Living in the Dark Ages, cont.

FIRST, OBAMA ADMITTED that he had no strategy prepared with which to deal with the newly emerged "Islamic State". Then after deciding on big time bombing, he admitted that he had underestimated the gang of religious fanatics who have taken over parts of Iraq and Syria. Well, at least he's honest, if not always competent. The Islamic State must be destroyed, because it would like to destroy us, goes the American rationale. (there's always a rationale). Is this war for oil, capitalism, freedom, American Christianity, or mainstream Islam? Take your pick. One over extended, paranoid superpower, and two huge and primitive religions, each with over a billion fervent adherents, uneasily coexisting, while the other four to five billion of us wait with bated breath for the next drama. If a fanatic militant group devoted to science, reason, and learning, was doing what the Islamic State is doing, maybe it would be a bit more palatable. Maybe we could all embrace the movement, proclaim an "age of reason", and just get along. But to watch primitive but powerful religions wield such cultural influence makes one feel as if one is living in the dark ages, circa twenty first century. Its always tempting to give one's self over to a glorious cause.But this? wouldn't we all be better off to unite in a world wide crusade to reverse global warming, bring learning and prosperity to everyone, and explore space? A bran-fire new religion, featuring common sense, and desirable, universal human goals! But no, instead we languish in the primitive thinking handed down to us for thousands of years; God fearing, violent, brutal adherence to dogma without reason. Maybe our descendants will do better.

Living In The Dark Ages

YOU GET TIRED of living in the dark ages, and you dream of a more enlightened world to come. Pity that it won't arrive until long after your death. A loved one spouts: "you hear so many opinions about global warming from supposed experts, you don't know what to believe." Well, do you believe that humanity is really putting all that carbon in the air? And do you believe in basic chemistry? What about thermometers? As if an avalanche of lies means that there is no truth, anywhere. If you believe that global warming and evolution are hoaxes, that God writes books, or that wars are good for the economy, you're part of the problem. Somebody expressed to me the belief that smoking marijuana causes cancer. I asked about the millions of people who'v been "researching" the question for decades, seemingly cancer free. I was reminded by my accuser that opinions change as new research comes to light, and that in Christopher Columbus's day people believed that the world was flat. In the near future, marijuana, doubtless, will be found carcinogenic. Gee, I can't wait.That's all we need. But at least I can take comfort knowing, as I do, that even in Columbus's day the world was known to be spherical, and believing, as I fervently do, that a better day, less darkened by gross misconceptions, is a comin'.

Hearing From the Working Poor

"NICKLE AND DIMED: On (not) Getting By in America", by Barbara Ehrenreich, reads like a good novel, but is in fact a factual, scientific description of an experiment. The experiment consists of Ehrenreich, who has a doctorate in Biology and is a Successful writer, delving into the world of minimum wage work, and reporting on it. She starts from scratch, gets minimum wage jobs, and tries her best to live on them. She is a highly intelligent, well educated woman, who makes good decisions, the best she possibly can, all along the minimum wage way. The result is shocking. Her report is a good way for people to understand the plight of America's working poor, who number in the millions. In fact, twenty five percent of all homeless Americans are employed full time, and go to work, and keep their jobs. Then, they live in the streets when they are off work. Having a job in America does not guarantee having a living income... Books like this might ultimately spark the next "Occupy Wall Street" protest, and render it far more effective than the first. Someday, somebody will write a novel about the plight of the poor, it will become even more popular than "The Grapes of Wrath" or "The Jungle", and the rest will be history. For in modern American, conditions are nearly that bad among the working and non working poor. the fifteen dollar an hour people haven't gone away. They're still making seven and eight an hour at McDonald's and other fast food corporations, and still seething, living in trailers with crowds, walking to work, trying to raise children, and seething. Reckon we'll hear more from that crew, soon enough.

