tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1832720255538909862024-03-12T19:30:41.598-04:00Christopher's TakeUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger62125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183272025553890986.post-73414842986034176942022-05-03T14:50:00.004-04:002022-05-03T15:58:57.427-04:00A (Very) Short History of Abortion in the United States<p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In light of the expected overturning of Roe v Wade, I wanted to look at the not-so-long history of abortion as a political issue in the United States today.</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">First, let's burst a bubble. </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><u><span style="font-family: arial;">The Founding Fathers whom conservatives idolize so much did not outlaw abortion. </span></u></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">What many people might find surprising about that statement is the underlying fact that abortion even <i>existed </i>in the 1700s. So let's take a quick detour. Not only were abortions performed in Colonial times; we have evidence of artificially-induced abortions going back thousands of years in civilizations all over the world, using a variety of methods, from surgical to herbal. And I emphasize 'artificially-induced' because as any ob/gyn can tell you, Nature herself performs far more abortions than humans do themselves: 30-40% of all pregnancies are terminated by the human body itself in spontaneous abortion or miscarriage. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span data-offset-key="4j42f-2-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span data-text="true">Now back to those old White guys in powdered wigs...</span></span></span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span data-offset-key="4j42f-2-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span data-text="true"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span data-offset-key="4j42f-2-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span data-text="true">Before a shift in doctrine beginning in the 19th century, and accelerating in the 20th, the mainstream Protestant belief in force at the time our country was founded was that life didn’t begin until “quickening,” at a minimum 15 weeks, often about 20. Until then, abortions were allowed, and it was definitely not considered “murder.” It was procedure, albeit admittedly a risky one, given the poor hygiene and medical practices of the day.
So if you pictured our Founding Fathers solemnly devoting themselves to a policy of respecting the sanctity of unborn life, think again. Their belief, shared by the Catholic Church (on which more below), was that a fetus had no soul until it quickened roughly halfway through the pregnancy. </span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span data-offset-key="4j42f-2-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span data-text="true"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span data-offset-key="4j42f-2-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span data-text="true">Only much later did conservative American politicians realize that abortion was an opportunity to create a divide among people and to control women, their two favorite pastimes in my experience.
Meanwhile, the Catholic Church held substantially the same belief as Protestants. Abortion was a non-issue all the way up until 1869, when Pius IX did a 180 and turned the supposedly eternal and consistent Church into enemies of something they’d previously had no problem with whatsoever. Prior to that, the doctrine was in lockstep with Protestant belief, albeit with a different lexicon: in the language of the Vatican, life began upon “ensoulment,” which corresponds to that same notion of “quickening” Protestants had always embraced, i.e. around 15-20 weeks into the pregnancy.
So where do Christians in America stand today? Now, of course, it is a very political issue, and if you observe the actual numbers, it is one rife with hypocrisy. It works like this:
If you’re a Christian woman (or, say, a Republican Christian politician with a pregnant mistress) and <b><u><i>you</i></u></b> need access to a safe abortion, you get it. Indeed, 70% of all abortions are performed on women who identify as Christians, and 23% of those are evangelicals. That means that every year, there are approximately 100,000 evangelicals terminating their pregnancies, and about another 340,000 non-evangelical Christian women terminating theirs.
But if you’re a Christian and someone <b><u><i>else</i></u></b> needs an abortion, that is apparently very wrong and that person is going to hell, and they must be prevented from accessing safe abortion care.
This has serious consequences for women's health. Completely putting aside considerations of risks tied to such issues as giving birth too young or while suffering certain medical conditions, childbirth is at the best of times a risky thing, resulting in the death of the mother 14 times more often than a safe, legal abortion performed by a doctor does.</span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span data-offset-key="4j42f-2-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span data-text="true"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span data-offset-key="4j42f-2-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span data-text="true">The point of this essay is not to change anyone’s mind about abortion. I am not up to that task. </span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span data-offset-key="4j42f-2-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span data-text="true"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span data-offset-key="4j42f-2-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span data-text="true">But regardless of your feelings about the issue, let’s all deal in verifiable facts. </span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span data-offset-key="4j42f-2-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span data-text="true"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span data-offset-key="4j42f-2-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span data-text="true">Being “pro-life” isn’t about your Bible and it’s not about your religion’s long-standing beliefs about abortion or the nature of life's beginning, because the Bible never even mentions this medical procedure, and your religion had no problem with it until a relatively short time ago, going back less than 8% of its history.
Abortion is now solely about politics, and it’s about controlling women in service to a very specific political agenda in that sphere. Religion is simply a convenient excuse, as it so often is when evil people need to justify evil actions that deprive others of their fundamental rights and human dignity.</span></span></span></div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183272025553890986.post-37785473719461506242021-07-21T16:05:00.030-04:002021-08-09T11:41:57.532-04:00Billionaires in Space: What It Says About Our Tax System<p style="text-align: justify;">As I write this in July of 2021, Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos has just returned from his 11-minute joy ride to the edge of space, just nine days after fellow billionaire Richard Branson did the same on his VSS Unity. (The stickler in me wants to point out that by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n_line#:~:text=The%20K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n%20line%20(or%20von,Earth's%20mean%20sea%20level.&text=International%20law%20does%20not%20define,the%20limit%20of%20national%20airspace." rel="nofollow" target="_blank">one common definition of "space,"</a> Bezos is still the first and only billionaire to accomplish this feat, since Branson only went up about 80 kilometers, while Bezos hit 100.)</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I have always been a space enthusiast. <a href="https://tennesseine.blogspot.com/2012/04/living-space-2012-national-space.html" target="_blank">Attending the Space Symposium in 2012</a> was one of the biggest thrills of my life. And full disclosure: if I had $20-$30 million lying around the house, I wouldn't hesitate to spend it on a trip to space. I would go in a heartbeat.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So I don't begrudge these men their trips, and I salute the courage it took to complete them.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And, generally speaking, I am a free-market capitalist, and believe that your money is yours to do with as you please. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">But therein lies the rub: <i>much of these billionaires' money isn't rightfully theirs</i>. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">And that's how billionaires in space got me thinking about our tax system. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">In my system of ethics, your money is yours to do with as you please only <b><u>after</u> </b>you have paid your debt to the society that enabled your wealth to begin with, and by debt I mean taxes, the "price...for civilized society," as Oliver Wendell Holmes called them. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">In the United States, the average worker pays an <a href="https://www.oecd.org/unitedstates/taxing-wages-united-states.pdf" target="_blank">effective net average tax rate of 22.4% according to the OECD</a>. According to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahhansen/2021/06/08/richest-americans-including-bezos-musk-and-buffett-paid-federal-income-taxes-equaling-just-34-of-401-billion-in-new-wealth-bombshell-report-shows/?sh=5d018c277fe1" target="_blank">Forbes</a>, meanwhile, Bezos pays a net effective rate of 0.98%. So Bezos has not paid his fair share to a country that has given him everything. To paraphrase Barack Obama, "Jeff didn't build this:" his company employs workers educated on our dime in our public schools; his trucks deliver goods that drive on roads built and maintained by the American taxpayer; he is protected by law enforcement funded by those drivers' taxes; his business enjoys a stable regulatory structure and transparent business environment thanks to the laws and protections of a system to which he contributes such a small share of his wealth.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">This is normally where people on the Left start chanting slogans like “Tax the Rich!” and as a liberal, I agree with the sentiment. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">But the underlying problem here is not merely one of tax <i><b>rates</b></i>. The problem is the entire <b><i>structure </i></b>of our tax system and <b><i>what </i></b>we choose to tax: in short, we're taxing all the wrong things, because we’re stuck in a 19th-century mindset while struggling to compete in a globalized, 21st-century economy in which wealth can be shifted and hidden and protected from taxes all over the world.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I don't want to turn this into a history lesson on taxation, but the bottom line is this: we have inherited a federal tax system that primarily focuses on two things, labor and capital. Classic 19th-century thinking: labor v. the means of production. And this isn't just theoretical: because of this mindset, we make artificial distinctions between different types of income (income from labor v income from investments, etc.), and these distinctions lead to bad policy. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">And the challenges of our century are not those our ancestors faced two centuries ago: climate change, increasing inequality*, accelerating automation and artificial intelligence, the 'gig economy,' and a highly globalized marketplace with relatively few restrictions on the movement of capital, mean that we need to rethink how we tax and redistribute wealth.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Uh oh! There's the R word our conservative friends hate so much: redistribution. But it is far from being anti-capitalist; in fact, redistribution is essential to functional capitalism. When too much wealth gets too concentrated into too few hands, bubbles burst and catastrophe ensues for <b>all</b>. The last two peaks of such hoarded wealth coincided with disastrous economic collapses. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Think of wealth as the lubricant that keeps the machinery of the economy moving: if it pools in one place and fails to reach others, sooner or later the whole machine grinds to a halt.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So how do we keep the gears moving in this new world? By focusing not on labor and capital but on negative externalities, and by choosing taxation that cannot be evaded by shifting and hiding resources all over the the globe.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">For those who slept through their econ 101 class in college, a reminder: externalities are essentially the unintended byproducts of production, be they good or bad, that do not directly benefit or hurt the producer of the good or service associated with its production. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Negative externalities are very common in the modern economy: the car manufacturer isn't in the business of producing or selling pollution, but that is a negative externality associated with their product, and it is one all of society must pay for. Yet in the production of that smog machine, we tax the labor of the worker who built it and the profit of the manufacturer. (Well, we <i><b>try</b> </i>to tax the profit of the manufacturer, but we often fail. See above: capital is easily moved and concealed these days.)</p><p style="text-align: justify;">What if we took an entirely different approach? What if we told the worker that her hours of labor are all tax-free and the manufacturer that they are free to keep every penny of profit, assuming all parties cover the cost of the negative impact their work and product have on the rest of us? And what if we did so in a way that the <b>manufacturer could not avoid taxation</b>, because the taxes were collected in the process of creating the end product?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And instead of taxing the return on capital for the shareholders, what if we instead imposed a simple yearly wealth tax on the net worth in excess of $4,400,000 per member per household (a threshold automatically increased by the lagging yearly CPI, to avoid having to revisit the cut-off periodically as inflation devalues that amount)?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Two simple forms of taxes for everyone: 1) pay a portion of your accumulated wealth to help fund the society that made your wealth possible and 2) pay the cost to cover your harm to society.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The first is straightforward enough, but current proposals do not go far enough to prevent the pooling and stagnation of wealth. If we exempted the first $4,400,000 per household member of net worth for all households, an annual wealth tax of 14.84% would raise about $4 trillion dollars per annum from the top 1% of households. More importantly, it would prevent so much wealth from sitting idly on the sidelines and pump it back through the economy. It would not raise a dime from anyone under the top 1% of households, and more than enough wealth would be exempted per household to prevent it from even knocking a household out of the top 1%. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The second comes down to just two areas of negative externalities associated with consumption: we stop taxing all labor (work is supposed to be GOOD, right, so why punish it?) and focus on consumption's principal negative externalities:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">1) Pollution and water waste. $3 trillion a year could be raised from simply making all of us pay for the pollution we create and the water we use. Two trillion dollars is the estimated current cost of climate change to our economy, and we are also depleting our supply of freshwater sources at an unsustainable rate. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">So let's just agree that if you pollute and use water (both of which we all do), you pay. And keep it simple and impossible to evade: 1) $4.83 a gallon tax on all diesel, ethanol, kerosene, and gasoline production; 2) a $0.468 federal tax on every kilowatt hour of electricity produced by non-renewable means (set to automatically increase to account for declining use of non-renewables); and 3) a federal tax of $.00825 on every gallon of water used (by both residents and industry).</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Now, if you know anything about power and water consumption in the US, you might be losing your mind right now. And if you don't, let me help set your hair on fire: an average household would spend over a thousand dollars a month on energy, fuel, and water, not including the indirect cost of higher prices of goods and services tied to higher fuel prices, about a threefold increase. But households can control their energy and water use and thus their tax rate, and keep in mind that in this world, there is <b>no income tax at all, because we aren't taxing labor anymore</b>. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Still, poorer households would struggle, so I would propose a straightforward energy/fuel/water subsidy averaging** $462 per member per household per month to the lowest quintile of earners, $303 for the second-lowest, $145 for the middle quintile, and $70 for the top two quintiles (all amounts adjusted by the CPI every year automatically). This means a net (after subsidy) of about $1.28 trillion would be collected. And since recipients could spend this money on anything, they could keep more of it by conserving energy, so there is a strong incentive for everyone to think about energy consumption.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">2) Preventable healthcare costs. Most of the money we spend on healthcare is a reaction to illnesses caused by the use of substances that destroy our health. If you cut through all the noise and outliers, these substances are primarily saturated fat, sugar, tobacco, and alcohol. I am not suggesting we outlaw any of these. I believe in freedom of choice. But I am suggesting that we should all pay our fair share if we contribute to higher healthcare costs by using them. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Isn't taking responsibility for our actions supposed to be a trait all Americans embrace? Every cigarette consumed in the US generates an annual cost of about $1.20 in healthcare costs. Should non-smokers pay for all that? Every dollar spent on alcohol generates about $0.704 in healthcare and other costs associated with drinking. Should non-drinkers pay for all that? Obesity and diabetes cost us trillions. Should healthy eaters pay for all that? A federal tax of $12.00 per pack of cigarettes produced, a $38.38 federal tax per equivalent of one liter of pure alcohol production, and a $8.28 federal tax on every kilogram of ingredients classified as 'added sugars' or 'saturated fat' by the FDA would shift more of the burden to those who choose to use these products. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">It's not about controlling people's choices, but about making sure we all accept responsibility for our choices and compensate society for the damage our choices inflict. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">In short, it's all about personal responsibility.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">After using the same formula above to create a food subsidy to offset higher grocery costs ($462 per member per household per month for the lowest quintile of households by earnings, $303 for the second, $145 for the middle, and $70 for the top two quintiles), these taxes would net approximately $560 billion a year for the federal government. And households would determine their own tax rates through their eating and other consumption habits. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Annual wealth tax, energy/water tax, and consumption tax. With just three sources of federal tax collection (not including usage, application, leasing and other fees the government charges us for particular services), we have eliminated all income tax and completely ended the game of cat and mouse we constantly play to get corporations to pay their fair share.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And just think about how much more transparent and simple this system is: no deductions, no tax havens, no tax credits, no shady accounting. The vast majority of corporations would not even have to <i>file taxes</i>! Why? Because in order to capture the tax revenue in a way that neither corporations nor consumers can avoid taxes, we would choose only a few strategic points in the supply chain to collect it. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">For all the pollution taxes, we would charge those only to the energy companies who produce the fuels and electricity supply. For any fuels/energy imported, we would collect the tax from the US importers or distributors. They in turn just pass along the costs through the rest of the supply chain. The Treasury has no need to track it from that point because the tax has been paid and we don't want to double tax. And water taxes are simple, since the tax would be applied to all metered water usage in the US, making the tax easy to calculate and collect.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">For the food, alcohol, and tobacco taxes, the taxes would be collected from the distributors. Why not the manufacturers? Simple: all these products can and often are manufactured overseas, and one of the major goals of this system is to stop having to chase money all over the globe. But regardless of where, say, a bottle of wine is produced, it needs a distributor in the US to get it to our consumers. So we collect the tax there. Manufacturers would only be charged in cases where they themselves handle distribution for their products. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Suddenly, offshoring corporations and setting up foreign tax shelters and all the other dodges lose all value overnight. Why? <b>Because we aren't taxing profits anymore.</b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">And did you notice something else that happened in those numbers above? We completely eliminated all welfare and food assistance programs in our federal budget in favor of direct transfers and a modified system of universal basic income. No more food stamps, no more unemployment benefits (since your monthly payment isn't tied to your employment anyway), no other transfers of any kind. Which makes the whole system easier and more transparent. And since it involves payments to all households, no one can say they're being left out.*** The only other government-run income program would be Social Security, which would remain in place as-is (and become sustainable by removing the contribution cap). </p><p style="text-align: justify;">What else got simplified? Regulation. For example, wasting energy is no longer economically practical at these levels, so who needs greenhouse gas regulations? All manufacturers will be tripping over themselves in a desperate dash to become as energy-efficient as humanly possible in order to remain competitive. We wouldn't need tax credits for solar panels or rules about emissions for cars: a marketplace operating in this tax environment would immediately create all the incentives we need to solve these problems.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We have also created enough federal revenue for offering Medicare to all uninsured Americans and universal TK/K education and two years of free community college or trade school for all Americans. By adding in that elimination of the Social Security contribution cut-off, we also guarantee our retirement system's solvency for decades to come. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Of course, all these NETs (Negative Externality Taxes) would immediately start changing patterns of consumption**** throughout the economy, so the rates would have to be revisited frequently until the system stabilized. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Better yet, we could implement a system of DTRs (Dynamic Tax Rates) that automatically reset tax rates every year based on new trailing year data. For example, we could set a target of four trillion 2021 dollars, automatically adjusted by the CPI every year, as our goal to collect from top 1% of households by net worth, automatically adjusting exemptions and thresholds to meet that goal. And pollution, water, and consumption taxes should be automatically recalculated each year based on the updated cost estimates of the associated negative externalities, total usage, revenue goals, etc., as long as transparent formulas are used to arrive at the numbers.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Imagine a world in which, 30 years from now, we have to explain to college students what 'tax shelters' and 'tax loopholes' and 'tax deductions' were, because they are no longer used to avoid responsibility.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Imagine a world where corporations are powerless to hide their wealth from the society that makes them rich, and they actually thank us for that, because we've simplified their tax structure to such a degree that most do not even file returns, and they save billions of dollars in accounting and administrative costs.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">This is the tax structure for the 21st century. It's time to create an economy that works for every American and that prepares us for the challenges of a new reality. So let's stop punishing people for working and stop playing an endless game of global cat-and-mouse with billionaires and create a simple, effective tax system that moves us forward into a brighter and more sustainable future.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">---</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Footnotes:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">*Obviously the 19th and 20th centuries were also marked by extreme inequality, but the trend was towards greater wealth being accumulated by the working classes, even in the face of extraordinary personal fortunes starting in the Gilded Age. That trend ended two generations ago and the working classes have stagnated ever since.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">**I say "averaging" in these cases for each quintile, because you want a smooth progression at a much more granular level than quintiles to avoid steep cut-offs that can create disincentives to work. We don't want scenarios where, for example, someone turns down a job because it would mean a steep and sudden reduction in her monthly subsidy. And to ensure no one lives in abject poverty, the lowest 1% of income earners would get a total combined monthly subsidy of $1073.33 per month (in 2021 dollars).</p><p style="text-align: justify;">***This is a lesson I learned when studying Scandinavian politics as an undergrad: by giving at least some level of almost all benefits to all classes, regardless of their need, you co-opt class resentment and division. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">****Not to mention wealth management. We would need to clearly define what constitutes taxable net worth. As one of the few countries on Earth to tax its citizens based on their citizenship versus place of residency, inevitably more citizens will choose to renounce their citizenship if they are sufficiently adamant about evading taxation. We cannot stop that and shouldn't try. Let them leave....and deny them entry visas/green cards.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183272025553890986.post-40966549614487317412020-10-04T15:06:00.004-04:002020-10-04T15:06:42.387-04:00An Open Letter to the Biden North Carolina Campaign<p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">Dear Joe Biden Campaign in North Carolina,</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">I’m a CEO and a business owner and a Democrat. I </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">live in a swing district (southeast Charlotte) in a swing state (North Carolina) in an historic and unpredictable election. Here’s my experience with your local campaign:</span></p><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">My area is blanketed in Trump/Tillis (senate)/Bishop (representative) signs along roadways, conveying a visual impression that my area is in the bag for Trump. (And as you know, now more than ever, perception drives and even creates reality.) </div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">My Biden-supporting neighbors are disheartened and demoralized. They’re complaining they can’t even get stuff like bumper stickers. It took me TWO MONTHS to get mine when I donated. So I finally bought a ton off Amazon and have been driving all over south Charlotte delivering them to people upon request in response to my NextDoor posting.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">To address the signs issue, I contacted the local campaign office and volunteered to put up Biden signs all over town along heavy traffic routes. Their response? “Sir, if you’d like to buy yard signs, they’re $25 each. Thanks for calling.” <click></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">So I tried to find the area or even state campaign website. Apparently you haven’t heard of SEO and/or don’t have such sites because the closest result I found was a 2018 landing page for a speaking engagement Biden was doing in Raleigh. Ugh.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">I finally found a FB group and had to request to join. (Request pending as of this writing.)</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">I can find no Twitter account for Biden NC. (I have 35,000 Twitter followers, so I had hoped to use my account as a megaphone for them, but you can’t amplify a non-existent voice, right?)</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">As an expert in both project management and digital marketing, I’m absolutely appalled at this experience and what it says about your campaign’s ability to execute a ground operation and to compete on digital platforms, and am starting to feel the local campaign is doing everything it can to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. </div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">I’m not doing anything else - financially or operationally - to assist a local campaign operation that makes it this hard to help it and that seems determined to fail in this must-win election.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">Reach out if you want help. I’ll be happy to pitch in.</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">Respectfully,</div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">Christopher Hughey</div><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature" dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><p></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183272025553890986.post-77157271688615732602020-05-05T14:52:00.004-04:002021-04-21T17:13:15.933-04:00No, White Men are Not Bigger Victims of Police Shootings....<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The other day on Twitter, someone
said that Black Lives Matter is a baseless movement because, and I quote, “White
males are killed at over 2x the rate of Asian males.” The logic (if such a word
can be used here) seemed to be that unless Black men are killed at the highest
rate of any demographic group you can name, there is no reason to be concerned
about police brutality and racism. It was such an appallingly stupid response
that I didn’t even know where to begin to point out all its flaws, especially
in a short-form medium like Twitter. So I invited the fellow to stop and give some
more considered thought to the matter and see if he could possibly come up with
a few things wrong on his own before I did it for him. I gave him a day. Since
that has now passed and he still cannot seem to grasp the huge holes in his
reasoning, it would appear that I am obligated to fulfill my commitment to do
it for him.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Writing about racism is not new
to me. Indeed, it was the subject of <a href="http://tennesseine.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-liberal-case-against-reparations.html" target="_blank">my most recent entry on this very blog</a>. So I was already pretty familiar with
the relevant statistics. But let’s look at the ones referenced directly by this tweet: if you look at all Asian, Black, and White men killed by the police for
the last six whole calendar years (2013-2019), we see that 2% were Asian men,
36% per Black men, 61% were White men (doesn’t add to 100% due to rounding). So
yes, based on share of population, White males were killed at roughly twice the
rate of Asian men per capita (while Black men were killed at the rate of almost
three times their share of the population). So, case closed, right? We should
be starting a White Lives Matter movement to protest how much more often White
men are killed compared to Asian men! <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Not so fast. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This reminds me of those
frustrating times when you try to discuss history with people who get all their
knowledge of the past from Breitbart-inspired memes and factoids, such as that
old chestnut about how Nazis were really liberals because Nazi is short for “National
SOCIALISM!” (Take THAT libtards!) I could write an entire book about the
stupidity and ignorance behind such statements, and it’s exactly the same sort
of “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” factor at work here. The point is that facts
without context are meaningless. And just as pointing out that the Nazis used
the word socialism in their name is useless because it had nothing to do with
their espousal of any liberal beliefs (quite the opposite), so, too, is it a red herring to point out that White men are killed more often than Asian men.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
So let’s deep-dive this.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
First things first: the
statistics cited by the tweeter are for all police shootings. But the Black
Lives Matter movement’s primary concern is not simply police shootings, but
police shootings of <i>defenseless</i> Black people. So the relevant statistic
is this: of those shootings, in how many cases were the victims definitely unarmed?
