Stein's (My) Laws

You may have heard of some of the laws in the sciences, like Boyle's Law. And maybe some of the (definitely) non-science laws, like Parkinson's Law. Well, I want to jump on this bandwagon; so here are some of my "laws."  I've come up with others but sadly they might just be forgotten.

1.      There's always a better way to do something—faster, simpler, cheaper.

2.      As soon as you buy gas, you see it cheaper at another station—usually  within a few minutes and within two or three blocks.

3.   You only get an itch when both  hands are full so you can't scratch it.

4.      You see the “easy open” tab or zipper or whatever after you've opened the package with brute force or taken a knife or scissors to it.

5.      Two men with similar facial hair are likely to be perceived as looking alike

6.      You get out the can opener and then realize it's one of those pop-top cans.

7.   Never talk about--say negative things about--someone to a third person. It will get back to  them--a lesson I learned slowly and painfully. 

8.  In looking for an item on the cupboard shelf (e.g.), as soon as you say "I can't find it" or "I don't see it," you do see it. At least this is true for me.

9. We love 'em (e.g. Mexicans, Irish) over there--but when they move here, as immigrants, it may be a quite different story.

10. Things very often turn out to be more difficult or more complicated--and take way longer--than we ever foresaw.

11. The order in which you do things frequently is very important.

12. Your spouse (lover, partner, whatever) is not as considerate as you would wish--at least at times. Remember, nobody's perfect.

Copyright (c) 2022

What's Wrong in America (at least in my opinion)

 

I haven't posted to this blog in a long times, so I thought it might be nice to start the new year with a blog posting.

So, here goes: What's wrong with the world (or perhaps mainly America), according to me.

1. The prevalence of guns. When everybody is carrying a gun, an argument or just one person getting very angry can result in a gun being pulled and then someone being shot. I think this is pretty obvious but the gun proponents (or anti–gun control types) doubtless would dispute it.

When I was younger, the term road rage was not in anyone's vocabulary (nor was school shooting). Nowadays an argument we call road rage my well result in someone being shot.

2. Social media companies fostering polarization of their users and the spread of disinformation--not to mention their near-destruction of any such thing as privacy because they exist to collect--and sell--information about you and me.

3. Growing social and economic inequality. The rich are getting richer, according to all statistics. You may say, "more power to 'em," but when wealth is concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer individuals that has to mean that some others are getting poorer It’s a zero-sum game. And, if nothing else, it is simply cruel and unjust that many people live in poverty.

4. More and more, minority groups such as Native Americans, Blacks, Asian-Americans and others are refusing--to put it in terms we used when we were kids--to be pushed around anymore. That's fine, I for one want to see them winning their rights and a fairer shake in our society. The problem arises when there are those--and these groups are growing, at least in number--who oppose all this, who want some real or imagined past order to remain or return. Groups like white supremacist groups. When people with 180-degree opposite opinions and goals get more and more vocal, it's not going to be just words hurled by one group at the other; and of course this has already occurred and there is no way this can be a good thing.

All this is not even to mention the problems which imperil our planet in perhaps a more physical way: global warming and climate change, destruction of the environment, extinction of plant and animal species, runaway world population--it's saddening and wearying even to get into this list.

Some of these problems certainly are not unique to America but are found in many other western countries, if not in the whole world. I've been hearing a number of voices who are pontificating on the direction we (often "mankind") are going. So many of them seem optimistic, and hold out hope of some sort or to some degree. I can't feel so optimistic because it seems to me that there is inertia which keeps us locked in the status quo--not to mention greed, corruption, and many other human failings which mitigate against change, or at least not change soon enough or fast enough. My crystal ball shows me that--for example, regarding action on global warming--it's going to be "too little, too late."

Copyright © 2020

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.

Roosters crow but crows don't rooster. I think the crows should organize to protest.

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.

To clock someone is pretty different from watching them.

A horsetail is not a grown-up version of a  ponytail. It's a plant.

"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