Every so often, I email an article to myself for future reference, often with the idea of writing a blog entry. Most likely I don’t get around to it. So, since I don’t have a hot topic in my head this week, I thought I’d muse about some of these clippings. Don’t worry, I won’t write about all 59, just enough to fill a Reader Weekly page.
One apropos to the attempts to take some auditing work from the State Auditor was a letter to the Duluth News Tribune by Paul and Susan Schurke of Ely. They praise Rebecca Otto for pointing out that nobody knows what the potential cost to taxpayers of new mines will be. Is it any wonder that the corporate-lovers in the Minnesota legislators want reduce Otto’s authority? Strange that this same crowd complains about taxes.
“Otto’s common sense mining position can unite us all.” Duluth News Tribune, 2013-12-09.
Pete Seeger wrote long ago that we have the best politicians: “We elect them again and again.” One of the reasons we elect them again and again is that a plutocracy finances too many elections. Plutocracy is government by the rich. “Capitalism vs. Democracy” by Thomas B. Edsall (http://nyti.ms/Msy71t) asks “Is deepening inequality inevitable? The case for a global wealth tax.” - New York Times, 2014-01-28. It is a review of Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”. Edsall quotes Piketty’s assertion “when pay setters set their own pay, there’s no limit”.
A reverse on a wealth tax is offered by D. J. Tice in “There’s no pot of gold for the working poor”, Star Tribune, 2014-02-09. His first suggestion is “to stop raising their taxes.” He also suggests expanding both the State and Federal Earned Income Tax Credit. He also writes that any hike in the minimum wage will probably result in fewer workers over the long term. Think of how you once bought an ice cream cone. Somebody bent over the freezer and scooped your choice into a cone. Now you can go to Chilly Billy’s and fill your own cup with your choice of frozen yogurt.
My answer to when pay setters won’t set their pay is when the sun sets in the East. Joe Nocera wrote about all the gimmicks that CEOs and their boards use to keep raising the CEOs pay to ridiculous levels. See “CEO Pay Goes Up, Up, and Away”, New York Times, 2014-04-14 (http://nyti.ms/1erLn2H). Shareholders can vote against boards that grant obscene pay, but they will probably be outvoted by institutional investors who exercise “fiduciary responsibility” by voting in management’s favor. Even if that responsibility were directed at reducing executive pay, current law says that “Say on Pay” is only an advisory; management doesn’t have to honor the shareholders vote.
Have you considered that the wealthy wield much more power than kings of old? Except they don’t need armies of soldiers to stay in power, just armies of lawyers and lobbyists.
You can know that things are out of control when a “conservative” columnist calls attention to the inequalities. My favorite “conservative” columnist, Ross Douthat, wrote “College, the Great Unequalizer”, New York Times, 2014-05-03 (http://nyti.ms/1kzuuRQ). He says that the Party Scene at many colleges benefits the well-heeled student and sucks in the “lower-status” student. The well-heeled can rescue those who practice an excess of vices, but the less-well-off can’t. The well-heeled will go on to social or economic success regardless of their performance. Others will rarely join that social class.
And the upper-class is finding many ways to get their way no matter the cost to the rest of society. It is well-known, to those who care, that the Koch Brothers through their American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are writing our laws in cahoots with Republican legislators. One of the current examples is “right-to-work” laws. Many of the laws are almost identical to what ALEC proposed. “Wisconsin’s law was a virtual copy of the 1995 model bill promoted by” ALEC. See “Scott Walker and the Fate of the Union”, New York Times, Dan Kaufman, 2015-06-12.
The article points out how the upper-class minions don’t care about much more than keeping their masters happy. The accident rate among workers is higher in right-to-work states. Scott Walker promised the president of the state-wide union of heavy machine operators that the “right-to-work bill” would not make it to his desk. Walker got his contribution and the labor guy lost Walker’s commitment.
How the Republican Party has changed! The 1956 Republican Party platform included “The protection of the right of workers to organize into unions and to bargain collectively is the firm and permanent policy of the Eisenhower administration.”
And it even gets worse. See “Energy Firms in Secretive Alliance With Attorneys General”, Eric Lipton, New York Times, 2014-12-06. The attorneys general are sending letters of complaint about air pollution to the Environmental Protection Agency that are almost duplicates of letters written by the lawyers of energy companies. These attorneys general are getting huge campaign contributions from energy companies. Thanks to these contributions, 27 of the states’ attorneys general are Republicans. Who was it that wrote, “We have the best government money can buy”?
Or to blaspheme Abraham Lincoln, “A government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations shall not perish from the earth.” Or should it be “shall destroy the earth”?
Saturday, June 20, 2015
Thursday, June 11, 2015
Freedom to do what?
Many people and corporations complain that their freedoms are being taken away by this law or that law which restricts certain behavior. Are these smoke screens or do they have a point? Let’s look at a few cases.
Vermont has passed a law that GMO foods should be labelled as such. Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Association filed suit that this was a violation of their right of free speech. Is their right of free speech being taken away by requiring a list of ingredients? If you were on a limited salt diet, wouldn’t you want to compare products for their salt content? If you had had cancer and should avoid soy lecithin, wouldn’t you want to seek products without soy lecithin?
Admittedly, the First Amendment contains “Congress shall make no law…prohibiting the freedom of speech…”; that phrase has no qualifier like “persons” or “people”. But the Constitution also includes Congress has the power “to regulate Commerce…among the several States…”
I wouldn’t be surprised if these companies also used the “free market” argument. But “free market” doesn’t mean sellers get to do what they please; it also means that the buyers have all the information they need to make an informed decision. Jews and Muslims want to know if products contain pork; shouldn’t those who have an aversion to other ingredients also know if products contain those ingredients?
In other words, if food manufacturers are free to deceive us then don’t they take away our freedom to know what we eat?
The First Amendment also contains “people have the right to peaceably assemble”. Does that give them the right block other people’s right to move about? I’m sure that meant that people could meet in some hall and discuss whatever was on their minds. Maybe it also meant that people could assemble at the entrance of a government building, but only if they left room for others to go in and out of the building. I doubt that the writers of the Bill of Rights considered peaceably assembling as filling the streets for whatever cause.
The gun manufacturers have been working for decades to erode the Second Amendment from the “right of the people to bear arms” (meaning in militias) to the “right of persons to bear arms”. As late as 1939, a conservative Supreme Court Justice wrote the majority opinion that an individual did not have the right to carry a rifle in a parade, only those in a state-sanctioned militia.
But what is lost in many of the arguments for the individual right to bear arms is where is the argument for the right to not be shot?
Concerning “freedom of religion”, one has to be careful reading some of the stories concerning people’s or corporation’s “freedom of religion”. Some of these stories have been blown out of proportion; others show that one person’s “freedom of religion” is impinging on another person’s freedom of religion.
If a Christian-owned company required that female Muslim employees not wear head scarves, then does a Muslim-owned company have a right to have all female employees wear head scarves?
In the context of the times of the writing of the Constitution, I think the “prohibiting the free exercise” of religion was more meant if you want to go to a Baptist Church fine, if you want to go to a Methodist Church fine. I doubt that they would countenance those who believed in virgin sacrifice having free exercise.
If for security reasons banks ask that customers not wear hoods or sunglasses, then should not they ask that women not have their faces covered? Many a man has escaped from other men by wearing a burqa. Are the banks violating some customers “freedom of religion” or are they protecting their right not to be robbed?
The Congress that has been so adamant about Second Amendment rights seems equally adamant about walking all over Fourth Amendment rights. “The right of be people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects…” What is the “probable cause” of gathering information on who calls whom? Isn’t a phone call by extension a “paper”? Thanks, Ron Paul, for your efforts.
Many individuals claim a right to do what pleases them without any consideration on how those actions impinge on other people’s rights.
If there is a right to smoke, isn’t there also a right to breathe clean air? Although smoking has declined dramatically, there are still too many people that smoke very close to signs “No smoking within 15 feet”. If someone were to ask them to move away, it is more likely they will get angry rather than apologize and move away.
If there is a right to listen to music, isn’t there also a right to have quiet? Many people have their car radios turned up so loud that other drivers can barely hear the music on their own radios. Many people have their earphones turned up so loud that others can’t hear the music on their own earphones. If you have the right to blast hip-hop up to twenty feet away, do I also have a right to blast Beethoven’s Ninth up to twenty feet away?
I think the thought attributed to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. that “Your right to move your fist ends where my nose begins” is apt for almost all of the above cases. A manufacturer’s “right” to withhold information ends where people’s health begins. A person’s right to bear arms ends where other people’s safety begins. A person’s right to freedom of religion ends where it restricts other people’s freedom of religion. A person’s freedom of assembly ends where it impedes other people’s freedom of movement.
What is lost in all the talk about freedoms is that the basic freedom is the freedom to govern ourselves and not be governed by some foreign power. And to govern ourselves we elect people to make rules to make society work. You do vote in every election, don’t you?
Vermont has passed a law that GMO foods should be labelled as such. Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Association filed suit that this was a violation of their right of free speech. Is their right of free speech being taken away by requiring a list of ingredients? If you were on a limited salt diet, wouldn’t you want to compare products for their salt content? If you had had cancer and should avoid soy lecithin, wouldn’t you want to seek products without soy lecithin?
Admittedly, the First Amendment contains “Congress shall make no law…prohibiting the freedom of speech…”; that phrase has no qualifier like “persons” or “people”. But the Constitution also includes Congress has the power “to regulate Commerce…among the several States…”
I wouldn’t be surprised if these companies also used the “free market” argument. But “free market” doesn’t mean sellers get to do what they please; it also means that the buyers have all the information they need to make an informed decision. Jews and Muslims want to know if products contain pork; shouldn’t those who have an aversion to other ingredients also know if products contain those ingredients?
In other words, if food manufacturers are free to deceive us then don’t they take away our freedom to know what we eat?
The First Amendment also contains “people have the right to peaceably assemble”. Does that give them the right block other people’s right to move about? I’m sure that meant that people could meet in some hall and discuss whatever was on their minds. Maybe it also meant that people could assemble at the entrance of a government building, but only if they left room for others to go in and out of the building. I doubt that the writers of the Bill of Rights considered peaceably assembling as filling the streets for whatever cause.
The gun manufacturers have been working for decades to erode the Second Amendment from the “right of the people to bear arms” (meaning in militias) to the “right of persons to bear arms”. As late as 1939, a conservative Supreme Court Justice wrote the majority opinion that an individual did not have the right to carry a rifle in a parade, only those in a state-sanctioned militia.
But what is lost in many of the arguments for the individual right to bear arms is where is the argument for the right to not be shot?
Concerning “freedom of religion”, one has to be careful reading some of the stories concerning people’s or corporation’s “freedom of religion”. Some of these stories have been blown out of proportion; others show that one person’s “freedom of religion” is impinging on another person’s freedom of religion.
If a Christian-owned company required that female Muslim employees not wear head scarves, then does a Muslim-owned company have a right to have all female employees wear head scarves?
In the context of the times of the writing of the Constitution, I think the “prohibiting the free exercise” of religion was more meant if you want to go to a Baptist Church fine, if you want to go to a Methodist Church fine. I doubt that they would countenance those who believed in virgin sacrifice having free exercise.
If for security reasons banks ask that customers not wear hoods or sunglasses, then should not they ask that women not have their faces covered? Many a man has escaped from other men by wearing a burqa. Are the banks violating some customers “freedom of religion” or are they protecting their right not to be robbed?
The Congress that has been so adamant about Second Amendment rights seems equally adamant about walking all over Fourth Amendment rights. “The right of be people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects…” What is the “probable cause” of gathering information on who calls whom? Isn’t a phone call by extension a “paper”? Thanks, Ron Paul, for your efforts.
Many individuals claim a right to do what pleases them without any consideration on how those actions impinge on other people’s rights.
If there is a right to smoke, isn’t there also a right to breathe clean air? Although smoking has declined dramatically, there are still too many people that smoke very close to signs “No smoking within 15 feet”. If someone were to ask them to move away, it is more likely they will get angry rather than apologize and move away.
If there is a right to listen to music, isn’t there also a right to have quiet? Many people have their car radios turned up so loud that other drivers can barely hear the music on their own radios. Many people have their earphones turned up so loud that others can’t hear the music on their own earphones. If you have the right to blast hip-hop up to twenty feet away, do I also have a right to blast Beethoven’s Ninth up to twenty feet away?
I think the thought attributed to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. that “Your right to move your fist ends where my nose begins” is apt for almost all of the above cases. A manufacturer’s “right” to withhold information ends where people’s health begins. A person’s right to bear arms ends where other people’s safety begins. A person’s right to freedom of religion ends where it restricts other people’s freedom of religion. A person’s freedom of assembly ends where it impedes other people’s freedom of movement.
What is lost in all the talk about freedoms is that the basic freedom is the freedom to govern ourselves and not be governed by some foreign power. And to govern ourselves we elect people to make rules to make society work. You do vote in every election, don’t you?
Thursday, June 04, 2015
Up in the air about being up in the air
I am not sure when I was first in an airplane, but I am sure when I was last in an airplane. Some of the trips I’ve long forgotten; other I find it hard to forget.
I think my first airplane trip was in a Capitol Airlines DC-3 when I was between nine and twelve. It was out of Cleveland to either Chicago or Detroit. Probably Chicago because my father’s parents lived in Maywood. But I remember more taking the train there once or twice.
My second flight was in a Ford Trimotor from Put-in-Bay in Lake Erie. The Scoutmaster was good at picking sites for a week-long summer camp, and Put-in-Bay was high on his list. I don’t know if I had a flight back to the mainland or just a tourist loop. That airline ceased operations in 1985, but there are still some Trimotors flying, including one in the Port Clinton OH museum.
I don’t remember any flights until the summer between my junior and senior years of college. I had a summer job at Ohio Oil (Marathon). They were considering upgrading their IBM 650 with a Burroughs among others. For some reason the group visiting Burroughs took me along, but this was no ordinary trip.
Ohio Oil had one of the largest private air fleets in the world. We would not be driving or flying commercial from Findlay OH to Detroit. We would be flying in a company DC-3. But we couldn’t leave the ground until we had clearance to land in Detroit. That was over 45 minutes on the runway in the summer in an airplane without air-conditioning. By the time we got into the limos at Detroit, I was very glad to sit in the front with the air-conditioning going full-blast in my face. I think I managed to keep everything down.
In graduate school and at Univac I took many air trips over the next seven years. At Univac, several of us did our best to schedule trips on Caravelles; they were all first class. An incident that stands out was on the approach to Minneapolis-St. Paul the plane (model forgotten) suddenly began climbing. The pilot announced that another plane didn’t get off the runway on time. My wife had a more scary time. She was waiting for me and saw the airplane suddenly swoop up.
Then I spent six years with many trips all over western Europe. One time I went to the wrong airport in Milan and had to take an overnight train instead. One time in Paris Orly was socked in by fog. The airline didn’t keep passengers up-to-date. Finally, they let us send a free telegram. I sent one to my wife in Rome. Later, I think they let us make a phone call. Later yet, they bussed us into Paris to stay in a hotel. The next day I was back in Rome eating lunch with my family when my telegram about my delay arrived.
One memorable sight in Rome was standing on the ground watching a 747 overhead. Would I really want to fly on such a humongous plane?
When we lived in Stockholm we took some vacation flights, mostly in ski season. A warmer flight was to the island of Rhodes. I flew direct to Rhodes, but my wife had gone to Athens with her mother. When they were in the air leaving Athens, Black September attacked the airport, killing at least three.
When we came back to the States, I continued flying wherever for Univac. Sometimes willingly, sometimes unwillingly, and sometimes by my own design. I somehow managed to go to most Univac user conferences and several professional association conferences. I even got a trip back to Europe to give a presentation in Madrid and used vacation time to visit Ireland. Yep, lots of Magrees/McGrees in Kilkenny, but none provably related to me.
When I started my own company, I managed to scrape together money to fly to conferences or to take a few ski trips. Sometimes I took my early Macintosh with me. That now big bulky thing was designed to fit under a airline seat. And it did, and then it did not; signs of coming changes.
Our first flight to Japan was to visit our son who was teaching there. In coach we were almost treated as royalty, on an American plane! Seating was something like 2-3-2 or 2-4-2. We had seats by an emergency door and had plenty of leg room.
Our second flight was out of Chicago with Japan Air. We didn’t have as much leg room but we did have excellent service. The worst part was all the hubbub at Narita Airport to find the right place to checkin and all the restaurants that had prices posted in Japanese numbers.
Our third and my hoped for last flight was a multiple leg trip without much legroom - Minneapolis to Toronto to pick up my mother-in-law. To Chicago to pick up a U.S. airline. To Tokyo for a wonderful time for all. Reverse all that for the return. With the 3-5-3 seating I had it with flying. And I said so.
