Woman scares burglar away
by scratching on her door
and acting like a large dog.
You know the saying, “Give them enough rope and let them hang themselves.” I have no idea if this was President Obama’s strategy all along, but it seems to be what is happening with both the Insurance and Banking corporations. At the very moment the Insurance giants are under attack for their outrageous practices, they come back with even more outrageous demands. For example, premiums for employer sponsored health care have risen 131% from 1995 to 2009, according to Time, and employee contributions have risen 128%, so now small business owners are told to expect a 15% increase for the coming year. It’s like they are saying, things haven’t been bad enough, let’s make it worse (you would think they might have kept it quiet, at least for the moment). Similarly, it has been revealed that health insurance was going to be denied to a baby because he was too healthy (too fat), and in another case because the baby was too thin (or so I read somewhere). In Colorado a mother of two was denied health care because she was not sterilized after her latest C-section which they said would constitute a pre-existing condition. Rape also was apparently considered a pre-existing condition in another case. And while their bought and paid-for man, Senator Baucus, has created a bill just for them, the Insurance companies want mandates with no cost controls. That is, they want it made a law that everyone must have health insurance (thus adding many millions to the system), but there cannot be any cost controls (so they can rip even more people off even more outrageously). And, of course, they keep insisting at all times that if a public option is included costs for insurance will rise (and they have their own statistics to prove it). If that is not bad enough, Representative Paul Broun, a Republican from Georgia, has introduced a bill to privatize medicare! I would like to think they are just deliberately spreading fear, rather than that they are just too dumb to realize the impact of their actions.
If the Insurance industry is acting stupidly (or perhaps not stupidly, depending upon your point of view), the Banks are doing much the same thing. Under attack at the moment for their (virtually criminal) tactics when it comes to banking and credit cards, they are raising their interest rates and fees. I read the other day that Citicorp was raising their interest rates on credit cards to 29.9%. Frankly, I find it hard to believe this is true or that anyone could be that greedy, but I gather it might be true. I do know that other banks are almost universally raising their rates as well. Not only that, apparently Bank of America is going to start charging people for paying their bills on time! It might seem strange that at the very moment people are beginning to hate banks more than ever, banks are deliberately trying to make people hate them even more, with hidden fees, higher interest rates, tighter credit restrictions, and questionable regulations that amount to little more than legalized theft.
Banks and insurance companies have had it all their way for far too long. Basically, what they have been getting away with is lending money to people who don’t need it, and refusing to lend to people who do. The Insurance companies have been insuring health for people who don’t really need it, and withholding it from people who do need it. In America if you are rich and healthy you are fine, if you are poor and unhealthy, tough. These are rackets that put Ponzi to shame as by dint of having lots of money and being able to buy all the influence they need, they have managed to legalize theft and make people even believe it is fair (if it’s legal it must be fair?).
I have no idea if Obama figured this out in advance, but by carefully staying somewhat quietly out of the way he has managed to accomplish something no other President has managed to do for 60 years, bring about some kind of meaningful health care reform and also bank reform. You can describe this as the joining of two strategies, “give them enough rope…,” and “rope a dope.” That is, allow them to exhaust themselves fighting you and thus become vulnerable to attack, or let them hang themselves through their own actions. This may not have been consciously planned but it does seem to be happening. Could it be there is a significant correlation between greed and stupidity?
Little Known but Interesting Quotes:
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.
Thomas Jefferson (Attributed)
Things I Learned Today:
Pope Sixtus V condemned the practice of charging interest as "detestable to God and man, damned by the sacred canons and contrary to Christian charity.”
Monday, October 26, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
"Common Knowledge"
If you stop to think about it, common knowledge is a strange concept. Depending upon how you look at it, one could argue that common knowledge is not really knowledge at all, but, rather, belief. For example, when I was a boy it was common knowledge that fish would bite better in the morning and afternoon, boys were smarter than girls, men smarter than women, white people were smarter than others, Jews were money-hungry and hard bargainers, if you ate watermelon seeds they would give you appendicitis, smoking would stunt your growth, girls could not go swimming when they had their periods, the genitals of Asian women were different from those of Caucasians, masturbation would cause hair to grow on your palms, black cats, broken mirrors, and walking under ladders were bad luck, four-leaf clovers were good luck, and if you put horse hairs in water and left them in the sun they would turn into snakes (I am exaggerating here for effect, but not as much as you might think).
Common knowledge, although related to common sense, is not truly the same thing. Common knowledge (like culture) is something that you possess mainly by being a member of a group of people who believe such things (although common knowledge can also vary from individual to individual). Common sense is more a directive to action. That is, it was common knowledge that if you stood behind a horse you might be kicked, common sense forbade you from doing so. Likewise, common knowledge told you black cats and broken mirrors were bad luck, common sense directed you to take some action, like aborting a trip or throwing a pinch of salt over your shoulder. At the moment it is common knowledge that Dick Cheney is a war criminal and was also involved in the treasonous act of “outing” a CIA agent. Common sense would demand that something be done about this (and even the law in this particular case), but as yet nothing has been.
In some cultures it is common knowledge that all illness and death is caused by either witchcraft or sorcery. In some it is common knowledge that you can foretell things by examining the entrails of chickens or goats, or certain crops can only be grown at certain times, or that camels require much more attention than horses, or you can only mature into an adult if you have taken a head, or a scalp, or counted coup. In still other places it is common knowledge that if you walk about at night you will encounter ghosts, or snakes, or evil demons. Some Pacific Islanders knew that if you sailed toward certain stars and followed certain currents and sailed at the right time of year, you would arrive safely at a distant island. In parts of the world you cannot attain adulthood without being circumcised or undergo a clitorectomy. My point here is that what is considered common knowledge varies a great deal from place to place, and even from individual to individual, and is in fact a strange mélange of both useful and useless information. I guess the parts that are truly useful do constitute knowledge, but how can so much of what we depend on and believe in be so utterly fanciful? It is common knowledge that allows us to act, and common sense that directs our actions (or is supposed to).
It should be clear that this human situation does not bode well for human action and interaction. Clifford Geertz said wisely and rather elegantly that as humans, “we are suspended in webs of significance that we ourselves have spun,” but he didn’t say much about the fact that these webs were so largely false. Is it any wonder we continue year after year beating and killing each other, often knowing next to nothing about our “enemies,” who know no more about us that we of them? Common sense would indicate how ridiculous this is, but common knowledge often overshadows common sense. Thus our common knowledge, more often than not simply false, tells us our enemies are “gooks,” or “krauts,” or “towel heads,” or “Japs,” and common sense is bypassed in favor of stupidity, greed, and blood lust. Even scientific knowledge, an equalizer of sorts, fails us when it comes to our interpersonal and intercultural affairs. I have no idea how we solve this intractable human dilemma, but massive educational efforts coordinated on a worldwide scale (with some agreed upon basic curriculum) might eventually have some effect, if, that is, we could stop fighting long enough to work on it. Think what the world could be like if all those billions upon billions were spent on universal education and international cooperation instead of more and more weapons of destruction. Unfortunately, although our common sense might think this a worthwhile idea, our respective common knowledge would doubtless make it impossible.
Common knowledge, although related to common sense, is not truly the same thing. Common knowledge (like culture) is something that you possess mainly by being a member of a group of people who believe such things (although common knowledge can also vary from individual to individual). Common sense is more a directive to action. That is, it was common knowledge that if you stood behind a horse you might be kicked, common sense forbade you from doing so. Likewise, common knowledge told you black cats and broken mirrors were bad luck, common sense directed you to take some action, like aborting a trip or throwing a pinch of salt over your shoulder. At the moment it is common knowledge that Dick Cheney is a war criminal and was also involved in the treasonous act of “outing” a CIA agent. Common sense would demand that something be done about this (and even the law in this particular case), but as yet nothing has been.
In some cultures it is common knowledge that all illness and death is caused by either witchcraft or sorcery. In some it is common knowledge that you can foretell things by examining the entrails of chickens or goats, or certain crops can only be grown at certain times, or that camels require much more attention than horses, or you can only mature into an adult if you have taken a head, or a scalp, or counted coup. In still other places it is common knowledge that if you walk about at night you will encounter ghosts, or snakes, or evil demons. Some Pacific Islanders knew that if you sailed toward certain stars and followed certain currents and sailed at the right time of year, you would arrive safely at a distant island. In parts of the world you cannot attain adulthood without being circumcised or undergo a clitorectomy. My point here is that what is considered common knowledge varies a great deal from place to place, and even from individual to individual, and is in fact a strange mélange of both useful and useless information. I guess the parts that are truly useful do constitute knowledge, but how can so much of what we depend on and believe in be so utterly fanciful? It is common knowledge that allows us to act, and common sense that directs our actions (or is supposed to).
It should be clear that this human situation does not bode well for human action and interaction. Clifford Geertz said wisely and rather elegantly that as humans, “we are suspended in webs of significance that we ourselves have spun,” but he didn’t say much about the fact that these webs were so largely false. Is it any wonder we continue year after year beating and killing each other, often knowing next to nothing about our “enemies,” who know no more about us that we of them? Common sense would indicate how ridiculous this is, but common knowledge often overshadows common sense. Thus our common knowledge, more often than not simply false, tells us our enemies are “gooks,” or “krauts,” or “towel heads,” or “Japs,” and common sense is bypassed in favor of stupidity, greed, and blood lust. Even scientific knowledge, an equalizer of sorts, fails us when it comes to our interpersonal and intercultural affairs. I have no idea how we solve this intractable human dilemma, but massive educational efforts coordinated on a worldwide scale (with some agreed upon basic curriculum) might eventually have some effect, if, that is, we could stop fighting long enough to work on it. Think what the world could be like if all those billions upon billions were spent on universal education and international cooperation instead of more and more weapons of destruction. Unfortunately, although our common sense might think this a worthwhile idea, our respective common knowledge would doubtless make it impossible.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Mr. Wrong Tries Again
Rather than face house arrest
with angry wife, Sicilian man
requests police jail him.
Bubblehead: A very good question, and now a mystery. I am positive I found that quotation by googling “Michael Steele quotes” and it came up with some others. I do not believe it specified it was attributed to Steele but it might have. Anyway, I spent a good deal of time last night and again this morning and I cannot find it again. I have no explanation for this. I confess I did think when I used it that it was kind of vile, even for Steele. Now that I have looked further it is also inconsistent with other things Steele has said about Obama. I think you may be right, it was probably falsely attributed to Steele by someone. But why would it seemingly have disappeared? Perhaps I am just not clever enough to find it again. If it was merely attributed, I apologize to Michael Steele and anyone who might have read it. At the same time I must say I can’t see that it makes much difference to the point I was trying to make, namely, that since Obama’s election the Republicans have been saying things so stupid, outrageous, silly, and negative, as to put off even their own. In the case of Michael Steele and many others, it is not difficult to find some pretty idiotic quotes.
What does a person have to do these days to go to jail? Dick Cheney, who by virtually any standards you can think of ought to be arrested and tried for war crimes and treason, is on the loose again, and for reasons I cannot fathom, some people actually continue to listen to him. Not only is he a blatant and unrepentant criminal, he has been wrong about literally everything from the very beginning of the Bush/Cheney Presidency. He was wrong about Weapons of Mass Destruction, wrong about where they would be found, wrong about how we would be greeted, wrong about how much it would cost, how long it would take, wrong about the relationship between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, wrong about the intelligence, wrong about torture, and even wrong about what a quail looks like. Not only was he always wrong, he lied incessantly in order to get us into a “war” with Iraq. He was also responsible for shifting our troops from Afghanistan to Iraq, thus leaving Afghanistan badly neglected for years. And now he has the gall to criticize Obama for not immediately plunging us into further nonsensical bloodletting in that country. It is true that while Obama deliberates some of our troops may die, but that is nothing like the price we will pay in lost lives if Cheney and others lock us into a permanent conflict there. If Dick Cheney had any decency at all he wouldn’t even show his face in public, let alone try to influence any further Foreign Policy actions. He is at the very best a public nuisance and at worst a raving lunatic who ought to be locked up before he can do any further damage.
But not only is he personally attacking Obama’s Foreign Policy, he and his daughter are getting really big bucks from some Florida real estate mogul to do so. There are going to be a host of ads making Obama look weak and indecisive (as compared with Cheney of course who was strong and decisive, if always wrong). In short, they want to bring down the Obama Presidency (so the lunacy party might somehow regain power and insure we will always be at “war” somewhere and the military/industrial/political complex will continue to thrive). Dick the Slimy is almost certainly one of the most unpopular people on earth, if not the single most unpopular, so why the Republicans want him to front for them I cannot understand. But, then, I cannot understand anything they do or believe any longer as I think they have all “lost their marbles.” So to speak.
John McCain, having previously admitted that he doesn’t use the internet and knows nothing about it, is now putting forth a bill that would take away internet freedom and allow corporations to influence the content and accessibility. I guess all the money he is receiving from the Telecom industry has nothing to do with it. Give a Congressperson enough money and you can get them to do anything, including killing thousands of their own citizens year after year and murdering hundreds of thousands around the world. Our political system has become completely dysfunctional (“the best democracy money can buy”) and no longer has anything to do with looking after the public interest. If Obama can pull off health care reform against the wishes of the Insurance Industry and other corporate opponents, he will be the first President to successfully do so in 60 years. I take this as a sign of better things to come.
Darkended dreams
become modern grapes of wrath
reaping a bitter wine.
Vince
TILT:
Contrary to popular belief toads do not cause warts.
with angry wife, Sicilian man
requests police jail him.
Bubblehead: A very good question, and now a mystery. I am positive I found that quotation by googling “Michael Steele quotes” and it came up with some others. I do not believe it specified it was attributed to Steele but it might have. Anyway, I spent a good deal of time last night and again this morning and I cannot find it again. I have no explanation for this. I confess I did think when I used it that it was kind of vile, even for Steele. Now that I have looked further it is also inconsistent with other things Steele has said about Obama. I think you may be right, it was probably falsely attributed to Steele by someone. But why would it seemingly have disappeared? Perhaps I am just not clever enough to find it again. If it was merely attributed, I apologize to Michael Steele and anyone who might have read it. At the same time I must say I can’t see that it makes much difference to the point I was trying to make, namely, that since Obama’s election the Republicans have been saying things so stupid, outrageous, silly, and negative, as to put off even their own. In the case of Michael Steele and many others, it is not difficult to find some pretty idiotic quotes.
What does a person have to do these days to go to jail? Dick Cheney, who by virtually any standards you can think of ought to be arrested and tried for war crimes and treason, is on the loose again, and for reasons I cannot fathom, some people actually continue to listen to him. Not only is he a blatant and unrepentant criminal, he has been wrong about literally everything from the very beginning of the Bush/Cheney Presidency. He was wrong about Weapons of Mass Destruction, wrong about where they would be found, wrong about how we would be greeted, wrong about how much it would cost, how long it would take, wrong about the relationship between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, wrong about the intelligence, wrong about torture, and even wrong about what a quail looks like. Not only was he always wrong, he lied incessantly in order to get us into a “war” with Iraq. He was also responsible for shifting our troops from Afghanistan to Iraq, thus leaving Afghanistan badly neglected for years. And now he has the gall to criticize Obama for not immediately plunging us into further nonsensical bloodletting in that country. It is true that while Obama deliberates some of our troops may die, but that is nothing like the price we will pay in lost lives if Cheney and others lock us into a permanent conflict there. If Dick Cheney had any decency at all he wouldn’t even show his face in public, let alone try to influence any further Foreign Policy actions. He is at the very best a public nuisance and at worst a raving lunatic who ought to be locked up before he can do any further damage.
But not only is he personally attacking Obama’s Foreign Policy, he and his daughter are getting really big bucks from some Florida real estate mogul to do so. There are going to be a host of ads making Obama look weak and indecisive (as compared with Cheney of course who was strong and decisive, if always wrong). In short, they want to bring down the Obama Presidency (so the lunacy party might somehow regain power and insure we will always be at “war” somewhere and the military/industrial/political complex will continue to thrive). Dick the Slimy is almost certainly one of the most unpopular people on earth, if not the single most unpopular, so why the Republicans want him to front for them I cannot understand. But, then, I cannot understand anything they do or believe any longer as I think they have all “lost their marbles.” So to speak.
John McCain, having previously admitted that he doesn’t use the internet and knows nothing about it, is now putting forth a bill that would take away internet freedom and allow corporations to influence the content and accessibility. I guess all the money he is receiving from the Telecom industry has nothing to do with it. Give a Congressperson enough money and you can get them to do anything, including killing thousands of their own citizens year after year and murdering hundreds of thousands around the world. Our political system has become completely dysfunctional (“the best democracy money can buy”) and no longer has anything to do with looking after the public interest. If Obama can pull off health care reform against the wishes of the Insurance Industry and other corporate opponents, he will be the first President to successfully do so in 60 years. I take this as a sign of better things to come.
Darkended dreams
become modern grapes of wrath
reaping a bitter wine.
Vince
TILT:
Contrary to popular belief toads do not cause warts.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
A Republican Sampler
Robber spends 10 minutes
on his knees praying with
crying clerk, robs her of $20.
Somewhere today I saw a comment that the Republican Party was rapidly becoming the party of semi-lunacy (or something to that effect). I started looking at some recent Republican quotes that tend to make me believe there is something to this claim:
“As a veteran, I believe that any veteran lending their name, to promote the leftist propaganda of global warming and climate change, in an effort to control more of the wealth created in our economy, through cap and tax type policies, all in the name of national security, is a traitor to the oath he or she took to defend the Constitution of our great nation!” Mr. Metcalfe’s email reads. “Remember Benedict Arnold before giving credibility to a veteran who uses their service as a means to promote a leftist agenda. Drill Baby Drill!!!”
Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, Pennsylvania
Two Republican party chairmen from South Carolina, in trying to defend Sen. Jim DeMint's (R-SC) practice of not using earmarks, said DeMint "is watching our nation's pennies," just like "the Jews who are wealthy."
O. Merwin and James S. Ulmer
"Little children will be forced to learn that homosexuality is normal and natural and perhaps they should try it."Senator Michele Bachmann, Minnesota
"As I said on the Senate floor on July 28, 2003, "much of the debate over global warming is predicated on fear, rather than science." I called the threat of catastrophic global warming the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," a statement that, to put it mildly, was not viewed kindly by environmental extremists and their elitist organizations."
James Inhofe, Oklahoma
It is a real shame that America doesn't have a real president in the White House, and is instead subjected to the racist rants of a drug-damaged community organizer from politically-corrupt Chicago.
RNC Michael Steele
“If the Soviet empire still existed, I'd be terrified. The fact is, we can afford a fairly ignorant presidency now.
Newt Gingrich
There are moral absolutes and that God's law indeed is there to protect you from yourself, and there are consequences if you breach that. This press conference is a consequence.
Governor Mark Sanford, South Carolina
“That marriage is the union between a man and a woman is a truth known to each one of us already, and any attempt to allow same-sex marriages is a detriment to the family unit and hurts our state and nation.”
Rick Perry, Texas
They are also building schools for the Afghan children so that there is hope and opportunity in our neighboring country of Afghanistan.
Sarah Palin, ex-Governor, Alaska
Our goals in Afghanistan are reasonable, but they cannot be achieved if we significantly reduce our military presence in the country at this critical juncture. We must remember that the safety and security of the American people and our allies are at stake. We abandon our long-term interests in this strategic region at our own peril.
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), House minority whip.
Ronald Reagan's vision of smaller government, less taxes, and a strong national defense has led to a prosperous America. As president, he rebuilt our military and reinvigorated our confidence in ourselves. David Vitter, Louisiana
“Michael Moore is free to denounce every manifestation of American foreign policy; is he not? And we are upholding his right to do so, as ridiculous and inane and asinine as his comments are.”
Senator Orrin Hatch, Utah
Why all these Marxists in the Administration? Why do all have coincidentally reflective of these Marxist views. Senator George LeMieux, Florida
We should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma." Senator Grassley, Iowa
How can you spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives? How does that stimulate the economy?”
John Boehner, Ohio
Some people, for some reason, seem afraid to admit it, but the fact of the matter is that American health care is the envy of many, many people around the world. And Americans don’t want to lose it. That’s why Americans are telling us that we can reform health care without bankrupting the country or destroying what's so unique and special about our current system. That’s why a growing number of politicians in Washington are hearing the people’s concerns — and speaking out. And that’s why many of them are now urging the administration to take a different path.”
Senator Mitch McConnell, Kentucky
Senator Shelby said : “Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven’t seen any birth certificate. You have to be born in America to be president.”
Senator Richard Shelby, Alabama
Senator Kerry voted to undermine the troops in the field, and that is not only inexcusable, it is reprehensible.
Senator John Ensign, Nevada
By dragging out the decision-making process on our Afghanistan war strategy, the president has not only irritated the military and our allies and given our foes reason for optimism.
Senator Jeff Sessions, Alabama
You will notice that these quotes are by no means all from the more extreme members of the Republican ultra-right. They also represent a fairly decent cross-section of Republicans. They do not reflect other statements from Republicans that are even more questionable (or nonsensical), such as Michael Steele’s recent announcement that we don’t need comprehensive health care change, or Joe Wilson’s accusation that President Obama was lying, or the more outrageous blather by Limbaugh, Beck, and others. It would be possible to find many more of these comments if one had the ambition or desire to look for them. It is difficult at times, when trying to decipher Republican comments, to decide whether they are being made for purely political reasons, if they really believe what they are saying, or if they are just hopelessly stupid. Collectively, they represent to me either ignorance, stupidity, or naked partisanship. They also seem to validate the Republican claim to be the party of NO, as for the most part they are all negatives, confirming also that Republicans have no positive suggestions for anything. Is it any wonder that a mere 20% of Americans now admit to being Republicans?
LKBIQ:
Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
George Bernard Shaw
TILT:
Thomas Wolfe is regarded as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century.
on his knees praying with
crying clerk, robs her of $20.
Somewhere today I saw a comment that the Republican Party was rapidly becoming the party of semi-lunacy (or something to that effect). I started looking at some recent Republican quotes that tend to make me believe there is something to this claim:
“As a veteran, I believe that any veteran lending their name, to promote the leftist propaganda of global warming and climate change, in an effort to control more of the wealth created in our economy, through cap and tax type policies, all in the name of national security, is a traitor to the oath he or she took to defend the Constitution of our great nation!” Mr. Metcalfe’s email reads. “Remember Benedict Arnold before giving credibility to a veteran who uses their service as a means to promote a leftist agenda. Drill Baby Drill!!!”
Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, Pennsylvania
Two Republican party chairmen from South Carolina, in trying to defend Sen. Jim DeMint's (R-SC) practice of not using earmarks, said DeMint "is watching our nation's pennies," just like "the Jews who are wealthy."
O. Merwin and James S. Ulmer
"Little children will be forced to learn that homosexuality is normal and natural and perhaps they should try it."Senator Michele Bachmann, Minnesota
"As I said on the Senate floor on July 28, 2003, "much of the debate over global warming is predicated on fear, rather than science." I called the threat of catastrophic global warming the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," a statement that, to put it mildly, was not viewed kindly by environmental extremists and their elitist organizations."
James Inhofe, Oklahoma
It is a real shame that America doesn't have a real president in the White House, and is instead subjected to the racist rants of a drug-damaged community organizer from politically-corrupt Chicago.
RNC Michael Steele
“If the Soviet empire still existed, I'd be terrified. The fact is, we can afford a fairly ignorant presidency now.
Newt Gingrich
There are moral absolutes and that God's law indeed is there to protect you from yourself, and there are consequences if you breach that. This press conference is a consequence.
Governor Mark Sanford, South Carolina
“That marriage is the union between a man and a woman is a truth known to each one of us already, and any attempt to allow same-sex marriages is a detriment to the family unit and hurts our state and nation.”
Rick Perry, Texas
They are also building schools for the Afghan children so that there is hope and opportunity in our neighboring country of Afghanistan.
Sarah Palin, ex-Governor, Alaska
Our goals in Afghanistan are reasonable, but they cannot be achieved if we significantly reduce our military presence in the country at this critical juncture. We must remember that the safety and security of the American people and our allies are at stake. We abandon our long-term interests in this strategic region at our own peril.
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), House minority whip.
Ronald Reagan's vision of smaller government, less taxes, and a strong national defense has led to a prosperous America. As president, he rebuilt our military and reinvigorated our confidence in ourselves. David Vitter, Louisiana
“Michael Moore is free to denounce every manifestation of American foreign policy; is he not? And we are upholding his right to do so, as ridiculous and inane and asinine as his comments are.”
Senator Orrin Hatch, Utah
Why all these Marxists in the Administration? Why do all have coincidentally reflective of these Marxist views. Senator George LeMieux, Florida
We should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma." Senator Grassley, Iowa
How can you spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives? How does that stimulate the economy?”
John Boehner, Ohio
Some people, for some reason, seem afraid to admit it, but the fact of the matter is that American health care is the envy of many, many people around the world. And Americans don’t want to lose it. That’s why Americans are telling us that we can reform health care without bankrupting the country or destroying what's so unique and special about our current system. That’s why a growing number of politicians in Washington are hearing the people’s concerns — and speaking out. And that’s why many of them are now urging the administration to take a different path.”
Senator Mitch McConnell, Kentucky
Senator Shelby said : “Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven’t seen any birth certificate. You have to be born in America to be president.”
Senator Richard Shelby, Alabama
Senator Kerry voted to undermine the troops in the field, and that is not only inexcusable, it is reprehensible.
Senator John Ensign, Nevada
By dragging out the decision-making process on our Afghanistan war strategy, the president has not only irritated the military and our allies and given our foes reason for optimism.
Senator Jeff Sessions, Alabama
You will notice that these quotes are by no means all from the more extreme members of the Republican ultra-right. They also represent a fairly decent cross-section of Republicans. They do not reflect other statements from Republicans that are even more questionable (or nonsensical), such as Michael Steele’s recent announcement that we don’t need comprehensive health care change, or Joe Wilson’s accusation that President Obama was lying, or the more outrageous blather by Limbaugh, Beck, and others. It would be possible to find many more of these comments if one had the ambition or desire to look for them. It is difficult at times, when trying to decipher Republican comments, to decide whether they are being made for purely political reasons, if they really believe what they are saying, or if they are just hopelessly stupid. Collectively, they represent to me either ignorance, stupidity, or naked partisanship. They also seem to validate the Republican claim to be the party of NO, as for the most part they are all negatives, confirming also that Republicans have no positive suggestions for anything. Is it any wonder that a mere 20% of Americans now admit to being Republicans?
LKBIQ:
Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
George Bernard Shaw
TILT:
Thomas Wolfe is regarded as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
On Violence
Missing his father, Vermont
man digs up his remains
and takes them home.
I have abhorred violence for as long as I can remember. Perhaps this is because I was raised in a small mining town where violence was common, especially on week-ends, when the miners and lumberjacks came to town for their weekend entertainment. Fights occurred regularly, especially on Friday and Saturday nights, and they could be quite violent with heads being smashed on the concrete sidewalks and such (most fights were not this bad, but did result in a lot of blood and black eyes and such). This kind of behavior was also by no means uncommon among high-schoolers and teen-agers. During WWII, when a naval station was created at Farragut on Lake Pond Oreille, and the sailors would visit our town there were also many fights over the local girls, and there were most always fights after our football games. Having grown up in such a mileu, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the natives in New Guinea where I spent some time, who were said to be violent, did not seem to me to be very violent at all (within their own groups, that is). I recall as a teen-ager asking my parents if I could please go away to school, but that did not happen. Hunting with my father I soon learned I did not really like killing things. I guess I was a “sissy,” although I never felt that way. Anyway, this is not really about me, only about my reaction to what I am hearing about what to do in Iran, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
I cannot believe, for example, that John Bolton is urging us to use nuclear bombs on Iran. He was recently seconded in this by one of our Generals who said if Israel bombs Iran we should join them. There are many other “hawks” as well, including, I gather, even Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State, and even President Obama has refused to take military action off the table. I am unable to understand this. First, there is no evidence that Iran is building a nuclear bomb. These warmongers apparently just refuse to believe it, even though our own intelligence has verified it. For the most part I guess these are pretty much the same people who thought we were right to illegally attack Iraq and now want us to continue the carnage in Afghanistan. Do people like this have no idea of what it is they are promoting? Are they brain dead when it comes to human misery and death? What do they think happens when we start dropping bombs on people? Are they not satisfied that we have already killed probably a million, mostly innocent civilians, and displaced four million from their homes? Perhaps this might be necessary if we were under attack by these countries, but we aren’t, weren’t, and aren’t going to be. So I don’t get it. Are they in it for the money or the black gold or what? Personally I am led to conclude these warmongers are mindless creatures who have no understanding or empathy when it comes to others, basically ghouls who take pleasure in torturing and destroying other people, monsters who are so enraptured with power they believe they can do anything (they have so far and have managed to escape responsibility for it). We are not in danger from any of these people, except for a tiny few who might legitimately be considered terrorists, but that hardly justifies attacking other countries or engaging in “war” rather than police action. Perhaps there are reasons for what we do that I am unaware of, in which case I would have to bow to their superior knowledge and understanding of our Foreign Policy, but at the moment I simply do not believe this is the case. I think they (and even we) are quite simply mad.
Are our banks suicidal? It seems they are all raising their interest rates on credit cards. I know my own rates are going up from 9.9% to 13.4% (or close to that) for no reason at all other than that they can apparently legally do it. I saw a report today that Citibank is raising their rates to 29.9%! Can you believe that! Apparently their short-term greed is such they cannot realize they are actually killing the goose that has been laying them the gold eggs for so long. Everyone should just refuse to pay, ending the credit card business once and for all. Unfortunately, credit cards and credit have become so integral to our lives we would probably go on with such a thieving situation no matter what they did (we really are not very bright, you know).
LKBIQ:
No society that feeds its children on tales of successful violence can expect them not to believe that violence in the end is rewarded.
Margaret Mead
TILT:
The Semai of Malaysia have two main values, avoiding violence and sharing food.
man digs up his remains
and takes them home.
I have abhorred violence for as long as I can remember. Perhaps this is because I was raised in a small mining town where violence was common, especially on week-ends, when the miners and lumberjacks came to town for their weekend entertainment. Fights occurred regularly, especially on Friday and Saturday nights, and they could be quite violent with heads being smashed on the concrete sidewalks and such (most fights were not this bad, but did result in a lot of blood and black eyes and such). This kind of behavior was also by no means uncommon among high-schoolers and teen-agers. During WWII, when a naval station was created at Farragut on Lake Pond Oreille, and the sailors would visit our town there were also many fights over the local girls, and there were most always fights after our football games. Having grown up in such a mileu, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the natives in New Guinea where I spent some time, who were said to be violent, did not seem to me to be very violent at all (within their own groups, that is). I recall as a teen-ager asking my parents if I could please go away to school, but that did not happen. Hunting with my father I soon learned I did not really like killing things. I guess I was a “sissy,” although I never felt that way. Anyway, this is not really about me, only about my reaction to what I am hearing about what to do in Iran, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
I cannot believe, for example, that John Bolton is urging us to use nuclear bombs on Iran. He was recently seconded in this by one of our Generals who said if Israel bombs Iran we should join them. There are many other “hawks” as well, including, I gather, even Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State, and even President Obama has refused to take military action off the table. I am unable to understand this. First, there is no evidence that Iran is building a nuclear bomb. These warmongers apparently just refuse to believe it, even though our own intelligence has verified it. For the most part I guess these are pretty much the same people who thought we were right to illegally attack Iraq and now want us to continue the carnage in Afghanistan. Do people like this have no idea of what it is they are promoting? Are they brain dead when it comes to human misery and death? What do they think happens when we start dropping bombs on people? Are they not satisfied that we have already killed probably a million, mostly innocent civilians, and displaced four million from their homes? Perhaps this might be necessary if we were under attack by these countries, but we aren’t, weren’t, and aren’t going to be. So I don’t get it. Are they in it for the money or the black gold or what? Personally I am led to conclude these warmongers are mindless creatures who have no understanding or empathy when it comes to others, basically ghouls who take pleasure in torturing and destroying other people, monsters who are so enraptured with power they believe they can do anything (they have so far and have managed to escape responsibility for it). We are not in danger from any of these people, except for a tiny few who might legitimately be considered terrorists, but that hardly justifies attacking other countries or engaging in “war” rather than police action. Perhaps there are reasons for what we do that I am unaware of, in which case I would have to bow to their superior knowledge and understanding of our Foreign Policy, but at the moment I simply do not believe this is the case. I think they (and even we) are quite simply mad.
Are our banks suicidal? It seems they are all raising their interest rates on credit cards. I know my own rates are going up from 9.9% to 13.4% (or close to that) for no reason at all other than that they can apparently legally do it. I saw a report today that Citibank is raising their rates to 29.9%! Can you believe that! Apparently their short-term greed is such they cannot realize they are actually killing the goose that has been laying them the gold eggs for so long. Everyone should just refuse to pay, ending the credit card business once and for all. Unfortunately, credit cards and credit have become so integral to our lives we would probably go on with such a thieving situation no matter what they did (we really are not very bright, you know).
LKBIQ:
No society that feeds its children on tales of successful violence can expect them not to believe that violence in the end is rewarded.
Margaret Mead
TILT:
The Semai of Malaysia have two main values, avoiding violence and sharing food.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Sorry
I cannot blog this evening due to circumstances beyond my control. If you go to my blog, "Five Years," you will find lists of essays, short stories, book reviews and comments, some of which you might find of interest.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Jim Morrison - book
Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend, by Stephen Davis (Gotham Books, 2004)
The last time we saw Paris (four or five years ago), my son insisted he had to visit the grave of Jim Morrison. It seems his grave is now the third biggest attraction in that lovely city, after the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. I confess I did not understand this. In fact, I had never heard of Jim Morrison or the Doors. I guess I am too old to be of the sixties generation and besides, I think I was in New Guinea during the greatest popularity of the Doors. Anyway, my son recently gave me a copy of Morrison’s biography. I have been trying to read it for two months. I am sorry to report, I have failed dismally. After I read the first two chapters, the first thing that popped into my head was a great line from one of Dorothy Parker’s book reviews, “This book should not be tossed aside lightly, it should be thrown with great force.” I was prepared to do this, but my son insisted I should read on as it would tell me a lot about the 60’s. I was not certain I wanted to know more about the 60’s than I already knew, but I soldiered on. Soon I was again ready to give up, but my wife (who is much younger than I am) insisted that some of the music and lyrics were not so bad. So I continued on, but not for long. I have failed to read this book. My mother taught me, “If you can’t say something nice about someone or something, don’t say anything.” So I am not saying anything.