Telling the Truth About Today, and Yesterday

THE WAY TO TEACH HISTORY is to teach it in reverse, teach it backwards, starting with today, then going back to yesterday, then, all the way back. This gives the students a sense of relevancy, by showing exactly how the past, the entire past, is relevant in creating them, and their world today. Consequences come before causes. First the current facts, then their causes and consequences. And what better time than now to teach American history in this fashion! You walk into the classroom, and ask the students what's going on in America today. Sooner or later, the class arrives at the conclusion that one of the most important things going on in America today, one of the most important things that America is doing, isn't even happening "inside" America. Its happening halfway around the world, where, as usual, the United States of America is bombing the ever loving heck out of somebody. And you can't really omit mention of the "as usual" phrase, if you want to tell the truth about recent and current American history. In fact, you cannot fail to mention that today's high school seniors, the class of 2014, cannot remember nine one one, and has never lived in a country at peace. Hell. For that matter, if you're, say, a sixty year old American, you have never lived in an America not at war. Has anyone, ever? Has America ever NOT been at war, with somebody or something, some country or concept? That's not a bad way to initiate an American history course, by asking that very question, and its not inappropriate. In fact, its fair and honest; looking as far back in American history as it takes, trying to find times of peace. It'll take awhile, at least a semester, and it'll get you all the way back to Columbus. Traditionally, American history students were taught that the Untied States of America can do no wrong. Then, in recent years, we started teaching the truth, or at least a more balanced version, portraying the good and the bad in American history. Oh, how our conservative brothers and sisters hate the balanced approach, the one in which the U.S.A. is not perfect! Whitewashing history makes it easier for arrogant people to proudly flaunt their excessive patriotism, and thus enhance their opinion of themselves. But if we look at history in reverse, starting with today, and moving backwards, we cannot avoid the truth. That is, at least, assuming we tell the truth about today.

The Hoax To End All Hoaxes

SEVENTY FIVE PERCENT OF Republicans do not believe in global warming. They believe its a hoax, a conspiracy of the liberal wing, such as it is, of the democrat party. Seems these rascally libs conspired, possibly through encrypted email, to pump fifty billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere, then quietly warm up every thermometer in the world. Please bear in mind that these same conservative republicans also tend to believe that evolution is an atheist hoax, and that God writes books. But perhaps we can help. Next time you run into a conservative republican American, which will probably either be at church, a bank, or a firing range, offer this: C + C = CC. Chemistry plus cars equals climate change. The carbon is there, it absorbs heat, and we measure it all, the carbon, the heat, and the ever hotter summers. Its easy to measure all that. Its amazing that it took us so long to get around to it, and even more amazing that anybody would deny it. Its like denying the holocaust. Quite an elaborate hoax for a bunch of liberal airheads.

All Quiet On Capitol Hill

JUST THE OTHER DAY Congress passed a bill funding Obamacare. This is a scoop, for two reasons: these days Congress hardly ever passes anything, let alone something the republicans hate as much as they hate obamacare. And yet, the bill slid smoothly through the legislative progress, without acrimony, histrionics, or even the semblance of a good debate. The republican legislators finally figured out that blocking appropiations bills and shutting down the government is bad politics, particularly in an election year. In a non election year, like last year, we had all the usual spear throwing and government down shutting. When the elections are finally over, in November, all the hostility will begin anew, and all will be normal in America. In the autumn of odd numbered years, such as 2011 and 2009, we have all the drama and righteous anger. During the autumn of even numbered years, we the American people have mature, dignified, pleasant cooperation in our government and political parties, almost as if some astrological force were at work. Smooth sailing in odd numbered years, acrimony in even numbered years. You may be sure the trend will continue in the future.

Conquering Looming Catastrophes

WE SEEM TO BE EXPERIENCING a bit of Global Ebola apathy, or it is merely fear? Finally, Obama and the Americans, with their immense resources, are sending help, just in the nick of time, perhaps. If one of these microbiological assaults ever gets out of hand, the human race might be rendered nearly extinct. One can argue about whether this would be a good thing, but the threat is always lurking, according to biology teachers, and thus the need for homo sapienic cooperation, across all continents, borders, races, and religious affiliations. We as a species might be in dire straits. Asteroids go flying past us every day, and sooner or later a big one is bound to hit. And can you imagine the work it will take to move most of the world's population safely inland? There is an institution, headquartered in Washington D.C. of course, called "The World Bank", and its purpose, as stated at its creation in 1946, is to promote economic prosperity and eliminate poverty worldwide. Instead, particularly lately, it seems more interested in promoting money making schemes for huge corporations, disguised as economic aid programs. Shouldn't it be saving money; a big bank account owned by the human race, to help pay for the rising oceans and aging human population, among other looming catastrophes? All this will require planning, cooperation, and very hard dirty handed work. And assuming we eventually conquer the Ebola virus, there'll be enough of us around to get it all done.