In that same time period, 711 undisputedly unarmed Asian, Black, and White men
were killed by police. In those cases, the statistics become even more skewed:
Black men were shot dead while unarmed at a rate almost 3.5 times their share
of the population, while both Asian and White men are grossly underrepresented
in this category (by 3.3x and 1.3x, respectively). (And that is just taking
into account cases where there is no disputing the armed v unarmed status of
the victims.) That means Black men are killed by the police while unarmed at a
rate almost 12 times higher than Asian men and almost 5 times the rate for
White men.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
But what of the claim that we
shouldn’t be worried about Black men because White men are targeted more than
Asians? I am tempted to dismiss such nonsense out of hand, since the underlying
victim complex is laughable. An argument that amounts to “Well, sure that group
is targeted far more than any other group, but my group is slightly worse than
a third, very small group, so shut up!” is not really worth a lot of mental effort. But let’s
keep diving just for the sake of completeness. Let’s ask the question: why
are Asian men shot so much less often than Whites? The answer is actually
pretty simple: they are shot less often than Whites because police target them
less often that Whites. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The meaningful question,
therefore, is, “Are Asian men shot while unarmed at a significantly different
rate after controlling for how often they are actually targeted to begin with?”
Let’s look at the data. In 2014, the last year the DOJ has posted to their
website, Asian/Pacific Islanders targeted for arrest were just under 1.6% of all
cases involving Asians, Blacks, and Whites, and unarmed Asian men killed by the police made up just over 1.6% of all such cases involving Asian, Black, and
White men. So in fact, there is very little difference there. In fact, if
anything, Asian men are slightly <b>over</b>-represented, not under, compared with Whites.
Meanwhile, of those three groups, Whites made up about 70% of all arrests
(slightly lower than population share) but only 54% of all police
shootings of unarmed victims, making them considerably under-represented among victims.
Blacks were about 28% of the arrests, but 44% of all unarmed police shooting victims,
making them grossly over-represented, by a factor of over 1.5.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
So let’s cancel the pity party
for White men. They are not, in fact, targeted disproportionately compared to
Asian men. As we saw in the recent armed protests against quarantine and social
distancing rules, simply being White in American works as an amazing shield against
being targeted by the police. Had a large group of angry, armed-to-the-teeth
Black men stormed a government building, the headline would have been “Large
Group of Black Men Shot Dead by Riot Police.” To deny that simple fact of
American life is to indulge in the most egregious White privilege of all: the comforting
privilege of self-delusion and false victimhood.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183272025553890986.post-17014521534860374152020-01-30T10:56:00.003-05:002021-11-09T17:04:57.430-05:00The Liberal Case Against Reparations and For an Equality New Deal<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">I was talking to a fellow liberal the other day about politics and social policy and she brought up reparations. Interestingly, she brought it up in such a way that she just assumed I supported the idea. To her, it was a central part of liberal dogma, so it didn't occur to her that I would disagree. But, as with the other areas where <a href="http://tennesseine.blogspot.com/2012/01/unexpected-things-from-left.html" target="_blank">I depart from traditional liberal views</a>, this is actually an area where I disagree with liberal dogma precisely <i>because </i>of my liberal values, not despite them.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Before I lay out that argument, though, let's revisit the definition. According to Wikipedia, the generally accepted definition of reparations is "a <span style="color: #222222;">political justice concept that argues that [monetary] reparations should be paid to the descendants of slaves from Sub-Saharan Africa who were trafficked to and </span>enslaved<span style="color: #222222;"> in the </span>Americas<span style="color: #222222;"> as a consequence of the </span>Atlantic slave trade."</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There are immediate concerns here that pop straight out of the definition itself. For example, who exactly are the descendants of slaves? There are people alive in the United States today living and identifying as whites who are in fact descended from such slaves. They have never suffered personally from racism, nor do they face institutional or systemic barriers to success based on their ancestors' experience. Are we going to pay them? And if not, are we admitting that this is thus not at all about past slavery but about current racism?</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If we are saying it is in fact more about racism than slavery, then do we simply pay reparations to all black people? Would Barack Obama, whose father was from Kenya and whose ancestors therefore never knew slavery in the Americas, be entitled to such a payment? The part of his family that reaches back to the 19th century in America is white. They were more likely to be slave<i>holders</i> than slaves.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So already things are getting very muddied, and we haven't even broached the subject of what exactly reparations would accomplish. What exactly are we hoping to achieve here? Let's say we somehow magically solve the problem of identifying the whom: no one seems to be giving much thought to the consequences of making such payments. As a white male born and raised in the South, I can tell you that the plan would backfire horribly, because I know racists and I know how they think. But more importantly, the payments simply would not solve anything. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Let's walk through the scenario.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It's January 1st, 2025. After five years of exhaustive vetting and screening, the government has finalized its list of recipients for reparations. Today, the first payments hit their accounts. Let's say we settled on $10,000 a year for 10 years. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">You're a young, African-American male named Marcus Washington (more on that soon) who has just graduated college the prior spring. It's no small miracle you accomplished that feat, given that in America, many more African-Americans per capita live in poorer areas than whites do, and we fund our schools almost entirely through the local tax base, leaving you set up to fail from the day you walked into kindergarten. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/02/concentration-poverty-american-schools/471414/" target="_blank">You were also at a disadvantage in college because of the resource challenges you faced in high school.</a></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Reparations will do absolutely nothing to change these facts or address this injustice.</span></span><br />
<div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">But despite those challenges, you did it! So now you've been sending out job applications since May, but, so far, you haven't had much luck, which means this reparations money comes in handy. You're not unemployed; however, as a college graduate with a degree in engineering working 30 hours a week at 7-11, you are definitely <i>under</i>employed. You've done everything right. You've even paid for a professional resume review. Yet the interviews just don't seem to materialize. A significant contributing factor is something you can't control: that name, Marcus Washington. As someone with a name the general population associates with African Americans, <a href="https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes-get-more-interviews" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">you're less likely to even get called in to interview</a>. And even if you had a "whiter"-sounding name, the fact is that <a href="https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economic-letter/2017/september/disappointing-facts-about-black-white-wage-gap/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">unemployment rates for you as an African-American are higher than they are for almost everyone else</a>.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>Reparations will do absolutely nothing to change these facts or address this injustice.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But finally, after plugging away at it for another couple of months, you get it: a coveted job in your field. Congratulations! But if you're like the average black man in America, <a href="https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economic-letter/2017/september/disappointing-facts-about-black-white-wage-gap/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">you're earning only about 70% as much as your white peers</a>. What's worse is that this gap has in fact <i><b>widened</b></i> in the past generation: your father earned on average 80% of what his white colleagues earned. We're actually going <i>backwards </i>on the racial wage gap. And no, you cannot dismiss this gap based on differences in levels of education: <a href="https://www.epi.org/blog/stark-black-white-divide-in-wages-is-widening-further/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">blacks earn less than whites <i>even when adjusting for education</i></a>. In other words, a black man with a PhD is on average doing worse than a white man with the same degree, so we are indeed comparing apples to apples here.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>Reparations will do absolutely nothing to change these facts or address this injustice.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Still, despite earning less than your white colleagues, you're doing OK. Engineers do pretty well financially, after all, even at a 30% pay cut. So it's time to get a place of your own! No more living with Mom and Dad. So let's go apartment-hunting. Despite the fact that your community has no shortage of nice apartments, you seem to be hearing that places have no availability when you email the leasing offices. Well, maybe they do, maybe they don't, but studies show that if they <a href="https://review.chicagobooth.edu/behavioral-science/2016/article/problem-has-name-discrimination" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">see a "black-sounding" name or hear a voice on the phone they believe is that of an African-American, they are more likely to refuse to rent to you</a>.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>Reparations will do absolutely nothing to change these facts or address this injustice.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Eventually, of course, you do find an apartment. So now you have your job and your apartment. Time to relax! Let's go to the movies. As you exit your vehicle, you walk past a white family getting into their car. Is it your imagination, or do they seem to quicken their pace and lock the door as you approach? Maybe, maybe not. Hard to judge an individual situation like that. But what you <i>do </i>know is that many whites associate young black men with violence and danger. And racists like to trot out statistics that show that black men do indeed get <i>convicted </i>for more crimes than white people do. But there are two problems here: one is "get convicted for" as opposed to "commit:" blacks are more likely to be convicted or forced to plea out when charged with crimes compared to whites. The other issue is why we are looking at race as the determining factor here to begin with: it's not that <i>blacks </i>commit more crime than whites, it's that <i>poorer and less educated populations </i>commit more crimes than do wealthier and more educated ones. And for reasons that should be painfully obvious even if this is the very first time you have read about racism in America, blacks face far more hurdles to getting an education and becoming economically upward-mobile compared to whites. But of course, people don't wear t-shirts saying, "Lock Your Doors, Folks, I Grew Up Poor and Was Deprived of a Good Education by a Racist System." So people look for other visual cues to identify perceived dangers, and skin color is a very easy one to flag in a person's brain.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>Reparations will do absolutely nothing to change these facts or address this injustice.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br />
But you brush aside your irritation at this white family's caution. It's winter. Maybe they were just in a hurry to get out of the cold? So you go into the cinema and watch your movie. And as you watch, you notice something. The more violent characters and the ones depicted as being more brutish and of lower socioeconomic standing all have names Americans associate with people of color. You're trying not to see racism everywhere, but it's disturbingly obvious. The more sympathetic characters have names that sound "whiter." Why is that, you wonder? Probably because the American scriptwriter is as subject to the same hidden prejudices and racist assumptions that so many white Americans suffer from. <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/black-sounding-names-study_n_561697a5e4b0dbb8000d687f" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">This isn't paranoia: it's a proven fact</a>: white America in general - and yes, that includes even those who swear they don't have a racist bone in their bodies and actually believe that about themselves - tends to automatically conjure up images of aggression and failure simply at the <i>mention </i>of names that they associate with people of color, as Dr. Colin Holbrook found to his dismay in the cited study.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br />
Reparations will do absolutely nothing to change these facts or address this injustice.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br />
You exit the theater feeling a bit shaken. You head back to your car: your pride and enjoy: a brand-new BMW 3-series you treated yourself to as a reward for graduating and landing that great job. (Little do you know, by the way, that <a href="https://blackvoicenews.com/2017/11/11/blacks-often-pay-higher-fees-for-car-purchases-than-whites/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">you paid more for that car than your white peers would have </a>and <a href="https://www.thebalance.com/why-do-minorities-pay-more-for-car-insurance-4163553" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">your car insurance rates are also higher</a>.) As you approach your vehicle, you stand in front of your shiny new Beamer and look for your keys. That's when a bright light flashes in your face and a tense-sounding voice tells you to back away from the vehicle. As a young African-American male in America, you know the drill by now. You're in an affluent neighborhood, approaching a nice car, and you're guilty of that most unforgivable of crimes, EWB: Existing While Black. You know that your life is in grave danger right now. Move your hands too quickly and you could be shot dead by an officer who most likely would <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/police-officers-convicted-fatal-shootings-are-exception-not-rule-n982741" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">not even be indicted, never mind convicted, for your execution</a>. You acknowledge the officer verbally and very, very slowly raise your hands. He checks your identity and you prove ownership of the car. No violence this time. But what about the humiliation? The idea that you are not really even a full citizen in your own country? That every single day you have to prove both who you are and who you are not in ways that no white person will <i>ever </i>be asked to do in this nation? That you cannot even feel safe around the very people whose sole job is to keep our citizenry safe?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br />
Reparations will do absolutely nothing to change these facts or address this injustice. They will do nothing to facilitate change of any kind, save one: reparations will be the new "America can't be racist, because look, we voted for a black president" meme to white America, except that the effect will be permanent and more damaging this time. And this is where I come back to my perspective as a white man raised in the South around overt racists. I know how their brains work. The day that first reparations check is mailed, racist white America will declare all racism permanently atoned for and eradicated. Think of it much the way you might think of a lawsuit settlement for a wrongful injury that debilitates a man physically and mentally for life. You write the check and you walk away. You go and live your life, feeling you've paid your debt. But what has the money changed if the victim is no longer able to function or enjoy a decent quality of life? Your guilt may be assuaged, but can the victim now magically care for himself? Walk? Think clearly? Clean up after himself? Money changes none of that. It just makes <i>you </i>feel less guilty.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br />
And that in a nutshell is why I oppose reparations: <u><i><b>it's just too damn easy</b></i></u>. It's a way for white America to just cut a check and walk away from its responsibilities to change all the horrible injustices and barriers to success and well-being cited above (and <i>so </i>many more that I would literally need a book to document them all).</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br />
I can't end an objection to reparations that centers on racism without offering some alternative. It is not enough to just say "no" to reparations. We must say YES to something else. And for me, that something else is to use that same amount of money to fund an Equality New Deal, not just for African-Americans, but for all minorities and women, all the groups that to this day continue to see their success blocked by centuries-old barriers. Among the features of this Equality New Deal must be:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br />
1) The ending of reliance on local tax bases to fund schools. Few things reduce upward economic mobility as severely as our unequal schools. If you are poor, you likely live in a place with a smaller tax base. If you have a smaller tax base, your schools get less money and fewer resources. As a result, you get a lower-quality education, and the cycle is perpetuated on down the generations. I am not suggesting anything so radical as the federalization of the American school system. Such an approach would never get off the ground and if it did, it would likely get shot down in the courts. What I am suggesting instead is that we target the poorest 33% of American school systems (as measured not by current expenditure, since that is a choice, but by per capita property tax collection in their districts, adjusted for local cost of living) and simply give them annual grants that equate to the funds needed to provide them the same resources as enjoyed by the average American school system. No strings attached: allow them to retain full, local control. The only caveat would be that progress must be demonstrated each year, and that systems that fail to improve would have to submit to temporary oversight boards in order to keep receiving the funds.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br />
Furthermore, for the next generation, as we wait for the effects of the above measures to permeate throughout the affected populations over the coming 20-30 years, we must offer federally-funded "catch-up" programs for qualifying students. These programs would be one to two semesters of pre-college preparatory training to help students who wish to attend college, but who, because of the poor quality of the education they received, are not fully ready, despite having high school diplomas. To qualify, a student would take a standardized exam in reading, writing, mathematics, civics/history, and basic science. Based on the scores in those four areas, they would then be offered remedial courses to correct any deficiencies and ensure that they are truly ready to attend college. This will help close the performance gap we so often see in our colleges and universities when comparing the outcomes for students from poorer v wealthier school districts. It is hoped that after 30 years, this program could be scaled back or even ended if we achieve more uniform quality of education.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br />
2) For all companies over 100 employees, make job applications race-, ethnicity-, and gender-blind. Initial applications would be submitted on line (as most are these days anyway) and assigned a number specific to to the candidate. Only after a candidate has moved to the interview round would names be required. Salary histories must be banned entirely, since they perpetuate unequal pay (given than employers often make offers based on past salaries versus what is necessarily appropriate for the job, and that perpetuates the cycle of certain groups under-performing in pay). Salaries should be based strictly on job title, education/relevant credentials, and numbers of years of related work experience.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br />
3) Ban the box. African Americans (and other minorities) are disproportionately convicted of crimes and are forced into plea bargains at greater rates than are whites. When these involve felonies, that person is then tagged for life, and finding a job becomes exponentially more difficult. Every time an applicant has to tick that "Have you ever been convicted of a felony?" box, the likelihood of being considered for a job plummets. We must embrace the idea that once you have paid your debt to society, it is <i>fully paid </i>and you should not be punished for life. There are of course cases where we must make exceptions: certain sex crimes, for example, must always be considered if an applicant is applying for a job in which s/he is responsible for children or involved with other vulnerable populations, and certain types of jobs must be exempted from the rule in order to ask about crimes related to fraud and financial malfeasance. But in cases of exceptions, the scope to ask about convictions must be narrow and focused on what is strictly relevant to <i>that particular job</i>.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br />
