To Pary Gherkins (facebook):
Yes - I didn't have the right name but that is exactly what I'm talking about. Confirmation bias ... hard to claim that I know anything if I'm really just convincing myself of what I want or need to believe - guess my understanding the nuance of this facet of psychology shows I've got a leg up on other people who don't.
I guess voluminous rants (often really wacky if judged by logic) have been going on in cyberspace for a while now - I just never paid attention before.
I'd always thought the internet was going to save the future because a marketplace of ideas could replace the monotheistic media we've had since television (or even newsprint? or since the bible was first collated by the Roman Empire?). Instead, as I sample Six Degrees discussions, I'm horror-struck by the sheer volume of crap-headed thinking and reasoning that goes on here.
I'm glad that enough people respond to Lynn and the others that their crazier ideas don't go unchallenged for others to read. And at the same time I'm almost hopeful, because although they unthinkingly post opinions handed to them by media hacks (like Rush I suppose), at least they aren't just silently believing them - they're discussing them and maybe that increases the odds that they'll begin to critically think about the world. Even Lynn agrees we should get rid of the Fed, and just because he hates Obama doesn't mean he can't admit Bush was an idiot. I agree that all politicians suck and Obama may or may not be a good first step towards taking the country back from industrial powers (I'll go ahead and claim that Socialism must be a deep underground conspiracy indeed to have more power than the pharmaceutical lobby or the defense lobby). I have hope where Lynn has doubt (or paranoia) - but for the grace of god, I'd be right where he is. I just happened to grow up in a liberal town and I happen to think hippies are usually cooler people than non-hippies.
I've studied persuasion and psychology, so I feel like I might be able to somehow get through to these people to say: "I know the world looks a certain way, but read more books and newspapers, read less internet sites and watch less "infotainment", and you'll really be amazed at how ya'll were duped into voting against your own interests all these years." Of course, they think the media is liberally biased. Seriously? Was impeaching Clinton for a blow job a "liberal" or "conservative" thing to do, and didn't the media totally swarm after that? Drumbeats to war, aren't they in every newspaper headline? Advertising being the only reason newspapers don't lose money printing papers (for so many years), that'd make a newspaper more liberal? All the dozens of major U.S. military or U.S. sponsored operations that never got reported and are widely unknown to the public (i.e. East Timor), and that comes from a liberal press? I don't understand the logic, other than many writers become journalists because they are passionate about exposing the truth of things. I guess the truth seems liberal to most people.
I guess I'm asking how you can keep posting and communicating with people who refuse to take their information-source blinders off - isn't it so massively frustrating that you just want to say the hell with it and become a nihilist?
Well, maybe not that last - I do try to include satire or sarcasm sometimes, though it seems these things will be interpreted literally here.
It's such a downer to start getting hope, and then to see that the very changes that are bringing me hope are directing legions of crap-heads to go to war against the ideals I believe in.
I don't think socialism, capitalism or any other -ism has anything to do with solving our problems. I don't think nationalizing the hospitals and health insurance industry would take away any of my individual freedoms or Lynn's (unless he were healthy and wealthy, in which case, he'd be blessed with all the health and opportunity in the free world, and a few extra bucks shouldn't bother him) - and in fact, I'd say taking away the freedom of the health care industry to make profit off of my dying Grandmother who's gone into foreclosure because Safeco hired somebody to stamp denials on insurance claims and she doesn't have the time, money, or life left to fight the claim to get the care she needs; I'd say taking away even ten thousand people's right to profit off of health care is exactly what people who love individualism and freedom would do - even if a million stockholders and CEO's lost their vacation homes and private Jets, every American would enjoy the freedom that comes with being healthy. Every other business except the insurance, drug, and other health care companies would suddenly be richer AND be able to pay their employees a little more through the saving that would come.
To me, Obama may fail because of loud-mouthed rednecks who think the term Socialism is somehow relevant to the modern world (of which they know precisely jack squat, despite all our best efforts to enlighten them about Enlightenment ideas through education that taxes pay for, and yet stupid people seem continually proud of wasting). If it weren't for all the noise they're making, Obama would be much more apt to truly cut out the profit-takers who are killing my Grandmother by making a truly national health care system where the "high achievers" that Lynn cares so much to protect get the same medical care and the same right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that our founding documents talk about, as the crap-heads who wasted their education, got saved, and still cry at the funerals of people to poor to stay well.
Crap-heads think America is great because we have a great military. These people make me sick, because if my neighbor thought he was great because he pointed a gun at my other neighbor, I'd think he was sick.
Crap-heads think America is great because god is on our side. These people have my pity because they're more often than not going to hell even by their own standards - killing in the name of god indeed.
Crap-heads think that if you disagree with American policies that you're against America. The reason the founding fathers were so frightened of the general public ever getting any real power was because even they who were educated formally and spent hours in rigorous debate still made mistakes. People who don't even know how to debate would lead government like a horde of crap-heads managing to idiot their way into a corner in an office shaped like an oval. I'll listen to your opinion, even if it's mal-formed and banal, but you better believe I have a right to tell it like it is when a bank-backed dynasty politician from texas cooks up a war of aggression.
I comfort myself that their way is the old way, built out of the "me" generation that was raised to believe that stuff is the same thing as happiness. Their ignorance of how hollow and contrived that mode of thinking was, literally a consumer demand created through mass psychology to derive profits from post-war surplus, was so obvious once some of them stepped outside the "box" they'd been put in, that the world almost saw a non-violent revolution of consciousness in the 60's. But, in the end, they were still the "me" generation and couldn't stick with John Lennon's vision (Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can, nothin' to kill or die for, of brotherhood of man). And those that didn't participate in this movement or were harmed by it (psychologically if not physically) just couldn't help but be mortified at the paradigm shift they sensed around them. Too bad squares are so damn good at getting promotions and being put in charge of everything.
I hope, as part of the " X "/" Y " generation to walk more, dry more clothes for free on the clothes line, grow or hunt for more of my own food, and only buy things that last a long time. I intend to have as much fun for free as possible and so be able to spend my hard earned dollars on locally or sustainably made and traded goods. When unsustainable box stores like Wal-mart fail as they inevitably will, I won't care since I won't buy goods from them and would never work for them. Meanwhile, those of us living with nature's ways (also called god's ways or science's ways, you know, using the brain that the creator blessed you with to make educated guesses about how to save yourself) can only abide, inform and hope that climate change (human caused or not) doesn't kill our crops and our livestock. And, in the end, if humanity can't rise above what we are now, those of us that aren't mired in the stuff that surrounds us won't be all that upset at seeing everything go - we'll know that the earth will go on, life will go on, and maybe in some small way we'll be a part of that.
Keep on Truckin'.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Sunday, May 24, 2009
How I Feel About The New American Century And Where We All Fit Together In There
Collectivism is a church, or a grange, or a group of neighbors getting together in living rooms near you talking about political activism or health care.
Tomorrow's story will be about camping, anarchy, and the beauty of Alaska, but today is looking at Memorial Day.
I'm thinking about making a progressively written cookbook published live and unedited on this blogspot site. The idea is to weave the recipes into stories of past adventures, and especially cruise-line shannanigans. So stay tuned.
This year, Memorial Day really seems like the whole weekend because of an e-mail I got from a former math-tutoring student of mine. The cartoons, whose messages were essentially 'thank and remember our veterans, don't just party on memorial day' were very thought provoking. I got this sense that most people think of the military on memorial day, but I'm concerned that everyone thinks of the military in a particular way. I worry that our national consciousness completely accepts the idea that "freedom isn't free," and I believe such rhetoric going unexamined and unquestioned makes us inherently unsafe in our modern world.
Fact is, no one wants to dishonor any veteran. I'd contend, that in an ideal world, we wouldn't even dishonor prisoners, poor people, or Downs Syndrome people, as doing so serves no righteous cause other than inflating our own egos (not that it will necessarily happen, but from what I've studied, I'd say having an In-Group/Out-Group mentality, while functionally helpful to society, is one of the biggest things that holds us back as a species). Since there is no counterbalance to the people who deeply revere veterans (and I don't deny that doing so is worthwhile and moving to many people), Memorial day seems to only speak with that one voice - we don't do enough for the people who wield guns in our name. Left out of the Memorial day message is the voice of all the dead soldiers: "don't send my younger brothers and sisters off to war unless another Hitler is upon us."
What do I mean by all that? Simply this: violence begets violence; honoring soldiers without pushing against the "need" for their slaughter is just another kind of violence and injustice done to the world. Christianity is not my thing, but I seem to remember something in it about "shalt not kill." Yet, people who want to give all their problems to jesus all the time really seem just as ready to let the Flag-bearers blame everything on Saddam, or Iran, or Vietnam and Communism. As far as I can tell, their stated evidence for believing in the "enemy" usually goes no further than television heresay. God even told W. to go and kill people in the name of freedom, and of course he felt obliged to tell his country that god told him so. How many truly religious people would abhor that idea? How long before truly religious people give their piety to a god that doesn't command them to kill and conquer for freedom and country? Not long I hope.