Accepting War As Normal

WHEN I WAS A YOUNG INNOCENT CHILD, all those years ago, in the young and not so innocent nineteen sixties, each day I precociously watched the evening news, Cronkite, Huntley Brinkley, the old school crew, and every day, it seemed they talked about the Viet Nam War, and the race riots and war protests in various American cities. And I swear, they talked about both so consistently, daily, for so long that I got the impression that both situations, both the Viet Nam War, and the race riots and war protests, were permanent. Permanent and eternal, like school. It just seemed cozily normal to hear, each and every Monday, the numbers list of the hundreds of Americans and thousands of Viet Namese killed in action, and the fires, smoke bombs, and broken bottles in places like Detroit and Los Angeles like some routine public event. Only later in life did I fully comprehend that my early childhood was a continuous nightmare of vicarious violence. You come to understand that accepting violence as normal, with all that implies, is quite possible and quite easy. Twenty five years ago Gore Vidal pointed out that the United States, for all intents and purposes, has been at war constantly since pearl harbor. During the twenty five years since Vidal's comment, the United states has been, you guessed it, constantly at war. That's a long streak, remarkable consistency. how can any American NOT regard violence as normal, and even acceptable? If we Americans ever stopped squeezing each other for money, killing each other, and launching foreign wars, why, we might not know what to do with ourselves.

Owing Too Much to the Rich

THE WORD "GARNISH", like most English words, has multiple meanings. One can cook a turkey, and garnish it with butter, garlic, various seasonings. Somebody can garnish someone's else's wages, which means, confiscate them, all or part. IN the United States, this usually requires a court order, but not always. In the United States of Arrears, wherein everybody, public and private, is in debt, and the teeming masses are becoming increasingly indebted and angry, an ever higher percentage of American citizenry is being victimized by garnished wages, having to do with money owed to corporations, former spouses, and the government. We all owe something to somebody or something, in the land of unregulated economics and rent seeking. Rent seeking is defined by economics as any attempt to increase the return on an investment without increasing the actual value of the asset. Added fees to credit cards, mortgages, and other loans are a prime example. Our corporate financial services masters milk fee and interest money out of the nation's poorest borrowers, refusing to allow their government to regulate the scam, then if and when aforementioned financial services corporations go broke by excessive gambling and exploitation, they run to the government to get saved, saved by the very taxpayers they so smugly abused. Once saved, the abuse begins all over again, right under the noses of the seemingly distracted citizenry. The one tenth of one percent, running roughshod over, sucking up the wealth of the ninety nine point nine percent. If it isn't some ex spouse garnishing you, its come corporation, or the Internal Revenue Service, or some other government entity. The teeming American masses are growing desperate, restless, angry. There may come a day when everyone in America is being garnished, and the American people are garnishing the government in a class action lawsuit to end all class action law suits. The American judicial system, owned by the same corporate oligarchy that owns everything else, comes down hard on those who dare owe our corporate master too much, for too long. When enough of us are living in the streets, might we dare make those streets ours, at last?

