Another final solution?

During WW II the Germans were the bad guys and the French were the good guys, right? Well, some of them certainly were and some of them certainly still are, but if we're looking for another example of the banality -- and universality -- of the hidden but still present nastiness in apparently civilized nations, the examples are everywhere. Examples of the kinds of sentiments that brought us the persecutions, deportations and atrocities my parents' generation went to war over.

No, I'm not talking about the increasingly hostile attitude toward non-aryan immigrants in the American South, but about France and the European Union of which it's part. The Nazis ( and the Inquisition in its time) were less successful in eliminating the Roma, or the Gypsies as it was once more common to call them, then they were in eliminating the Jews or Europe.

Now that travel within the EU has been made so much easier; a basic right of European citizens, France has many Romani camps and that bothers many Frenchmen who are eager to attribute all kinds of mayhem in good old Lou Dobbs fashion. French President Nicolas Sarkozy seems happy to raise his poor ratings by pandering to that good old European Family Value of racism and ethnic prejudice. He plans to break up some 300 camps in the near future and send the Roma back to Romania because of "security problems." As yet, I haven't heard talk about re-establishing them in their ancient homeland in Rajasthan, but maybe that's still too touchy a subject just now.

France isn't the first to expel this wandering group who have appeared as bogey men in a thousand years of European folk lore. Germany Denmark and Italy, for example are instituting similar policies of attributing selected offenses to a group and punishing that group with expulsion rather than individuals actually accused and found guilty. It's doubly disturbing because, of course, Romanian citizens are normally free to reside in EU countries, or so I'm told.

Perhaps enough time has passed that the embarrassment of being caught at the same old Collective Guilt by Ethnicity game isn't enough to make EU member countries circumspect. Certainly that's true in the US where most citizens can't clearly remember as far back as the Bush administration, but equally certain is that looking for ethnic scapegoats in times of economic trouble is not something that died in a Berlin bunker in 1945.

Becoming the monster

I'm old enough to have learned to delay anger at any reports about or coming from the area formerly known to some as Palestine. Initial reports are so often untrue or exaggerated that caution is always advised. If it is true, of course, that the government of Israel has caused part of a Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem to be bulldozed, my anger is going to be well into condition red -- the more so if, as has been reported, the demolition is related to the construction of a Museum of Tolerance planned by the US based Simon Wiesenthal Center.

So I'll hold my temper a while longer although I fear that Nietzsche's warning about becoming the monster you set out to fight may be waiting to make a comeback.

Terrorists win! Terrorists win!

It's hard to say they didn't and their victory has nothing to do with the incompetence that let Osama bin Laden escape from Afghanistan. What can you call it but a victory when we've borrowed and wasted trillions on wars that we simply can't afford and we've been torn apart politically and culturally to the point where we will defend the indefensible, accept the unacceptable and every passing cloud seems like a piece of the sky falling.




Nearly nine years after the attacks on New York and Washington, the World Trade Center towers have become like the relics of some saint to be preserved in some myth if not in a jar while the contrived phrase "they hate us for our freedoms" echoes in mockery while one by one, the freedoms we pretend are a reason for their resentment are put against a wall and shot -- by us.

Any war, just or unjust, aggressive or defensive, necessary or the result of lies, is a test of the freedoms of speech and of the press. This alleged war has been a test of freedom from unreasonable searches as well, but now even freedom of religion is being tested both in the legislature and by the propaganda organizations with seemingly unlimited money, power and influence over the rage addled minds of the public. The millions of riders on the New York Transit system will soon be reading ads showing yet another picture of the twin towers and an airliner along with a crescent. Why There? it asks. Because we have freedom of religion, I answer. Because the government may not legislate against the free exercise of a religion or determine that one religion is to be preferred over another, I say to the ignorant, uncaring mob and the sinister forces that play them like pawns.

Does anything support the myth, popular in Islamic countries, that the US is out to destroy them and to kill Muslims better than this ad, this attitude, this anger? Of course we're eager to engineer Armageddon and so are they. Of course the Terrorists have won, since to bankrupt and confuse us and weaken us and set us against our principles and best interests was exactly what they set out to do. A popular uprising against justice and the rule of law has been the goal of many but none has been so successful in my lifetime as what has been accomplished by bin Laden and the Neocon Republicans with the aid of various radical supremacist groups foreign and domestic.

Why there? Well to be truthful it isn't there, only near there, but the answer is the same as it is to the question of why we didn't forbid radical Christian churches in Oklahoma City or the political anti-government speech that brought about the Federal Building attack and continues to fester. Because we all have the right to worship without interference from anti religious groups and from the government. That would be the government that's supposed to stay out of our lives, but only if we're of an approved religion.

We don't forbid KKK meetings even in neighborhoods full of people the Klan hates. We allow Tea Party extremists to wave guns at political rallies and threaten the lives of the president's family and to overthrow the government by force. We allow Christian churches to preach about the coming destruction of the Jews, the infidels and the end of the world anywhere they damn well please. But they're not Muslims, as a rule.