Then we get a Christmas present to fly to Las Vegas and drive on to Heavenly Valley. OK, daughter, I’ll accept. We had good time, but that was the last time I flew.
Since then, my wife has flown to Japan three times and expects to do so several more times. Whenever I think about it, I get a squeezed feeling in my shoulders and restless leg syndrome.
When Mel wrote this he was sitting at home while his wife flew off to visit her sisters.
Also in Reader Weekly, 2015-06-04 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/06/03/5391_up_in_the_air_about_being_up_in_the_air
I think my first airplane trip was in a Capitol Airlines DC-3 when I was between nine and twelve. It was out of Cleveland to either Chicago or Detroit. Probably Chicago because my father’s parents lived in Maywood. But I remember more taking the train there once or twice.
My second flight was in a Ford Trimotor from Put-in-Bay in Lake Erie. The Scoutmaster was good at picking sites for a week-long summer camp, and Put-in-Bay was high on his list. I don’t know if I had a flight back to the mainland or just a tourist loop. That airline ceased operations in 1985, but there are still some Trimotors flying, including one in the Port Clinton OH museum.
I don’t remember any flights until the summer between my junior and senior years of college. I had a summer job at Ohio Oil (Marathon). They were considering upgrading their IBM 650 with a Burroughs among others. For some reason the group visiting Burroughs took me along, but this was no ordinary trip.
Ohio Oil had one of the largest private air fleets in the world. We would not be driving or flying commercial from Findlay OH to Detroit. We would be flying in a company DC-3. But we couldn’t leave the ground until we had clearance to land in Detroit. That was over 45 minutes on the runway in the summer in an airplane without air-conditioning. By the time we got into the limos at Detroit, I was very glad to sit in the front with the air-conditioning going full-blast in my face. I think I managed to keep everything down.
In graduate school and at Univac I took many air trips over the next seven years. At Univac, several of us did our best to schedule trips on Caravelles; they were all first class. An incident that stands out was on the approach to Minneapolis-St. Paul the plane (model forgotten) suddenly began climbing. The pilot announced that another plane didn’t get off the runway on time. My wife had a more scary time. She was waiting for me and saw the airplane suddenly swoop up.
Then I spent six years with many trips all over western Europe. One time I went to the wrong airport in Milan and had to take an overnight train instead. One time in Paris Orly was socked in by fog. The airline didn’t keep passengers up-to-date. Finally, they let us send a free telegram. I sent one to my wife in Rome. Later, I think they let us make a phone call. Later yet, they bussed us into Paris to stay in a hotel. The next day I was back in Rome eating lunch with my family when my telegram about my delay arrived.
One memorable sight in Rome was standing on the ground watching a 747 overhead. Would I really want to fly on such a humongous plane?
When we lived in Stockholm we took some vacation flights, mostly in ski season. A warmer flight was to the island of Rhodes. I flew direct to Rhodes, but my wife had gone to Athens with her mother. When they were in the air leaving Athens, Black September attacked the airport, killing at least three.
When we came back to the States, I continued flying wherever for Univac. Sometimes willingly, sometimes unwillingly, and sometimes by my own design. I somehow managed to go to most Univac user conferences and several professional association conferences. I even got a trip back to Europe to give a presentation in Madrid and used vacation time to visit Ireland. Yep, lots of Magrees/McGrees in Kilkenny, but none provably related to me.
When I started my own company, I managed to scrape together money to fly to conferences or to take a few ski trips. Sometimes I took my early Macintosh with me. That now big bulky thing was designed to fit under a airline seat. And it did, and then it did not; signs of coming changes.
Our first flight to Japan was to visit our son who was teaching there. In coach we were almost treated as royalty, on an American plane! Seating was something like 2-3-2 or 2-4-2. We had seats by an emergency door and had plenty of leg room.
Our second flight was out of Chicago with Japan Air. We didn’t have as much leg room but we did have excellent service. The worst part was all the hubbub at Narita Airport to find the right place to checkin and all the restaurants that had prices posted in Japanese numbers.
Our third and my hoped for last flight was a multiple leg trip without much legroom - Minneapolis to Toronto to pick up my mother-in-law. To Chicago to pick up a U.S. airline. To Tokyo for a wonderful time for all. Reverse all that for the return. With the 3-5-3 seating I had it with flying. And I said so.
Then we get a Christmas present to fly to Las Vegas and drive on to Heavenly Valley. OK, daughter, I’ll accept. We had good time, but that was the last time I flew.
Since then, my wife has flown to Japan three times and expects to do so several more times. Whenever I think about it, I get a squeezed feeling in my shoulders and restless leg syndrome.
When Mel wrote this he was sitting at home while his wife flew off to visit her sisters.
Also in Reader Weekly, 2015-06-04 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/06/03/5391_up_in_the_air_about_being_up_in_the_air
Wednesday, June 03, 2015
Counter example to “tech staff shortage”
If there is a “tech staff shortage”, why aren’t laid-off Disney Epcot tech employees finding jobs? See “Last Task After Layoff at Disney: Train Foreign Replacements”, New York Times, 2015-06-03, Julia Preston.
Disney has laid off 250 employees who keep the Epcot systems running, but in order to receive full termination benefits they have to train their H1-B replacements from companies in India. Many of them with a wide range of skills cannot find new jobs.
On the other hand, many companies won’t hire employees who don’t have the “right skill set”, meaning a checklist of knowledge supposedly needed by the company. Never mind any track record of knowing how to learn.
This article puts lie to the “tech staff shortage” as no more than a ploy to keep employee pay low and executive pay high. Congress keeps buying into it and keeps the H1-B quotas high.
For more of this long-standing problem, see “Is There a Tech Staff Shortage?”.
Disney has laid off 250 employees who keep the Epcot systems running, but in order to receive full termination benefits they have to train their H1-B replacements from companies in India. Many of them with a wide range of skills cannot find new jobs.
On the other hand, many companies won’t hire employees who don’t have the “right skill set”, meaning a checklist of knowledge supposedly needed by the company. Never mind any track record of knowing how to learn.
This article puts lie to the “tech staff shortage” as no more than a ploy to keep employee pay low and executive pay high. Congress keeps buying into it and keeps the H1-B quotas high.
For more of this long-standing problem, see “Is There a Tech Staff Shortage?”.
Thursday, May 28, 2015
0 in 2050? 0 in 2100?
Zero nuclear weapons in 2050? Zero armies in 2100? Impossible? No, but improbable. On the other hand, if we don’t set goals, we might not even make minor steps.
I don’t think the current holders of nuclear weapons are going to make any real steps to get rid of them or even to reduce their stockpiles significantly. What it will take is many of the non-holders to put constant pressure in the U.N. and other places to get the holders to begin reducing their nuclear arsenals.
Currently, it seems the problem is getting even worse. Saudi Arabia is threatening to start its own nuclear program. China is developing multiple-warhead missiles. North Korea could get mad enough to launch a missile at somebody at anytime. And who knows what kind of deals ISIS may be seeking?
What reduction plans are possible?
A first step might be for the biggest holders to reduce their stockpiles to the level of the next biggest holders. This should be an “easy” step given the huge gap between the groups.
According to estimates published by Ploughshares, the U.S. has 8,000 and Russia has 7,800 nuclear weapons. There are 1,000 cities in the world with a population of 500,000 or more. That means that the U.S. and Russia could send over fifteen missiles to each of these cities. Too what purpose? Who dies and why?
Worse yet, they would probably launch their missiles at cities in Europe and North America. There are less than 250 cities in these two continents with populations of 500,000 or more. The U.S. and Russia could send over 60 missiles and bombs to each of these cities. What do they want to do? Watch the rubble bounce? With this kind of ridiculous power would there be anybody left to watch the rubble bounce?
As a first step away from this madness, the U.S. and Russia should reduce their nuclear weapons to the level of the third largest nuclear power – France, which has 300 nuclear weapons. That would be more than enough to obliterate the larger cities in North America and Europe more than twice over.
Any country with nuclear weapons can have a change in government, even “peaceful”, to a more bellicose government. What if Israel with its 80 nuclear weapons feels that it has to react to some threat and sends nuclear weapons to several of its Muslim neighbors? Would Pakistan, which might not be an Israeli target, then feel compelled to retaliate with its 120 nuclear weapons? Even if Pakistan didn’t retaliate, would some of the fallout come back to haunt Israel? The farthest Israeli target that I can think of is Tehran, less than 1,000 miles away. Winds may be westerly, but some of the fallout might drift back to Israel, really making the use of nuclear weapons a lose-lose idea.
I hope a large coalition of non-nuclear countries would continually bring up in the United Nations General Assembly the folly of nuclear weapons. Maybe if the pressure gets great enough, we might have no nuclear weapons in 2050.
Although the amount of war has not decreased, there are several areas that had major wars but now have peace.
Think of the centuries of wars in Europe: duke vs. duke, king vs. king, city state vs. city state. The King of Sweden doesn’t march to Prague. Britain and France have peaceful relations after centuries of fighting for dominance on land and sea. Despite Putin’s perceptions, no Knights Templar, no Napoleon, and no Kaiser or Hitler will be banging at the gates of St. Petersburg or Moscow.
There have been many wars in South America and there are still armed rebellions in Columbia and Peru, but the last war between two countries was the Cerepa War between Ecuador and Peru that ended in 1995.
The Americas have the most countries with zero active militaries – Costa Rica, Panama, and Haiti. Iceland and Mauritius also have no active militaries. Iceland has the smallest paramilitary with 130. Iceland’s paramilitary includes counter-terrorism police and the coast guard. Ironically, although Mauritius has no active military, a part that was considered part of Mauritius before independence is now leased by the United Kingdom to the United States - Diego Garcia.
You can do some of your own comparison of militaries with the Wikipedia entry “List of countries by number of military and paramilitary”. You can order the list by any of the columns.
Ordering by “Total per 1000 capita”, North Korea outstrips all others: 308.5. Almost a third of the population is in the military or paramilitary. Its active military is 47.8 per 1000 capita. Its archenemy, South Korea has 12.3, just behind North Korea’s “benefactor”, China, with 12.4. The United States is much farther down the list at 4.7, even though it has the second largest active military after China. I could go on and on. It just boggles the mind how many resources we as a species put into distrust of others of our own species.
Maybe no armies in 2100 is a difficult goal, but when you compare the hostilities of 2000 to the hostilities of 1900 or 1800, it is not an impossible goal.
Maybe we could start with reducing the arms trade. And maybe the way to reduce the arms trade is with sarcastic humor.
“Micmacs” is a great slapstick movie about a bunch of misfits fighting arms merchants by exposing their hypocrisy.
The satire section of Swedish Radio’s “Godmorgon, världen”, Public Service [sic], had a wonderful piece about Sweden not selling arms to dictators. The “prime minister” is queried about sending arms to Thailand. He calls it a “non-democracy” because Sweden doesn’t send arms to dictators. The interviewer then asks if Belgium is a dictatorship because Sweden doesn’t send arms to Belgium.
Hitler is gone, but Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator” is still popular: “the misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed – the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress.”
This was also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2015-05-25 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/05/28/5356_0_in_2050_0_in_2100.
I don’t think the current holders of nuclear weapons are going to make any real steps to get rid of them or even to reduce their stockpiles significantly. What it will take is many of the non-holders to put constant pressure in the U.N. and other places to get the holders to begin reducing their nuclear arsenals.
Currently, it seems the problem is getting even worse. Saudi Arabia is threatening to start its own nuclear program. China is developing multiple-warhead missiles. North Korea could get mad enough to launch a missile at somebody at anytime. And who knows what kind of deals ISIS may be seeking?
What reduction plans are possible?
A first step might be for the biggest holders to reduce their stockpiles to the level of the next biggest holders. This should be an “easy” step given the huge gap between the groups.
According to estimates published by Ploughshares, the U.S. has 8,000 and Russia has 7,800 nuclear weapons. There are 1,000 cities in the world with a population of 500,000 or more. That means that the U.S. and Russia could send over fifteen missiles to each of these cities. Too what purpose? Who dies and why?
Worse yet, they would probably launch their missiles at cities in Europe and North America. There are less than 250 cities in these two continents with populations of 500,000 or more. The U.S. and Russia could send over 60 missiles and bombs to each of these cities. What do they want to do? Watch the rubble bounce? With this kind of ridiculous power would there be anybody left to watch the rubble bounce?
As a first step away from this madness, the U.S. and Russia should reduce their nuclear weapons to the level of the third largest nuclear power – France, which has 300 nuclear weapons. That would be more than enough to obliterate the larger cities in North America and Europe more than twice over.
Any country with nuclear weapons can have a change in government, even “peaceful”, to a more bellicose government. What if Israel with its 80 nuclear weapons feels that it has to react to some threat and sends nuclear weapons to several of its Muslim neighbors? Would Pakistan, which might not be an Israeli target, then feel compelled to retaliate with its 120 nuclear weapons? Even if Pakistan didn’t retaliate, would some of the fallout come back to haunt Israel? The farthest Israeli target that I can think of is Tehran, less than 1,000 miles away. Winds may be westerly, but some of the fallout might drift back to Israel, really making the use of nuclear weapons a lose-lose idea.
I hope a large coalition of non-nuclear countries would continually bring up in the United Nations General Assembly the folly of nuclear weapons. Maybe if the pressure gets great enough, we might have no nuclear weapons in 2050.
Although the amount of war has not decreased, there are several areas that had major wars but now have peace.
Think of the centuries of wars in Europe: duke vs. duke, king vs. king, city state vs. city state. The King of Sweden doesn’t march to Prague. Britain and France have peaceful relations after centuries of fighting for dominance on land and sea. Despite Putin’s perceptions, no Knights Templar, no Napoleon, and no Kaiser or Hitler will be banging at the gates of St. Petersburg or Moscow.
There have been many wars in South America and there are still armed rebellions in Columbia and Peru, but the last war between two countries was the Cerepa War between Ecuador and Peru that ended in 1995.
The Americas have the most countries with zero active militaries – Costa Rica, Panama, and Haiti. Iceland and Mauritius also have no active militaries. Iceland has the smallest paramilitary with 130. Iceland’s paramilitary includes counter-terrorism police and the coast guard. Ironically, although Mauritius has no active military, a part that was considered part of Mauritius before independence is now leased by the United Kingdom to the United States - Diego Garcia.
You can do some of your own comparison of militaries with the Wikipedia entry “List of countries by number of military and paramilitary”. You can order the list by any of the columns.
Ordering by “Total per 1000 capita”, North Korea outstrips all others: 308.5. Almost a third of the population is in the military or paramilitary. Its active military is 47.8 per 1000 capita. Its archenemy, South Korea has 12.3, just behind North Korea’s “benefactor”, China, with 12.4. The United States is much farther down the list at 4.7, even though it has the second largest active military after China. I could go on and on. It just boggles the mind how many resources we as a species put into distrust of others of our own species.
Maybe no armies in 2100 is a difficult goal, but when you compare the hostilities of 2000 to the hostilities of 1900 or 1800, it is not an impossible goal.
Maybe we could start with reducing the arms trade. And maybe the way to reduce the arms trade is with sarcastic humor.
“Micmacs” is a great slapstick movie about a bunch of misfits fighting arms merchants by exposing their hypocrisy.
The satire section of Swedish Radio’s “Godmorgon, världen”, Public Service [sic], had a wonderful piece about Sweden not selling arms to dictators. The “prime minister” is queried about sending arms to Thailand. He calls it a “non-democracy” because Sweden doesn’t send arms to dictators. The interviewer then asks if Belgium is a dictatorship because Sweden doesn’t send arms to Belgium.
Hitler is gone, but Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator” is still popular: “the misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed – the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress.”
This was also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2015-05-25 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/05/28/5356_0_in_2050_0_in_2100.
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Who is doing what social engineering?
Every too often somebody writes a letter to the editor complaining that public transit is “social engineering” and “taking our cars away”. Have they considered that building all the freeways is social engineering?
How many people lost their houses to make way for the freeways? How many neighborhoods were separated by freeways? How many farmers had their land taken by imminent domain? I know, I know! It’s eminent domain but when your land is taken it is also imminent. Aren’t these changes to city and country social engineering?
When the freeways are first built, it becomes much quicker for many people to drive than to take public transit. More people drive instead of taking the bus, the bus service becomes less frequent for those who don’t drive. So to save time, more people have to buy cars. Isn’t this social engineering?
Remember “Field of Dreams” where Robert Redford was told, “Build it and they will come.” Well, we build freeways and they come. Soon a four-lane freeway has to become a six-lane freeway. Soon the six-lane is clogged and has to become an eight-lane freeway. Where are all the people going to live as the freeways get wider and wider? Isn’t this social engineering?
For some reason those who complain about their cars “being taken away” don’t seem to realize that the more other people take public transit the more room there is for them on the freeways.