Defending the True Faith

PREPARING THE COUNTRY for its next war, President Obama declared that the Islamic State is not really Islamic. Like ravenous carp, Republicans bit, loudly retorting that indeed the Islamic State IS indeed Islamic, because it says it is. Well, that's true enough. People have the right to decide what they are, even if others disagree. However, most American conservatives seem to think that all Moslems, all Arabs, are the same, no matter how many different nations, sects, and organizations inhabit the middle east. Any religion with over than a billion members is going to experience differences of opinion about the true faith. Often, when people claiming to be true believers perpetrate horrendous acts, they are branded heretical. Timothy McVeigh and Benito Mussolini called themselves Christians, after all. Most Moslems seem to consider the Islamic state a gang of heretics. The trick is to convince Christians in the United States that the Islamic faith, like the Christian faith, has its share of bad apples, but that inter-faith understanding and cooperation is vital. Moslems, like Christians, are generally well intentioned. One must do more than tolerate all religiosity; one must accept, continued tolerance without acceptance is an insult. But this newly upsprung Islamic state is a problem for nearly everyone, most particularly those poor people subjected to its violent tyranny. Obama plans only to bomb the Islamic State, and let real Moslems do the groundwork. There is no foreign policy problem that can't be resolved with the American Air Force. The Germans, regrettably, have indicated they have no intention of launching air strikes against the Islamic State, although they don't mind if the Americans do. Could it be that the United States, Iraq, Iran, Bashar's Syria, and the Syrian rebels might all unite to destroy the Islamic state, then get right back to destroying each other? Strange bedfellows. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, at least, briefly.

Thinking More, Buying More

WHILE APPLYING FOR a refinance on my house, I mentioned to the potential lender that a certain well known economist, of high repute, Joseph Stiglitz, has blamed the recent great recession on the financial services industry. Don't know why I mentioned that. Just trying to make trouble, I reckon. The young lady replied that many people share this opinion. Maybe, but there are also many people who blame the millions of working class and poor Americans who had the temerity to take out mortgages they couldn't afford, and many people blame the government, with its endless meddling and regulating. All I know is, its the big corporate financial services providers who got bailed out by we the people, and its the big shots in those companies who got paid a lot of bonus money for incompetence. Also, its the big corporations (Bank of America, Citigroup,etc) who keep getting hauled into federal court and convicted of financial crimes. So, I want to get my financial business, mortgages, checking, savings accounts, away from the big financial criminal, which most recently paid a 17 billion dollar fine-bribe to the government. You get tired of doing business with sleazy criminals. The more poor you are, the more interest you have to pay on a thirty year loan, to compensate the lender for the risk. But the higher the interest, the greater the burden on the already low income sub prime borrower, and the more likely that the loan will be defaulted. Our huge corporate financial services lending institutions are raping the poor, with predatory lending, and siphoning the wealth upward. How lovely of them. Meanwhile, we give huge tax breaks to the wealthy, clinging to the insane trickle down supply-side economics of Reagan-Bush. What we need is a good dose of demand-side trickle up economics, low interest loans for the poor, more discretionary income for the poorest of the poor, creating new consumers, who, demanding more and buying more, grow the economy, paying more to the big boys who seem to so desperately want their huge slice of the pie. If only somebody would think of it.

Looking For, and Accepting, Truth

YA GOTTA BELIEVE. Certain things, you must. Certain other things one absolutely must not believe. Maybe its never too late to change, but its getting to be. Just a few examples. There are way too many people, especially in the United States, who still believe, or pretend to believe, that human evolution is an unproven, crackpot theory. Fact is, evolution is a fact, plain as day. Its time to accept that, in our modern well educated hi tech civilization. In a world torn and held back by religious conflict, its time for humanity to understand and accept the puny inadequacy of all its religions, and to understand and accept the obvious, that beings on other planets likely have many religions better than any of ours, and that God does not write books, nor inspire the writing of books to reveal His truth. We may as well wait for some intelligent being from another planet to reveal truth, or we could write new scripture to at least more accurately approach truth, or else, keep looking for truth ourselves, scripture-less. Perhaps the most reprehensible, dangerous widespread misconception among us is that which proclaims that global warming is a hoax. Oh, that it were. Its just a matter of measuring carbon in the atmosphere, and knowing its (carbon's) relation to sunlight. it really is that simple, and obvious. There is no shortage of intelligence in the world, just a shortage of education, and a tendency to misuse the marvelous human power of imagination. Imagination needn't be, and shouldn't be, a vehicle by which to embrace and institutionalize blatant falsehood.

