a substance addiction. It might be said, without much of a stretch, that there are external conditions in both cases. It's almost a cliché—and I don't know enough about the subject to know how true this is—that the addict may begin to use drugs regularly to escape from an unbearable reality. However, although poverty is a matter of an individual's or a family's personal pocketbook, there are definitely impoverished neighborhoods, so it seems to be a social, rather than strictly individual matter.
So, our model person in the Horatio Alger scenario says to him- or herself, "I'm living in these awful conditions, and I don't want to live with plumbing that doesn't work (etc., etc.) for my whole life. So I'm going to study hard, get good grades in school, go to college. . . ." I think that, whether it's this case or that of overcoming other sorts of disadvantages, it takes determination and perhaps a whole lot of internal traits, and maybe luck and other external circumstances such as a mentor, a teacher, someone to inspire, encourage, etc.
And it's not a case of some unchanging internal state: the addict may be able to do something--admitting his problem and going to seek treatment--tomorrow but not today. Today but not yesterday.
The more conservative types will say, Anyone can do it, it's just a matter of wanting to. I think this is a more complicated matter than that and needs more thought and maybe study by scholars.
By the way, the painter quoted here (and in Part I) is a nice guy. He's done some things for me with no remuneration. And a lot of conservatives would strike us (or me) as "nice people" if, for example, we met them on a cruise and did not yet know some of their views. Clearly, people can or will be "nice" to people who they know, but they're not benevolent to some people they don't know--"them." I think it's analogous to the fact that small-town Americans are helpful to their neighbors but can be suspicious of strangers. This is not just an American trait, it's a human trait: the business of "we" versus "they" that I have blogged about before.
_____________
* Alger was a nineteenth-century writer—better known at one time than now—who wrote books for juveniles in which the protagonists rose from rags to riches.
Copyright (c) 2011 by Richard Stein
My painter, last week, among other things, started to say that taxes--his taxes, naturally--go to pay for unemployment compensation. I pointed out that unemployment benefits are funded through an insurance scheme into which employers pay. Turns out he knew that. (In Part I, I mentioned another example of this same guy using something that he probably knew was incorrect in arguing.) Also he said, in so many words, about those bad people who collect unemployment benefits and get food stamps, "Why can't they just go and get a job?" I failed to remind him that jobs, just now, are hard to get. He'd probably insist that anyone who really wants a job can get one.
On the national scene, one Senator Kyle publicly claimed that Planned Parenthood spends 90% of the funding it receives from the government on abortions. When it was pointed out to him that the correct figure actually is 3%, he (or his lackeys) said of his assertion, "That was not intended to be a factual statement." What??? As I think about that, the only "translation" I can make of that absurd statement is, "It was a lie and I knew it at the time."
The myriad organizations that lobby against rights (such as marriage rights or non-discrimination in employment) for gay people very egregiously use false information: half-truths and out-and-out untruths. I think they use this tactic cynically and calculatingly, and know that they're lying. The belief (or simple prejudice) comes first, and then the wide reach to find something to support the belief. (As an aside, a University of Chicago law professor named Martha Nussbaum has said that she beliefs that nearly all anti-gay prejudice has at its base a disgust at the thought of sex acts between two people of the same sex.) Anyway, their tactics work in fund-raising letters. (Sadly, the "other" side may use at least broadly similar, "the-sky-will-fall-unless-you-send-money," tactics in its fund-raising letters.)
Now, my other point. I think a lot of conservatives are your stereotypical up-from-poverty, Horatio Alger* types. One might think that someone who lived amidst poverty or other disadvantage in childhood might have more sympathy for others who have had similar struggles. But it doesn't seem to work that way. It becomes, "If I could do it (get up and out of the ghetto, or whatever), then why can't they?"
Some people are afflicted by poverty. Some by drug or other additions. Some by disabilities or other liabilities. And some people show wonderful success in how they deal with these problems; others do not.
Also, even if you look at, for example, those with the problem of drug or other addiction, it would seem that, even for a single individual, there might be times when they can deal with the problem successfully and times when they cannot. They might go along for months or years before they somehow become ready, willing, and able to change.
I wrote about this once. But, since I personally never have never had to deal with an addiction, I would have liked a person who has done so to tell me more about what had to first change within them before they could make progress in fighting their addiction.
But it's not completely clear that escape from poverty is analogous to shaking off a substance addiction. It might be said, without much of a stretch, that there are external conditions in both cases. It's almost a cliché—and I don't know enough about the subject to know how true this is—that the addict may begin to use drugs regularly to escape from an unbearable reality. However, although poverty is a matter of an individual's or a family's personal pocketbook, there are definitely impoverished neighborhoods, so it seems to be a social, rather than strictly individual matter.