And actually, public transit should have dedicated lines or lanes right down the middle of every freeway. I remember driving out of Chicago on I-90 on a Sunday afternoon. It was stop and go in three lanes in my direction. We would move a bit and a train would catch up to us. Then we would move forward ahead of the train. This went on for fifteen minutes or so and the pattern was reversed. The train would pull ahead and we would catch up. Eventually the train was long gone and we started and stopped, started and stopped.
When I grew up in Cleveland, we walked to neighborhood stores or took the streetcar downtown. Now most neighborhood stores and downtown stores have been closed in favor of sprawling malls in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes the lots are so big that it takes twice as long to walk from one’s car as it did to walk to the corner store. Isn’t this social engineering? And it was done without a public vote!
The irony is that most social engineering is done by corporations, not governments. When a government does “social engineering” we might have an open debate about it. When a corporation does “social engineering”, it is done behind closed doors and often by deceit.
In the Twentieth Century we as a nation were socially engineered by a man many of us never heard of – Edward Bernays. A nephew of Sigmund Freud, he applied many of his uncle’s ideas to manipulation of public opinion. Supposedly he believed that “public’s democratic judgment was ‘not to be relied upon’…’so they had to be guided from above.”
He worked in the Committee on Public Information during World War I. One task was publicizing the idea that the U.S. involvement was “bringing democracy to all of Europe.” We had a repeat of this use of “democracy” in our own times. “The ill that men do lives after them…” The success of “bringing democracy” surprised Bernays, and he wondered if similar propaganda could be used in peacetime. Rather than call it propaganda, he labelled it “public relations”.
One of his first achievements was helping the tobacco industry break the taboo of women smoking in public. He staged a big event in New York City in which models lit up Lucky Strike cigarettes or “Torches of Freedom”. This promotion was not done as advertising but as news! Smoking was giving women “freedom” and “liberty”. Two more echoes in our time: “freedom” and “liberty” are smoke screens for doing what one damn well pleases without concern for the consequences for others.
Many Americans ate a light breakfast of coffee and maybe a roll or orange juice. He arranged for letters being sent to 5,000 doctors asking if they thought Americans should have a bigger breakfast. About ninety percent answered saying Americans should have bigger breakfasts. This he had published as news in papers across the country. In parallel, he had other articles published that bacon and eggs should be part of a larger breakfast.
He believed that we would have a utopia if the inner energies of individuals “could be harnessed and channeled by a corporate elite for economic benefit.” This idea seems to be alive and well with all the corporate claims that they will create jobs and that environmental protection and safety rules will only take away jobs.
He wrote a paper called “Engineering of Consent”: "Any person or organization depends ultimately on public approval, and is therefore faced with the problem of engineering the public's consent to a program or goal.” Isn’t this a description of “social engineering”?
In many ways, Bernays was value-neutral. He protected a play in 1913 that supported sex education. He promoted fluoridation of water to help the aluminum industry sell a by-product of aluminum production. He hosted the first NAACP convention in Atlanta, and there was no violence. On the other hand, he inflated the threat of communism and was instrumental in the overthrow of the elected president of Guatemala.
For lots more on Bernays see Wikipedia and “Century of Self”, a four-part BBC series. I hope these will help you be more skeptical of what anybody says for or against any idea. Or as in “All the President’s Men”, “Follow the Money”. Oh, and be skeptical of the attribution of this quote. If you do so, you might inoculate yourself against “social engineering”.
Mel considers himself a gullible skeptic.
This was also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2015-05-21 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/05/21/5311_who_is_doing_what_social_engineering
How many people lost their houses to make way for the freeways? How many neighborhoods were separated by freeways? How many farmers had their land taken by imminent domain? I know, I know! It’s eminent domain but when your land is taken it is also imminent. Aren’t these changes to city and country social engineering?
When the freeways are first built, it becomes much quicker for many people to drive than to take public transit. More people drive instead of taking the bus, the bus service becomes less frequent for those who don’t drive. So to save time, more people have to buy cars. Isn’t this social engineering?
Remember “Field of Dreams” where Robert Redford was told, “Build it and they will come.” Well, we build freeways and they come. Soon a four-lane freeway has to become a six-lane freeway. Soon the six-lane is clogged and has to become an eight-lane freeway. Where are all the people going to live as the freeways get wider and wider? Isn’t this social engineering?
For some reason those who complain about their cars “being taken away” don’t seem to realize that the more other people take public transit the more room there is for them on the freeways.
And actually, public transit should have dedicated lines or lanes right down the middle of every freeway. I remember driving out of Chicago on I-90 on a Sunday afternoon. It was stop and go in three lanes in my direction. We would move a bit and a train would catch up to us. Then we would move forward ahead of the train. This went on for fifteen minutes or so and the pattern was reversed. The train would pull ahead and we would catch up. Eventually the train was long gone and we started and stopped, started and stopped.
When I grew up in Cleveland, we walked to neighborhood stores or took the streetcar downtown. Now most neighborhood stores and downtown stores have been closed in favor of sprawling malls in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes the lots are so big that it takes twice as long to walk from one’s car as it did to walk to the corner store. Isn’t this social engineering? And it was done without a public vote!
The irony is that most social engineering is done by corporations, not governments. When a government does “social engineering” we might have an open debate about it. When a corporation does “social engineering”, it is done behind closed doors and often by deceit.
In the Twentieth Century we as a nation were socially engineered by a man many of us never heard of – Edward Bernays. A nephew of Sigmund Freud, he applied many of his uncle’s ideas to manipulation of public opinion. Supposedly he believed that “public’s democratic judgment was ‘not to be relied upon’…’so they had to be guided from above.”
He worked in the Committee on Public Information during World War I. One task was publicizing the idea that the U.S. involvement was “bringing democracy to all of Europe.” We had a repeat of this use of “democracy” in our own times. “The ill that men do lives after them…” The success of “bringing democracy” surprised Bernays, and he wondered if similar propaganda could be used in peacetime. Rather than call it propaganda, he labelled it “public relations”.
One of his first achievements was helping the tobacco industry break the taboo of women smoking in public. He staged a big event in New York City in which models lit up Lucky Strike cigarettes or “Torches of Freedom”. This promotion was not done as advertising but as news! Smoking was giving women “freedom” and “liberty”. Two more echoes in our time: “freedom” and “liberty” are smoke screens for doing what one damn well pleases without concern for the consequences for others.
Many Americans ate a light breakfast of coffee and maybe a roll or orange juice. He arranged for letters being sent to 5,000 doctors asking if they thought Americans should have a bigger breakfast. About ninety percent answered saying Americans should have bigger breakfasts. This he had published as news in papers across the country. In parallel, he had other articles published that bacon and eggs should be part of a larger breakfast.
He believed that we would have a utopia if the inner energies of individuals “could be harnessed and channeled by a corporate elite for economic benefit.” This idea seems to be alive and well with all the corporate claims that they will create jobs and that environmental protection and safety rules will only take away jobs.
He wrote a paper called “Engineering of Consent”: "Any person or organization depends ultimately on public approval, and is therefore faced with the problem of engineering the public's consent to a program or goal.” Isn’t this a description of “social engineering”?
In many ways, Bernays was value-neutral. He protected a play in 1913 that supported sex education. He promoted fluoridation of water to help the aluminum industry sell a by-product of aluminum production. He hosted the first NAACP convention in Atlanta, and there was no violence. On the other hand, he inflated the threat of communism and was instrumental in the overthrow of the elected president of Guatemala.
For lots more on Bernays see Wikipedia and “Century of Self”, a four-part BBC series. I hope these will help you be more skeptical of what anybody says for or against any idea. Or as in “All the President’s Men”, “Follow the Money”. Oh, and be skeptical of the attribution of this quote. If you do so, you might inoculate yourself against “social engineering”.
Mel considers himself a gullible skeptic.
This was also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2015-05-21 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/05/21/5311_who_is_doing_what_social_engineering
Thursday, May 14, 2015
The United States is NOT a Christian Nation
...and it was not founded as such.
The United States may have many people who call themselves Christians, but evidence abounds that very few practice Christianity. I’ll get back to this.
Many who proclaim that the United States is a Christian Nation cite the Declaration of Independence. But “Christian” or “Christianity” do not appear in it or the Constitution. The closest to a religious statement in either is “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
But Thomas Jefferson, the drafter of the Declaration, was a hypocrite. He held slaves and did not pass on their Creator-given inalienable rights of liberty. Furthermore, what did “men” mean at that time? People of male gender as in the Adam and Eve story. Or people as in on the sixth day “God created man in his own image…male and female created he them.” - Genesis 1:27, King James Version.
The only “religious” word that appears in the original Constitution is “religious”, as in “but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” Given all the religious tests that have been required, “ever” was not a very long time.
It took over 170 years for a Catholic to be elected President. And he felt compelled to be vetted by a group of Protestant ministers. It took a bit less for a Jew to be appointed to the Supreme Court. John McCain and Barack Obama had to be vetted by an Evangelical minister to prove their “Christianity”. Shame on Obama, the Constitutional professor, for submitting to this religious test.
And this same Constitutional professor is sponsoring his own “Prayer Breakfasts”. And shame on all the other politicians who do not have the political will to object to this religious test.
These prayer breakfasts also prove that these politicians are hypocrites. “And when thou prayest, thou shall not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.” Matthew 6:5.
What does a Christian practice?
For starters the greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul.”
The second is “Like unto it, to love thy neighbor as thyself.” And who was “thy neighbor”? The hated Samaritan who helped a Jew beaten and robbed by the side of the road.
A variation of the second commandment is “Do unto other as you would have them do unto you.” Would we like foreign troops stationed in our country? One of the reasons of the American Revolution was the stationing of British Troops in many of the Colonial cities. But we have bases in dozens of countries, sometimes welcomed by the populace, sometime hated by the populace.
Many congregations recite the “Lord’s Prayer”: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” The United States and many other countries have forgiven Germany and Japan for World War II, but has the U.S. gotten around to forgiving others that they have trespassed against?
U.S. mobsters practically ran Cuba and the U.S. supported the dictator Batista. Is it any wonder that a Cuban leader arose to oust Batista? And is it any wonder that leader wanted to reclaim the ill-gotten gains. But there are many “Christians” in the U.S. that still don’t want to forgive the Cuban government. Very strange that the U.S. had “good” relations with other Communist governments, including China.
The U.S. was implicit in the overthrow of Mohammad Mossaddegh of Iran and the support of the Shah with his brutal Savak. Is it any wonder the Ayatollahs have little love for the U.S? Who should be the first to “forgive those who trespass against us”?
“Blessed are the peacemakers” is part of the Beatitudes, but is U.S. peacekeeping around the world only making matters worse? See above about the British troops keeping peace in the Colonies. Are nuclear weapons peacemakers? Oh, yes! The Colt Peacemaker has the blessing of the Bible!
We definitely don’t have any “Christian” banks. How many of them are going to forgive loans every seven years, even for loans to Christians? Are “Christian” farmers not going to till the land every seven years? Unless they are farming only for themselves and have saved a lot of food, they would go bust.
Now we have many people asserting that their “freedom of religion” allows them to refuse to associate with certain people or to not have to abide by certain laws. There is a certain logic in this because “conscientious objectors” are allowed to avoid military service, but they have to do other public service instead. So if the “Christians” at the top of a corporation object to paying health insurance for abortions, should they then be required to contribute to a fund for child care?
My take of the “freedom of religion” clause in the First Amendment is that we are free to believe what we want, whether it’s the Big Guy in the Sky, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or a Golden Calf. It isn’t anybody else’s business. The writers of the Bill of Rights were only too aware of all the persecutions that had happened because somebody believed the “wrong” thing. The “freedom of religion” clause guarantees that we are free to believe what we want. In return we should let others believe what they want.
Also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2015-05-14 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/05/13/5275_the_united_states_is_not_a_christian_nation
The United States may have many people who call themselves Christians, but evidence abounds that very few practice Christianity. I’ll get back to this.
Many who proclaim that the United States is a Christian Nation cite the Declaration of Independence. But “Christian” or “Christianity” do not appear in it or the Constitution. The closest to a religious statement in either is “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
But Thomas Jefferson, the drafter of the Declaration, was a hypocrite. He held slaves and did not pass on their Creator-given inalienable rights of liberty. Furthermore, what did “men” mean at that time? People of male gender as in the Adam and Eve story. Or people as in on the sixth day “God created man in his own image…male and female created he them.” - Genesis 1:27, King James Version.
The only “religious” word that appears in the original Constitution is “religious”, as in “but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” Given all the religious tests that have been required, “ever” was not a very long time.
It took over 170 years for a Catholic to be elected President. And he felt compelled to be vetted by a group of Protestant ministers. It took a bit less for a Jew to be appointed to the Supreme Court. John McCain and Barack Obama had to be vetted by an Evangelical minister to prove their “Christianity”. Shame on Obama, the Constitutional professor, for submitting to this religious test.
And this same Constitutional professor is sponsoring his own “Prayer Breakfasts”. And shame on all the other politicians who do not have the political will to object to this religious test.
These prayer breakfasts also prove that these politicians are hypocrites. “And when thou prayest, thou shall not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.” Matthew 6:5.
What does a Christian practice?
For starters the greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul.”
The second is “Like unto it, to love thy neighbor as thyself.” And who was “thy neighbor”? The hated Samaritan who helped a Jew beaten and robbed by the side of the road.
A variation of the second commandment is “Do unto other as you would have them do unto you.” Would we like foreign troops stationed in our country? One of the reasons of the American Revolution was the stationing of British Troops in many of the Colonial cities. But we have bases in dozens of countries, sometimes welcomed by the populace, sometime hated by the populace.
Many congregations recite the “Lord’s Prayer”: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” The United States and many other countries have forgiven Germany and Japan for World War II, but has the U.S. gotten around to forgiving others that they have trespassed against?
U.S. mobsters practically ran Cuba and the U.S. supported the dictator Batista. Is it any wonder that a Cuban leader arose to oust Batista? And is it any wonder that leader wanted to reclaim the ill-gotten gains. But there are many “Christians” in the U.S. that still don’t want to forgive the Cuban government. Very strange that the U.S. had “good” relations with other Communist governments, including China.
The U.S. was implicit in the overthrow of Mohammad Mossaddegh of Iran and the support of the Shah with his brutal Savak. Is it any wonder the Ayatollahs have little love for the U.S? Who should be the first to “forgive those who trespass against us”?
“Blessed are the peacemakers” is part of the Beatitudes, but is U.S. peacekeeping around the world only making matters worse? See above about the British troops keeping peace in the Colonies. Are nuclear weapons peacemakers? Oh, yes! The Colt Peacemaker has the blessing of the Bible!
We definitely don’t have any “Christian” banks. How many of them are going to forgive loans every seven years, even for loans to Christians? Are “Christian” farmers not going to till the land every seven years? Unless they are farming only for themselves and have saved a lot of food, they would go bust.
Now we have many people asserting that their “freedom of religion” allows them to refuse to associate with certain people or to not have to abide by certain laws. There is a certain logic in this because “conscientious objectors” are allowed to avoid military service, but they have to do other public service instead. So if the “Christians” at the top of a corporation object to paying health insurance for abortions, should they then be required to contribute to a fund for child care?
My take of the “freedom of religion” clause in the First Amendment is that we are free to believe what we want, whether it’s the Big Guy in the Sky, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or a Golden Calf. It isn’t anybody else’s business. The writers of the Bill of Rights were only too aware of all the persecutions that had happened because somebody believed the “wrong” thing. The “freedom of religion” clause guarantees that we are free to believe what we want. In return we should let others believe what they want.
Also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2015-05-14 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/05/13/5275_the_united_states_is_not_a_christian_nation
Thursday, May 07, 2015
Quick correction of corporate mistakes
This noon I tried reading the eEdition of the Star Tribune. Safari on my iPod said it couldn’t the load the page because of “too many redirects”. No matter how many times in how many different ways, I kept getting the same result.
Come on, folks, don’t deprive me of my comics fix. They are not as readily available as in the eEdition, the screen equivalent of the actual printed page.
I sent email to the digital access address of the paper. Then I tried calling, but there was a wait. Ah ha! I’m not alone.
This was about noon today. By sometime around three, if not before, the problem was fixed and I could read the comics again.
I did send a thank-you email.
Come on, folks, don’t deprive me of my comics fix. They are not as readily available as in the eEdition, the screen equivalent of the actual printed page.
I sent email to the digital access address of the paper. Then I tried calling, but there was a wait. Ah ha! I’m not alone.
This was about noon today. By sometime around three, if not before, the problem was fixed and I could read the comics again.
I did send a thank-you email.
Knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing
Last week in “The Magic Marketplace can be malevolent” I wrote that the marketplace for labor is not always a benevolent mechanism. This week I would like to consider some cases where companies have ignored value for price and where companies have put value ahead of price.
