The Locus of Responsibility

Bubblehead:

It is comforting to know that you are ever vigilant and protecting viewers from Morialekafa’s overgeneralizations, exaggerations, and carelessness. Of course one can’t blame all of South Dakota for the mindlessness of one of its legislators. Nor can you blame all Arizonians for the idiocy of their legislators, all of Wisconsin voters for the evil of their Governor, all of Florida for the stupidity of their Governor, or all U.S. voters for the behavior of their Presidents. But you do raise an interesting question; just where is the locus of responsibility to be found?

Taking South Dakota for an example, it does not seem reasonable to me that this legislator, whoever he/she is, would have suggested legalizing the murder of abortion doctors just on his/her own. He/she must have had enough votes to get elected to office. Perhaps those who voted were not aware of what they were voting for as it’s unlikely the person campaigned on murdering abortion doctors. But they must have known the candidate was a conservative, and must also have known he/she was probably virulently anti-abortion. The bill must have been introduced with at least the expectation of some support. There must have been a climate of belief in South Dakota that allowed such a fantastic bill to even be considered. So where does the responsibility lie? With the lone legislator, only those who voted for him/her, the leader of the branch of government that allowed the bill to be put forward, the Governor of the state, or the people in general who for whatever reason allowed this person to be elected? It is pretty difficult to pin the responsibility down in a case like this.

In some cases it might be possible to narrow down the possibilities, at least somewhat. Take Wisconsin, for example. It is obvious (I think) that voters of that state did not expect their newly elected Governor to almost immediately attempt to take away the right of workers to engage in union activities. Even here, however, the Governor has the support of the Republican Congress (sans Democrats) that must have known and even promoted this draconian proposal. Republicans in Wisconsin are in the majority at the moment and only need to capture one Democrat to pass this bill. But why are Wisconsin Republicans so dedicated to breaking the unions? There is every reason to believe they are acting on behalf of corporate interests, the Koch brothers in particular. As this seems to be part of an organized effort to destroy unions in the U.S. there must be other corporations involved. Wisconsin is not the only state where anti-union procedures are taking place. In this case it is probably reasonable to conclude that the locus of responsibility for union busting lies with our corporations that would stand to gain a great deal from getting rid of union demands. The practical responsibility for bringing this about lies mainly with the Governor and his supporters.

Were Bush and Cheney responsible for the “war” in Iraq? In this case I would say yes, they were. It is true they represented oil and other interests, but in this case they had the power to say “no” had they chosen to do so. They not only chose to invade Iraq, they even lied and schemed to do so. We know now that Bush/Cheney wanted to attack Iraq even before 9/11, and we also know that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Whether Bush/Cheney were representing oil and other interests in this case is essentially irrelevant. They and they alone had the power to do what they did. It might have been difficult for them to resist pressures to attack Iraq, but they could have done so.

It seems to me it is only when you reach the level of the Presidency, or the highest level of authority possible, that you can truly pin down responsibility, for it is only the President or the very highest CEO who enjoys virtually absolute power. It is not absolute in theory, but in practice it might as well be. President Obama, for example, could have decided not to continue the “war” in Afghanistan. He must have been under enormous pressure to continue, and he may even have believed it was the right thing to do, but he, and he alone, could have decided differently.

It seems to me the true locus of responsibility always comes back to leadership. It is true that leaders have supporters that put them in their positions of authority, but it is always the leader that has to decide how to use that authority. The Governor of Wisconsin could have said “no” to the Koch brothers and their plan to decimate the unions. He obviously decided not to do so. Obama could have said “no” to Afghanistan. Bush/Cheney could have decided against “war,” as well as torture, but did not. When you think about it, it is hard to conclude that the perilous situation we find ourselves in at the moment is not the result of failed leadership all along the way for a very long time. Why, for example, have so many species gone extinct? I would say it is because our leaders did not protect them and their environments. Why are we now confronted with failing bridges and deteriorating schools? Why are our states in such terrible financial conditions? Why do we have such a tremendous national debt? Why are so many people living in poverty? Why do so many millions of Americans lack health insurance? I would suggest that all of these things are the direct result of the wrong decisions made by our leaders. In some cases leaders may have thought they were doing the right thing but it didn’t turn out that way. I strongly suspect, however, that they more often made bad decisions for questionable reasons.

Why, we might ask, have our leaders made such poor decisions? Do we have a propensity for electing bad leaders? I think we often do, but our leaders are under tremendous pressure to satisfy special interests, and in order to get elected and stay in office they have to try to satisfy these interests. But special interests are special in that they are, indeed, special, as opposed to the general interests of all, To make matters worse, these special interests tend to share one primary characteristic, greed. There no longer exists in our country any conception of the common good. Virtually no decisions are made with the common good in mind. What makes things even worse, we have not only abandoned legislating for the common good, almost all of our legislation is the result of compromise. But as this is compromise between different special interests, two different versions of greed, rather than compromises involving the common good, nothing we do, virtually by design, can ever be in the best interest of the community at large. There is something to be said for Benevolent Dictatorships, but benevolent dictators are almost as rare as benevolent Republicans.

Throwing Caution to the Wind

Infant in Myanmore with
12 fingers, 14 toes, will
set record for polydactism.

I do not understand what Republicans are up to. I have never understood what Republicans are up to. I suspect I will never understand what Republicans are up to. In a way that’s not entirely true, I do sort of understand what they are up to, I just cannot understand why they think what they are up to is going to bring them any rewards. Remember they campaigned on creating jobs. But instead of working toward that end they have thrown all caution to the wind and are seemingly entirely focused on issues that have nothing to do with creating jobs, but are perennial Republicans wishes, namely abortion, union busting, repealing health care, pretending to want to reduce the national debt, getting rid of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and opposing everything President Obama does, trying to insure Obama will be a one term President. I find this all rather amazing and I cannot see what they hope to gain.

You might say they are not only not working on creating jobs, they are engaged in activities that will increase unemployment. The more they insist on cutting spending the more that will affect the loss of jobs. Obama wants to increase aid to education, the internet, and our infrastructure to position us to be more competitive in the rapidly changing world. Republicans are opposed to all of these aims, even going so far as to refuse money for building high-speed railroads (that other nations already have and we desperately need). They seem to hold the bizarre idea that unemployment, no unemployment benefits, no food stamps, no welfare, no government jobs, fewer teachers, police, and firemen, will somehow result in an economic recovery (of course it will increase profits for their corporate masters and the filthy rich).

The Republican obsession with trying to overturn Roe vs Wade is almost certainly a waste of time. Choice is already the law of our land, has been for years, and is favored by a majority of Americans. Trying to make it harder and harder for women to obtain legal, medical abortions, and even suggestions that abortion doctors might be legally killed, cannot benefit them in the long run. Their concerns over the cost of Medicare and Medicaid have some foundation in fact, but their trying to get rid of Social Security at the same time will surely prove to be another loser (and it is no secret they want to get rid of Social Security no matter what the facts about it are). While they pretend to want to bring down the national debt and carp incessantly about it, they have no trouble in insisting on tax breaks for the wealthiest people in the world that add billions to the debt, and they seem oblivious to the fact that repealing health care will add even further billions to the debt. It is obvious they want to bring down the debt by taking money from those least able to pay.

Union busting has always been big on the Republican agenda. Now there seems to be a coordinated attack on unions by the various Republican Governors. Wisconsin is the focus at the moment but it is not the only state that is attacking unions. Indeed, Governor Christie of New Jersey is becoming a Republican hero for his attacks on unions. Governor Walker in Wisconsin has even threatened to use the National Guard to suppress union activity. I can only assume he is totally ignorant of the history of labor unions in the U.S.

Republicans are once again threatening to shut down the government if they don’t get their way. They apparently have short memories and have forgotten what happened when Gingrich tried this. It is doubtful they will actually try to do it again, but with the large numbers of Tea Party true believers it might actually happen, a disaster of monumental proportions. About the only thing one might say about the current scene and the near future is that it is at least interesting (as well as disgusting, unsettling, unpredictable, undesirable, uncooperative, unconscionable, unreasonable, and, in fact, un-American).

It seems to be true that whatever Obama is for, Republicans are against. This now seems to have spread to include Michelle Obama. Both Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann have made snide remarks about Michelle Obama’s attempt to reduce childhood obesity. The latest has to do with her suggestion that more mothers should breastfeed as it has so many positive advantages. Palin remarked in a recent speech that maybe it was a good idea, “now that the price of milk is so high.” In 2007 Palin extolled the virtues of breastfeeding in exactly the same way Obama has, and even proclaimed a “Breastfeeding Month” (or maybe a week or something). I am not absolutely positive about this, but I do know there is no hypocrisy so vile or unreasonable or dishonest as to be off-limits for Republicans.

LKBIQ:
They want the federal government controlling Social Security like it's some kind of federal program.
George W. Bush.

TILT:
All species of sea turtles are listed as either threatened or endangered.

Mindless in Wonderland

Hungry and Out of Work? Eat a Republican!

It appears to me the United States has become a sort of strange wonderland where the more mindless among us have discovered a mandate for exercising their most outrageous ideas. Perhaps South Dakota now holds some kind of record for mindlessness. A Bill was introduced there that would change the definition of justifiable homicide to include the murder of abortion providers. Really, I’m not joking. This bill would have allowed fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and I guess even others the right to kill an abortion doctor because he/she was interfering with the life of a fetus. While there was enough outrage to make the sponsor of this bill tone it down a bit, it now appears that only the mother has the right to kill the doctor. Wow.

