Someone once said that thinking is by far the hardest work you will ever see done. I suppose that's why you see it done so poorly, so often and in the best of circles. The best of circles.
I'm a big believer in biography. The internet makes it possible to research a person's origins, education and resume in just a few moments. Just as often as I listen to someone and think, 'That's bullshit', I also think, 'Why don't they know it's bullshit?' I believe this axiom: Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity. I would add the word ignorance.
So, the question becomes: How does a reasonably intelligent person get thru a first class education and be totally unaffected by it? The answer is: You dismiss it as being in the way of your goals and thereby cripple any chance to achieve your goals. It's surprising how often impatience makes you miss the boat entirely.
There is a lot of impatience among undergrads. Some people are impressed with that "force of a million new ideas" but others just think to themselves, 'Let's get on with it.' I was always close with a dollar. I paid attention mainly because I was paying them. It must have seemed, sometimes, like I was asking questions just to make them earn their money. Sometimes I was. I get bored like anyone else but usually, I was just curious.
Impatience. Everybody declares a major. People are there because they are interested in following a certain field. The first three semesters of a university education are all the same. They teach you to read, they teach you to write and they try to teach you to think, all in a systematic fashion. These courses seem to have nothing to do with your major. Impatient people resent them. These survey courses are treated like mass-production assembly lines. Yeah, that's a mistake. They should be taught like senior seminars but they aren't. The post grad assistants who teach them treat them as throwaways. A lot of students are led to treat them as throwaways . They rely on detailed notes, sometimes purchased notes and cramming for exams so they may regurgitate in detail what they perceive as useless and immediately forget the gist. People who can't think properly end up with advanced degrees and end up spouting absolute tripe without knowing it. You do see it in the best of circles.
Some of these people who have fallen victim to their own impatience fall victim to another mistake. They begin to think just about everyone else is stupid and exist only to be taken advantage of. These people are uniformly self-serving and dangerous. They speak in fallacies because they think in fallacies that serve their own self-interest. They think in fallacies because they never learned better. It's a vicious circle.
There are very few epiphanies in public life. I can only think of one on a national level. Lyndon Johnson came on television. Announced he would not run for President. He announced he had ordered a stop to the bombing of North Vietnam and had called for peace talks. I almost swallowed my tongue! He realized his thinking had been based on elaborate fallacies. No matter what you have heard he was an exceptional man and our country is infinitely better for him having been President. You can read his biography for a few keystrokes. I think he paid attention in his survey courses in that dusty Texas classroom. Those voices came back to him when it really mattered. You could make the case it was a little late for a couple thousand Vietnamese but better late than never and it's the "never" that's truly dangerous. Nixon and Kissinger proved that by killing 5 million Cambodians. Yeah, they never got it.
They didn't get it in the dust of Wittier or Harvard.
I wonder what you could make of Johnson being the only modern President to have been an elementary school teacher? I wonder a lot of things. I wonder if that's because I paid attention in those survey courses?
Thursday, April 27, 2017
Monday, April 24, 2017
The Team Bus Wrecked
About five years ago I joined facebook. I'd been away from my small town for twenty years. Some of that time out of state. I was sure a lot of my friends were also on-line probably talking behind my back. For some reason, about 1980, people stopped writing letters. Lately, email and things like facebook have revived that type of communication. I like it. I keep contact with people I haven't physically seen in 20 years or longer. Nearly every posting from friends or acquaintances produces a smile, often a laugh or a sigh. Nearly every.
At first I didn't like it much. I reached out to a life-long friend and kinda innocently asked what had happened in our little corner of the world in my 25 year absence. In response I found dozens of my friends and acquaintances had died one way or another. I was devastated. It felt like the team bus had crashed. It took me a while to figure out just because I'd heard about these things all at once didn't mean they had happened all at once. Just the natural consequence of a long life. Still a deep disappointment. I guess loss and disappointment are a feature of any long life. Most people realize that slowly with the years. I realized it in one afternoon. Muy Malo.
Here's another thing that kinda disappoints me. People post their pictures just as I have. Somehow it escaped me that people would age just as I have. Somehow it seems wrong and possibly even my fault the years have kept up with them just as the years have overtaken me. It seems wrong to see a nubile, fondly remembered person as a matronly grandmother. It seems wrong to see the same wry smile of an old friend shining out from a grandfather's face, to see the once powerful arm at the side of and draped on a grandson or granddaughter.
So now, I'm back to the old guy experience of signing in to facebook and every couple weeks finding another friend has passed away. Just like everybody else. But I also find kids I remember as babies have graduated college, gotten married, had babies of their own, what have you. The sort of things you'd find out if you maintained that old fashioned, wide correspondence I always liked.
I guess you could say, the more things change the more they remain the same. It's true about everything else. Why not this? I dunno.
It does pose a question. Would you rather lead an insular life and after 30 years receive an email detailing all the sadness you had missed or would you rather learn of the tragedies and the joys as they unfold, in their time?
At first I didn't like it much. I reached out to a life-long friend and kinda innocently asked what had happened in our little corner of the world in my 25 year absence. In response I found dozens of my friends and acquaintances had died one way or another. I was devastated. It felt like the team bus had crashed. It took me a while to figure out just because I'd heard about these things all at once didn't mean they had happened all at once. Just the natural consequence of a long life. Still a deep disappointment. I guess loss and disappointment are a feature of any long life. Most people realize that slowly with the years. I realized it in one afternoon. Muy Malo.