Our founding fathers offered praise for Islam, told Muslim leaders this was not a Christian country. There have been Muslim citizens in this country for centuries. There are millions of born in the USA Muslims in civilian and military life. When you take away the rights of one citizen for illegal reasons, you take away the rights of all and indeed if "they" hate us for being free, they're effective in making us less so and with our eager cooperation.

There's a bell tolling for us, for our freedom, for our souls and that thing up there in the steeple, wrapped in the flag and ringing it doesn't look anything like Osama.

PP13B and The Skeptic's Question

I adore Scientific American magazine. I try to read it from cover to cover, even if I don't always understand what I'm reading; when it comes to certain arcane, formula-heavy articles on string theory or particle physics, I keep hoping exposure will work a miracle in my brain. So far, nothing on that score, but it's been a SciAm-rich day and I just had to share it with you...big questions, and all.

This morning, as I hacked away at the biomass in our yard in the fast-rising heat and humidity, I listened to a SciAm podcast of the July 28th Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism's panel discussion entitled, "Arguing With Non-Skeptics." While it probably doesn't sound it, this two-part podcast is funny. Smart and funny. A distinguished panel of skeptics (a.k.a. atheists), including James Randi, D.J. Grothe, George Hrab, Steve Mirsky (my SciAm back-page fave), is moderated by Julia Galef. They discuss whether they ever enter into arguments, discussions, or debates with non-skeptics and how they handle it. Back to this in a moment.

A shower later, I finished Curtis Marean's SciAm piece, "When The Sea Saved Humanity." Armed with the knowledge that our global human DNA points back to common ancestry that is traced to Africa a little over 195,000 years ago, Marean went looking for an area on the continent where a small group of the first humans might be able to survive the long glacial age, which began at about 195,000 years ago and lasted until roughly 123,000 years ago. Where could a few hundred Homo Sapiens have stayed alive and continued to reproduce successfully when most of the continent of Africa had turned too dry and cold to support them? A new species already endangered; what were they like?

In a cave named PP13B on the coast at the tip of South Africa, Marean and his team found not only a perfect spot, rich in shellfish and edible flora year-around, but also answers to questions they hadn't known to ask. They found fossil evidence of compound tools, including spear points that required heat treatment to produce, at the deepest levels of the PP13B dig--demonstrating at least intermittent use of fire for tool-making dating back to 164,000 years ago. Previously, the earliest heat treatment had been attributed to France and was believed to have arisen only 20,00 years ago...a mere 144,000 year update.

The complexity of the steps required to produce the sophisticated tools indicate that language was needed to pass the technology along from generation to generation--another date pushed back. And there was also evidence at the deepest layer of the cave of shells collected for their decorative qualities and of red ocher "paint." Art, in other words. Merean writes,

"For years, the earliest examples of these behaviors were all found in Europe and dated to after 40,000 years ago. Based on that record, researchers concluded that there was a long lag between the origin of our species and the emergence of our peerless creativity.

But over the past 10 years archaeologists working at a number of sites in South Africa have found examples of sophisticated behaviors that predate by a long shot their counterparts in Europe....These sites, along with those at Pinnacle Point, belie the claim that modern cognition evolved late in our lineage and suggest instead that our species had this faculty at its inception. " (SciAm 08/2010)

We could say that H. Sapeins was born sapient and used that cognitive potential to survive the long ice ages, rear children successfully, and eventually thrive once the glaciers began to retreat. Returning to the DNA evidence, it now makes more sense that the entire global species could have arisen from a small genetic base in Africa. And it is conceivable that they eventually encountered their own differently-evolved number amongst the Neanderthals in Europe--who may not have been of a different species at all, but that's another article in this issue of SciAm, and another blog post.

Now, back to those funny skeptics at the Science and Skepticism conference.

As I read these SciAm articles about the Pinnacle Point people, I had that rising bubble of excitement we get when a eureka moment makes us want to tell everyone what we've learned. And then I remembered how I handle it--or rather don't handle it--when I encounter folks who believe humans were created around 6000 years ago. Or, for that matter, when I encounter folks who believe all kinds of unscientific fantasmagoria. 

I'm a Backer-Off-er. Especially now that age has tarnished my silver tongue and concepts flee as fast as the names of celebrities, I consistently fear that I won't represent my own knowledge or the scientific perspective well. I'll dummy up just when I want to sound my most rational, logical, and knowledgeable. I'm also afraid that my Southern upbringing, which taught us girls to button our lips in order to survive, will kick in just at the moment when I need it least...or won't kick in when I need it most.

So, how do you handle it when you find yourself in real conversation with creationists? Or with folks who believe in woo-woo stuff? Do you ever try to convince that person to question their certainty? Do you shut up and go all polite and distant, visions dancing in your head of Thanksgivings yet to be spent in the company of this idiot?


And how, if we've been cognitively sophisticated for 164,000 years, can some folks still be so unintelligent?

Check out that podcast for tips, comebacks, and the very best in great nerd humor. Makes me think I might be able to help someone see things differently.