Sucking Out the Wealth of the Poor

AUTHOR GORE VIDAL recalled riding in the back seat of a limo when he was seven years old, seated next to his blind grandfather, Senator Thomas Gore of Oklahoma, in the summer of 1932. All around the slowly moving car were men dressed in rags, throwing tomatoes and rocks, screaming at the Senator. Vidal said he was frightened, and clutched his grandfather's hand tightly. The Bonus Army was in town, veterans of World War One, demanding relief. Washington D.C. was under siege, and the child in the back seat understood, first and forever, that a war between the rich and the poor was quite possible in America. In fact, he was witnessing one. Senator Gore, a conservative Democrat, did not believe in giving anything to anybody, including war veterans impoverished by the great depression, seeking early payment of their promised war bonus. Flash ahead to 2014, Ferguson, Missouri, the shooting death of a young black man by a policeman, and local outrage, colored black. Amid the yelling, we look at the inexorable statistics, and we find that there is a systematic war ongoing against America's poor, and America's African Americans. Ferguson Missouri, like all other towns and cities in the United States, detains, arrests, charges, and convicts blacks and poor people in huge numbers, disproportionate numbers, even when most of the crime is committed by middle class European Americans. For every step along the circuitous path of the Ferguson, Missouri "justice system", fees are extracted, fees for being arrested, fees for being charged, fees for being fined. An endless bureaucratic sucking, all legal, pumping lifeblood into the community coffers, and the poor and the black are disproportionately fined, feed, and re-feed. As if America is sweeping its trash off the streets, and sucking out what little wealth the poor possess. Surely we can find a better way to finance our cities, and enforce our laws.

The Lowly masses, Venerating the Wealthy Elite

THERE'S AN INTERESTING experiment, and not only does it reveal tons about the way the world works, you can try it yourself, only, not in the comfort of your own home. Some researchers stopped at a stoplight, and, when the light turned green, just stayed there, idling, in a very expensive, fancy, luxury automobile, say, a brand new Rolls Royce. They timed how long it took before somebody sitting behind lost patience, and honked. Then they tried the same thing again, only this time they were driving a twenty five year old banged up cheap little compact, totally pitted out. As you may have supposed by now, the wait time until the first honk was considerably longer for the Rolls than the Pinto, each and every time. As is to say; give the rich guy all the respect we can, be patient with him, but hurry the poor slob along. Treat the rich one better, give more respect to the wealthy one. Of course the people who did the honking were different every time, but the experiment was tried often enough that the results seemed to show a pattern. Try it yourself! All you need are a couple of very different cars and a second hand, which you might be able to borrow, though the Cadillac might not come easy, even on loan. One wonders what the outcome would be if someone, or some group, tried this at hundreds or thousands of stoplights, in hundreds or thousands of American cities and towns, or even all over the world, involving thousands, or tens of thousands of people. the Trick would be to make sure that the contrast between the super fancy expensive car and the clunker was really, really obvious. Most American baby boomers can probably remember a time, say, the nineteen fifties or sixties, when the conspicuously wealthy were widely admired as a sort of aristocracy; and some of that still lingers today, though to a somewhat lesser degree, thank heavens. the doctor, the lawyer, with the larger home, more numerous cars, and better dressed kids deigning to grace the public schools, maybe. The privileged elite, so very deserving of their lofty social status, so worthy of respect and admiration merely for the sake of their accumulated and displayed wealth. Alas, the value system of free market capitalism, to whom the winners of the competition go the spoils, among which is the veneration by the lowly masses.

Finding the Right Time to Bomb

BRITISH PRIME MINISTER Lord, or whatever, Cameron, matter-o-factly informs us that there are two, and only two, reasons for the existence of the unfortunate phenomenon known as THE Islamic State. First, Syrian Dictator Bashar Assad. Nothing about him in particular, just Assad, in general. O.K., fair enough. Who could argue? Second, the instability and apparent inability of the Iraqi government to govern its entire country. Well, yeah. Sure. What could be more obvious? But wait- just a minute. Isn't there anything else? Something at the back of our collective memory? What about British post World War One imperialism, their taking control of, dominating, and rewriting the national boundaries of its former, and the Ottoman Empire's former, empire? May we say instability through outside meddling? Then too, what about the War on Terror, America's air forceful incidental collateral "reassignment" (to heaven) of a hundred thousand Iraqi civilians, emphasizing women and children. And subsequently, what about the American Empire's dominating, rewriting, and installing of a new Iraqi government which the good lord Cameron blithely blames for aforementioned Iraqi regional instability? Reckon that mighta shaken things up a bit? World citizens, fellow sapiens, mister prime minister; there simply comes a time to stand up and tell the truth. A time to come clean. A time to assign, and a time to accept, responsibility. A time to blame one's Arab friends, and a time to blame one's self. A time to extend one's military might, disguised as help and aid, and a time to bring one's air force home, and from future bombing to refrain. Turn, turn...turn.