Here's another thing that kinda disappoints me. People post their pictures just as I have. Somehow it escaped me that people would age just as I have. Somehow it seems wrong and possibly even my fault the years have kept up with them just as the years have overtaken me. It seems wrong to see a nubile, fondly remembered person as a matronly grandmother. It seems wrong to see the same wry smile of an old friend shining out from a grandfather's face, to see the once powerful arm at the side of and draped on a grandson or granddaughter.
So now, I'm back to the old guy experience of signing in to facebook and every couple weeks finding another friend has passed away. Just like everybody else. But I also find kids I remember as babies have graduated college, gotten married, had babies of their own, what have you. The sort of things you'd find out if you maintained that old fashioned, wide correspondence I always liked.
I guess you could say, the more things change the more they remain the same. It's true about everything else. Why not this? I dunno.
It does pose a question. Would you rather lead an insular life and after 30 years receive an email detailing all the sadness you had missed or would you rather learn of the tragedies and the joys as they unfold, in their time?
Friday, April 21, 2017
"Shattered" and Other Such Nonsense.
The "Inside Baseball" books have started to come out about the recent election. This one purports to tell us how Hillary reacted to her loss. I'm sure she said something along the lines of "Oh, shit. Is there more wine?" I'm sure after extended reflection she said something along the lines of, " Oh well, fucked that up." I doubt if the exact content of those two sentiments will ever be known. I can't see that content makes any real difference. To quote Mrs Clinton," What difference does it make?" The books will sell mainly to other members of the "chattering class." They'll chatter on about what they mean.
It has been fairly widely reported that Bill Clinton repeatedly warned that the sentiment of populism that powered the Brexit vote was being ignored. I assume he thinks we somehow share a cultural ethos with Britain. No, we don't. Alec Guinness and Terry Thomas are just not that funny. The British have been doing stupid things for centuries without our help and without influencing us. Sorry Bill, that wasn't it.
There's going to be a lot of these books and since no one so far has pointed out what was really done wrong these books will be less than informative.
So, Oh Bumpkin Sage Sitting on the Banks of the Ohio, what did go wrong? First: I don't know that anything did go "wrong". We're a representative democracy with rules. You could make the case those rules were followed. I can tell you what the Clinton people did wrong and it's actually very simple. They didn't listen to themselves.
The primary objection to Trump both from the left and the establishment in general was he was totally unqualified to be President. His resume, behavior, grasp of issues rendered him totally illegitimate. That became one of the primary talking points of the Clinton Campaign. Why in the world did they begin to treat him as though he were somehow legitimate? It had the effect of contradicting what they were saying and elevating Trump to a level he didn't deserve. On an almost subliminal level people noticed.
The Clinton campaign or at least their surrogates began to directly attack Trump by June of 2016. I thought it was a mistake and said so repeatedly. I think the problem was the Clintons and the apparatus that had grown up around them were totally invested in the processes of the establishment. If Trump was supported by large numbers of people then the process said he must be legitimate and should be treated as such. Nah, that was a mistake. They lent him credibility that put the lie to what they were saying. It looked like even they didn't believe what they were saying. That's a major no-no in American politics.
The only proper way to deal with Trump would have been to totally ignore him. Never respond to anything he said or proposed . Speak only about your own ideas. He never should have been debated. The process says debates are the norm but there is no law requiring them. Obviously, a refusal to debate would have caused an uproar to which the response should have been: the republicans had no legitimate candidate immediately followed, always followed by detailed policy proposals. Not the quest for sound bites.
The "Not My President" and the #Resist movements get this. Trump says something and the response is to demand to know when he'll pay for the Russian collusion. Sessions says something and the response is to question when he'll be indicted for lying to Congress. Imagine how effective that would have been during the campaign. Just never allow any attempt to move the agenda.
So what? So, the post mortem books are a waste of time and energy. The chattering class and the Clinton people are so invested in the process they'll never be able to think outside of it and never get the point.
It has been fairly widely reported that Bill Clinton repeatedly warned that the sentiment of populism that powered the Brexit vote was being ignored. I assume he thinks we somehow share a cultural ethos with Britain. No, we don't. Alec Guinness and Terry Thomas are just not that funny. The British have been doing stupid things for centuries without our help and without influencing us. Sorry Bill, that wasn't it.
There's going to be a lot of these books and since no one so far has pointed out what was really done wrong these books will be less than informative.
So, Oh Bumpkin Sage Sitting on the Banks of the Ohio, what did go wrong? First: I don't know that anything did go "wrong". We're a representative democracy with rules. You could make the case those rules were followed. I can tell you what the Clinton people did wrong and it's actually very simple. They didn't listen to themselves.
The primary objection to Trump both from the left and the establishment in general was he was totally unqualified to be President. His resume, behavior, grasp of issues rendered him totally illegitimate. That became one of the primary talking points of the Clinton Campaign. Why in the world did they begin to treat him as though he were somehow legitimate? It had the effect of contradicting what they were saying and elevating Trump to a level he didn't deserve. On an almost subliminal level people noticed.