The view from Pinnacle Point Cave 13B

And so it ends

The United States of America is doomed; at least in any form that can honestly be called a Democracy. Of course it may remain for a while as a pseudo Democracy where government and business are intertwined to the extent that no likely coalition of individual citizens has enough power to elect representatives who are not owned by some powerful entity, as any coalition that emerges is likely to be organized around fictitious causes and motivated by delusion provided by powerful, corporate interests.

Yes, the Citizens United decision was another step in the destruction of Democracy and the reduction of the power of the private citizen, but the real leash around our neck is Rupert Murdoch's lie machine.

I got an irate e-mail today with a link to a hysterical Fox news diatribe. To the casual viewer, it would seem that a town in New York State had decided to give Hispanic voters 6 votes as opposed to the one vote everyone else has. That would, they say, allow non-citizens, the unregistered voters and the otherwise ineligible Hispanics to outvote that traditionally disadvantaged bloc, White Christians.

There must be a better word than lie for this deceitful passion play, but lie will have to suffice and lie it is because what has been portrayed as a breach of constitutional law, the creation of an activist Obama court ( even though the decision was made under the Bush administration) and an affront to democracy, is simply the time honored practice of cumulative voting. Port Chester New York, has a voter base that is about 46% Hispanic. That being less than a majority, it's unlikely that the Village Board of Trustees would include a single member of Hispanic origin. That's the sort of exclusive majority rule Righties like and to allow a voter to give one vote to each of the candidates or to give more than one to a lesser number of candidates makes it possible to have a representational board of representatives. That's the kind of Democracy Righties hate, because it allows representation to those who are by virtue of race: inferior and dangerous.

Enter the Fox. The hysterical minstrel show leads the viewer to believe that any Hispanic, whether eligible to vote or not will be given 6 votes and everyone else will have only one. Branching out from that bald faced lie, are all sorts of accusations and misrepresentations and characterizations all designed to show how under the Democrats and Liberals and Elitists, the country is going to hell and the constitution ignored.

As I said, there should be a better word than 'lie' and perhaps there is: Libel, subversion, treason and if I had a thesaurus, I could come up with a dozen, but what matters is that we have an internal enemy who has already conquered and infected the minds and souls of America and is progressing further toward supporting insurrection day by day. I'm only illustrating one of countless assaults on truth, reason, decency, democracy and the dignity of mankind, but it's enough.

Is there any hope? Not on my part and my vision of the future is the jaws of the Fox around the throat of America, forever.

TO SLEEP, PERCHANCE TO DREAM…

I have had insomnia most of my adult life. I have found that, as I get older, I require less sleep, functioning quite well on 5 hours. And once every couple of months I will sleep 10 or 12 hours.

Rather than fight it, I have always simply let my body set my sleep patterns. I recently decided to try a sleeping pill in an effort to sleep more normally but this resulted in a side affect I had not anticipated – I stopped dreaming.

I am one of those people that has crazy, vivid dreams – on occasion, I am being chased and as my pursuer catches up to me I open my mouth to scream and nothing comes out. If I could just scream, I would be saved, but, I cannot make a sound. I always wake up before I am caught, usually screaming in the “real” world. My husband has gotten used to this over the years and he knows the drill; ask me what the dream was about and then tell me, “you’re alright, it was only a dream.” I usually fall asleep again and dream of something nonthreatening.

So, after several weeks of no dreams I realized I missed them; even the bad dreams. Well, maybe not so much the bad ones, but not dreaming left me feeling sort of lacking every morning. My anxiety levels during waking hours had increased. I found myself more fearful, less sure of myself and that is SOOOO not me.

I stopped the pills this week and found a more holistic approach to help me sleep in the form of a tea. While it takes longer to fall asleep, I am happy to report my dreams are back.

So far this week, I have been chased and shot at but this time I had a big, strong guy with a gun to shoot back with me (decided to keep the Rambo guy to myself and not tell my husband), judged a contest between two sushi restaurants which my husband drove me back and forth between them with my truck (I don't eat sushi when awake) and I flew through the night sky to confront a bad guy. Kind of felt like Lara Croft, Tomb Raider this week.

I also found two websites about dream interpretation. Neither is all that extensive or even accurate but it’s still interesting to look up their take on dream meanings.
So, for your interpretive pleasure here is the link to DREAM MOODS and DREAM MEANINGS.

Sweet dreams everyone and if your dreams are anything like mine then I sincerely wish that NOT all your dreams come true!

Never forget 9/11

Unless it might cost offshore corporations some taxes, that is.

Well industry self regulation has been a great thing for America, hasn't it. We've all become prosperous and freedom is ringing everywhere here in Utopia now that industries we depend on can write laws and make national policy in secret. Now that they can write their own permission slips to embark on dangerous and ill advised policies and of course give unlimited financial support to politicians who handle the paperwork for them. Of course it's not government intrusion - it's not even government, at least not a government elected by or responsible to the American people. Private security companies can fight our wars for us without having to tell us what they do or how they do it - they're private, after all. Responsibility and accountiblity are, of course, COMMUNISM, as some Republicans have told us. Paying for the damage you've done is a shameful thing to ask of a Corporate Lord - the very kind of government intrusion that might take a burden off the taxpayer and place it on the corporate elite. That damned Obama!