Management of a large electronic chain decided to fire all their high-paid floor employees and let them reapply at a lower pay level. The company ignored the fact that the high-paid employees had gained considerable experience and were providing exceptional customer service. Unfortunately, many customers lost their favorite go-to employees and found the remaining help unsatisfactory. And this attitude spread rapidly, years before social media. The company rapidly declined and has become a textbook example on how not to treat employees. Remember Circuit City?
Sometime ago I read a letter in a newspaper complaining about firefighters going for groceries with a fire truck. The writer questioned why they didn’t take a smaller vehicle. Did the writer consider the increased response time of a crew returning to the fire station to get the big rig? If the crew returned to the fire station to get the big truck, how much more value would be lost in a burning house?
“If you can read this, thank a teacher!” But too many begrudge teachers the salaries they get, using among other wild-eyed statements “greedy teacher unions”. After he resigned, Nevada Superintendent of Schools James Guthrie said the top tier of teachers should be paid $200,000. This would give teachers a salary commensurate with other skilled professionals. Do those who decry the lack of qualified workers see any connection to their unwillingness to pay sufficient taxes to educate future employees?
Some of those who grouse about teachers’ or others’ pay keep pushing their own pay up. Many CEOs and board members are getting pay far in excess to the value they give to shareholders. They often play games about comparing salaries “with comparable companies”, but it is the board or if the board is hand-picked by the CEO, it is the CEO who determines his or her own salary. Doesn’t sound like the marketplace is determining salaries. Sometimes they get the boot; sometimes they run the company into bankruptcy. Many CEOs groused about a law that strove to let shareholders have a say in executive pay; it was watered down so that the vote was non-binding. See “Time to Make CEO Pay Match Shareholder Performance”, Suzanne McGee, The Fiscal Times, 2015-05-01. She wrote that often the pay of the CEO is inversely related to the performance of the company. Interestingly, a proposal was made by the Securities and Exchange Committee to make corporate top executive pay more transparent to shareholders. It was voted against by the two Republicans on the committee. Could it be that Republicans aren’t business-friendly but CEO friendly?
As an example of the inverse relation of pay of the CEO to the performance of the company consider Walmart, Target, and Costco. The CEO of Costco gets a hefty pay package but it is far less than those of the CEOs of Walmart and Target. The Motley Fool published an interesting comparison on five measures of company strength. I haven’t fully understood it yet, but the Fool’s conclusion is that Costco is a far better long-term investment than either Walmart or Target.
Costco pays its employees about $20/hour compared to a third less for the other two. It has only about four percent of its employees as part-time. On the other hand, Walmart has one-half of its employees as part-time. Part-time is great for students, but it is lousy for people who have to support families.
Speaking of part-time, as a college student, I was getting $1.74 an hour for around 14-16 hours a week at Kroger. I did stocking, cashiering, and bagging. According to PayScale, Kroger pays its cashiers $7.26 to 11.99 an hour. Assuming an inflation rate of three percent, then somebody with equivalent experience should be earning about $10.88. I’ll let you play around with various inflation rates; for example, do these same calculations with the actual inflation rate for each year.
But average inflation doesn’t tell the whole story. Some things are a lot cheaper relatively than in 1958. Somethings are a lot more expensive.
When our daughter was born in 1962, I was a graduate student earning $75 a week. School insurance paid most of the cost. I do remember the room cost was $10/night and the obstetrician cost was about $700 total. At three percent inflation the room cost should be less than $50/night. In 2010, the average cost of a hospital stay was $1,600 to $2,000/night.
We bought our first new car in 1963, a Ford Falcon. Its cost was about $2,200. Assuming the average inflation it would cost over $10,000. You would be lucky to get a two-year old car for that price now. Of course, the cars of today are packed with comfort and safety features that were only dreams in 1963.
The cost of transportation has become a big part of the budget of those with lower incomes. And as we have spread out more, public transit becomes less available and a car has become more of a necessity.
Meaningful discussion about these issues, as it has always been, comes down to point of view. We are right and you are wrong. Too many of us ignore our wrong choices and give too much importance to being in the right place at the right time.
It reminds of Pete Seeger’s tale of two slugs that fell off a shovel. One falls in the gutter and the other in a dead cat. After a few days of eating and eating, the lucky one goes looking for the other. When asked how he became so fat and sleek, the lucky one says, “Brains and personality!”
Many may dispute Mel's brains and personality, but he knows that a bit of pluck and a lot of luck helped.
Management of a large electronic chain decided to fire all their high-paid floor employees and let them reapply at a lower pay level. The company ignored the fact that the high-paid employees had gained considerable experience and were providing exceptional customer service. Unfortunately, many customers lost their favorite go-to employees and found the remaining help unsatisfactory. And this attitude spread rapidly, years before social media. The company rapidly declined and has become a textbook example on how not to treat employees. Remember Circuit City?
Sometime ago I read a letter in a newspaper complaining about firefighters going for groceries with a fire truck. The writer questioned why they didn’t take a smaller vehicle. Did the writer consider the increased response time of a crew returning to the fire station to get the big rig? If the crew returned to the fire station to get the big truck, how much more value would be lost in a burning house?
“If you can read this, thank a teacher!” But too many begrudge teachers the salaries they get, using among other wild-eyed statements “greedy teacher unions”. After he resigned, Nevada Superintendent of Schools James Guthrie said the top tier of teachers should be paid $200,000. This would give teachers a salary commensurate with other skilled professionals. Do those who decry the lack of qualified workers see any connection to their unwillingness to pay sufficient taxes to educate future employees?
Some of those who grouse about teachers’ or others’ pay keep pushing their own pay up. Many CEOs and board members are getting pay far in excess to the value they give to shareholders. They often play games about comparing salaries “with comparable companies”, but it is the board or if the board is hand-picked by the CEO, it is the CEO who determines his or her own salary. Doesn’t sound like the marketplace is determining salaries. Sometimes they get the boot; sometimes they run the company into bankruptcy. Many CEOs groused about a law that strove to let shareholders have a say in executive pay; it was watered down so that the vote was non-binding. See “Time to Make CEO Pay Match Shareholder Performance”, Suzanne McGee, The Fiscal Times, 2015-05-01. She wrote that often the pay of the CEO is inversely related to the performance of the company. Interestingly, a proposal was made by the Securities and Exchange Committee to make corporate top executive pay more transparent to shareholders. It was voted against by the two Republicans on the committee. Could it be that Republicans aren’t business-friendly but CEO friendly?
As an example of the inverse relation of pay of the CEO to the performance of the company consider Walmart, Target, and Costco. The CEO of Costco gets a hefty pay package but it is far less than those of the CEOs of Walmart and Target. The Motley Fool published an interesting comparison on five measures of company strength. I haven’t fully understood it yet, but the Fool’s conclusion is that Costco is a far better long-term investment than either Walmart or Target.
Costco pays its employees about $20/hour compared to a third less for the other two. It has only about four percent of its employees as part-time. On the other hand, Walmart has one-half of its employees as part-time. Part-time is great for students, but it is lousy for people who have to support families.
Speaking of part-time, as a college student, I was getting $1.74 an hour for around 14-16 hours a week at Kroger. I did stocking, cashiering, and bagging. According to PayScale, Kroger pays its cashiers $7.26 to 11.99 an hour. Assuming an inflation rate of three percent, then somebody with equivalent experience should be earning about $10.88. I’ll let you play around with various inflation rates; for example, do these same calculations with the actual inflation rate for each year.
But average inflation doesn’t tell the whole story. Some things are a lot cheaper relatively than in 1958. Somethings are a lot more expensive.
When our daughter was born in 1962, I was a graduate student earning $75 a week. School insurance paid most of the cost. I do remember the room cost was $10/night and the obstetrician cost was about $700 total. At three percent inflation the room cost should be less than $50/night. In 2010, the average cost of a hospital stay was $1,600 to $2,000/night.
We bought our first new car in 1963, a Ford Falcon. Its cost was about $2,200. Assuming the average inflation it would cost over $10,000. You would be lucky to get a two-year old car for that price now. Of course, the cars of today are packed with comfort and safety features that were only dreams in 1963.
The cost of transportation has become a big part of the budget of those with lower incomes. And as we have spread out more, public transit becomes less available and a car has become more of a necessity.
Meaningful discussion about these issues, as it has always been, comes down to point of view. We are right and you are wrong. Too many of us ignore our wrong choices and give too much importance to being in the right place at the right time.
It reminds of Pete Seeger’s tale of two slugs that fell off a shovel. One falls in the gutter and the other in a dead cat. After a few days of eating and eating, the lucky one goes looking for the other. When asked how he became so fat and sleek, the lucky one says, “Brains and personality!”
Many may dispute Mel's brains and personality, but he knows that a bit of pluck and a lot of luck helped.
Sunday, May 03, 2015
The Magical Marketplace Can Be Malevolent
Once again, one who lives by profits justifies wages by the magic of the market. See “Work like you mean it, and let the market set the best wage” by Scott Sayer, Star Tribune, 2015-04-20. He writes, “Market forces should determine what an hour of work is worth.”
Once upon a very bad time, market forces determined that a slave should work as many hours as the master required. These masters were so determined that they were right, they were willing to wage a bloody war to protect their interests.
Once upon a bad time, market forces determined that children should work as many hours as the masters of the factories required. These masters didn’t fight a military war to protect their interests, but they bought a lot of politicians to defeat child labor laws.
Once upon another bad time, market forces determined that young women should work long hours in unsafe working conditions as the masters of the factories required. Even fires and other disasters did not stop the corruption from letting these conditions continue. Then the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911, killing 145 people, mostly immigrant teen-age girls, made a bit of progress in reducing these conditions.
Even in these supposedly more benign times, market forces determine that masters’ employees should work long hours, well past their ability to function safely. How many people other than these employees have been killed by truck or bus drivers working longer hours than the drivers could stay alert? Despite these deaths, there are still masters who decry government interference with too many regulations.
Now as many call for a minimum wage of $15/hour, Sayer states “Market forces should determine what an hour of work is worth.” He complains that these figures are coming “from bureaucrats who never had to sign a paycheck in their lives.” But these “bureaucrats” are officials, elected by the People, who try to follow the Constitution and promote the “General Welfare”.
And just what are these “market forces” that Sayer mentions so often? Are they many buyers and many sellers free to enter and leave the market? Do these “market forces” provide buyers and sellers with all the information they need to make an informed decision? Are all the costs of the transaction covered, or are there costs that others must bear?
There are far fewer buyers of labor than sellers of labor. The buyers of labor are free to contract or expand their work force. The sellers of labor must find buyers or be hungry and without shelter.
Both buyers and sellers of labor might not provide all the information for informed decisions. Buyers might not provide all the details of the job, including how safe it is, how many onerous rules there are, and how reliably checks are issued. Sellers might overstate their credentials, hide unsuccessful performance, or hide illness that limits their abilities.
Both buyers and sellers of labor might push off costs to others. Buyers might not have insurance to cover work injuries. Sellers might engage in theft that needs to be investigated by public law enforcement officials. Buyers might pay less than “a living wage” passing off to others the concern that sellers have sufficient food, shelter, and clothing. Sometimes these costs are borne by relatives, sometimes by governments.
These are only a few of the ways that other than “market forces” can influence labor decisions.
Sayer decries that a living wage is based on 40 hours a week, and he wonders why such a limit. He ignores that many people fought and even died to get a standard work week set at 40 hours. This push came not from bureaucrats but workers who wanted long, healthy, and enjoyable lives. They defied Adam Smith’s observation that it was legal for the masters to unite to keep wages down but illegal for the workers to unite to raise wages.
Consider that a work day is eight hours plus a half hour for lunch. Assume that a worker has a half-hour commute each way and that the other two meals also take about a half hour each. The worker has now accounted for ten-and-half hours of the day. Add eight hours for sleep and fifteen minutes each preparing for bed or getting dressed. The worker has now accounted for nineteen hours of his or her day, leaving five hours for other activities. It seems Sayer believes that the work day should use these extra hours up to give him a thirteen-hour day from his employees.
Even when I was enjoying my job, I was quite willing to go home at the official quitting time. Sure, there were times when some pressing problem needed more work or when I was so involved in what I was doing that I didn’t want to stop. In fact, I don’t think that there was an hour of the day at which I didn’t work sometime or another. Sometimes that was when the work was to be done; sometimes that was when the work just kept going. But I was always glad when work returned to a normal day-time pace.
It was not bureaucrats who decided the work week should be 40 hours, but We the People. It was We the People who decided that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
Once upon a very bad time, market forces determined that a slave should work as many hours as the master required. These masters were so determined that they were right, they were willing to wage a bloody war to protect their interests.
Once upon a bad time, market forces determined that children should work as many hours as the masters of the factories required. These masters didn’t fight a military war to protect their interests, but they bought a lot of politicians to defeat child labor laws.
Once upon another bad time, market forces determined that young women should work long hours in unsafe working conditions as the masters of the factories required. Even fires and other disasters did not stop the corruption from letting these conditions continue. Then the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911, killing 145 people, mostly immigrant teen-age girls, made a bit of progress in reducing these conditions.
Even in these supposedly more benign times, market forces determine that masters’ employees should work long hours, well past their ability to function safely. How many people other than these employees have been killed by truck or bus drivers working longer hours than the drivers could stay alert? Despite these deaths, there are still masters who decry government interference with too many regulations.
Now as many call for a minimum wage of $15/hour, Sayer states “Market forces should determine what an hour of work is worth.” He complains that these figures are coming “from bureaucrats who never had to sign a paycheck in their lives.” But these “bureaucrats” are officials, elected by the People, who try to follow the Constitution and promote the “General Welfare”.
And just what are these “market forces” that Sayer mentions so often? Are they many buyers and many sellers free to enter and leave the market? Do these “market forces” provide buyers and sellers with all the information they need to make an informed decision? Are all the costs of the transaction covered, or are there costs that others must bear?
There are far fewer buyers of labor than sellers of labor. The buyers of labor are free to contract or expand their work force. The sellers of labor must find buyers or be hungry and without shelter.
Both buyers and sellers of labor might not provide all the information for informed decisions. Buyers might not provide all the details of the job, including how safe it is, how many onerous rules there are, and how reliably checks are issued. Sellers might overstate their credentials, hide unsuccessful performance, or hide illness that limits their abilities.
Both buyers and sellers of labor might push off costs to others. Buyers might not have insurance to cover work injuries. Sellers might engage in theft that needs to be investigated by public law enforcement officials. Buyers might pay less than “a living wage” passing off to others the concern that sellers have sufficient food, shelter, and clothing. Sometimes these costs are borne by relatives, sometimes by governments.
These are only a few of the ways that other than “market forces” can influence labor decisions.
Sayer decries that a living wage is based on 40 hours a week, and he wonders why such a limit. He ignores that many people fought and even died to get a standard work week set at 40 hours. This push came not from bureaucrats but workers who wanted long, healthy, and enjoyable lives. They defied Adam Smith’s observation that it was legal for the masters to unite to keep wages down but illegal for the workers to unite to raise wages.
Consider that a work day is eight hours plus a half hour for lunch. Assume that a worker has a half-hour commute each way and that the other two meals also take about a half hour each. The worker has now accounted for ten-and-half hours of the day. Add eight hours for sleep and fifteen minutes each preparing for bed or getting dressed. The worker has now accounted for nineteen hours of his or her day, leaving five hours for other activities. It seems Sayer believes that the work day should use these extra hours up to give him a thirteen-hour day from his employees.
Even when I was enjoying my job, I was quite willing to go home at the official quitting time. Sure, there were times when some pressing problem needed more work or when I was so involved in what I was doing that I didn’t want to stop. In fact, I don’t think that there was an hour of the day at which I didn’t work sometime or another. Sometimes that was when the work was to be done; sometimes that was when the work just kept going. But I was always glad when work returned to a normal day-time pace.
It was not bureaucrats who decided the work week should be 40 hours, but We the People. It was We the People who decided that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
Thursday, April 23, 2015
It is around here someplace!
Whenever one of us can’t find something, we say, “It is around here someplace!”
This has not always been effective in retrieving a lost object.
The earliest loss I remember is my wedding ring, the winter of our first year of marriage. When I noticed it missing after a trip to the super market, I was fairly certain we would never find it again. My guess was that it had slipped off when I took a glove off to get my car keys. The snow bank was at least three feet high.
The next memorable loss was in a watery hay stack: the Mississippi River. We were part of a flotilla of the Minnesota Canoe Association. Probably for the vanity of not having a white stripe on my wrist, I had set my high-school-graduation watch on the gunwale of the canoe. One of the kids asked for Kool-Aid and as I reached for the jug, he or she moved. Kerplash! No way would I be able to determine exactly where that watch was.
Books are something that seem to disappear easily. I remember leaving a copy of “Abbé de Tours” on an airplane. I lent “Dieu rit en Alsace” (“God laughs in Alsace”) and the borrower denies having it. I have a vivid memory of John McWhorter’s “Power of Babel” being on my wife’s night stand. Even buying another copy didn’t make it turn up.