4) We must take the profits out of prisons and refocus efforts on reducing recidivism by turning our prisons into drivers of opportunity, not despair. We currently have a system in which there is a strong financial incentive to incarcerate people, and African-Americans and other minorities are disproportionately impacted by this injustice. Furthermore, once incarcerated, such institutions not only lack any incentive to engage in rehabilitation, but are in fact strongly incentivized to do the opposite: after all, for them, recidivism is just a fancy word for "repeat business and higher profits," which is unconscionable and is one of the greatest moral outrages of our day. We must therefore completely end private prisons and refocus our system on turning out ex-convicts who are ready to start a new life, not go out and commit more crimes because they often lack the skills and education to do anything else. All prisons must offer job training, GED programs, and online college courses. This is not to "reward criminals," as critics often suggest, but to keep society safe, <i>to keep all of us secure</i>. A person who walks out of a 10-year prison sentence with a degree and a job skill is far less likely to end up committing more crime, after all. So who do you want getting paroled? A hardened criminal who's been brutalized for the past decade, who has no hope and no future, whose only means of survival is more crime? Or an educated, employable person with prospects and a path to success? Which one of those people is more likely to murder your child in an attempted robbery tonight?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br />
5) Law enforcement must be reformed to stop targeting people of color and must be held responsible when it does. This requires three steps at the federal level: 1) Requirement that all police officers in the United States wear body cameras when on duty to keep them accountable. Failure to comply must result in dismissal upon the third violation, and immediate dismissal if it is deemed that the failure was both intentional and related to a violent encounter. 2) All police offers must take and pass a federally-run course on racial injustice awareness. The point of such a course is not to make everyone politically correct. The point is to train officers in the <i>facts </i>surrounding human bias and how it impacts their jobs as law-enforcement officers, and what they can do to mitigate it. Because the ugly truth is that we all have prejudice inside us. Only by becoming consciously aware of it and learning how to manage it can we overcome its negative impacts on others. 3) All instances of police shootings of civilians must be investigated as potential federal crimes. Leaving this to local systems of justice that are often at the very root of the problem is no longer acceptable. 4) All major police departments must pursue aggressive diversity hiring policies to ensure that they look like their communities. If a department serves a city that is 40% black, 40% Hispanic, 20% white, and 51% women, then that, as closely as possible, is what their police force should look like. 5) We must institute training programs that begin to change the culture of deadly force that is so pervasive in many law enforcement communities. While such violence affects everyone, it affects minorities disproportionately. Our 'shoot first, ask questions later' attitude must change. And it can. Police forces around the world have shown us this. <a href="https://www.mkgandhi.org/nonviolence/policing.htm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">We have even seen successful experiments here in the US.</a> It can be done, with the appropriate amount of dedication, training, federal funding, oversight, and regulation.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br />
6) We must increase both enforcement of and penalties associated with all anti-discrimination laws and regulations (which in turn must be strengthened) in the areas of housing, employment, education, and consumer affairs (including lending and insurance), and work to make sure that in every case where discrimination is proven, high-profile consequences are seen to follow. This isn't just about punishing wrongdoers, but showing society at large that we do not accept such behavior. We must not only punish it with fines, but stigmatize it and drag it into the light to demonstrate our collective commitment to change. We must also go further in our efforts to regulate economic activity that either negatively targets minorities or preys on the poor (a population where minorities are over-represented). Examples are predatory payday loans and high-interest/high-cost rent-to-own programs that increase the cost of so many goods in poorer communities. We must also address inequality in our credit, credit rating, and insurance sectors, as these, too, unfairly target many minority groups, resulting in higher costs for many financial products.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br />
These six steps would represent a generation-long Equality New Deal. It likely represents no less economic cost than a reparations program, but will pay far greater dividends. Of course, no amount of legislation, regulation, or policy-making will ever eliminate the scourge of prejudice. Sadly, I believe it will always be with us in some form or another, always finding new ways to express its ugliness even as society moves past others. But such a New Deal can mitigate and, hopefully, eventually end the <i>effects</i> such prejudice has on a population that has been oppressed since the dawn of Western occupation of this continent. Along the way, the economic strength it will unleash will help our entire society and become a driver of growth and opportunity for <i>all</i> Americans.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183272025553890986.post-33259756047309817502019-12-19T10:31:00.000-05:002020-01-30T11:15:32.998-05:00On Being TallI often write about pretty serious stuff on this much-neglected blog, but today I am going to tackle a decidedly unimportant topic: being tall.<br />
<br />
I was chatting with a somewhat vertically-challenged friend of mine some time ago when she commented, suddenly and seemingly apropos of nothing, "It must be nice being tall." It took me a moment to understand what had prompted her comment. We were walking through a grocery store and I was getting something off a shelf, a shelf I realized she would not have been able to reach herself. I was doing something she would have needed to ask help with...probably from a passing Friendly Neighborhood Tall Person like me.<br />
<br />
It got me to thinking about being tall. It's not something I usually think about, any more than I would expend much mental energy thinking about, say, having dimples, hazel eyes, or Greek toes. It's just a feature of my physical existence. But her question sent me down the rabbit hole. Is being tall very different? Is it better? Are there disadvantages?<br />
<br />
I started by asking that same friend how <i>she </i>saw the differences between navigating life at 4'11" (150 cm) versus at 6'2" (188 cm). Aside from the obvious things, such as managing shelves, I was surprised to hear her say that she envied how people just seem to make room for tall people versus short people. "When we're out in public together, you just stroll through the world without a care, and everyone is practically diving out of your way. I have to dart and dive my way through crowded places, and nobody moves for me." I am sure she was exaggerating a bit here to make her point, but it made me laugh out loud, this image of myself obliviously coddiwompling my way through the world as people desperately leap out of my path.<br />
<br />
It may surprise shorter people to hear this, but I do not usually even feel aware of my height. After all, while 6'2" is tall, it is hardly freakishly tall. I don't really <i>feel </i>tall. I feel like a pretty average human being, physically speaking. Until, that is, I experience The Moment. The Moment is what I call that occasional experience when I am out in public and I see someone from across a room who does indeed look freakishly tall to me, only to find as I approach him or her that we are in fact the same size, or s/he is even shorter than I am. It's rather unsettling, because I suddenly feel extremely self-conscious about my height. I think to myself, "Is that what <b><u>I</u></b> look like to everyone? This hulking, lumbering bipedal tower of awkwardness? A Lurch?!" Fortunately, being taller than 99% of my fellow humans means I do not have to experience The Moment all that often.<br />
<br />
One of the most challenging parts about being tall is, happily, something that goes away after childhood; but it does make that period of life difficult at times, as I am witnessing second-hand now with my own young children, both of whom are quite tall for their ages (98th percentile in height for their gender). One might think it is nothing but wonderful to be taller than all one's peers, but it comes with problems. Believe it or not, these problems are created almost entirely by the adults in their lives. The fact is that no matter how many times you remind people they're dealing with a four-year-old boy, they simply can't help judging the child by the standards their eyes are telling them they should be applying. When your four-year-old looks like a six- or seven-year-old, people treat him as such, and expect his behavior to reflect that perceived age. It's doubly problematic if you have a child who is also quite articulate and intelligent for his age. When my middle son was that age, for example, we constantly had issues with teachers and caregivers applying an impossible standard to him, because he was the size of a first-grader and had the vocabulary of a fifth-grader. But despite what their eyes and ears were telling them, they were still dealing with a normal four-year-old boy, one who was no more mature than his peers (and acted accordingly). It got to the point where we would write notes to, say, camp counselors, just to remind them. One summer, we were fortunate to get a camp counselor who was extremely sympathetic: she was over six feet (183 cm) herself, and immediately related to our concerns based on her own experiences growing up.<br />
<br />
I remember practical issues from my own childhood, too. One summer, when I was 12, my local amusement park ran a promotion where they were giving kids a discount based on their size, up to age 12. The taller you were, the bigger the discount. (As an aside, can you imagine such a promotion these days?! I am a little horrified they thought this was a good idea. But this was 1983. A different time.) My mother sent me with my birth certificate, because she knew they were never going to believe I was 12. She was right. Even with the birth certificate in hand, I sensed they thought I was getting away with something.<br />
<br />
As an adult, I continue to reap unfair benefits from being tall, benefits that far outweigh discounted roller coaster rides. Sadly, society prefers its men, and especially its leaders, to be taller, and judges them accordingly. It's an absurd notion, given what really counts in modern civilization, but of course that is just another example of how our physical and psychological evolution has yet to catch up with even the <i>idea</i> of civilization. During the 99.9% of our evolution, being taller/bigger had clear advantages, especially for leaders. Being bigger meant being more imposing, being more able to impose one's will physically, and being perceived as stronger and more prepared to face the challenges of a hunter-gatherer existence.<br />
<br />
But being taller does nothing to make me a better leader, or even person, in a post-modern service economy fueled by mechanized agriculture. If anything, it is objectively disadvantageous. I <i>require </i>more fuel but in exchange for not <i>providing</i> more. I take up more space in a world in which space is often at a premium. And in an economy in which longevity is no longer a problem for the tribe (as it allows workers to contribute for longer, as opposed to being a burden to the tribe when people outlived their ability to hunt or gather), I am at a disadvantage, too: <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2013/07/height-and-longevity-the-research-is-clear-being-tall-is-hazardous-to-your-health.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">shorter people live longer.</a><br />
<br />
Despite all this, though, I am afforded completely undeserved advantages. <a href="https://www.livescience.com/5552-taller-people-earn-money.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Taller men earn more</a>. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/08/27/tall-men-have-their-pick-of-the-dating-pool/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">We have an easier time dating</a>. <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/does-the-tallest-presidential-candidate-win-3367512" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">We are more likely to win elections</a>. People even listen to us more. I have witnessed this last phenomenon many times in my career as a businessman. People just seem to want to defer to me more than they do to shorter people, which is just patently absurd. Height gives me no greater insights or wisdom or intelligence or experience. And yet I very often myself leading meetings because apparently everyone just seems to subconsciously decide that Tall Chief Ooga Booga Man must be in charge of this particular hunting party. It often makes me wonder where I would be in life had I stopped growing at, say, 5'7" (170 cm). Had I, as millions of shorter men are forced to do, had to rely strictly on my actual talents and intelligence, would I have achieved as much? I like to think so. After all, there are millions of highly successful short people. But I will never know for sure how big a contribution an accident of genetics has made in my life.<br />
<br />
So, all in all, do I like being tall? It's a mixed bag. There are days I wish I could just move unobtrusively through the world. And as a lover of travel, I have often found my height a limiting factor. (I could write a whole blog entry on adventures I have missed out on due to my size, and it's no treat walking through the streets of, say, Beijing, towering over almost every single person by a whole head, banging my noggin into low-hanging signs.) And as someone who dates, I occasionally wonder, "Would this woman be out with me right now if I were short?"<br />
<br />
That last point makes me crazy. <a href="http://tennesseine.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-ups-and-downs-and-downs-and-downs.html" target="_blank">As someone who has used dating apps</a>, I can tell you that there are far too many women out there who put too much emphasis on a man's height. It's incredible to me how many women simply reject shorter men out of hand. Many put it right there in their profiles: "No one under 6 feet (183 cm), please!" is a very common refrain. I try not to judge them too harshly. After all, physical attraction just is what it is. You can't control your attraction to taller people, any more than another person can stop himself from being attracted to, say, brunettes. The hormones want what the hormones want, I suppose. Still, it's a bit heart-breaking to think about all the wonderful relationships that will never happen just because that charming, intelligent, witty fellow happened to be a few inches too short according to some random cut-off.<br />
<br />
Overall, being tall sometimes makes me feel a bit like a lottery-winner or heir at a gathering of self-made millionaires: I have what they have, but came to it more through luck than merit. But that doesn't make me less grateful. The occasional sore forehead aside, it's not a terrible thing to be.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183272025553890986.post-11989620501771597042019-04-26T21:19:00.004-04:002021-07-22T20:19:56.336-04:00An Unemotional, Amoral Argument Against Capital Punishment<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
This past week, the state of Texas executed white supremacist John William King for the 1998 hate-crime of murdering an African American truck driver named James Byrd, Jr. While I can't say I personally mourned Mr. King's passing, I do object to the fact that we as a society murdered him in an act of primitive revenge unworthy of a so-called civilized society. And I was disturbed to see how many so-called liberals were cheering his execution. To me, the idea of a pro-capital punishment liberal makes as much sense as a pro-KKK civil rights activist.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
But of course, as soon as one begins a debate about capital punishment, emotions immediately flare and the 'arguments' for and against rely very little on facts and logic and very much on appeals to our baser instincts. Inevitably, religion gets brought into the argument. As usual, either side of this moral argument (as with every other moral argument) can equally rely on their favorite holy book to support their position. Just as I could make equally strong arguments for or against rape, incest, slavery, murder, infanticide, and even polytheism using the Bible, for example, I could build a strong case both for and against capital punishment using that maddeningly inconsistent and morally ambiguous text. <a href="https://tennesseine.blogspot.com/2012/07/why-i-dont-believe.html" target="_blank">(Yet another reason I am not a believer.)</a></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
So let's just leave morality, emotion, and religion completely out of the debate, shall we? If none of these can give us clarity and each can be used equally easily by both sides, it seems illogical to rely on any of them to settle the argument. Let's just proceed with facts and evidence, and in the process dispel some myths and misunderstandings about capital punishment, to wit:</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
1) Its value as a deterrent to others. The argument here is based in human psychology. It's very simple: I don't want to die, so I will be less likely to commit a capital offense knowing that doing so could cost me my life. This argument shows a very poor understanding of both 1) the evidence we've accumulated about the deterrent value of capital punishment and 2) basic human psychology. To the first point, the most obvious flaw in the argument that it is a deterrent is the fact that the United States executes more people than all but five other countries (China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, Somalia) and yet has the highest violent crime rate of any highly developed industrial country (by quite a wide margin). So if capital punishment is doing such a bang-up job of scaring potential murderers, why don't we have the sixth-lowest violent crime rate after those other countries who execute so many people? (Note that none of those other five countries is exactly a peaceful paradise either.)</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
But, you may understandably object, is it fair to compare us to other countries, given our other unique qualities, especially the ubiquity of firearms in the U.S.? OK, so let's compare internally. Do the states that execute the most have lower violent crime rates than non-death penalty states? Surely all those potential murderers are too scared to do the deed in bloodthirsty Texas, for example? Well, apparently they aren't. Texas has a homicide rate that is three times higher than Maine, which does not have the death penalty. And the most violent state in America, Louisiana, ranks 13th in total number of executions since 1976.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
I believe this failure of capital punishment to act as a deterrent is strongly related to the second weakness of the deterrent argument itself: basic human psychology. First of all, even if a murderer is acting on a premeditated plan, few criminals count on being caught, so I do not believe there is much mulling over the consequences going on here. In other words, the idea of being executed only impedes one's plot to the extent that one plans on getting caught in the first place.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
But secondly and most importantly, most murders are not committed while the perpetrator is in a state of mind to consider the consequences in any rational way.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Let’s say I am an abusive husband intent on permanently silencing my wife and dispatching my children while I’m at it, I am hardly in the frame of mind to stop and carefully consider what this means for my life expectancy. That's the last thing on my mind until <i><b>after </b></i>the deed is done, at which point it is too late for the death penalty to weigh on my reasoning. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But of course, once I <i><b>have </b></i>committed these murders, suddenly the death penalty is <i><b>all I can think about</b></i>. And what exactly am I now thinking? The police are closing in. A cop has just pulled me over. I have my gun at the ready. I strongly suspect he's pulled me over because the jig is up and there is an APB out on me and my vehicle. So if self-preservation is my goal, what is the logical thing for me to do in a state with the death penalty? Simple: murder the cop, because I know it's them or me. And I should also eliminate anyone else who stands in my way. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And this is not a hypothetical at all: how many times have you read stories of murderers going on sprees after they kill their first victim(s), only to die in a hail of bullets in a shootout that often takes law-enforcement officers' and other innocent lives? But what's my smart play if I am in a non-death penalty state and the cops are closing in? Simple: try my best to get away, but, if all else fails, turn myself in peacefully, because that guarantees my survival (while violently resisting risks getting me shot).</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