If you take a step back from yourself, it is interesting to look at Collectivism and Individualism and what type of people such societies create. Individualism ascribes a person's priorities automatically into the self-and-related category. As long as we all live by fair laws and wait our turn, all the people in an Individualist country may proceed to consider themselves similar or different from everyone else as they see fit. Given the freedom to make that choice, most people tend to believe they are different from everyone else, since making that cage of uniqueness and cutting yourself off from everybody is cool in the U.S. and being the odd man out is everyone's secret indulgence. Being a sheep is worth deep ridicule in this country, even while our pastures grow denser and denser populated with people unwilling to examine the dischordant values they espouse (like that the ten commandments should be stamped on courthouses where we shalt sentence to kill via lethal injection). I don't claim to hate sheepdom for myself. In fact, I wish more people grazed at the pastures where evolved forage is found - humanity is capable of so much more than instant gratification and entertainment, the crowning achievements of Capitalism.
Whereas all that may apply to Individualist societies such as where we live, Collectivist societies are a different ball game. In a place like China, if you claim a religion makes you different, better, or more special than everyone else, you're given a one-way ticket to jail or worse. Though the punishments and restrictions on such activity may lessen as the execution of such non-collectivist ideas becomes less and less necessary to maintain the status-quo (and since executions tend to cause revolutions), in the end we see that China's entire population, through their ancestry, has been naturally selected to believe the doctrines behind such punishments. Just like the death penalty here, enough people believe with their hearts that the State has a right to take life, that even those who abhor such punishment rarely use the argument that the State should generally not be an agent that takes human lives. That argument simply isn't effective in persuading people here, just as saying the State shouldn't have the right to dictate belief systems isn't an effective argument to persuade people there.
But, a unique strength lies in a Collectivist society that America will have to figure out how to match if we're to avoid being overwhelmed in the future: any Chinese is far more willing to act for the greater good of society as a whole than Americans are. When financial crisis or disease or any other interruption of our daily order arrives, which society do you think will be better able to cope? The society where an individual believes themselves to be roughly equal to everyone else, or a society where any individual courts the notion that they are somehow more important than their neighbors? A society where every day, the citizens vote to support government programs and decisions with their actions, or a society where far more than half the citizens don't care to vote?
Obviously I don't really know what the future will bring and whether our way is better than other ways or not. Obviously, we could end up having more pockets of surviving civilization after world catastrophe hits (here in the place where only the strong have survived in many places for a while now). But, my point is that competition and individualism should have limits. If you buy that then you're less likely to believe it when they tell you that National Health Care is Socialism, and saying such a thing will no longer be sufficient for you to dismiss it out of hat.
Tomorrow's story will be about camping, anarchy, and the beauty of Alaska, but today is looking at Memorial Day.
I'm thinking about making a progressively written cookbook published live and unedited on this blogspot site. The idea is to weave the recipes into stories of past adventures, and especially cruise-line shannanigans. So stay tuned.
This year, Memorial Day really seems like the whole weekend because of an e-mail I got from a former math-tutoring student of mine. The cartoons, whose messages were essentially 'thank and remember our veterans, don't just party on memorial day' were very thought provoking. I got this sense that most people think of the military on memorial day, but I'm concerned that everyone thinks of the military in a particular way. I worry that our national consciousness completely accepts the idea that "freedom isn't free," and I believe such rhetoric going unexamined and unquestioned makes us inherently unsafe in our modern world.
Fact is, no one wants to dishonor any veteran. I'd contend, that in an ideal world, we wouldn't even dishonor prisoners, poor people, or Downs Syndrome people, as doing so serves no righteous cause other than inflating our own egos (not that it will necessarily happen, but from what I've studied, I'd say having an In-Group/Out-Group mentality, while functionally helpful to society, is one of the biggest things that holds us back as a species). Since there is no counterbalance to the people who deeply revere veterans (and I don't deny that doing so is worthwhile and moving to many people), Memorial day seems to only speak with that one voice - we don't do enough for the people who wield guns in our name. Left out of the Memorial day message is the voice of all the dead soldiers: "don't send my younger brothers and sisters off to war unless another Hitler is upon us."
What do I mean by all that? Simply this: violence begets violence; honoring soldiers without pushing against the "need" for their slaughter is just another kind of violence and injustice done to the world. Christianity is not my thing, but I seem to remember something in it about "shalt not kill." Yet, people who want to give all their problems to jesus all the time really seem just as ready to let the Flag-bearers blame everything on Saddam, or Iran, or Vietnam and Communism. As far as I can tell, their stated evidence for believing in the "enemy" usually goes no further than television heresay. God even told W. to go and kill people in the name of freedom, and of course he felt obliged to tell his country that god told him so. How many truly religious people would abhor that idea? How long before truly religious people give their piety to a god that doesn't command them to kill and conquer for freedom and country? Not long I hope.
If you take a step back from yourself, it is interesting to look at Collectivism and Individualism and what type of people such societies create. Individualism ascribes a person's priorities automatically into the self-and-related category. As long as we all live by fair laws and wait our turn, all the people in an Individualist country may proceed to consider themselves similar or different from everyone else as they see fit. Given the freedom to make that choice, most people tend to believe they are different from everyone else, since making that cage of uniqueness and cutting yourself off from everybody is cool in the U.S. and being the odd man out is everyone's secret indulgence. Being a sheep is worth deep ridicule in this country, even while our pastures grow denser and denser populated with people unwilling to examine the dischordant values they espouse (like that the ten commandments should be stamped on courthouses where we shalt sentence to kill via lethal injection). I don't claim to hate sheepdom for myself. In fact, I wish more people grazed at the pastures where evolved forage is found - humanity is capable of so much more than instant gratification and entertainment, the crowning achievements of Capitalism.
Whereas all that may apply to Individualist societies such as where we live, Collectivist societies are a different ball game. In a place like China, if you claim a religion makes you different, better, or more special than everyone else, you're given a one-way ticket to jail or worse. Though the punishments and restrictions on such activity may lessen as the execution of such non-collectivist ideas becomes less and less necessary to maintain the status-quo (and since executions tend to cause revolutions), in the end we see that China's entire population, through their ancestry, has been naturally selected to believe the doctrines behind such punishments. Just like the death penalty here, enough people believe with their hearts that the State has a right to take life, that even those who abhor such punishment rarely use the argument that the State should generally not be an agent that takes human lives. That argument simply isn't effective in persuading people here, just as saying the State shouldn't have the right to dictate belief systems isn't an effective argument to persuade people there.
But, a unique strength lies in a Collectivist society that America will have to figure out how to match if we're to avoid being overwhelmed in the future: any Chinese is far more willing to act for the greater good of society as a whole than Americans are. When financial crisis or disease or any other interruption of our daily order arrives, which society do you think will be better able to cope? The society where an individual believes themselves to be roughly equal to everyone else, or a society where any individual courts the notion that they are somehow more important than their neighbors? A society where every day, the citizens vote to support government programs and decisions with their actions, or a society where far more than half the citizens don't care to vote?
Obviously I don't really know what the future will bring and whether our way is better than other ways or not. Obviously, we could end up having more pockets of surviving civilization after world catastrophe hits (here in the place where only the strong have survived in many places for a while now). But, my point is that competition and individualism should have limits. If you buy that then you're less likely to believe it when they tell you that National Health Care is Socialism, and saying such a thing will no longer be sufficient for you to dismiss it out of hat.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Obama is Not A Socialist (Though I'd Personally Be Okay With It If He Was)
Post #10
The following is a conversation thread from facebook that prompted me to write the above column as my latest reply.
It came from a random group I joined called Six Degrees, which claims to be some sort of social experiment (though I'd guess it'd be easier to prove mathematically that the theory is true or false).
Post #1
Friday, May 15, 2009
Technicalities of Gun Control in the U.S.
Reposted from www.nysun.com
Reposted from www.talkleft.com, 10th Circuit: No Individual Right to Bear Arms By Jeralyn, Section Constitution Posted on Wed.
After Supreme Court Ruling, N.Y. Gun Laws Eyed
New York City, which has some of the most restrictive and perhaps even unconstitutional gun laws in the nation, will become a flash point in the legal battle over gun control, as civil rights proponents turn their attention to enforcing the historic gun rights decision issued yesterday by the Supreme Court.
For the first time in the nation's history, the Supreme Court has recognized that the Second Amendment affords individuals the right to keep a gun at home for protection.
"The movement to end private firearms ownership in America is over," the gun rights attorney who argued the case before the federal high court, Alan Gura, told The New York Sun.
Yesterday's 5-4 ruling, which declared a Washington, D.C., handgun ban to be unconstitutional, will put advocates of municipal gun control on the defensive. Gun proponents say to expect new suits challenging handgun bans and licensing restrictions from New York to Chicago to San Francisco.