So, our model person in the Horatio Alger scenario says to him- or herself, "I'm living in these awful conditions, and I don't want to live with plumbing that doesn't work (etc., etc.) for my whole life. So I'm going to study hard, get good grades in school, go to college. . . ." I think that, whether it's this case or that of overcoming other sorts of disadvantages, it takes determination and perhaps a whole lot of internal traits, and maybe luck and other external circumstances such as a mentor, a teacher, someone to inspire, encourage, etc.
And it's not a case of some unchanging internal state: the addict may be able to do something--admitting his problem and going to seek treatment--tomorrow but not today. Today but not yesterday.
The more conservative types will say, Anyone can do it, it's just a matter of wanting to. I think this is a more complicated matter than that and needs more thought and maybe study by scholars.
By the way, the painter quoted here (and in Part I) is a nice guy. He's done some things for me with no remuneration. And a lot of conservatives would strike us (or me) as "nice people" if, for example, we met them on a cruise and did not yet know some of their views. Clearly, people can or will be "nice" to people who they know, but they're not benevolent to some people they don't know--"them." I think it's analogous to the fact that small-town Americans are helpful to their neighbors but can be suspicious of strangers. This is not just an American trait, it's a human trait: the business of "we" versus "they" that I have blogged about before.
_____________
* Alger was a nineteenth-century writer—better known at one time than now—who wrote books for juveniles in which the protagonists rose from rags to riches.
Copyright (c) 2011 by Richard Stein
Saturday, April 30, 2011
What to Do about High Gas Prices
Probably everybody is aware of the rising gas prices. My area, Chicago, has recently had some of the highest gas prices in the US. I recently drove through the vicinity of Chicago Midway Airport (where probably one should expect prices to be high), and saw several gas stations with $4.59 and one with $4.60.
I have a car with a six-cylinder engine. It's nowhere as thirsty a car as big vehicles like pickups or SUVs, or super-power cars. Still, it's not as economical as I'd like. And supposedly vehicles in general have gotten more fuel-efficient. So I've half-heartedly been exploring swapping my old steed.
There are hybrids, of course, which are not only economical but are more environmentally friendly. But, through working with engineers, I've learned to see with their perspective, to a degree; so I view hybrids as not an "elegant" solution. That is, they have a lot of mechanical and electronic complexity.
So another thing to look at are diesel-engine cars. Diesels are not like they used to be: rough, noisy, dirty, hard-to-start. They're very popular in Europe, but Americans still have memories of a couple of bad American diesel models of some years ago.
Also, there are "turbos," or cars with a turbocharged engine. A turbocharger is pretty much a way of getting free power, so an engine can be smaller in displacement for the same power output. Smaller means more economical.
Another thing I almost forgot about myself is manual transmissions. I think that 97% of vehicles currently sold in America have automatic transmissions and undoubtedly many drivers don't know how to drive a "stick shift." But, if you are willing and able to drive one, that's a way to get another one or two miles per gallon.
Meanwhile, short of investing in a new car, there's one simple and easy thing we can all be doing to get better mileage, and that's to modify our driving habits. See my October 20, 2010 posting on this blog, "Driving More Safely and More Economically."
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
I have a car with a six-cylinder engine. It's nowhere as thirsty a car as big vehicles like pickups or SUVs, or super-power cars. Still, it's not as economical as I'd like. And supposedly vehicles in general have gotten more fuel-efficient. So I've half-heartedly been exploring swapping my old steed.
There are hybrids, of course, which are not only economical but are more environmentally friendly. But, through working with engineers, I've learned to see with their perspective, to a degree; so I view hybrids as not an "elegant" solution. That is, they have a lot of mechanical and electronic complexity.
So another thing to look at are diesel-engine cars. Diesels are not like they used to be: rough, noisy, dirty, hard-to-start. They're very popular in Europe, but Americans still have memories of a couple of bad American diesel models of some years ago.
Also, there are "turbos," or cars with a turbocharged engine. A turbocharger is pretty much a way of getting free power, so an engine can be smaller in displacement for the same power output. Smaller means more economical.
Another thing I almost forgot about myself is manual transmissions. I think that 97% of vehicles currently sold in America have automatic transmissions and undoubtedly many drivers don't know how to drive a "stick shift." But, if you are willing and able to drive one, that's a way to get another one or two miles per gallon.
Meanwhile, short of investing in a new car, there's one simple and easy thing we can all be doing to get better mileage, and that's to modify our driving habits. See my October 20, 2010 posting on this blog, "Driving More Safely and More Economically."