The third and final issue with the appeal to the psychology of the human survival instinct is that it is by no means a given that a rational person will view life imprisonment as preferable to the death penalty. While some people might desperately seek to avoid it (and thus become even <b><i>more </i></b>violent once one crime has been committed, as above), others may find the prospect of execution as preferable to life imprisonment and thus not be deterred at all. Indeed, for people of this mentality, capital punishment may seem like an easy way out compared to the alternatives of either prison or suicide.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
So in summary, the deterrent argument is supported neither by the actual evidence we've accumulated nor by what we know about human psychology and basic human nature. </div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
2) Its cost. Perhaps I should have led with this, given that it is most frequently the first non-emotional argument I hear. It is simple in its chilling calculus: "Why should I, an American taxpayer, have to pay to keep a murdering scumbag alive, fed, clothed, and housed for life?" It's extremely easy to dispense with this argument: lawfully killing people in a country with a strong commitment to rule of law is a very expensive business, and is far, far more expensive than simply imprisoning them for life. This is so well documented and such an easy calculation that I won't bother going into further detail when <a href="https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty" target="_blank">others have already done all the research</a>.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Of course, the obvious counter to this argument is that we should simply streamline this process and kill our victims more quickly and efficiently. And all we have to do to achieve this goal of emulating countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, and China, is to completely abandon our centuries-long commitment to the rule of law and our tradition of juris prudence. In short, all we have to do shake off is our democracy and everything our country stands for. Easy peasy.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
3) Its equality of application. Another argument typically thrown out to support the death penalty is that it serves to reinforce our collective moral beliefs by teaching citizens that actions have consequences. However, objectively evaluated, it teaches no such lesson at all. Quite the contrary: even a casual observer of our penal system would quickly conclude that the true lesson to be drawn is that in our society, at best, <b><i>some </i></b>actions have <i><b>some </b></i>consequences for <i><b>some </b></i>people <i><b>some </b></i>of the time. This is not a matter of debate. Simply look at how the death penalty is applied. According to the ACLU, people of color, for example, make up 43% of those executed since 1976, far out of proportion either to their population or to their crimes. And your skin color as an accused criminal isn't the only area in which the system is unfair: your skin color as a <b><i>victim </i></b>matters, too. People accused of killing white people are far more likely to be executed than people accused of killing people of other races. So if capital punishment is meant to be an expression of our values, what does it say about our values when it so clearly favors whites? I blush at the thought of answering that damning question.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
4) Its reversibility. This takes no time to cover. There are two easily proven statements here: 1) the United States has often executed innocent people and 2) to my knowledge, death remains an irreversible condition. If both of these statements are accepted as true, and in the absence of a methodology to reverse the first fact going forward (quite impossible), then the death penalty cannot be called a workable solution for a society that claims to value justice. If we could magically ensure that all those convicted of capital crimes are indeed guilty, we would "only" have the three issues above to contend with. But given that <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/111/20/7230" target="_blank">University of Michigan professor Samuel Gross estimates that up to 4% of current death row inmates may in fact be innocent of their crimes</a>, I would say we're in no pending danger of having to fall back solely on those other factors.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
So in conclusion, the death penalty is not a deterrent, is not cost-effective, is not evenly applied in a way that reflects our aspirational values, and is irreversible and thus cannot be fairly applied, given our imperfect system of determining true guilt. Therefore, the death penalty is, logically, an unacceptable option for any civilized and rational society. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Quod Erat Demonstrandum. </div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183272025553890986.post-19830219240974026472019-04-18T15:43:00.002-04:002019-05-03T22:21:51.622-04:00BESTism, or how we can save capitalism from hollow consumerism<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Before you dive into this piece, you might want to go back and read the <a href="https://tennesseine.blogspot.com/2011/03/best.html" target="_blank">original blog piece</a> in which I introduced BESTism. It will save us both some time! </div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
You back already? That was a suspiciously fast read, but OK!</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
So as you know from having read that original piece (which you totally read, right?!), my goal is to suggest an alternative to our current system of consumerism in an effort to save capitalism from itself, because my feeling is that if we don't, the ever-widening inequality of our current system and the sense of purposelessness it brings will eventually cause it to collapse, and that would be catastrophic for our society.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Let's start by attacking and destroying a false premise, to wit: that capitalism and consumerism are essentially synonymous and the latter is inevitable in the former. You have only to examine other capitalist countries to see that in fact there is nothing inevitable about it if the people and their leaders choose to avoid it. We have not taken than route here in the US, so our economy is 70% based on consumer demand. And look where it has left us. Most people feel our country is on the wrong track. Millions of Americans feel hopeless and without a sense of purpose, driving addictions and suicide rates to ever-higher peaks. Opioid addiction is skyrocketing. Suicide rates have risen an astonishing 30% in just 17 years. I even think our obesity epidemic is partially due to this sense of hopelessness: we are becoming a nation of nervous, emotional eaters.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
I believe these trends are tied to how hollow we collectively feel our pursuits are. There is no unifying sense of purpose. There is no moonshot. No war on poverty. No grand goals and projects to make us feel that we are all contributing to something bigger than we are as individuals. To change that, I propose we refocus our economic activity, not through command-and-control communism, but by a modified form of safety-net capitalism in which we direct more resources towards Building, Exploration, Science, and Teaching.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Let me go ahead and rip a Band-Aid off for you right now: this absolutely means higher taxes for everyone. But before you balk too loudly at that, I ask you to consider not the COST of your current tax burden but your RETURN on it. Are you happy as a citizen? Are you economically secure and confident that you could stay that way if you encountered any setback? Are you healthy and assured of coverage if that changes? Are you confident in the infrastructure you rely on every day? If you answered no to those questions, or even most of them, then you should consider that perhaps you're getting a poor return on your investment with your taxes.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Before we move on to the BEST, let's start with two dependencies: health and basic economic security. If you don't have those two things, nothing else matters and you can't focus on the 'big picture,' since you are forced to spend all your energy on merely surviving (which is key to why Republicans' success relies on keeping people poor and unhealthy). And right now, too many Americans don't have those basics. So to me, any successful system in the 21st century is going to have to have two features: universal healthcare and basic guaranteed income. I believe the simplest route to providing those is to expand Medicare to everyone, allow the importation of cheaper drugs from places like Canada, allow Medicare to use its leverage to negotiate better drug prices, and to send every US citizen and legal resident aged 18 and older $1040.83 a month (in 2019 dollars, adjusted by the trailing year CPI minus 0.5% every year, and fully adjusted for inflation every five years). Parents would also receive $368.33 per month per minor dependent. To keep the system simple, to avoid fraud, and to avoid rural voters becoming resentful of urban ones, I do not think we should make regional/urban COL adjustments. If local municipalities want to make up the difference, they can introduce local schemes to do that, funded by local taxes. For example, New York City may wish to introduce a local tax to supplement their UBI (universal basic income), given that one can't even rent a room in that city at that rate. Another advantage of UBI is that it eliminates our complex web of welfare programs. Combined with universal Medicare, we could eliminate dozens of programs, from Medicaid to SNAP to CHIP. And while yes, taxes would be quite high, keep in mind that your income is now supplemented and you never have to worry about healthcare premiums (except for Medicare supplements) and everyone is getting the UBI, so you're getting back a lot of that money. One question many people will want to ask is, does EVERYONE get the UBI? And the answer is yes. The goal is to avoid class resentment. We all get the exact same check every month, and everyone pays in. (And speaking of paying in, this system assumes we lift the cap on Social Security contributions. Retirement should be simplified, too, with Social Security payments simply becoming a threefold increase in your UBI check starting on your 68th birthday.)</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
A supplementary way to ensure everyone has the basics is to make work worthwhile. That means a minimum wage of $15 per hour for everyone aged 18 and over, to be phased in over four years, and then to increase to $20 within four years of that. After that, we should permanently solve the minimum wage issue by pegging it to the CPI. It should increase automatically by the CPI minus 0.5% points every year, and have a catch-up with CPI every five years. (This is to avoid sparking inflation.) </div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
The above measures would be paid for by the appropriate combination of payroll, capital gains, and dividend taxes, and a yearly 4% wealth tax on the value of everyone's non-retirement stock/bond/mutual fund portfolios and bank accounts, with the first $10,000,000 exempt (with that threshold to increase automatically by the CPI every year).</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
So, now we have healthy citizens who don't live in constant fear of losing their jobs. All but the very least materialistic people are still incentivized to work, because very few people are happy living on such a paltry sum (though at least you won't starve if you're one of those people). Now we can focus on actually accomplishing something as a society, by dedicating more to doing our B.E.S.T.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
1) <b>Building</b>. Think about all the ancient civilizations you studied in school. Rome. Egypt. Greece. Tell me the first thing that comes to mind. If you're like most people, I suspect your brain immediately conjured up images of amphitheaters, coliseums, pyramids, and temples. In short, the legacy you associate with these civilizations is most tangibly expressed in the buildings they left behind for us. What will future civilizations think of us based on our own works? Not much, quite frankly. They might be impressed with a few isolated works of architectural genius and a stadium or two. But mostly their archaeologists will just scratch their heads and say, "well, they certainly liked their strip malls and Starbucks, didn't they?" </div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Another challenge for our country is our crumbling infrastructure. Thanks to the GOP's "Starve the Beast" philosophy, our investment in infrastructure has been entirely too low for decades now. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives us a D+. And I find that to be generous. Collapsing bridges, crumbling roads, outdated airports, poor public transportation: our country is <i>quite literally </i>falling apart. </div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
My recommendation is to drive both cultural and non-consumerist economic growth by making massive investments in building and infrastructure, both to leave a better legacy and to increase our current quality of life.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
To the first goal, I would love to see every state and all five territories submit plans for a state monument to commemorate each locale's people, history, and culture, to be financed by the states and territories but with each dollar matched 1:1 in federal funds. Each state's legislature would approve the final project and its location, with Congress having a say in approving the matching funds in each individual case. Think St. Louis Arch, Statue of Liberty, etc.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
To the second goal, we need to invest, invest, invest. To that end, I would suggest a ten-year, 2.8% tax on every transaction in the United States, including B2B ones and all capital gains and dividends (on top of current taxes). After 10 years, it would drop to a permanent 1.8%. In addition, we would need a permanent $1-a gallon-gas tax, to be increased by the trailing CPI + 0.1% every year. This is only fair: American drivers are not currently paying for the roads and bridges they drive on. Furthermore, this tax helps cover the negative economic, health, and environmental externalities associated with driving, and also offers a strong incentive for people to economize on gas consumption and seek alternative forms of transportation. </div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
This massive investment in infrastructure wouldn't just be about getting an A+ on our roads, bridges, railroads, ports, and airports. It would also be about expanding our transportation options, with investments in regional high-speed rail and, if the technology pans out, hyperloops.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
2) <b>Exploration</b>. Few things gave Americans as much pride as our accomplishments during the Space Race of the 1950s to early 1970s. Putting a human being on the moon was an achievement for the ages and to this day, half a century later, it stands as an enduring reminder of our former greatness. We can return to that greatness by kicking off a new, ambitious Space Race. But we should not just look to space: our oceans represent another Final Frontier, with so much of them still unexplored. Such exploration could teach us volumes about biodiversity, ocean sustainability, even basic biology and zoology, since we would doubtless discover new species. So aside from investing far more in NASA and getting them on their way to a quick return to the moon and a Mars landing by 2032, we should also establish an Oceanographic Exploration Agency. Finally, while it may sound like outlandish science fiction, we should also invest more in the greatest exploration of all: SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), or at any rate for basic extraterrestrial life. Research in this area in the past decade has shown that, with the right investment, our generation may be the last to think itself alone in the universe. I am not suggesting we have much hope of actually communicating with any alien civilizations. Unfortunately, the physics and the sheer size of the distances between star systems make this is highly unlikely if not impossible. But we are living in an age where we may yet be able to prove the existence of such life, even if it turns out to be simple in nature.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
These initiatives would be funded by a 0.2% tax on all transactions in the United States, including B2B ones and including capital gains and dividends (on top of current taxes).</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
3) <b>Science</b>. Basic science drives technology. Technology drives change. Change drives culture and gives society a sense of direction. I think we need to invest far more in basic scientific research, with the benefits shared with all. I believe this can be done within our existing framework of universities, colleges, and government agencies, so to me this is just a simple question of investing more money through university/college grants and agency budget increases for agencies like DARPA, NIH, NIMH, CDC, etc. We also need to spur innovation in clean energy research, and nothing motivates innovation like necessity. I therefore propose that we phase in a simple mandate that wouldn't even require Congressional action: over the next ten years, every business with more than 50 employees that does government contracting work must be able to demonstrate it is getting 10% of its energy from renewables, increasing 10 percentage points each year. This will drive demand from energy consumers, and that will in turn drive innovation and change among energy providers. Another simple step requiring only executive action would be to declare that effective immediately, the US government will only purchase electric or hybrid vehicles for all its civilian vehicle fleet acquisitions. </div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
4) <b>Teaching</b>. Education isn't just a goal for its own sake. A better-educated society is a happier, more productive society, not to mention a society better equipped to drive the three goals above. The first thing we have to do is stop failing our poor communities. Since so much of school funding is driven by the local tax base, poor communities are stuck in a vicious cycle: too poor to educate their kids, who then grow up to get lower-paying jobs, which keeps the tax base low, which keeps school funding low. To solve this, I think we need to look at the poorest 40% of school systems in the United States and invest enough in them from federal funds to bring their spending levels up to the national median each year. To keep local government from slashing funds in order to qualify for more funds, we would measure this by the per-capita income of the residents of the school system, not by the amount of funds the locality chooses to dedicate, and funding levels would be judged by where they stood before the program was announced. These funds would be no-strings-attached. Let the local school systems decide how to educate their kids. The only caveat would be that we would need to set maximums for capital investments and minimums for teach salaries, because American school systems have an unfortunate tendency to over-invest in the former and under-invest in the latter compared to other countries.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Higher education. I hate the idea of government price controls. I truly do. Command-and-control economies always fail. But our colleges and universities are drunk with power. They know kids need those diplomas, so they keep jacking up tuition prices, often to spend on the most unnecessary of "investments." As a result, the ratio of tuition to average income gets more unsustainable every year. I propose a 30-year moratorium on real-dollar increases in tuition, with both private and public universities limited to tuition increases equal to the CPI minus one percentage point each year or wage growth minus one percentage point each year, whichever is <b>lower</b>. This needs to last a generation to undo the obscene increases of the past generation, increases that have seen the end of the age when people could work their way through school on their own and the dawn of the age of massive student debt. Tight regulations and oversight would be required in order to avoid the creation and exploitation of loopholes. (Think "Oh, we didn't increase TUITION. We increased USER FEES. See, that's totally different!") I also propose that all college students receive $2000 per month while enrolled in school, with assistance ending for any student whose overall GPA falls below 1.8 on the 4-point system. This assistance would last two years for an Associate's degrees, four years for a Bachelor's degree (five in special cases, e.g. some engineering undergraduate degrees that take five years). Students would be on their own for graduate work. Finally, we need to reverse the law that made it illegal to include student debt in bankruptcies. There is no rational reason this debt should be excluded. It was a sell-out to the student loan industry, nothing more. </div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
These goals would be funded by a 5% tax on every transaction in the United States, including B2B ones, and on all capital gains and dividends.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