The Clinton campaign or at least their surrogates began to directly attack Trump by June of 2016. I thought it was a mistake and said so repeatedly. I think the problem was the Clintons and the apparatus that had grown up around them were totally invested in the processes of the establishment. If Trump was supported by large numbers of people then the process said he must be legitimate and should be treated as such. Nah, that was a mistake. They lent him credibility that put the lie to what they were saying. It looked like even they didn't believe what they were saying. That's a major no-no in American politics.
The only proper way to deal with Trump would have been to totally ignore him. Never respond to anything he said or proposed . Speak only about your own ideas. He never should have been debated. The process says debates are the norm but there is no law requiring them. Obviously, a refusal to debate would have caused an uproar to which the response should have been: the republicans had no legitimate candidate immediately followed, always followed by detailed policy proposals. Not the quest for sound bites.
The "Not My President" and the #Resist movements get this. Trump says something and the response is to demand to know when he'll pay for the Russian collusion. Sessions says something and the response is to question when he'll be indicted for lying to Congress. Imagine how effective that would have been during the campaign. Just never allow any attempt to move the agenda.
So what? So, the post mortem books are a waste of time and energy. The chattering class and the Clinton people are so invested in the process they'll never be able to think outside of it and never get the point.
Thursday, April 20, 2017
Grief
Well, this should be a cheerful enterprise. There isn't a lot of jokes about grief. There are a few. I dare you to think of one. There has been a lot of thought devoted to the subject. Ya think? I can't think of anything that so totally consumes the mind. Love comes close.
It would be pointless to try to describe or define grief. It's an intensely personal experience. Some people never display it even while feeling it. Others wear it like sackcloth and ashes. There are recognized stages of how people deal with grief. The scale ends with acceptance. That seems to me to be an acknowledgement it is an open- ended emotion. That's relatively unique among strong emotions. You can seek and find closure but there's no end. I suppose that's why it's a frequent dramatic tool. You'd think it would be easy to not sound completely banal but I'm not havin much luck.
It would be beyond banal and not informative to relate my own personal experiences with grief. There are a few, very few things I've seen that inform myself. By nature, I am a stoic or a hard hearted son of a bitch depending on who you ask. I'm at an age where I can joke that I have outlived all of my enemies and most of my friends. Most jokes have more than a kernel of truth.
One quote I've seen sums up the depth of feeling pretty well: "We call that person who has lost a father an orphan and a widower a man who has lost his wife. But that man who has known the immense unhappiness of losing a friend, what do we call him? Here every language is silent and holds its peace in impotence." That's just beautiful and you can feel the grief of the 19th-century gentleman who wrote it.
I've also heard and repeated this quote: If our parents are very lucky we are all born to be orphans. I would guess the loss of a parent is the most frequent source of grief. Just as parents can sometimes be the main source of lesser grief but the loss of a child. How do you plumb that depth?
I, one time, had the misfortune to be present when an 80-year-old man was told of the death of one of his sons. He had 8 adult children. He turned to his wife of nearly sixty years and said, " I knew we shouldn't have let them move all over the country like that." As though somehow just proximity would have given them the power to protect their children. It was the single most poignant expression of grief I've ever heard. To my knowledge that was his last comment on the subject. It was literally heart rending and stays with me today some 40 years later. So simple and direct.
Well, that about exhausts my store of the obvious on this subject. The renewal of spring reminded me of the finality of loss and the beauty of perseverance.
See, I said there were no good jokes in it.
It would be pointless to try to describe or define grief. It's an intensely personal experience. Some people never display it even while feeling it. Others wear it like sackcloth and ashes. There are recognized stages of how people deal with grief. The scale ends with acceptance. That seems to me to be an acknowledgement it is an open- ended emotion. That's relatively unique among strong emotions. You can seek and find closure but there's no end. I suppose that's why it's a frequent dramatic tool. You'd think it would be easy to not sound completely banal but I'm not havin much luck.
It would be beyond banal and not informative to relate my own personal experiences with grief. There are a few, very few things I've seen that inform myself. By nature, I am a stoic or a hard hearted son of a bitch depending on who you ask. I'm at an age where I can joke that I have outlived all of my enemies and most of my friends. Most jokes have more than a kernel of truth.
One quote I've seen sums up the depth of feeling pretty well: "We call that person who has lost a father an orphan and a widower a man who has lost his wife. But that man who has known the immense unhappiness of losing a friend, what do we call him? Here every language is silent and holds its peace in impotence." That's just beautiful and you can feel the grief of the 19th-century gentleman who wrote it.
I've also heard and repeated this quote: If our parents are very lucky we are all born to be orphans. I would guess the loss of a parent is the most frequent source of grief. Just as parents can sometimes be the main source of lesser grief but the loss of a child. How do you plumb that depth?
I, one time, had the misfortune to be present when an 80-year-old man was told of the death of one of his sons. He had 8 adult children. He turned to his wife of nearly sixty years and said, " I knew we shouldn't have let them move all over the country like that." As though somehow just proximity would have given them the power to protect their children. It was the single most poignant expression of grief I've ever heard. To my knowledge that was his last comment on the subject. It was literally heart rending and stays with me today some 40 years later. So simple and direct.
Well, that about exhausts my store of the obvious on this subject. The renewal of spring reminded me of the finality of loss and the beauty of perseverance.
See, I said there were no good jokes in it.