I see that Greenspan has suggested that perhaps we should break up the big banks into smaller ones. Too bad he didn’t say so several years ago before they were “too big to fail.” I think it is a splendid idea and I am all for it. But why stop at banks? I think we should break up all the huge corporations which now basically rule the world. We should especially put a stop to corporate farming, but also corporate ownership of our primary means of (mis)information, the major news outlets. And along the way we should break up the big oil conglomerates, the telephone and energy ones, especially the food giants like Monsanto, the gigantic cattle lots, pig and chicken (fake) farms that pollute like crazy and bring us chemically loaded meats, and anything else that is claimed to be too big to fail. Walmart, Home Depot, and the other big box stores should also go. Think what this would do for unemployment, all those smaller businesses that have been put out of business would return, the quality of food and service would improve immensely. We would not be at the mercy of greedy hungry companies that are willing to provide us with terrible genetically modified foods in order to increase their short term profits at the risk of our long term health, acquire a monopoly on our seeds, and so on. Smaller farms would mean much better and healthier food and also using the land in a much more sustainable fashion. The costs of transporting food would go down and with it prices that are now approaching levels no longer possible for many to afford. I do not believe nature intended us to live the way we are now. We should be much closer to the land and our resources and nature in general. When was the last time you saw the stars? Do your children even know where their food comes from? Yes, I know this would mean turning the clock back a bit, interfering with “progress,” and returning to our agrarian roots, but so what, it would be a good thing. Why is it that Norway has the happiest citizens? We don’t have to go back to using digging sticks and clubs, but there must be a balance somewhere between technology and human needs and requirements that does not demand the physical destruction of the world we have to live in. Do we really need one or two thousand pounds of metal to take us singly to our petty destinations? What is wrong with trains and buses, even bicycles? Does every small town need massive storage facilities so we can store the stuff we acquire so rapidly we can’t even use it? Must we manufacture more things to kill each other than things that would improve the quality of our lives for everyone? There is something very wrong with our culture. Much of it can be summed up in the phrase “free-market capitalism.” As we experience it, it seems to mean simply that you never plan for anything, you just depend upon the market to take care of it. From a basic human perspective this is an idea so stupid it should never have been allowed. You like it, you live with it, you are.
The last time we saw Paris (four or five years ago), my son insisted he had to visit the grave of Jim Morrison. It seems his grave is now the third biggest attraction in that lovely city, after the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. I confess I did not understand this. In fact, I had never heard of Jim Morrison or the Doors. I guess I am too old to be of the sixties generation and besides, I think I was in New Guinea during the greatest popularity of the Doors. Anyway, my son recently gave me a copy of Morrison’s biography. I have been trying to read it for two months. I am sorry to report, I have failed dismally. After I read the first two chapters, the first thing that popped into my head was a great line from one of Dorothy Parker’s book reviews, “This book should not be tossed aside lightly, it should be thrown with great force.” I was prepared to do this, but my son insisted I should read on as it would tell me a lot about the 60’s. I was not certain I wanted to know more about the 60’s than I already knew, but I soldiered on. Soon I was again ready to give up, but my wife (who is much younger than I am) insisted that some of the music and lyrics were not so bad. So I continued on, but not for long. I have failed to read this book. My mother taught me, “If you can’t say something nice about someone or something, don’t say anything.” So I am not saying anything.
I see that Greenspan has suggested that perhaps we should break up the big banks into smaller ones. Too bad he didn’t say so several years ago before they were “too big to fail.” I think it is a splendid idea and I am all for it. But why stop at banks? I think we should break up all the huge corporations which now basically rule the world. We should especially put a stop to corporate farming, but also corporate ownership of our primary means of (mis)information, the major news outlets. And along the way we should break up the big oil conglomerates, the telephone and energy ones, especially the food giants like Monsanto, the gigantic cattle lots, pig and chicken (fake) farms that pollute like crazy and bring us chemically loaded meats, and anything else that is claimed to be too big to fail. Walmart, Home Depot, and the other big box stores should also go. Think what this would do for unemployment, all those smaller businesses that have been put out of business would return, the quality of food and service would improve immensely. We would not be at the mercy of greedy hungry companies that are willing to provide us with terrible genetically modified foods in order to increase their short term profits at the risk of our long term health, acquire a monopoly on our seeds, and so on. Smaller farms would mean much better and healthier food and also using the land in a much more sustainable fashion. The costs of transporting food would go down and with it prices that are now approaching levels no longer possible for many to afford. I do not believe nature intended us to live the way we are now. We should be much closer to the land and our resources and nature in general. When was the last time you saw the stars? Do your children even know where their food comes from? Yes, I know this would mean turning the clock back a bit, interfering with “progress,” and returning to our agrarian roots, but so what, it would be a good thing. Why is it that Norway has the happiest citizens? We don’t have to go back to using digging sticks and clubs, but there must be a balance somewhere between technology and human needs and requirements that does not demand the physical destruction of the world we have to live in. Do we really need one or two thousand pounds of metal to take us singly to our petty destinations? What is wrong with trains and buses, even bicycles? Does every small town need massive storage facilities so we can store the stuff we acquire so rapidly we can’t even use it? Must we manufacture more things to kill each other than things that would improve the quality of our lives for everyone? There is something very wrong with our culture. Much of it can be summed up in the phrase “free-market capitalism.” As we experience it, it seems to mean simply that you never plan for anything, you just depend upon the market to take care of it. From a basic human perspective this is an idea so stupid it should never have been allowed. You like it, you live with it, you are.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
"Sick puppies?"
When 50 year-old son
refuses to stop drumming,
83 year-old father opens fire.
“Sick puppies,” indeed. President George Bush the First characterized Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow as a pair of sick puppies because, he said, they unfairly picked on George the Second. I have watched Maddow almost every night since the inception of her program. I do not think she has “unfairly” attacked anyone, although she certainly does attack. I think she has the best show of its kind on television by far. At least she makes no pretense about being bipartisan and comes across clearly and honestly in what she believes. She manages to find the facts about things, checked carefully to be sure she hasn’t said something incorrect, and then pursues the news like a genuine reporter (a very rare performance these days). Usually I agree with her but rarely I do not. She lacks pomposity, thankfully has not insisted on being called “Dr. Rachel,” although she is entitled to that term of respect (I doubt that most viewers are aware she has a Ph.D.). She simply tries to tell it as it is, and obviously takes her work very seriously. She does not hesitate to offend if that becomes necessary. She does not hide her lesbianism nor does she flaunt it, but she does downplay any feminism by dressing in a Spartan fashion, pretty much the same costume every night and never any jewelry (even football players outdo her in this respect). I gather she is a baseball fan and also loves fishing. I have the utmost respect for her, but I do wonder how long she will last. Speaking the truth on television and radio (especially to power) is a risky business these days and even though she is popular and has a wide audience the powers that be may decide the truth is just too threatening. Olberman is a somewhat different case. We must thank him for Rachel as I believe he was responsible for getting her a show even though I think she now outshines him. I like Olberman, but he does have a kind of aggressive edge to him that Rachel avoids, and he is also much too given (I think) to pontificating. Even so, I believe the Olberman/Maddow hours are the best news on television and I sincerely hope they continue. George the First should be more concerned with the “sick puppy” he has for a son, rather than casting aspersions on anyone else.
Speaking of sick puppies, what do you think of the 34 Republicans who voted against Al Franken’s bill to crack down on rape by some of our contractors? Hard to believe, but true. Of course these are mostly the same people who apparently think it is fine that so many of our citizens have no health care and also that it is fine the Insurance Companies continue to make their obscene profits off the misery of the sick and the dying, so what’s a little rape among friends. I guess we might forgive them their insanity, no doubt years of listening to Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity and that skinny horse-faced blond woman, has addled their brains so completely they can no longer help what they do. Maybe there has been too much inbreeding among Republicans, how else could we have been cursed with the likes of Inhofe, Grassley, Palin, Bachmann, and others (mostly from the sub I.Q. belt)? Texas wants to secede? Let ‘em, I say, we’d soon be able to buy it back really cheap.
Pity the poor Israelis who are beginning to find out they will not get their way as easily as they have in the past. The U.N. refused to back down on their report on Israeli war crimes in Gaza (even though Israel demanded they do so), they are under increasing pressure to give up building more illegal settlements and may even have to start talking about peace (if, in fact, they even remember how). Netanyahu is proving to be not very popular, their Foreign Minister even less so. And even their long-standing friend, Turkey, has refused to stop showing a film of Israeli soldiers shooting innocent children. More importantly, they cannot find anyone (including the U.S.) who thinks they should bomb the Iranians for manufacturing imaginary nuclear bombs. Adding insult to injury, that awful Black Man in the White House, who doesn’t seem to like them quite as much as his predecessor, George the Dim, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for, of all things, trying to bring about peace! Should he succeed the Israelis might eventually have to give up some of their stolen goods. What, I ask you, is the world coming to?
LKBIQ:
If man does find the solution for world peace it will be the most revolutionary reversal of his record we have ever known.
George C. Marshall
TILT:
An 18 year-old man in Nepal has laid claim to being the smallest man ever, at 22 inches in height.
refuses to stop drumming,
83 year-old father opens fire.
“Sick puppies,” indeed. President George Bush the First characterized Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow as a pair of sick puppies because, he said, they unfairly picked on George the Second. I have watched Maddow almost every night since the inception of her program. I do not think she has “unfairly” attacked anyone, although she certainly does attack. I think she has the best show of its kind on television by far. At least she makes no pretense about being bipartisan and comes across clearly and honestly in what she believes. She manages to find the facts about things, checked carefully to be sure she hasn’t said something incorrect, and then pursues the news like a genuine reporter (a very rare performance these days). Usually I agree with her but rarely I do not. She lacks pomposity, thankfully has not insisted on being called “Dr. Rachel,” although she is entitled to that term of respect (I doubt that most viewers are aware she has a Ph.D.). She simply tries to tell it as it is, and obviously takes her work very seriously. She does not hesitate to offend if that becomes necessary. She does not hide her lesbianism nor does she flaunt it, but she does downplay any feminism by dressing in a Spartan fashion, pretty much the same costume every night and never any jewelry (even football players outdo her in this respect). I gather she is a baseball fan and also loves fishing. I have the utmost respect for her, but I do wonder how long she will last. Speaking the truth on television and radio (especially to power) is a risky business these days and even though she is popular and has a wide audience the powers that be may decide the truth is just too threatening. Olberman is a somewhat different case. We must thank him for Rachel as I believe he was responsible for getting her a show even though I think she now outshines him. I like Olberman, but he does have a kind of aggressive edge to him that Rachel avoids, and he is also much too given (I think) to pontificating. Even so, I believe the Olberman/Maddow hours are the best news on television and I sincerely hope they continue. George the First should be more concerned with the “sick puppy” he has for a son, rather than casting aspersions on anyone else.
Speaking of sick puppies, what do you think of the 34 Republicans who voted against Al Franken’s bill to crack down on rape by some of our contractors? Hard to believe, but true. Of course these are mostly the same people who apparently think it is fine that so many of our citizens have no health care and also that it is fine the Insurance Companies continue to make their obscene profits off the misery of the sick and the dying, so what’s a little rape among friends. I guess we might forgive them their insanity, no doubt years of listening to Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity and that skinny horse-faced blond woman, has addled their brains so completely they can no longer help what they do. Maybe there has been too much inbreeding among Republicans, how else could we have been cursed with the likes of Inhofe, Grassley, Palin, Bachmann, and others (mostly from the sub I.Q. belt)? Texas wants to secede? Let ‘em, I say, we’d soon be able to buy it back really cheap.
Pity the poor Israelis who are beginning to find out they will not get their way as easily as they have in the past. The U.N. refused to back down on their report on Israeli war crimes in Gaza (even though Israel demanded they do so), they are under increasing pressure to give up building more illegal settlements and may even have to start talking about peace (if, in fact, they even remember how). Netanyahu is proving to be not very popular, their Foreign Minister even less so. And even their long-standing friend, Turkey, has refused to stop showing a film of Israeli soldiers shooting innocent children. More importantly, they cannot find anyone (including the U.S.) who thinks they should bomb the Iranians for manufacturing imaginary nuclear bombs. Adding insult to injury, that awful Black Man in the White House, who doesn’t seem to like them quite as much as his predecessor, George the Dim, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for, of all things, trying to bring about peace! Should he succeed the Israelis might eventually have to give up some of their stolen goods. What, I ask you, is the world coming to?
LKBIQ:
If man does find the solution for world peace it will be the most revolutionary reversal of his record we have ever known.
George C. Marshall
TILT:
An 18 year-old man in Nepal has laid claim to being the smallest man ever, at 22 inches in height.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Stand on their own?
Berlin brothel offers discount
for customers who arrive via
public transportation or bicycle.
Some general or other said the other day that we must stay in Afghanistan until “they can stand on their own.” I guess it would not occur to anyone that the Afghans have “stood on their own” for thousands of years, and very successfully too, having eventually defeated all comers who have tried to conquer them, including Alexander the Great, Britain, Russia, and now the U.S. (there is no way we will ever “win” in Afghanistan, whatever that might mean). Afghanistan is a tribal and clan-based country where various clans either dispute each other or collaborate with each other, depending upon the circumstances at the moment. In such a political system (as it is a political system that works), the one thing that will make two or more clans work together is the threat from an outside force. They may fight each other at times but they will come together and act as one when the situation requires them to do so. This is precisely what they are doing now, joining together to fight against an unwelcome invader (the U.S.). You might notice that in general both Taliban and non-Taliban want us out of their country, and they are not going to give up until we are. They don’t need a pretentious Uncle Sam to come and lead them by the hand to a form of government they don’t even understand or even necessarily want to understand. What we are doing now with respect to our unstated “empire” is in reality no different than what Christians did during the Crusades when they attempted to force Christianity on the rest of the world. After all, who are we to decide how the rest of the world should live? We don’t like al Qaida or the Taliban, it is my understanding that most of the Afghans don’t like them much either (and would quite likely get rid of them if we let them mind their own business). We don’t like the way they treat women, what about our staunch “friends” the Saudis as well as other countries that do not treat their women very well (we have not exactly been paragons of equality here in the U.S., although granted we are trying to change a bit). The best thing we could do for the Afghans is to get out of their country and leave them alone. If they want help they will eventually ask for it. I sincerely hope (and even pray to the Great Mystery) that President Obama is not going to be fool enough to send 40, 45, or 80 thousand more troops to Afghanistan. Even eighty thousand troops will not be enough, quite likely even a million wouldn’t be enough. The Taliban are not a threat to the U.S., and al Qaida is weak and apparently growing broke. Afghanistan is not worth another American life. Let’s be sensible for once and bail out as graciously as possible.
Speaking of women, Terry O’Neill, President of NOW, has been speaking out against “men behaving badly.” She cites Roman Polansky and David Letterman as examples. But whoa, wait a minute, there’s an issue here that needs some more careful consideration. I believe there is no doubt that Polansky committed a truly vile deed and deserves to be severely punished for it, but David Letterman? Yes, he confessed to having had sex with his employees, which you might say is undesirable. But no one has come forward to complain about having either been raped or otherwise coerced into having sex with the boss. It also appears that women do hold relatively high and important positions in the Letterman organization. Furthermore, there is at least one testimonial from one of them that she has never seen any instance of impropriety on the part of Letterman or anyone else in the organization. O’Neill’s assumption that “the lord of the group” has been setting the stage for improper sexual behavior is highly questionable at best, and at worst completely without foundation, and what about those women who willingly, perhaps even eagerly, had sex with the boss? How about “women behaving badly?” It would seem only fair and reasonable to me.
John McCain has urged President Obama to retroactively pardon the great black heavyweight champion, Jack Johnson. You may recall that Johnson was grossly discriminated against by being railroaded to jail for engaging in what was then known as “white slavery” or some such thing. That is, he openly appeared with white women, much to the horror of many citizens of that day, and I guess must have crossed a state line with one of them. I do not recall the details, nor is it necessary to go into them here. I am all in favor of Johnson being exonerated. It should probably have happened long ago. But I do wonder about retroactively pardoning people for past deeds. It seems to me there ought to be a time to stop, except, perhaps, in the most egregious cases. I recall that many years ago there was a to-do about the Catholic Church exonerating the Jews from having killed Christ. I confess I thought that was kind of unnecessary as I think by that time hardly anyone thought about it. But maybe in religious circles it was something. It certainly meant nothing at all to me. Reparations for the Japanese who were forced into camps during WWII I believe was entirely justified, even though pitifully small compared to what they lost. The case of American Indians, too, I thought was more than justified, but, again, how could their surviving remnants ever be compensated for losing the whole of the Americas? I think an excellent case can be made for the Palestinians, but the Israelis prefer to believe they do not exist or have rights of any kind. There has often been talk of reparations for American blacks because of slavery. I agree they certainly suffered, and in principle I think it might be deserved, but it does seem to me completely impractical, especially as no living blacks were involved in any way, there are so many of them, their precise circumstances and losses completely unknown, and so on. I am not suggesting that we draw the line with reparations for blacks, but only questioning if a line does not have to be drawn somewhere. Should all South American Indians be awarded reparations? How about East Indians? Africans? Tibetans? Armenians? And how about the millions upon millions of individual cases of terrible discrimination that are only known by those who suffered them? The entire history of the human species is just one instance of murder, arson, rape, theft and genocide after another. We have become so inured to this we now just fall back on the old saw, “life isn’t fair.” It ought to be.
LKBIQ:
War is much too serious a matter to be entrusted to the military.
Georges Clemenceau
TILT:
Brie and Camembert are virtually identical cheeses.
for customers who arrive via
public transportation or bicycle.