The abortion issue seems to have virtually taken over the platform of the Republican Party. Mike Huckabee, for example, is going to make abortion the number one focus of his campaign if he runs again for the Presidency. There is also a plan in the works that would make it impossible for women to even use their own private money for abortions or insurance that provided coverage for abortions. Interesting that many don’t think people should be told to spend money on health care, but they think it fine to tell them where they cannot spend it. More importantly, Republicans have now mounted an all-out and vicious attack on Planned Parenthood. Mike Pence, Representative from Indiana, is introducing a bill that would take away all funding for Planned Parenthood. He was inspired, apparently, by a fake videotape showing someone at Planned Parenthood advising young people how to get an abortion. As in the previous case of Acorn, this involved a fake pimp and an underage girl. The fact that this was entirely faked, and was also promptly turned over to the FBI seems to make little difference. Steve King has come out against Planned Parenthood’s “ghoulish, ghastly, and gruesome” practices, and claims they are involved in child prostitution and illegal immigration (no lie is too outrageous when it comes to abortion). It is hoped that after the exposure of the Acorn fraud, Democrats will not fall for the same scam again (don’t bet on it). Remember, abortion is completely legal in the United States and has been now for quite a long time and, as far as I know, a majority of Americans still favor choice for women over back alleys and coathangers.

Elsewhere here in wonderland we find someone in Mississippi wanting to issue license plates honoring a former KKK leader. In South Carolina there is a move towards printing their own currency as they apparently don’t trust the dollar (would you accept a S.C. bill?). In Arizona (the true never-never land of the 21st century) they are trying to pass legislation that would make it mandatory for anyone seeking hospital care to have to prove their citizenship first (“Die alien, die”). And of course the NRA is actively calling for some kind of armed militia. Representative Connie O’Brien of Kansas has announced she can tell illegal aliens from the color of their skin. And also in Kansas you can apparently now own and use a gun even if blind. Of course Republicans are once again trying to stop funding National Public Radio. The Governor of Wisconsin was to slash wages and benefits for employees and destroy the unions. Ron Paul continues to want to return to the gold standard (as if there’s enough gold in the world to cover all those greenbacks).

The new Speaker of the House, John Boehner, has said that if Republican proposals for slashing budgets results in a loss of jobs, “so be it.” You might think that Republicans would be interested in creating jobs as they claimed they were. And you might think they were going to downplay social issues during this election. Obviously their priorities are much the same as always. No abortions, no unemployment benefits, no Social Security, no welfare, no empathy, no mercy.

Of course the “birthers’ are still around, I guess almost 50% of Republicans (maybe more) still don’t believe Obama was born in the U.S. (this is truly incredible). Many more apparently seriously believe he is a Muslim. This is a particularly interesting and revealing case of mindlessness and prejudice, given that it is not illegal to be a Muslim and it wouldn’t really matter much if he was (except, of course, he would have no chance of being re-elected). Notice I have not even mentioned the main axis of mindlessness, that trio of “strong Republican women,” Palin, Angle, and O’Donnell. Don’t forget the axis of has-beens but still wanna-be’s, Gingrich, Bolton, and Giuliani. There are so many hot Republican candidates for President it just makes you want to shout and sing for joy…if you’re a Democrat. Blend any ten of them together and it would still not spell “White Hope.”

Jim Dandy to the rescue!
Jim Dandy to the rescue!
Jim Dandy to the rescue!
Go, Jim Dandy! Go, Jim Dandy!

Thoughts on Social Security

A few comments on Social Security, something I know little about. But it appears to me that most of our Congresspersons don’t know much about it either, nor, apparently, does the MSM. We hear talk incessantly about the necessity to do something about Social Security, and very often in tandem with complaints about the deficit.

If I understand it correctly, Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit, nothing at all. This is not to say that nothing needs to be done about S.S. At the moment it is entirely solvent and supposedly will stay that way at least for another ten years or so. The problem is not like Medicare, that is an entitlement, and will have serious problems soon. Social Security is not funded out of ordinary tax dollars and usually runs a surplus. The fear is that with the retirement of the Baby Boomers there will not be enough young workers to produce enough to meet the increasing demand. There are at least two considerations here that I believe have not received much, if any, attention. If funds for Social Security are produced by contributions taken out of worker’s paychecks, as those paychecks rise because of increased productivity, the contributions should also rise, or should have risen. This has not happened because workers have not been given a proper share in the increased productivity. The additional profits generated by technology and increased productivity, as we well know by now, have not been distributed equally. Worker’s pay has not risen for years and in some instances has actually declined, while the benefits of increased productivity have been given to the wealthy and corporations. Thus, it seems to me, if workers had received their fair share, the discrepancy between what is needed and what is being produced would not be as great as we might think it is or will be. This in and of itself would not solve the problem entirely, but it would have helped.

Second, the argument that there are going to be too many old people to support and not enough young people to support them may well be true. But that can only be a temporary problem, because if there are too few young people now there will also be fewer old people in the future. The system will eventually correct itself. This assumes that birthrates and life expectancy will stay more or less as they are now. If for some reason people begin having more children the system will run pretty much as it was designed. If the birthrates keep falling our society will probably eventually disappear. Of course I have no real idea if this is the way things will work, but I am truly tired with hearing about cutting Social Security along with other “entitlements,” when Social Security is a completely separate entity, backed by the full “faith and trust” of the U.S. Government. There are those who believe the Social Security Trust Fund has essentially been stolen and used for other purposes and to minimize the severity of our debt. If that would prove to be true, and if the U.S. Government now tried to renege on its debt, it would simply be a case of theft, and those responsible should go to jail. I find the thought of our entire Government in jail amusing and under the circumstances justifiable.

I’m not really sure of any of this. I’m pretty sure, however, that Republicans are using every excuse and argument they can find or make up to get rid of Social Security. They have been opposed to it ever since FDR managed to establish it, and will obviously continue to attack it no matter what the facts may be.

Anyway, I have pretty much come to the conclusion that our Government is not really serious about governing. When our Congresspersons complain about the deficit after just giving billions in tax breaks to the wealthiest people on earth, and when they want to repeal health care that will cost us further billions it is hard to take them seriously. When you consider some of the things being proposed it is also difficult to take things seriously. President Obama’s budget, for example, barely dents the Pentagon’s obscenely bloated budget, a situation so bad there is no accountability and they don’t even know where all their billions go. Then consider that Congress is approving funds for certain projects, like extra airplane engines, that the Pentagon doesn’t even want. State Governors are certainly not acting very seriously when, for example, one state now is thinking of establishing its own currency, several others are passing state laws that they think will allow them to override Federal laws, one Governor is threatening to call out the National Guard to suppress unions (shades of the 1920’s), Republicans are all criticizing Obama’s budget but have nothing of their own to offer, as is also the case with repealing health care. In Arizona and Texas there is talk of seceding, the “birthers” are still at it, some now believe the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the Tea Party, and Ron Paul wants to return to the gold standard and has suggested that people just “opt out” entirely. When you consider this along with the fact that laws are being blatantly ignored, like those against torture and such, and Supreme Court Justices engage in exceedingly questionable political behaviors, refuse to recuse themselves from cases when they clearly should, and have obvious conflicts of interest, one can only conclude we are not very serious about things. Things are becoming so absurd it is laughable. How long we can continue this way I do not know. Maybe the Libertarians are right, every man for himself, to hell with anything or anyone else, let the strong survive, organized society is such a drag.

Fraser's Penguins - book

Fraser’s Penguins A Journey to the Future in Antarctica, Fen Montaigne (Henry Holt and Co., New York, 2010.

This fascinating book is partly about Bill Fraser who began studying penguins in the Antarctic in 1975, and, with various collaborators, has continued his research on them for thirty years, mostly from Palmer Station on the Antarctic Peninsula. It is also, and primarily, about the Adelie penguins he studied most intensively. As it is impossible to study one species without knowing their interactions with others, it is also about giant petrels, brown and South Polar skuas, seals and sea lions, whales, krill, silver fish, other species of penguins, and also about still other related species that are part of the complicated ecosystem of Antarctica. And, as it is also impossible to study creatures independent of their environment, it is also about the sea ice, glaciers, the wind and weather, and the particular geographic niche the Adelie inhabit. The author, who was one of Fraser’s collaborators for a time, has done quite a fine job of explaining how their research was conducted, the difficulties involved, the reasons for collecting things like feces, regurgitated food, pumping out penguin stomachs for information on diet, the condition of the sea ice, the force of the wind, conditions of the water, and so on. It is an exceedingly complicated procedure and over the years has provided a wealth of information about this previously unknown continent.

Montaigne also attempts to explain the strange fascination researchers develop for this extreme part of the earth and why so many wish to return over and over again. He attempts to paint a picture of the Antarctic in prose and does what I think is a very credible job. However, a serous reader soon is forced to conclude that words cannot truly do justice to this mysterious land and you suddenly realize it must be necessary to see it for yourself. As this is not possible for most of us we can only admire this admirable attempt to capture the scene for us. We also get a bit of a history lesson about earlier explorers and researches and some marvelous quotations from their works.