In all cases where we raise money from taxes on transactions, this would include on sales to or from the government. It may sound silly for the government to pay itself taxes, but it's important we capture revenue from the entire economy, so the taxes would be transferred from the purchasing agency to the IRS.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
One final word on revenue. To achieve our goals, we are going to have to address the elephant in the room: our out-of-control and irrational military spending. I am not a dove. In a world in which authoritarian regimes like Russia and China are on the rise, we cannot unilaterally disarm or even slightly weaken our military readiness. But our budget long ago stopped being about military readiness and efficiency. It is about delivering pork to Congressional districts and to the defense contractors who pay the lobbyists and contribute to campaign funds. Consider <a href="https://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/12/18/congress-again-buys-abrams-tanks-the-army-doesnt-want.html" target="_blank">the fields of tanks that have never been and will never be used</a> (and the military knew that when they bought them); <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/meet-new-super-expensive-stealth-bomber-us-doesnt-need/" target="_blank">the planes that were obsolete before they went into production</a>; <a href="https://www.rollcall.com/news/congress/navy-routinely-buys-defective-ships" target="_blank">the ships <b><i>that don't even work</i></b></a>. These are all billions and billions of wasted dollars that do absolutely nothing to strengthen America. Quite the contrary: they weaken us. Meanwhile, our soldiers are paid disgracefully and often do not have the things they need. And don't even get me started on how shabbily we treat our veterans.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
So what needs to happen? We need to establish a non-partisan, Congressionally-appointed commission to do a two-year, program-by-program audit and evaluation of the entire military budget for all branches. We need to evaluate not just programs but bases, both domestic and foreign, as well as all inventory, all with only one question in mind: does this help us face the threats of the 21st century, including the three main threats (terrorism, cyber warfare, and the potential for wars with China and Russia)? If it doesn't, it needs to go. Also, we need to pay our soldiers better, especially the enlisted ones. I think it is very realistic to cut military spending by 15%, increase pay for enlisted by 10% and commissioned officers by 5%, and actually INCREASE our military readiness and strength in the process. This needs to be a standing committee once its work is done, because we need to rely on them, not partisan pork-seekers in Congress, to evaluate what is best for our defense. Congress could agree to pass only legislation that includes commission-approved programs and budgets. This takes the political pressure off of them, as they can say to constituents that they are bound to obey the recommendations of the program. This could easily save us $120 billion a year.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
So there it is. That is my model for how capitalism can save itself. No big takeovers of industry by the government. Minimal interference in the capitalist free markets. Just an investment in making us a healthy, happy, educated society with a sense of common purpose and a dedication to leave a livable planet and a vibrant legacy for our children and our descendants.</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183272025553890986.post-57727653879920442362019-04-17T17:31:00.001-04:002020-01-16T02:27:57.491-05:00The Ups and Downs (and Downs and Downs) of Online Dating Apps: Notes & Tips from the Battlefield<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When I first asked my ex for a divorce about three years ago, I knew it would inevitably mean a return to the world of dating. I dreaded that moment, and for good reason. Dating is an institution that is itself antithetical to my personality. It's all about superficiality, the quick sell, and even quicker judgments. And yet I tried it, off and on for two grueling years. At the end of all that, I find myself as single as when I started, though with two very close friends whom I initially met on dates. So all in all, I suppose I shouldn't complain. (Yet complain I shall!)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So why write about it now? I am hoping to help you, dear single reader. If you can benefit from any of my experiences, tips, and observations, then perhaps my journey will have been more worthwhile. So here are my thoughts.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The main app I used was OKCupid. It suited my personality best for two reasons: it has no character limit on profiles (and I am nothing if not verbose) and it uses compatibility questions to help you narrow down your choices. It should be noted, however, that there is far more art (and arguably just entertainment) about this matching process than there is science about it. (Google Adam Conover's excellent take-down of the 'science' of dating apps.) Still, scientifically valid or not, it is useful to be able to see that Jane X is a voter who likes Game of Thrones and hates Donald Trump as much as you do. It's far more useful than simply seeing a picture of her elaborate tattoos or her golden retriever Sam.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Unfortunately, OKCupid is a very buggy app. It never works quite as you expect it will, and I would, for example, often log on to find I had a whole new list of people I had supposedly 'liked' (despite them all being people I most certainly had not even viewed). Their support is awful. And occasionally you get the feeling that any connections you make are pure luck, given that sometimes I would come across profiles with the tag "She messaged you!" despite me never having gotten any messages from the person.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Of course, you have lots of other options. Tinder, Coffee Meets Bagel, Match, Bumble, Zoosk, etc. The list seems to stretch on forever. But the idea is always the same: you have less than one second to grab a person's attention and hope s/he swipes on you, and then you go into a hopper of prospects. If you both swipe on each other or one of you messages, you get to start the 'get to know you' process. After a while, that becomes so repetitive that, despite your best efforts, you start to feel that you are just writing spam emails, constantly repeating the backstory, the same questions, the same repartee. It's mind-numbing.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Anyway, back to my adventures on my primary tool: OKCupid. I answered interminable questions and wrote a profile that was frankly WAY too long. That was by design. I was hoping to weed out the vapid and the lazy by exasperating them with my War-and-Peace sized essay. But I also injected it with a lot of humor, to help the determined ones in their journey through the labyrinth of my Byzantine mind. My reasoning was that anyone who could possibly get through all that would at least be worthy of a dinner.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So how did I do? Well, in the grand scheme of things, perhaps I shouldn't complain. As I said, my two closest friends here in North Carolina are women I met on dates from OKCupid. They are both very dear friends, and that's pretty special. But as far as dates? Ugh. SO many misadventures and SO many evenings of yawns. A couple of highlights:</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">-The Cyrano de Bergerac episode. One day I got a long and eloquent message from a very intelligent and attractive woman. I was blown away. So articulate. So insightful. She seemed to know me intimately just from my profile. I was so impressed. And each subsequent message only confirmed my attraction to her. So we finally arranged for a date. And it was....awkward. She barely said a word. And when she did speak, I detected none of the charm, intellect, and perspicacity that I had enjoyed in our written exchanges. Finally I said, "You seem sort of nervous. Is everything OK?" She teared up and said, "I have a confession to make. I really enjoyed your profile and wanted to meet you, but I'm just not that good at expressing myself. So my friend wrote my profile and all my messages to you." Cyrano whispering from the bushes! Ah, well! And before you ask, yes, I did inquire (indirectly): her delightful friend was married.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">-Living in Tribes! Normally I was always very careful about vetting people before agreeing to meet. I read their profiles carefully, exchanged quite a few messages, and more often than not even had a phone call. But one evening, I threw caution to the wind and agreed to meet up with a woman I had met on the app that same day. She asked me to suggest a place, so we agreed to meet at one of my favorite restaurants here in Charlotte, Basil Thai. I should have paid attention to the warning signs, the first of which was pretty glaring: when I told her the name of the restaurant, her response was, and I quote, "Huh. I've never had Asian food before." "Asian food"?!?!? Dear gods. But I plowed ahead regardless. So here we are, having a drink and looking over the menu. She then asks what I consider to be a somewhat odd initial question: "Do you know anything about your ethnic heritage?" I responded that yes, as a matter of fact, I had done a lot of genealogical research over the years and had had my full genome sequenced and interpreted, so I knew quite a bit about it. She asked where my "people" were from, and I said that my father's side was Ulster Irish and had arrived in the Colonies around 1700, and my mother's side was originally Welsh, but had been residing in London for at least a generation before coming to the Colonies in 1652. Her eyes sort of glazed over, and she then gave me a rather incredulous look. And then said this: "How could they have been living in London in 1652? I didn't even think there were cities back then. Wasn't everyone just sort of, ya know, living in tribes back then?" Yup, folks. Living in tribes. A generation after Shakespeare died. And 16 <i><b>centuries </b></i>after the founding of Roman Londinium, which itself was likely on the spot of even earlier settlements stretching back centuries into the pre-Roman era. And that, kids, is why we always VET, VET, VET.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So how can you avoid such misadventures? Well, as it happens, I do have some helpful tips. These apply to any sex and (presumably) any sexuality; but you can judge for yourself and, as with all unsolicited advice, ignore or accept it as you please.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Pictures. Your primary picture will be the main driver of which direction viewers swipe. My advice is to keep it simple. I have to say that personally, I <i><b>loathe </b></i>those ridiculous Snapchat filters and effects. If I wanted to date a bunny rabbit with a dog's nose, I would go to one of those Furries kink gatherings, people. And for the love of all that is holy, people, DO NOT make me play "Where's Waldo?" It's fine if subsequent pictures show you with your friends, but your primary picture should be you alone. (And for heaven's sake, make sure you either blur other people or get their consent. And definitely do NOT include unobscured pictures of your kids. That is both creepy and potentially even dangerous.) Also, everyone should consider smiling, or at least not scowling, in their primary picture. When I see an angry-looking profile picture, I just think, "Unhappy, angry person I don't want to meet." And last but not least, do NOT show pictures of you and your ex (or even someone who could be mistaken for him or her). Talk about creepy. That is just bizarre. One woman even used her wedding picture, complete with the original groom! Yet another did the same but cut out his face, which frankly made her seem like a serial killer starting a cork board display of her next victims.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Profiles. The single best piece of advice I can give here is to avoid overwhelming negativity. I often read profiles that listed nothing but what the writer did NOT want. No smokers, no drinkers, no drug users, no separated men, no this, no that, no the other. When people ask you your hobbies, do you say, "Uh, not bowling, not skating, and not surfing."? Of course not. Focus more on what you DO what, not what you DON'T want. It's fine to throw in a couple of deal-breakers (e.g. my warning to Trump supporters and non-voters that they should just keep moving); just don't let the negativity take over the whole tone of your profile. It's a big turn-off. I also recommend avoiding the same hackneyed clich<span style="background-color: white;">é</span>s everyone else uses. They get so dreadfully tiresome. Examples: "Looking for my partner in crime!" (IMMEDIATE left-swipe!) "No games!" "No drama!" (Nothing shouts you're a drama queen quite so loudly as you insisting you aren't into drama, by the way. When I read "no drama," what I hear is, "because I am such a fucking drama queen myself that I will provide more than enough for us both.") Finally, be HONEST. Look, there is no point in lying about your age or your height or your education. Because it will all come out in the end, and no good will come of your lie, I promise. Take the very tall woman I went on two dates with. She was exactly my height (6'2"/188cm). She expressed HUGE relief when we met and I turned out to be my stated height. Apparently, pretty much every guy she had been out with had lied about his height. She'd go out with a guy who claimed to be 6'3", only to find herself being stared in the throat upon meeting. And of course this meant she was immediately turned off, not by the height but by the lie. And the worst part was, she'd have been happy to go out with a shorter man; just not a short liar. So, uh, in "short," be positive, talk more about what you want v don't want, be original, and be HONEST, folks.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Messaging. Welcome to the tedious and repetitive world of dating app messaging! You've survived the Deep Dark Forest of endless pictures, you've braved the perils of the Morass of Despair known as the Swamp of Profiles. You have at last come to what seems like the end of your quest: you are actually communicating with another human being. Well, guess what? Your peril has only just begun. Because messaging itself is a minefield. You don't want to come on too strongly, but of course you don't want to seem too aloof. You want to seem interesting and perhaps show your quirks, but not TOO many of your quirks just yet, because after all, your crazy is something best drip-fed to people in the beginning, right? I usually preferred to keep initial communications simple, direct, and specific. By specific, I mean that the reader should feel that this isn't something you just copy/pasted from your last ten outreaches. I usually commented or asked about some particular thing that stood out in the person's profile. And let's be honest: nobody minds a bit of flattery. So now you're chatting. You're almost home-free. My best advice for this home stretch is: be yourself and keep the chatting phase brief. Too many connections fizzle out because they simply go on too long. Humans are social creatures, and while I am as big a fan of the written word as anyone, nothing can replace meeting face to face. So the best thing you can do is chat long enough to feel confident, and then just rip the bandaid off.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(I have to pause here and interject something serious that is specific to gender. It's easy for me as a man to say, "just rip off the bandaid and dive in!!" But as Margaret Atwood chillingly and all-too-truthfully put it, "<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">[Men] are </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">afraid women</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> will laugh at them; [women] are </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">afraid</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> of being killed." So obviously take my advice with a grain of salt and only proceed when you're truly comfortable. Please stay safe out there!)</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Well, I could go on for hours with more examples and more tips, but hopefully this little tidbit helps. Best of luck, folks! May you have better luck than I did!</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183272025553890986.post-76458591190032077112019-04-12T15:06:00.000-04:002019-04-19T22:09:25.050-04:00The State of the Race for the 2020 Democratic Nomination: Candidate Roundup<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Let me start out by saying that there is nothing objective about my analysis. I am not a journalist, nor do I have pretensions to become one. I am not here to be objective and to offer only facts; I am here to offer my opinion and analysis, both of which are entirely subjective, but which are <b><i>supported </i></b>by facts. Finally, let me point out that I am only looking at declared candidates. So please hold the emails asking me why I left out Joe Biden.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So let's dive right in, taking them alphabetically at first. I will look at each candidate currently in the race, then, at the end, rank them according to my preferences, which are heavily influenced by my overarching priority: seeing Donald Trump removed from office in a humiliating electoral defeat.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">1) <b>Cory Booker</b>. 49. Former mayor of Newark, NJ. Current senator from New Jersey. His strengths: his time as a mayor gives him very helpful insights into issues like urban renewal and planning, managing government in a diverse community, and reconciling often conflicting interests. And no one can dispute that his oratory skill is almost at Obama's level. But for me, Booker is a non-starter for several reasons. He has in the past been in bed with the Kushner family, who helped raise money for his campaigns. And we can't excuse that by saying that that was the pre-Trump era: the Kushner family has always been shady. (Google Charles Kushner. You'll want to take a shower when you're done.) Still, that wouldn't be overly problematic if he later repudiated them after Trump's rise and the questionable role Jared has played in that whole saga. But he hasn't really. 2) Speaking of being afraid of repudiating things, my second issue with Booker is his timidity towards Trump. I want a candidate who will call a spade a spade. When asked in February if he thinks Trump is a racist, Booker demurred and mumbled something about not knowing the man's heart. If after Charlottesville you are still too afraid to label Donald Trump a racist, you are not my candidate. We won't beat him by playing nice. 3) Big Pharma. Booker has taken a lot of money from Pharma. To his credit, in 2017, he announced he was "putting a pause" on taking Pharma money. But this doesn't seem to have stopped him from voting in a way that is very much in their interests and against the interests of American consumers and patients. 4) Support for charter schools. My objections to charter schools would require a separate article by itself. Suffice it to say, I am loath to support any candidate who is as pro-charters as he is. Forecast: senator till he dies or retires.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2) <b>Pete Buttigieg</b>. 37. Mayor of South Bend, Indiana. Navy veteran (currently in the reserve). Buttigieg, who would be both the youngest and the first openly gay president in our history, should by all rights be my number one choice. On paper, he has everything. I appreciate intelligence, and who can compete in that category with a multilingual Rhodes scholar who taught himself to read Norwegian just to read an author he liked? I also have a preference for candidates with both executive and military experience, and as a two-term mayor and Navy veteran who served in Afghanistan, he has both. He even has private-sector experience, having worked for McKinsey. But he's said several things that have turned me off to him, not least of which were comments in a January Washington Post interview in which he Monday-morning-quarterbacked Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign strategy and effectively said that Trump was smarter than she in his approach. I don't mind people disagreeing with Clinton. I have. But I had two big issues with his remarks: 1) he delivered them in a very disrespectful way, especially considering that as a gay man, he couldn't even have dreamed of running for president in a world in which a Hillary Clinton hadn't forever shattered the mindset that only straight white men are allowed to be president; 2) since there is no evidence that he delivered his admonitions to her BEFORE the 2016 election, it's obvious that he didn't know any better himself, meaning that he wasn't imparting any wisdom, but just delivering some 20/20 hindsight. As a secular atheist, I am also uncomfortable with how pushy he is about his religion. I suspect he's overcompensating here. I can practically hear the PR executives telling him he has to avoid being tagged with gay stereotypes by being as straight-laced and Jesus-y as possible. It comes across as phony, frankly. Or perhaps he is quite sincere and really is that religious, which concerns me even more. Finally, he just strikes me as a prime example of someone who possesses great intelligence but less wisdom. Intelligence is something with which you are born (to an extent) and can cultivate (to an arguably even greater extent). But wisdom can only come with time, experience, and reflection. Some people are capable of accumulating enough wisdom to be president by age 39; he isn't one of them, in my opinion. Forecast: with more years of experience, perhaps starting with a role as VP or (better yet) as a member of the next president's cabinet, he <i>might</i> eventually be ready. Buttigieg 2028? Consider that even then, he would only be turning 47 the day before his inauguration. That would still make him the fifth-youngest person to become president, after TR, JFK, Clinton, and Grant. If I were Buttigieg, I would be praying for a Harris victory, because that's his only path to a vice-presidency.