A “good” place to lose something is the Essentia Fitness Center. I’ve left behind in the locker room an iPod, keys, earbuds, and other stuff. In almost every case, somebody had turned the item in at the reception desk. Sadly, others have not always been so fortunate.
This winter I lost my cabin keys in Brimson. We looked in every building and in the car, but could not find them. Fortunately we could make copies with my wife’s set. Then the snow started melting and there was a “golden” carabiner next to the sauna door. Although I am paranoid about making sure that the carabiner is securely hooked onto a belt loop, I wasn’t paranoid enough that one time.
A few days before my wife returned our granddaughter to Japan, she lost her cellphone. She and I asked several times at every place she had been if anybody had turned it in. I called her cell phone and all I got was my recorded voice. I went to the provider’s web site and checked for unauthorized usage. There was none but I suspended usage anyway. After awhile I removed the suspension, but I kept checking for unauthorized usage.
We kept looking over and over in some of the same places, especially the kitchen counter where she often left her phone. “It’s around here someplace.”
Halfway through my wife’s trip, I was about a day away from ordering a new phone from my provider or getting one on eBay.
As I do every few days, I was going to get some more groceries at the Whole Food Co-op. It is important to mention the place because I had to determine how many and which of our bags to take. Because we have so many floppy bags that are difficult to pack, I’m often tempted to use the Co-ops paper bags. However, we do have two bags with rigid sides. I selected on of these and then selected what smaller bags and jars I would need for the bulk items I intended to buy.
When I got to the co-op and was at the bin for my first purchase, I reached into the bag for a smaller bag. There were no smaller bags! Nothing! Nada! Ingenting! How did I miss putting them in? As if wishful thinking would put them in the bag, I peered into it intently. I then noticed a red piece of cloth sticking out from the flap that forms a double bottom.
What is this? A closer look and I was holding the embroidered zipper pouch that my wife keeps her phone in. Unzip! There was her phone! Mirabile! It didn’t even have enough power to show the low-power red line. But, you guessed it, it was around here someplace.
Several hours later I had it fully charged, functional, and with all her data.
I emailed her that either she would never take it out of the house with it off or I would buy a Tile to attach to it. If she has it on and we have our computers set properly, we can use Find My iPhone to locate it within a few feet.
I am also guilty of not remembering carefully where I have put something. We have a charger for AA batteries that I was sure had been on the kitchen counter. In fact, I remember clearly that it had been plugged into an outlet above the counter. As with the cell phone, I kept looking on the counter and in drawers, but I could never find it.
This past Saturday I looked in drawers at our cabin for kerchiefs to keep the sun off my neck. I found a couple in the next to the bottom drawer, but I was sure there were more. I opened the bottom drawer and there was… the battery charger.
OK, now where were the batteries that I brought from Duluth to be charged. Nowhere to be found.
When I got back to Duluth and put my laptop on my desk, there were the batteries: “around here someplace!”
Last time Mel looked, his head was still on his shoulders.
Also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2015-04-23 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/04/22/5161_it_is_around_here_someplace
This has not always been effective in retrieving a lost object.
The earliest loss I remember is my wedding ring, the winter of our first year of marriage. When I noticed it missing after a trip to the super market, I was fairly certain we would never find it again. My guess was that it had slipped off when I took a glove off to get my car keys. The snow bank was at least three feet high.
The next memorable loss was in a watery hay stack: the Mississippi River. We were part of a flotilla of the Minnesota Canoe Association. Probably for the vanity of not having a white stripe on my wrist, I had set my high-school-graduation watch on the gunwale of the canoe. One of the kids asked for Kool-Aid and as I reached for the jug, he or she moved. Kerplash! No way would I be able to determine exactly where that watch was.
Books are something that seem to disappear easily. I remember leaving a copy of “Abbé de Tours” on an airplane. I lent “Dieu rit en Alsace” (“God laughs in Alsace”) and the borrower denies having it. I have a vivid memory of John McWhorter’s “Power of Babel” being on my wife’s night stand. Even buying another copy didn’t make it turn up.
A “good” place to lose something is the Essentia Fitness Center. I’ve left behind in the locker room an iPod, keys, earbuds, and other stuff. In almost every case, somebody had turned the item in at the reception desk. Sadly, others have not always been so fortunate.
This winter I lost my cabin keys in Brimson. We looked in every building and in the car, but could not find them. Fortunately we could make copies with my wife’s set. Then the snow started melting and there was a “golden” carabiner next to the sauna door. Although I am paranoid about making sure that the carabiner is securely hooked onto a belt loop, I wasn’t paranoid enough that one time.
A few days before my wife returned our granddaughter to Japan, she lost her cellphone. She and I asked several times at every place she had been if anybody had turned it in. I called her cell phone and all I got was my recorded voice. I went to the provider’s web site and checked for unauthorized usage. There was none but I suspended usage anyway. After awhile I removed the suspension, but I kept checking for unauthorized usage.
We kept looking over and over in some of the same places, especially the kitchen counter where she often left her phone. “It’s around here someplace.”
Halfway through my wife’s trip, I was about a day away from ordering a new phone from my provider or getting one on eBay.
As I do every few days, I was going to get some more groceries at the Whole Food Co-op. It is important to mention the place because I had to determine how many and which of our bags to take. Because we have so many floppy bags that are difficult to pack, I’m often tempted to use the Co-ops paper bags. However, we do have two bags with rigid sides. I selected on of these and then selected what smaller bags and jars I would need for the bulk items I intended to buy.
When I got to the co-op and was at the bin for my first purchase, I reached into the bag for a smaller bag. There were no smaller bags! Nothing! Nada! Ingenting! How did I miss putting them in? As if wishful thinking would put them in the bag, I peered into it intently. I then noticed a red piece of cloth sticking out from the flap that forms a double bottom.
What is this? A closer look and I was holding the embroidered zipper pouch that my wife keeps her phone in. Unzip! There was her phone! Mirabile! It didn’t even have enough power to show the low-power red line. But, you guessed it, it was around here someplace.
Several hours later I had it fully charged, functional, and with all her data.
I emailed her that either she would never take it out of the house with it off or I would buy a Tile to attach to it. If she has it on and we have our computers set properly, we can use Find My iPhone to locate it within a few feet.
I am also guilty of not remembering carefully where I have put something. We have a charger for AA batteries that I was sure had been on the kitchen counter. In fact, I remember clearly that it had been plugged into an outlet above the counter. As with the cell phone, I kept looking on the counter and in drawers, but I could never find it.
This past Saturday I looked in drawers at our cabin for kerchiefs to keep the sun off my neck. I found a couple in the next to the bottom drawer, but I was sure there were more. I opened the bottom drawer and there was… the battery charger.
OK, now where were the batteries that I brought from Duluth to be charged. Nowhere to be found.
When I got back to Duluth and put my laptop on my desk, there were the batteries: “around here someplace!”
Last time Mel looked, his head was still on his shoulders.
Also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2015-04-23 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/04/22/5161_it_is_around_here_someplace
Monday, April 20, 2015
No harm to humans: where have we heard this before?
I just watched “The Clean Room” in “Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey” with Neil DeGrasse Tyson.
Clair Patterson, a graduate student then a professor, spent years trying to determine the age of the earth by the amount of lead, a product of uranium decay. He kept running into far more lead in the environment than should occur naturally. He concluded that the lead was coming from tetra-ethyl lead added to gasoline to improve anti-knock qualities.
However, lead is a known neuro-toxin, known even in Roman times. Chemical industry representatives kept trying to show that leaded gasoline was not a problem.
We still have many people having neuro-toxin problems from leaded paint in older buildings. But we try to show that their problems are caused by lack of initiative rather than environment.
Now we have the same scenario all over again with vested interests working overtime to “prove” that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is not a problem.
When will we ever learn? Those who live by profit are not to be trusted: Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations.
Clair Patterson, a graduate student then a professor, spent years trying to determine the age of the earth by the amount of lead, a product of uranium decay. He kept running into far more lead in the environment than should occur naturally. He concluded that the lead was coming from tetra-ethyl lead added to gasoline to improve anti-knock qualities.
However, lead is a known neuro-toxin, known even in Roman times. Chemical industry representatives kept trying to show that leaded gasoline was not a problem.
We still have many people having neuro-toxin problems from leaded paint in older buildings. But we try to show that their problems are caused by lack of initiative rather than environment.
Now we have the same scenario all over again with vested interests working overtime to “prove” that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is not a problem.
When will we ever learn? Those who live by profit are not to be trusted: Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations.
Thursday, April 16, 2015
Do we really have a five-party “system”?
Many commentators write about the “two-party system” as if it were enshrined in the Constitution. Actually, the writers of the Constitution feared factionalism. They thought their document would bring about a system of considered deliberation and reasoned arguments.
Unfortunately, factionalism reared its ugly head quite quickly. John Adams, a signer of the Constitution, and Thomas Jefferson, a non-signer, soon fell into animosity about the direction of government. They did reconcile their differences in their elder years, but their dispute lingered in the Whig and Democratic parties.
The Whig party went into decline when several Whigs formed the Republican Party, partly because of opposition to the extension of slavery and partly because of support of modernization. Ironically, one of the Republican slogans was “Free Labor” as opposed to slave labor.
Over time, the parties’ basic tenets changed with changing times. The Republicans essentially became the party of Big Business and the Democrats became the party of the People. But these were not fixed ideologies. The parties adjusted their ideas to the times. Republicans put forth ideas that favored a “government for the people” and the Democrats put forward ideas that were corporate-friendly or status quo. Many commentators referred to the two parties as “big tent” parties; that is, all were welcome if they held loosely to a few basic tenets.
Then somewhere in the eighties or maybe even earlier, the Republicans morphed into a hard-nosed, doctrinaire party. The days of the RINO (Republican in Name Only) began. Some very stellar Republican politicians who got things done for the greater good were no longer welcome. The Republicans also drew in many evangelicals who knew exactly what God wanted; just the kind of religious influence that the signers of the Constitution worried about. The signers were very aware of the differences among denominations and didn’t want to favor one over the other.
The result of all these changes have left many would-be voters, and even regular voters dismayed. As the parties have hardened in their stances, many people see government as dysfunctional and more partisan than deliberative. Remember that phrase describing the U.S. Senate as “the greatest deliberative body in the world”? I’ll agree to the “deliberate” part, “deliberate” grandstanding for minor electoral advantage.
Back to the signers of the Constitution: I think they had in mind a constituency who knew the men they were electing, if not personally, at least by reputation. Now we know our candidates by the slick literature they send out and the amount of TV exposure they get. Unfortunately, third parties spend millions smearing the candidates based on private interest, not the public good that the candidates may promote.
My solution to all this mismatch of ideas and actions is either all candidates are independents selected on the merits they project or candidates are loosely organized into parties that reflect their own interest.
My choices for parties would be Libertarian, Business, Evangelical, Charity, and Common Good.
The Libertarian Party would be almost anti-government. To them, the individual is primary, government just gets in the way of freedom. Taxes are just stealing money. Laws are for other people.
The Business Party would be all in support of large corporations with a bit of a sop to small businesses. Taxes and regulations just get in the way of corporations “returning value” to their shareholders.
The Evangelical Party would be Bible-centric and would pass laws pushing for more religion in government and for how all should behave, both in public and private.
The Charity Party would take up the causes of those groups who they feel are disenfranchised by government or society. This Party is difficult to criticize because there are many people with problems that they did not create. On the other hand, many people in a given group have managed without the Charity Party’s help.
Finally, the Common Good Party is my party (if I were to cease being a Party of One). This is the party that takes seriously “General Welfare” and “Common Defense” in the Constitution. The Common Good Party is concerned with infrastructure, safety regulations, commercial laws, and many other laws and expenditures that help promote a prosperous society.
The Libertarian Party ignores how much it depends on government. What if a libertarian had been defrauded. Would that person depend on a tax-supported court to seek reparation? Or would the Libertarian have it out with six-guns on the streets of Laredo?
The Business Party is similar to the Libertarian Party with the emphasis on large organizations rather than individuals. But would a modern corporation survive without public schools to train a large number of people in increasingly complicated skills, without roads to move its goods around, without police and courts to seek redress for those who would harm the corporation?
The Evangelical Party seems to pick and choose what Bible verses to use. Two that it seems to me that they ignore most are “Be not like the hypocrites who pray in public to be seen by men…” and “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” One could also say the writers of the Constitution were all to familiar with the picking and choosing done by various sects; that’s why they wanted “no religious test”.
The Charity Party’s hearts are in the right place, but the number of problems is so large that many people can’t put their hearts and souls into all those the Charity Party thinks are important. Government does need a few members of this party just to keep some of issues on the table.
We probably will never have a single Common Good Party because people never agree on the priorities. This gets back to the Constitution which didn’t really define “General Welfare”. We do need to have more people who run for office speak out for the common good rather than promote a private interest.
Mel keeps wishing for a majority government, but he keeps seeing a minority voting.
Unfortunately, factionalism reared its ugly head quite quickly. John Adams, a signer of the Constitution, and Thomas Jefferson, a non-signer, soon fell into animosity about the direction of government. They did reconcile their differences in their elder years, but their dispute lingered in the Whig and Democratic parties.
The Whig party went into decline when several Whigs formed the Republican Party, partly because of opposition to the extension of slavery and partly because of support of modernization. Ironically, one of the Republican slogans was “Free Labor” as opposed to slave labor.
Over time, the parties’ basic tenets changed with changing times. The Republicans essentially became the party of Big Business and the Democrats became the party of the People. But these were not fixed ideologies. The parties adjusted their ideas to the times. Republicans put forth ideas that favored a “government for the people” and the Democrats put forward ideas that were corporate-friendly or status quo. Many commentators referred to the two parties as “big tent” parties; that is, all were welcome if they held loosely to a few basic tenets.
Then somewhere in the eighties or maybe even earlier, the Republicans morphed into a hard-nosed, doctrinaire party. The days of the RINO (Republican in Name Only) began. Some very stellar Republican politicians who got things done for the greater good were no longer welcome. The Republicans also drew in many evangelicals who knew exactly what God wanted; just the kind of religious influence that the signers of the Constitution worried about. The signers were very aware of the differences among denominations and didn’t want to favor one over the other.
The result of all these changes have left many would-be voters, and even regular voters dismayed. As the parties have hardened in their stances, many people see government as dysfunctional and more partisan than deliberative. Remember that phrase describing the U.S. Senate as “the greatest deliberative body in the world”? I’ll agree to the “deliberate” part, “deliberate” grandstanding for minor electoral advantage.
Back to the signers of the Constitution: I think they had in mind a constituency who knew the men they were electing, if not personally, at least by reputation. Now we know our candidates by the slick literature they send out and the amount of TV exposure they get. Unfortunately, third parties spend millions smearing the candidates based on private interest, not the public good that the candidates may promote.
My solution to all this mismatch of ideas and actions is either all candidates are independents selected on the merits they project or candidates are loosely organized into parties that reflect their own interest.
My choices for parties would be Libertarian, Business, Evangelical, Charity, and Common Good.
The Libertarian Party would be almost anti-government. To them, the individual is primary, government just gets in the way of freedom. Taxes are just stealing money. Laws are for other people.
The Business Party would be all in support of large corporations with a bit of a sop to small businesses. Taxes and regulations just get in the way of corporations “returning value” to their shareholders.
The Evangelical Party would be Bible-centric and would pass laws pushing for more religion in government and for how all should behave, both in public and private.
The Charity Party would take up the causes of those groups who they feel are disenfranchised by government or society. This Party is difficult to criticize because there are many people with problems that they did not create. On the other hand, many people in a given group have managed without the Charity Party’s help.
Finally, the Common Good Party is my party (if I were to cease being a Party of One). This is the party that takes seriously “General Welfare” and “Common Defense” in the Constitution. The Common Good Party is concerned with infrastructure, safety regulations, commercial laws, and many other laws and expenditures that help promote a prosperous society.
The Libertarian Party ignores how much it depends on government. What if a libertarian had been defrauded. Would that person depend on a tax-supported court to seek reparation? Or would the Libertarian have it out with six-guns on the streets of Laredo?
The Business Party is similar to the Libertarian Party with the emphasis on large organizations rather than individuals. But would a modern corporation survive without public schools to train a large number of people in increasingly complicated skills, without roads to move its goods around, without police and courts to seek redress for those who would harm the corporation?
The Evangelical Party seems to pick and choose what Bible verses to use. Two that it seems to me that they ignore most are “Be not like the hypocrites who pray in public to be seen by men…” and “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” One could also say the writers of the Constitution were all to familiar with the picking and choosing done by various sects; that’s why they wanted “no religious test”.
The Charity Party’s hearts are in the right place, but the number of problems is so large that many people can’t put their hearts and souls into all those the Charity Party thinks are important. Government does need a few members of this party just to keep some of issues on the table.