Some general or other said the other day that we must stay in Afghanistan until “they can stand on their own.” I guess it would not occur to anyone that the Afghans have “stood on their own” for thousands of years, and very successfully too, having eventually defeated all comers who have tried to conquer them, including Alexander the Great, Britain, Russia, and now the U.S. (there is no way we will ever “win” in Afghanistan, whatever that might mean). Afghanistan is a tribal and clan-based country where various clans either dispute each other or collaborate with each other, depending upon the circumstances at the moment. In such a political system (as it is a political system that works), the one thing that will make two or more clans work together is the threat from an outside force. They may fight each other at times but they will come together and act as one when the situation requires them to do so. This is precisely what they are doing now, joining together to fight against an unwelcome invader (the U.S.). You might notice that in general both Taliban and non-Taliban want us out of their country, and they are not going to give up until we are. They don’t need a pretentious Uncle Sam to come and lead them by the hand to a form of government they don’t even understand or even necessarily want to understand. What we are doing now with respect to our unstated “empire” is in reality no different than what Christians did during the Crusades when they attempted to force Christianity on the rest of the world. After all, who are we to decide how the rest of the world should live? We don’t like al Qaida or the Taliban, it is my understanding that most of the Afghans don’t like them much either (and would quite likely get rid of them if we let them mind their own business). We don’t like the way they treat women, what about our staunch “friends” the Saudis as well as other countries that do not treat their women very well (we have not exactly been paragons of equality here in the U.S., although granted we are trying to change a bit). The best thing we could do for the Afghans is to get out of their country and leave them alone. If they want help they will eventually ask for it. I sincerely hope (and even pray to the Great Mystery) that President Obama is not going to be fool enough to send 40, 45, or 80 thousand more troops to Afghanistan. Even eighty thousand troops will not be enough, quite likely even a million wouldn’t be enough. The Taliban are not a threat to the U.S., and al Qaida is weak and apparently growing broke. Afghanistan is not worth another American life. Let’s be sensible for once and bail out as graciously as possible.
Speaking of women, Terry O’Neill, President of NOW, has been speaking out against “men behaving badly.” She cites Roman Polansky and David Letterman as examples. But whoa, wait a minute, there’s an issue here that needs some more careful consideration. I believe there is no doubt that Polansky committed a truly vile deed and deserves to be severely punished for it, but David Letterman? Yes, he confessed to having had sex with his employees, which you might say is undesirable. But no one has come forward to complain about having either been raped or otherwise coerced into having sex with the boss. It also appears that women do hold relatively high and important positions in the Letterman organization. Furthermore, there is at least one testimonial from one of them that she has never seen any instance of impropriety on the part of Letterman or anyone else in the organization. O’Neill’s assumption that “the lord of the group” has been setting the stage for improper sexual behavior is highly questionable at best, and at worst completely without foundation, and what about those women who willingly, perhaps even eagerly, had sex with the boss? How about “women behaving badly?” It would seem only fair and reasonable to me.
John McCain has urged President Obama to retroactively pardon the great black heavyweight champion, Jack Johnson. You may recall that Johnson was grossly discriminated against by being railroaded to jail for engaging in what was then known as “white slavery” or some such thing. That is, he openly appeared with white women, much to the horror of many citizens of that day, and I guess must have crossed a state line with one of them. I do not recall the details, nor is it necessary to go into them here. I am all in favor of Johnson being exonerated. It should probably have happened long ago. But I do wonder about retroactively pardoning people for past deeds. It seems to me there ought to be a time to stop, except, perhaps, in the most egregious cases. I recall that many years ago there was a to-do about the Catholic Church exonerating the Jews from having killed Christ. I confess I thought that was kind of unnecessary as I think by that time hardly anyone thought about it. But maybe in religious circles it was something. It certainly meant nothing at all to me. Reparations for the Japanese who were forced into camps during WWII I believe was entirely justified, even though pitifully small compared to what they lost. The case of American Indians, too, I thought was more than justified, but, again, how could their surviving remnants ever be compensated for losing the whole of the Americas? I think an excellent case can be made for the Palestinians, but the Israelis prefer to believe they do not exist or have rights of any kind. There has often been talk of reparations for American blacks because of slavery. I agree they certainly suffered, and in principle I think it might be deserved, but it does seem to me completely impractical, especially as no living blacks were involved in any way, there are so many of them, their precise circumstances and losses completely unknown, and so on. I am not suggesting that we draw the line with reparations for blacks, but only questioning if a line does not have to be drawn somewhere. Should all South American Indians be awarded reparations? How about East Indians? Africans? Tibetans? Armenians? And how about the millions upon millions of individual cases of terrible discrimination that are only known by those who suffered them? The entire history of the human species is just one instance of murder, arson, rape, theft and genocide after another. We have become so inured to this we now just fall back on the old saw, “life isn’t fair.” It ought to be.
LKBIQ:
War is much too serious a matter to be entrusted to the military.
Georges Clemenceau
TILT:
Brie and Camembert are virtually identical cheeses.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Health care? Who needs it?
Wearing a black dress,
300 pound man tries
to steal rum and cola.
Health care? Who needs it? The U.S. is the only industrialized country in the world that does not offer universal health care to its citizens. We have some 47 million people without health care. Some 47,000 people a year die as a result of having no health care. Thousands upon thousands of American citizens, even though hard-working and diligent about paying for their health care go bankrupt each year because of some medical problem they cannot afford. Even those who are completely paid up on their premiums often find they can be denied health care because of some “pre-existing condition.” People often are forced to stay at jobs they would prefer to leave because they fear they will lose their health care. It is also possible to learn that after years of paying for health care you might find that your benefits have been used up. The price we pay for health care rises at something like four or five times faster than wages. No one doubts the Insurance Companies are abusing their near monopoly on health care and taking advantage of our existing “health care system.” There is no doubt that our existing system is unsustainable and will bankrupt the nation if allowed to continue as is. The Insurance giants are making obscene profits from the illnesses and deaths of our citizens because their bottom line is profit rather than proper medical care. What makes this worse is that Insurance Companies need not be involved in health care in the first place as they basically do nothing except shuffle paperwork and try to find ways not to pay whenever possible. These are the basic facts of the case, not merely my opinion. Put at its most cynical, they make their money by capitalizing on human misery, illness, and death.
Given the facts of the situation, you might think that those elected to represent the people would be concerned enough to act quickly, thoughtfully, and seriously, to do something about this shameful situation. But when you realize this situation has endured for at least sixty years, and resisted all attempts at reform, you know they have done nothing and it appears they are poised to do nothing once again. Instead of serious debate about health care we have heard mostly nonsense about Obama’s plan really being designed to kill old people, women with breast cancer, the handicapped, even Republicans. Or we are told this is a plot for the government to take over health care (presumably from a caring private insurance system that is so dysfunctional it smells). Similarly, we hear the same pathetic cry opponents have used for years, socialism (run for your lives). And of course we are told we can’t afford health care (we can afford two ongoing unnecessary “wars,” a ridiculously expensive and completely failed “war on drugs,” and a military/industrial/political complex that is so overpriced, wasteful, and in large part useless, that it takes up half of our national budget and is more expensive than all other nations expenditures on defense put together). We are also told that we might have to raise taxes somewhat to pay for it (health care is apparently not worth paying for).
What makes this so unutterably tragic is that it need not be. We could easily have a single-payer system that is known to be more efficient, less expensive, and entirely workable (as virtually all other nations have such a system). But our government, from the President on down, did not even allow a single-payer system a seat at the table. It was not even considered. Having deep-sixed the best system we could have had, they are now squabbling over whether or not there should be a “public option” which would compete with the private companies. The House says yes, the Senate says no. They are trying to reconcile the two different plans. If they fail I guess that would mean there would be, once again, no health care reform. Or, perhaps what is worse, they will agree on some ridiculous compromise that will give the impression of change but still just allow the Insurance Companies to continue robbing us blind, perhaps even worse than before. We could, of course, simply expand medicare to cover all in a simple single-payer format, but Republicans, and probably some Democrats would be totally opposed (even though medicare works pretty well and Taiwan, that just passed a universal system, based it on our medicare program… what do those Chinese know about anything). Remember Republicans fought desperately against medicare at the time it was passed, just as they fought against social security, and virtually anything else designed to help ordinary citizens. Thus Obama’s ambitious plan to reform health care has devolved into fighting over things that really have nothing to do with health care per se. That is, should the Insurance Companies continue to benefit from their obscene profits or should our citizens actually receive adequate health care at last. Or, are we to become a socialist country or remain the marvelous capitalist paradise that has brought us to where we are today? Should the government be involved in health care at all, or should it be left to the private for-profit sector? Should profit be allowed at all when it comes to health care (it would be so much cheaper without it). Is health care a basic human right? It seems Congress is willing to talk about anything other than meaningful and desperately needed health care reform.
Why is this so? We know perfectly well why it is. The Insurance Companies, Pharmaceuticals, and other opponents have so much money they have bought our Congress (maybe even our President). Our government no longer is in the business of acting for the common good, meeting the needs of its citizens, doing the right thing, but is, rather, acting in the best interests of their corporate masters. But there are some things that are too important to be left to the private sector: health care, energy, and water, certainly, but also prisons, schools, communications and such. Government is not the problem, or certainly doesn’t have to be, the real problem at the moment can be traced back to our nitwit former President, Saint Ronnie, and his merry band of Republican outlaws who have privatized everything but common sense, and even that seems to be in great danger.
LKBIQ:
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
Krishnamurti
TILT:
In living species, larger penguins tend to live in colder climates whereas smaller ones live in more temperate zones.
300 pound man tries
to steal rum and cola.
Health care? Who needs it? The U.S. is the only industrialized country in the world that does not offer universal health care to its citizens. We have some 47 million people without health care. Some 47,000 people a year die as a result of having no health care. Thousands upon thousands of American citizens, even though hard-working and diligent about paying for their health care go bankrupt each year because of some medical problem they cannot afford. Even those who are completely paid up on their premiums often find they can be denied health care because of some “pre-existing condition.” People often are forced to stay at jobs they would prefer to leave because they fear they will lose their health care. It is also possible to learn that after years of paying for health care you might find that your benefits have been used up. The price we pay for health care rises at something like four or five times faster than wages. No one doubts the Insurance Companies are abusing their near monopoly on health care and taking advantage of our existing “health care system.” There is no doubt that our existing system is unsustainable and will bankrupt the nation if allowed to continue as is. The Insurance giants are making obscene profits from the illnesses and deaths of our citizens because their bottom line is profit rather than proper medical care. What makes this worse is that Insurance Companies need not be involved in health care in the first place as they basically do nothing except shuffle paperwork and try to find ways not to pay whenever possible. These are the basic facts of the case, not merely my opinion. Put at its most cynical, they make their money by capitalizing on human misery, illness, and death.
Given the facts of the situation, you might think that those elected to represent the people would be concerned enough to act quickly, thoughtfully, and seriously, to do something about this shameful situation. But when you realize this situation has endured for at least sixty years, and resisted all attempts at reform, you know they have done nothing and it appears they are poised to do nothing once again. Instead of serious debate about health care we have heard mostly nonsense about Obama’s plan really being designed to kill old people, women with breast cancer, the handicapped, even Republicans. Or we are told this is a plot for the government to take over health care (presumably from a caring private insurance system that is so dysfunctional it smells). Similarly, we hear the same pathetic cry opponents have used for years, socialism (run for your lives). And of course we are told we can’t afford health care (we can afford two ongoing unnecessary “wars,” a ridiculously expensive and completely failed “war on drugs,” and a military/industrial/political complex that is so overpriced, wasteful, and in large part useless, that it takes up half of our national budget and is more expensive than all other nations expenditures on defense put together). We are also told that we might have to raise taxes somewhat to pay for it (health care is apparently not worth paying for).
What makes this so unutterably tragic is that it need not be. We could easily have a single-payer system that is known to be more efficient, less expensive, and entirely workable (as virtually all other nations have such a system). But our government, from the President on down, did not even allow a single-payer system a seat at the table. It was not even considered. Having deep-sixed the best system we could have had, they are now squabbling over whether or not there should be a “public option” which would compete with the private companies. The House says yes, the Senate says no. They are trying to reconcile the two different plans. If they fail I guess that would mean there would be, once again, no health care reform. Or, perhaps what is worse, they will agree on some ridiculous compromise that will give the impression of change but still just allow the Insurance Companies to continue robbing us blind, perhaps even worse than before. We could, of course, simply expand medicare to cover all in a simple single-payer format, but Republicans, and probably some Democrats would be totally opposed (even though medicare works pretty well and Taiwan, that just passed a universal system, based it on our medicare program… what do those Chinese know about anything). Remember Republicans fought desperately against medicare at the time it was passed, just as they fought against social security, and virtually anything else designed to help ordinary citizens. Thus Obama’s ambitious plan to reform health care has devolved into fighting over things that really have nothing to do with health care per se. That is, should the Insurance Companies continue to benefit from their obscene profits or should our citizens actually receive adequate health care at last. Or, are we to become a socialist country or remain the marvelous capitalist paradise that has brought us to where we are today? Should the government be involved in health care at all, or should it be left to the private for-profit sector? Should profit be allowed at all when it comes to health care (it would be so much cheaper without it). Is health care a basic human right? It seems Congress is willing to talk about anything other than meaningful and desperately needed health care reform.
Why is this so? We know perfectly well why it is. The Insurance Companies, Pharmaceuticals, and other opponents have so much money they have bought our Congress (maybe even our President). Our government no longer is in the business of acting for the common good, meeting the needs of its citizens, doing the right thing, but is, rather, acting in the best interests of their corporate masters. But there are some things that are too important to be left to the private sector: health care, energy, and water, certainly, but also prisons, schools, communications and such. Government is not the problem, or certainly doesn’t have to be, the real problem at the moment can be traced back to our nitwit former President, Saint Ronnie, and his merry band of Republican outlaws who have privatized everything but common sense, and even that seems to be in great danger.
LKBIQ:
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
Krishnamurti
TILT:
In living species, larger penguins tend to live in colder climates whereas smaller ones live in more temperate zones.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Manthropology?
She won’t take him back,
he beats her and
stabs her pet fish.
An Australian anthropologist, Peter McAllister has apparently written a book entitled Manthropology The Science of the Inadequate Modern Male. I have not yet seen this book but I read some brief comments about it on the web today. He points out, among a great many other things I guess, that Australian Aboriginal men could probably run faster than our fastest sprinters today, and no doubt for longer distances as well. This is of course because Aboriginal men had to run while they were hunting and did it just as a matter of course. Similarly, he points out that in certain African tribes all the men could high jump at least their height, as they had to do so for male initiations. He also claims that any Neanderthal would be able to beat Arnold Schwartzenegger in arm wrestling. Some of his data come from measurements of ancient footprints and estimates of the body characteristic s of earlier people, which may or may not be highly questionable. In any case, I confess I do not find it surprising at all that at least some earlier humans were physically superior to modern men, although this was not a conclusion reached by Francois Peron when he set out very early to test his hypothesis that “moral perfection must be in inverse ratio to physical perfection.” At the time (the early 1800’s) it was generally believed that “savages” were much better physically than moderns but were less moral. Peron concluded that moderns were both physically stronger as well as more moral (I don’t know precisely how Peron measured physical strength), he “measured” morality simply by comparing the beliefs of “savages” to the then moral beliefs of Europeans. I also do not know which groups Peron studied as there is little doubt that some “savages” were probably much healthier and stronger than others. Australian aborigines and many Africans had to be strong to survive and no doubt could run and jump at unusually high levels. What I do find most surprising is that it took someone so long to write a book about this subject.
Actually, I don’t think you have to go very far back in time to know that even our most recent ancestors, like the pioneers and explorers, were also much stronger with greater physical abilities as well. If you read accounts of early explorations it is pretty obvious the explorers had to endure conditions that would very quickly have been unendurable to modern men, and engaged in feats of strength far beyond what most men would be capable of doing now. When reading such accounts I often marvel they endured at all. Of course the same goes for pioneer women who had to put up with hardships modern women can hardly imagine. Those who were not strong enough just didn’t survive. I guess I might say this book is only telling us the obvious, but having not read it as yet that would seem unfair. Of course we can justify our own physical inadequacies rather easily by simply pointing out there is much more to life than mere physical strength and that modern technology makes possible many things that previously required more physical prowess. Interestingly enough, I believe it might be possible to argue that earlier men and women were also equally as intelligent as moderns but simply lacked all the information they would have needed to develop more rapidly. There probably is no such thing as a “primitive mind,” in spite of Piaget, Levy-Bruhl, and others. If this book was published in Australia it probably won’t reach us for some time, if ever.
That great fat barrel of pompous bullshit, Rush Limbaugh, has been turned down as part of a group trying to buy the Rams. You can bet the reasons are purely financial as the NFL owners are all conservatives and must have simply concluded it would be bad for business (I suspect they could care less if he is a racist). Limbaugh’s racism has come back to haunt him and he cannot deny it because there are tapes of his blatantly racist remarks made over the years. In the age of audio and videotape it is not as easy to lie as it once was. It’s actually kind of fun watching how Congresspersons and others get exposed lying as much as they do, having apparently not yet realized how times have changed.