Guiltlessly Nude and Vain

PEOPLE HAVE THE RIGHT to take pictures of themselves unclothed, and to show them to other people. They have the right to post those pictures on the internet,safely and securely, and to control who looks and looks not at them. People also have the right to stroll through Central park at midnight, unarmed, wearing diamond studded earrings, rings, and necklaces, with their gorgeous curvaceous female bodies adorned only in a string bikini. One has the right to place a pile of money on one's front porch, with the porch light on, and then leave the house. They have the right to park their car on the upper west side of New York City without locking the doors, leaving twenty dollar bills strewn across the front seat, dome light on. They have the right to expect everyone to respect their personal property rights at at times, under all circumstances. But maybe, just maybe, it isn't the best idea to do any of these things. Enter the politically correct police, accusing the purveyors of good judgment of blaming the celebrities themselves for the hacker theft of nude photos. Nobody is blaming the celebrities. The beautiful young female citizens are blameless. The crime was committed by the criminals. Those who suggest that it might be a better choice to refrain from posing nude in front of a camera and sharing the pictures with others are merely whispering free, first amendment , friendly advice. The celebrities are guilty only of poor judgment and vanity.

Learning By Doing

A SCIENTIST IN INDIA went into a remote part of the country, and place a computer in a wall, such that it could not be stolen, turned it on, and departed. Over a period of time, he watched what happened from a hiding place. This in a country where rural residents know what computers are, but for the most part have had little or no experience using them. The people most curious about the computer were children. Adults strolled by, but generally didn't seem interested. Perhaps they assumed that the machine was there for some unknown purpose unrelated to them, perhaps their curiosity had been extinguished by adulthood, most probably they assumed that if they tinkered with it, they would get in big trouble. But children came in droves, with great curiosity. Many of the children spent a lot of time at the computer, many of them returned frequently, regularly, day after day. Finally, the scientist approached one of the children, intending to find out whether any of them had figured anything out, or had even perhaps learned the rudiments of it use, such as clicking the mouse. When questioned, one child said: "its a good machine, but we need a better processor, some more random access memory, a new mouse, and a bigger monitor." Indeed, they had learned something. Emboldened and encouraged, the sociologist placed a tutorial on the menu, explaining the structure and function of DNA. All this in English, just as everything on the computer was in English,to which none of the children had ever been exposed.a After several weeks, the scientist asked a child whether she had looked at the tutorial, and had gained even the slightest glimmer concerning the topic of DNA. The child responded: "I don't understand much of it. Its obvious that the improper replication of DNA molecules causes cancer, but the precise mechanism, at the molecular level, is beyond my understanding, but it seems to me that in this area the tutorial was rather vague." So much for rote learning. All hail to those who advocate hands on education, learning by doing, and freedom to learn by trial and error.

When Logic Adheres

IN A SUBWAY STATION in Shanghai recently, a young man collapsed on the platform, and hundreds of people nearby scattered like a covey of quail after a shotgun blast. Nobody but nobody stepped forward to offer help. Ostensibly, this is an indication of uncaring oriental coldheartedness. On the surface, one might assume that Shanghai is doing its best impersonation of New York city. But there's more to the story. There is a deadly virus spreading throughout part of Africa, and this has been well publicized throughout China and the world. People are wary of any personal contact with one who collapses. Also, there has been a crime wave in china in which the operational method is as follows: a person collapses, and when someone comes to help, a gang of thugs jumps out from a hidden place and accost and rob the person trying to help. Usually the bait is an older person, to lend credibility. Usually people in large groups behave in accordance with brute motivations. There are times, however, when a certain understandable logic adheres.