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
Lotsa Money
This isn't new but it's something I never thought about until a few years ago. I was doing work for a couple guys and learned what little bit I know from their shop talk over drinks. These guys were financial officers. One for a mid-level, manufacturing corporation and the other for a large public utility. Their jobs were to manage pools of money that didn't technically belong to their employers but they had control of for brief periods of time. Obviously, the corporation's overall goal was to make a profit and the utility's goal was to break as close to even as possible but these guy's job was the same: Maximize the earnings of these temporarily held pools of money. The guy who worked for the corporation made more than the guy who worked for the utility even though he managed far smaller pools of funds. I guess if you figure potential pensions and job security they broke about even. I'll say one thing. I liked these guys but they both made more than you would ever expect. To do business with they had a kind of ingrained, unintentional dishonesty. They'd "presbyterian" they hell outta ya if you let them and never blink an eye. They were ingrained with this idea that material success was evidence of divine blessing. If that were true a guy like Trump should be president. Oh, wait a minute.
Gawd! I'm boring myself. I never said these guys were interesting. Anyway, it turns out you can, park, loan, invest these larger amounts of money for periods as short as 12 hours, maybe less. Whatta I know. Money, like rust, never sleeps. Neither does coffee. At every step of this process someone has a finger in this flow of cash. This flow of cash underlies the entire economy. A good analogy is the way tectonic plates float on a liquid field of constantly moving molten stone. What happened in 2008 is, for various reasons, this liquid flow all but stopped and the plates above collided with analogous result.
So, where does this money come from? Mostly, monthly payments of one type or another. Insurance premiums, car payments, consumer loan payments, credit card payments, mortgage payments, utility payments. All of this money has to be held against committed disbursements for a time and it is all subject to being employed for short term profit. There's other sources. Personal and family fortunes, pre disbursement corporate profits. Corporate reserves even savings accounts, retirement accounts, pension funds. There's a lot of it and it's all subject to legitimate management and profit. Cool. It's when regulation fails we have a problem. 2008 again.
There is another class of these payments that bears close watching. Payroll taxes, property taxes (school taxes) social security taxes. These are vast pools of public funds that are constantly subjected to attempts at exploitation. Just because it's understandable doesn't make it a good idea. Just because it's a bad idea doesn't necessarily make it an evil idea but it is greatly to our benefit for the "full faith and credit of the United States" to actually mean something. Social Security has a much better record of reliability than Wall Street. If the day comes it doesn't we've got a real problem.
In the case of Social Security a lot has been made of the Government borrowing these funds for operating costs. When you consider the second largest expense we face on a yearly basis is the cost of federal borrowing you gotta wonder where we would borrow money at no interest and no penalty. ( Defense : 611 billion. Debt service: 292 billion. Federal deficit: about 410 billion).
If you want to know how bad an idea the "voucher" movement is all you need to do is look at the scandalous record of the for-profit higher education racket. These people have had access to the treasury for years and have amassed a record that would make Don Corleone blush. We now know what type of system David Koresh, Jim Jones or Jerry Falwell would create. Bad Ju-Ju. Somebody tell this Devos person.
I don't know about you but I'm ready for a nap. Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my public funds to keep.
Gawd! I'm boring myself. I never said these guys were interesting. Anyway, it turns out you can, park, loan, invest these larger amounts of money for periods as short as 12 hours, maybe less. Whatta I know. Money, like rust, never sleeps. Neither does coffee. At every step of this process someone has a finger in this flow of cash. This flow of cash underlies the entire economy. A good analogy is the way tectonic plates float on a liquid field of constantly moving molten stone. What happened in 2008 is, for various reasons, this liquid flow all but stopped and the plates above collided with analogous result.
So, where does this money come from? Mostly, monthly payments of one type or another. Insurance premiums, car payments, consumer loan payments, credit card payments, mortgage payments, utility payments. All of this money has to be held against committed disbursements for a time and it is all subject to being employed for short term profit. There's other sources. Personal and family fortunes, pre disbursement corporate profits. Corporate reserves even savings accounts, retirement accounts, pension funds. There's a lot of it and it's all subject to legitimate management and profit. Cool. It's when regulation fails we have a problem. 2008 again.
There is another class of these payments that bears close watching. Payroll taxes, property taxes (school taxes) social security taxes. These are vast pools of public funds that are constantly subjected to attempts at exploitation. Just because it's understandable doesn't make it a good idea. Just because it's a bad idea doesn't necessarily make it an evil idea but it is greatly to our benefit for the "full faith and credit of the United States" to actually mean something. Social Security has a much better record of reliability than Wall Street. If the day comes it doesn't we've got a real problem.
In the case of Social Security a lot has been made of the Government borrowing these funds for operating costs. When you consider the second largest expense we face on a yearly basis is the cost of federal borrowing you gotta wonder where we would borrow money at no interest and no penalty. ( Defense : 611 billion. Debt service: 292 billion. Federal deficit: about 410 billion).
If you want to know how bad an idea the "voucher" movement is all you need to do is look at the scandalous record of the for-profit higher education racket. These people have had access to the treasury for years and have amassed a record that would make Don Corleone blush. We now know what type of system David Koresh, Jim Jones or Jerry Falwell would create. Bad Ju-Ju. Somebody tell this Devos person.
I don't know about you but I'm ready for a nap. Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my public funds to keep.