Now it appears the stage is finally set for a great showdown between the citizens of the U.S. and the Insurance Companies. It appears to me to be about that simple. The problem is the fact that we have Congress in the middle of this gargantuan battle and some of them, perhaps many of them, will side with the Insurance Companies because they have been bribed to do so. In a sense it is not a battle about health care as much as it is a battle between rapacious profit-driven corporations and ordinary citizens. It is also complicated by the idea held by many that government is simply unable to do anything right and therefore would not be able to handle health care (falsely labeled socialized medicine). One of the things I find interesting about this argument is that it seems to be predicated on the idea that huge corporations, and even businesses in general, are paragons of organization and efficiency and therefore more able to manage health care than the government. My experiences over the years with large corporations like telephone companies, banks, insurance companies, and even aircraft industries, do not allow me to believe in their greater efficiency, and although the government does have its bureaucratic and other flaws, it is just as well suited for managing health care as private enterprise and a whole lot less expensive.
LKBIQ:
We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read.
Mark Twain
TILT:
Forty percent of all described insect species are beetles (350,000) and new species are continually being found.
he beats her and
stabs her pet fish.
An Australian anthropologist, Peter McAllister has apparently written a book entitled Manthropology The Science of the Inadequate Modern Male. I have not yet seen this book but I read some brief comments about it on the web today. He points out, among a great many other things I guess, that Australian Aboriginal men could probably run faster than our fastest sprinters today, and no doubt for longer distances as well. This is of course because Aboriginal men had to run while they were hunting and did it just as a matter of course. Similarly, he points out that in certain African tribes all the men could high jump at least their height, as they had to do so for male initiations. He also claims that any Neanderthal would be able to beat Arnold Schwartzenegger in arm wrestling. Some of his data come from measurements of ancient footprints and estimates of the body characteristic s of earlier people, which may or may not be highly questionable. In any case, I confess I do not find it surprising at all that at least some earlier humans were physically superior to modern men, although this was not a conclusion reached by Francois Peron when he set out very early to test his hypothesis that “moral perfection must be in inverse ratio to physical perfection.” At the time (the early 1800’s) it was generally believed that “savages” were much better physically than moderns but were less moral. Peron concluded that moderns were both physically stronger as well as more moral (I don’t know precisely how Peron measured physical strength), he “measured” morality simply by comparing the beliefs of “savages” to the then moral beliefs of Europeans. I also do not know which groups Peron studied as there is little doubt that some “savages” were probably much healthier and stronger than others. Australian aborigines and many Africans had to be strong to survive and no doubt could run and jump at unusually high levels. What I do find most surprising is that it took someone so long to write a book about this subject.
Actually, I don’t think you have to go very far back in time to know that even our most recent ancestors, like the pioneers and explorers, were also much stronger with greater physical abilities as well. If you read accounts of early explorations it is pretty obvious the explorers had to endure conditions that would very quickly have been unendurable to modern men, and engaged in feats of strength far beyond what most men would be capable of doing now. When reading such accounts I often marvel they endured at all. Of course the same goes for pioneer women who had to put up with hardships modern women can hardly imagine. Those who were not strong enough just didn’t survive. I guess I might say this book is only telling us the obvious, but having not read it as yet that would seem unfair. Of course we can justify our own physical inadequacies rather easily by simply pointing out there is much more to life than mere physical strength and that modern technology makes possible many things that previously required more physical prowess. Interestingly enough, I believe it might be possible to argue that earlier men and women were also equally as intelligent as moderns but simply lacked all the information they would have needed to develop more rapidly. There probably is no such thing as a “primitive mind,” in spite of Piaget, Levy-Bruhl, and others. If this book was published in Australia it probably won’t reach us for some time, if ever.
That great fat barrel of pompous bullshit, Rush Limbaugh, has been turned down as part of a group trying to buy the Rams. You can bet the reasons are purely financial as the NFL owners are all conservatives and must have simply concluded it would be bad for business (I suspect they could care less if he is a racist). Limbaugh’s racism has come back to haunt him and he cannot deny it because there are tapes of his blatantly racist remarks made over the years. In the age of audio and videotape it is not as easy to lie as it once was. It’s actually kind of fun watching how Congresspersons and others get exposed lying as much as they do, having apparently not yet realized how times have changed.
Now it appears the stage is finally set for a great showdown between the citizens of the U.S. and the Insurance Companies. It appears to me to be about that simple. The problem is the fact that we have Congress in the middle of this gargantuan battle and some of them, perhaps many of them, will side with the Insurance Companies because they have been bribed to do so. In a sense it is not a battle about health care as much as it is a battle between rapacious profit-driven corporations and ordinary citizens. It is also complicated by the idea held by many that government is simply unable to do anything right and therefore would not be able to handle health care (falsely labeled socialized medicine). One of the things I find interesting about this argument is that it seems to be predicated on the idea that huge corporations, and even businesses in general, are paragons of organization and efficiency and therefore more able to manage health care than the government. My experiences over the years with large corporations like telephone companies, banks, insurance companies, and even aircraft industries, do not allow me to believe in their greater efficiency, and although the government does have its bureaucratic and other flaws, it is just as well suited for managing health care as private enterprise and a whole lot less expensive.
LKBIQ:
We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read.
Mark Twain
TILT:
Forty percent of all described insect species are beetles (350,000) and new species are continually being found.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Whatever happened to common sense?
Tennessee couple arrested
for burglarizing chapel where
they were just married.
Whatever happened to common sense? A six year old first grader was so excited about becoming a cub scout he wanted to take a camping tool that served as knife, fork, and spoon (all in one), so he could use it for his lunch. He faces 45 days in reform school! Previously a little girl’s grandmother sent her with a birthday cake to school and included a knife with which to cut it. The teacher used the knife first, then reported it, and the girl was expelled from school for an entire year. I remember another case a while back when a young boy brought to school a plastic gun and got in big trouble. This was not a plastic gun that could have been mistaken for a real gun, it wasn’t even a full sized plastic gun, it was a small one taken from an action figure. I forget exactly what happened to him but I know he was punished.
Unfortunately, schools are not the only place common sense is apparently unavailable. Consider the airlines, where their policies of searching have attained absolutely comic dimensions. Not only do the airlines now prohibit people from bringing their toothpaste and perfumes and such (unless they are in tiny quantities), they prohibit little old ladies from bringing their knitting needles (very dangerous, those). You cannot bring a golf club, but you can bring a guitar. Probably more than a billion people have been made by now to remove their shoes because once, quite a while ago, one person was caught with a small amount of explosives in his heel (I have no doubt Osama bin Laden is laughing his head off over this). Eighty year old perfectly normal looking women have been searched at airports, as has a ninety year old man who could barely walk with a cane (interestingly, they didn’t take his cane away from him). You do not have to appear to be from the Middle East to experience these maddening and absurd attempts at security.
Border crossings are another case in point. We live very near the Canadian border and often go to Creston, B.C. to shop (as they have many things there we never find in our home town). For a time, during the mad-cow scare we were not permitted to bring beef across the border. This included veal. It was commonly accepted knowledge that mad cow disease did not occur in cows under three years of age, veal is by definition much younger than that. But no matter, it was prohibited anyway. And now, of course, although we go to Creston probably at least once a month, and have for years, and all of the border agents know us, we are still required to show passports and answer the same questions over and over again. A Canadian woman friend of ours, who was once busted for marijuana, about thirty years ago, was not permitted to cross now unless she paid a rather large fee, even though the high quality marijuana from B.C. is routinely smuggled across the border.
Then there are tasers. Police across the nation have apparently gone overboard in their use of tasers. They are known to have used them on girls as young as eight, on woman as old as ninety, and even on a paraplegic in a wheelchair. In many cases they use them even when confronted with relatively minor resistance. Perhaps in some cases like these there might be some reason to resort to the taser, but there are many accounts in which their use clearly violated ordinary common sense. I guess there are supposed to be rules about the use of tasers, but if so, they are often violated by overeager police personnel. Personally, I don’t believe the police should be allowed to use them at all, and there have been many deaths because of their overuse.
Even doctors are sometimes prohibited from using their common sense. I know of cases where doctors will admit their patients need certain drugs but refuse to prescribe them. They are forced to do this because of their fear of being punished for oversubscribing certain drugs to younger patients, even though they know they need them. Doctors, like teachers and school administrators and policemen and border agents, and many others are apparently not allowed to have or use common sense. We have become a nation of bureaucrats so fearful of criticism we will do anything, including avoiding common sense, to keep from being blamed for anything. I am confident that if one wanted to do a bit of research he or she could find dozens of cases even more atrocious than the ones I have mentioned.
What is worse about this situation is that it also occurs in government, even when the issues are of great importance. Anyone who spends even a small amount of time on it will learn that a single-payer system of health care is the most efficient, least expensive and wasteful system to have. Knowing that, would your common sense not lead you to believe you should have such a system? Alas, such a system is not even being seriously considered. Similarly, if you are aware that Insurance Companies are siphoning off huge profits from our existing system of health care, and there is no logical reason they should have anything to do with it, would your common sense not tell you they should be left out of health care? This appears to be not even a remote possibility. My common sense tells me that unless there are secret reasons I am not aware of, we have no business staying in Afghanistan and should withdraw as soon as possible. Common sense obviously has nothing much to do with our lives anymore.
LKBIQ:
Science is good furniture for one's upper chamber, if there is common sense below.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
TILT:
Unlike most marsupials, the Australian wombat has a relatively large brain and a backward pouch.
for burglarizing chapel where
they were just married.
Whatever happened to common sense? A six year old first grader was so excited about becoming a cub scout he wanted to take a camping tool that served as knife, fork, and spoon (all in one), so he could use it for his lunch. He faces 45 days in reform school! Previously a little girl’s grandmother sent her with a birthday cake to school and included a knife with which to cut it. The teacher used the knife first, then reported it, and the girl was expelled from school for an entire year. I remember another case a while back when a young boy brought to school a plastic gun and got in big trouble. This was not a plastic gun that could have been mistaken for a real gun, it wasn’t even a full sized plastic gun, it was a small one taken from an action figure. I forget exactly what happened to him but I know he was punished.
Unfortunately, schools are not the only place common sense is apparently unavailable. Consider the airlines, where their policies of searching have attained absolutely comic dimensions. Not only do the airlines now prohibit people from bringing their toothpaste and perfumes and such (unless they are in tiny quantities), they prohibit little old ladies from bringing their knitting needles (very dangerous, those). You cannot bring a golf club, but you can bring a guitar. Probably more than a billion people have been made by now to remove their shoes because once, quite a while ago, one person was caught with a small amount of explosives in his heel (I have no doubt Osama bin Laden is laughing his head off over this). Eighty year old perfectly normal looking women have been searched at airports, as has a ninety year old man who could barely walk with a cane (interestingly, they didn’t take his cane away from him). You do not have to appear to be from the Middle East to experience these maddening and absurd attempts at security.
Border crossings are another case in point. We live very near the Canadian border and often go to Creston, B.C. to shop (as they have many things there we never find in our home town). For a time, during the mad-cow scare we were not permitted to bring beef across the border. This included veal. It was commonly accepted knowledge that mad cow disease did not occur in cows under three years of age, veal is by definition much younger than that. But no matter, it was prohibited anyway. And now, of course, although we go to Creston probably at least once a month, and have for years, and all of the border agents know us, we are still required to show passports and answer the same questions over and over again. A Canadian woman friend of ours, who was once busted for marijuana, about thirty years ago, was not permitted to cross now unless she paid a rather large fee, even though the high quality marijuana from B.C. is routinely smuggled across the border.
Then there are tasers. Police across the nation have apparently gone overboard in their use of tasers. They are known to have used them on girls as young as eight, on woman as old as ninety, and even on a paraplegic in a wheelchair. In many cases they use them even when confronted with relatively minor resistance. Perhaps in some cases like these there might be some reason to resort to the taser, but there are many accounts in which their use clearly violated ordinary common sense. I guess there are supposed to be rules about the use of tasers, but if so, they are often violated by overeager police personnel. Personally, I don’t believe the police should be allowed to use them at all, and there have been many deaths because of their overuse.
Even doctors are sometimes prohibited from using their common sense. I know of cases where doctors will admit their patients need certain drugs but refuse to prescribe them. They are forced to do this because of their fear of being punished for oversubscribing certain drugs to younger patients, even though they know they need them. Doctors, like teachers and school administrators and policemen and border agents, and many others are apparently not allowed to have or use common sense. We have become a nation of bureaucrats so fearful of criticism we will do anything, including avoiding common sense, to keep from being blamed for anything. I am confident that if one wanted to do a bit of research he or she could find dozens of cases even more atrocious than the ones I have mentioned.
What is worse about this situation is that it also occurs in government, even when the issues are of great importance. Anyone who spends even a small amount of time on it will learn that a single-payer system of health care is the most efficient, least expensive and wasteful system to have. Knowing that, would your common sense not lead you to believe you should have such a system? Alas, such a system is not even being seriously considered. Similarly, if you are aware that Insurance Companies are siphoning off huge profits from our existing system of health care, and there is no logical reason they should have anything to do with it, would your common sense not tell you they should be left out of health care? This appears to be not even a remote possibility. My common sense tells me that unless there are secret reasons I am not aware of, we have no business staying in Afghanistan and should withdraw as soon as possible. Common sense obviously has nothing much to do with our lives anymore.
LKBIQ:
Science is good furniture for one's upper chamber, if there is common sense below.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
TILT:
Unlike most marsupials, the Australian wombat has a relatively large brain and a backward pouch.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Nobel Prize
Police seek pudgy man
who invades backyards
and dances naked.
Yes, President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. And yes, he probably deserves it. Listening to the crazies you would think it was an insult to the United States. They say he was only in office two weeks before he was nominated and so therefore he had done nothing to deserve it. He was nominated two weeks after taking office, presumably the vote must have occurred sometime later, they could certainly have changed their minds had he done something terrible in the meantime. Perhaps he has not done entirely enough to deserve it, but it has often been awarded to people for their attempts to do something desirable for the world. How, they say, can he be awarded a Peace Prize when he is involved in two “wars?” Has everyone forgotten these are not wars he started, but inherited from Bush/Cheney. He was, as you should remember, opposed to the war in Iraq. And he is trying desperately to figure out what the best course of action should be in Afghanistan. He is closing down Guantanamo although it is turning out to be somewhat more difficult than expected, and he has presumably stopped our horrible torturing. It has also been said that this was an anti-Bush award. Perhaps in part it is, but in fact, Obama has done a great many things so far, rolling back some of the more egregious rulings and practices of Bush/Cheney and, above all, starting to re-establish once more our legitimate place in the world community. His emphasis on diplomacy rather than the “shoot first, ask questions later” style of the McCain’s and others on the right is itself worthy of the prize. Others say they gave him the prize, not for what he has done, but for what they wish him to do. Perhaps so, but what is wrong with that? Rush Limbaugh, that great fat, lying, drug-addicted cauldron of pig pucky, says Obama is being laughed at by the rest of the world. Yeah, he’s so pathetic they just awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize and desperately want him to exercise leadership to help solve the crucial problems of the world. Winning this prize is a great honor, not only for Obama, but for the United States, and it symbolizes at the very least their respect for a leader who is actually trying to do something constructive about the problems of nuclear proliferation, global warming, health care, and human rights. If changing our foreign policy from one of pre-emptive war and aggression against anyone we even imagine to be enemies, to an emphasis on cooperation and diplomacy doesn’t rate a Peace Prize, what does? Obama is resisting the pressures on him to panic and simply order 40 or 60 thousand more troops into a gaping black hole, and trying against long odds to do something intelligent for the first time in a long time. But it doesn’t really matter what Obama has done or will do, the hate-Obama crazies will always oppose him. I’m sure they would bitch even if he was hung with a new rope.
What sex scandal? Everywhere you turn at the moment you are confronted with someone talking about Letterman’s “sex scandal.” Since when was adults having consensual sexual relations scandalous? So Letterman had sex with one or more of the women who work on his show, so what? Most of the time, if not the entire time, he was unmarried. No one has come forward claiming they were raped or coerced into having sex with the boss. While there may be rules, both written and unwritten, about preventing sex with superiors or underlings, it happens so commonly it can hardly be considered scandalous. And it wouldn’t matter even if Letterman had been married, sex between consenting adults per se, is not really a scandal. But of course the media want it to be a scandal because they have to fill up their air time (one of the reasons news 24/7 has turned into infotainment rather than news). I guess the fact that Letterman was being blackmailed perhaps makes it a scandal. But even this is commonplace enough that if it happened to ordinary people we would probably not even hear about it. Thus it is a scandal because it involves a celebrity and because the news says it is, a sad commentary on the state of the news industry in our time.
Now, if you haven’t heard this before, try not to collapse into hysterical laughter. Not content to ignore science, to reject the theory of evolution, to believe humans were contemporaneous with dinosaurs and the earth is only 6000 years old, some on the right are now going to rewrite the bible…. because it is too liberal! I don’t know much about the bible, having tried and failed to read it several times, but I cannot believe these religious nutcases are going to be allowed to tamper with the eternal and absolute truths found therein. I guess, after all, this is an admission that the bible is not the really the literal truth of things they always insisted it was. So I say, go ahead, write away, if, that is, you even know how to write.
LKBIQ:
Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the bible is filled, it would seem more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.
Thomas Paine
TILT:
Modern geologists tend to accept the age of the earth to be 4.54 billion years (they don’t give the exact time of day it all began).
who invades backyards
and dances naked.