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
Thursday, April 28, 2011
A Rant against Conservatives. Part I
Yesterday a guy was here to do some painting for me. This guy is very chatty, so we got to talking—or maybe arguing.
This guy is a typical conservative. His wife came up from a background of poverty, so he has no sympathy for anyone who lives in poverty; says they don't want to work.
And maybe this guy is a little more extreme than some conservatives. He seems to feel he shouldn't have to pay any taxes at all.
But like a lot of conservatives, when he argues, a lot of his facts are wrong. (I believe that these guys know that the arguments they use are incorrect. Conservative in the public eye, like politicians, do that, and this guy showed that he was doing it, too.)** He said that the property tax that he pays goes to our governor. I got out my property tax bill, and not one single item on there has anything to do with state government. It's all local and county: village, township, county, school districts, this district and that district. But nothing at all that said "Illinois."
These people are so accustomed to hearing, and parroting, common canards of the Right. They have no concern for what is or is not true.
He said he has no formal education, and that's uttered as a boast. Presumably education is a bad thing. I'm reminded of the days when I was a college teacher in a college town, in an otherwise rural area. When I had my haircut I'd hear the attitudes of the "townies" toward the university. We were faggots and commies who were there to subvert their wholesome, corn-fed offspring. They called us the "fuckalty."
And my painter reminds me of my father, who didn't know what he didn't know. Or maybe my grandfather. My grandfather always boasted about being a self-educated man. One day he gave me a problem to solve. I asked for pencil and paper, and in probably less than a minute, I had the answer for him. He was amazed. It was basically a rather simple problem in high-school algebra. But he didn't even know that there was such a tool. See, an example of not knowing what you don't know.
What does education do for people? Ideally, rather than just imparting facts, it also teaches critical thinking and has an influence on attitudes.*
And why do these conservative types, like my painter, glory in being uneducated, scoff at education and the educated? Maybe it's because they secretly know that education would disabuse them of a lot of their currently-held, incorrect ideas.
__________
*Update. On the subject of what a nontechnical education can do for you--a favorite subject of mine, see this link: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/05/26/oh-the-humanities-why-not-to-pick-a-college-major-based-on-a-s/
**Update (October 14, 2011). An example of how conservatives lie: This is from an article on Huff Post Politics:
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
This guy is a typical conservative. His wife came up from a background of poverty, so he has no sympathy for anyone who lives in poverty; says they don't want to work.
And maybe this guy is a little more extreme than some conservatives. He seems to feel he shouldn't have to pay any taxes at all.
But like a lot of conservatives, when he argues, a lot of his facts are wrong. (I believe that these guys know that the arguments they use are incorrect. Conservative in the public eye, like politicians, do that, and this guy showed that he was doing it, too.)** He said that the property tax that he pays goes to our governor. I got out my property tax bill, and not one single item on there has anything to do with state government. It's all local and county: village, township, county, school districts, this district and that district. But nothing at all that said "Illinois."
These people are so accustomed to hearing, and parroting, common canards of the Right. They have no concern for what is or is not true.
He said he has no formal education, and that's uttered as a boast. Presumably education is a bad thing. I'm reminded of the days when I was a college teacher in a college town, in an otherwise rural area. When I had my haircut I'd hear the attitudes of the "townies" toward the university. We were faggots and commies who were there to subvert their wholesome, corn-fed offspring. They called us the "fuckalty."
And my painter reminds me of my father, who didn't know what he didn't know. Or maybe my grandfather. My grandfather always boasted about being a self-educated man. One day he gave me a problem to solve. I asked for pencil and paper, and in probably less than a minute, I had the answer for him. He was amazed. It was basically a rather simple problem in high-school algebra. But he didn't even know that there was such a tool. See, an example of not knowing what you don't know.
What does education do for people? Ideally, rather than just imparting facts, it also teaches critical thinking and has an influence on attitudes.*
And why do these conservative types, like my painter, glory in being uneducated, scoff at education and the educated? Maybe it's because they secretly know that education would disabuse them of a lot of their currently-held, incorrect ideas.
__________
*Update. On the subject of what a nontechnical education can do for you--a favorite subject of mine, see this link: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/05/26/oh-the-humanities-why-not-to-pick-a-college-major-based-on-a-s/
**Update (October 14, 2011). An example of how conservatives lie: This is from an article on Huff Post Politics:
A federal judge ruled in August that the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List had to stop making the claim on its website that "Obamacare" subsidizes abortions because the assertion is false.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Do We Need to Teach Gay and Lesbian History?