More importantly, this is a book about global warming and the future. Bear in mind that Fraser did not travel to Antarctica in 1975 to study global warming. Indeed, the concept of global warming was not commonly discussed as it has become lately. Global warming was not on Fraser’s mind when he began studying the penguins he became so involved with. He could not, over the years of his experience there, overlook what was obviously happening to his main research subjects. The Adelie penguins survival depends importantly on the presence of sea ice at certain periods of the year. As the sea ice, reliable for hundreds, even thousands of years, began to occur less frequently, the Adelies have began to disappear and the survivors have had to move further and further south where sea ice still remains. Thus the niche the Adelies inhabited has now been more and more taken over by Gentoo penguins that are not dependent upon sea ice and thrive on barren coastal regions. While this is one lesson to be learned from Fraser’s Penguins it is, of course a far more complicated situation, having to do with such things as the temperature of the ocean, increasing amounts of snow, the slowly disappearing plankton and krill, the relationship of the Adelie penguins to the Brown skuas who depend upon them as food, and who, once the Adelie populations begin to decline, can easily wipe out their colonies completely. It is clear that creatures less dependent upon cold environments are moving into areas that are warming and that the ecosystem is changing in ways that simply cannot be denied.

For reasons I could not possibly explain here the Antarctic is quite obviously warming faster than the rest of the globe. Thus it is, in Fraser’s words, like the “canary in the coal mine,” and it should serve as a warning about the massive changes that are taking place in our atmosphere and environments. No reasonable person, reading this detailed account of what is happening at the ends of our earth, could possibly deny that global warming is real, it is largely man-made, and it poses a threat so potentially serious that global warming deniers are putting the rest of us at risk. Their shameful gifts of silver will avail them little if serious action is not taken quickly.

Speculation is the Thief of Time

Speculation is the thief of time, at least when it comes to our 24/7 news programs. If you haven’t noticed, probably 90% or more of what we are exposed to as “news” is merely rampant speculation. I am truly pleased and happy that the Egyptian people have managed to bring down the Mubarak era, and I wish them well for the future. Most of what we have been seeing and listening to for the past 18 days was speculation about what was likely to happen, or not likely to happen, what Mubarak would do, what the police would do, what the army would do, and so on, until, at last, Mubarak stepped down. Now that has happened we will be in for more and more speculation probably for a very long time. What will happen now? Who is going to be in charge? Will the Vice President be in charge? The army? Will they be able to bring about elections? Will they be fair? Who might emerge as the spokesman? What will happen in other Middle East nations? Will the revolution spread? How far? What is going to happen to Israel? What does it mean for the Palestinians? All of these questions will be addressed over and over again ad nauseam. This is because the MSM has to fill up time, and what they cannot offer in just plain “infotainment,” they will take up with this kind of endless speculation. Perhaps this is unavoidable, I don’t know, but sometimes I think we received better news years ago when it used to appear weekly before the local movie. The sad fact is, I guess, it is far cheaper to pay a few talking heads to speculate endlessly than it is to pay genuine reporters to travel the world to gather and report on what is actually happening here and there. And quite frankly, there probably wouldn’t be enough happening to soak up all 24 hours all 7 days a week.

What is going to make this worse is that campaigning for 2012 has already started. This is going to result in non-stop speculation from now until the elections. Will Obama face a Democratic challenger? If so, who? Who will the Republicans pick? Will it be Huckabee? Maybe Palin? Perhaps Romney? Then there is Pawlenty, to say nothing of Barber, Thune, Allen, Santorum, and certainly Ron Paul. Perhaps even Michelle Bachmann will try the waters? And don’t overlook the Bush lurking among the Bushes. There is enough grist here for the speculation mill to last probably a thousand years, too bad it’s only a couple of years until the election. The one thing you can be certain about is that no one will have the patience to wait and see who the candidate is, and we will have to just go on wasting valuable time in idle speculation. This could be avoided if, for example, campaigning was only allowed for a month or two before the election, or if candidates were allowed only limited amounts of public funding, or even if our elections were in any way sensible and not mostly a charade. Of course the major virtue of our current virtually never-ending elections, with their endless speculations, is that they keep us from having to actually worry about what is truly happening in the world or here at home. I mean, why should we worry our pretty little heads about “wars,” or debt, or jobs, or decaying infrastructure, Social Security, health care, and stuff like that, when those things are being taken care of behind the scenes by those very people who control the “news,” and offer us daily the pithy observations of Christine O’Donnell, Sharron Angle, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and those who decry global warming and environmentalism in favor of instant cash.

Oprah Winfrey is concerned that President Obama is not getting the respect he deserves as President. Others, too, have been concerned that O’Reilly and others have not treated him with sufficient respect, especially those of Fox “News.” I will tell you why, but you will want to deny it. He is being treated disrespectfully because he is Black. It doesn’t matter how good a job he is doing as President, how inspirational he might be, how much he tries to cross the aisle or get along with business, or even if he makes wonderful speeches, denies prejudice, and eats at the lunch counter with Biden, he’s still Black in the eyes of those who cannot give up their long-standing prejudices. However unconsciously on the part of many, and even consciously on the part of a few, they simply cannot believe a Black man can be as good as they are, or even better. Don’t expect them to admit it, they can’t, it would be denying their most deeply held and cherished beliefs, their enculturation, part of their very being. In two or three more generations these “survivals” will have passed away and things will no doubt be different. President Obama is unexpectedly before his time and suffers for it. History has already spit on George W. Bush, I guarantee it will not do the same to Barack Hussein Obama.

It's the Media, Stupid

Beautiful mini-skirted Russian
women in high heels shovel snow
in St. Petersburg to attract men.

These Republicans, like me and grandpa, they just don’t seem to do well with these new-fangled gadgets like the internet (you know, that network of tubes), google, instant replay, or even videotape. The latest victim of this burgeoning technology is Representative Christopher Lee, a Republican from New York. Mr. Lee apparently thought he could go public on Craigslist to impress a young lady, with a bare-chested photo of himself, lie about his age and marital status, and somehow get away with it. As he is married with at least one child he was exposed and resigned immediately.

Representative Lee is hardly the first or only Republican to fall victim to a technology they apparently do not understand or appreciate. Bill O’Reilly was just caught in an egregious lie when, to make a point, he authoritatively cited a Parisian publication that doesn’t even exist. Probably even 50 years ago he could have done this and it would have taken so long to discover the truth it wouldn’t have made much difference. Now, however, what with google and the internet and such, a lie can more often than not be exposed immediately.

Nowhere has this been shown more brilliantly than on the Daily Show. When one of the blond bimbos on Fox “news” that pass as commentators (or whatever they are) tell a lie as they often do, they can immediately be exposed as blatant liars. Recently one of them claimed that no one on Fox ever used the term Nazi, but almost instantaneously appeared four or five videos of Fox employees doing just that. They just don’t seem to understand that lying just isn’t what it used to be.

Politicians are beginning to learn (or perhaps not) that lying and hypocrisy is not easy anymore. When a politician now claims he or she did not say something they did say, it has most probably been caught and preserved on videotape and can quickly be found. Even emails, as the Bush White House learned, do not easily disappear and can often be dredged up even when supposedly lost. Similarly, when someone makes a faux pas or is caught in an unguarded moment it can haunt them forever. How many times, for example, did we see President Clinton hugging Monica, or Bush trying to give Merkel a back rub, or the former Senator Allen repeating “Macaca?” How about the sometimes excruciatingly embarrassing confessions of extra-marital affairs? This is, of course, a truly serious problem for serial flip-floppers like John McCain who has been recorded as making at least as many as 61, besides having to admit he didn’t even know how many houses he owns. At the moment many Republicans are being exposed as flip-floppers because in their eagerness to destroy health care they have forgotten they are now opposed even to elements they themselves originally suggested and wanted. One of the things that amazes me the most about this is their complete lack of shame. They are so determined to destroy Obama they are willing to do and say anything even though it completely contradicts their previous positions. If Obama is for it, they are now against it.

The internet and related technologies are slowly changing the way politicians and others have to behave. It was easy to deny history in the past but that is no longer true. History is no longer merely written by the winners, it exists on film and audiotape, not merely as a written recrord. If there is some disagreement about what someone actually said or meant we can now go to the original and usually settle the argument. And as Wikileaks has now made clear, even governing is no longer as simple (and private) as it was. Transparency is not something we just think about, it is increasingly demanded. There is no doubt that the internet has played an important role in the current unrest in Egypt and the Middle East. Facebook, for example, has been apparently instrumental in the revolutionary uprisings in Egypt. As more and more of the world is becoming part of this amazing development who is to know what monumental changes might be in store for the human community? I sometimes fear that technological developments are moving too fast for moral and ethical standards to keep up. I think this is true, for example, of genetically modified crops and animals, and certainly the case in the technology of war and killing. Somehow I don’t fear the internet, that I hope will eventually prove to be a remarkable aid in human affairs (that can certainly need all the help we can find).

LKBIQ:
They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm.
Dorothy Parker

TILT:
Paper money originated in ancient China in the form of “notes,” allowing the bearer to redeem coins left with trustworthy individuals.

The Delaware Grifter

Christine O’Donnell, the Delaware Grifter, is at it again, fund raising that is. This is a woman, somewhere now around 40 years of age, who has never had a job (or masturbated?), and, aside from some apparent talent for getting on TV shows, has no particular qualifications for office of any kind, let alone the U.S. Senate. She has run for office several times and never even come close to winning. Nonetheless, she wants people to send her money so she can “defeat the left” and save our country from something-or-other. I rather suspect she also needs money to pay her rent, but perhaps not. It seems you don’t need any qualifications whatsoever to run for public office, and running for public office has now apparently become a career in and of itself for some. Think also of Sharron Angle, and the absolute Prince of this kind of “con,” Alan Keyes. Actually, the Housewife from Hell, Sarah Palin, has probably worked this particular racket much more successfully and profitably than anyone in history. Short of starting your own Church of the Appallingly Demented this would appear to be a fine career choice.