We probably will never have a single Common Good Party because people never agree on the priorities. This gets back to the Constitution which didn’t really define “General Welfare”. We do need to have more people who run for office speak out for the common good rather than promote a private interest.
Mel keeps wishing for a majority government, but he keeps seeing a minority voting.
Monday, April 13, 2015
It’s around here someplace! Redux!
My wife’s iPhone “disappeared” before she went to Japan at the beginning of the month. She retraced her steps and checked with many places. No luck! I asked again at some of those same places. No luck!
I checked her account and there had been no usage we couldn’t account for.
I was just about ready to order a used iPhone from eBay, and transfer her number form Virgin Mobile to Consumer Cellular.
This morning I planned to go to the Essentia Fitness Center and then to Whole Foods Co-op for some groceries. I was being fussy about which bag I took; as an old grocery packer I don’t care for floppy bags. I want semi-rigid sides. I took the larger of the two of these we have, and I emptied it of all its jars and plastic bags.
When I got to the co-op I looked in the grocery bag for a produce bag. There were none. But I noticed a piece of red embroidered cloth underneath the bottom flap. It was the cover that our daughter had given my wife for her phone. The phone was in it, but its charge was depleted.
When I got home, I plugged her iPhone in and only got the little red bar. After about an hour it was 1/3 charged. Eventually it was fully charged and fully functional. In fact, I sent her email from her iPhone to her iPad.
I read up on Find My iPhone, but this feature would not have been of any use. My wife keeps her phone off unless she wants to make a call, check email, or do some other thing. So calling the phone didn’t help us find it in the hallway where we keep the grocery bags.
She wrote me that she had checked the bags several time, but I think she didn’t find it because there were so many other smaller bags in that particular one. Besides, how many of us would think to lift the flap at the bottom of the bag?
So, just in time I saved $100 to $400 on a replacement phone and the hassle of changing carriers.
Now if we could only find the AA/AAA battery charger that disappeared about the same time.
I checked her account and there had been no usage we couldn’t account for.
I was just about ready to order a used iPhone from eBay, and transfer her number form Virgin Mobile to Consumer Cellular.
This morning I planned to go to the Essentia Fitness Center and then to Whole Foods Co-op for some groceries. I was being fussy about which bag I took; as an old grocery packer I don’t care for floppy bags. I want semi-rigid sides. I took the larger of the two of these we have, and I emptied it of all its jars and plastic bags.
When I got to the co-op I looked in the grocery bag for a produce bag. There were none. But I noticed a piece of red embroidered cloth underneath the bottom flap. It was the cover that our daughter had given my wife for her phone. The phone was in it, but its charge was depleted.
When I got home, I plugged her iPhone in and only got the little red bar. After about an hour it was 1/3 charged. Eventually it was fully charged and fully functional. In fact, I sent her email from her iPhone to her iPad.
I read up on Find My iPhone, but this feature would not have been of any use. My wife keeps her phone off unless she wants to make a call, check email, or do some other thing. So calling the phone didn’t help us find it in the hallway where we keep the grocery bags.
She wrote me that she had checked the bags several time, but I think she didn’t find it because there were so many other smaller bags in that particular one. Besides, how many of us would think to lift the flap at the bottom of the bag?
So, just in time I saved $100 to $400 on a replacement phone and the hassle of changing carriers.
Now if we could only find the AA/AAA battery charger that disappeared about the same time.
Laundry: how times have changed
As I folded the fourth load of laundry today of six loads, I pondered how laundry has changed over time from a energy-consuming chore to a time-consuming chore.
I put a load of similar laundry in the washer, drop bit of detergent in, twist a couple dials, flip a switch, and walk away. When the washer beeps and I am good and ready, I come down, move the laundry from one machine to another, put in a drier sheet, twist a couple of dials, and push a button. If I am so inclined, I will start another load in the washer.
After less than an hour, the clothes in the drier are ready for folding. After putting those clothes in a basket, I’ll repeat some of the previous steps. I’ll bring the dry clothes upstairs, fold them, and put them away.
Today I have six loads, including washing my chain saw chaps. It’s only a bit more work than going downstairs for another snack.
When we were first married, it was a slightly different story. We only had a wringer-washer. After each load was washed and rinsed in the tub, we had to put each piece of clothing through the wringer. (We was generally my wife and only occasionally me.) Then we had to hang everything on a line in the back yard or in the basement.
But even that work was a “piece of cake” compared to what many, almost always women, suffered in the nineteenth century and even now. In “Mina Drömmars Staden” (“City of my dreams”) by Wilhelm Möberg, one of the protagonists did laundry out on the ice. I vaguely remember that she died doing laundry for others; if not died, it severely impacted her health.
Imagine taking every piece of clothing, getting it wet, soaping it up, beating it on a rock or the ice, rinsing it multiple times, and then finding a place to get it dry. All on a subsistence wage, if that.
Unfortunately, there are still women all over the world that have to clean their families clothes this way.
I don’t think we should “count our blessings” as much we should appreciate that our complaints of how tough we have it are petty compared to others in other places and in other times.
I put a load of similar laundry in the washer, drop bit of detergent in, twist a couple dials, flip a switch, and walk away. When the washer beeps and I am good and ready, I come down, move the laundry from one machine to another, put in a drier sheet, twist a couple of dials, and push a button. If I am so inclined, I will start another load in the washer.
After less than an hour, the clothes in the drier are ready for folding. After putting those clothes in a basket, I’ll repeat some of the previous steps. I’ll bring the dry clothes upstairs, fold them, and put them away.
Today I have six loads, including washing my chain saw chaps. It’s only a bit more work than going downstairs for another snack.
When we were first married, it was a slightly different story. We only had a wringer-washer. After each load was washed and rinsed in the tub, we had to put each piece of clothing through the wringer. (We was generally my wife and only occasionally me.) Then we had to hang everything on a line in the back yard or in the basement.
But even that work was a “piece of cake” compared to what many, almost always women, suffered in the nineteenth century and even now. In “Mina Drömmars Staden” (“City of my dreams”) by Wilhelm Möberg, one of the protagonists did laundry out on the ice. I vaguely remember that she died doing laundry for others; if not died, it severely impacted her health.
Imagine taking every piece of clothing, getting it wet, soaping it up, beating it on a rock or the ice, rinsing it multiple times, and then finding a place to get it dry. All on a subsistence wage, if that.
Unfortunately, there are still women all over the world that have to clean their families clothes this way.
I don’t think we should “count our blessings” as much we should appreciate that our complaints of how tough we have it are petty compared to others in other places and in other times.
The perfect test for “blasphemy”
A Saudi blogger has already suffered fifty lashes for "blasphemy" by asking for more discussion of religion in Saudi Arabia. But can his accusers really know that he has committed "blasphemy" against Allah or that he is only disturbing their world view?
I propose the following test of blasphemy.
If a person is accused of blasphemy, he or she should be staked out just after sundown on a clear night in a field that is at least one hundred feet from any structure. If the person has actually insulted Allah, then Allah will send a lightning bolt to kill or injure the "blasphemer". After all, did not God send down fire to light Elijah's water-soaked offering?
If the accused is not harmed by a lightning bolt from Allah, then the accuser should undergo the following. The accuser should be tied to a ten-meter metal pole on the night of prolonged thunderstorms. If the accuser is killed during the night, then we can assume that it is Allah's will. If the accuser survives the night, then the accused and the accuser should ask forgiveness of each other.
And forgiveness is the basic tenet of all religions, irregardless of how the "believers" ignore this bedrock principle.
I propose the following test of blasphemy.
If a person is accused of blasphemy, he or she should be staked out just after sundown on a clear night in a field that is at least one hundred feet from any structure. If the person has actually insulted Allah, then Allah will send a lightning bolt to kill or injure the "blasphemer". After all, did not God send down fire to light Elijah's water-soaked offering?
If the accused is not harmed by a lightning bolt from Allah, then the accuser should undergo the following. The accuser should be tied to a ten-meter metal pole on the night of prolonged thunderstorms. If the accuser is killed during the night, then we can assume that it is Allah's will. If the accuser survives the night, then the accused and the accuser should ask forgiveness of each other.
And forgiveness is the basic tenet of all religions, irregardless of how the "believers" ignore this bedrock principle.
Thursday, April 09, 2015
Wild about wild animals
The people of the world seem to be going wild with various ideologies that are harmful to others, and I need a break from writing about these foibles. So, why not write about wild animals I’ve encountered?
My first close encounter with a wild animal that I remember was on a Boy Scout camping trip. I don’t remember if I was a junior or an adult leader at the time. I was sharing a tent with one of the scouts when we heard scurry along a bottom edge of our tent. I got out a flashlight and we saw a mouse running around.
Without thinking, I grabbed the mouse and stuck it in my shirt pocket; the shirt was on a hanger on a rope at the top of the tent. Then I started worrying that the mouse might gnaw a hole in my shirt, but I did nothing.
In the morning, I found my shirt pocket intact, but with the mouse dead inside. I don’t think I injured it when I captured it; I think it died of fright. I felt sad, but I felt it was a territorial dispute.
A much later animal intrusion ended more happily. A bat went down the chimney at our cabin and rustled all night trying to get out. Lucky bat, it was not cool or cold weather when we would have had a fire below. I managed to get it out with chimney cleaning rods and duct tape. I gave the rods a couple of taps on the roof and the bat went gliding off.
I’ve encountered bears many times, and my first Reader submission was a compilation of bear stories. Black bears are more likely to turn and run when encountering humans, but don’t count on it. My latest encounter was a bear in our cabin yard. I stepped outside to take its picture, but I made the mistake of clicking my tongue to catch its attention. I got its attention, but it chose to run the other way from that eight-foot tall animal standing to the top step.
We’ve seen moose tracks around our cabin, but these have all but disappeared as the trees have grown bigger. A DNR forester told us that if we want moose we should clear cut. The moose like to munch on young aspen. Maybe we’ll have more moose as our recent clear cut fills in.
The most moose I’ve seen was on the Kawishiwi River in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. My son and I must have seen fourteen moose in one day. We were at least three canoe lengths from one grazing the water plants. I wonder if I’ll ever find those pictures in my jumbled archives.
Among the most skittish animals are woodpeckers. Even if they are twenty feet up in a tree, they often will fly away. I did manage once to get some pictures of a pileated woodpecker a lot closer than that. Within a block of our house one was battering away, and I took several pictures almost level with it.
I did sneak up on a sapsucker drumming on the aluminum vent stack of our outhouse. I guess it was so lovelorn that it didn’t notice me sneaking up on it to within eight feet.
Probably the least shy animals are wild turkeys. Or is it most dumb? A few years ago I saw one strutting around on the shoulder of Hwy. 44. I stopped and took several pictures of it. It would walk toward me and then back off. I almost thought it was a domestic turkey.
But this past weekend I missed a flock of turkeys. I saw a single turkey on the opposite side of the road. I decided not to stop. Then I looked to my right and saw about a dozen turkeys on my side. Thank goodness they were on the shoulder and not on the pavement. I slowed down but didn’t stop. I was too tired from cutting up firewood.
One animal that I had to stop for was a huge snapping turtle. Its shell must have been two feet or more front to back. I stopped and took several pictures as it made its slow way across the road. I doubt that anybody would have hit it; the damage to their car would have been considerable.
I do wish that I had stopped for another turtle crossing the road. I was staying with my sister-in-law in a small town while I attended a conference several miles away. As I drove to the conference I saw a turtle crossing the road. I thought of stopping and carrying it across but didn’t. When I came back in the evening, there was a broken shell only a quarter way across the road.
Another amphibian that fared better was a green toad that got caught in our rain gauge. I tried shaking it out, but its sticky feet held tight. I laid the gauge down on the ground, but it still didn’t leave its “shelter”. I stomped or banged the ground behind it, and it darted out so fast that I almost couldn’t see it.
Deer are both curious and skittish. I have taken pictures of them as little as thirty feet away looking right at me. Other times I only have to wave a hand while I’m in the cabin and they will bolt.
I rarely see wolves, but we hear them or see their kills. We came across a deer carcass on one of our trails. The next time we passed the spot, the carcass was almost gone except for an organ and some hair.
I did get a great “video” of a wolf howl. You can listen to it on YouTube; look for “Wolves Howling in Brimson”.
You can also find some of my animal photos at https://www.flickr.com/photos/28887068@N00.
Some year Mel will be organized and find all of his notes and pictures.
This version has a few corrections from the original article at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/04/08/5095_wild_about_wild_animals.
My first close encounter with a wild animal that I remember was on a Boy Scout camping trip. I don’t remember if I was a junior or an adult leader at the time. I was sharing a tent with one of the scouts when we heard scurry along a bottom edge of our tent. I got out a flashlight and we saw a mouse running around.
Without thinking, I grabbed the mouse and stuck it in my shirt pocket; the shirt was on a hanger on a rope at the top of the tent. Then I started worrying that the mouse might gnaw a hole in my shirt, but I did nothing.
In the morning, I found my shirt pocket intact, but with the mouse dead inside. I don’t think I injured it when I captured it; I think it died of fright. I felt sad, but I felt it was a territorial dispute.
A much later animal intrusion ended more happily. A bat went down the chimney at our cabin and rustled all night trying to get out. Lucky bat, it was not cool or cold weather when we would have had a fire below. I managed to get it out with chimney cleaning rods and duct tape. I gave the rods a couple of taps on the roof and the bat went gliding off.
I’ve encountered bears many times, and my first Reader submission was a compilation of bear stories. Black bears are more likely to turn and run when encountering humans, but don’t count on it. My latest encounter was a bear in our cabin yard. I stepped outside to take its picture, but I made the mistake of clicking my tongue to catch its attention. I got its attention, but it chose to run the other way from that eight-foot tall animal standing to the top step.
We’ve seen moose tracks around our cabin, but these have all but disappeared as the trees have grown bigger. A DNR forester told us that if we want moose we should clear cut. The moose like to munch on young aspen. Maybe we’ll have more moose as our recent clear cut fills in.
The most moose I’ve seen was on the Kawishiwi River in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. My son and I must have seen fourteen moose in one day. We were at least three canoe lengths from one grazing the water plants. I wonder if I’ll ever find those pictures in my jumbled archives.
Among the most skittish animals are woodpeckers. Even if they are twenty feet up in a tree, they often will fly away. I did manage once to get some pictures of a pileated woodpecker a lot closer than that. Within a block of our house one was battering away, and I took several pictures almost level with it.
I did sneak up on a sapsucker drumming on the aluminum vent stack of our outhouse. I guess it was so lovelorn that it didn’t notice me sneaking up on it to within eight feet.
Probably the least shy animals are wild turkeys. Or is it most dumb? A few years ago I saw one strutting around on the shoulder of Hwy. 44. I stopped and took several pictures of it. It would walk toward me and then back off. I almost thought it was a domestic turkey.
But this past weekend I missed a flock of turkeys. I saw a single turkey on the opposite side of the road. I decided not to stop. Then I looked to my right and saw about a dozen turkeys on my side. Thank goodness they were on the shoulder and not on the pavement. I slowed down but didn’t stop. I was too tired from cutting up firewood.
One animal that I had to stop for was a huge snapping turtle. Its shell must have been two feet or more front to back. I stopped and took several pictures as it made its slow way across the road. I doubt that anybody would have hit it; the damage to their car would have been considerable.
I do wish that I had stopped for another turtle crossing the road. I was staying with my sister-in-law in a small town while I attended a conference several miles away. As I drove to the conference I saw a turtle crossing the road. I thought of stopping and carrying it across but didn’t. When I came back in the evening, there was a broken shell only a quarter way across the road.
Another amphibian that fared better was a green toad that got caught in our rain gauge. I tried shaking it out, but its sticky feet held tight. I laid the gauge down on the ground, but it still didn’t leave its “shelter”. I stomped or banged the ground behind it, and it darted out so fast that I almost couldn’t see it.
Deer are both curious and skittish. I have taken pictures of them as little as thirty feet away looking right at me. Other times I only have to wave a hand while I’m in the cabin and they will bolt.
I rarely see wolves, but we hear them or see their kills. We came across a deer carcass on one of our trails. The next time we passed the spot, the carcass was almost gone except for an organ and some hair.
I did get a great “video” of a wolf howl. You can listen to it on YouTube; look for “Wolves Howling in Brimson”.
You can also find some of my animal photos at https://www.flickr.com/photos/28887068@N00.
Some year Mel will be organized and find all of his notes and pictures.
This version has a few corrections from the original article at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/04/08/5095_wild_about_wild_animals.
Tuesday, April 07, 2015
The myths of fighting terrorism
President George W. Bush used “War on Terrorism” over and over again, and, like many before and after him, thought that military might from air or ground could stop the terrorism. But these actions only foment more terrorism. In fact, these actions in and of themselves are terrorism.