It's all worked out so very well that there's hardly anything left to privatize, except perhaps justice itself. Now that the BP leak seems to have been plugged, it's time to figure out what went wrong and why it went wrong and who allowed it to go wrong. Who better to examine the evidence but BP, Transocean and Halliburton? We can't have our enemy, the government we elected, mucking about and trying to place blame on the guilty instead of Barack Obama, the "enviros" and the customary straw men. Offshore based companies in the business of exploiting American resources for their own profit must always be protected from the consequences of their actions and from the wrath of fish hugging liberals.

So important is that, that our own Whorehouse of Representatives is willing to sacrifice the 9/11 responders suffering from serious illnesses resulting from their efforts on behalf of our country, and why? Because of a rider that attempted to disadvantage Corporations like our beloved master Halliburton that has moved to Dubai so as not to pay takes on the windfall profits we've given them and perhaps to be out of reach when we notice how many billions they have let disappear without explanation.

It's OK, we don't want or ask for an explanation because nothing matters but taxes and if we're really nice, Baron BP and Lord Halliburton will cut taxes and we'll all be rich!

A FRIDAY FOTO

Bon weekend!

It's all opinion

And thus spake Fox:

"The Ninth Circuit court as a record of being overturned" said one voice at the table.

"Obviously it deserves to be" said another. "This judge just doesn't understand the situation."

"Well she's famous for making rulings based on her opinion. What we need are decisions based on law!"

Of course, like most clubs, mine has a policy discouraging political talk at the dinner table, but in practice, that means "Liberals shut up, Fox is talking here."

Wednesday evening at the would have been a good time to start a diet, my appetite fading as my gorge rose. Yet I said nothing. Nothing would have mattered or could have stood up to the wave of regurgitated Fox propaganda. None of those present had any background in constitutional law and like virtually all Americans have a very hazy view of what it says: indeed a hazy view of the entire Arizona Immigration law in general. But they have opinions to support any inchoate anger -- the anger and the opinions furnished by Fox News and all it costs is your freedom.

Opinion? What is a judicial decision but an opinion of what the law says? Yes, of course Article 1 section 8, clause 4 of the constitution gives all power over naturalization to the US congress, but does that grant exclusive power to regulate immigration? Perhaps there is a valid discrimination to be made, but if so, the conservative one would be that the Constitution does give the Federal Government sole power to determine who will require a visa, have a visa and what the terms thereof shall be and so it's reserved to the Federal Government to enforce those rules and no to some small town Sheriff or small minded Arizona governor buying votes from the hysterical mob.

Yes, sure, that's an opinion. As I said, any court decision is the opinion of the court and to any intelligent person, the law is open to interpretation and always will be - that's why we have the ninth circuit court in the first place. Should I be impressed that my dining companions are so knowledgeable about the history of that court? Not at all, since their rhetorical unanimity shows them to be a conduit leading from Roger Ailes's rectum to my ears. It's all opinion, but not reasoned opinion based on the law. It's based as Ailes has asserted publicly, about ratings and the sales value of anger.

My nausea having begun to subside, I was formulating a polite reply, but the rush to get home in time to watch Hannity and Beck preempted the effort. I haven't been back.

TODAY’S HORRORSCOPE FROM TOM TOMORROW

TODAY'S PREDICTION:

A conjunction of tea bagheads,
yellow kids, and solar flares.

Click on image to enlarge.

Credit: This Modern World.

BOYCOTT BEST BUY & TARGET STORES

Government of the people, by the people and for the people has perished from the earth and now lies decomposing in corporate boardrooms across America. 

The Politics of Food; Pass The Artillery

[Posted by Nance in full expectation of a classic Swash Zone food fight]

Last night's supper with grilled asparagus, whole wheat garlic
bread, and ripe peaches with grapes

I haven't written about veganism lately, but a couple of negative incidents this past week have brought my food philosophy back to the front burner. I am one of Michael Pollan's converts, still voting with my fork, to the occasional aggravation of friends and family. The politics of food is heating up, so please indulge me as I revisit my choice. Will I prosyletize? Not deliberately. And the title refers to my clever grandfather's term for silverware.

I came across an ultra-progressive blogger's piece making fun of the lame-o, piss-into-the-tide vegans who actually think what they put on their plate is going to make a difference when we can't even get a climate and energy bill before Congress. I wish I could find the article, but I haven't been able to find my butt with both hands since we got back to the East Coast. You'll have to take the word of this lame-o vegan: coming unexpectedly from what I had thought was a liberal source, it was raw enough to sting slightly and there are a lot more articles like it out there--more typically in the form of carnivore propaganda from Big Agra's brood and the Libertarians. Watch for it. (Oh, brother. Something else to get paranoid about, right?)

Not sure if it's true, but it sure
sounds impressive.