Republicans have been in charge of the House of Representatives for more than a month now, during which time they have done absolutely nothing in the way of creating jobs or improving the economy, other than threatening to cut budgets indiscriminately and wherever found. They appear to be absolutely obsessed with trying to denigrate women and overturn Roe vs Wade, long established law in the U.S. Was there some secret understanding on the part of voters to vote for candidates who would attack women and their rights? I thought they were elected to “take our country back,” create jobs, and reduce taxes and government influence over our lives. Boy, was I wrong! I wonder, is there going to be some voter’s remorse?

I have been trying to think of when it was that I began to believe Republicans were either stupid or crazy or both. I know when I began to believe they were criminal. That was even before Bush/Cheney, when they attempted to destroy President Clinton by any means possible. And of course this criminal approach to politics continued with the Bush/Cheney administration, especially under the guidance of Karl Rove who perfected the technique of “roviation,” the absolutely unprincipled attack on anyone who stood in the way of their attempt to create a permanent criminal empire. Happily they did not succeed in this attempt, and the present Republican Party is so inept it has now become a completely lost cause.

However much I did not agree with Republicanism throughout my lifetime I did not until fairly recently begin to believe they were stupid and crazy, not even during the last years of the Bush/Cheney catastrophe. I might have thought they were criminal, perhaps even evil, but I didn’t think of them as stupid and crazy, not until more recently. I guess this change really began with the election of President Obama and has to do, in part at least, with the fact that he is Black, or Black and White, or at least “Other.” This fact seems to have completely “unhinged” some people. I don’t see how else one might explain the “birthers,” for example. I do not believe that if a White person, raised in Hawaii (or even Indonesia for a time), had been elected President, anyone would have questioned his citizenship (or the state of Hawaii). Nor do I believe anyone would have been concerned about his being a Muslim. The fact that Obama’s father was a Kenyan, and that as a boy, Obama, went to school for a short time in Indonesia, is apparently too exotic a background for many Americans to fully accept. There is an element of racism involved I am sure, but it is his “Otherness” that seems to be the most important element making people suspicious of him. There are still, even now, citizens who do not believe Obama was really born in the U.S., and there are apparently fully 46% of Republicans who believe he is a Muslim. There are also those who believe he is a Marxist, socialist, communist, fascist, or alien “plant,” as well. As there is absolutely no truth to claims that he was not U.S. born, or that he is a Muslim, and as there is apparently no way to convince these unbelievers, I can only conclude the they are either stupid or insane, or both. This poses a genuine problem for Obama and his administration, because while it is possible to deal with criminals, one way or another, it is not possible to deal with the insane and the stupid. I still believe in the 20-20 rule, 20% of the people think you are wonderful, 20% think you are awful, and the remaining 60% don’t really think much at all, but unfortunately, that is where the future lies.

Republican Infanticide

I know where Republicans stand on abortion, but I’m not clear on where they stand on infanticide. If a woman does not for whatever reason want to have a child there are only three possibilities, abortion, adoption, or infanticide. Infanticide is by no means unknown on a worldwide basis. In the New Guinea Highlands where I once worked for a while infanticide, while not common, was certainly practiced. First of all the people there believed that having twins was “animal-like” and one would be put to death usually right at birth. They also lived in a state of perpetual fear of attack by their enemies, and they argued that in event of an attack a woman could not take two children and flee, so they sometimes sacrificed one child for that reason. I would not say they wanted to do this, but it was, in their eyes, a necessity at times. I know that infanticide also occurs in other parts of the world, certainly among people who have no reliable means of abortion.

Why do I think this has anything to do with Republicans? Well, basically because they seem to be obsessively concerned that all pregnant women must deliver their babies, but do not seem to be much concerned with the fate of those babies. Obviously they cannot argue against abortion and then in favor of infanticide. Besides, infanticide in the U.S. is illegal and no respectable person, even a Republican, would argue in favor of infanticide. But infanticide does rarely occur in the U.S., we read occasionally of a woman, usually a young woman, leaving a newborn infant in a restroom or a dumpster, or wherever. And sometimes we hear of women who drown their children, or shoot them, or smother them, or kill them in some other way. And, of course, there are terrible cases of child abuse where an infant is put in a dryer or a microwave or even in a frying pan. In cases like this we usually assume some form of mental illness for the perpetrator, or a situation in which the mother is not in a position to have a child. In general, no one in the U.S. would favor infanticide of any kind.

I cannot help but wonder, however, what it is Republicans believe is going to happen to all these babies women will be forced to have against their will? It is most unlikely that all of them will be adopted, and they cannot simply be destroyed. Republicans do not seem very interested in welfare, they would prefer not to even offer food stamps. They also are not interested in minimum wages and are unconcerned about unemployment benefits, and they are opposed to spending money on child care. They would like to do away with Social Security which offers some help to young mothers. They also are not in favor of universal health care. They are not interested in full employment and seem to favor shipping American jobs overseas where labor is cheaper. Thus, if a woman is forced to bear a child, has no means of supporting it other than perhaps at a genuine poverty level, what is she supposed to do? It certainly seems to me that Republican anti-abortion positions are clearly not consistent with, or even related to the reality of life in the U.S. This is just another example of our “shoot first, worry later” philosophy. And of course this Republican insistence on no abortion is completely inconsistent with their claim they are opposed to government intervention in our lives. Given their attitudes towards welfare and such you would think they would welcome abortions, the more the better. I believe it was Jonathan Swift who suggested a cure for poverty would be to have people simply eat their children. I guess Republicans haven’t heard of this possible solution. We do have to make some allowances for them, they are, after all, Republicans.

Well, I learned today that still another of my best friends has died. Professor John G. Kennedy, a truly fine anthropologist. He was 83 and has been under care for a very severe case of Parkinson’s for several years. I believe his death was a blessing. I do not know how it is, or why it is, that I have been so fortunate. Most all of my former classmates, friends, and colleagues, are slowly slipping away, truly sad, but inevitable. It was John who first exposed me to Dylan Thomas:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.
rave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, and Wrong

She calls 911 because they argue,
again because he calls her names,
finally, because he “won’t shut up.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong. I find it amazing that so many things could go wrong at once, at least in my humble opinion. I think, for example, it was wrong for President Obama to give an interview to Bill O’Reilly. It was totally pointless, as are all interviews with this pompous bullying jerk, and nothing of any importance whatsoever was accomplished. Obama should have known better. I think it is also wrong for the MSM to report on whatever the Housewife from Hell has to say about anything. Sarah Palin, a housewifely brood mare, somehow managed to get herself elected as mayor of some little dump of a town in Alaska and parlayed that into becoming Governor of a state with a small and scattered population where much of the population was most likely not even much concerned with who their governor was. She was, by most accounts, not much of a governor and quit halfway through her first term. If she had not been mysteriously picked as John McCain’s running mate she would have remained a nonentity. It is widely agreed she is not qualified to become President of the U.S., she knows little or nothing of world affairs, but she is now allowed on national television to criticize the foreign and domestic policies of the President of the United States. It is rather like going to a bowling alley and asking one of the women bowlers what they think of foreign affairs. Apparently she can see Egypt from her front porch. This is not only wrong, it is utterly disgusting.

More importantly, I believe it is wrong for President Obama to believe that corporate America is in any way patriotic. In his speech today to the business community he appealed to their patriotism to create jobs here in America, saying, “I know you all love America.” These are nowadays mostly international corporations, they are interested in profits, not patriotism. And there are few jobs to be created as these corporations are doing better than ever with the employees they have, they are not going to hire more out of some sense of patriotic duty. He should have read them the riot act, closed their loopholes and raised their taxes, rather than try to sweet talk them into something they have no intention of doing.

It is also wrong, very wrong, to keep uncritically supporting Israel if, indeed, we are supposed to be serious about establishing peace in the Middle East. There can never be peace in that part of the world as long as Israel persists in stealing Palestinian land and water and building more and more illegal settlements. Obama has asked them to cease and they have just ignored him. In Egypt he has called for Mubarak to step down (more or less, it is not completely clear what his position is) and that, too, is being ignored. Iran pays little or no attention to our threats. The U.S. is increasingly becoming a “paper tiger” in the eyes of the world, our influence is disappearing, our “empire” is in trouble, and we are on the wrong side of history.

On the Republican side it is wrong for them to claim they are interested in creating jobs. They have done absolutely nothing along the lines of creating jobs and seem to be concentrating on an all-out attack on women and reproductive rights. Some of their proposals are little more than horrifying, like letting hospitals allow pregnant women to die on their doorsteps rather than give them life-saving abortions, and changing the definition of rape to chip away at Roe vs Wade. Amazingly, there are still women who support these sexist butchers. Apparently they keep pursuing this theme relentlessly because they have no other ideas, other than cutting taxes and reducing government, the single theme they parrot over and over and over. And all of their pie-in-the-sky promises to reduce government spending by billions is now running up against reality and they have little to say that makes any sense whatsoever.

They are also wrong to keep threatening Social Security as a way to reduce our deficit. How many times do they need to be told that Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit, Medicare and Medicaid, yes, Social Security, no. They have hungered to do away with Social Security ever since it was started by FDR and they cling to this desire like eels on a horse’s head. This desire is not only wrong, it is wrong in triple digits. We are clearly wrong not to take global warming seriously, and wrong to drill in the deep oceans and the arctic, wrong not to spend on education and infrastructure, and certainly wrong to think President Obama is a socialist.

I guess one might argue I think everything is wrong. It is wrong to continue in Afghanistan, wrong not to have closed Guantanamo, wrong to not get out of Iraq, wrong not to have investigated Bush/Cheney for war crimes, wrong to use drones, cluster bombs, and assassinations, and wrong to give tax breaks to the obscenely wealthy, and wrong to cling to the idea of American exceptionalism. We seem to be swimming in an ocean of wrong and, strangely, getting farther from shore the harder we swim.