Reposted from www.talkleft.com, 10th Circuit: No Individual Right to Bear Arms By Jeralyn, Section Constitution Posted on Wed.
10th Circuit: No Individual Right to Bear Arms
By Jeralyn, Section Constitution
Posted on Wed Mar 24, 2004 at 08:53:00 PM EST
Tags: Second Amendment (all tags)
Posted on Wed Mar 24, 2004 at 08:53:00 PM EST
Tags: Second Amendment (all tags)
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals joins a growing number of circuits in holding that the Second Amendment does not confer an individual right to bear arms (pdf). For those who haven't read it lately, the Second Amendment says:
“A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
The court reaffirms prior decisions holding that:
...to prevail on a Second Amendment challenge, a party must show that possession of a firearm is in connection with participation in a “well-regulated” “state” “militia.”.... The Second Amendment does not guarantee an individual the right to keep and transport a firearm where there is no evidence that possession of that firearm was related to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia.
The Court notes that the 5th Circuit (which includes Texas) is the only circuit to hold the Second Amendment conveys an individual rather than collective right to bear arms. In the Emerson case in the 5th Circuit,
The Second Amendment “protects the right of individuals, including those not then actually a member of any militia or engaged in active military service or training, to privately possess and bear their own firearms.”
Here's where the other circuits stand:
In contrast, the Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits have adopted the most restrictive interpretation (also known as “the collective rights model”) of the Second Amendment. Under “the collective rights model,” the Second Amendment never applies to individuals but merely recognizes the state’s right to arm its militia.
[the] First, Third, Eighth, and Eleventh Circuits have all adopted a "sophisticated collective rights model.." Under this interpretation of the Second Amendment, an individual has a right to bear arms, but only in direct affiliation with a well-organized state-supported militia.
The Tenth Circuit joins the "sophisticated collective rights model" group of circuits. The Court also rejects a claim that authority to regulate the right to bear arms is reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment. It held that private citizens do not have standing to raise such a claim.
My view is in accord with that of the 5th Circuit, but we're not moving to Texas just to exercise our individual right to bear arms.
Then, in the comments section (a slightly opposing viewpoint that makes a whole heck of a lot of sense):
In the D.C. appellate opinion in Heller upholding the individual rights theory, it links reasonable regulations to public safety. See pages 53, 54.
The protections of the Second Amendment are subject to the same sort of reasonable restrictions that have been recognized as limiting, for instance, the First Amendment. See Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. 781, 791 (1989) ("[G]overnment may impose reasonable restrictions on the time, place, or manner of protected speech . . . ."). Indeed, the right to keep and bear arms--which we have explained pre-existed, and therefore was preserved by, the Second Amendment--was subject to restrictions at common law.We take these to be the sort of reasonable regulations contemplated by the drafters of the Second Amendment. For instance, it is presumably reasonable "to prohibit the carrying of weapons when under the influence of intoxicating drink, or to a church, polling place, or public assembly, or in a manner calculated to inspire terror . . . ." State v. Kerner, 107 S.E. 222, 225 (N.C. 1921). And as we have noted, the United States Supreme Court has observed that prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons does not offend the Second Amendment. Robertson, 165 U.S. at 281-82.
Similarly, the Court also appears to have held that convicted felons may be deprived of their right to keep and bear arms. See Lewis v. United States, 445 U.S. 55, 65 n.8 (1980) (citing Miller,
307 U.S. at 178). These regulations promote the government's interest in public safety consistent with our common law tradition. (my emphasis) Just as importantly, however, they do not impair the core conduct upon which the right was premised.
Another paragraph I like in the Heller opinion, p. 23
When we look at the Bill of Rights as a whole, the setting of the Second Amendment reinforces its individual nature. The Bill of Rights was almost entirely a declaration of individual rights, and the Second Amendment's inclusion therein strongly
indicates that it, too, was intended to protect personal liberty.
Reposted from www.guncite.com/journals/kmich.htmlEqually ironic, the legal community's endorsement of the exclusively state's right interpretation has actually aided the gun organizations in one way. By concentrating attention on the state's right position, the gun-owner organizations have been able to avoid the details of their own individual right position, which seems inconsistent with the kinds of gun controls the organizations have themselves endorsed.[23] In almost every state, the basic handgun legislation, including (p.210)both the prohibition on the carrying of concealed weapons and the restrictions on gun ownership by felons, minors, and incompetents,[24] stems from the Uniform Revolver Act,[25] drafted and promoted by the NRA and the now defunct United States Revolver Association in the first three decades of this century.[26] However socially desirable these and other controls may be, they raise problems for the individual right interpretation which its proponents have rarely, if ever, attempted to address. For example:
(1) Since the amendment contains no express limitation on the kind of "arms" guaranteed, why does it only protect possession of ordinary small arms (rifles, shotguns, handguns)? Why not of artillery, flame-throwers, machine guns, and so on, to the prohibition of which gun-owner groups have readily acceded?
(2) Likewise, since the amendment's guarantee does not explicitly limit gun ownership to responsible adults, why does it not proscribe the laws restricting handgun ownership by lunatics, criminals and juveniles?
(3) Since the amendment guarantees an (apparently unqualified) right to "bear" as well as to "keep" arms, how can individual right proponents endorse concealed-carry proscriptions?
(4) Conversely, if all these controls are consistent with the gun-owner groups' position, how can they contend that registration and licensing requirements are not?[27]
Terrorism As You Know It Doesn't Exist
Headline: STATE DEPARTMENT STILL SEARCHING FOR USAMA BIN LADEN - U.S. Intelligence tracking vowel movements of the worst enemy the U.S. has had since Darth Vader.
by Phillip Bunker
I found out recently that the U.S. military has a new ally in the War On Terror: Explorer Scouts being trained by the F.B.I. With plastic assault rifles, you too can send your kid to train with the F.B.I. and U.S. Border Patrol, and if you're lucky your child will discover the true rush of engaging terrorists, perhaps giving them a taste of what how exciting war can really be (satire).
Since this program is further evidence of the threat posed to the U.S. by terrorists (sarcasm), I thought I'd check up on terrorist facts in the United States using official sources and I discovered two very unusual things.
First, the State Department web site that lists all the significant terrorist events from 1961-2003 and Islam just isn't the biggest problem. I figured any terrorist strike on U.S. soil committed by foreign nationals or organizations would be listed. Islamic-based terrorism is the "threat" everyone talks about, so there should be evidence that terrorism comes from the middle East. So, first I searched for the word Islam. Only one instance of terrorism committed on U.S. soil and attributed to an Islamist group showed up:
World Trade Center Bombing, February 26, 1993: The World Trade Center in New York City was badly damaged when a car bomb planted by Islamic terrorists exploded in an underground garage. The bomb left 6 people dead and 1,000 injured. The men carrying out the attack were followers of Umar Abd al-Rahman, an Egyptian cleric who preached in the New York City area.
The next entry for terrorism that occurred on U.S. soil was that thing that happened on my Wedding Anniversary:
Conclusion: Without crunching numbers, my research indicates that you are only likely to personally encounter a terrorist attack carried out by a foreign person if: i) you travel to (in rough order of likelihood of encountering terrorism) Columbia, Isreal, Pakistan, India, Iraq, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, or Uganda, and maybe London depending on how the I.R.A. is feeling; ii) you assume dark skinned terrorists are lurking near your home (the operative part of Homeland) and treat the world accordingly - enough of us making this assumption will cause it to be true, since the world is literally what we make of it. As an example: sending drones all over the world to explode the houses of "terrorists" will eventually cause drones to send explosives back at us. Every foreign person killed by the U.S. military is considered an act of terror by someone, and if we kill too many, then we'll be in the minority - especially if we don't control all the money anymore.
Solution: Assume the media spins things so much that they border on lies of omission, and spend as much time finding your own answers with primary and factual based sources as you can. Let's not leave the media, the government, and the banks to do all the truth interpreting for us. Take back the government; the first step is making sure all your friends vote. Good luck to us all.
ps: watch "Zeitgeist, The Movie" even if you don't agree, at least you thought outside the box a little.
by Phillip Bunker
I found out recently that the U.S. military has a new ally in the War On Terror: Explorer Scouts being trained by the F.B.I. With plastic assault rifles, you too can send your kid to train with the F.B.I. and U.S. Border Patrol, and if you're lucky your child will discover the true rush of engaging terrorists, perhaps giving them a taste of what how exciting war can really be (satire).
Since this program is further evidence of the threat posed to the U.S. by terrorists (sarcasm), I thought I'd check up on terrorist facts in the United States using official sources and I discovered two very unusual things.
First, the State Department web site that lists all the significant terrorist events from 1961-2003 and Islam just isn't the biggest problem. I figured any terrorist strike on U.S. soil committed by foreign nationals or organizations would be listed. Islamic-based terrorism is the "threat" everyone talks about, so there should be evidence that terrorism comes from the middle East. So, first I searched for the word Islam. Only one instance of terrorism committed on U.S. soil and attributed to an Islamist group showed up:
World Trade Center Bombing, February 26, 1993: The World Trade Center in New York City was badly damaged when a car bomb planted by Islamic terrorists exploded in an underground garage. The bomb left 6 people dead and 1,000 injured. The men carrying out the attack were followers of Umar Abd al-Rahman, an Egyptian cleric who preached in the New York City area.