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">3) <b>Juli</b><b>án Castro</b>. 44. Former mayor of San Antonio. Former HUD secretary under Obama. Another perfect candidate on paper. Executive leadership experience. Cabinet experience. Mentored by Obama. But it's frankly hard to see how Castro breaks out of the back of the pack. He simply doesn't have much of a 'hook.' He's not the most progressive, or the youngest, or the most dynamic, or the best orator, or the best fundraiser, or the most....well, anything. He just feels like an also-ran to me. It's also hard for him because he currently has no stage: he's not the current anything of anything. That would be fine if he had the name recognition of, say, Joe Biden. But he doesn't. Having said all this, I can't find anything about him I <i>don't </i>like. He checks all the right progressive boxes and says all the right things. I just doubt his ability to distinguish himself. My forecast: if Kirsten Gillibrand or Amy Klobuchar were to win the nomination, I think he stands an excellent chance of being tapped as VP. Otherwise, I think his best shot is to parlay his run into a more senior cabinet position in the next administration. Between his extensive experience and his Ivy League education (which includes a Harvard law degree), he could succeed in almost any role.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">4) <b>John Delaney</b>. 55. Former congressman from Maryland. Businessman. I call him "John Who?" <YAAAAWN> There's absolutely nothing that distinguishes this rather anodyne fellow. That hasn't stopped him from being the determined little-engine-that-could ever since 2017. He's reportedly visited every single county in Iowa already. It's hard to see how he sets himself apart. Forecast: America's next Commerce secretary, where he will perform admirably, if not spectacularly, and will then retire to private life when he realizes that being a cabinet secretary has made him no more viable a candidate in 2028 than he was in 2020.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">5) <b>Tulsi Gabbard</b>. 37. Congresswoman from Hawaii. Veteran. Where do I begin? We have two candidates for whom it would be VERY hard for me to vote even in the general election (though I still would because, hey, Trump). I hate everything about this Trump Lite woman. Let's start with her past virulently anti-LGBTQ positions, including support for gay conversion therapy. When she realized she couldn't maintain these positions and win as a Democrat in blue Hawaii, she modified them. I am convinced that is the only reason why. Now throw in her support of Putin, Assad, and Modi, stir in her sympathy for Trump, and add a dash of support from David Duke, and you've got a toxic recipe for a candidate who clearly would have become a Republican had she been from any less solidly blue a state than Hawaii. Hard pass for me. I honestly question not only her loyalty as a Democrat but her loyalty to our country. Forecast: my hope is that she goes away completely and even loses her House seat to primary challenger Kai Kahele next year. But I have this fear in the pit of my stomach that she is someone who, for reasons either selfish or downright mercenary and treasonous, might try to pull a Jill Stein. If she were to lose both the nomination and her House seat, I could realistically see her dropping her progressive façade and declaring herself a Republican. That and a blonde dye job could land her a lucrative gig on Fox News. Alternative nightmare scenario: Sanders/Gabbard 2020 should Sanders win the nomination.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">6) </span><b style="font-family: inherit;">Kirsten Gillibrand</b><span style="font-family: inherit;">. 52. Senator from New York. Former congresswoman. Gillibrand changes her positions based on the situation. She used to represent a conservative district and was thus a conservative Democrat. Now she's running for president in a crowded field dominated by progressives, so bam! presto! she's now a progressive. She seriously damaged herself with many progressives after the role she played in the railroading of Al Franken. (I blame Franken as much as I do her, but that's another story.) On Twitter, every time I mention her name, I am flooded with comments from outraged progressive women who can't stand her solely because of that fiasco. I don't think she can recover from it. There's also the rank hypocrisy: Ms #MeToo got caught shielding a staff member/senior adviser who had been credibly accused of sexual </span>harassment<span style="font-family: inherit;">. Forecast: she's made too many enemies even to end up in a cabinet. If a sufficiently popular challenger primaries her in 2024, she could easily lose her seat in the Senate. I'm frankly surprised no one did last year.</span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">7) <b>Kamala Harris</b>. 54. Senator from California. Former AG of California. Harris is currently my number one hope for beating Trump, mainly just because of her personality and tough-as-nails prosecutor image. She is the kind of woman Trump fears the most. And unlike Warren, she doesn't let Trump get under her skin and has exactly no fear of him. She could wipe the floor with him in a debate and humiliate him in a way that might even undermine his base's support. Mind you, I am not entirely without reservations about Harris. There are some questions from her time as AG that I feel need to be addressed, not least of all the pass she gave Steve Mnuchin's bank. And she isn't without her gaffes. Laughing it up about how much she used to love smoking pot in college while discussing marijuana legalization struck me as extremely insensitive and tone-deaf, given how many people went to jail for doing exactly that on her watch as AG. Forecast: I think she has an excellent shot at becoming our first female president. If she loses the nomination but we win the presidency, Attorney General Harris is a very strong possibility. Either way, I don't see her accepting a quiet life in the Senate.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">8) <b>John Hickenlooper</b>. 67. Businessman. Former mayor of Denver. Former governor of Colorado. As the moderate former governor of a purple (trending blue) state, his claim to fame is being a bipartisan dealmaker. I am just not convinced the party's base has an appetite for a compromiser right now, especially one with his record of being so cozy with corporate interests. I personally find him too conservative. Forecast: I don't see him gaining much traction. He <i>might </i>gain an opening as a Biden Junior if Biden himself decides not to run, though. </span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">9) </span><b style="font-family: inherit;">Jay Inslee</b><span style="font-family: inherit;">. 68. Former congressman from and governor of Washington. Inslee's "in" is his </span>insistence<span style="font-family: inherit;"> that we put climate change front and center. He's the only candidate who's made it the </span>centerpiece<span style="font-family: inherit;"> of his campaign. Unfortunately, as much as I agree with him that nothing else really matters if you're living on a dying planet, the polls show that voters just don't respond well to making that the main driver behind a campaign. It's not enough to be right; you have to be convincing. I am not confident that he has the oratorical and persuasive ability required to make his case to America. Having said all that, I have no objections to him and I have yet to discover any red flags. Forecast: America's next EPA head or Secretary of the Interior. And a damn fine one he would be in either.</span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">10) <b>Amy Klobuchar</b>. 58. Attorney. Former county attorney in the county that is home to the Twin Cities. Current senator from Minnesota. Overall, I like Klobuchar, for much the same reason that I like Harris: I think she has the right temperament to take on Trump, and of course, also like Harris, she is fully qualified to be president. As with Harris, I am confident she could hold her own against Trump in the debates, and I think she's exactly the kind of woman who terrifies him: strong, smart, and tough. Of course, we've all heard the rumors about her reputation as an overbearing and overly demanding boss. Part of me is concerned about that, because being abusive towards staff is unacceptable and is a sign of poor emotional maturity. But I also question how much of this is real cause for concern and how much of this is just the tired old double standard at work. Male leaders are never challenged in this area. Trump is by all reports a terrible person for whom to work. I have heard that Mike Bloomberg is downright insufferable. But we don't challenge that with men. It's supposedly just a sign of "toughness." Forecast: don't count Klobuchar out. If Harris stumbles or has a scandal, she's got a real shot. She'd also be a great pick for AG under a Harris presidency. </span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">11) <b>Wayne Messam</b>. 44. Businessman. Former college football star. Current mayor of Miramar, Florida. I'll be honest: I had never even heard of this guy until he announced his run recently. Took me completely by surprise. At this point, it's starting to feel like everyone is throwing their hat in the ring with the attitude of 'hey, why not? everyone else is doing it!" He has an interesting back story, though. The son of Jamaican immigrants, he went to Florida State, where he was a wide receiver on the 1993 national championship team. Later, he started his own construction company and in 2015, he became the first African-American mayor of Miramar after defeating the long-time incumbent. His campaign claim to fame is his desire to cancel all $1.5T in student debt. Someone has to pay for that, though. And that means transferring the burden to everyone. So you transfer wealth from a pool of mostly college-educated people (generally higher earners) to everyone, including those who never went to college and on average earn considerably less. Does that seem smart or fair? Having such a poorly-thought-out campaign centerpiece makes me leery of him. Forecast: maybe he's just angling for some name recognition, something he can parlay into a cabinet position like HUD? I don't know. Let's hear what he has to say.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">12) </span><b style="font-family: inherit;">Beto O'Rourke</b><span style="font-family: inherit;">. 46. Former El Paso city </span>councilman. Former congressman from Texas. Challenged and lost to Ted Cruz for the senate seat there last year. All around darling of the Democratic party. Mr. Personality. But how much 'there' is really there? There's no question he has the presence and the personality to charm the voters, but I sometimes question his substance. And the GOP would have lots of fun with his DUI mugshot. (They've already started in fact.) Forecast: I think Harris would be wise to pick him as VP, just due to his campaigning and fundraising chops. He'd be a good party energizer. But if she doesn't get the nomination, I don't see him as being a good fit as VP for any other candidate. That leaves him two routes in politics: challenge Cornyn for the senate seat or take a job in the next administration.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">13) <b>Tim Ryan</b>. 45. Congressman from Ohio. Former congressional staffer (for the notoriously corrupt Jim Trafficant, something that could itself raise questions). I won't spend much time on Ryan because he is FAR too conservative for my tastes. Some argue we need a centrist like him who can win in Trump country like his part of Ohio. I am not convinced anyone can win in deep Trump country but Trump, and attempting to lurch right to capture those people will only undermine the enthusiasm of the party base. Forecast: Congressman Ryan will still be Congressman Ryan two years from now, assuming he runs for reelection. </span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">14) <b>Bernie Sanders</b>. 77. Sanders is not a Democrat. I do not want him running for our nomination and see no reason to allow him to do so under current rules. His misogyny (google things like "Sanders Female Rape Fantasy" and "Sanders Lack of Orgasms Causes Cervical Cancer" and "Sanders Campaign Staff Harassment and Pay Inequality"), his tone-deafness on race, his long-on-rhetoric, short-on-specifics approach to policy, his personal narcissism and irascibility, his MAGA't-like, rabid supporters, his refusal to release his full tax returns. Take your pick. All excellent reasons not to vote for him. I would have to swallow hard and hold my nose even to vote for him in the general election. Forecast: there is a path to victory for him for the nomination, unfortunately. I certainly hope someone else closes it off. If he loses the nomination, expect him to continue in the Senate until he dies. He's far too proud (not to mention too hated) to take (or be offered) any cabinet position. </span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">15) <b>Eric Swalwell</b>. Congressman from California. It's indicative of this race that at the tender age of 38, Swalwell is still just the <i>third</i>-youngest candidate. Swalwell's main claim to fame seems to be, well, fame. He's a darling of the cable and talk shows. His other attention-grabber is that he is the boldest candidate to date on the issue of gun control. He's taken the rather risky stance of wanting to ban and then buy back all assault-style rifles. That's a hard sell in middle America. And honestly, I just don't see a lot of reason to be excited about his candidacy. In a crowded field full of talent, he doesn't really stand out. His pre-Congress career contains no great highlights. He has no inspiring backstory. It's hard not to see him as just another fratboy-cum-lawyer-cum-congressman. Forecast: I can't imagine him lasting long in this race. He might be able to parlay his fame into a cabinet position. But mainly I see his future as a congressional star of Twitter.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">16) <b>Elizabeth Warren</b>. 69. Former Harvard legal professor. Consumer rights advocate. Senator from Massachusetts. All-around brilliant person. It would be tough to find a room in which she isn't the smartest person. But as I alluded to above, I just feel like Trump has her number. He knows how to get under her skin. He's proven he can rile her up and manipulate her. It's hard to imagine a Klobuchar or Harris falling for his DNA test trap, for example. Forecast: once she figures out she's just not gaining the traction she needs to, she will drop out. She'll be a helpful campaigner for our nominee. Personally, I would love her to stay in the Senate. If she fully dedicated her remaining years to that, she could inherit Kennedy's Lion of the Senate mantel. Alternative scenario: SCOTUS Associate Justice Warren.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">17) <b>Marianne Williamson</b>. 66. Self-help author. New-age lecturer. And that bio is everything I need to know that she's going nowhere. NEXT! Forecast: see bio.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">18) <b>Andrew Yang</b>. 44. Former tech executive and current non-profit founder and executive. The darkest of dark-horse candidates, Yang does actually have some very interesting ideas. Among them is his support of UBI (universal basic income, which he proposes to set at $12,000 a year). He's very geeky and enjoys talking about robotics and artificial intelligence. These aren't academic topics to him, though: they have serious implications for the future of our workforce, and those implications are closely tied to why he believes we need UBI. Google his TED talk on the subject. It's quite fascinating. Forecast: as I said, he is the longest of long shots. I suspect he will quietly drop out at some point and not be well remembered by this time next year. But he's a very creative thinker and obviously highly intelligent. Perhaps a future president could leverage his expertise and fresh thinking in some capacity.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">OK, there's the crowd as of today, 12 April 2019. Don't blink or you'll miss future candidates announcing. I fully expect Biden and Bullock to announce eventually, and there could be others. I will publish occasional updates as things change. In the meantime, below is my promised ranking (though it should be fairly obvious based on the above). As many of the middling candidates aren't really distinguishable from each other, I am just going to rank a few, lump the rest into also-rans, and create a special little third group for Gabbard and Sanders.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Group I, ranked:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">1) Kamala Harris</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2) Amy Klobuchar</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">3) Inslee</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">4) Castro</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Group II, unranked:</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">Everyone except the above and Gabbard and Sanders.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Group III, which I call Garbage Island:</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">Gabbard and Sanders.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stay tuned for updates!</span></div>
<span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183272025553890986.post-32617272256351959762019-02-12T16:56:00.000-05:002019-02-12T17:58:54.949-05:00The Myth of the Hero BusinessmanThere was a time when society drew a very sharp distinction between government and business. Indeed, in many places, being a 'person of commerce' was looked down upon by the ruling elites. But as we entered the industrial age and more and more of our wealth derived from commerce, and power shifted accordingly, views on these so-called 'businessmen' (a term that didn't even enter our language until the early 19th century) shifted as well. By the 20th century, we had decided that those who prospered in business were not only worthy of our praise, but were to be emulated and followed. This is evident from the flood of self-help books that began to appear in the early 20th century, many of which focused on definitions of success that depended mostly, sometimes entirely, on success in business.<br />
<br />
None of this is objectionable. There is nothing wrong with wanting wealth or desiring to be a success in the world of business. (Indeed, your dear writer here is a businessman and has been so his entire career.) But objectively speaking, do those who succeed in business make for good political leaders? It's a question well worth asking, because to date we have simply assumed the answer ("yes") and acted accordingly. In the United States, two of our three presidents in the 21st century have been businessmen (George W. Bush and Donald Trump). But given their track records, it's time to question our kneejerk assumption that it's wise to make our business leaders our political leaders.<br />
<br />
So let's examine it. Let's look at the track records of business leaders as executive political leaders in the 21st century in every major country. We'll use a simple definition of 'major': every country with a population of at least 50,000,000 inhabitants (as of 2019 estimates). That gives us 29 countries to work with. Of these, since 1 January 2001, only five have had leaders with significant backgrounds as entrepreneurs:<br />
<br />
Indonesia<br />
Italy<br />
Pakistan<br />
South Korea<br />
United States.<br />
<br />
Our group therefore consists of seven leaders:<br />
<br />
Joko Widodo of Indonesia;<br />
Silvio Berlusconi of Italy;<br />
Nawaz Sharif and Shaukat Aziz of Pakistan;<br />
Lee Myung-bak of South Korea;<br />
and of course George W. Bush and Donald J. Trump of the US.<br />
<br />
Let's have a look at them.<br />
<br />
Joko Widodo of Indonesia had a long and successful career as an entrepreneur in the furniture business before entering politics in 2002. By global standards, he is not exceedingly wealthy, with an estimated net worth of $3.5 million as of 2018. No great scandals have attached themselves to his presidency, and he is running for re-election in 2019.<br />
<br />
Silvia Berlusconi of Italy is a media tycoon and billionaire. He served as prime minister several times. To list and detail all the scandals associated with his life would quite literally require a book (or two). Abuse of office, bribery of senators, defamation, sex scandals (including allegations of orgies that included minors), tax fraud, the list goes on and on. He is practically the poster boy for moral and political corruption.<br />
<br />
Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan is a wealthy business who made his fortune in steel construction. He was involved in two attempts to seize or maintain power by illegal means. He's been accused of hiding massive amounts of illegal wealth offshore. He was ultimately removed from office after revelations from the Panama Papers, was barred from holding public office for life, and is currently in jail for corruption.<br />
<br />
Shaukat Aziz, also a former leader of Pakistan, made his fortune as a successful global executive at CitiBank. His time as leader of Pakistan was marked by large-scale efforts to liberalize the economy and decentralize power. The Paradise Papers revealed that he had hidden and off-shored much of his wealth through the Antarctic Trust.<br />
<br />
Lee Myung-bak of South Korea served one term as president of South Korea. Before that, he was CEO of Hyundai Engineering & Construction. As with Berlusconi, his scandals are legion: embezzlement, price-fixing schemes, tax evasion, bribery, etc. It is even alleged he accepted $6 million in exchange for granting a pardon. In October of 2018, he was convicted on multiple charges and sentenced to 15 years in prison.<br />
<br />