Second negative event happened while I was exercising. A woman about my age, whose politics is no secret, was talking about her grown sons coming home for a week with their families. One of the sons was headed for Afghanistan next month, and it was in sympathy for his mother that I extended an ear to her at all. She was planning menus of "real food" and proudly proclaiming that her kids "actually know what food is FOR!" She went on to declare that her boys don't diet or mince nutrients or worry their appetites with facts; there's steak and apple pie on their menu this week because, "in America, we have a RIGHT to eat that way. And why is Michelle Obama sticking her nose into the way REAL Americans eat?" I pulled my ear back in at that point. It wasn't a conversation worth having.

But it got me thinking. Why, at this age when most of my peers are declaring that their habits have been made sacrosanct by longevity regardless of their political leanings, have I gone to the trouble to make a real change at my house for the past year, one that runs against the tide of all the food mores I grew up with?

click to enlarge

I'll discipline myself to a bullet list, but I want to say first that it's not about being an animal lover. I don't volunteer for the Humane Society or make contributions to PETA or Save R Cats, although I'm not displeased that others make these issues central. And I do like this poster. I can find pets endearing and I would selfishly prefer that the species extant on the planet when I showed up here still be here when I'm gone, but that's about it. And that distanced relationship from animal protein food sources is enabled by the fact that it's hard to think of the sanitized and trimmed chunk of sirloin on the pink plastic tray, under the clear plastic wrap with the USDA stamp and bar code as Cow. My consciousness has been raised enough that I'm ashamed of that distance; for me, buying the chunk of sirloin is a vote for the whole CAFO/BigAgra/BigFuel business system. I just can't do that anymore. (Dear Friends and Family in the food business, I love you and this is entirely not personal. I admire your work.) So...

1. Climate. I believe BigAgra, which includes the livestock industry, has to change. I can actually put my mouth where my mind is on this one, so I do.  Read Michael Pollan on this.

2. Food is becoming a hot battleground for political debate. In the interest of exercising neurons by exploring opposing viewpoints, check out The Center For Consumer Freedom and the drumstick they're beating. Cruise through their links to The Epidemic of Obesity Myths (they can't have been watching the People of Walmart updates). Their animalscam.com states, "Led by PETA, the Humane Society of the United States, and other activist groups, the animal liberation movement does not seek to improve animals' lives. Its goal is to place unnecessary restrictions on ordinary people like you." I don't know anyone on the Left who sits around musing, "What new and unnecessary restrictions can I place on the ordinary people of America today?" I'm ordinary people and I vote with my fork, too.



3. Cost savings. Even with purchases from the Organic department and what Bubba Lion considers Specialty items like tofu and quinoa, our bills run about a third less than they did when meat and dairy were on the menu. In this economy, it's one way I can feel good about spending less. We look forward to growing more of our own food, although our space is limited.

4. Interesting food. I've been cooking for others regularly for forty-two years. A new way to cook chicken?...not fascinated. But I've discovered a whole world of food via veganism and I'm only beginning. Cooking this way requires thoughtful attention to plant protein, so there's nothing boring happening in meal planning. I have some cool new cookbooks that don't have ribs on the cover. They don't feature bacon desserts either.

5. Health. My husband is managing his cholesterol without medication now. It's not as low as he'd like yet, but he says he doesn't miss the meat. He still eats lowfat yogurt and cottage cheese because he loves them, and he usually treats himself to salmon when we go out, but we do that rarely now due to the expense. I don't consume dairy or fish anymore, but I don't object to people who do. Each vote is personal. We eat only whole grains, avoiding products with more than a few ingredients. We avoid sugar and all but the healthiest fats. Our meals are colorful, beautiful, delicious, and satisfying.

6. While I've put on a few pounds since retirement (this laptop now permanently attached to my lap accounts for most of it), I don't intend to wind up looking like this if I can possibly help it.

Kill the cuts

There seems to be a difference between the ultra right as represented by Ayn Rand disciple and 'free markets cure all ills' cult leader Alan Greenspan, and the ultra right as personified by the rabble rousing opportunists who feed the vernacular conservatives of America. Dilatory though he may be in admitting that free markets are no more free or self steering than a car without a driver, he's none the less not as retarded as people who claim to see Russia over the horizon, staple tea bags to their hats and shriek about tax increases they didn't get. He does, albeit slowly, question the ad hoc axioms upon which he bases his theories and thus, through doubt, he thinks, he learns, he changes.

Amidst the tumult of irate e-mails calling President Obama a liar for personally having raised the cigarette tax ( a tax is a tax, after all ) and a communist for unleashing THE BIGGEST TAX INCREASE OF ALL TIME, which actually is nothing of the sort, it's refreshing to hear Greenspan utter:

"I am very much in favor of tax cuts but not with borrowed money."

What he's dismissing is the lifeblood of Republican economic policy and has been at least since the Reagan administration: tax cuts pay for themselves. It's policy that along with a huge increase in government agencies, military spending and a war now having cost more that World War 2 was supposed to be paid for by tax cuts, but failed. It was paid for by borrowing from foreign sources with our independence as collateral.