The next entry for terrorism that occurred on U.S. soil was that thing that happened on my Wedding Anniversary:
Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Homeland, September 11, 2001: Two hijacked airliners crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Soon thereafter, the Pentagon was struck by a third hijacked plane. A fourth hijacked plane, suspected to be bound for a high-profile target in Washington, crashed into a field in southern Pennsylvania. The attacks killed 3,025 U.S. citizens and other nationals. President Bush and Cabinet officials indicated that Usama Bin Laden was the prime suspect and that they considered the United States in a state of war with international terrorism. In the aftermath of the attacks, the United States formed the Global Coalition Against Terrorism.
At first I thought, "wow, no wonder the U.S. military can't capture Osama, they've got the wrong spelling of his name." But, with a little more research, I found out that the U.S. media is the only group to use the spelling Osama. Most government agencies use the spelling Usama.
You may also notice that the title of the entry with the word Homeland in it. So first of all, I get it that you can't call it the "World Trade Center Planing." Second, I'll just say that the terrorists apparently didn't strike several selected sites in the U.S., but infact struck the Homeland of the U.S. The only other person I can think of that used that kind of rhetoric was Hitler. He also convinced the people that the French occupation of the Rhineland wasn't just a threat to strategic interests in the area, but that the Homeland was in danger from foreigners. New York is not my homeland, and if Islamic terrorists had anything to do with the planning and orchestration of 9/11 I'll eat my hat (but that's a whole other story). Oddly enough, the State Department web site doesn't mention Iraq, Islam, or even Al Queda as being responsible - nor do they quote the 9/11 commission report. Instead the entry states merely that Bush and Cabinet Officials indicated that Usama did it. Well, terrorism is as terrorism does, and it's a really good thing that the U.S. gets to decide what terrorism is, considering how much terrorism it does.
So, that's the second thing I found: there's afew terrorist incidents every year, sometimes a few more, and all but four occurred off U.S. soil from 1961-2003 (I don't know why the list ends there - is there a waiting period for the government to report official acts of terrorism, and is that waiting period no less than six years?). Of the four that did occur, one was Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols (right-wingers who must have hated Islam too), one was attributed to Islamic Jihadists (first World Trade Center bombing), one was attributed to Usama (as an assertion made by Bush with, to my knowledge, no credible proof), and the last was the mysterious Anthrax mailings - an unsolved, unclaimed, and unsubstantiated attack (unless you count Tom Daschle, John Ashcroft, television networks, and the F.B.I. as substantiation).
Anthrax Attacks, October-November 2001: On October 7 the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that investigators had detected evidence that the deadly anthrax bacterium was present in the building where a Florida man who died of anthrax on October 5 had worked. Discovery of a second anthrax case triggered a major investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The two anthrax cases were the first to appear in the United States in 25 years. Anthrax subsequently appeared in mail received by television networks in New York and by the offices in Washington of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and other members of Congress. Attorney General John Ashcroft said in a briefing on October 16, "When people send anthrax through the mail to hurt people and invoke terror, it’s a terrorist act."
Conclusion: Without crunching numbers, my research indicates that you are only likely to personally encounter a terrorist attack carried out by a foreign person if: i) you travel to (in rough order of likelihood of encountering terrorism) Columbia, Isreal, Pakistan, India, Iraq, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, or Uganda, and maybe London depending on how the I.R.A. is feeling; ii) you assume dark skinned terrorists are lurking near your home (the operative part of Homeland) and treat the world accordingly - enough of us making this assumption will cause it to be true, since the world is literally what we make of it. As an example: sending drones all over the world to explode the houses of "terrorists" will eventually cause drones to send explosives back at us. Every foreign person killed by the U.S. military is considered an act of terror by someone, and if we kill too many, then we'll be in the minority - especially if we don't control all the money anymore.
Solution: Assume the media spins things so much that they border on lies of omission, and spend as much time finding your own answers with primary and factual based sources as you can. Let's not leave the media, the government, and the banks to do all the truth interpreting for us. Take back the government; the first step is making sure all your friends vote. Good luck to us all.
ps: watch "Zeitgeist, The Movie" even if you don't agree, at least you thought outside the box a little.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Re Post: Is David Brooks That Gullible? by Aaron Pallas
FYI - If you want to see some great back and forth debate on the issue, go to the original website to see all the comments afterward.
Re-posted from www.thisweekineducation.comMay 8, 2009
Now that I have your attention … Today’s New York Times column by David Brooks touts a new study by Roland Fryer and Will Dobbie of the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) Promise Academy charter schools, two celebrated schools in Harlem. Fryer and Dobbie’s finding that the typical eighth-grader was in the 74th percentile among New York City students in mathematics leads Brooks to state that HCZ Promise Academy eliminated the black-white achievement gap. He’s so dumbstruck by this that he says it twice. Brooks takes this evidence as support for the “no excuses” model of charter schools, and, claiming that “the approach works,” challenges all cities to adopt this “remedy for the achievement gap.”
Coming on the heels of yesterday’s release of the 2009 New York State English Language Arts (ELA) results, in which the HCZ schools outperformed the citywide white average in grade 3, but were well behind the white average in grades 4, 5 and 8, skoolboy decided to drink a bit more deeply from the datastream. The figure below shows the gap between the average performance in HCZ Promise Academy and white students in New York City in ELA and math, expressed as a fraction of the standard deviation of overall performance in a given grade and year. The left side of the figure shows math performance, and the right side shows ELA performance.
It’s true that eighth-graders in 2008 scored .20 standard deviations above the citywide average for white students. But it may also be apparent that this is a very unusual pattern relative to the other data represented in this figure, all of which show continuing and sizeable advantages for white students in New York City over HCZ students. The fact that HCZ seventh-graders in 2008 were only .3 standard deviations behind white students citywide in math is a real accomplishment, and represents a shrinkage of the gap of .42 standard deviations for these students in the preceding year. However, Fryer and Dobbie, and Brooks in turn, are putting an awful lot of faith in a single data point — the remarkable increase in math scores between seventh and eighth grade for the students at HCZ who entered sixth grade in 2006. If what HCZ is doing can routinely produce a .67 standard deviation shift in math test scores in the eighth grade, that would be great. But we’re certainly not seeing an effect of that magnitude in the seventh grade. And, of course, none of this speaks to the continuing large gaps in English performance.
But here’s the kicker. In the HCZ Annual Report for the 2007-08 school year submitted to the State Education Department, data are presented on not just the state ELA and math assessments, but also the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. Those eighth-graders who kicked ass on the state math test? They didn’t do so well on the low-stakes Iowa Tests. Curiously, only 2 of the 77 eighth-graders were absent on the ITBS reading test day in June, 2008, but 20 of these 77 were absent for the ITBS math test. For the 57 students who did take the ITBS math test, HCZ reported an average Normal Curve Equivalent (NCE) score of 41, which failed to meet the school’s objective of an average NCE of 50 for a cohort of students who have completed at least two consecutive years at HCZ Promise Academy. In fact, this same cohort had a slightly higher average NCE of 42 in June, 2007.
Normal Curve Equivalents (NCE’s) range from 1 to 99, and are scaled to have a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 21.06. An NCE of 41 corresponds to roughly the 33rd percentile of the reference distribution, which for the ITBS would likely be a national sample of on-grade test-takers. Scoring at the 33rd percentile is no great success story.
How are we to make sense of this? One possibility is that the HCZ students didn’t take the Iowa tests seriously, and that their performance on that test doesn’t reflect their true mastery of eighth-grade mathematics. The HCZ Annual Report doesn’t offer this as a possibility, perhaps because it would be embarrassing to admit that students didn’t take some aspect of their schoolwork and school accountability plan seriously. But the three explanations that are offered are not compelling: the Iowa test skills were not consistently aligned with the New York State Standards and the Harcourt Curriculum used in the school; the linkage of classroom instruction to the skills tested on the Iowa test wasn’t consistent across the school year, and Iowa test prep began in February, 2008; and school staff didn’t use 2007 Iowa test results to identify areas of weaknesses for individual students and design appropriate intervention.
If proficiency in English and math are to mean anything, these skills have to be able to generalize to contexts other than a particular high-stakes state test. No college or employer is ever going to look at the New York State ELA and math exams in making judgments about who has the skills to be successful in their school or workplace. I’m going to hold off labeling the HCZ schools as the “Harlem Miracle” until there’s some additional evidence supporting the claim that these schools have placed their students on a level academic playing field with white students in New York City.
An Older Post, from my birthday about life in general
I'm eating oranges on my birthday, on my last day of vacation before the semester begins (kind of). The sun is shining a little brighter every day and I'm about ready to hang my grandfather's clock above the piano.