One of our radio stations, which I don't usually listen to, just had a commentator talking—negatively—about a bill in California to introduce the teaching of gay and lesbian history in that state's schools.
There was a phone number for listeners to call with comments. I didn't phone, for a variety of reasons, including my lack of confidence in my ability to organize my thoughts in anything like a persuasive manner while speaking. That plus—this needs to be mentioned--the fact that I stutter.
One of this guy's points was that history largely includes bad guys, like Hitler. So he said, "Okay, if you want to find a gay marauder to include. . . ."
But I thought he missed the point. History and other courses in our schools have been tilted and slanted to favor sort of a majority, history-gets-written-by-the-victors point of view: male, white, Euro-centric, and of course heterosexual. As just one example: We might learn about Jane Addams and Clara Barton. But there were lots of very fine woman painters. How many can you name? Possibly, at most, these three who are very well known: Georgia O'Keefe, Frieda Kahlo, and Mary Cassatt. And it's not a coincidence that two of those are pretty modern; earlier ones never got much attention.
In the last few decades women and African-Americans have become vocal in pointing out how their contributions have often been overlooked or downplayed. It's a similar story with the contributions of countries and civilizations outside of those which, for several hundred years, have conventionally been thought to be in the path of the transmission of civilization from East to West. In other words, it's been Mesopotamia and Egypt, then Greece, Rome, Europe, and the U.S.
As just one little example of how wrong this is: It's been found that bronze smelting and casting was done very early in Vietnam. Is Vietnam and its contributions to world civilization included in our history?
Now, as to gay and lesbian people: In many fields there have been contributions by people who were gay or lesbian. Leonardo, Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman, E.M. Forster, Noel Coward, Tennessee Williams, and so many more. Their sexual orientation has usually been very deliberately omitted from discussion when these people are discussed in our schools. Forster was not free to publish a homoerotic novel he'd written. Whitman was forced to change the pronouns in his poetry, changing them from talking about love of males to females. When history is thus "cleaned up" or sanitized for consumption by our students, not only is an injustice done but we find ourselves in the business of dispensing half-truths which are masquerading as truths.
So it's just a case of how far we feel we need to go to redress the balance. In a way it's the same issue as with affirmative action: Do minorities who have been overlooked, suppressed, discriminated against, now need special emphasis or consideration? They would not, if they had been getting a fair shake all along. And, your answer to that question might just reveal what your prejudices are.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
There was a phone number for listeners to call with comments. I didn't phone, for a variety of reasons, including my lack of confidence in my ability to organize my thoughts in anything like a persuasive manner while speaking. That plus—this needs to be mentioned--the fact that I stutter.
One of this guy's points was that history largely includes bad guys, like Hitler. So he said, "Okay, if you want to find a gay marauder to include. . . ."
But I thought he missed the point. History and other courses in our schools have been tilted and slanted to favor sort of a majority, history-gets-written-by-the-victors point of view: male, white, Euro-centric, and of course heterosexual. As just one example: We might learn about Jane Addams and Clara Barton. But there were lots of very fine woman painters. How many can you name? Possibly, at most, these three who are very well known: Georgia O'Keefe, Frieda Kahlo, and Mary Cassatt. And it's not a coincidence that two of those are pretty modern; earlier ones never got much attention.
In the last few decades women and African-Americans have become vocal in pointing out how their contributions have often been overlooked or downplayed. It's a similar story with the contributions of countries and civilizations outside of those which, for several hundred years, have conventionally been thought to be in the path of the transmission of civilization from East to West. In other words, it's been Mesopotamia and Egypt, then Greece, Rome, Europe, and the U.S.
As just one little example of how wrong this is: It's been found that bronze smelting and casting was done very early in Vietnam. Is Vietnam and its contributions to world civilization included in our history?
Now, as to gay and lesbian people: In many fields there have been contributions by people who were gay or lesbian. Leonardo, Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman, E.M. Forster, Noel Coward, Tennessee Williams, and so many more. Their sexual orientation has usually been very deliberately omitted from discussion when these people are discussed in our schools. Forster was not free to publish a homoerotic novel he'd written. Whitman was forced to change the pronouns in his poetry, changing them from talking about love of males to females. When history is thus "cleaned up" or sanitized for consumption by our students, not only is an injustice done but we find ourselves in the business of dispensing half-truths which are masquerading as truths.
So it's just a case of how far we feel we need to go to redress the balance. In a way it's the same issue as with affirmative action: Do minorities who have been overlooked, suppressed, discriminated against, now need special emphasis or consideration? They would not, if they had been getting a fair shake all along. And, your answer to that question might just reveal what your prejudices are.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
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