A rational person must have noticed by now that it doesn't work and never has worked and virtually always precipitates a recession. An irrational man, a Fox man, a Conservative man, even a Libertarian man, chants liberaliberaliberal, constructs straw stuffed scapegoats and tries to distract us with fairy tales about the President's religion and parentage.

"The problem that we've gotten into in recent years is that spending programs with borrowed money, tax cuts with borrowed money, and at the end of the day that proves disastrous."

said the Former Federal Reserve Chairman on NBC yesterday. It's axiomatic in our new propaganda soaked world that fixing a problem is far less effective and more expensive than hiding it under foamy lipped hysteria, and so the tax cuts that were designed to expire this year by the Republicans who wrote them into law, become a surprise betrayal by Obama. Those liberals are betraying us by following the law we wrote!

The tax cuts, that if renewed will cost us $2.2 trillion to $3.8 trillion over the next decade and put us that much further in debt, since no, they will not pay for themselves as has been demonstrated but will further impoverish the nation but to the benefit of a handful of people and corporations. But that debt must be thought of differently than any debt incurred in extending unemployment benefits and the glaring hypocrisy must never be acknowledged. For are we not conservative?

"You don't agree with Republican leaders who say tax cuts pay for themselves?"

asked David Gregory on Meet the Press.

"They do not."

was the emphatic reply.

No Muslims here!

I have to be thankful to the Anti-Defamation League, for without them, I might not be living here and they've done much to silence the skinheads and neo-Nazis and Jew haters that would still kill us all if they could. They've done much to get Church printing presses to stop printing the infamous "protocols" fraud and making them stop teaching that kill Christian babies for their blood. But as I've said countless times, being persecuted doesn't make one virtuous.

The ADL has jumped on the out of control bandwagon, protesting the building of the "Ground Zero Mosque" which isn't a mosque and isn't at Ground Zero. I don't know how to describe that without displaying it as offensive to the freedom of religion which is one of the few things an American can point to as being fundamentally American in origin, albeit no longer unique.

To what do we owe the self-righteous attitude behind it? We're furious at a group of terrorists almost small enough to fill a school bus and most of whom are dead: so furious that we don't want anyone to worship the God of Abraham in a different way within our sight. So furious that we will ignore the prohibition against establishing a religion as permissible or not permissible or restricting the rights of one as opposed to another. If Muslims have no right to a community center in New York, they have no right to a community and if they have not that, we have not reason to see this as a country worth supporting

CROUCHING TOWARDS EXTINCTION

Virtually all species of marine turtles in the world are classified as highly endangered, and some are on the verge of extinction. In all instances, human interference in their life cycle is to blame, such as beach front development, light pollution on their nesting sites, injuries from boat strikes, drownings in nets (also known as 'by catch'), and unsustainable over harvesting of their eggs. It is estimated that only one in every ten thousand turtle hatchlings will make it to adulthood. The following photo essay tells the story:

On this beach in Costa Rica, over harvesting means there will be no hatchlings this season to replenish the species. A species that has survived 200 million years will vanish. Thanks to my friend Jim L. for supplying the photos.

Banking On The Widow's Mite

Get ready to chew gravel in the parking lot in sheer fury: an investigation of several large national insurance corporations has been launched by NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for what, in my opinion, amounts to the most cynical sort of war profiteering I can imagine. Eight insurers are suspected of managing the insurance payouts to military widows in such a way that the insurers continue to make a profit on benefits that belong to the deceased serviceman's family.


According to CNN,

The attorney general's office said it appears some insurers tell families of fallen military personnel that policy payouts will be placed in an interest-bearing account. But the bulk of the interest benefits the insurers, and the cash is not placed in banks insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Cuomo's office said.

His office said insurers place cash in their corporate accounts, reportedly earning up to 4.8 percent interest while paying families as little as 0.5 percent interest.

 Eight insurance companies have been subpoenaed, including Prudential and MetLife. Prudential's practices are offered as an example of the way this scam feature works: the beneficiary receives what appears to be a checkbook from JP Morgan Chase to access their benefits; however, according to Cuomo's office,

"Instead, Prudential must send money to JPMorgan Chase before the checks can clear," the attorney general's office said. "Prudential beneficiaries are also not informed that, under a 2008 law, they have one year to place the death benefits in a Roth IRA and earn tax-free investment gains for the rest of their lives. Thus, real financial harm is suffered by Prudential's lack of disclosure."

 So, to break it down, they keep the death benefit and earn corporate interest on it, pay a lower interest rate to the beneficiary (who believes the money is earning a "competitive interest rate"), pocket the difference, and control the gate through which the money flows (possibly slowing that flow if it benefits the corporation?). Scummy. Slime. Bags.


Both the Veteran's Administration and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' office are looking into the investigation. And, of course, we're taking all this with a grain of gravel, since Cuomo is running for the governor's office in New York.