Yes, I do think there are things that are right, certainly in principle, but not many seem to be interested these days in doing things that are right.

LKBIQ:
To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true!
H. L. Mencken

TILT:
There are approximately 800 species of eels.

All Downhill from Here

Canadian man finds bag
of 216 used panties, wants
the owner to claim them.

It is, I fear, going to be all downhill from here for the United States. I realize this is pessimistic but it is not really my intention to be pessimistic, just realistic. We have, to put it crudely, “just fucked it up” in virtually every way imaginable. Finding ourselves in a virtual paradise our greed won out over common sense and decency and we stopped at nothing, not even genocide, to take it over. We killed the billions of passenger pigeons, almost killed all of the buffalo, overcut the forests, damned the rivers, virtually destroyed the salmon runs and other fisheries, decimated the whales and the fur seals, and in more recent years fouled the air and the water, and have helped to create global warming, a condition that actually threatens our very existence. This is still being denied by some to the extent that nothing much can be done about it. Of course sitting on a small planet rapidly sucking up its oil and scraping its mountains of coal and other diminishing resources is, on a much grander scale, rather like sawing off the branch you are sitting on.

Of course the above was just for starters, having now fouled our own nest, we have now attempted to take over management of the rest of the world, for our benefit, of course, and now even our “empire” is threatened. It seems pretty clear the “American Century” is over and we are slowly going to lose control of the Middle East and other areas of the globe as well. South America has announced their independence, Egypt, and other Middle Eastern nations are in the process of doing the same. It is being said that America’s voice is no longer being heeded around the globe as it once was (even our last President is afraid to travel to Switzerland for fear of being prosecuted for war crimes). From being the greatest nation on earth we have mortgaged our future through incessant warfare and foolishness until we have become just another debtor nation. “The handwriting is on the wall,” “The chickens are coming home to roost,” our greed and hypocrisy is being exposed for all to see, our reputation is irrevocably damaged. As I speak we are already in the process of fouling even outer space.

Not only have we fouled our own nest through greed and negligence, we have never been able to get along with others. Ours is a history of violence, wars and killings beyond measure, masked by a pretence of “spreading democracy,” but in fact nothing short of predatory greed that has allowed us a higher standard of living than most others “because we could.” This is, I believe, now coming to an end. Our standard of living has been decreasing (except, of course, for the few who have managed to corner the market on greed and avarice), high unemployment is probably here to stay (unless some drastic changes are made in our economic system), and it is difficult to see how things are going to “turn up” rather than just continuing down. What is happening in Egypt and other nations in the Middle East has been predictable for years, dictatorships, or other governments, where a very few control most all of the wealth and the masses live in poverty, do not survive forever. If you think it can’t happen here you will be most likely wrong, although our means of bringing about change may not be so dramatic. There are growing signs of such change already.

Related to my previous blog, and relevant here, is the problem of just who can say “no” to behaviors that are detrimental to our well-being. In theory at least, the ultimate authority of our affairs is vested in the people. It is only the people that can say no to politicians and others who embark on endeavors that are not in the public interest. One can well argue this is the main virtue of our (at least supposedly) democratic society, but it also constitutes a problem in that even when in works it is far too slow. For example, by the time we agree on global warming as a problem it will very likely be too late. This has happened over and over again in our history. There were voices that warned against damming the rivers without regard for the salmon but they went most unheeded until it was too late (we are now making rather feeble attempts to restore some of our rivers). There were those who wanted to exercise more restraint in destroying our forests, they, too, often went unheeded (we are only now seriously trying to regenerate our forests). There are voices now warning about global warming but there is as yet no agreement on the problem let alone the urgency of taking action. Having destroyed thousands of species (we actually have no idea how many) we are belatedly trying to save a few (even some with but a very few surviving members). At the very moment we are producing billions of plastic containers every year we are being told to take our own bags to the supermarket (you can’t get much more pathetic than that). Our history is one case after another of “shoot first, ask questions later.” We continue this even now, putting drugs on the market before they have been adequately tested, planting genetically modified crops before we have sufficient knowledge about them, plunging into unnecessary “wars” without even knowing much of anything about the “enemy,” and so on, and on, and on. We have behaved like greedy children with no impulse control, and also like children, we have not always heeded the advice of others who might know better. Our arrogance and chutzpah seem to know no bounds.

I suppose one could argue for a bright side to all this. The demise of empire and the exposure of truth about our hypocrisy could potentially be a good thing. Perhaps having made our childish and adolescent mistakes, and being now severely reprimanded, might allow us to grow up to be better citizens. Giving up empire might even mean we can take care of our own country better, improve our educational system, improve our infrastructure, improve our health care, take care of all our people instead of the few, settle down into a sustainable environment rather than a culture of obsolescence and waste, slow down global warming (maybe even save the Polar Bears). Perhaps we may even recall what it means to “share.” Maybe, just maybe, we might do these things, if, indeed, it is not already too late.

LKBIQ:
Television has raised writing to a new low.
Samuel Goldwyn

TILT:
Cockfighting has been dated to 2000 B.C. in the Indus Valley.

Conspiracy and Outrage

North Carolina man reports
his money was stolen from
his girlfriend’s bra as they slept.

I am not much for conspiracy theories. Nor do I ever watch or listen to people like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Hannity, O’Reilly, or others of that general type (apparent right wing lunatics, that is). It is, however, impossible not to be aware of some of what they say and do. Here where I live, for example, you cannot visit a barber shop, the health food store, or even City Hall without occasionally hearing Rush. And clips from Beck, O’Reilly, Hannity, and others are often shown on programs I do watch (mostly Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz, Lawrence O’Donnell, formerly Olberman, and now Cenk Uygur). I have concluded recently there must be a conspiracy by all of these right wingers to drive us all crazy. I have come to this conclusion because as much as I despise these people I cannot bring myself to believe they could possibly be that stupid. They must be doing what they do on purpose, and I believe they are beginning to succeed. You will notice that lately more and more people like O’Donnell, Uygur, and Schultz, in particular (but others like Maddow as well), are reduced to near apoplexy as they try to describe the latest idiocy emanating from these conservative commentators. When O’Reilly, for example, argues the proof of God can be seen in the regularity of the tides, or Beck hysterically claims we are going to all be subjected to Shari’a law, or others who claim President Obama is in league with the Muslim Brotherhood, or criticize Michelle Obama because of a remark about barbecues, what can you do but throw up your hands and either surrender or go mad from your apparent helplessness in the face of insanity? Arizona is another example of this conspiratorial strategy. As you may have heard the Arizona legislature is passing a bill that says they do not have to comply with any Federal law or statute they don’t wish to comply with. Have they never heard of the Civil War? Can they possibly be stupid enough to believe they can do something like this? Maybe in Arizona, but it does seem to me unlikely. Irrationality can often be used when you are losing an argument, as in a recent case of a young woman in an argument with her boyfriend, set his clothes on fire. It is also being employed at the moment by President Mubarak of Egypt, who is simply trying to ignore the overwhelming demands of his people to resign and leave. Now he says if they want to stay in the streets and protest just let them, eventually they will give up. What can they do against such an irrational position except perhaps be provoked into violence that will then give Mubarak an excuse to attack them once again and possibly cling to power once more.

Outrageousness, too, can often win. Take the case of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas who, for several years, has failed to report his wife’s considerable income from her right wing activities. Not only is he claiming he just didn’t understand the tax forms, he apparently is unconcerned about the blatant conflict of interest involved as his wife is lobbying for measures that will come up before his court. And of course both he and Scalia have refused to recuse themselves from cases they should have, and also think it appropriate for them to attend meetings of right wing organizations. This is truly “in-your-face” kinds of behaviors that apparently they will get away with (there seem to be no signs of action to be taken against them). You could even say the same thing about Bush/Cheney who both boast about their war crimes openly, apparently in the knowledge that no charges will be brought against them (unless, perhaps, they travel to other countries like Spain or Switzerland). Of course the Supreme Court itself is not above the outrageous. Remember in 2000 when they awarded the Presidency to George W. Bush with an absolutely unprecedented act that was so outrageous they themselves said it could never be used as a precedent. And more recently they took an even more unprecedented decision when they declared corporations were the same as persons. The U.S. government itself sometimes does perfectly outrageous things, like doing away with habeas corpus or holding prisoners without charges, or torturing them. There seems to be a kind of unwritten rule that administrators and administrations can do whatever they want until someone tells them to stop. Who is to tell the U.S. Government to stop, or the Supreme Court, or even the blathering idiots of the far right?

LKBIQ:
What this country needs is more free speech worth listening to.
Hansell B. Duckett

TILT:
Duck and goose fat is said to be more like olive oil than like butter.

Simple Solutions

I’ve been thinking again. That’s always a bad sign. I’ve been thinking about simple solutions to many of our problems. For example, the unusually high price of drugs. It would be relatively easy to reduce the price of drugs, just make it illegal for pharmaceutical companies to spend obscenely on advertising their drugs. They didn’t always advertise drugs as they do now and we managed to survive. Why should people be urged to run to their doctor and ask about every drug advertised on TV at great expense? Of course people in the advertising industry, apparently an absolutely vital part of the economy, would be out of work.

How about our national debt? It would be a simple matter to begin taking care of our incredible national debt. All we would have to do is substantially decrease the obscene amount of money we spend on what is euphemistically referred to as national defense. As we spend far more money on this elusive goal than all the rest of the world combined, and as it is perfectly obvious that most of what we are producing for that goal is not at all necessary, there should be no reason not to reduce, reduce, reduce. Of course that would mean a lot of people would be out of work.