Friday, April 14, 2017
Let's Talk About Sex, Baby!
Not everybody does it but everybody should! Yeah, I guess. I certainly seem to have made positive contributions to the gene pool against all predictions. I just think we look at sex and sexuality all wrong.
First: It is a universal, intensely private thing. So, naturally, it is the most public of things.
Second: We tend to think any progress is a new thing unique to our own time. Yeah, that's not true. Truth isn't born just because we discover it. Human rights aren't created; they can only be, finally, recognized. You have the right to simply be left alone and most people miss the total concept of the right to remain silent. We need more of that. Very often silence is golden for a reason.
Let me relate the perspective of a couple firmly rooted in the Victorian Era. My Grandparents were not products of the twentieth century. They were born in and products of the nineteenth century. I would say the primary rule they followed was, your sex life was a private matter not to be discussed. By extension, other people's sex lives were not to be noticed or commented upon. It wasn't just an invasion of their dignity but an insult to your own dignity. They never displayed any Freudian consequences in my presence. That would have been undignified. Come to think of it Freud never displayed any negative consequences. You'd think that would have told him something.
In the late '50s and early '60s they had a gay daughter. Well, she's in her '70s now. Still gay. I, one time, described her as; drunk when it was popular and gay when it wasn't. As far as I know that is the only time any member of our family mentioned that my aunt was gay. Sorry, it was a plot device in a short story I wrote. The story wasn't that good.
If I have a point this is it. Had anyone mentioned my aunt's sex life or our own for that matter in front of my grandparents we would have been met with silence and probably quietly, privately, corrected later. That silence in response to an inappropriate comment, no matter the subject was probably the most effective corrective action that could have been taken. In these times that seems reasonable enough but 50 or 60 years ago it was insightful and enlightened in terms of sexuality. The truth is, they weren't alone. They were simply in the minority. That's the way good ideas grow.
Here's where I think we've gone wrong. Every couple weeks we hear that someone has come "out". Why? What makes people think their sexual preferences are some fodder for public consumption? I'm sure there are perfectly legal things I enjoy as a heterosexual that would make some people's hair stand on end. Should I come out as a cunningulist? There's an image, sorry. Erskine Caldwell would be proud. What makes one sex act substantially different from another? In the short term all sex acts have the same result. Mixing genders isn't some revolution, it's a change of venue. A decent, satisfying relationship isn't based in the bedroom no matter the gender of the partners. Ya gotta have something to talk about. It's that companionship and communication that makes mortgage payments and buys furniture and that companionship remains an immensely private matter.
So, it sounds like I advocate "Don't ask, don't tell". I would change that just a bit. "Don't tell, don't ask" or " Keep it in your pants" or better yet, " Don't know, don't care". As is so often the case ignorance and apathy are the best policies.
First: It is a universal, intensely private thing. So, naturally, it is the most public of things.
Second: We tend to think any progress is a new thing unique to our own time. Yeah, that's not true. Truth isn't born just because we discover it. Human rights aren't created; they can only be, finally, recognized. You have the right to simply be left alone and most people miss the total concept of the right to remain silent. We need more of that. Very often silence is golden for a reason.
Let me relate the perspective of a couple firmly rooted in the Victorian Era. My Grandparents were not products of the twentieth century. They were born in and products of the nineteenth century. I would say the primary rule they followed was, your sex life was a private matter not to be discussed. By extension, other people's sex lives were not to be noticed or commented upon. It wasn't just an invasion of their dignity but an insult to your own dignity. They never displayed any Freudian consequences in my presence. That would have been undignified. Come to think of it Freud never displayed any negative consequences. You'd think that would have told him something.
In the late '50s and early '60s they had a gay daughter. Well, she's in her '70s now. Still gay. I, one time, described her as; drunk when it was popular and gay when it wasn't. As far as I know that is the only time any member of our family mentioned that my aunt was gay. Sorry, it was a plot device in a short story I wrote. The story wasn't that good.
If I have a point this is it. Had anyone mentioned my aunt's sex life or our own for that matter in front of my grandparents we would have been met with silence and probably quietly, privately, corrected later. That silence in response to an inappropriate comment, no matter the subject was probably the most effective corrective action that could have been taken. In these times that seems reasonable enough but 50 or 60 years ago it was insightful and enlightened in terms of sexuality. The truth is, they weren't alone. They were simply in the minority. That's the way good ideas grow.
Here's where I think we've gone wrong. Every couple weeks we hear that someone has come "out". Why? What makes people think their sexual preferences are some fodder for public consumption? I'm sure there are perfectly legal things I enjoy as a heterosexual that would make some people's hair stand on end. Should I come out as a cunningulist? There's an image, sorry. Erskine Caldwell would be proud. What makes one sex act substantially different from another? In the short term all sex acts have the same result. Mixing genders isn't some revolution, it's a change of venue. A decent, satisfying relationship isn't based in the bedroom no matter the gender of the partners. Ya gotta have something to talk about. It's that companionship and communication that makes mortgage payments and buys furniture and that companionship remains an immensely private matter.
So, it sounds like I advocate "Don't ask, don't tell". I would change that just a bit. "Don't tell, don't ask" or " Keep it in your pants" or better yet, " Don't know, don't care". As is so often the case ignorance and apathy are the best policies.