Just what is terrorism? Governments generally define it as lethal attacks on civilians or governments, often perpetrated by a small number of people. Terrorism really is any act by any group, government or not, meant to reinforce an agenda. Torture by any government is terrorism. Invasion of one country by another that leads to the deaths or injuries to the unarmed civilians is terrorism. Pilots deliberately crashing airplanes is terrorism. Gunmen shooting people on buses or in theaters is terrorism. People blowing up mosques, churches, or temples are terrorists. Governments dropping bombs on civilian populations is terrorism.
Terror has been a part of our country from the beginning. During the Revolution, mobs of “Tories” or “Patriots” would tar and feather and ride out on a rail those they suspected of supporting the other group. The tar was very hot and the rails were triangular; the victims were probably made to sit with the triangle facing up.
Slaves knew the terror of being whipped by a ruthless owner or overseer for the slightest infraction. If that weren’t enough, many owners justified the whippings with verses from the Bible.
The end of slavery didn’t end the terror for former slaves or their descendants. The Ku Klux Klan hung those they disagreed without any benefit of trial. Others were “lucky” to “only” have crosses burned in front of their houses. The Klan made “Christianity” just another example of a violent religion.
The Klan and its ilk have not been eradicated, but their influence has been greatly diminished by a more just civil society.
Unfortunately, civil society has been under attack since the writing of the Constitution. Slavery was permitted in the Constitution with the onerous counting of slaves as three-fifths of persons. Slavery was further strengthened by the Second Amendment, “the right of the People to keep and bear Arms”. For many, the purpose of this was to protect slave owners if the Federal government threatened to take away their slaves. Civil society is also under attack by those who want to consider corporations as “persons”.
Terror by “civil society” continued after the abolition of slavery with the forced relocation or slaughter of aboriginal peoples. The U.S. Army wiped out several villages including women and children. The Cherokee and others, successful farmers who dressed the same as their neighbors, were forced off their land and told to move to Oklahoma. Many did not survive the trip.
I could go on with several other instances of the U.S. being involved in violence against the populations of other countries, but I don’t have space to examine the pros and cons of these interventions. But, there are many people who remember these interventions and still hold grudges about them.
Let’s examine one chain of events that got us to the messes of today.
The Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan to protect the Communist-led government. Afghanistan, being the tribal country it is, had many who attacked the Soviet occupiers. The United States, being engaged with its own battle with “godless Communism”, aided and abetted the resistance. One of the most deadly weapons the U.S. arsenal was Stinger missile. The U.S. supplied Stingers to the mujahedeen fighting Soviet helicopters, the deadly Hinds. The new weapons turned the battle around and the Soviet Union eventually left. But many of the Stingers did not return to the United States.
Then the United States decided to take on Saddam Hussein when the latter invaded Kuwait. As part of the military arrangements, Saudi Arabia allowed the U.S. to base troops in their country. A big mistake to make. Many Muslims consider Saudi Arabia a holy place that should not be “overrun” by an infidel army. One of these objectors was an Arab who had been very active in helping the mujahedeen repel the Soviet invaders: Osama bin Laden.
Bin Laden decided to make a big theatrical demonstration of his displeasure, the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York after some practices in the Gulf of Aden and other places. George W. Bush fell into bin Laden’s trap and escalated the conflict, invading both Afghanistan and Iraq, bringing “freedom and democracy” to both countries. Both countries may have “elected” officials, but the fighting still goes on and has brought in a third party: the Islamic State in Syria. ISIS or ISIL or IS has thousands of Muslims, traditional or new converts rushing to join their cause.
The United States, under a President who wanted to wind down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is sending jets to attack ISIS in Iraq. Do you not think there are a few Muslims who are thinking of ways to attack the U.S. for its “attack on Islam”? On top of this, thousands of those fighting to expel ISIS from Tikrit have withdrawn because of the U.S. attacks. Can the jets occupy Tikrit? I think it is Sunnis who have withdrawn; Tikrit is a predominantly Sunni city.
What frosts me is that the U.S. gives billions of aid each year to both Saudi Arabia and Egypt, but neither has put much effort in expelling ISIS from Iraq. Saudi Arabia has probably put more effort into Yemen than it has into Iraq.
And now we have a Congress that wants to spend even more money on the “defense” of its world view while protecting the “rights” of our home-grown terrorists.
Pete Seeger’s lament is still relevant: “When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?”
Also published in the Reader Weekly at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/04/01/5049_the_myths_of_fighting_terrorism.
Just what is terrorism? Governments generally define it as lethal attacks on civilians or governments, often perpetrated by a small number of people. Terrorism really is any act by any group, government or not, meant to reinforce an agenda. Torture by any government is terrorism. Invasion of one country by another that leads to the deaths or injuries to the unarmed civilians is terrorism. Pilots deliberately crashing airplanes is terrorism. Gunmen shooting people on buses or in theaters is terrorism. People blowing up mosques, churches, or temples are terrorists. Governments dropping bombs on civilian populations is terrorism.
Terror has been a part of our country from the beginning. During the Revolution, mobs of “Tories” or “Patriots” would tar and feather and ride out on a rail those they suspected of supporting the other group. The tar was very hot and the rails were triangular; the victims were probably made to sit with the triangle facing up.
Slaves knew the terror of being whipped by a ruthless owner or overseer for the slightest infraction. If that weren’t enough, many owners justified the whippings with verses from the Bible.
The end of slavery didn’t end the terror for former slaves or their descendants. The Ku Klux Klan hung those they disagreed without any benefit of trial. Others were “lucky” to “only” have crosses burned in front of their houses. The Klan made “Christianity” just another example of a violent religion.
The Klan and its ilk have not been eradicated, but their influence has been greatly diminished by a more just civil society.
Unfortunately, civil society has been under attack since the writing of the Constitution. Slavery was permitted in the Constitution with the onerous counting of slaves as three-fifths of persons. Slavery was further strengthened by the Second Amendment, “the right of the People to keep and bear Arms”. For many, the purpose of this was to protect slave owners if the Federal government threatened to take away their slaves. Civil society is also under attack by those who want to consider corporations as “persons”.
Terror by “civil society” continued after the abolition of slavery with the forced relocation or slaughter of aboriginal peoples. The U.S. Army wiped out several villages including women and children. The Cherokee and others, successful farmers who dressed the same as their neighbors, were forced off their land and told to move to Oklahoma. Many did not survive the trip.
I could go on with several other instances of the U.S. being involved in violence against the populations of other countries, but I don’t have space to examine the pros and cons of these interventions. But, there are many people who remember these interventions and still hold grudges about them.
Let’s examine one chain of events that got us to the messes of today.
The Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan to protect the Communist-led government. Afghanistan, being the tribal country it is, had many who attacked the Soviet occupiers. The United States, being engaged with its own battle with “godless Communism”, aided and abetted the resistance. One of the most deadly weapons the U.S. arsenal was Stinger missile. The U.S. supplied Stingers to the mujahedeen fighting Soviet helicopters, the deadly Hinds. The new weapons turned the battle around and the Soviet Union eventually left. But many of the Stingers did not return to the United States.
Then the United States decided to take on Saddam Hussein when the latter invaded Kuwait. As part of the military arrangements, Saudi Arabia allowed the U.S. to base troops in their country. A big mistake to make. Many Muslims consider Saudi Arabia a holy place that should not be “overrun” by an infidel army. One of these objectors was an Arab who had been very active in helping the mujahedeen repel the Soviet invaders: Osama bin Laden.
Bin Laden decided to make a big theatrical demonstration of his displeasure, the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York after some practices in the Gulf of Aden and other places. George W. Bush fell into bin Laden’s trap and escalated the conflict, invading both Afghanistan and Iraq, bringing “freedom and democracy” to both countries. Both countries may have “elected” officials, but the fighting still goes on and has brought in a third party: the Islamic State in Syria. ISIS or ISIL or IS has thousands of Muslims, traditional or new converts rushing to join their cause.
The United States, under a President who wanted to wind down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is sending jets to attack ISIS in Iraq. Do you not think there are a few Muslims who are thinking of ways to attack the U.S. for its “attack on Islam”? On top of this, thousands of those fighting to expel ISIS from Tikrit have withdrawn because of the U.S. attacks. Can the jets occupy Tikrit? I think it is Sunnis who have withdrawn; Tikrit is a predominantly Sunni city.
What frosts me is that the U.S. gives billions of aid each year to both Saudi Arabia and Egypt, but neither has put much effort in expelling ISIS from Iraq. Saudi Arabia has probably put more effort into Yemen than it has into Iraq.
And now we have a Congress that wants to spend even more money on the “defense” of its world view while protecting the “rights” of our home-grown terrorists.
Pete Seeger’s lament is still relevant: “When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?”
Also published in the Reader Weekly at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/04/01/5049_the_myths_of_fighting_terrorism.
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Arriving as soon as I leave
I was noting a trip to the Twin Cities on my calendar. To verify the times, I asked my wife, “We want to leave at 12 and arrive at noon.” I meant to say “leave at 9 and arrive at noon.” I think my eyes were focused on the second time on the calendar item, and so I blurted out that number.
Corporations and governments: can’t have one without the other
Considering some of the shouting, one might think that politics has divided into two camps: government is bad and corporations are for the common good, or corporations are greedy and government is for the common good.
As too often is the case, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
First, let’s look at the similarities.
Corporations and governments are organized by people for a large number of reasons. The people who organize these entities do so to provide goods and services, to make money, to be famous, or to push certain views, both altruistic and selfish. Neither type of organization is any better than the people who run the organization. Success depends more on the leadership and the resources available than on the form. Success also depends on the circumstances of the time. If a large segment of the population is not interested in an idea, it will take a lot of effort to promote the idea, whether a new product or a new law. On the other hand, if a very large segment of the population is interested in an idea, somebody in corporations or government will be working overtime to fulfill the population’s wishes.
The big difference is that the corporations are run by the few and governments are run by the many, if the many show up and vote.
As many misinterpret Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”, many misinterpret Milton Friedman’s the only purpose of a corporation is to “increase profits”.
“[t]here is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud." - Milton Friedman, “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits”, The New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970
Many interpret this as the only purpose of a corporation is to increase shareholder value. Unfortunately, they ignore “rules of the game” and “without deception or fraud”. But what is shareholder value? Is it a continued gain in stock price? Is it a continuous stream of increasing dividends? Or could it be the long-term provision of a good or service? For example, do investors want to create a product that could take years to bring to market? Do investors want to insure that medical services can be provided to a community for decades rather than maximize profits for the short-term and destroy the community long-term?
Many point to the problems of MNSure and ObamaCare as examples of government inefficiency. But guess who provided the computers and software for these health insurance programs? Private companies!
And private companies have not been known for efficient, trouble-free rollouts of new products. How many auto recalls are there every year? Has every computer program or system you purchased or downloaded been free of bugs? It seems every time I get a notice of an app update, the description includes “bug fixes”.
In the “bad old days” of mainframes, it was really a major milestone when a computer ran a whole day without a crash. Now things are much better. My laptop, which is more powerful than any mainframe I worked on, might go a whole week without some kind of frustrating error, including freezes.
MNSure and Obamacare are massive systems requiring massive co-ordination of many pieces. As we don’t give up on our computers, we shouldn’t give up on massive projects that don’t work perfectly on the first day.
"I'm as confident of this as I would be that when the first cars didn't work well, it wasn't time to return to horses and buggies; it was time to improve the cars. This is the new technology; there are kinks to it and it's going to take some time to work them out.”
Joel Ario, quoted in “Contractor’s report slams MNsure weaknesses, readiness”, Elizabeth Stawicki, MPRNews, 2014-06-18
Are you collecting Social Security? Is your check posted to your bank account on the promised day every month? But it was not always so. Like getting computers to not crash, the rollout of Social Security was not without glitches or without critics who claimed dire consequences. Like “nationalization of wheat fields would soon follow” and Americans would be reduced to passive servility. It would take forty years of tinkering to have ninety percent of Americans covered by Social Security.
See “What about Social Security’s rollout?” Bruce J. Schulman, 2013-10-29, Reuters
An interesting contrast to the call for less regulation and taxes is the call by some of the same people for government subsidy. How many stadiums for billionaires have been built without government subsidies? How many companies have chased after the best subsidies and tax breaks to determine the location of a new office or factory? Are these the same people who say government shouldn’t be picking winners and losers?
Consider the big howl from Congress when Solyndra collapsed. But nothing was said about the success of Tesla. Both received start-up subsidies from the Federal government. Tesla paid its loans back! Also among those who received subsidies were Compaq, Intel, and Apple. Now Apple is the largest company in the world in capitalization! And looking for ways to avoid paying back its benefactor through taxes.
For a lot more on how government has fostered many other successful innovations, see “The Innovative State: Governments Should Make Markets, Not Just Fix Them”, Mariana Mazzucato, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2015.
- Mel wishes a few far-sighted Republicans and Democrats would start a Pragmatic Party.
This was also published in the Duluth Reader, 2015-03-26 at 2015/03/26/5005_corporations_and_governments_cant_have_one_without
As too often is the case, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
First, let’s look at the similarities.
Corporations and governments are organized by people for a large number of reasons. The people who organize these entities do so to provide goods and services, to make money, to be famous, or to push certain views, both altruistic and selfish. Neither type of organization is any better than the people who run the organization. Success depends more on the leadership and the resources available than on the form. Success also depends on the circumstances of the time. If a large segment of the population is not interested in an idea, it will take a lot of effort to promote the idea, whether a new product or a new law. On the other hand, if a very large segment of the population is interested in an idea, somebody in corporations or government will be working overtime to fulfill the population’s wishes.
The big difference is that the corporations are run by the few and governments are run by the many, if the many show up and vote.
As many misinterpret Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”, many misinterpret Milton Friedman’s the only purpose of a corporation is to “increase profits”.
“[t]here is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud." - Milton Friedman, “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits”, The New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970
Many interpret this as the only purpose of a corporation is to increase shareholder value. Unfortunately, they ignore “rules of the game” and “without deception or fraud”. But what is shareholder value? Is it a continued gain in stock price? Is it a continuous stream of increasing dividends? Or could it be the long-term provision of a good or service? For example, do investors want to create a product that could take years to bring to market? Do investors want to insure that medical services can be provided to a community for decades rather than maximize profits for the short-term and destroy the community long-term?
Many point to the problems of MNSure and ObamaCare as examples of government inefficiency. But guess who provided the computers and software for these health insurance programs? Private companies!
And private companies have not been known for efficient, trouble-free rollouts of new products. How many auto recalls are there every year? Has every computer program or system you purchased or downloaded been free of bugs? It seems every time I get a notice of an app update, the description includes “bug fixes”.
In the “bad old days” of mainframes, it was really a major milestone when a computer ran a whole day without a crash. Now things are much better. My laptop, which is more powerful than any mainframe I worked on, might go a whole week without some kind of frustrating error, including freezes.
MNSure and Obamacare are massive systems requiring massive co-ordination of many pieces. As we don’t give up on our computers, we shouldn’t give up on massive projects that don’t work perfectly on the first day.
"I'm as confident of this as I would be that when the first cars didn't work well, it wasn't time to return to horses and buggies; it was time to improve the cars. This is the new technology; there are kinks to it and it's going to take some time to work them out.”
Joel Ario, quoted in “Contractor’s report slams MNsure weaknesses, readiness”, Elizabeth Stawicki, MPRNews, 2014-06-18
Are you collecting Social Security? Is your check posted to your bank account on the promised day every month? But it was not always so. Like getting computers to not crash, the rollout of Social Security was not without glitches or without critics who claimed dire consequences. Like “nationalization of wheat fields would soon follow” and Americans would be reduced to passive servility. It would take forty years of tinkering to have ninety percent of Americans covered by Social Security.
See “What about Social Security’s rollout?” Bruce J. Schulman, 2013-10-29, Reuters
An interesting contrast to the call for less regulation and taxes is the call by some of the same people for government subsidy. How many stadiums for billionaires have been built without government subsidies? How many companies have chased after the best subsidies and tax breaks to determine the location of a new office or factory? Are these the same people who say government shouldn’t be picking winners and losers?
Consider the big howl from Congress when Solyndra collapsed. But nothing was said about the success of Tesla. Both received start-up subsidies from the Federal government. Tesla paid its loans back! Also among those who received subsidies were Compaq, Intel, and Apple. Now Apple is the largest company in the world in capitalization! And looking for ways to avoid paying back its benefactor through taxes.
For a lot more on how government has fostered many other successful innovations, see “The Innovative State: Governments Should Make Markets, Not Just Fix Them”, Mariana Mazzucato, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2015.
- Mel wishes a few far-sighted Republicans and Democrats would start a Pragmatic Party.
This was also published in the Duluth Reader, 2015-03-26 at 2015/03/26/5005_corporations_and_governments_cant_have_one_without
Sunday, March 22, 2015
I found “around here someplace”.