Which brings us to our two US examples: George W. Bush and Donald Trump, both of whom are associated with presidencies with multiple scandals, arrests, indictments, and prison terms of administration officials. Indeed, it's still to be determined if Trump may not end up in prison himself. Fact-checkers have documented literally thousands of lies he's told both prior to taking office and while in office. Multiple members of his administration have resigned in disgrace.<br />
<br />
So, of seven leaders of major countries who have served in this century who have had significant business backgrounds prior to coming to office, all but one have been corrupt, most in the extreme. Several have gone to jail or potentially face jail time for their crimes. That's an 85.7% rate of corruption and scandal among businessmen-cum-political leaders.* And the sole person on the list who has not been implicated in serious corruption is not even very wealthy.<br />
<br />
Conclusion: it is time to lay to rest the myth of the heroic businessman coming to the rescue of his country. It simply doesn't work out that way. The absurd idea (often floated by conservatives in the US) that business people are less corruptible because they are already wealthy (and therefore allegedly not tempted by the prospect of more wealth through corruption), just doesn't hold water. Quite the contrary: it is obvious that those who are accustomed to wealth and to getting their way continue to feel they are entitled to do as they please after entering office. Furthermore, their myriad business interests often present conflicts of interest that actually encourage corruption. Indeed, it may be that a person of significant wealth is simply incapable of holding high office without becoming ensnared in scandal. At the very least, this suggests that any wealthy person assuming such an office should be forced to place all of their wealth in an independently-managed blind trust. At the very most, perhaps we should just avoid such candidates altogether.<br />
<br />
So let's bury this idea once and for all. Because history shows that our greatest leaders have been (unsurprisingly) those who understand the law and who understand governmental leadership.<br />
<br />
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
<br />
*And I am excluding the Yingluck Shinawatra and Thaksin Shinawatra sibling duo of Thailand, both of whom have led their countries and both of whom have significant business backgrounds. They have both been accused of corruption, but as the courts and the military strongmen of Thailand routinely use this tactic against elected leaders, it's difficult to sort out the truth, so they've been excluded.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183272025553890986.post-1652276661271537792017-11-16T18:41:00.001-05:002019-02-12T16:57:37.805-05:00Travelogue: Madrid, Toledo, Mérida, Elvas, Badajoz, Barcelona<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I've just returned from my holiday in Spain (with a brief foray into Portugal). It was, as all my trips to Spain have always been, an absolute delight!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Day I:</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I arrived in Madrid early Saturday morning, 14 October 2017. I went immediately to my hotel to squeeze in a nap ahead of the arrival of a friend who was coming down from London for the weekend. (It's a sad fact that I simply cannot sleep on planes, so I was exhausted.) Happily, the hotel had a room available that early. I managed to sleep until my friend arrived around midday, at which point we headed out to the Prado. This was to be an important pilgrimage for us both: I had not been to this, one of my favorite museums, in well over a decade; and for her it was a return to the place where, many years earlier, she had first become inspired to study art history and become a curator. And what a privilege for me to visit such a place with an expert! So after a quick stop for lunch, we entered that hallowed place that contains so many of my favorite artists, such as Goya, <span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Velázquez, Rosales, Tintoretto, </span> Fortuny, and El Greco. The best rooms (in my humble opinion) are Goya's Black Room (from his later period) and the <span style="background-color: white;">Velázquez rooms. Easily my two favorite pieces are Goya's <i>Duelo</i></span><i style="background-color: white;"> a garrotazos </i><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222;">and Fortuny's </span><i>Malvas reales</i><span style="color: #222222;">, the former for thematic reasons; the latter for sheer aesthetics.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjscWyPVRfwwVaQciyUIupOObvf3GquOJl4nbsS3nzoWlmKDGA-ha8X8xRSMYWnvN13q_f56h7yIpnp0qo7dLYk8hNfwTdjCa8YRWBvxIDr5Rk4KdfBhOw9zuCbFwtuBhyvW8YnTM1aTCCV/s1600/48d10700-c6d1-42e2-a11d-e6d85f2e9ccb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="775" data-original-width="1600" height="154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjscWyPVRfwwVaQciyUIupOObvf3GquOJl4nbsS3nzoWlmKDGA-ha8X8xRSMYWnvN13q_f56h7yIpnp0qo7dLYk8hNfwTdjCa8YRWBvxIDr5Rk4KdfBhOw9zuCbFwtuBhyvW8YnTM1aTCCV/s320/48d10700-c6d1-42e2-a11d-e6d85f2e9ccb.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1wzVitnDiGW0C_TTnYNLYBNq7rvCqFRDBcuhIN80drlk4DnnSij6nOVOD66ApycrVBkuLqD5WTYRyo1HxeExwhqHXBSMwFNHth1YXTcZoGcUBsirwOLR7Pm157B-euBX1V14x0y3li2VQ/s1600/aafce845-b071-4042-a8a6-94f89b22e23f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="833" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1wzVitnDiGW0C_TTnYNLYBNq7rvCqFRDBcuhIN80drlk4DnnSij6nOVOD66ApycrVBkuLqD5WTYRyo1HxeExwhqHXBSMwFNHth1YXTcZoGcUBsirwOLR7Pm157B-euBX1V14x0y3li2VQ/s320/aafce845-b071-4042-a8a6-94f89b22e23f.jpg" width="166" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;">The one thing I did find disturbing amidst all this beauty, however, is the clear roots of modern Western racism. In almost every depiction of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, they are depicted as being distinctly European (which is of course absurd given when and where they lived), while all enemies of the family are usually painted with darker skin tones and decidedly more 'ethnic' features. Little wonder that to this day, Jesus is a Caucasian in the minds of most Western Christians. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222;">After the Prado, we spent some time decompressing after beauty-overload and then headed out to dinner at my all-time favorite restaurant anywhere: Restaurante Sobrino de Bot</span></span><span style="background-color: white;">ín, or simply </span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222;">Bot</span></span><span style="background-color: white;">ín</span><span style="background-color: white;">. I first ate there in Spring of 1991 with my first ex, who grew up in Madrid. It has been open since 1725, and has witnessed an impressive portion of Spanish history. Goya worked there as a waiter before making it as a painter, for example. Hemingway ate there often (though if all claims are to be believed in Madrid, apparently he ate and slept pretty much everywhere). But unlike many places blessed with a long history and an excellent location, </span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222;">Bot</span></span><span style="background-color: white;">ín doesn't rest on these laurels: it is legitimately some of the best Spanish cuisine to be had. But for all the delightful choices on the menu, for me there is only one thing to order: cochinillo asado, or suckling pig. Preceded by a plate of jam</span><span style="background-color: white;">ón </span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">ibérico, and </span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">paired with a bottle of Muga, it is the ideal meal for any lover of Spanish cuisine. We were even treated to entertainment when a local <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuna_(music)" target="_blank">tuna</a> stopped by!</span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Day II:</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;">Sunday was our trip down to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledo,_Spain" target="_blank">Toledo</a>, a place I hadn't visited for many years. As the weather was beautiful, I rented a convertible for the one-hour drive down, and was very glad I did! What a gorgeous day for it! The temperature was ideal, around 25C/77F, and there was abundant sunshine. My friend joked that if she could pick a day to die, it would be this and she'd go out like Isadora Duncan. (I'm happy to report she avoided this quick if gruesome death.) We spent the day exploring that ancient and wondrous town, stopping by the </span><span style="background-color: white;">Alcázar, the cathedral, monastery, and many other amazing sites. I cannot recommend this town highly enough to visitors. Since my friend is a far better photographer than I, I am shamelessly appropriating her pictures from that day.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil7jgowAVxFX_fvGgCC1vIXwFNGGTvYINObtnmUbQABqCWWbfrEdk-sDkI7ZnRXB6mBso_nA_iVo3x12F7nF7nNxqLQCbgawFnYIQ343Zviraav1LVBBNebUt496nlyDv1I7GNOkrbyf_f/s1600/22496992_10214923387666327_1953628773_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil7jgowAVxFX_fvGgCC1vIXwFNGGTvYINObtnmUbQABqCWWbfrEdk-sDkI7ZnRXB6mBso_nA_iVo3x12F7nF7nNxqLQCbgawFnYIQ343Zviraav1LVBBNebUt496nlyDv1I7GNOkrbyf_f/s320/22496992_10214923387666327_1953628773_o.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3OJtXFqkXry7KwueBkHtjIECLQupXXPAwaIMRV5iGh_KNmz2rFFTIUu9Aa27zG7G61M2q2Kf-a1iglfHeiv3T97zmLnat0hJS54b_RpW1PXJaFMkhs9Toy82Rw1_vt1xg9odVNL4suLP9/s1600/22553531_10214923373465972_140461578_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="999" data-original-width="1334" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3OJtXFqkXry7KwueBkHtjIECLQupXXPAwaIMRV5iGh_KNmz2rFFTIUu9Aa27zG7G61M2q2Kf-a1iglfHeiv3T97zmLnat0hJS54b_RpW1PXJaFMkhs9Toy82Rw1_vt1xg9odVNL4suLP9/s320/22553531_10214923373465972_140461578_o.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB7WgAvObWCd3BxWmoIyfBNXY26YPVI4drL9lOPhfkCITCef7GFVCtNTqc9aZMxIc-ttif-_dUvLBHfar58Su4EB0MwA3PfJvVykHC48ARv-_1clovNjVuHv9XxCUITxcGeh4xFijPjuhO/s1600/22553784_10214923373865982_2066043380_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1334" data-original-width="1066" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB7WgAvObWCd3BxWmoIyfBNXY26YPVI4drL9lOPhfkCITCef7GFVCtNTqc9aZMxIc-ttif-_dUvLBHfar58Su4EB0MwA3PfJvVykHC48ARv-_1clovNjVuHv9XxCUITxcGeh4xFijPjuhO/s320/22553784_10214923373865982_2066043380_o.jpg" width="255" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxrdMDIz_xw1q1jSo-5xH-JLvmte3FyHZ9yrmHCIzOF0OHbJnepd-YpSEFKQJkSSMDOxLEVdK7my73v0z7l83QlN7Yq-vOkcqmo8S-FIiyWSBugp8Mkuw4s7t9THZVZ17waQhtWGtXttI3/s1600/22553883_10214923385906283_1730967172_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1334" data-original-width="1066" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxrdMDIz_xw1q1jSo-5xH-JLvmte3FyHZ9yrmHCIzOF0OHbJnepd-YpSEFKQJkSSMDOxLEVdK7my73v0z7l83QlN7Yq-vOkcqmo8S-FIiyWSBugp8Mkuw4s7t9THZVZ17waQhtWGtXttI3/s320/22553883_10214923385906283_1730967172_o.jpg" width="255" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDAmspHvUEA6NXpME6vQhLbqgbxxUhp-SHx6bw4dQr5ngNDuabdwa9i6hBSm9lRS6wbue23l5T-HZyQc1IABnWk1tx-lX2sghPVSnZ22yFbCOzBRt8q3cEBGGwob25EE2E-ywX2qS3TivN/s1600/22556002_10214923374626001_1225037684_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="999" data-original-width="1334" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDAmspHvUEA6NXpME6vQhLbqgbxxUhp-SHx6bw4dQr5ngNDuabdwa9i6hBSm9lRS6wbue23l5T-HZyQc1IABnWk1tx-lX2sghPVSnZ22yFbCOzBRt8q3cEBGGwob25EE2E-ywX2qS3TivN/s320/22556002_10214923374626001_1225037684_o.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgon_d0vVwRZHpG9JixjgbSNY0I7Q8mBy2nhH7hK1PcXB43IklYt-bZ6ny4kwAAvqiyNs4mqcBkaX5Z-78niVH1w-fFnuHTzLSnFMqtO5miJJ7WOhvS-Jwr0ihVK3_mNbQj_R2Y2Luok2gQ/s1600/22561027_10214923373945984_1631097601_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1334" data-original-width="1066" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgon_d0vVwRZHpG9JixjgbSNY0I7Q8mBy2nhH7hK1PcXB43IklYt-bZ6ny4kwAAvqiyNs4mqcBkaX5Z-78niVH1w-fFnuHTzLSnFMqtO5miJJ7WOhvS-Jwr0ihVK3_mNbQj_R2Y2Luok2gQ/s320/22561027_10214923373945984_1631097601_o.jpg" width="255" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjab9ZN8HgsqR46rANnUfxCd6AIbq58Mp6BHubk6cDk7-AznVLLxkbHGFLqMEpmfsWPgPDsOJ7Ev9PG0BQDojThFRHaoV7p0CArdfjL2l5WyFK5MDr8C1nJNUkHi43ivyivEuwbEATxCCXw/s1600/22561160_10214923372825956_929943794_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1334" data-original-width="1334" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjab9ZN8HgsqR46rANnUfxCd6AIbq58Mp6BHubk6cDk7-AznVLLxkbHGFLqMEpmfsWPgPDsOJ7Ev9PG0BQDojThFRHaoV7p0CArdfjL2l5WyFK5MDr8C1nJNUkHi43ivyivEuwbEATxCCXw/s320/22561160_10214923372825956_929943794_o.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrsm-C99RVvn_zT9FU6cDHcs4G5AI039sUZYSXdk0cbsvqCEA3Xf_VE2SiQWBpdQFO-Mk8X6U1Uhk4WSdYn-jm2ukHC728rWIOk3OnShFuH904YbRALvaxpHh7HgRchrmVMLs2lnJGYWkb/s1600/22563501_10214923375506023_1591441873_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1334" data-original-width="1066" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrsm-C99RVvn_zT9FU6cDHcs4G5AI039sUZYSXdk0cbsvqCEA3Xf_VE2SiQWBpdQFO-Mk8X6U1Uhk4WSdYn-jm2ukHC728rWIOk3OnShFuH904YbRALvaxpHh7HgRchrmVMLs2lnJGYWkb/s320/22563501_10214923375506023_1591441873_o.jpg" width="255" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzb2jb2za0gyYDX1dbT5_p3Sg6Mv4MltFis2iGIMSf2XNzhEEHQU9mOlIjAT3R_aJ8NaHrHRY5chshOtS8UJ8RHDV2bpsxm1kOsx5frk5gwIRaMbYlE7Qy9L5ftJMCTVWFBBfaa8faMz1V/s1600/22563638_10214923374465997_317016179_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1334" data-original-width="1066" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzb2jb2za0gyYDX1dbT5_p3Sg6Mv4MltFis2iGIMSf2XNzhEEHQU9mOlIjAT3R_aJ8NaHrHRY5chshOtS8UJ8RHDV2bpsxm1kOsx5frk5gwIRaMbYlE7Qy9L5ftJMCTVWFBBfaa8faMz1V/s320/22563638_10214923374465997_317016179_o.jpg" width="255" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM2hEPId8wfkLMAF6szGU6MqF8pOf7GCVaoWV8gG2xKUaWpO8mX7NC66sR81JJc8Btxehyeux_AnN7HIHMAiXndA2ujh7nbDulT-8o77QndBwyDul8xzg3sXmrKH6JVpyM9NxQ5yUtWBHW/s1600/22563895_10214923385546274_585891607_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1334" data-original-width="1066" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM2hEPId8wfkLMAF6szGU6MqF8pOf7GCVaoWV8gG2xKUaWpO8mX7NC66sR81JJc8Btxehyeux_AnN7HIHMAiXndA2ujh7nbDulT-8o77QndBwyDul8xzg3sXmrKH6JVpyM9NxQ5yUtWBHW/s320/22563895_10214923385546274_585891607_o.jpg" width="255" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9DDzeCAffBv8Rd6OQmZK29tBmc0ZDhqE2-rVCnH40rhBOJvtsTJfXKeGs20kthtbpfPAiTC0ISmKkTQCN41q7jj2PCQrrId4iOZD7a7iYUborjhznDS8prHg70LhTh4a7eUgQDhIB5jhK/s1600/22641736_10214923371585925_391462180_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="999" data-original-width="1334" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9DDzeCAffBv8Rd6OQmZK29tBmc0ZDhqE2-rVCnH40rhBOJvtsTJfXKeGs20kthtbpfPAiTC0ISmKkTQCN41q7jj2PCQrrId4iOZD7a7iYUborjhznDS8prHg70LhTh4a7eUgQDhIB5jhK/s320/22641736_10214923371585925_391462180_o.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Day two ended with me dropping off my friend at the airport, as she had to be back at work Monday morning to wrap up her project in London.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Day III:</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Day three during the day was just wandering Madrid. I toured the palace and its gardens, the modern (and frankly hideous and pointlessly derivative) modern cathedral, and the plazas, and just generally made every attempt to lose myself in the city. My interactions with the locals were a constant delight. I love the madrile<span style="background-color: #fefbf3; text-align: start;">ñ</span>o dialect of Spanish, so just listening to them is a pleasure in itself. But it's also about charm of the way they interact with one another, a sort of lighthearted brusqueness that hides a certain warm humor.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: white;">I won't get points for originality, but the fact is that evening three was identical to evening one, only with a different friend: a return to </span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222;">Bot</span></span><span style="background-color: white;">ín! We had a lovely evening discussing current events in Spain. My friend, an entrepreneur, felt very strongly that the government itself is the worst enemy of the economy, especially give how difficult and expensive they make it for independent contractors to contract me and work for others. Regardless of how little you earn, just by being classified as one of these workers, you owe the central government a minimum monthly tax, a tax that may in fact surpass your income. Little wonder that such policies do nothing to encourage the very entrepreneurialism Spain claims to promote.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtEl9IkH-OFDf35YmtzgzpdeuUqfhHnqBbUBW6NiadbindAbWchn0Rd_zh4j4Ph7hfB1puvhCoxoYAdS0YLNF1UERLXJ1S5UTdQ0Kf9wBtRWn8qWog-QeFDszM4FULxs6cpCnKmSNJw9MB/s1600/Botin.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1200" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtEl9IkH-OFDf35YmtzgzpdeuUqfhHnqBbUBW6NiadbindAbWchn0Rd_zh4j4Ph7hfB1puvhCoxoYAdS0YLNF1UERLXJ1S5UTdQ0Kf9wBtRWn8qWog-QeFDszM4FULxs6cpCnKmSNJw9MB/s320/Botin.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Day IV:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;">For day four, I rented a convertible (from Sixt, a mistake I will never make again, I promise!) and set out to fulfill two travel goals: see </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9rida,_Spain" target="_blank">Mérida</a> and cross the border into Portugal. I took my time traversing Castilla-LaMancha and Extremadura, stopping for a while in the medieval town of Oropesa, which had caught my eye from the road. A walled city with an impressive old castle (which is now a parador), it was a quaint stopover and is well worth a couple of hours of your time if you find yourself passing through. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiihLQyUx70h5IuakihFIfwIflQasvvSqJDzAO4ODVaHNahQs6bpY8awYzJtKSBpgW34o-QHVo3hRf8nqw8egdMS6O2oP9ncQCE1g1QXZokprgfnH4hT-J9LB9U2nwV-BCLc_FUg7rICGY-/s1600/Oropesa1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiihLQyUx70h5IuakihFIfwIflQasvvSqJDzAO4ODVaHNahQs6bpY8awYzJtKSBpgW34o-QHVo3hRf8nqw8egdMS6O2oP9ncQCE1g1QXZokprgfnH4hT-J9LB9U2nwV-BCLc_FUg7rICGY-/s320/Oropesa1.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju0VBrF5nfNBW9ayrCxaGtDraat-vDqPJT3f1qmwYcS6KfqsDcgbex7A3OGLa_6ueRHVjwttaap2g_VC54oecTOjIlpKPTjeeJ5UdiIxhJo98ntxJKNo4z0HZsl8KDFLoc6DGgx0UljlYn/s1600/Oropesa3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju0VBrF5nfNBW9ayrCxaGtDraat-vDqPJT3f1qmwYcS6KfqsDcgbex7A3OGLa_6ueRHVjwttaap2g_VC54oecTOjIlpKPTjeeJ5UdiIxhJo98ntxJKNo4z0HZsl8KDFLoc6DGgx0UljlYn/s320/Oropesa3.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikW0C6uvBjTD-mto_uHa4rbJe_Ymym8VyZ-53R2KnOMp1R2voo4raJN97FO5zIxrHJchwxbAjvJ1w-VbMq3Zv3qKZoQsonTyrLFUyp-9lh69WzpNelwHqKwe4ONkEbHuYhz0D5yVl9LVd1/s1600/Oropesa.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikW0C6uvBjTD-mto_uHa4rbJe_Ymym8VyZ-53R2KnOMp1R2voo4raJN97FO5zIxrHJchwxbAjvJ1w-VbMq3Zv3qKZoQsonTyrLFUyp-9lh69WzpNelwHqKwe4ONkEbHuYhz0D5yVl9LVd1/s320/Oropesa.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: start;">