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
Lesser Men Step Across a Line
On the first of April I posted an essay titled, " Step Across This Line". I'll wait for a moment while you read it.
In that essay I recounted the understanding of diplomacy and the understanding of the responsibilities of American power that Barack Obama possessed and employed. I also recounted how that understanding had been misstated for what I assumed were purely political reasons by lesser men.
Subsequent events are convincing me these lesser men may actually have only a juvenile understanding of diplomatic issues and American power. That can be very dangerous. For some it has already become fatal.
On the surface this seems to be what happened. The Trump abrogation of our international commitments emboldened the Syrians/Russians. That called for a strong response to put them in their place. Maybe so.
On the other hand. Trump had admitted pretty clearly he was a Putin puppet. His mindless strategy of blaming the messenger was being met with peals of laughter and quickly eroding support. Nunes was forced to step aside. In the first 100 days of an administration, that's getting to be a surprisingly frequent occurrence. It was getting to the point if Trump said the sky was blue the entire country would only see the clouds. He was getting into Nixon territory. Nixon without the class. There's an image.
Has anyone thought about why Assad would make one, isolated poison gas attack when it could accomplish nothing but more international condemnation? Has anyone thought about why Trump's response was a very expensive fireworks display with no practical effect? A few days later the Syrians flew from the same airbase and attacked the same town.
Does anyone really believe the Syrian air force operates with anything but Russian command and control?
It's hard to imagine this is anything but an orchestrated distraction. However, if it is, it's awfully juvenile. Oh wait....
In that essay I recounted the understanding of diplomacy and the understanding of the responsibilities of American power that Barack Obama possessed and employed. I also recounted how that understanding had been misstated for what I assumed were purely political reasons by lesser men.
Subsequent events are convincing me these lesser men may actually have only a juvenile understanding of diplomatic issues and American power. That can be very dangerous. For some it has already become fatal.
On the surface this seems to be what happened. The Trump abrogation of our international commitments emboldened the Syrians/Russians. That called for a strong response to put them in their place. Maybe so.
On the other hand. Trump had admitted pretty clearly he was a Putin puppet. His mindless strategy of blaming the messenger was being met with peals of laughter and quickly eroding support. Nunes was forced to step aside. In the first 100 days of an administration, that's getting to be a surprisingly frequent occurrence. It was getting to the point if Trump said the sky was blue the entire country would only see the clouds. He was getting into Nixon territory. Nixon without the class. There's an image.
Has anyone thought about why Assad would make one, isolated poison gas attack when it could accomplish nothing but more international condemnation? Has anyone thought about why Trump's response was a very expensive fireworks display with no practical effect? A few days later the Syrians flew from the same airbase and attacked the same town.
Does anyone really believe the Syrian air force operates with anything but Russian command and control?
It's hard to imagine this is anything but an orchestrated distraction. However, if it is, it's awfully juvenile. Oh wait....
Wednesday, April 5, 2017
How High a Bridge?
It turns out there are things you can say that seem totally innocuous that certain people seem to take the wrong way. Maybe they took them the right way. I dunno. There have been times when, if someone was trying to beat some sense into me I musta been the smartest guy in town. It has also occurred to me that knowing you are right can be the worst possible thing you can know.
That started early. I was being berated by my Mother for some youthful transgression. I don't remember what it possibly could have been among the transgressions a six or seven year old might commonly commit. It couldn't have been that bad. I did use the defense that my companions had done it too.
" If they had jumped off a bridge would you jump too!!?"
" How high a bridge?" Yeah, I got nailed for that. My mother had no discernible sense of humor.
I did find out years later if others jumped naked, in the dark, off the Harmony Junction Bridge after a night of drinking and other hell raising I, indeed, would do it as well. Maybe the Old Lady was on to something. It was worth seeing the girls naked. The jump, not the whack in the head. Well, maybe...
One time I said to a cop, " I'm a citizen of the United States, as such I have rights. You are violating them." Yeah, got the hell beat out of me for that. Again, sometimes knowing you're right can be the worst possible thing you can know. I will say these cops seemed to have a sense of humor. They found it pretty funny. I still don't get that joke.
I, one time, told a couple cops I thought the Miranda warnings were meant to remind police officers what they weren't allowed to do. I wasn't charged with a crime for that. I did get the snot beat out of me and spent 26 days in jail.
I, one time, told a cop he was proving he could be a bigger asshole sober than I could be drunk. That might have gone ok except the other cops started to laugh. I got whacked in the kidneys for that and I spent the week-end in jail. Pissing blood but just a little. No paper work. It turns out I was right again. See how that works?
One time a cop asked me how many drinks I'd had that day. I'd had half a drink before he rudely interrupted me. I asked him how many steroids he'd taken that day. That pissed the fat, pimply juicer off pretty good. Yeah, he whacked me pretty good to prove it. Another week-end in jail with no paperwork. I'm sensing a pattern and the common denominator seems to be me being a smart ass.
I asked this idiot, one time, who he thought he was talking to. He said he was talking to a skinny, old man. All I said was, " I got your skinny old man right here." I may have made a gesture. He Sunday punched me. The bad news for him was; it was a Tuesday, I wasn't that skinny and I didn't get old by accident.