AK is a wonderful place full of all kinds of interesting adventures. I'm attending school at UAA, and have recently (finally) decided to major in math. Carey has a great job teaching in the anchorage school district and after years in the cooking profession, I'm ready for the steadiness and great hours (vacation too) of teaching - probably high school.
We bought a house last Spring/Summer, I spent the whole summer on a new ASC yacht (last year for that probably), and jumped right back into school. Before summer was over, Carey and I spent my two week vacation together in Juneau, ferry hopping to Petersburg for a week, then Sitka for a night (or two?). In Petersburg we were greeted by friends who took us fishing (in the rain no less). After a whole day, each of us had caught a beautiful fresh Halibut. Carey took the prize with her approx. 108 lb Halibut, which Nathan and Trinity helped us haul home and clean, eventually sending us the meat via Alaska Airlines (video of the catch is currently available on Carey's Myspace page). Petersburg is nothing if not quiet (other than fish noises). Sitka has a to-die-for restaurant - nuff said.
I like long walks on the beach and cozy campfires.
I'm taking piano lessons so I can get decent enough to play in front of people, was on the UAA debate team but have since quit that (maybe resume to a limited degree soon); I'm assistant coach to the East High DDF (debate, drama, and forensics) team which is way more hoot-hooty than I thought it would be.
We miss family and friends in the lower 48, but Anchorage has been very good for me. It's easier to find yourself when you isolate yourself a bit, but you also feel guilty for leaving other people out of your life, as much as you'd like to be around them all the time. We've made more than a couple new friends up here who we will be in contact with even if we move back to Oregon/Washington (which we plan to do in about, oh...2 more years I'd say roughly).
I've been into cooking sushi a bit, and I just got a slow cooker/crock-pot that I'll be delving into (thanks Dad). The slow cooker is some Euro- somting or another and has a two chambered insert that allows you to use it to keep two seperate buffet items hot, like a chaffing dish. Very exciting for the rag-tag get togethers we've been hosting for random (mostly teacher) friends who we invite over for holidays and poker nights and what-not. Really just an excuse to cook for people - it's hard to keep "the skills" in working polish when just cooking for Carey and me.
Alaska is fascinating, and home prices are steady (though gas prices are crazy - diesel esp. like 3.59 or some s*($, but we use regular which is about 2.3something I think, maybe 2.5). On a walk with the dog the other night, just around the block, his feet got so cold that he just wanted to stop. It must have been at least ten below zero, and I had to cajole/drag him along behind me - a very unusual position for our big black lab. The liberal talk radio station KUDO is great too. There's tons of crusty strange people who have radical takes on life - similar to Oregon, but not nearly so mellow and touchy feely. To be fair, it isn't too much different, except that Alaska is bush-country (not Bush country). Despite this, there is very little beating around the bush, and more just going straight for it. Anchorage doesn't have a very broad progressive/green community, or doesn't seem to - lots of Independent parties and an old guard of Alaskan separatists (though I'm still checking on this). Then there's the whole Palin thing...
I got a job as a Supplemental Instruction Leader (study group coordinator/leader) for a Calculus class at UAA. I'm excited to be paid to go to class for once - not that I'm economically motivated, but even at 9.50 an hour, the perceived value of any commodity goes up when someone starts paying you for acquiring it. I'm trying to get a job at the campus paper too, but we'll see.
Carey likes teaching and has been warming up to the debate thing. She has many loyal fans among the students owing to her high expectations, candid communication, and interpersonal enthusiasm. I think she mostly likes being the boss, but who knows. Either way, she has had many marvelous success stories credited to her name since joining with the Anchorage School District.
Buddy on the other hand is just idling until the good days coming in the latter part of this Spring, when spittle and breath vapors don't freeze to your fur moments after they hit the air. Also, his view out of our big living room windows is obstructed by a mostly permanent layer of ice coating the interior, and only melting a little bit on top when the sun blares into it for a few hours. We're in process of making giant curtains to hang in those big windows; the fabric is awesome and we can't wait to see it done. Between that and replacing the windows someday, we hope to keep our house a little warmer next winter than it has been during this cold spell.
Our favorite things lately, other than laying in the afternoon sun on the couch and dreaming about seventy degrees, have been: our organic produce box every other Wednesday from Full Circle Farms, the hoarfrost on the trees, Payday + Costco, video games, regular games, the internet, and Babylon 5 DVD's. And Buddy of course, and friends near and far. Music, art, writing, and self-guided study distract me in phases and ebbs - I am ever the undergraduate 'absent-minded professor'.
I met a man this summer fondly referred to as "Old Goat." His spanish is way better than mine and we enjoyed many conversations together; he told tales of pyrotechnics at Burning Man that he worked on, Alice in Chains Allison Krauss and a slew of 70's psychadelic rock band members he's known or ran security for, and long yarns about the Bohemian struggles of the formerly unpopular borough of Fremont in Seattle where he's been actively involved since the Seventies. -except when he was living in Mexico which is a whole other story.
All things being equal, Carey is well and I am well. The glasses are half full and progress is being made. We're dreaming of some kids and a hobby farm in the Coastal or Cascade regions of Oregon, Washington, (Northern California...Italy...Vancouver...)
Well, even though there's many other wizard things to discuss, I'm going to get moving here - it's getting cold even in my pajamas.
AK is a wonderful place full of all kinds of interesting adventures. I'm attending school at UAA, and have recently (finally) decided to major in math. Carey has a great job teaching in the anchorage school district and after years in the cooking profession, I'm ready for the steadiness and great hours (vacation too) of teaching - probably high school.
We bought a house last Spring/Summer, I spent the whole summer on a new ASC yacht (last year for that probably), and jumped right back into school. Before summer was over, Carey and I spent my two week vacation together in Juneau, ferry hopping to Petersburg for a week, then Sitka for a night (or two?). In Petersburg we were greeted by friends who took us fishing (in the rain no less). After a whole day, each of us had caught a beautiful fresh Halibut. Carey took the prize with her approx. 108 lb Halibut, which Nathan and Trinity helped us haul home and clean, eventually sending us the meat via Alaska Airlines (video of the catch is currently available on Carey's Myspace page). Petersburg is nothing if not quiet (other than fish noises). Sitka has a to-die-for restaurant - nuff said.
I like long walks on the beach and cozy campfires.
I'm taking piano lessons so I can get decent enough to play in front of people, was on the UAA debate team but have since quit that (maybe resume to a limited degree soon); I'm assistant coach to the East High DDF (debate, drama, and forensics) team which is way more hoot-hooty than I thought it would be.
We miss family and friends in the lower 48, but Anchorage has been very good for me. It's easier to find yourself when you isolate yourself a bit, but you also feel guilty for leaving other people out of your life, as much as you'd like to be around them all the time. We've made more than a couple new friends up here who we will be in contact with even if we move back to Oregon/Washington (which we plan to do in about, oh...2 more years I'd say roughly).
I've been into cooking sushi a bit, and I just got a slow cooker/crock-pot that I'll be delving into (thanks Dad). The slow cooker is some Euro- somting or another and has a two chambered insert that allows you to use it to keep two seperate buffet items hot, like a chaffing dish. Very exciting for the rag-tag get togethers we've been hosting for random (mostly teacher) friends who we invite over for holidays and poker nights and what-not. Really just an excuse to cook for people - it's hard to keep "the skills" in working polish when just cooking for Carey and me.
Alaska is fascinating, and home prices are steady (though gas prices are crazy - diesel esp. like 3.59 or some s*($, but we use regular which is about 2.3something I think, maybe 2.5). On a walk with the dog the other night, just around the block, his feet got so cold that he just wanted to stop. It must have been at least ten below zero, and I had to cajole/drag him along behind me - a very unusual position for our big black lab. The liberal talk radio station KUDO is great too. There's tons of crusty strange people who have radical takes on life - similar to Oregon, but not nearly so mellow and touchy feely. To be fair, it isn't too much different, except that Alaska is bush-country (not Bush country). Despite this, there is very little beating around the bush, and more just going straight for it. Anchorage doesn't have a very broad progressive/green community, or doesn't seem to - lots of Independent parties and an old guard of Alaskan separatists (though I'm still checking on this). Then there's the whole Palin thing...
I got a job as a Supplemental Instruction Leader (study group coordinator/leader) for a Calculus class at UAA. I'm excited to be paid to go to class for once - not that I'm economically motivated, but even at 9.50 an hour, the perceived value of any commodity goes up when someone starts paying you for acquiring it. I'm trying to get a job at the campus paper too, but we'll see.
Carey likes teaching and has been warming up to the debate thing. She has many loyal fans among the students owing to her high expectations, candid communication, and interpersonal enthusiasm. I think she mostly likes being the boss, but who knows. Either way, she has had many marvelous success stories credited to her name since joining with the Anchorage School District.