Add-On:

Muslims hate dogs

Shortly before I left the Midwest for Florida, a local Methodist Church with a largely Korean congregation was spray painted with the message: "Chines go home." Swastikas were spray painted on sidewalks and a leader of a self-styled Evangelist Church murdered a black Football coach and shot up a car containing two local Korean-Americans in protest of the growing ethnic diversity of America. Yes, it was an upscale suburb of Chicago and yes, most people were appalled. Since then, we've become more inured to such things, and since then, major political groups have become indistinguishable from what was a demented, lunatic fringe. The largest news disseminator in the country has become a preacher of the same kind of rage -- and we listen as disciples at the feet of wisdom.

I can't act surprised to see a similar fear and loathing phenomenon pervading my Florida neighborhood. No shots are being fired, but it's hard to come away from any social gathering without that sick, sinking feeling in my stomach resulting from some offhand remark about Mexicans. What must they be thinking of me? Is anyone really a bigot as concerns only one group? I think not. Is such bigotry confined to the uneducated? Hardly: the Beck Brigade contains the majority of millionaires I know and none who have anything to worry about from some undocumented day-laborer hanging around the Home Depot parking lot. Yet they do. They worry themselves sick that our government is being taken over by Black people who will make sure that no other black people will have to work for a living any more. They worry themselves sick that American Muslims will somehow institute Sharia and set aside the constitution, while they themselves see that tattered document as an impediment to Christian sovereignty.

"Islam is not a religion. It is a worldwide political movement meant [sic] on domination of the world. And it is meant to subjugate all people under Islamic law...."

reads an anonymous e-mail tied to a California Tea Party group. Where I live, such a thing is likely to be as sermon to the converted. It's a tenet as firmly adhered to as that "Obamacare" depends on "death panels" to keep costs down and that the US constitution is meant to subjugate all people under Christian law. But there are no Mosques here, not Islamic community centers as there are in other parts of the country. In California, in Tennessee, in New York and elsewhere, the bigoted scum that is America is being called upon to disrupt prayer with loud protest and being encouraged to bring dogs: because Muslims "hate dogs."

When I was a young man, traveling and studying in Europe, I heatedly defended my country against pervasive charges of racism and bigotry and imperialism, pointing to the strides being made in the 1960's. I was wrong, I was a fool and I wish I had not been. We have been jailing people for their political thoughts since the beginning, we replaced slavery with repression and subjugation, we've had laws reducing the rights of one ethnic group after another. We've denied entry and we have expelled citizens for their racial origins. We whine about invasive government while we use it to invade the lives of millions. We've made a straw devil out of those who have worked to undo the intrinsic hatred that is American culture. We have, save for a few glorious moments, been cowards, bullies and barbarians as likely to tear our own countrymen apart as the enemies, real and imagined, from without. There is no patriotism, no sense of a common goal, only flag waving and warriors at war -- and fear, always the fear.

Have we forsaken our ideals or did we ever really have any beyond "every man for himself" and "fuck you?"

THE BOOK OF JOBS – Revised Global Edition

Earlier this week, Robert Reich posted this article, The Great Decoupling of Corporate Profits from Jobs. His observations and conclusions: Corporate profits are up; the largest 500 companies have stashed away an estimated $1 trillion in cash; but the winnings are not translating into jobs at home. Why?

American corporations are investing in regions where the profits are coming from: Overseas. They are investing in low-wage markets, investing in laborsaving technologies, paying dividends to shareholders or buying back equity, and rewarding themselves with fat bonuses.  Forget trickle-down economics, Reich says:  No amount of profits or tax cuts will create more jobs.

Reich offers a grim but accurate assessment of the current situation, but he hardly scratches the surface.

"Start-Ups, Not Bailouts,” says the eminently more-opinionated-than-informed columnist for the New York Times, Thomas Friedman, who is still stuck in the skunkwork days of garage start-ups that turned Apple Computer into a household name. What Friedman and others do not grasp is that the bristling days of Silicon Valley are forever gone.

In this BusinessWeek article How America Can Create Jobs, Andrew Groves, who served as Intel’s CEO from 1987 to 2005, knows what blunderbuss pundits do not; he knows his business:

American companies discovered that they could have their manufacturing and even their engineering done more cheaply overseas (…) The largest of these companies is Hon Hai Precision Industry, also known as Foxconn (…) Some 250,000 Foxconn employees in Southern China produce Apple’s products. Apple, meanwhile, has about 25,000 employees in the U.S. That means for every Apple worker in the U.S., there are 10 people in China working on iMacs, iPods, and iPhones. The same roughly 10-to-1 relationship holds for Dell, disk-drive maker Seagate Technology, and other U.S. companies [such as Dell, Microsoft, HP, and Intel as examples].

When Apple sells an iPhone, is it considered an American product or an import? How much of our so-called Gross Domestic Product is actually domestic?

Here’s an inconvenient truth. The next generation of whiz-bang products will also be made in Asia, and the high-tech sector that drove the American economy in the 1980s and 90s will no longer generate jobs at home. With 90% of the work force located overseas, a rose may still be a rose, but American products are no longer American products. For every consumer dollar spent, most of the revenue stream will support overseas economies and an overseas workforce.