This all must sound like a horror story and it would be if it had happened in a few weeks, a few months or even a few years. It did happen in nearly sixty years of going thru life with a smile on my face and a joke rather than a bad word or insult on my lips. Sometimes you can say the wrong things to the wrong people but most people are nice if you just smile. Even the wrong people.
Most times you can say, " Hey, ya wanna go skinny dipping?" and no one asks how high a bridge and the girls take off their clothes.
That started early. I was being berated by my Mother for some youthful transgression. I don't remember what it possibly could have been among the transgressions a six or seven year old might commonly commit. It couldn't have been that bad. I did use the defense that my companions had done it too.
" If they had jumped off a bridge would you jump too!!?"
" How high a bridge?" Yeah, I got nailed for that. My mother had no discernible sense of humor.
I did find out years later if others jumped naked, in the dark, off the Harmony Junction Bridge after a night of drinking and other hell raising I, indeed, would do it as well. Maybe the Old Lady was on to something. It was worth seeing the girls naked. The jump, not the whack in the head. Well, maybe...
One time I said to a cop, " I'm a citizen of the United States, as such I have rights. You are violating them." Yeah, got the hell beat out of me for that. Again, sometimes knowing you're right can be the worst possible thing you can know. I will say these cops seemed to have a sense of humor. They found it pretty funny. I still don't get that joke.
I, one time, told a couple cops I thought the Miranda warnings were meant to remind police officers what they weren't allowed to do. I wasn't charged with a crime for that. I did get the snot beat out of me and spent 26 days in jail.
I, one time, told a cop he was proving he could be a bigger asshole sober than I could be drunk. That might have gone ok except the other cops started to laugh. I got whacked in the kidneys for that and I spent the week-end in jail. Pissing blood but just a little. No paper work. It turns out I was right again. See how that works?
One time a cop asked me how many drinks I'd had that day. I'd had half a drink before he rudely interrupted me. I asked him how many steroids he'd taken that day. That pissed the fat, pimply juicer off pretty good. Yeah, he whacked me pretty good to prove it. Another week-end in jail with no paperwork. I'm sensing a pattern and the common denominator seems to be me being a smart ass.
I asked this idiot, one time, who he thought he was talking to. He said he was talking to a skinny, old man. All I said was, " I got your skinny old man right here." I may have made a gesture. He Sunday punched me. The bad news for him was; it was a Tuesday, I wasn't that skinny and I didn't get old by accident.
This all must sound like a horror story and it would be if it had happened in a few weeks, a few months or even a few years. It did happen in nearly sixty years of going thru life with a smile on my face and a joke rather than a bad word or insult on my lips. Sometimes you can say the wrong things to the wrong people but most people are nice if you just smile. Even the wrong people.
Most times you can say, " Hey, ya wanna go skinny dipping?" and no one asks how high a bridge and the girls take off their clothes.
Tuesday, April 4, 2017
Read All About It !
People seem to think the proliferation of voices via the internet is a kind of , Extra, Extra! Something new. Nah, it's not. I'm always reminded of Truman's warning that the only thing new under the sun was the history you hadn't read yet. There is an interesting aside about Harry Truman. He is the last man to be President who didn't graduate from some institution of higher learning. I digress.
In the year 1900, Pittsburgh, one of the 10 largest cities in the country, at that time, had 7 daily newspapers and a myriad of various weeklies. That was true across the country. These dailies non-local content was provided by telegraph services that gathered and quoted major stories from other sources. Some of it independently some of it from major dailies. They, in turn, contributed to these telegraph services. Aside from that many of these dailies published pretty much whatever came into their heads for whatever reason; politics, morality, plain sensationalism. Sound familiar?
My point is; we had all these voices and it was up to the individual what should be believed and what should be ignored. There was an obvious need to inspect the veracity of just about any statement found in print.
What changed? The advent of radio and the formation of broadcast networks tended to concentrate, if not the voices, the audience. the audience turned from the chorus of voices to just a few on the radio dial. The advent of television and television networks further consolidated the concentration of the audience in a few voices. Oddly enough, the sinking of the Andria Doria hastened the growth of television network news. It occurred close enough to New York City that film of the incident could be quickly made available for broadcast. It was not a tragedy on a scale with the Titanic but the manufactured immediacy made it seem that way. Evening, network news went from 15 minutes to a half hour. That concentration of just a few voices continued with the 1960 Presidential campaigns and then the space program. It was somewhat abated by the advent of cable but it's the internet that has really changed things back to pretty much the way they were so long ago.
The truth is: Unless it's currently on fire (or sinking) or being shot into space television news is totally worthless as a source of detailed information. I think it's actually a pox on our body politic.
We live in an age where Johnny can read. You have to be able to read to follow nonsense on social media. It's a good thing. Now, if we can just teach Johnny to read in a systematic fashion we should move away from a time when we have a reality TV host as president. This proliferation of voices should be a good thing. It will be interesting to see how it develops.
This cigar is finished and this glass is half-full.
In the year 1900, Pittsburgh, one of the 10 largest cities in the country, at that time, had 7 daily newspapers and a myriad of various weeklies. That was true across the country. These dailies non-local content was provided by telegraph services that gathered and quoted major stories from other sources. Some of it independently some of it from major dailies. They, in turn, contributed to these telegraph services. Aside from that many of these dailies published pretty much whatever came into their heads for whatever reason; politics, morality, plain sensationalism. Sound familiar?