Yes, President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. And yes, he probably deserves it. Listening to the crazies you would think it was an insult to the United States. They say he was only in office two weeks before he was nominated and so therefore he had done nothing to deserve it. He was nominated two weeks after taking office, presumably the vote must have occurred sometime later, they could certainly have changed their minds had he done something terrible in the meantime. Perhaps he has not done entirely enough to deserve it, but it has often been awarded to people for their attempts to do something desirable for the world. How, they say, can he be awarded a Peace Prize when he is involved in two “wars?” Has everyone forgotten these are not wars he started, but inherited from Bush/Cheney. He was, as you should remember, opposed to the war in Iraq. And he is trying desperately to figure out what the best course of action should be in Afghanistan. He is closing down Guantanamo although it is turning out to be somewhat more difficult than expected, and he has presumably stopped our horrible torturing. It has also been said that this was an anti-Bush award. Perhaps in part it is, but in fact, Obama has done a great many things so far, rolling back some of the more egregious rulings and practices of Bush/Cheney and, above all, starting to re-establish once more our legitimate place in the world community. His emphasis on diplomacy rather than the “shoot first, ask questions later” style of the McCain’s and others on the right is itself worthy of the prize. Others say they gave him the prize, not for what he has done, but for what they wish him to do. Perhaps so, but what is wrong with that? Rush Limbaugh, that great fat, lying, drug-addicted cauldron of pig pucky, says Obama is being laughed at by the rest of the world. Yeah, he’s so pathetic they just awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize and desperately want him to exercise leadership to help solve the crucial problems of the world. Winning this prize is a great honor, not only for Obama, but for the United States, and it symbolizes at the very least their respect for a leader who is actually trying to do something constructive about the problems of nuclear proliferation, global warming, health care, and human rights. If changing our foreign policy from one of pre-emptive war and aggression against anyone we even imagine to be enemies, to an emphasis on cooperation and diplomacy doesn’t rate a Peace Prize, what does? Obama is resisting the pressures on him to panic and simply order 40 or 60 thousand more troops into a gaping black hole, and trying against long odds to do something intelligent for the first time in a long time. But it doesn’t really matter what Obama has done or will do, the hate-Obama crazies will always oppose him. I’m sure they would bitch even if he was hung with a new rope.
What sex scandal? Everywhere you turn at the moment you are confronted with someone talking about Letterman’s “sex scandal.” Since when was adults having consensual sexual relations scandalous? So Letterman had sex with one or more of the women who work on his show, so what? Most of the time, if not the entire time, he was unmarried. No one has come forward claiming they were raped or coerced into having sex with the boss. While there may be rules, both written and unwritten, about preventing sex with superiors or underlings, it happens so commonly it can hardly be considered scandalous. And it wouldn’t matter even if Letterman had been married, sex between consenting adults per se, is not really a scandal. But of course the media want it to be a scandal because they have to fill up their air time (one of the reasons news 24/7 has turned into infotainment rather than news). I guess the fact that Letterman was being blackmailed perhaps makes it a scandal. But even this is commonplace enough that if it happened to ordinary people we would probably not even hear about it. Thus it is a scandal because it involves a celebrity and because the news says it is, a sad commentary on the state of the news industry in our time.
Now, if you haven’t heard this before, try not to collapse into hysterical laughter. Not content to ignore science, to reject the theory of evolution, to believe humans were contemporaneous with dinosaurs and the earth is only 6000 years old, some on the right are now going to rewrite the bible…. because it is too liberal! I don’t know much about the bible, having tried and failed to read it several times, but I cannot believe these religious nutcases are going to be allowed to tamper with the eternal and absolute truths found therein. I guess, after all, this is an admission that the bible is not the really the literal truth of things they always insisted it was. So I say, go ahead, write away, if, that is, you even know how to write.
LKBIQ:
Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the bible is filled, it would seem more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.
Thomas Paine
TILT:
Modern geologists tend to accept the age of the earth to be 4.54 billion years (they don’t give the exact time of day it all began).
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Dazed and Confused
Pair of teen thugs attack two
cage fighters dressed as women,
are left dazed and bewildered.
Dazed and bewildered I think is a fairly good description of where I am at the moment. I really cannot understand why it should be so difficult to pass health care reform with a public option (or even a single payer system). It is common knowledge the Insurance Companies are ripping us off right and left. If it is not also common knowledge they do nothing to make their obscene profits other than shuffle papers around and try to devise new ways to take advantage of us, it ought to be. The very idea that Insurance Companies should be involved in health care is simply ridiculous in the first place. How anyone in good conscience could defend these parasites escapes me (or it would if I didn’t know the answer was large bribes to our Congresspersons).
Another source of my bewilderment has to do with Afghanistan, and why President Obama cannot see that it is just another Vietnam. Unless we still have secret plans to build a pipeline across that rugged country I can see no reason for our continued presence there. It has already been admitted that we cannot “win,” even if anyone knew what winning might consist of in the “graveyard of empires.” The Afghan people do not want us there. Most of our troops probably do not want to be there. The threat of a Taliban takeover is greatly exaggerated as most of the Afghans don’t like them any better than we do, and they are no threat to us in any case. It is now being acknowledged that al Qaida is not much of a presence there and only a very minority presence anywhere else. So, I ask myself, what the hell are we still doing there? We can’t seem to withdraw because that would indicate that we “lost.” “Pride goes before a fall.” Continuing a “war” in Afghanistan, against a group that is not even an enemy, and another group that is not even there, and that we can also ill-afford, is, to put it mildly, stupid.
Something that truly dazes and bewilders me is the Sarah Palin phenomenon. She just doesn’t go away, this woman from Alaska, who was not even regarded as qualified to be Vice-President is now being regarded as a possible candidate for President, an obvious know-nothing now giving speeches on American Foreign Policy to people in China. By her own admission, her Foreign Policy experience was being able to see Russia from her front porch, and she has done nothing to improve it since then as far as I know. The idea of Palin as President of the U.S. is even more than ridiculous, it’s just plain silly. Of course when you consider what some of the rest of the “Republican base” is up to you might conclude that Palin is the only sane one among them. Now there is a move afoot to impeach Obama. As near as I can tell the only reason for impeaching him as to do with their absurd insistence that he is really a Kenyan (in the face of genuine evidence to the contrary). There is no danger whatsoever that this would happen, but the fact that some of them could even suggest it demonstrates an ignorance so profound as to make one wonder if they are actually sane.
And speaking of stupid, why do we continue to let Israel tell us what to do? If they want to bomb Iran (a truly stupid idea) they should not expect any help from us. Iran is not a threat to the U.S., and most probably not much of a threat to Israel, if the truth were ever to be told. It might well be true that Iran would like to see the Middle East free of Israel, but they are not about to send an army against them, or bomb them with nuclear bombs they don’t even have. Israeli greed for land and water, and their paranoia, is a far bigger problem in the Middle East than Iran. They do what they want, and take what they want, and listen to no one, violating international rules at will, and we continue to support them, even in their genocidal attitude towards Gaza. To me this is truly bewildering. They refuse even to take the first small step towards peace with the Palestinians and continue expanding their illegal settlements at will, thumbing their nose at Obama in the process.
But what confuses and bewilders me most of all, is what happened to the country in which I grew up? You know, the country “where all people are equal,” “for liberty and justice for all,” “one nation undivided,” the country where once there was a viable “fourth estate,” and the President was honored, and the dollar was actually valuable, and politicians, whatever their party, were basically there to serve the public interest, the nation of which we were once so proud, “the shining beacon on the hill?” We were never without our problems, to be sure, but politicians worked together to solve them and we were all proud to be Americans. That country seems to have disappeared. We now live in shame and increasing poverty, and kiss the feet of our creditors, even our lives have become commodities as the corporations profit more from out deaths than from our labor.
LKBIQ:
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
Epicurus
TILT:
Both male and female mountain goats have short tails, beards, and long black horns.
cage fighters dressed as women,
are left dazed and bewildered.
Dazed and bewildered I think is a fairly good description of where I am at the moment. I really cannot understand why it should be so difficult to pass health care reform with a public option (or even a single payer system). It is common knowledge the Insurance Companies are ripping us off right and left. If it is not also common knowledge they do nothing to make their obscene profits other than shuffle papers around and try to devise new ways to take advantage of us, it ought to be. The very idea that Insurance Companies should be involved in health care is simply ridiculous in the first place. How anyone in good conscience could defend these parasites escapes me (or it would if I didn’t know the answer was large bribes to our Congresspersons).
Another source of my bewilderment has to do with Afghanistan, and why President Obama cannot see that it is just another Vietnam. Unless we still have secret plans to build a pipeline across that rugged country I can see no reason for our continued presence there. It has already been admitted that we cannot “win,” even if anyone knew what winning might consist of in the “graveyard of empires.” The Afghan people do not want us there. Most of our troops probably do not want to be there. The threat of a Taliban takeover is greatly exaggerated as most of the Afghans don’t like them any better than we do, and they are no threat to us in any case. It is now being acknowledged that al Qaida is not much of a presence there and only a very minority presence anywhere else. So, I ask myself, what the hell are we still doing there? We can’t seem to withdraw because that would indicate that we “lost.” “Pride goes before a fall.” Continuing a “war” in Afghanistan, against a group that is not even an enemy, and another group that is not even there, and that we can also ill-afford, is, to put it mildly, stupid.
Something that truly dazes and bewilders me is the Sarah Palin phenomenon. She just doesn’t go away, this woman from Alaska, who was not even regarded as qualified to be Vice-President is now being regarded as a possible candidate for President, an obvious know-nothing now giving speeches on American Foreign Policy to people in China. By her own admission, her Foreign Policy experience was being able to see Russia from her front porch, and she has done nothing to improve it since then as far as I know. The idea of Palin as President of the U.S. is even more than ridiculous, it’s just plain silly. Of course when you consider what some of the rest of the “Republican base” is up to you might conclude that Palin is the only sane one among them. Now there is a move afoot to impeach Obama. As near as I can tell the only reason for impeaching him as to do with their absurd insistence that he is really a Kenyan (in the face of genuine evidence to the contrary). There is no danger whatsoever that this would happen, but the fact that some of them could even suggest it demonstrates an ignorance so profound as to make one wonder if they are actually sane.
And speaking of stupid, why do we continue to let Israel tell us what to do? If they want to bomb Iran (a truly stupid idea) they should not expect any help from us. Iran is not a threat to the U.S., and most probably not much of a threat to Israel, if the truth were ever to be told. It might well be true that Iran would like to see the Middle East free of Israel, but they are not about to send an army against them, or bomb them with nuclear bombs they don’t even have. Israeli greed for land and water, and their paranoia, is a far bigger problem in the Middle East than Iran. They do what they want, and take what they want, and listen to no one, violating international rules at will, and we continue to support them, even in their genocidal attitude towards Gaza. To me this is truly bewildering. They refuse even to take the first small step towards peace with the Palestinians and continue expanding their illegal settlements at will, thumbing their nose at Obama in the process.
But what confuses and bewilders me most of all, is what happened to the country in which I grew up? You know, the country “where all people are equal,” “for liberty and justice for all,” “one nation undivided,” the country where once there was a viable “fourth estate,” and the President was honored, and the dollar was actually valuable, and politicians, whatever their party, were basically there to serve the public interest, the nation of which we were once so proud, “the shining beacon on the hill?” We were never without our problems, to be sure, but politicians worked together to solve them and we were all proud to be Americans. That country seems to have disappeared. We now live in shame and increasing poverty, and kiss the feet of our creditors, even our lives have become commodities as the corporations profit more from out deaths than from our labor.
LKBIQ:
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
Epicurus
TILT:
Both male and female mountain goats have short tails, beards, and long black horns.
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Could we please start over?
Woman throws cell phone
at boyfriends face, her
small dog at police officers.
Do you think that, like, maybe, we could start over? That is, we have somehow destroyed our country and, not content with that, seem to be embarked on destroying the world. I am not enough of a historian, or political scientist, or economist, or whatever, to truly understand how all this came about or how it is we have arrived at such a precarious position. And when it comes to starting over, I don’t know exactly from which point in our history we should attempt to start over. What I do know is that we have failed dismally as a nation. I don’t know the details of this but I do know that it somehow has to do with Ronald Reagan (aka Saint Ronnie) and his attack on government. It also has to do with “privatization,” “globalization,” a “free market economy,” and the creation and growth of corporations that are now more wealthy and important than governments (indeed, in our particular case, for all intents and purposes they are the government).
Along the way on our trip to oblivion we have polluted our environment something terrible, destroyed our fisheries, fouled our rivers and streams, removed mountaintops, raped our forests, changed our climate, failed to look after the welfare of our citizens, killed millions of people in totally unnecessary “wars,” destroyed our currency to the point where no one wants it any longer, and are poised on the brink of bankruptcy if not, in fact, bankrupt. As I do not believe this was the original intention of those pioneer spirits that arrived here full of hope and worked so hard to establish our nation, somewhere along the way we went wrong.
Some of our mistakes, I believe, have to do with allowing automobiles and trucks to take precedence over railroads and public transportation in general. The internal combustion engine was, from a purely human standpoint, a terrible invention, and has contributed much to the destruction of the environment. Corporate agriculture, too, was a mistake. We have allowed huge corporations to take over the production of food and have thus changed the very nature of the foods we consume. This has also contributed to our real problem of unemployment as one or two men with modern equipment can do the work of dozens. Now with corporate control of the food supply, and genetic engineering of crops, a process we do not really understand, there is no telling where it might lead. The pharmaceutical industry has grown apace and provides new drugs daily, all for a profit. If you are unfortunate enough to suffer from some rare affliction you probably will not find a drug for it as there is no profit in producing drugs just to help people. A few insurance giants have taken over our health care system, generating enormous profits from doing absolutely nothing but paperwork. Banking giants control our monetary system and are allowed to systematically rob us in ways that are regarded, strangely enough, as “legal.” Enormous oil and coal corporations have prevented us from making progress against global warming and against even producing “clean” energy. Failing to heed the warning of President Eisenhower, we have stood by idly while a gigantic military/industrial/political complex has taken over most of our annual budget and hence is now the backbone of our economy. We produce bombs and other means of killing as many people as possible rather than useful products for human welfare. Our current military budget is greater than all the rest of the world combined and growing. Failing to follow the advice of our founding fathers we have meddled throughout the world in the affairs of others and now have military bases all over the world, many for very questionable reasons. We have become a nation of warmongers.
We allowed Bush/Cheney to lie us into a completely unnecessary “war” that has decimated our economy and our military, and made us a pariah in the world community. We are locked into a “war” in Afghanistan that we know can only result in failure and yet we cannot bring ourselves to end it. We have spent billions on an absurd “war on drugs” that has been a complete failure for years but continues year after year. We have shamefully neglected our infrastructure to the point where our bridges and schools are unsafe and our public buildings are deteriorating. Our educational system has failed to keep up with the rest of the world so that our children, if they don’t just drop out, end up believing in fairly tales so absurd as to make them effectively useless citizens. Science, too, has been neglected, and we have fallen further behind for many years when it comes to math, physics, and all the physical and biological sciences. The arts have not fared any better. We have now reached the point where government no longer has anything to do with serving the public and everything to do with doing the bidding of a small number of corporate masters who now even effectively control our news media and feed us only what they want us to hear.
We are a failure as a nation, and this failing continues under our attempt to maintain a “capitialistic,” free-market economy that has proven to be a disaster. We seem helpless to change it. Obviously we cannot start over, but we could come to our senses, withdraw from our two failed “wars,” do away with the ridiculous “war on drugs,” tell the insurance companies to get lost (no one would miss them as they do absolutely nothing for health care), shape up the banking industry so they can no longer just rob us blind, and do away with the more obscene discrepancy between those who have and those who have not, including health care. We could probably become solvent again. Will we do any of these things? Probably not, unless we get the big money entirely out of politics, and especially the news industry. The future, in my opinion, looks dismal.
LKBIQ:
Mighty hard to tell the people you love you’re a failure.
Laura Moncur
TILT:
Buttonholes first appeared in Germany in the 13th century.
at boyfriends face, her
small dog at police officers.
Do you think that, like, maybe, we could start over? That is, we have somehow destroyed our country and, not content with that, seem to be embarked on destroying the world. I am not enough of a historian, or political scientist, or economist, or whatever, to truly understand how all this came about or how it is we have arrived at such a precarious position. And when it comes to starting over, I don’t know exactly from which point in our history we should attempt to start over. What I do know is that we have failed dismally as a nation. I don’t know the details of this but I do know that it somehow has to do with Ronald Reagan (aka Saint Ronnie) and his attack on government. It also has to do with “privatization,” “globalization,” a “free market economy,” and the creation and growth of corporations that are now more wealthy and important than governments (indeed, in our particular case, for all intents and purposes they are the government).
Along the way on our trip to oblivion we have polluted our environment something terrible, destroyed our fisheries, fouled our rivers and streams, removed mountaintops, raped our forests, changed our climate, failed to look after the welfare of our citizens, killed millions of people in totally unnecessary “wars,” destroyed our currency to the point where no one wants it any longer, and are poised on the brink of bankruptcy if not, in fact, bankrupt. As I do not believe this was the original intention of those pioneer spirits that arrived here full of hope and worked so hard to establish our nation, somewhere along the way we went wrong.