There are environmental concerns also that could be easily solved. As we know there are now literally oceans of plastic fouling both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, and as we know we produce annually enough plastic bottles to circle the earth many times, to say nothing of billions of plastic bags and etc., if we stopped producing all this plastic and went to some form of easily biodegradable product, we would save our environment. Of course lots of people in the plastic industry would be out of work.

It would also be environmentally beneficial to stop drilling for oil, especially in the deepest parts of the ocean where the potential for disaster is so great, as we have recently experienced in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. But if we were to stop lots of oil workers would be unemployed.

Chemicals, too, are a genuine problem. We seem to create new ones at an unseemly rapid rate, many of which seem to get on the market long before they are known to be safe. This is true not only of chemicals that we use in making drugs, but also chemicals to fertilize the soil, inoculate our animals, fight plant diseases, and so on. We know that over time many of these chemicals are probably quite harmful to the earth, and to the very soils that provide our food. We could easily be far more careful and judicious in our use of these kinds of pesticides and fertilizers and such. Of course a lot of people would be out of work if we were to be more careful and produce less of these noxious substances.

The problem of energy could also be solved if we really wanted to solve it. Energy, that is, that is produced by coal and oil and other potentially exhaustible resources, that in addition to being exhaustible also create environmental problems like acid rain, global warming, air and water pollution, health problems, and what have you. We could of course cut back on the production of coal and oil and such, and try to move to more environmentally friendly sources of energy, but lots of people would lose their jobs.

Waste is another area where we have a serious problem. Because we produce so much stuff, including noxious chemicals, plastics, and what have you, we also need to dispose of all this stuff. This is a particularly serious problem when it comes to nuclear waste, but is also a genuine problem when it comes to disposing of unused drugs, plastic, and such. There is no waste in nature, so waste is a peculiarly human phenomenon. We could attempt to minimize waste, as we have in recent years attempted somewhat feebly to do, but our efforts so far as little more than laughable. But if we were to eliminate waste all those people who are now employed in the waste industry would be out of work.

I realize that these simple solutions are not as simple as they might appear, but they point to what I believe is the greatest quandary ever faced by anyone ever, we keep doing what we are doing although it is terrible for us because we dare not stop, but if we do not stop it will be terrible for us and we will likely perish. To do anything constructive seems to involve putting someone out of work. We can’t protect the owls, the oceans, the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, even the planet we live on, because, because, because…

I am at two with nature.
Woody Allen

"...Be Afraid, Very Afraid"

Young Colorado man hits girlfriend
with skateboard, bites, and attempts
to strangle her for not buying beer.

I saw a bumper sticker yesterday that read, “NOBoma, Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid.” This was on one of those dual wheeled pickups that travel 99% empty at all times except when there is a dog in the back. I don’t recall if this particular truck had the gun racks or not but it easily could have. It was the kind of rig you would think was owned by someone who would never be afraid of anything. I was rather tempted to ask the driver what it was we were supposed to be very afraid of, but I didn’t want to risk getting shot. This message seems to be related to the slogan, “Take Our Country Back,” and others of a similar ilk. I guess I am pretty dumb, or not up-to-date, or at least out of the loop, because I simply do not understand what the hell these people are so upset and fearful about. Just what is it we are to be very afraid of? The stock market and the banks are making money hand over fist, the recovery seems to be moving along, however slowly, Obama has made no attempt to take away our guns, the Insurance companies continue to make money, Republicans now control the House of Representatives, things, in general, don’t seem to be too bad. I guess if I tuned in to talk radio or watched Limbaugh, Beck, and Hannity, perhaps I would understand this fear. I know that Beck, for example, has said that China is going to take over Asia, South Africa, and New Zealand. Is that what we should fear? Russia may take over Holland, too, according to Beck (I only know this because I just saw it on Rachel Maddow). Anyway, if anyone knows who has taken our country away so that we need to take it back, or if they know what it is we should be very afraid of (other than government, socialism, communism, fascism, Muslimism, taxes, unions, decent wages, education, gun control, evolution, immigration, health, the fact that global warming might be true, Iran, and the black helicopters coming for our lawn chairs), I would appreciate it if you would clue me in.

In the meantime, Republicans continue their frantic quest to create the best of all possible worlds for us. We know they want to repeal health care (who needs it?). Several States have nullification lawsuits going and the House itself has already voted to repeal it. I guess health care must be one of those things we should also be very afraid of? And of course they want to get rid of Roe vs Wade in the worst way. Are we to fear they may fail? There are also bills making same-sex marriages illegal. They have other things in mind as well. Governors in Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Nevada and New Jersey, for example, want to do away with tenure in our educational system, because they want to get rid of “bad” teachers. I do not understand what tenure necessarily has to do with this. By their own admission tenure was created to insure that teachers could not be fired because of race, sex, or politics. That is, it was never meant to enshrine bad teachers in permanent jobs. If that has happened in places it is because the people in charge didn’t employ the system as it was meant to be. It can’t be too difficult for a school board or others to decide if a teacher is being fired for incompetence as opposed to political views or because of race. Anyway, still on the educational platform, New Hampshire wants the schools to drop art, language, health, and technology from the curriculums. I mean, why not, what good are things like art and language? I guess we should fear they might also teach evolution, so there is a bill making it mandatory for teachers to challenge that bizarre concept. In South Dakota there is a bill making it mandatory for any person 21 years of age to buy a suitable gun for personal protection. Those behind this acknowledge it will never pass but claim it is merely a challenge to mandatory purchase of health care. I think they’d be delighted if they could get it passed, but it is a particularly dumb idea in any case. They might as well make it mandatory for people to buy bunk beds or Budweiser beer. There is no reason for anyone to have to buy such products, but there are valid and important reasons to mandate health care (if everyone has to buy it, it’s cheaper, it doesn’t allow those who don’t buy it to make those that do pay for their emergency services, and it reduces illness in the population at large. This is particularly important I should think in school, where if one child gets something it quickly spreads to others. Good health for all is far more important than good health for only some). In Arizona they are trying to make it necessary for anyone who wants to run for President to show evidence they are really citizens. This has not been a problem since the beginning of our Republic but, I guess, when a Black man became President that was just too much. Anyway, this is both dumb and unnecessary. I think a couple of states besides Oklahoma are banning Shari’a law (that does not even exist). As I mentioned previously, and as you doubtless know by now, Utah wants to establish an official State gun, a Browning semi-automatic pistol. Just think of it, a State gun, wow! Some Republican in Georgia wants to abolish driver’s licenses. He previously wanted to pass a bill making it mandatory for people there to pay their taxes in either gold or silver (I’m not sure about diamonds or rubies). Finally, for the moment at least, In Maine they want to make it legal for one-armed people to use switch-blade knives. Don’t laugh, there is something to be said for this, unlike most of the above. But why, I wonder, were switchblades made illegal in the first place? It seems to me to make a difference that doesn’t really make a difference. Knives are knives and it only takes one hand to use one.

I should point out that all of the above is the apparently serious work of our current Republicans. I did not set out to merely find Republican as opposed to Democratic nonsense, but I didn’t find any such bills sponsored by Democrats. I am pleased to learn that Republicans are always on the lookout for really important legislation and are keeping their eyes firmly on the economy and job creation, and also, of course, keeping us free of fear.

LKBIQ:
In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.
Mark Twain

TILT:
A single female oyster can produce up to one million eggs annually.

Hate and Oblivion

After party, Oregon woman finds
hickey on husband’s neck, stabs
him to death with kitchen knife.

Do they really hate us? I’m not talking about Arabs, al Qaida, Muslims, or people in the Middle East in general,, I’m wondering about Republicans. Representative Tom McClintock, a Republican from California, has introduced a bill, H.R. 421, that specifies if the debt limit is not raised and we have to pay off our debts, we will have to pay China first, and Social Security recipients later. I have no idea if such a bill will get anywhere, but it set me to thinking about this perennial problem. I have concluded, for the moment at least, that Republicans probably do not actually hate us, they are apparently just oblivious when it comes to us, by “us” I mean ordinary working people and citizens in general who are not part of the elite, and who do not have golden parachutes wrapped in platinum and studded with diamonds, rubies, and other precious stones. I suspect this bill is really just another attack on Social Security rather than a serious attempt to so right by the Chinese. One reason I think so is because Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit in the first place, so making Social Security recipient s pay for our debt is basically ridiculous. But do not forget, Republicans have relentlessly been trying to do away with Social Security ever since FDR managed to get it passed some 75 years ago.

It is by no means just Social Security Republicans have been opposed to all these years. They have always been against labor unions. They are against unemployment insurance (think of the 99ers now with no benefits at all). They are opposed to food stamps, they would like to reduce veterans benefits, and they have encouraged corporations to move jobs overseas seeking cheap labor, just as they have encouraged illegal immigration for the same reason. They are always opposed to a minimum wage. In general they are opposed to spending money on public education or the arts and even on public broadcasting. They are opposed to universal health care, believing, apparently, that only the wealthy are entitled to health. In short, iIt seems they are opposed to anything and everything that might actually benefit ordinary people. Even so, I find it difficult to believe they actually hate us, I suspect they are somehow just completely oblivious to the fate of ordinary folk. What, for example, does McClintock think would happen to the millions of people who depend on Social Security while he worries about the Chinese? Republicans also seem oblivious to the fate of the so-called 99ers, who, having exhausted their 99 weeks of unemployment benefits have now simply been thrown to the wolves. And do they have any idea of how difficult it is for families to try to exist on minimum wages? Are they unaware that millions of our citizens now live in poverty, that American children are often going hungry? It seems to me that on the rare occasions they might actually think of us, their thoughts are tinged with contempt. We are too lazy to work, prefer unemployment, and expect the government to support us. But they don’t hesitate to support corporations, agribusiness, tax breaks for billionaires, and what have you. Their record on these matters is quite clear, they are not on our side, so to speak.