Buddy on the other hand is just idling until the good days coming in the latter part of this Spring, when spittle and breath vapors don't freeze to your fur moments after they hit the air. Also, his view out of our big living room windows is obstructed by a mostly permanent layer of ice coating the interior, and only melting a little bit on top when the sun blares into it for a few hours. We're in process of making giant curtains to hang in those big windows; the fabric is awesome and we can't wait to see it done. Between that and replacing the windows someday, we hope to keep our house a little warmer next winter than it has been during this cold spell.
Our favorite things lately, other than laying in the afternoon sun on the couch and dreaming about seventy degrees, have been: our organic produce box every other Wednesday from Full Circle Farms, the hoarfrost on the trees, Payday + Costco, video games, regular games, the internet, and Babylon 5 DVD's. And Buddy of course, and friends near and far. Music, art, writing, and self-guided study distract me in phases and ebbs - I am ever the undergraduate 'absent-minded professor'.
I met a man this summer fondly referred to as "Old Goat." His spanish is way better than mine and we enjoyed many conversations together; he told tales of pyrotechnics at Burning Man that he worked on, Alice in Chains Allison Krauss and a slew of 70's psychadelic rock band members he's known or ran security for, and long yarns about the Bohemian struggles of the formerly unpopular borough of Fremont in Seattle where he's been actively involved since the Seventies. -except when he was living in Mexico which is a whole other story.
All things being equal, Carey is well and I am well. The glasses are half full and progress is being made. We're dreaming of some kids and a hobby farm in the Coastal or Cascade regions of Oregon, Washington, (Northern California...Italy...Vancouver...)
Well, even though there's many other wizard things to discuss, I'm going to get moving here - it's getting cold even in my pajamas.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Beginning Thoughts For Summer Blogging: A Super-String Stream of Consciousness
I'm 30. Guilty as charged of using too many parentheses.
Currently watching Zeitgeist, The Movie, though with a dubious eye that Eris would be proud of. Anyone thinking of revolution or atheism/agnosticism should check it out. It's like Pink Floyd meets Fahrenheit 9/11.
I'm saddened by the apparent failure of the local morning and afternoon liberal talk radio shows on KUDO 1080. I will miss all the interesting conversations, though I'm glad a garage transmission is still going on at another frequency (two frequencies?). And congratulations to Jonathon Teeters for making Organizing For America happen in Anchorage and beyond.
I'm okay with the idea that Bush supporters, tea baggers, and anti-tax anti-christ's (which is a term I use to reference the true meaning of Christ - "the annointed one", as in: the annointed one who we all annointed by voting him and his administration and family into the white house, even though saying such a thing is traditionally called blasphemy) are stubborn and busy detractors of Obama; such people make sure we aren't lax in our efforts to change things, even though they chaffe our sensibilities by suggesting grassroots efforts of reform amount to masses of obedient sheep who deserve to be burned for their betrayal of non-thinking America. No leader can or should command the idolatry of 100% of a population - doing so would violate the principles of evolution and surely lead to the demise of all (which stems from the nature of variation - if everyone is the same, then someday we'll all make the same mistake or catch the same disease, as lemmings to time's slaughter). Instead, the purplish map of the U.S. has been remade by thousands of people switching sides (of which there are two in this two-dimensional political salience cross of red and blue). These new converts to progressivism are stubbing along on tender new feet towards a simple, archetypal goal: ushering in a new age, where the status quo has no place. I have my version of what the new age should be and you have yours. I'm okay with that difference because we have all the time in the world to talk about it and get it right. Plus, life has taught me that even at my best, I'm not completely right about just about anything. Life has also taught me that neither are you.
I'm also okay with the idea that you, as detractors, aren't going to help be the primary force in shifting the dialogue from old left and right to new left and right (and green and orange...the old ways enlightened by the yellow from the sun, which is the sun of superman's powers...). In the game of Row-sham-beau, you chose the rock of tradition and we chose the paper of the Law. The Law protects gay partners who would be at the bedside of their only friend in the world when they faced death in a hospital bed. The Law seeks to prevent World War II from happening again by holding the Geneva Conventions up above the flood plain of self-interest that destroyed the lives of so many Prisoners of War throughout history. The Law is the promised land of religious tolerance that so many Immigrants have needed (backwards and contrary to this as the Plymouth Rock Pilgrims might have been, they nevertheless hoped for and sought the sanctuary that our First Amendment promises). The Law that protects your ability to speak out against abortion and pursue that happiness of yours, is the very same Law that says freedoms will be maximized. It is only the Law that makes a Supreme Court decision from many years ago about how the State can mandate morality or not in your reproductive decisions mean ANYTHING AT ALL to us today. The bulk of human history shows that Kings have an unacceptable average rate of raping their subjects in the name of eliminating potential enemies and spreading superior bloodlines - thank god we are free of that tyranny. Roe vs. Wade protects U.S. citizens from the One Child policy that China has so horrifically cast on billions of human beings (even though they may have saved the planet by doing so when they did). If, god forbid, China were to conquer the U.S., pro-choice and anti-choice alike would march together to keep State Laws off our bodies. Meanwhile, short of banning abortion in all cases, I'm more than happy to donate some of my earnings through government taxes in order to attempt to collectively solve the problem of unwanted pregnancies. (How many times does it take, telling a teenager to wait, and if you just can't wait then you'll be in big trouble if you don't put on that Jimmy-Hat, before the message finally sinks in and they do it? 42 times? Give me a room full of teenage boys, a power point show, and Carte Blanche to swear and scare the bejesus out of them, and I'll show you a room full of teenage boys frightened of what will happen to them if they go unprotected into unfamiliar territory).
I love the fact that you, as detractors (not the readers - your're awesome) of the much-vaunted "Change" we're all talking about, totally disagree with me. I love you for it, since I know it isn't easy to disagree with practically everything being talked about. I was there myself for many years recently (still am in many ways), and some people who have really high moral ideals for this nation have actually been there in a place of screaming minority for the entire history of this country. And, were they to live forever, some tiny little minority of people would always rail against the status quo, whatever it may be, because nothing is ever perfect. Justice, fairness, wisdom, civilization; these are all words that are redefined every moment, every year, every era, and every age as the world stage keeps changing. So, you disagree with me, and refuse to engage the new dialogue, and are continuing to say and believe things that are old irrelevant ideas - fear of the "enemy", mistrust of a government purported to be Of, By, and For the people, blindness to out of control military expenditures - old and comfortable ideas for you, old and detestable for me. So you hate the idea of political correctness, and can only see socialism as an evil thing from rhetoric past. So you mock and deride those who pledge to support new collectivist ideas. I'm sorry you don't see how zealous individualism has enrichened our lifestyles while destroying our way of life, but enough of us have reached that conclusion now that we're going to act on it, whether you like it or not. We won't take away anything you have right now. We won't stop you from doing anything. We just want to stop borrowing time, money, resources, and clean air from our great-grandchildren. This country must live within it's means ASAP, but if all you really want to do is Jet-ski, you're more than welcome to continue.
The actions I take as a progressive will be voting, organizing, writing, talking, and most of all, critically thinking about our collective problems and our collective solutions. I apologize in advance if I fail in any of these duties, or if you are harmed in my haste to correct injustices.
Forgive me for I am being long winded, but such length of commentary is inevitable in the age of exponential information; with so damn much to talk about, it's no wonder reading is getting so boring. Then again, maybe that is just the effect of constant comparison to video. Crash! Boom! Fanfare! Hardly could the meditative imagination of books compare with the flickering lights in the long run.
Speaking of which, there was a great great book I once read called "Four Arguements For the Elimination of Television." I'd dare to say that if it wasn't already in the book, that T.V. will be the demise of literature should be Arguement Number Five. T.V. is like crack for the somnambulant mind. Like in Idiocracy, only unreasonable people truly believe the world should conform to their particular worldview, are willing to let the world come to them, and somehow this ends up empowering idiots to breed like rabbits (hence, since the human race is numbering billions, we're clearly an unreasonable people). But, I try to take the magnanimous view: bunnies are cute and fuzzy, and all they need is the right environment to educate them enough to prevent their own demise. Really all the heaviest of the heavy breeders need is some lessons in Biology and Comparative Religions/Comparative Ethics from the right teacher. As always, a little bit of algebra can show why exponential population growth invariably leads to chaos, destruction, and basically Armageddon for life as we know it.
Oh, and all this recession business: don't panic. As human beings, all we have to do is make sure everyone gets fed, watered and sheltered (which by the way, we are more than capable of doing without any money whatsoever if we actually put our minds to it and got to work on it) and everything else will take care of itself. Stuff is just stuff, and economies are just the numbers of stuff that stuff is happening to which affect your ability to have stuff, do stuff, and make more stuff. So stuff the stuff, focus on the bare essential stuff, and stuff will take care of itself. Just don't panic; you don't have to be afraid of losing your stuff.