Some of our mistakes, I believe, have to do with allowing automobiles and trucks to take precedence over railroads and public transportation in general. The internal combustion engine was, from a purely human standpoint, a terrible invention, and has contributed much to the destruction of the environment. Corporate agriculture, too, was a mistake. We have allowed huge corporations to take over the production of food and have thus changed the very nature of the foods we consume. This has also contributed to our real problem of unemployment as one or two men with modern equipment can do the work of dozens. Now with corporate control of the food supply, and genetic engineering of crops, a process we do not really understand, there is no telling where it might lead. The pharmaceutical industry has grown apace and provides new drugs daily, all for a profit. If you are unfortunate enough to suffer from some rare affliction you probably will not find a drug for it as there is no profit in producing drugs just to help people. A few insurance giants have taken over our health care system, generating enormous profits from doing absolutely nothing but paperwork. Banking giants control our monetary system and are allowed to systematically rob us in ways that are regarded, strangely enough, as “legal.” Enormous oil and coal corporations have prevented us from making progress against global warming and against even producing “clean” energy. Failing to heed the warning of President Eisenhower, we have stood by idly while a gigantic military/industrial/political complex has taken over most of our annual budget and hence is now the backbone of our economy. We produce bombs and other means of killing as many people as possible rather than useful products for human welfare. Our current military budget is greater than all the rest of the world combined and growing. Failing to follow the advice of our founding fathers we have meddled throughout the world in the affairs of others and now have military bases all over the world, many for very questionable reasons. We have become a nation of warmongers.
We allowed Bush/Cheney to lie us into a completely unnecessary “war” that has decimated our economy and our military, and made us a pariah in the world community. We are locked into a “war” in Afghanistan that we know can only result in failure and yet we cannot bring ourselves to end it. We have spent billions on an absurd “war on drugs” that has been a complete failure for years but continues year after year. We have shamefully neglected our infrastructure to the point where our bridges and schools are unsafe and our public buildings are deteriorating. Our educational system has failed to keep up with the rest of the world so that our children, if they don’t just drop out, end up believing in fairly tales so absurd as to make them effectively useless citizens. Science, too, has been neglected, and we have fallen further behind for many years when it comes to math, physics, and all the physical and biological sciences. The arts have not fared any better. We have now reached the point where government no longer has anything to do with serving the public and everything to do with doing the bidding of a small number of corporate masters who now even effectively control our news media and feed us only what they want us to hear.
We are a failure as a nation, and this failing continues under our attempt to maintain a “capitialistic,” free-market economy that has proven to be a disaster. We seem helpless to change it. Obviously we cannot start over, but we could come to our senses, withdraw from our two failed “wars,” do away with the ridiculous “war on drugs,” tell the insurance companies to get lost (no one would miss them as they do absolutely nothing for health care), shape up the banking industry so they can no longer just rob us blind, and do away with the more obscene discrepancy between those who have and those who have not, including health care. We could probably become solvent again. Will we do any of these things? Probably not, unless we get the big money entirely out of politics, and especially the news industry. The future, in my opinion, looks dismal.
LKBIQ:
Mighty hard to tell the people you love you’re a failure.
Laura Moncur
TILT:
Buttonholes first appeared in Germany in the 13th century.
Monday, October 05, 2009
Empathy and Imagination
Sitting quietly in my living room earlier today I began to wonder if Republicans have any imagination. I came to think about this because, for some completely unknown reason, I thought about what it would be like to suddenly be bombed, as often happens in countries other than the U.S., and often because of the U.S. Obviously this would be a terrible thing. My house would be destroyed, part or all of my family could be killed, it would be a trauma I might never recover from. Yet this happens fairly commonly in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Gaza strip, among other places. This depressing imaginary disaster then made me think about other things that happen commonly to many people. Do you ever wonder what it would be like to have to tell you children you didn’t have enough money to feed them, or buy them school supplies or clothes? I should think having to do that would be completely devastating both to the parents and to the children. What about if one of your children or your spouse became seriously ill and you had to tell them you had no health insurance and there was nothing you could do for them? How would that make you feel. What about being homeless and having to scrounge food out of dumpsters? Obviously any of these things would be horrible and the effects upon you and your family would be devastating.
These are the kinds of things that Republicans have wished on other people for many years. They have resisted virtually anything that would make the lives of ordinary people better. They have been traditionally anti-education, anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, anti-union, anti-living wage, anti-health care, anti-food stamps, anti-unemployment insurance, even anti-medicare (when it was first proposed), pro big business, and pro war. If you go back far enough they were anti-eight-hour day and anti the forty hour work week and anti social security. It has become obvious from this, especially in recent years, that they must completely lack empathy. Is this because they have no imagination and cannot imagine the plight of other people, or is it because they can imagine it, but just don’t care? I think it is entirely fair to say they lack empathy because of the policies of their party, as above. Remember Bush’s claim to be a compassionate conservative (an oxymoron if ever there was one). Have you witnessed any acts of compassion on the part of Republicans? I confess I have not, certainly not in recent years. Of course if you have neither imagination nor empathy you are not going to have compassion either. I don’t know if Republicans truly lack imagination or not, but I do know they lack compassion and that means to me they also must lack empathy, and if they lack empathy they probably must also lack imagination.
Republicans have followed these “against-the-common-man” tactics ever since I can remember. The very first thing I learned about them when I was a child was that they were on the side of business and against the interests of the working class. And they have been that. They are, of course, following this same ideology at the moment. They are against unionizing. They are against universal health care. They are against controls on the marketplace and the banks and insurance companies. They are always on the side of the corporations,and they want to privatize everything. Do you believe corporations have any interest in bettering conditions for the working class? If you do you must have been absent for a very long time. Making things even worse, at the moment they have expressly said they are opposed to anything President Obama wants to do (most of which is in the way of bettering conditions for the middle class and the poor, as well as ending their terrible and unnecessary “wars”). Some of them at the moment are actually traveling abroad deliberately undermining our own U.S. Foreign Policy. At any attempt to better conditions for the working class they immediately yell “socialism,” or “communism,” or “fascism,” even though it is perfectly obvious they don’t know what these terms mean and basically don’t even care what they mean , as these absolutely mindless claims have worked for them for so long.
I’m sure it is more than obvious by now that I do not like them. I think they are a heartless bunch of greedy capitalists who do not care for the lives of others, especially others less fortunate than themselves. They are promoting a ridiculous type of cultural evolutionism that should have been dead and buried many years ago. I don’t understand them. I simply cannot understand how they can be so completely insensitive to the problems of ordinary people, how they can deliberately stand in the way of any attempt to improve the conditions of our citizenry, how they can ignore so much suffering and misery all for the sake of profits that benefit only themselves. Supposedly they are elected to carry out the will of the people. That has now become little more than a bad joke. With six lobbyists for every Congressperson it is perfectly obvious who they are serving. It’s disgusting. It’s degrading. It’s the worst form of prostitution. It is not only destroying our country, it will eventually destroy the human species itself.
“The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them,” Lenin. They will also insist there is no global warming, and “What’s good for General Motors is good for the country,” Charles E. Wilson. (I am aware that what he actually said was, “What’s good for General Motors is good for the country, and vice versa. I don’t see how adding the vice versa really changes the meaning very much).
These are the kinds of things that Republicans have wished on other people for many years. They have resisted virtually anything that would make the lives of ordinary people better. They have been traditionally anti-education, anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, anti-union, anti-living wage, anti-health care, anti-food stamps, anti-unemployment insurance, even anti-medicare (when it was first proposed), pro big business, and pro war. If you go back far enough they were anti-eight-hour day and anti the forty hour work week and anti social security. It has become obvious from this, especially in recent years, that they must completely lack empathy. Is this because they have no imagination and cannot imagine the plight of other people, or is it because they can imagine it, but just don’t care? I think it is entirely fair to say they lack empathy because of the policies of their party, as above. Remember Bush’s claim to be a compassionate conservative (an oxymoron if ever there was one). Have you witnessed any acts of compassion on the part of Republicans? I confess I have not, certainly not in recent years. Of course if you have neither imagination nor empathy you are not going to have compassion either. I don’t know if Republicans truly lack imagination or not, but I do know they lack compassion and that means to me they also must lack empathy, and if they lack empathy they probably must also lack imagination.
Republicans have followed these “against-the-common-man” tactics ever since I can remember. The very first thing I learned about them when I was a child was that they were on the side of business and against the interests of the working class. And they have been that. They are, of course, following this same ideology at the moment. They are against unionizing. They are against universal health care. They are against controls on the marketplace and the banks and insurance companies. They are always on the side of the corporations,and they want to privatize everything. Do you believe corporations have any interest in bettering conditions for the working class? If you do you must have been absent for a very long time. Making things even worse, at the moment they have expressly said they are opposed to anything President Obama wants to do (most of which is in the way of bettering conditions for the middle class and the poor, as well as ending their terrible and unnecessary “wars”). Some of them at the moment are actually traveling abroad deliberately undermining our own U.S. Foreign Policy. At any attempt to better conditions for the working class they immediately yell “socialism,” or “communism,” or “fascism,” even though it is perfectly obvious they don’t know what these terms mean and basically don’t even care what they mean , as these absolutely mindless claims have worked for them for so long.
I’m sure it is more than obvious by now that I do not like them. I think they are a heartless bunch of greedy capitalists who do not care for the lives of others, especially others less fortunate than themselves. They are promoting a ridiculous type of cultural evolutionism that should have been dead and buried many years ago. I don’t understand them. I simply cannot understand how they can be so completely insensitive to the problems of ordinary people, how they can deliberately stand in the way of any attempt to improve the conditions of our citizenry, how they can ignore so much suffering and misery all for the sake of profits that benefit only themselves. Supposedly they are elected to carry out the will of the people. That has now become little more than a bad joke. With six lobbyists for every Congressperson it is perfectly obvious who they are serving. It’s disgusting. It’s degrading. It’s the worst form of prostitution. It is not only destroying our country, it will eventually destroy the human species itself.
“The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them,” Lenin. They will also insist there is no global warming, and “What’s good for General Motors is good for the country,” Charles E. Wilson. (I am aware that what he actually said was, “What’s good for General Motors is good for the country, and vice versa. I don’t see how adding the vice versa really changes the meaning very much).
Sunday, October 04, 2009
Spencer and Iran
Florida man tells police
he can’t resist secretly
filming women’s behinds.
I am thinking of renaming our cat, Spencer. I am going to call him “Iran.” You remember Spencer, perhaps, as I blogged about him previously, “The Trouble with Spencer.” Spencer showed up at our door one morning and has been with us ever since. He supposedly belonged to our neighbor but they say their cats (they have several) do not like him. They also apparently do not like him and encouraged us to adopt him (as it is he has adopted us). Our other four cats don’t like him either. Our other neighbors also don’t like him as he visits their bird feeder (but usually fails in his attempts to catch a bird). I don’t know why no one likes him, he seems just like any other cat to me. Spencer doesn’t attack anyone. He just minds his business, comes in and eats most everything in sight (we’ve been calling him Spencer the Dispenser). As he has apparently never been an indoor cat, he refuses to stay in the house after he has eaten. Our other cats mostly ignore him, except for Claire who will pick on him at every opportunity. He never fights back, preferring instead to retreat. So Spencer has become a pariah, with but one rather implacable enemy. See, he’s just like Iran, with the Israelis never letting up on them. They insist repeatedly that Iran is building a nuclear bomb. Now they insist there are Russians helping them. The problem is that the IAEA says there is no evidence whatsoever they are building a bomb. Scott Ritter, a previous Iraq inspector, more knowledgeable about such things than most, says they are not building a bomb. Our own intelligence operatives also do not believe they are building a bomb. The Russians have recently indicated they will go along with sanctions against them. Our latest claim they have been building a secret facility for enriching uranium has been shown to be false. But still, like our poor Spencer, no one seems to like them or believe them. There are those here in the U.S. who keep insisting we should attack Iran militarily, or at least allow the Israelis to bomb them. The keep insisting no matter what they are told about Iran’s innocence and compliance with the international rules about nuclear energy. I simply do not believe Iran is trying to build a bomb, nor do I believe that if they did have a bomb they would do anything with it other than regard it as a purely defensive measure (a defense against Israeli and U.S. threats against them). I do not believe they need to be treated as a pariah, any more than I believe Spencer should. Spencer is coming around. Today when I was sitting in the garden he jumped into my lap for the very first time. I believe Iran will prove to be just as friendly if given a chance. After all, our history of abusing them has not been pleasant.
Of course the hawks seem equally determined to keep us in Afghanistan, apparently forever (good for business, you know). Some of the generals seem to be embarked on a campaign to force Obama to make a quick decision (in their favor of course), and if he does not he will be accused of unnecessarily sacrificing American lives to that dismal situation (they conveniently overlook how many lives will be lost if we continue our endless and pointless “war” there). I guess it might be the case that Obama faces more monumental problems, all at once, than any President in history: recession, depression, Iraq, Iran, Korea, unemployment, racism, health care reform, right-wing idiocy, and so on. No matter what he does it is a given that the Republicans, who have no interest in the welfare of the U.S., or its citizens, will oppose it and hope that he fails. I believe this is unprecedented, that is, that one party publicly wishes that the country would fail. In the past, it seems to me, both parties wanted the country to succeed, but differed in the means whereby that success could be achieved. Now we have a party that simply does not want our country to succeed, period, and they are not afraid to publicly say so, how disgusting.
Harvest season here at Sandhill. Generally speaking it was a good year for the garden. Not good for corn or cucumbers for some reason, and not truly great for beans, but most everything else did well. A great year for plums and apples, so-so for pears, great for asparagus and squash (the winter squash got away from us somehow and we harvested 42 different specimens today (we shall have to give most of them away). Tomatoes, too, were unbelievably prolific. Carrots did well, turnips and rutabegas not so great, and as usual summer squash were so successful we could not keep up with them. I would have liked a better harvest of potatoes but they were not bad. Autumn is the best time of year here, beautiful days, not too hot, colorful leaves beginning to fall, crisp but not cold, the peaceful, bucolic, comforting knowledge that the hay is lying in the fields soon to be in the barn and we will all be able to endure still another winter. The snow is slowly creeping down the mountains, the bears will be hibernating soon, the elk will be bugling and moving down from the higher ground. I love autumn most of all.
LKBIQ:
Fiery colors begin their yearly conquest of the hills, propelled by the autumn winds. Fall is the artist.
Takayuki Ikkaku, Arisa Hosaka and Toshihiro Kawabata
TILT:
The musky odor that emanates from male muskoxen is used to attract females during the breeding season.
he can’t resist secretly
filming women’s behinds.
I am thinking of renaming our cat, Spencer. I am going to call him “Iran.” You remember Spencer, perhaps, as I blogged about him previously, “The Trouble with Spencer.” Spencer showed up at our door one morning and has been with us ever since. He supposedly belonged to our neighbor but they say their cats (they have several) do not like him. They also apparently do not like him and encouraged us to adopt him (as it is he has adopted us). Our other four cats don’t like him either. Our other neighbors also don’t like him as he visits their bird feeder (but usually fails in his attempts to catch a bird). I don’t know why no one likes him, he seems just like any other cat to me. Spencer doesn’t attack anyone. He just minds his business, comes in and eats most everything in sight (we’ve been calling him Spencer the Dispenser). As he has apparently never been an indoor cat, he refuses to stay in the house after he has eaten. Our other cats mostly ignore him, except for Claire who will pick on him at every opportunity. He never fights back, preferring instead to retreat. So Spencer has become a pariah, with but one rather implacable enemy. See, he’s just like Iran, with the Israelis never letting up on them. They insist repeatedly that Iran is building a nuclear bomb. Now they insist there are Russians helping them. The problem is that the IAEA says there is no evidence whatsoever they are building a bomb. Scott Ritter, a previous Iraq inspector, more knowledgeable about such things than most, says they are not building a bomb. Our own intelligence operatives also do not believe they are building a bomb. The Russians have recently indicated they will go along with sanctions against them. Our latest claim they have been building a secret facility for enriching uranium has been shown to be false. But still, like our poor Spencer, no one seems to like them or believe them. There are those here in the U.S. who keep insisting we should attack Iran militarily, or at least allow the Israelis to bomb them. The keep insisting no matter what they are told about Iran’s innocence and compliance with the international rules about nuclear energy. I simply do not believe Iran is trying to build a bomb, nor do I believe that if they did have a bomb they would do anything with it other than regard it as a purely defensive measure (a defense against Israeli and U.S. threats against them). I do not believe they need to be treated as a pariah, any more than I believe Spencer should. Spencer is coming around. Today when I was sitting in the garden he jumped into my lap for the very first time. I believe Iran will prove to be just as friendly if given a chance. After all, our history of abusing them has not been pleasant.
Of course the hawks seem equally determined to keep us in Afghanistan, apparently forever (good for business, you know). Some of the generals seem to be embarked on a campaign to force Obama to make a quick decision (in their favor of course), and if he does not he will be accused of unnecessarily sacrificing American lives to that dismal situation (they conveniently overlook how many lives will be lost if we continue our endless and pointless “war” there). I guess it might be the case that Obama faces more monumental problems, all at once, than any President in history: recession, depression, Iraq, Iran, Korea, unemployment, racism, health care reform, right-wing idiocy, and so on. No matter what he does it is a given that the Republicans, who have no interest in the welfare of the U.S., or its citizens, will oppose it and hope that he fails. I believe this is unprecedented, that is, that one party publicly wishes that the country would fail. In the past, it seems to me, both parties wanted the country to succeed, but differed in the means whereby that success could be achieved. Now we have a party that simply does not want our country to succeed, period, and they are not afraid to publicly say so, how disgusting.