Hate, of course, is a strong word and may not be the best expression of their feelings toward us. It is quite clear, however, they are not concerned with our welfare and apparently would not care if we just disappeared through starvation, disease, accidents, or what have you, except for enough of us to perform cheap labor where required. I suppose it is probably not possible to hate someone that is not really part of your “life space,” or someone you merely hold in contempt. Hate is probably reserved for those who have enough potential power to harm you in some way. We, being largely harmless (except on rare occasions when they just can’t take it any more) are not objects of hate. I doubt the Tsars hated their serfs, or Plantation Owners hated their slaves, or that Marie Antoinette hated the poor. I have long wondered how the Republican Party has survived for so long when there are so many more of us than there are of them, but even now many ordinary Americans vote predictably against their own interests.

H. L. Mencken once said, “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.” Republicans seem to understand precisely the lack of intelligence of the American voting public and have managed to harness it to good use.

LKBIQ:
In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination.
Mark Twain

TILT:
Cave bears became extinct apparently about 27,500 years ago.

Apologies to Dentists

Florida mother shoots teenage
son and daughter because they
“talked back and were mouthy.”

I believe I should apologize for my intemperate remarks about dentists. I don’t really believe that dentists are sadists. I’m sure that most dentists do the best they can with what they have to work with and do not deliberately intend to inflict pain and suffering on their patients. Thinking about this, I believe my views of dentists and dentistry are far too influenced (and old-fashioned) because of my boyhood experiences. Dentistry, as it is practiced today, is only remotely related to dentistry as it was when I was a boy. My parents, rightly so, wanted me to take care of my teeth and this meant going to the dentist. As there were only a few dentists in our little town it meant going to my father’s dentist. My father was a large man, over two hundred pounds with a 19 inch neck, and strong as it was possible for a man to be. When he was in the army during the First World War they once pulled several of his teeth at one sitting with no anesthetic. With the help of a nearby telephone pole that he clung to for a few minutes he managed to recover and survive. Thus his dentist’s attack on his person later in life was for him merely routine. Not so for me, as a skinny, timid, nearsighted young boy, I was terrified of this dentist. I believe I actually went to him twice. He was a short man and I remember him vividly with his knee on my chest attacking my teeth with the jackhammers that passed for drills and the chisels and mallets that were also used in those days. Twice was more than enough. Although my parents made repeated appointments for me I simply refused to go, telling them I just forgot. My best friend also went to this dentist. We traded horror stories and with each telling our fear grew stronger. Going to my dentist now is not even remotely similar to these earlier experiences. If ever technological innovations and patient care have brought about monumental improvements in health care it would have to be in dentistry. I cannot say that going to the dentist is a pleasure even in these days, but I can say it is a thousand times better than it was, but enough about dentistry, at least for the moment.

I must say I am not in the least apologetic for not suffering fools gladly. Presumably Republicans made such huge inroads into the House of Representatives and lesser, but still meaningful inroads into the Senate, because of our current economic crisis, especially unemployment. Thus you might expect them to have some ideas about how to solve such problems. But have you heard of any plan of theirs to do something about unemployment? Other, that is, than their usual meme of “lower taxes and small government,” that we now know from experience is about as useful as “tits on a boar.” Another of their stated aims is to make sure than Obama is a one-term President. So we find them also now engaged, in another of their priorities, trying to repeal health care. Republican Governors are also all excited about slashing Medicaid. Still another priority, according to Speaker of the House, John Boehner, is redefining rape (another semi-subtle attack on Roe vs Wade). And, continuing their slavish devotion to the NRA, they are resisting any attempts to any form of gun control, not matter how sensible. Darrell Issa, having been given some power, is demanding the Federal Government identify everyone who has made a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act (what he intends to do with this information I do not know). Still other Republicans are working on legislation that would take away automatic citizenship a la the 14th Amendment. Michele (Babbling) Bachmann wants to take away Veterans benefits. And, of course, they continue their attempts t o do away with Social Security, just as they continue to oppose legal abortions. They are also prepared to block anything that suggests global warming might be real, and a very large percentage of them believe evolution is a myth and that God created everything in about 10,000 years. Indeed, Representative Jack Kingston of Georgia has made it clear that he, at least, was made by God, and evolution is simply false. Still another state legislator in the South (I think probably in Oklahoma) has introduced a bill making it mandatory for teachers to challenge the idea of evolution. Someone has said that Republicans believe everything Democrats have done is unconstitutional and should be repealed. Now there is a positive program! It seems to boil down to either doing nothing at all or doing something harmful to President Obama and the Middle Class.

Oh, yeah, Egypt. I suspect most Americans don’t know where Egypt is, nor do they probably care much about what is happening there. They might know there is some sort of conflict going on but it can be solved by a Democratic election. This might well happen, I suspect Dictator Mubarak will be out by no later than next Friday (I am guessing), there will perhaps eventually be a “Democratic” election, but unless who is elected is acceptable to the U.S., it will not be considered valid (remember Hamas, and so much for democracy). Personally, I believe we are seeing the beginning of the end of U.S. influence or attempted control of the Middle East. John Bolton, who I am convinced would get us all killed as quickly as possible were it within his power, is at least being honest about this, his position seems to be, to hell with democracy, support Mubarak.

LKBIQ:
The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.
Sir Winston Churchill

TILT:
The stirrup is regarded as one of the most significant inventions in warfare prior to the invention of gunpowder.

The Jig is Up?

Escaped Arizona convict
wanted to overdose on
heroin and let bears eat him.

The jig is up…maybe. That is, the United States somewhat hypocritical long-term attempt to control the Middle East may be about to come to a dramatic and perhaps fitting end. For far too long we have said one thing and done quite another. While claiming to promote democracy we have at the same time supported dictatorships, all in favor of the goal of stability, but dictatorships nonetheless. With the ouster of the Tunisian dictator by popular demand, that already caused a great deal of concern in the Arab world, we now have the real possibility that Egypt may follow suit. Mubarak, who Vice-President Biden naively claims is not a dictator, who has ruled for 30 years, is now seriously threatened. This puts the U.S. in an interesting bind, on the one hand claiming to want democracy for the Egyptians, but on the other hand wanting to continue to support Mubarak who has been a dependable ally for such a long time. And remember, Egypt is the only country that has signed a peace agreement with Israel. No one knows at the moment how this revolution may turn out, but if Mubarak goes most anything might happen. This revolutionary moment is not only being seen in Tunisia and Egypt but also in Yemen and other Arab countries as well. You might well say the Arab world is “fed up and not about to take it anymore,” “it” being most of the wealth concentrated in the hands of a few and poverty, unemployment, and exploitation for the rest. I wonder if the 2% of Americans with most of the wealth in the United States, and the corporate giants, are listening. Yeah, I know, it can’t happen here. Of course I have no idea what will happen but it is impossible to deny that something is happening, and I don’t think it bodes well for the already fading American empire.

Now for some not very important domestic news. I went to the dentist. Don’t laugh, this is serious business. You may or may not have read one of my earliest blogs having to do with wisdom teeth. I still have two of them in spite of many attempts to make me give them up. I was told in my twenties that I had to have them removed as they were non-functional, would get infected, would ruin the rest of my alignment, to say nothing of cause me untold grief. Dentists, I determined, hate wisdom teeth and insist you have to have them pulled. They are quite adamant about this. As I was very cowardly as a boy when it came to dentists I managed to eventually spend a fortune getting my teeth fixed, while at the same time refusing to give up my two remaining wisdom teeth (having the first two removed was for me extremely traumatic). So over the years I have had many dentists, both male and female, sadists and not so sadistic, but all seemingly enraged because I still had two wisdom teeth. This has been a battle between me and dentists that has raged now for about 60 years. I would like to tell you that just now, after 60 years of no problems whatsoever with these two fine molars, one of them has finally shown a bit of decay and needs to be filled. Ordinarily trying to get a wisdom tooth filled is an impossibility, dentists are a stubborn bunch and they want wisdom teeth out! However, my current dentist, who I believe is the finest dentist in the entire world, also, for whatever strange reason, has read my blog about wisdom teeth. Thus when he discovered this decay he approached the subject with great delicacy, advising me there were two possibilities, having it pulled (he virtually whispered this as he didn’t want me to either faint or fall into a rage), or filling it (he quickly told me that he was confident he could fix it). My gratitude at hearing this made me want to kiss the hem of his trousers, but thinking that undignified I merely floated out of the office on a cloud of euphoria. You might think it strange that the greatest dentist in the whole world practices his profession here in remote North Idaho, but it’s true. So, if you ever need a dentist brave enough to defy dental tradition and sensitive enough to care about you, drop me a line.

The other domestic news of note has to do with cooking. There is a new contest starting, world-wide, but allowing only 200 contestants. This contest has to do with charcuterie, that is, salting, smoking, and curing meats such as bacon, pancetta, corned beef, prosciutto, guanchiale, sausage, and such. My wife, who is a super cook, will be one of these contestants. Every month they will be asked to make some special kind of processed meat. This month’s challenge is pancetta (Italian bacon). Not only do they have to make the product, they also have to explain how they have used it to make other dishes. If you have any interest in such goings-on I refer you to her food blog: http://inlinda’skitchen.blogspot.com.