Currently reading the Universal History of Numbers. It is a forbiddingly detailed tome of the simplest of all things: counting. Meanwhile, Carey is counting the days until summer break releases her from work bondage, albeit noble work.
At this point, anything more than one or two days might seem practically uncountable to a pre-historian and defaults to the next natural counting stage after one or two; without being able to say one or two weeks, solely relying on days, everything larger than the first one or two might just seem as "many" and indistinguishable from each other to a human born of a culture before this last 1% of Human History; before language regimented math theory in the decimal system (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, and last but ironically not least 0).
While the awesome power of counting hundreds and millions of years (or dollars, or cars, or glasses of orange juice) we can count gives us a mental capacity to absorb at least the mere order of Human History (if not it's complexity of content), I find it interesting to ponder how qualitatively different today's humans feel about "the meaning of life" when our approach to infinity is so much less mysterious than that of our ancestors. We have a logical definition for infinity, whereas they viewed the cosmos through the naked eye and unindoctrinated heart. Did they take it for granted that the sun would rise and set every day? Does the fact that our scientists inform our culture that the sun will burn on for billions of years - more significantly, that we have a number for that - change the experience of watching a sunrise?
Is that why Douglas Adams was so brilliant for suggesting that the answer to the question of "Life, the Universe, and Everything" is 42? Does he suggest that the answer is meaningless without understanding the question, and simultaneously point out how quantitative precision trades off with qualitative vision in a human mind which graduates towards one direction or the other as the mind develops in childhood? Were Neanderthals spiritual geniuses who eventually became shamans?
Lastly, I'll add to that last little idea by saying this: if we can count precisely the number of people in the world who don't have food, shelter, or water (let alone liberty and the pursuit of happiness that the Great Statue on Liberty Island holds her torch as a beacon of), does that precise count somehow lessen the qualitative psychological understanding and feeling of the sheer volume of suffering that such a precise number may represent? Are we committing a sin in the artificial intelligence that we recieve in the form of numbers, when significant dimensions of the data - the qualitative meaning of it - are lost by and large by a T.V. audience nation? Is FOX and everyone else morally detestable for purporting to hold valuable information that satifies our duty to understand what is going on in the world, or is the failure of most modern media just another way of reminding us to be vigilant in our attention to detail and our active pursuit of the truth, constantly showing us where we are weakest and how to proceed to victory by the items they omit from their broadcast messages?
Here is a brief message I wrote to President B.H.O. and Co. regarding www.healthreform.gov.
The question they ask is "Why do we need health reform this year?"
If you need to be convinced of WHY we need health reform, then you probably also think Saddam had something to do with 9/11 and there is no hope for you or your children in the long run. Sorry.
Far more important is what to do about health care reform, and health and well-being reform. The latter is a matter of the public being informed of it's own self-interest through education and a comprehensive locally sustainable farm movement across the whole country (indeed the world). Unfortunately, status quo agribusiness will block any political effort through lobbying. Ergo, we just need to teach the kids how to garden, and rely on age-old, mostly free techniques (call it blood, sweat, and tears, or call it the "old-fashioned" way). At the very least, make sure every child attending school in America receives a fresh, nutritious, and delicious breakfast and lunch (otherwise most of the money poured into public education is truly wasted on minds that can't learn too good).
The Health Care System, being tied to our semi-free market economy is pretty simple to fix (again, if it weren't for the lobbyists and pig-headed behaviors of politicians - no offense). Subsidize medical school loans for med students, but only in the broadest of specialization fields - General Practice, etc. Additionally, provide federal grant money to attend college for doctors and nurses who take lower paying clinical and relief work (encouraging rewarding careers as altruistic healers of people who normally drive up the cost of the system, and increasing the number of doctors which is key to making medicine cheaper - they can live without the Beemer's and the country clubs will lower their prices if membership gets too low).
Lastly and most importantly, we must do whatever it takes to make sure that ninety-nine cents of every dollar spent on health care is used to pay for the actual health care received, not the administration and profit-taking thereof, otherwise everyone is screwed - even rich people. Health Care is a right. Some different ways to accomplish this would be: open a can of Anti-Trust Whuppin' on insurance, drug, and medical care companies, pass that law you've been talking about making it illegal to deny coverage for prior conditions, mandate collective bargaining for everything from drugs to MRI's and cancer treatments (sorry private industry, you've abused us so long that the system won't correct itself until we abuse you for a little while - trust me, this little shot in the arm won't hurt a bit *wink); basically just give the people who make profit on health care seem just as bad as war-profiteers (which people used to care about) and give the industry hell until it covers everyone reasonably or until they fail. If the private sector cannot provide health insurance on these terms, then capitalism has failed us in that arena and another solution must be found. Technically, if we found ourselves in such a tight spot where capitalism didn't do the job, we might try asking, say...ANY OTHER INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRY IN THE WORLD to see how they do it. At that point, no matter what they say, it will be a better solution than anything the free-market can produce.
Alternately, you could quit spending money on war and arming the world through weapon sales. Then we could afford all kinds of social reforms that would actually help the American Dream thrive, instead of ever increasing the number of depressed and violent Americans. Despite all evidence to the contrary, if we stop building bombs, we won't all die of terrorism (a little bird told me that ridding our homeland of weapons of mass destruction will actually prevent terrorism on a global scale - you figure that out for yourself.)
Good luck with your task. I hope you are a far better person than I to be able to solve such a dilemma.
Sincerely and audaciously-hopefully,
Phillip K. Bunker
Anchorage, AK
Currently watching Zeitgeist, The Movie, though with a dubious eye that Eris would be proud of. Anyone thinking of revolution or atheism/agnosticism should check it out. It's like Pink Floyd meets Fahrenheit 9/11.
I'm saddened by the apparent failure of the local morning and afternoon liberal talk radio shows on KUDO 1080. I will miss all the interesting conversations, though I'm glad a garage transmission is still going on at another frequency (two frequencies?). And congratulations to Jonathon Teeters for making Organizing For America happen in Anchorage and beyond.
I'm okay with the idea that Bush supporters, tea baggers, and anti-tax anti-christ's (which is a term I use to reference the true meaning of Christ - "the annointed one", as in: the annointed one who we all annointed by voting him and his administration and family into the white house, even though saying such a thing is traditionally called blasphemy) are stubborn and busy detractors of Obama; such people make sure we aren't lax in our efforts to change things, even though they chaffe our sensibilities by suggesting grassroots efforts of reform amount to masses of obedient sheep who deserve to be burned for their betrayal of non-thinking America. No leader can or should command the idolatry of 100% of a population - doing so would violate the principles of evolution and surely lead to the demise of all (which stems from the nature of variation - if everyone is the same, then someday we'll all make the same mistake or catch the same disease, as lemmings to time's slaughter). Instead, the purplish map of the U.S. has been remade by thousands of people switching sides (of which there are two in this two-dimensional political salience cross of red and blue). These new converts to progressivism are stubbing along on tender new feet towards a simple, archetypal goal: ushering in a new age, where the status quo has no place. I have my version of what the new age should be and you have yours. I'm okay with that difference because we have all the time in the world to talk about it and get it right. Plus, life has taught me that even at my best, I'm not completely right about just about anything. Life has also taught me that neither are you.
I'm also okay with the idea that you, as detractors, aren't going to help be the primary force in shifting the dialogue from old left and right to new left and right (and green and orange...the old ways enlightened by the yellow from the sun, which is the sun of superman's powers...). In the game of Row-sham-beau, you chose the rock of tradition and we chose the paper of the Law. The Law protects gay partners who would be at the bedside of their only friend in the world when they faced death in a hospital bed. The Law seeks to prevent World War II from happening again by holding the Geneva Conventions up above the flood plain of self-interest that destroyed the lives of so many Prisoners of War throughout history. The Law is the promised land of religious tolerance that so many Immigrants have needed (backwards and contrary to this as the Plymouth Rock Pilgrims might have been, they nevertheless hoped for and sought the sanctuary that our First Amendment promises). The Law that protects your ability to speak out against abortion and pursue that happiness of yours, is the very same Law that says freedoms will be maximized. It is only the Law that makes a Supreme Court decision from many years ago about how the State can mandate morality or not in your reproductive decisions mean ANYTHING AT ALL to us today. The bulk of human history shows that Kings have an unacceptable average rate of raping their subjects in the name of eliminating potential enemies and spreading superior bloodlines - thank god we are free of that tyranny. Roe vs. Wade protects U.S. citizens from the One Child policy that China has so horrifically cast on billions of human beings (even though they may have saved the planet by doing so when they did). If, god forbid, China were to conquer the U.S., pro-choice and anti-choice alike would march together to keep State Laws off our bodies. Meanwhile, short of banning abortion in all cases, I'm more than happy to donate some of my earnings through government taxes in order to attempt to collectively solve the problem of unwanted pregnancies. (How many times does it take, telling a teenager to wait, and if you just can't wait then you'll be in big trouble if you don't put on that Jimmy-Hat, before the message finally sinks in and they do it? 42 times? Give me a room full of teenage boys, a power point show, and Carte Blanche to swear and scare the bejesus out of them, and I'll show you a room full of teenage boys frightened of what will happen to them if they go unprotected into unfamiliar territory).