Want more bad news? Alternative energy technologies – the so-called job-driving engines of the future (which include advanced batteries, photovoltaics, and wind power) – will most likely be outsourced too. For instance, all commercially produced photovoltaic panels, originally invented in America, come from China.  Lithium-ion batteries, the all-important component of the electric cars of the future, will most likely come from Asia:

(Click on graph to enlarge)

Yes, everyone knows Asian labor is cheap.  How cheap, you ask?  If it takes 10 overseas jobs for every domestic one to bring an American product to market, there is an inverse relationship in worker compensation.  For every dollar spent in America, you can always find someone somewhere who can do the same job for ten cents or less. An M.D. in Mumbai, for example, can read your MRI scan for one-tenth the cost of an American expert.  Yes, this is no exaggeration.  Every American job that can be exported WILL be exported … even M.D. and Ph.D. level jobs in the medical and pharmaceutical industries (which also means your highly sensitive financial and medical records, including your social security number and other personal data, are also going abroad). Why bother studying for an advanced degree when the only jobs left will be those that cannot be exported … flipping hamburgers or waiting on tables.

Why should American corporations give a damn about American workers when their customers are no longer on Main Street but worldwide.  Globalization has freed them from the encumbrances of citizenship.

Arizona burning

"The law was made for man, not man for the law"

-Jesus of Nazareth-

He's "not going to put up with any civil disobedience" said the notorious Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff on Good Morning America. No doubt he expects to see some, as the infamous Arizona "show me your papers" law goes into effect tomorrow. Protest is all "hype" anyway and it's "a crime to be here illegally and everyone should enforce" it. Everyone?

It sounds like fun and I can't wait to start enforcing the law myself -- I mean all the laws, of course and since I have the firepower, why not stop every blond person I see and make him prove he's not Canadian? It's all a cowboy movie to sheriff Joe Arpaio, so why shouldn't I play along? But, of course, it's not the law in general that we should all enforce, it's the infamous Arizona law reducing the rights of anyone looking to any Arizona Cop like he has Native American ancestry.

But why pick on this comic book villain? The idea is widely popular, particularly in the old Confederate states, where good manners, big hearts and small minds go hand in hand. Civil disobedience is, in fact, just what we need to clog up the courts and disable and embarrass the damned fools who pretend it's all about the law and not a distraction to hide another expansion of police power. We need just what was so effective in the 1960's; thousands and thousands of people to flood the streets of Arizona looking illegal. We need a spectacle: sit-ins, marches, civil disobedience, dogs, water cannons and an impotent, sputtering, apoplectic, beer-belly Joe looking like the Dukes of Hazzard relic he is.

Now, before you reach for some more canned rage: no, I'm not in favor of allowing undocumented workers to remain, or letting people overstay their visas, just don't tell me we have to become a brutal, inhumane police state to correct the problem and if it isn't all based on racial purity, tell me why we don't know or care how many Canadians or Englishmen are working here and living here without benefit of citizenship.

Of Childhood Innocence and Rice Fields

I think that intensity is both my gift and my flaw. I am passionate about those things in which I believe but sometimes the passion is so intense that I forget to breathe. I think that I'm perhaps too hard on my fellow humans. I get frustrated with our disdain for the pursuit of the intellectual and angered by our obsessive selfishness. Every now and then I realize that it's time for me to stop and smell the roses, to embrace the moments of joy, to be awed by our creativity instead of appalled by our destructive impulses.

My nearly 19 month old great nephew is the joy of my life. I entertain him by blowing bubbles; he lets me know when he wants more bubble blowing by walking over, placing a small hand on each of my knees and announcing, "Bub." He never tires of trying to capture those spheres of soap and water, and I never tire of blowing them.


When he's at my house, he likes to follow me around whenever I leave the room. Generally the trip is to the kitchen in response to his announcement, "Eat, eat," his shorthand for, "I'm hungry." He makes me laugh at the way he walks close to the open refrigerator and peers inside as if seeking hidden treasure. His new favorite thing is to drink out of my cup, a blue and white 28 oz monster cup. My job is to hold the cup as he sips out of my straw. Most of the time, it contains water, but once it was a bit of mango juice. His face lit up and he did a little jig as he tasted it.


I hope that he will be creative. His grandfather Bob, my sister's husband, is a talented musician, so he's got creative genes.


The creative impulse may be humankind's saving grace. We make grand wars but we also make grand music and art. We paint masterpieces on ceilings and walls. We write operas with music so sweetly beautiful that it makes us weep with joy.

I saw an interesting story on the CBS evening news about rice art in Japan. Artists create images that are transferred onto computer generated grids and enlarged on a massive scale. Then the entire town comes together to plant the images in rice. How wonderfully awesome that hundreds of people work to create these transistory works of art. The rice is eventually harvested, but before the harvest tens of thousands of visitors come to town, boosting the local economy, as they view the rice fields in all their glory.

Inakadate Village, where this creative endeavor began has a population of 8,400. Last year there were 170,000 visitors to the village's rice field. Other rural areas of Japan have also created their own rice art.


I felt uplifted by this story. It seems that I may be wrong about humankind. Perhaps there is hope for a better us, a hope born out of the innocence of childhood and rice fields.