The internet is truly a wondrous thing, it allows you to communicate and interact with people from all over the world, even if you live in Podunk.

LKBIQ:
Most of the time I don't have much fun. The rest of the time I don't have any fun at all.
Woody Allen

TILT:
Domestic geese cannot fly, although with considerable effort they can momentarily get airborn.

Invictus - movie

Invictus (Motion Picture, 2009, directed by Clint Eastwood).


Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.


In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.


Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.


It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley


According to this motion picture with the same name this is the marvelous and inspiring poem that helped Nelson Mandela cope with his long imprisonment. It is also the poem he reportedly gave to the captain of a South African Rugby team to inspire them to win the Rugby League Championship and help unite South Africa after the end of apartheid and during his Presidency. This film is thus based on a true story and represents Nelson Mandela and South Africa at their best.

Anyone who follows this blog at all knows I am not a fan of motion pictures and seldom watch one. You can be pretty sure that if I admit to watching one at all it will not have much in the way of gratuitous violence and/or sex. Quite honestly, I cannot even remember when I saw a movie advertised on TV that did not include a great deal of both violence and sex. This fine movie, that my wife insisted I watch, does not contain much in the way of violence or sex, unless you consider Rugby a violent game, which it is. But that is the game, the violence is not featured as such. Personally, having seen a bit of Rugby in Australia and New Guinea, I suspect it may have been the first contest accidentally invented by two groups of brutal cave men fighting over the last bone of a cave bear. It is roughly like American football without either pads or many rules. However, it is an important game in England, Australia, and many other countries. As Rugby is not familiar to Americans there is a brief discussion of the rather simple rules. There is, mercifully, no mention of the extremely rowdy and sometimes belligerent fans that often upstage the game itself.

Nelson Mandela was shrewd enough to realize that if he could employ the popularity of Rugby to help bring the citizens of South Africa together it would be an extremely useful tool in creating a new nation where Blacks and Whites could come more easily together. It was and it did. This wonderful film is the story of this attempt. I have never been a big fan of Clint Eastwood (or Spaghetti Westerns) but I have to admit I think he did an absolutely fantastic job directing this film. Morgan Freeman is quite outstanding as Mandela (Mandela’s own choice for the role), and Matt Damon is completely convincing as the captain of what began as an all white Rugby team, but because of a deliberate PR campaign and Mandela’s enthusiastic support, became a national symbol and helped to unify the country. The scenes of Rugby football are extremely realistic and well done, the film is quite inspiring, and will probably bring most viewers to tears at times. It is an outstanding film that I highly recommend for everyone.

Self-destruction

Turkish man living in Germany
asks police to protect him
from wife’s demands for sex.

It seems to me the Republican Party is on a veritable blaze of self-destruction, so let ‘em keep talking, I say. Some of what they are proposing is rather petty and not really important, but virtually everything they are now promoting does not bode well for them in the future, unless, of course, the future is to be directed by apparent morons from another reality. Representative Aaron Schock of Illinois, for example, wants to abolish road signs that say projects were funded by the stimulus because that is propaganda. Mike Lee of Utah says that child labor laws are unconstitutional, as is Federal disaster relief. The state of Utah is now debating whether they should have an official state handgun. You know, if states have official birds, flowers, and such, why not an official gun? Maybe all states should have an official gun but it seems pretty silly to me, especially after the recent shootings in Arizona. Of course some in Congress now believe they should carry guns to work and at least one has suggested a law preventing anyone from possessing a gun within 1000 feet of a Congressperson. There is talk of abolishing oversize clips for handguns that allow shooters 30 or more shots at a time. The NRA opposes this on the grounds that having such clips is perfectly okay because it helps homeowners protect themselves. This is an argument so pathetically feeble it is laughable, but they might, as usual, get their way. I mentioned before the fact that game bird hunters have to use a special plug in their shotguns that allow them only three shells instead of five or more. Apparently this is to protect game birds by making it more difficult for hunters to kill more than they should. Interesting, isn’t it, that we have guns laws to protect pheasants and ducks, but not to protect humans. This is all great stuff, much of it pretty silly, but not terribly bad all in all compared to other Republican proposals.

Newt Gingrich, the poster child for hypocrisy, has now suggested we do away with the Environmental Protection Agency. He will say anything to get attention with little regard for the consequences. But Gingrich is mild compared with Rand Paul who is calling for a 500 billion dollar reduction in spending. He proposes cutting entire agencies like Education, Energy, and I don’t know what all. This is a super idea at a time of massive unemployment, especially as he would also do away with food stamps and other humanitarian aids to our citizens. Republicans started off, you might recall, promising to cut 100 billion from the budget, and have now had to back off even that as unrealistic. Of course they are still talking about repealing health care when the majority of citizens would much rather they work on creating jobs. They seem to be completely oblivious to reality when it comes to what they are proposing. They keep insisting “The American Public” wants this or that when, in fact, it is usually the opposite of what the public wants (doing away with Roe vs Wade and DADT, for example). Their spokesman, Ryan, who gave the rebuttal to the State of the Union speech, wants to abolish Social Security for those under 55, do away with Medicare and Medicaid, and other policies that help ordinary citizens, policies that even some Republicans refuse to acknowledge. Republicans have now allowed Michele (Babbling) Bachmann to augment Ryan’s rebuttal with a special Tea Party rebuttal, even though it is obvious she has little idea of what she is talking about (the Founding Fathers abolished slavery).

I said before that I thought Obama would eventually appear to be the only adult standing after all the Tea Party rubbish continued for a while. It seems, at the moment at least, that is what is happening. Obama is standing tall and Republicans are self-destructing at what I believe to be a rather alarming rate. If this continues I doubt Obama will have little trouble getting re-elected in 2012 and I’m pretty sure the Democrats will once again have the House and Senate. But speaking of other realities, think of Michele Bachmann as President, Christine O’Donnell as vice-president, Sarah Palin as Secretary of State, Sharron Angle as Secretary of Defense, with Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh as chief advisors to the White House. Wheee!

LKBIQ:
Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.
Robert Louis Stevenson

TILT:
Timbuktu is a real city in Mali.

On History

On History

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.
Napoleon Bonaparte

History is more or less bunk.
Henry Ford

History is a pack of lies we play on the dead.
Voltaire

Poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history.
Plato

History is written by the victors.
Sir Winston Churchill

So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth of anything by history.
Plutarch

Seeker:

I wanted to comment on your interesting comments last night but was unfortunately interrupted. As you can see from the above your concerns about history have a very long history of their own. It appears to me, speaking to your concerns, that history is not only the version of the past people have agreed upon, but also those versions of history they have not agreed upon.

The question of the dress is a good case in point, and certainly does raise an interesting issue. If, after 150 years there is still no agreement on whether he wore a dress or not, one has to wonder what is going on. James Swanson, the author of Bloody Crimes, studied history and law and has collected Lincoln memorabilia and such since he was ten years old. One would think if there is an incriminating letter from Davis’s wife he must have seen it. But he is quite firm in his claim Davis wore no dress. As I said in my review, I have no expertise in this field and only described what Bloody Crimes said. Your contention that Jefferson Davis was a coward, was running away from his wife and children, certainly does not jibe with Swanson’s account in his book. Yes, Davis did apparently gather up the gold, but it was gold that belonged to the Confederacy, not himself, and he apparently was relatively impoverished after the war. Of course Davis was running away, but I have no reason to believe he was running away from his wife and children, other than, perhaps to protect them by distancing himself from them. I also personally believe the charge of cowardice is probably not warranted. If, indeed, he was wearing a dress and trying to escape, that indicates to me either cleverness or desperation, or both, but not necessarily cowardice. But of course I do not really know. And, unfortunately, I suspect that even if I dedicated the remainder of my life to Civil War history I would end up still not being sure of much of anything. I might have better formed opinions about things, but I doubt I would “know” in any absolute sense.

Yes, it is true that what we learned in school is far from what actually happened in history. Witness the fine book , The People’s History of the United States, by Howard Zinn. I think when one finally realizes the truth about things it can be traumatic, rather like learning that your favorite childhood idol or your father has feet of clay. Of course Black people were regarded as little more than animals and were thus deprived of even the most basic rights. The history of Western/European colonialism in general is actually much worse and characterized by such savagery as is virtually impossible to believe (and this by so-called “civilized,” Christian people). It is not entirely surprising that those responsible for such reprehensible behavior try to deny it.

I am not sure that even reading the “original stuff” solves the problems of history. Original and first person accounts are themselves probably biased one way or another. Why bother to read history at all? That is a good question. I guess we read what we can and form our own opinions about things, opinions that are not necessarily “the truth,” but serve us in some sense anyway. The late Clifford Geertz said, “Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun.” Strangely perhaps, webs of significance do not have to be true, or even realistic (or perhaps not even entirely “sane”), and they are certainly not entirely uniform for all individuals. Our webs of significance are partially spun out of what we know, or think we know, of history. It is inevitable that people do not agree. And it is equally inevitable that authors and others are going to “spin” things their way. We do not even agree about what is happening before our very eyes at the moment, how could we ever agree on history?

There are things that may be absolutely true, or at least we think so, that John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln in the head, for example. Or that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, or that Jared Lee Loughner shot Gabrielle Giffords in the head from a short distance, or that Lee Harvey Oswald shot President John Kennedy, and so on, but even in these cases there are differences of opinion and interpretation about the basic facts, and even more controversy about when and how and why. History is a minefield of confusion but who is willing to give it up?