Whenever my wife or I can’t find something that we know should be in plain sight she often says “It will turn up” or “It’s around here someplace”.
A few weeks ago while we were at our cabin, my carabiner of keys attached to a belt loop was no longer on my belt loop. Fortunately, I was at our cabin with my wife who also had a set of keys. I searched all the obvious places, including aiming a flashlight down the outhouse. At the time we had about eight inches of snow on the ground, and so the keys could have dropped anywhere.
So we had a new set of keys made and I bought another carabiner to hold them.
Yesterday, I was heating up the sauna to wash up later. As I walked out the door, I scanned the area for my missing keys. Lo and behold, there in the snow was a metallic orange device; it was my missing carabiner and keys. The snow had melted enough to unhide them.
So, now I know “around here someplace” is just outside our sauna:)
A few weeks ago while we were at our cabin, my carabiner of keys attached to a belt loop was no longer on my belt loop. Fortunately, I was at our cabin with my wife who also had a set of keys. I searched all the obvious places, including aiming a flashlight down the outhouse. At the time we had about eight inches of snow on the ground, and so the keys could have dropped anywhere.
So we had a new set of keys made and I bought another carabiner to hold them.
Yesterday, I was heating up the sauna to wash up later. As I walked out the door, I scanned the area for my missing keys. Lo and behold, there in the snow was a metallic orange device; it was my missing carabiner and keys. The snow had melted enough to unhide them.
So, now I know “around here someplace” is just outside our sauna:)
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Hubris is ruinous
Hubris is overreaching pride and arrogance. Many Greek tragedies have the gods punishing those like Oedipus. Shakespeare tragedies have circumstances punishing those like MacBeth and Othello. It seems that rarely do the electorates punish those with overreaching pride and arrogance. They do it by not voting and those with hubris never count the non-voters.
Scott Walker is one who is showing overreaching pride and arrogance in his abilities.
He touts his electoral success but ignores that he won with a low turn-out. Many other newly-elected Republican governors won with higher vote counts (of those who bother to vote). Those who signed the petition to recall Walker but then didn’t show up to vote were also arrogant.
He talks about the “invisible hand of the free market”, but ignores Adam Smith’s admonition of trusting those who live by profit.
He is proud to have passed a “right to fire” law, but ignores Smith noting that the masters could organize to keep wages down but it was illegal for the workers to organize to raise wages. If workers can refuse to pay union dues, is there a complimentary law that businesses can be part of Chambers of Commerce without paying dues?
He thinks that facing down demonstrators qualifies him to take on the likes of ISIS. Facing demonstrators armed with pizzas is not same as facing a few thousand jihadists armed with AK-47s, rocket launchers and more. Also, he ignores the history of meddling in the Middle East; it has always backfired, maybe not right away, but within a few years.
I only have my keyboard against Scott Walker’s many microphones. If you are a Wisconsin voter who didn’t show up in one of more of Walker’s election “landslides”, please show up the next time.
Many politicians other than Walker cite their belief in American exceptionalism. Sorry, but many people in other countries, well-governed or not, believe their countries are exceptional. The difference is that many of these people don’t think their exceptionalism gives them the right to tell other countries how to conduct their own affairs. Those who believe in American “exceptionalism” refuse to see how often the “gods” have punished this hubris: Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and more. The proponents of the “domino theory” seemed to have ignored that a game of dominos can go off in unexpected directions.
The hubris of the jihadists of ISIS and other terror groups make the hubris of American politicians look like a parlor game. The jihadists claim they are doing Allah’s will, but how do they know this other than repeating it to each other? Where is their forgiveness to others that Allah gives them? And if they believe “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great”), can’t Allah right these “wrongs”.
If God could flood the entire world, killing thousands of pregnant women and their unborn children, couldn't God send a lightning bolt to strike “blasphemers” dead? If God could destroy the tower of Babel, built out of bricks, couldn’t God bring down the skyscrapers of steel in all the cities of the non-believers? If God could destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because the residents were sinful, couldn’t God destroy all the much larger cities of today where there is much “sin” according to purists who believe in an Almighty God?
The greatest hubris of all is that of countries with nuclear weapons. They want to prevent other countries from having any capacity to build nuclear weapons, but they seem very disinclined to reduce the number of their own nuclear weapons. These nuclear countries are ready at a moment’s notice to cause more death and destruction than the God of the Old Testament did from the beginning of the world.
Mel wishes the pen were mightier than the sword far more often than it has been.
Scott Walker is one who is showing overreaching pride and arrogance in his abilities.
He touts his electoral success but ignores that he won with a low turn-out. Many other newly-elected Republican governors won with higher vote counts (of those who bother to vote). Those who signed the petition to recall Walker but then didn’t show up to vote were also arrogant.
He talks about the “invisible hand of the free market”, but ignores Adam Smith’s admonition of trusting those who live by profit.
He is proud to have passed a “right to fire” law, but ignores Smith noting that the masters could organize to keep wages down but it was illegal for the workers to organize to raise wages. If workers can refuse to pay union dues, is there a complimentary law that businesses can be part of Chambers of Commerce without paying dues?
He thinks that facing down demonstrators qualifies him to take on the likes of ISIS. Facing demonstrators armed with pizzas is not same as facing a few thousand jihadists armed with AK-47s, rocket launchers and more. Also, he ignores the history of meddling in the Middle East; it has always backfired, maybe not right away, but within a few years.
I only have my keyboard against Scott Walker’s many microphones. If you are a Wisconsin voter who didn’t show up in one of more of Walker’s election “landslides”, please show up the next time.
Many politicians other than Walker cite their belief in American exceptionalism. Sorry, but many people in other countries, well-governed or not, believe their countries are exceptional. The difference is that many of these people don’t think their exceptionalism gives them the right to tell other countries how to conduct their own affairs. Those who believe in American “exceptionalism” refuse to see how often the “gods” have punished this hubris: Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and more. The proponents of the “domino theory” seemed to have ignored that a game of dominos can go off in unexpected directions.
The hubris of the jihadists of ISIS and other terror groups make the hubris of American politicians look like a parlor game. The jihadists claim they are doing Allah’s will, but how do they know this other than repeating it to each other? Where is their forgiveness to others that Allah gives them? And if they believe “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great”), can’t Allah right these “wrongs”.
If God could flood the entire world, killing thousands of pregnant women and their unborn children, couldn't God send a lightning bolt to strike “blasphemers” dead? If God could destroy the tower of Babel, built out of bricks, couldn’t God bring down the skyscrapers of steel in all the cities of the non-believers? If God could destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because the residents were sinful, couldn’t God destroy all the much larger cities of today where there is much “sin” according to purists who believe in an Almighty God?
The greatest hubris of all is that of countries with nuclear weapons. They want to prevent other countries from having any capacity to build nuclear weapons, but they seem very disinclined to reduce the number of their own nuclear weapons. These nuclear countries are ready at a moment’s notice to cause more death and destruction than the God of the Old Testament did from the beginning of the world.
Mel wishes the pen were mightier than the sword far more often than it has been.
Monday, March 09, 2015
Do you reflect your god or does your god reflect you?
George Washington and others have stated that we cannot have morality without religion. On the other hand, how often do we have religion without morality?
Too many people who proclaim adherence to one religion or another have no morality; that is, they think it is perfectly all right to kill those who do not believe as they do: from the Inquisition to ISIS. And the lack of morality seems to be worse the more these people claim they have the “true religion”! Morality is basically do unto other as you would have them do to you.
I just read in Sharon Shinn’s “Dark Moon Defender” the following:
“The goddess abhors mystics. The goddess demands of her faithful followers that they eradicate magic from the land.”
“Any goddess who demands wicked behavior is wicked herself. Why would you choose to serve a deity like that?”
Shinn’s book was published in 2006. I wonder if she had any particular groups in mind that want to kill those who don’t believe as they do.
Too many people who proclaim adherence to one religion or another have no morality; that is, they think it is perfectly all right to kill those who do not believe as they do: from the Inquisition to ISIS. And the lack of morality seems to be worse the more these people claim they have the “true religion”! Morality is basically do unto other as you would have them do to you.
I just read in Sharon Shinn’s “Dark Moon Defender” the following:
“The goddess abhors mystics. The goddess demands of her faithful followers that they eradicate magic from the land.”
“Any goddess who demands wicked behavior is wicked herself. Why would you choose to serve a deity like that?”
Shinn’s book was published in 2006. I wonder if she had any particular groups in mind that want to kill those who don’t believe as they do.
Thursday, March 05, 2015
George Washington: Ignored Father of his Country
The United States Senate reads “George Washington’s Farewell Address” every year, alternating between the two parties. It was read by John Hoeven, R-ND on February 23, 2015. The House of Representatives last read it publicly in 1984. You can find a copy at http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/WashFarewell.pdf.
Whether Congress listens to the reading or not, I think they often forget what George Washington wrote, maybe within hours of the reading.
Washington warned again and again about faction. One example is:
“[The obstructions of constituted authorities] serve to organize faction; to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common councils and modified by mutual interests.” [page 14]
He went on about how unprincipled men could actually take over the government, subverting the will of the people.
In the same month that a Republican Senator read “Washington’s Farewell Address”, the Republicans went right back to factionalism, finding all kinds of fault with President Obama and pushing a corporate agenda.
As General of the Continental Army, Washington provided lessons that we have not learned about wars but “insurgents” in many countries know only to well.
Washington and the Continental Army knew the country; the British did not. Boxed in several times, Washington managed to escape with his army. For example, he was in Manhattan and Brooklyn when the British invaded Long Island. He commandeered every boat he could and took all his men, cannon, horses, and more to Manhattan on a foggy night and then on to White Plains..
"I am well convinced myself, that the enemy long ere this, are perfectly satisfied that the possession of our towns while we have an army in the field will avail them little.” Think Baghdad, Kabul.
He predated by almost two centuries Mao Zedong: “enemy advances, we retreat; enemy retreats, we pursue.”
George Washington also stuck to the task from 1775 until the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781. What is the average tour of duty of a general in Iraq or Afghanistan? And of course, every general has a different idea of what to do. Oh, yes! Washington would let himself be outvoted by his officers.
As President, George Washington was for efficient government, not necessarily for limited government: “for the efficient management of your common interests in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable… It is indeed little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.” [pages 15-16]
“[The spirit of party] opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions.” [pages 17-18] Does this apply to the Congressional invitation for the prime minister of Israel to speak before it?
“And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.” [page 20] Note that he doesn’t specify what religion, one of the numerous Christian sects or one of the many non-Christian sects.
Washington wrote a section on the need for public credit and to use it sparingly by “cultivating peace”. If war is necessary, the burden should not be put on future generations. “[Y]ou should practically bear in mind that towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes…” He followed this with a discourse about the problem of selecting what to tax. I wonder what he would think of all the highways that we demand, the degree of safety oversight we want, and the research we want.
He wrote a couple pages about the necessity of treating all nations the same. “The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, in is some degree a slave.” What would Washington say about our relations with Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Israel, Saudi Arabia, or Egypt? All of them manipulate us more than we manipulate them. George Washington considered those who resist these entanglements as the “real patriots”.
He also extended this view to commerce: “our commercial policy should hold an equal hand: neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences…” [page 28]
As much as we have put Washington on a pedestal, he is more modest: “I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors.”
He looked forward to enjoying “the benign influence of good laws under a free government…”
Sorry, Mr. President, but fools have rushed in where heroes fear to tread. We have many bad laws under a bought government.
Mel votes in almost every election, mostly in the hope of avoiding really bad laws.
Also published in the Reader Weekly, 2015-03-05 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/03/04/4899_george_washington_ignored_father_of_his_country
Whether Congress listens to the reading or not, I think they often forget what George Washington wrote, maybe within hours of the reading.
Washington warned again and again about faction. One example is:
“[The obstructions of constituted authorities] serve to organize faction; to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common councils and modified by mutual interests.” [page 14]
He went on about how unprincipled men could actually take over the government, subverting the will of the people.
In the same month that a Republican Senator read “Washington’s Farewell Address”, the Republicans went right back to factionalism, finding all kinds of fault with President Obama and pushing a corporate agenda.
As General of the Continental Army, Washington provided lessons that we have not learned about wars but “insurgents” in many countries know only to well.
Washington and the Continental Army knew the country; the British did not. Boxed in several times, Washington managed to escape with his army. For example, he was in Manhattan and Brooklyn when the British invaded Long Island. He commandeered every boat he could and took all his men, cannon, horses, and more to Manhattan on a foggy night and then on to White Plains..
"I am well convinced myself, that the enemy long ere this, are perfectly satisfied that the possession of our towns while we have an army in the field will avail them little.” Think Baghdad, Kabul.
He predated by almost two centuries Mao Zedong: “enemy advances, we retreat; enemy retreats, we pursue.”
George Washington also stuck to the task from 1775 until the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781. What is the average tour of duty of a general in Iraq or Afghanistan? And of course, every general has a different idea of what to do. Oh, yes! Washington would let himself be outvoted by his officers.
As President, George Washington was for efficient government, not necessarily for limited government: “for the efficient management of your common interests in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable… It is indeed little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.” [pages 15-16]
“[The spirit of party] opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions.” [pages 17-18] Does this apply to the Congressional invitation for the prime minister of Israel to speak before it?
“And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.” [page 20] Note that he doesn’t specify what religion, one of the numerous Christian sects or one of the many non-Christian sects.
Washington wrote a section on the need for public credit and to use it sparingly by “cultivating peace”. If war is necessary, the burden should not be put on future generations. “[Y]ou should practically bear in mind that towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes…” He followed this with a discourse about the problem of selecting what to tax. I wonder what he would think of all the highways that we demand, the degree of safety oversight we want, and the research we want.
He wrote a couple pages about the necessity of treating all nations the same. “The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, in is some degree a slave.” What would Washington say about our relations with Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Israel, Saudi Arabia, or Egypt? All of them manipulate us more than we manipulate them. George Washington considered those who resist these entanglements as the “real patriots”.
He also extended this view to commerce: “our commercial policy should hold an equal hand: neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences…” [page 28]
As much as we have put Washington on a pedestal, he is more modest: “I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors.”
He looked forward to enjoying “the benign influence of good laws under a free government…”
Sorry, Mr. President, but fools have rushed in where heroes fear to tread. We have many bad laws under a bought government.
Mel votes in almost every election, mostly in the hope of avoiding really bad laws.
Also published in the Reader Weekly, 2015-03-05 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/03/04/4899_george_washington_ignored_father_of_his_country
Government efficiency
I am working on my taxes and wanted to find the Minnesota state forms online. The main page had a link for business taxes but not individual taxes. I sent a message to the help desk and received a response within two hours.
I had a problem with some commercial software about ten days ago. I received an acknowledgment within two hours, but I have yet to receive anything further. Sometimes I receive a good response from companies; sometimes I receive inadequate responses; and sometimes I receive no response. Ditto government offices.
Efficiency does not depend on the form of the organization; it depends on the leadership of the organization.
See also "Excessive Corporate Inefficiency".
I had a problem with some commercial software about ten days ago. I received an acknowledgment within two hours, but I have yet to receive anything further. Sometimes I receive a good response from companies; sometimes I receive inadequate responses; and sometimes I receive no response. Ditto government offices.
Efficiency does not depend on the form of the organization; it depends on the leadership of the organization.
See also "Excessive Corporate Inefficiency".
Wednesday, March 04, 2015
Party that wants government to live within its means doesn’t?
“Republican consulting firm demands Minn. GOP repay overdue bills”, Patrick Condon, Star Tribune, 2014-03-02
It took a call from the founder and chairman of Arena Communications to get the Minnesota Republican Party to promise to pay immediately for work done on political campaigns last year. The party had claimed "[w]e were able to support our endorsed candidates through the Primary and with a statewide victory program, while simultaneously meeting our financial obligations and paying down debt."
See also “Mills advisor: GOP activists ‘have been misled about party’s debt”, Michael Brodkorb.
It took a call from the founder and chairman of Arena Communications to get the Minnesota Republican Party to promise to pay immediately for work done on political campaigns last year. The party had claimed "[w]e were able to support our endorsed candidates through the Primary and with a statewide victory program, while simultaneously meeting our financial obligations and paying down debt."
See also “Mills advisor: GOP activists ‘have been misled about party’s debt”, Michael Brodkorb.
Tuesday, March 03, 2015
Proof that Muslims do speak out
The Huffington Post has a blog by Sophia Jones, “’SNL’ Has Nothing On the Way The Middle East Mocks ISIS”. See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/03/mocking-islamic-state_n_6790254.html. Many of the YouTube videos use the music from ISIS videos to mock ISIS.
Oh, yes, many are not anonymous. The poster’s name and picture accompany the YouTube snippet.
See also “Muslims do speak out. Are you listening?”
Oh, yes, many are not anonymous. The poster’s name and picture accompany the YouTube snippet.
See also “Muslims do speak out. Are you listening?”
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