Harvest season here at Sandhill. Generally speaking it was a good year for the garden. Not good for corn or cucumbers for some reason, and not truly great for beans, but most everything else did well. A great year for plums and apples, so-so for pears, great for asparagus and squash (the winter squash got away from us somehow and we harvested 42 different specimens today (we shall have to give most of them away). Tomatoes, too, were unbelievably prolific. Carrots did well, turnips and rutabegas not so great, and as usual summer squash were so successful we could not keep up with them. I would have liked a better harvest of potatoes but they were not bad. Autumn is the best time of year here, beautiful days, not too hot, colorful leaves beginning to fall, crisp but not cold, the peaceful, bucolic, comforting knowledge that the hay is lying in the fields soon to be in the barn and we will all be able to endure still another winter. The snow is slowly creeping down the mountains, the bears will be hibernating soon, the elk will be bugling and moving down from the higher ground. I love autumn most of all.
LKBIQ:
Fiery colors begin their yearly conquest of the hills, propelled by the autumn winds. Fall is the artist.
Takayuki Ikkaku, Arisa Hosaka and Toshihiro Kawabata
TILT:
The musky odor that emanates from male muskoxen is used to attract females during the breeding season.
Saturday, October 03, 2009
Sex, Power, and Prohibitions
Her companion refused
permission to use bathroom,
she urinates on Police Station.
No one seems to know what will happen with health care. No one seems to know what will happen in Afghanistan. No one seems to know what will happen with global warming. No one seems to know much of anything so speculation just runs rampant. Not wishing to indulge in further speculation at the moment, I decided to write about sex. Sex seems to have become a national obsession lately, what with endless ads for “male enhancement,” different methods for attaining artificial erections, all sorts of sexual advice and instructions in women’s magazines, and what have you. It has become perhaps the single most widespread media topic. It is obviously a subject that cries out for encyclopedic treatment. Alas, my goals are much more modest. I wish only to comment on the issue of sex, power, and prohibition.
If you read or watch television you must be aware that in recent years there has been a great deal of attention given to sexual matters as they pertain to people in high office or high public visibility, the latest focus on David Letterman. Letterman has confessed (gasp) to having had sex with women who were employed on his well-known late night show. There are those who believe this is a terrible thing, because, they say, there are rules (if not laws) against people having sex with their subordinates. There are also laws against having sex with minors, as the Polansky case has made clear. I believe there are good and just reasons for making sex with minors illegal, and the Polansky case is a particularly egregious case for which I believe he should rightly be punished severly. The fact that his abuse happened many years ago, or that he is a great director, or that he has been forced to live in Europe is no excuse whatsoever. But sex with minors is not my concern at the moment. I am concerned here only with sexual behavior that occurs between consenting adults, no matter who they are or what they are engaged in.
You must be aware of the recent cases of Letterman, Edwards, Sanford, Vitter, Spitzer, Ensign, Craig, Foley, and perhaps others as well. There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that illicit sex of all kinds is widespread both in Washington, D.C., Hollywood, and in businesses of all kinds (as well as in the general population). Even just a few years ago you did not hear much about such things, not because they didn’t happen, but because they were only rarely topics for public consumption, certainly not the transgressions of Presidents or Congresspersons. We know, for example, that John F. Kennedy was a philanderer’s philanderer, but we didn’t hear much of anything about it during his Presidency, as the media in those days did not reveal such information, which was regarded as more private then than now. Part of this probably has to do simply with our changing attitudes toward sex in general, but it also has much to do, I believe, with the Republican attack on President Clinton, which for the first time made public information about his sex life an acceptable topic for news coverage. And what coverage it was, thanks to the Starr report and the efforts to impeach him. True, they didn’t actually impeach him for the sex acts themselves, but, rather, because he lied about them. The unbelievable hypocrisy involved in not impeaching Bush for lying about the “war” in Iraq has been mentioned from time to time, but it doesn’t seem to have bothered anyone enough to do anything about it.
Clinton’s illicit sex involved two consenting adults, took place in private, and would not have been brought to our attention if the Republicans had not been so desperate to bring down his Presidency. Certainly Clinton is not the only high-level official in Washington D.C. to have received a “blow job” in his office (or some other private place). And I’m certain that other sex acts are even more common in Washington D.C., as well as elsewhere in the country. Some were outraged that Clinton “took advantage of” a young intern, as he was in a position of power. In this particular case this is utter nonsense. Monica Lewinsky was a twenty-something woman from Southern California who is known to have instigated the relationship herself. She was certainly no sexual innocent. I have no doubt that in some cases persons in power may take advantage of their employees or others, but I know that these things are not as simple as they seem. First of all, women are sometimes attracted to people in power and often offer themselves willingly (as in the Clinton case). In the Letterman case I doubt very much that he coerced women into having sex. I also know that sex between University Professors and students, particularly Gradute Students, is not uncommon, although there are rules prohibiting such relationships, just as there are rules against it in other workplaces. These prohibitions are not realistic. I am not talking about High School and Elementary School teachers and younger students in general. But sex continues to occur no matter what the prohibitions against it. Prohibitions against sex acts between consenting adults is every bit as ridiculous as prohibitions against alcohol and drugs, and cannot possibly succeed any better. And it doesn’t matter whether we are talking about heterosexual behavior or homosexual behavior (although soliciting in public places should not be allowed for obvious reasons). Sexual attraction and desire, as well as love itself, is not something that can be easily controlled, and to penalize or criminalize it is useless. We should at least be as realistic as the French who just assume that such affairs will happen, that people in power may well have mistresses and so on. I’m sure they believe that many of our concerns about affairs are much ado about nothing unusual.
This does not mean that if there are cases of obvious abuses of power, and there are complaints brought forward, they should not be investigated and, if necessary, punished. When blackmail is involved, as in the case of Letterman, or perhaps in the case of Ensign, obviously something needs to be done about it, those are criminal acts that go far beyond the sex itself. And it seems even more obvious to me that taking advantage of children (pedophilia), and engaging in child prostitution, should be both prohibited and rigorously punished. Attempting to prohibit behaviors that people are going to engage in no matter what just never works.
LKBIQ:
There is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror.
W. Somerset Maugham
TILT:
Narwhals, when in captivity, live only a few months.
permission to use bathroom,
she urinates on Police Station.
No one seems to know what will happen with health care. No one seems to know what will happen in Afghanistan. No one seems to know what will happen with global warming. No one seems to know much of anything so speculation just runs rampant. Not wishing to indulge in further speculation at the moment, I decided to write about sex. Sex seems to have become a national obsession lately, what with endless ads for “male enhancement,” different methods for attaining artificial erections, all sorts of sexual advice and instructions in women’s magazines, and what have you. It has become perhaps the single most widespread media topic. It is obviously a subject that cries out for encyclopedic treatment. Alas, my goals are much more modest. I wish only to comment on the issue of sex, power, and prohibition.
If you read or watch television you must be aware that in recent years there has been a great deal of attention given to sexual matters as they pertain to people in high office or high public visibility, the latest focus on David Letterman. Letterman has confessed (gasp) to having had sex with women who were employed on his well-known late night show. There are those who believe this is a terrible thing, because, they say, there are rules (if not laws) against people having sex with their subordinates. There are also laws against having sex with minors, as the Polansky case has made clear. I believe there are good and just reasons for making sex with minors illegal, and the Polansky case is a particularly egregious case for which I believe he should rightly be punished severly. The fact that his abuse happened many years ago, or that he is a great director, or that he has been forced to live in Europe is no excuse whatsoever. But sex with minors is not my concern at the moment. I am concerned here only with sexual behavior that occurs between consenting adults, no matter who they are or what they are engaged in.
You must be aware of the recent cases of Letterman, Edwards, Sanford, Vitter, Spitzer, Ensign, Craig, Foley, and perhaps others as well. There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that illicit sex of all kinds is widespread both in Washington, D.C., Hollywood, and in businesses of all kinds (as well as in the general population). Even just a few years ago you did not hear much about such things, not because they didn’t happen, but because they were only rarely topics for public consumption, certainly not the transgressions of Presidents or Congresspersons. We know, for example, that John F. Kennedy was a philanderer’s philanderer, but we didn’t hear much of anything about it during his Presidency, as the media in those days did not reveal such information, which was regarded as more private then than now. Part of this probably has to do simply with our changing attitudes toward sex in general, but it also has much to do, I believe, with the Republican attack on President Clinton, which for the first time made public information about his sex life an acceptable topic for news coverage. And what coverage it was, thanks to the Starr report and the efforts to impeach him. True, they didn’t actually impeach him for the sex acts themselves, but, rather, because he lied about them. The unbelievable hypocrisy involved in not impeaching Bush for lying about the “war” in Iraq has been mentioned from time to time, but it doesn’t seem to have bothered anyone enough to do anything about it.
Clinton’s illicit sex involved two consenting adults, took place in private, and would not have been brought to our attention if the Republicans had not been so desperate to bring down his Presidency. Certainly Clinton is not the only high-level official in Washington D.C. to have received a “blow job” in his office (or some other private place). And I’m certain that other sex acts are even more common in Washington D.C., as well as elsewhere in the country. Some were outraged that Clinton “took advantage of” a young intern, as he was in a position of power. In this particular case this is utter nonsense. Monica Lewinsky was a twenty-something woman from Southern California who is known to have instigated the relationship herself. She was certainly no sexual innocent. I have no doubt that in some cases persons in power may take advantage of their employees or others, but I know that these things are not as simple as they seem. First of all, women are sometimes attracted to people in power and often offer themselves willingly (as in the Clinton case). In the Letterman case I doubt very much that he coerced women into having sex. I also know that sex between University Professors and students, particularly Gradute Students, is not uncommon, although there are rules prohibiting such relationships, just as there are rules against it in other workplaces. These prohibitions are not realistic. I am not talking about High School and Elementary School teachers and younger students in general. But sex continues to occur no matter what the prohibitions against it. Prohibitions against sex acts between consenting adults is every bit as ridiculous as prohibitions against alcohol and drugs, and cannot possibly succeed any better. And it doesn’t matter whether we are talking about heterosexual behavior or homosexual behavior (although soliciting in public places should not be allowed for obvious reasons). Sexual attraction and desire, as well as love itself, is not something that can be easily controlled, and to penalize or criminalize it is useless. We should at least be as realistic as the French who just assume that such affairs will happen, that people in power may well have mistresses and so on. I’m sure they believe that many of our concerns about affairs are much ado about nothing unusual.
This does not mean that if there are cases of obvious abuses of power, and there are complaints brought forward, they should not be investigated and, if necessary, punished. When blackmail is involved, as in the case of Letterman, or perhaps in the case of Ensign, obviously something needs to be done about it, those are criminal acts that go far beyond the sex itself. And it seems even more obvious to me that taking advantage of children (pedophilia), and engaging in child prostitution, should be both prohibited and rigorously punished. Attempting to prohibit behaviors that people are going to engage in no matter what just never works.
LKBIQ:
There is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror.
W. Somerset Maugham
TILT:
Narwhals, when in captivity, live only a few months.
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Is Michelle Bachman Crazy?
Female bank robber
thwarted when teller
can’t read her note.
Is Michelle Bachman crazy? I am prompted to ask this question because earlier today I saw an exchange between a Democratic “strategist” and a Republican one. The Democrat started off by saying one reason we shouldn’t believe Bachman is because she is “crazy.” The Republican took umbrage at this and cautioned the Democrat from using such language about someone. So what does it mean when you say someone is crazy? I believe for most people it means that someone is insane, mad, bonkers, dotty, brainless, goofy, not equipped with a full deck, doesn’t possess all her marbles, or something like that. And, indeed, if you look it up on Merriam-Webster you will find that it does have several possible meanings. It means, depending on the context, “full of cracks or flaws,” “unsound,” “mad, insane,” “crooked,” “impractical,” “erratic,” “unusual,” “infatuated,” and even, “obsessed.”
When Bachman announced that under the new health care plan there were going to be “sex clinics” in our schools where underage children could be taken for (among other things) abortions, and their parents wouldn’t find out, a claim manifestly untrue, I think it is fair to say it comes somewhere under the definition of crazy. I also do not believe that calling someone crazy in a situation like this is out of place or even insulting. It would seem to me to be a purely factual description. As Bachman has a history of making such claims one might say she is probably crazy all the time. When it comes to Ms. Bachman I guess there are four apparent choices: she is right and telling the truth (but obviously and demonstrably not), she is simply mistaken (a possibility, although remote), she is lying (for some reason, probably political), or she is crazy. I have heard it said by some that she said this to draw attention away from the real issues about health care (political reasons). She could of course simply be mistaken (but a mistake of this magnitude probably means she really is crazy). Having searched my (very partisan) mind for all of two or three seconds, I conclude she is crazy as a loon (oh, that introduces a further complication, as loons are not really crazy at all although they sound like it).
The trouble with trying to deal with an issue like this, is that with such a broad definition of crazy, it is all too easy to conclude that all Republicans are crazy. This does seem to me a pretty good description of the current Republican Party. Certainly their belief that they may someday regain power with Limbaugh, Beck, and even Bachman and Palin representing them, and by turning their backs of minority voters, has to be considered unsound, impractical, erratic, unusual, and even mad, insane. But with Palin’s book on the best-seller list, perhaps not. Perhaps I am crazy. Indeed, with the Merriam-Webster definition we are all insane. Ha, ha, I knew it all the time. But wait, this is too simple. There is something unusually crazy about Bachman, some elusive quality that I do not understand. For example, when Sarah Palin came out with her claim about “death panels,” a claim almost as crazy as Bachman’s sex clinics, we didn’t think she was insane. We knew full well why she was making such a claim and it was purely political. Some are saying the same thing about Bachman but in her case it is somehow doubtful. Is it because she seems to truly believe the nonsense she spouts, or does it just seem that way? Somehow there is an Alice in Wonderland quality in Bachman that is missing in Palin’s case. I see Palin as calculating, deliberately saying what she does from purely political motives, whereas Bachman has a weird aura of gullibility about her, as if she has no genuine understanding either of what she is saying or its implications. She certainly doesn’t seem to understand that her crazy babblings are harming her own party. I could be very wrong about this, of course, but I hope she keeps on talking along with Beck and Limbaugh, Democrats could hardly wish for a better friend.
LKBIQ:
Education: that which reveals to the wise, and conceals from the stupid, the vast limits of their knowledge.
Mark Twain
TILT:
The tallest giraffe ever recorded, a male, was 20 feet tall.
thwarted when teller
can’t read her note.
Is Michelle Bachman crazy? I am prompted to ask this question because earlier today I saw an exchange between a Democratic “strategist” and a Republican one. The Democrat started off by saying one reason we shouldn’t believe Bachman is because she is “crazy.” The Republican took umbrage at this and cautioned the Democrat from using such language about someone. So what does it mean when you say someone is crazy? I believe for most people it means that someone is insane, mad, bonkers, dotty, brainless, goofy, not equipped with a full deck, doesn’t possess all her marbles, or something like that. And, indeed, if you look it up on Merriam-Webster you will find that it does have several possible meanings. It means, depending on the context, “full of cracks or flaws,” “unsound,” “mad, insane,” “crooked,” “impractical,” “erratic,” “unusual,” “infatuated,” and even, “obsessed.”
When Bachman announced that under the new health care plan there were going to be “sex clinics” in our schools where underage children could be taken for (among other things) abortions, and their parents wouldn’t find out, a claim manifestly untrue, I think it is fair to say it comes somewhere under the definition of crazy. I also do not believe that calling someone crazy in a situation like this is out of place or even insulting. It would seem to me to be a purely factual description. As Bachman has a history of making such claims one might say she is probably crazy all the time. When it comes to Ms. Bachman I guess there are four apparent choices: she is right and telling the truth (but obviously and demonstrably not), she is simply mistaken (a possibility, although remote), she is lying (for some reason, probably political), or she is crazy. I have heard it said by some that she said this to draw attention away from the real issues about health care (political reasons). She could of course simply be mistaken (but a mistake of this magnitude probably means she really is crazy). Having searched my (very partisan) mind for all of two or three seconds, I conclude she is crazy as a loon (oh, that introduces a further complication, as loons are not really crazy at all although they sound like it).
The trouble with trying to deal with an issue like this, is that with such a broad definition of crazy, it is all too easy to conclude that all Republicans are crazy. This does seem to me a pretty good description of the current Republican Party. Certainly their belief that they may someday regain power with Limbaugh, Beck, and even Bachman and Palin representing them, and by turning their backs of minority voters, has to be considered unsound, impractical, erratic, unusual, and even mad, insane. But with Palin’s book on the best-seller list, perhaps not. Perhaps I am crazy. Indeed, with the Merriam-Webster definition we are all insane. Ha, ha, I knew it all the time. But wait, this is too simple. There is something unusually crazy about Bachman, some elusive quality that I do not understand. For example, when Sarah Palin came out with her claim about “death panels,” a claim almost as crazy as Bachman’s sex clinics, we didn’t think she was insane. We knew full well why she was making such a claim and it was purely political. Some are saying the same thing about Bachman but in her case it is somehow doubtful. Is it because she seems to truly believe the nonsense she spouts, or does it just seem that way? Somehow there is an Alice in Wonderland quality in Bachman that is missing in Palin’s case. I see Palin as calculating, deliberately saying what she does from purely political motives, whereas Bachman has a weird aura of gullibility about her, as if she has no genuine understanding either of what she is saying or its implications. She certainly doesn’t seem to understand that her crazy babblings are harming her own party. I could be very wrong about this, of course, but I hope she keeps on talking along with Beck and Limbaugh, Democrats could hardly wish for a better friend.
LKBIQ:
Education: that which reveals to the wise, and conceals from the stupid, the vast limits of their knowledge.
Mark Twain
TILT:
The tallest giraffe ever recorded, a male, was 20 feet tall.
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