My point is; we had all these voices and it was up to the individual what should be believed and what should be ignored. There was an obvious need to inspect the veracity of just about any statement found in print.
What changed? The advent of radio and the formation of broadcast networks tended to concentrate, if not the voices, the audience. the audience turned from the chorus of voices to just a few on the radio dial. The advent of television and television networks further consolidated the concentration of the audience in a few voices. Oddly enough, the sinking of the Andria Doria hastened the growth of television network news. It occurred close enough to New York City that film of the incident could be quickly made available for broadcast. It was not a tragedy on a scale with the Titanic but the manufactured immediacy made it seem that way. Evening, network news went from 15 minutes to a half hour. That concentration of just a few voices continued with the 1960 Presidential campaigns and then the space program. It was somewhat abated by the advent of cable but it's the internet that has really changed things back to pretty much the way they were so long ago.
The truth is: Unless it's currently on fire (or sinking) or being shot into space television news is totally worthless as a source of detailed information. I think it's actually a pox on our body politic.
We live in an age where Johnny can read. You have to be able to read to follow nonsense on social media. It's a good thing. Now, if we can just teach Johnny to read in a systematic fashion we should move away from a time when we have a reality TV host as president. This proliferation of voices should be a good thing. It will be interesting to see how it develops.
This cigar is finished and this glass is half-full.
Saturday, April 1, 2017
Step Across This Line
Yesterday it was widely reported the Trump administration has dropped our long standing policy that Russian ally Assad be removed from power in Syria. That means we no longer support the aims of the United Nations, NATO and several other international bodies and courts and support by acquiescence the aims of Assad ally Putin. The public theater of the absurd being held in Congress in regards to Trump collusion with Russia has been undercut by the Trump administration itself. Actions speak louder than a thousand twitter posts. To be blunt; I think this abrogation of our international responsibilities to our allies and to peace itself is an act of disloyalty almost breathtaking in it's brazenness. It is possible that the axiom: Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity, does apply but the detrimental effect to our overall foreign policy is the same. We simply can no longer be trusted. That's bad.
Think about that for a minute. The most powerful nation by a factor of 10 can no longer be trusted to have coherent faith to its obligations.
In discussion, if not defense of this shift in policy much has been made of President Obama's citing of a "Red Line." in August of 2012. None of that discussion even approaches reality. Somehow that has been conflated to a sign of weakness. That's untrue. Thinking it is true is a sign of ignorance. That ignorance is understandable in a member of the general public. It is completely unacceptable in anyone in a position of responsibility.
The United States is signatory to more than one international agreement concerning the use of chemical weapons. Those agreements have thresholds that require international action in certain circumstances. Not unilateral action but international action. When the President of the United States declares one of those thresholds, "red lines" has been crossed international action is required. Not wished for, required. That's called," diplomatic language" and Obama's use of it was inspired in conception and result.
In less than 10 months, with the full cooperation of the Assad ally Russia, 600 metric tons of various chemical agents were collected, shipped and destroyed under international supervision.
At the time various republican officials, notably John McCain and Mitt Romney were calling for American boots on the ground in Syria. Others assumed that was the only alternative. Obama recognized and employed a diplomatic solution that removed the legitimate concerns of the international community in what is, in fact, a Syrian civil conflict. The truth is: Had he not been given a Peace Prize for simply not being George W Bush he should have gotten one for that. It was literally brilliant. That progress has been abandoned by lesser men for no beneficial reason.
We have switched sides in the Syrian civil conflict. We have abandoned the goals of our allies and subscribed to the goals of Putin's Russia. As a citizen of the United States I am not comfortable with that.
Lesser men are to be expected. That's the nature of our system. Disloyal men should not be tolerated.
Think about that for a minute. The most powerful nation by a factor of 10 can no longer be trusted to have coherent faith to its obligations.
In discussion, if not defense of this shift in policy much has been made of President Obama's citing of a "Red Line." in August of 2012. None of that discussion even approaches reality. Somehow that has been conflated to a sign of weakness. That's untrue. Thinking it is true is a sign of ignorance. That ignorance is understandable in a member of the general public. It is completely unacceptable in anyone in a position of responsibility.
The United States is signatory to more than one international agreement concerning the use of chemical weapons. Those agreements have thresholds that require international action in certain circumstances. Not unilateral action but international action. When the President of the United States declares one of those thresholds, "red lines" has been crossed international action is required. Not wished for, required. That's called," diplomatic language" and Obama's use of it was inspired in conception and result.
In less than 10 months, with the full cooperation of the Assad ally Russia, 600 metric tons of various chemical agents were collected, shipped and destroyed under international supervision.
At the time various republican officials, notably John McCain and Mitt Romney were calling for American boots on the ground in Syria. Others assumed that was the only alternative. Obama recognized and employed a diplomatic solution that removed the legitimate concerns of the international community in what is, in fact, a Syrian civil conflict. The truth is: Had he not been given a Peace Prize for simply not being George W Bush he should have gotten one for that. It was literally brilliant. That progress has been abandoned by lesser men for no beneficial reason.
We have switched sides in the Syrian civil conflict. We have abandoned the goals of our allies and subscribed to the goals of Putin's Russia. As a citizen of the United States I am not comfortable with that.
Lesser men are to be expected. That's the nature of our system. Disloyal men should not be tolerated.
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