I love the fact that you, as detractors (not the readers - your're awesome) of the much-vaunted "Change" we're all talking about, totally disagree with me. I love you for it, since I know it isn't easy to disagree with practically everything being talked about. I was there myself for many years recently (still am in many ways), and some people who have really high moral ideals for this nation have actually been there in a place of screaming minority for the entire history of this country. And, were they to live forever, some tiny little minority of people would always rail against the status quo, whatever it may be, because nothing is ever perfect. Justice, fairness, wisdom, civilization; these are all words that are redefined every moment, every year, every era, and every age as the world stage keeps changing. So, you disagree with me, and refuse to engage the new dialogue, and are continuing to say and believe things that are old irrelevant ideas - fear of the "enemy", mistrust of a government purported to be Of, By, and For the people, blindness to out of control military expenditures - old and comfortable ideas for you, old and detestable for me. So you hate the idea of political correctness, and can only see socialism as an evil thing from rhetoric past. So you mock and deride those who pledge to support new collectivist ideas. I'm sorry you don't see how zealous individualism has enrichened our lifestyles while destroying our way of life, but enough of us have reached that conclusion now that we're going to act on it, whether you like it or not. We won't take away anything you have right now. We won't stop you from doing anything. We just want to stop borrowing time, money, resources, and clean air from our great-grandchildren. This country must live within it's means ASAP, but if all you really want to do is Jet-ski, you're more than welcome to continue.
The actions I take as a progressive will be voting, organizing, writing, talking, and most of all, critically thinking about our collective problems and our collective solutions. I apologize in advance if I fail in any of these duties, or if you are harmed in my haste to correct injustices.
Forgive me for I am being long winded, but such length of commentary is inevitable in the age of exponential information; with so damn much to talk about, it's no wonder reading is getting so boring. Then again, maybe that is just the effect of constant comparison to video. Crash! Boom! Fanfare! Hardly could the meditative imagination of books compare with the flickering lights in the long run.
Speaking of which, there was a great great book I once read called "Four Arguements For the Elimination of Television." I'd dare to say that if it wasn't already in the book, that T.V. will be the demise of literature should be Arguement Number Five. T.V. is like crack for the somnambulant mind. Like in Idiocracy, only unreasonable people truly believe the world should conform to their particular worldview, are willing to let the world come to them, and somehow this ends up empowering idiots to breed like rabbits (hence, since the human race is numbering billions, we're clearly an unreasonable people). But, I try to take the magnanimous view: bunnies are cute and fuzzy, and all they need is the right environment to educate them enough to prevent their own demise. Really all the heaviest of the heavy breeders need is some lessons in Biology and Comparative Religions/Comparative Ethics from the right teacher. As always, a little bit of algebra can show why exponential population growth invariably leads to chaos, destruction, and basically Armageddon for life as we know it.
Oh, and all this recession business: don't panic. As human beings, all we have to do is make sure everyone gets fed, watered and sheltered (which by the way, we are more than capable of doing without any money whatsoever if we actually put our minds to it and got to work on it) and everything else will take care of itself. Stuff is just stuff, and economies are just the numbers of stuff that stuff is happening to which affect your ability to have stuff, do stuff, and make more stuff. So stuff the stuff, focus on the bare essential stuff, and stuff will take care of itself. Just don't panic; you don't have to be afraid of losing your stuff.
Currently reading the Universal History of Numbers. It is a forbiddingly detailed tome of the simplest of all things: counting. Meanwhile, Carey is counting the days until summer break releases her from work bondage, albeit noble work.
At this point, anything more than one or two days might seem practically uncountable to a pre-historian and defaults to the next natural counting stage after one or two; without being able to say one or two weeks, solely relying on days, everything larger than the first one or two might just seem as "many" and indistinguishable from each other to a human born of a culture before this last 1% of Human History; before language regimented math theory in the decimal system (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, and last but ironically not least 0).
While the awesome power of counting hundreds and millions of years (or dollars, or cars, or glasses of orange juice) we can count gives us a mental capacity to absorb at least the mere order of Human History (if not it's complexity of content), I find it interesting to ponder how qualitatively different today's humans feel about "the meaning of life" when our approach to infinity is so much less mysterious than that of our ancestors. We have a logical definition for infinity, whereas they viewed the cosmos through the naked eye and unindoctrinated heart. Did they take it for granted that the sun would rise and set every day? Does the fact that our scientists inform our culture that the sun will burn on for billions of years - more significantly, that we have a number for that - change the experience of watching a sunrise?
Is that why Douglas Adams was so brilliant for suggesting that the answer to the question of "Life, the Universe, and Everything" is 42? Does he suggest that the answer is meaningless without understanding the question, and simultaneously point out how quantitative precision trades off with qualitative vision in a human mind which graduates towards one direction or the other as the mind develops in childhood? Were Neanderthals spiritual geniuses who eventually became shamans?
Lastly, I'll add to that last little idea by saying this: if we can count precisely the number of people in the world who don't have food, shelter, or water (let alone liberty and the pursuit of happiness that the Great Statue on Liberty Island holds her torch as a beacon of), does that precise count somehow lessen the qualitative psychological understanding and feeling of the sheer volume of suffering that such a precise number may represent? Are we committing a sin in the artificial intelligence that we recieve in the form of numbers, when significant dimensions of the data - the qualitative meaning of it - are lost by and large by a T.V. audience nation? Is FOX and everyone else morally detestable for purporting to hold valuable information that satifies our duty to understand what is going on in the world, or is the failure of most modern media just another way of reminding us to be vigilant in our attention to detail and our active pursuit of the truth, constantly showing us where we are weakest and how to proceed to victory by the items they omit from their broadcast messages?
Here is a brief message I wrote to President B.H.O. and Co. regarding www.healthreform.gov.
The question they ask is "Why do we need health reform this year?"
If you need to be convinced of WHY we need health reform, then you probably also think Saddam had something to do with 9/11 and there is no hope for you or your children in the long run. Sorry.
Far more important is what to do about health care reform, and health and well-being reform. The latter is a matter of the public being informed of it's own self-interest through education and a comprehensive locally sustainable farm movement across the whole country (indeed the world). Unfortunately, status quo agribusiness will block any political effort through lobbying. Ergo, we just need to teach the kids how to garden, and rely on age-old, mostly free techniques (call it blood, sweat, and tears, or call it the "old-fashioned" way). At the very least, make sure every child attending school in America receives a fresh, nutritious, and delicious breakfast and lunch (otherwise most of the money poured into public education is truly wasted on minds that can't learn too good).
The Health Care System, being tied to our semi-free market economy is pretty simple to fix (again, if it weren't for the lobbyists and pig-headed behaviors of politicians - no offense). Subsidize medical school loans for med students, but only in the broadest of specialization fields - General Practice, etc. Additionally, provide federal grant money to attend college for doctors and nurses who take lower paying clinical and relief work (encouraging rewarding careers as altruistic healers of people who normally drive up the cost of the system, and increasing the number of doctors which is key to making medicine cheaper - they can live without the Beemer's and the country clubs will lower their prices if membership gets too low).
Lastly and most importantly, we must do whatever it takes to make sure that ninety-nine cents of every dollar spent on health care is used to pay for the actual health care received, not the administration and profit-taking thereof, otherwise everyone is screwed - even rich people. Health Care is a right. Some different ways to accomplish this would be: open a can of Anti-Trust Whuppin' on insurance, drug, and medical care companies, pass that law you've been talking about making it illegal to deny coverage for prior conditions, mandate collective bargaining for everything from drugs to MRI's and cancer treatments (sorry private industry, you've abused us so long that the system won't correct itself until we abuse you for a little while - trust me, this little shot in the arm won't hurt a bit *wink); basically just give the people who make profit on health care seem just as bad as war-profiteers (which people used to care about) and give the industry hell until it covers everyone reasonably or until they fail. If the private sector cannot provide health insurance on these terms, then capitalism has failed us in that arena and another solution must be found. Technically, if we found ourselves in such a tight spot where capitalism didn't do the job, we might try asking, say...ANY OTHER INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRY IN THE WORLD to see how they do it. At that point, no matter what they say, it will be a better solution than anything the free-market can produce.
Alternately, you could quit spending money on war and arming the world through weapon sales. Then we could afford all kinds of social reforms that would actually help the American Dream thrive, instead of ever increasing the number of depressed and violent Americans. Despite all evidence to the contrary, if we stop building bombs, we won't all die of terrorism (a little bird told me that ridding our homeland of weapons of mass destruction will actually prevent terrorism on a global scale - you figure that out for yourself.)
Good luck with your task. I hope you are a far better person than I to be able to solve such a dilemma.
Sincerely and audaciously-hopefully,
Phillip K. Bunker
Anchorage, AK
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