I finally arrived in <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Mérida</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> after sundown. My hotel was the Ilunion </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Mérida </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Palace</span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: start;"><span style="color: #222222;">, right on the main plaza. After exploring some of the sites by night, I decided just to eat and turn in. As it was a weeknight and off season, the restaurant I chose near my hotel was mostly empty, despite it being the hour at which many locals would normally be eating (though well after the hour at which many tourists would be). I had a charming and kind Chilean waiter who chatted with me for a bit while I had what must have already been my fifth or sixth (but far from last!) plate of </span></span><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;">jam</span><span style="background-color: white;">ó<span style="font-family: inherit;">n </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">ibérico of the trip</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">. It was an excellent way to wind down a long day of travel!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Day V </span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;">I awoke early to find that I would need an umbrella! It was pouring down rain as I went out for my coffee in the plaza. Fortunately, I was able to purchase an umbrella quite nearby and go about my sightseeing. I had come principally for the Roman ruins, of which </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Mérida has an impressive array, not least of which is the longest bridge the Romans ever built (800 meters, or half a mile). The city, whose name is a corruption of Emerita Augusta, referring to the Roman veterans of Augustus's army who were permitted to settle it in 25 BCE, is a history-lover's paradise. The bridge, theater/temple, and amphitheater are in amazing states of preservation (and restoration). One truly gets an impression of what daily life must have been like here. Equally impressive is the Moorish fortress (<i>Alcazaba</i>) by the river. It was built on the ruins of earlier Roman structures. All in all, I would say there are few places that provide a better sense of the many disparate influences throughout Spanish history, from Roman to Visigothic to Moorish to Christian.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYFPTdTde8VRgDyehS1gMAUJowK3ibX_mC7-_HhvflsGBguaWr7-hL_5mg8NlO9_2fsIqP9uGUuB8ee_htvFJu8f81F6JYeabocg6ftmJi7Ok9ZAd4Rcz8tDKnH3mfPAMbXbFN6iXBiN3q/s1600/Entrance.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYFPTdTde8VRgDyehS1gMAUJowK3ibX_mC7-_HhvflsGBguaWr7-hL_5mg8NlO9_2fsIqP9uGUuB8ee_htvFJu8f81F6JYeabocg6ftmJi7Ok9ZAd4Rcz8tDKnH3mfPAMbXbFN6iXBiN3q/s320/Entrance.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> </span><i style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Entrance where gladiators emerged to fight for their lives and for the amusement of the residents of the town.</span></i><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5OT9e8WocO7CqKLw4wujdXkVQyIraSj3KR5aOx5yMAqTc5gZfkQBJvtDLJrTV1Zb2zchd-OoXzOt3Mi2l50mLcP06skzbgDoi0NHt71eDEDMfduNNKEhIuR4_oD0c76-CiEpMWloCpejs/s1600/State.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5OT9e8WocO7CqKLw4wujdXkVQyIraSj3KR5aOx5yMAqTc5gZfkQBJvtDLJrTV1Zb2zchd-OoXzOt3Mi2l50mLcP06skzbgDoi0NHt71eDEDMfduNNKEhIuR4_oD0c76-CiEpMWloCpejs/s320/State.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> Where state and religion meet to enforce Roman values.</span></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhN1K8VXIupOWb7Dr6HvmhPCHh4IG2mFPIJ9vFa9lnT_9Biyc1DhG2b0wLBVpSn6hPaUf-VwuPsLoTruOreouGBxvSpRt1sJGWRY_3sZL5AmE535T1RJQBoAzSiqrdTAw6tPO7nky-Pl7D/s1600/Tiling.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhN1K8VXIupOWb7Dr6HvmhPCHh4IG2mFPIJ9vFa9lnT_9Biyc1DhG2b0wLBVpSn6hPaUf-VwuPsLoTruOreouGBxvSpRt1sJGWRY_3sZL5AmE535T1RJQBoAzSiqrdTAw6tPO7nky-Pl7D/s320/Tiling.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">Well-preserved/restored Roman tiles/mosaics.</span></span></i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></i></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0M3ehUfo2rhdAJAlIAfphO8r0y_1-CGbyuFBuqAjv0IlsdDnl1v46ftPaACFDhXBa2J5OCsbzungNip33z4S2tPSNIQKOuiS42wd1HQWoznFLHpMpiM1kNIKz7NYQBrnLgWWJSkf_WoOf/s1600/Roman+bridge.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0M3ehUfo2rhdAJAlIAfphO8r0y_1-CGbyuFBuqAjv0IlsdDnl1v46ftPaACFDhXBa2J5OCsbzungNip33z4S2tPSNIQKOuiS42wd1HQWoznFLHpMpiM1kNIKz7NYQBrnLgWWJSkf_WoOf/s320/Roman+bridge.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">Architectural wonder. The Roman Empire's longest bridge at 800m/0.5miles.</span></span></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The clouds parted in the late morning, and by early afternoon I was on my way to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvas" target="_blank">Elvas</a>, Portugal. As I flew over the border without hitting the breaks (never mind producing a passport or exchanging currency), I was reminded of the truly inspiring political achievement that we take for granted these days: the European Union. Everyone takes digs at its institutions, and some are even seeking its demise. But stop and reflect that on a continent where bullets and bombs were whizzing across contested borders as recently as two generations ago, borders separating mortal enemies whose conflicts spanned centuries, one can now drive non-stop and quite peacefully from the southern tip of Iberia to the icy north of Scandinavia. It is nothing short of an accomplishment for the ages. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTa5CDvr10gVAva2188bnd2oxqFCZYkVRX7EoxyoH7nnHrU4IuRRbirqnmLw9Mf0wlAyjcStANSqEgwktZyWVqynZM7Rbf2deplQDOi2lBqRwnDejA39fnYcALSnQfp5H3SpGVqQzpfLYK/s1600/NowEnteringPortugal.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTa5CDvr10gVAva2188bnd2oxqFCZYkVRX7EoxyoH7nnHrU4IuRRbirqnmLw9Mf0wlAyjcStANSqEgwktZyWVqynZM7Rbf2deplQDOi2lBqRwnDejA39fnYcALSnQfp5H3SpGVqQzpfLYK/s320/NowEnteringPortugal.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> <i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Now entering another country without stopping, defying millennia of tribalism </span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
Upon arriving in Elvas, my immediate objective was food, as I had had nothing but coffee that morning. I wandered the town square near where I parked, slowly making my way to the castle. After a bit of aimless but happy meandering, I came upon a restaurant whose specialty seemed to be 'bread soup.' Apparently this does not mean soup made of bread, but rather a hearty, thick soup with cut-up sausages into which one adds thin pieces of bread before consuming. It made for a surprisingly filling meal, and the Portuguese red wine was delightful. But what pleased me most was the hand-made bags in which bread slices were served. I asked the waiter about them, and he gave me the name of the local artisan who made them. After lunch, I made a beeline to her shop and bought two. Apparently the patchworks on them were not random: each patch represented a city or region in Portugal.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifKl109liebQNFTWXQ5wkF1dCLEFxxh_wLZJSWKm6cka-6yqFIFA5u-sAfQ8MXOQ_HQvw83hdNgH-wCwbzzPBSurwyA956OTB0t4JjQ6L3PK3tqJ67DuSekIVwSSc8MSFouQSwKa8A0KRW/s1600/BreadBag.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifKl109liebQNFTWXQ5wkF1dCLEFxxh_wLZJSWKm6cka-6yqFIFA5u-sAfQ8MXOQ_HQvw83hdNgH-wCwbzzPBSurwyA956OTB0t4JjQ6L3PK3tqJ67DuSekIVwSSc8MSFouQSwKa8A0KRW/s320/BreadBag.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> Portuguese bread bag from Elvas</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">After lunch and my trip to to the local artisan's shop, I wandered the two and enjoyed the beautiful castle, a local church (</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: start;">Sé Catedral Nossa Senhora d’Assunção)</i><span style="font-family: inherit;">, and the charming town square. There, I was delighted to witness a large group of local kids sitting near me at the café. Instead of sitting around starting at their phones, they were singing songs together and laughing. It quite a nice change!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguPT1g3PJAXW-ptWf6ADh9pRckeHTDFmCgo4Rw9Zo98DTniUac-otFTSNK-YCuYrPFuyHY0DEocPnXe4pkSGUDVlKXKLUFLjtV50jjIPe6t6VhmMSp90pAkyFR19CjZIWp6ENl58LmbX_m/s1600/Church.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguPT1g3PJAXW-ptWf6ADh9pRckeHTDFmCgo4Rw9Zo98DTniUac-otFTSNK-YCuYrPFuyHY0DEocPnXe4pkSGUDVlKXKLUFLjtV50jjIPe6t6VhmMSp90pAkyFR19CjZIWp6ENl58LmbX_m/s320/Church.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Church, exterior</span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSmBAKNm992HhXRbUCJJzjMz8v88HHjab3JAWu9KsxnTfHM2vtR5DBuXtTE8UOMsNGTpDXC0_r-irNTimPn2-b749NOElbH2kif3fs0RK6R_2Cd-Acg9wb3Kweh9nrbLUVEqrv3i7Vuhyphenhyphen_/s1600/Church2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSmBAKNm992HhXRbUCJJzjMz8v88HHjab3JAWu9KsxnTfHM2vtR5DBuXtTE8UOMsNGTpDXC0_r-irNTimPn2-b749NOElbH2kif3fs0RK6R_2Cd-Acg9wb3Kweh9nrbLUVEqrv3i7Vuhyphenhyphen_/s320/Church2.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Church, interior</span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3cGCLC8tZMAbQeot7VaK7dwO_T_ykDjyM-vaiHY3jAjhzvsOsL3Y5IshyphenhyphenrOFaETMv2H1_x5c1_XYmRXXe9PteLEAn-WxdIz0oY0VOHX9YV2LhZsRp2EhuwVj3wZ8fcjxEWlzJO-4XPis7/s1600/Elvas+Street.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3cGCLC8tZMAbQeot7VaK7dwO_T_ykDjyM-vaiHY3jAjhzvsOsL3Y5IshyphenhyphenrOFaETMv2H1_x5c1_XYmRXXe9PteLEAn-WxdIz0oY0VOHX9YV2LhZsRp2EhuwVj3wZ8fcjxEWlzJO-4XPis7/s320/Elvas+Street.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Random street scene in Elvas</i></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_WfVjF-TndhyzMdS-eU04iAV9QOMp0beM1kyBKh1rI0Y-bx1hW9exA0u6j2XGinuSzX39n8cdYao9sYJptT_rWckLBCHeb_cT8JxmjepZeFhYrzxIC7BGsE5Unzn7NmHgldRbbAzKcfGV/s1600/PortugueseChurchTile.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_WfVjF-TndhyzMdS-eU04iAV9QOMp0beM1kyBKh1rI0Y-bx1hW9exA0u6j2XGinuSzX39n8cdYao9sYJptT_rWckLBCHeb_cT8JxmjepZeFhYrzxIC7BGsE5Unzn7NmHgldRbbAzKcfGV/s320/PortugueseChurchTile.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> <i><span style="font-size: x-small;">A lovely example of Portuguese tile</span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">As the day ended, I headed back to Spain. I found a hotel in the frankly unremarkable city of Badajoz. My hotel had a casino, where I did my roughly once-a-decade bit of gambling (and losing). Not a wasted evening, though: I chatted with several interesting locals who worked there and gained more insights into the quiet desperation young Spaniards seem to feel with respect to their economic prospects. I met several young people who were all well trained in skilled disciplines, but who found themselves working nights at a small-town hotel casino due to lack of opportunity in Spain's chronically high-unemployment economy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT3zMc0H-9UUXyBjsjKzc82eokG7W8Enx_g6mcqBzJ2rQBrA9RgiZUGtMjlIonvZsUukHnw4Nao-SlRjJVKOgxLW_ccg60zEvwZSYpr8jCNbFPff8JXc32nf686WqlP94myp4wiqHKnKX4/s1600/B+Alcazaba.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT3zMc0H-9UUXyBjsjKzc82eokG7W8Enx_g6mcqBzJ2rQBrA9RgiZUGtMjlIonvZsUukHnw4Nao-SlRjJVKOgxLW_ccg60zEvwZSYpr8jCNbFPff8JXc32nf686WqlP94myp4wiqHKnKX4/s320/B+Alcazaba.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEx24rP50qYPfG85JjWeS9j59iux8BiQ6LJeOKRhCwtBSyhY4jBOM4-2cKemgmgrHNo1zNLW2vAWiHg5E9ubvqgS4H4aWjJA5Qo2kgX6H360tOwyO2iUFD1LNkXxTiVeIZqsU7-x86ltRe/s1600/Badajoz+Center.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEx24rP50qYPfG85JjWeS9j59iux8BiQ6LJeOKRhCwtBSyhY4jBOM4-2cKemgmgrHNo1zNLW2vAWiHg5E9ubvqgS4H4aWjJA5Qo2kgX6H360tOwyO2iUFD1LNkXxTiVeIZqsU7-x86ltRe/s320/Badajoz+Center.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Badajoz Center</span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzDDZj94cUqobudxzP_QQeQtuBHDbxca5wxNVqNC0AwbtxqwlC8ES7mmADgOAu1TKkLMvyESWoSZ2v4o4XB8tUFT625BUFxrqpYocFj0S9uD8sRBTg7SY39aNyv353tDZIL12LKgAJTnJk/s1600/Badajoz+C.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzDDZj94cUqobudxzP_QQeQtuBHDbxca5wxNVqNC0AwbtxqwlC8ES7mmADgOAu1TKkLMvyESWoSZ2v4o4XB8tUFT625BUFxrqpYocFj0S9uD8sRBTg7SY39aNyv353tDZIL12LKgAJTnJk/s320/Badajoz+C.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Badajoz center</i></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQkGUo9CJEr0ZtkUDDPKlrgYPi1Gvt0IYQ4CqxbcycP10eNvIrQ68Uv8SG9CtZZf4UC0W6iDnxbrMvoMKa09WKVJp0oidTUG496rR3-cmXDytdhu_Yvf7upovx5VJ16LqyCdfM9gaBOjhR/s1600/B+Alcazaba.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQkGUo9CJEr0ZtkUDDPKlrgYPi1Gvt0IYQ4CqxbcycP10eNvIrQ68Uv8SG9CtZZf4UC0W6iDnxbrMvoMKa09WKVJp0oidTUG496rR3-cmXDytdhu_Yvf7upovx5VJ16LqyCdfM9gaBOjhR/s320/B+Alcazaba.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Badajoz Alcazaba</span></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRlbQx_sLddq8S1yWiLDJsQQLBr62Ghk7T7c-05T4ypOzgyWBA6MQ-APVIieqlv6r08jv2sWQJY093PgX3d5EO4l4HZk62y1jjPoWRUBadvC6SogXU1M_WXL2SoCubT3Cf6dJ55QLxQ-IB/s1600/Badajoz+C.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRlbQx_sLddq8S1yWiLDJsQQLBr62Ghk7T7c-05T4ypOzgyWBA6MQ-APVIieqlv6r08jv2sWQJY093PgX3d5EO4l4HZk62y1jjPoWRUBadvC6SogXU1M_WXL2SoCubT3Cf6dJ55QLxQ-IB/s320/Badajoz+C.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Badajoz Center </span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWoJ_gAlHlLgsksBONlpXF1fMoDzwgLMEfjmf3MdESsQYCJYEoNKPS2GNcdovP89ZUPceae2xzcrx3ecAHSPvgF3UxrnDpiTezlqrlMz4XJ8nEQmtHKgc3lt4jozrpSGGo9GvrWmE1Bcch/s1600/Badajoz+Center.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWoJ_gAlHlLgsksBONlpXF1fMoDzwgLMEfjmf3MdESsQYCJYEoNKPS2GNcdovP89ZUPceae2xzcrx3ecAHSPvgF3UxrnDpiTezlqrlMz4XJ8nEQmtHKgc3lt4jozrpSGGo9GvrWmE1Bcch/s320/Badajoz+Center.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> <i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Badajoz Center </span></i> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Day VI</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Day six was a slow, peaceful day of traveling back to Madrid through beautiful central Spain. I took my time, as I didn't have to meet my friend for our evening out until 8:00. This was to be a very special evening for me, a return to a place I had not visited in many years: that magical temple of flamenco called the Corral de la Morer</span><span style="background-color: white;">ía. With the possible exception of Café de Chinitas, no place in Madrid (and arguably Spain) can claim to be the true home of flamenco. If you go, you absolutely must reserve online well in advance. Corral is both dinner and the performance, and the food is excellent, so be prepared to eat well. The wine list is impressive, too. But of course the dance is the attraction. Corral has always boasted among the best flamenco dancers, and tonight was no exception. My friend and I were entranced by the performance. As a special treat, the artistic director came onto the stage afterwards to welcome a visiting reporter from the New York Times and to talk about the soul of flamenco. She then treated us to her own dance, proving beyond doubt that flamenco has no age limit. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzOHoXBvhETkQWjIFRFR-XhtfHKjMUxOlUb-QCGsJ8BAsYYRGpMNFeV_9tX_v2uv6x5dz7zEcGfBVgOWuJBhQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Guests are permitted to take short videos at the very beginning of the performance.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Day VII:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Day seven was my quick trip up to Barcelona. I lived in Barcelona from 1998-1999, and had not visited since 2012. I hadn't originally intended to make this side trip, but the thought of being in Spain and not seeing old friends (and visiting my favorite Barcelona restaurant) seemed unthinkable. So I got a ticket on the puente aéreo and flew up to have drinks with a dear old friend in town, then have dinner at Tragaluz with another one. I have known them both since 1998. Neither friend is someone with whom I regularly speak these days, but no matter how many years go by, I always have an old sense of warmth when I do get to connect. As my trip was a bit rushed, I didn't get much in the way of pictures, though this look on my friend's face when she bit into dessert perfectly captured my feeling about our dinner.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizEZGCcLmoJA3BJDtOfZ7R0I0fJkMK6Br26iZWluv0dYa2Ulu5lmd4LL3CNoflCgy1lM_m8zpB8ya-URbveDoH5SA8O0xALHEPjh-hYJGrAttoPXBQ6NSocRI3GJl9s5pMKIOKF_jAaF22/s1600/Ari.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizEZGCcLmoJA3BJDtOfZ7R0I0fJkMK6Br26iZWluv0dYa2Ulu5lmd4LL3CNoflCgy1lM_m8zpB8ya-URbveDoH5SA8O0xALHEPjh-hYJGrAttoPXBQ6NSocRI3GJl9s5pMKIOKF_jAaF22/s320/Ari.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">What I found most interesting about my side trip to Barcelona were the discussions about the independence movement. As it happened, the very next day, the central government was set to take over Catalonia per Article 155 of the constitution. This isn't intended to be a blog entry on politics, so I will just say that what struck me most about all the conversations I had on the topic throughout my stay in Spain, is how differently Catalans v other Spaniards approached the topic. In Madrid, even those relatively sympathetic to the cause felt that Catalan leaders were manipulating the people of Catalonia for their own selfish ends and that the region would not otherwise be seeking independence at this time. And the more conservative voices repeatedly attacked Catalan claims of historical bases for being an independent nation. But Catalans with whom I spoke never mentioned their love of local leadership, and no one seemed to care about any historical claims to back up their arguments. It came down to just one thing: they were sick and tired of the corruption, incompetence, heavy-handedness, and arrogance of the central government in general, but in particular since Rajoy's rise to power.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Day VIII:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">After getting back to Madrid, I made another trip to the Prado, because, well, the Prado. You could go there every day for a lifetime and still be overwhelmed by everything it has to offer. After spending a few hours there, I met up with yet another old friend, someone I have known since 1991. As luck has it, she now lives directly across the street from the Prado, so logistics were easy!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And for my final event in Madrid, I saved the best for last: I managed to get tickets to see Carmen at the Teatro Real. My companion and I met up for a quick dinner right next door to the theater. The performance, for which we managed to get box seats, was beyond amazing. The Paris Opera put it on, with the local symphony playing the score. The setting was modern. Every detail of the performance was beyond criticism. Afterwards, my companion and I had the wonderful opportunity to get a guided backstage tour of the whole theater, which was built in the early 19th century and restored in the 1980s and 1990s. When seated inside the theater, one doesn't get any sense of just how vast the overall building is. There are many stories of offices, dressing rooms, tailors shops, a wig design and creation room, cafeterias, rehearsal rooms for musicians and dancers. It goes on and on and on. We toured for over an hour and still probably saw only a small part. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge3bpQVagIEo4RM6zXorh60sGFVwMYN3KWKtUL6CbRsLcOmJvOq5_Wu9LHZhluII6-ZU3MoSIVdbWFM9uMznK1HzJKAuktCaHnePZmQPAdKRFz32qpB8MaO8DT9bHHr4v4r1yCj34YcUDD/s1600/Entry..JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge3bpQVagIEo4RM6zXorh60sGFVwMYN3KWKtUL6CbRsLcOmJvOq5_Wu9LHZhluII6-ZU3MoSIVdbWFM9uMznK1HzJKAuktCaHnePZmQPAdKRFz32qpB8MaO8DT9bHHr4v4r1yCj34YcUDD/s320/Entry..JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The looming entrance</i></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtFPWUn2FVA3TK3N9IX7Nnw0tNlrn0nWOckG8SygiHoU6sbRJrppkk9nWSnL90QnJnVxN52_bicqJGq6cCsYMb7r5n-6caZdIQwg3g56IQo_CMZEAoeYM7pamcGzaAZ3xBODmnsSaQlGJD/s1600/After+hours+and+empty.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtFPWUn2FVA3TK3N9IX7Nnw0tNlrn0nWOckG8SygiHoU6sbRJrppkk9nWSnL90QnJnVxN52_bicqJGq6cCsYMb7r5n-6caZdIQwg3g56IQo_CMZEAoeYM7pamcGzaAZ3xBODmnsSaQlGJD/s320/After+hours+and+empty.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">After hours and empty</span></i></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigj-vDqX4Hp0TfHNz2ilV3u8JaNm18ga4NBfNNRw0EYzDiGDSl4TzszXTv0-PUSKp7DYv76PD8QOedDvzojnhAPMR_PcuI07hwYMlJMiAhnhV6vDOG4ndQAdiLlwVRgq2gXEsbpbZwPwoi/s1600/Royal+patron.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigj-vDqX4Hp0TfHNz2ilV3u8JaNm18ga4NBfNNRw0EYzDiGDSl4TzszXTv0-PUSKp7DYv76PD8QOedDvzojnhAPMR_PcuI07hwYMlJMiAhnhV6vDOG4ndQAdiLlwVRgq2gXEsbpbZwPwoi/s320/Royal+patron.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><i> Just outside the royal family's box, a portrait of of the theater's late royal patron (and grand-daughter of Queen Victoria)</i></span><br />
<br />
And that was the wonderful finale to another very memorable trip to Iberia! The next morning, I flew back to the U.S. In the cab ride to the airport, I had to listen to a talk show on which a rabidly nationalistic Spaniard railed against the Catalans and their "ingratitude." It left me wondering what kind of Spain I would return to upon my next visit. But in whatever form she takes, Spain will always feel like a second home to me.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183272025553890986.post-70897247761213116872015-06-27T14:12:00.000-04:002015-10-25T01:03:01.848-04:00The SCOTUS Ruling on Gay Marriage<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have three issues with conservative Christians' reactions
to the Supreme Court’s decision about gay marriage (and, in case anybody missed
it, about the overall question of the citizenship rights of gays, marriage
aside): one to do with civil rights and democracy, one to do with the (mis)understanding
of the role of the SCOTUS, one to do with the Bible’s view on homosexuality.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">1) Civil Rights & Democracy. Conservative Christians are
making the argument that in red states, huge majorities are against gay
marriage, so the SCOTUS decision is a subversion of democracy, effectively
disenfranchising millions who have voted in referenda over the years to
prohibit gay marriage. On many other
subjects, I might agree that the overruling by nine people of the votes of
millions of people would be an outrage. (Right, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore">Mr. Scalia</a>?) But this
issue is about civil rights, and you cannot </span><span style="background-color: white;">morally</span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span><span style="background-color: white;">submit basic civil rights to a
vote. In the late 18th century, slavery was still permitted even in northern
states (except, bless their liberal hearts, Vermont), so if you had conducted a
national referendum on slavery, I have little doubt slavery would have come out
the winner. Would that have made slavery morally right and provided it legitimacy? If you had held a referendum on women's rights (particularly the
right to vote) in, say, 1850, I guarantee you the all-male electorate would
have soundly rejected the notion. Would that result have morally justified oppressing women? If, in 1930s Germany, you had submitted to
referendum the question of Jewish rights, what do you think the outcome would
have been? Would that outcome have justified the Holocaust, simply because a majority deemed it acceptable to strip a minority of its rights? (Heavens, I am only two
paragraphs in and I’ve already fulfilled </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law">Godwin’s Law</a><span style="background-color: white;">!) </span><i>The majority simply does not have the moral
right to take away basic freedoms from the minority. Ever. </i><span style="background-color: white;">And by the way, that
concept was best spelled out by Founding Father James Madison, most notably in
the Federalist Papers, those documents most venerated among conservatives. And
yet this key concept is downplayed by conservatives to the point that even the
venerable </span><a href="http://www.heritage.org/initiatives/first-principles/primary-sources/the-federalist-papers">Heritage
Foundation doesn’t mention it in their introduction to the Papers</a><span style="background-color: white;">.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2) Role of the Supreme Court. I have heard many a
conservative Christian say since the ruling, that SCOTUS either doesn’t have
the right to decide such matters, or shouldn’t be so ‘activist’ when considering
such issues. To the first point, I would refer you to the paragraph above: we
need a body that fights the tyranny of the masses. But my feelings on morality
aside, I would point out what is obvious to anyone who knows even a little about the Supreme Court: that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison">since 1803, the Supreme
Court has indeed been recognized as the final arbiter in judicial review</a>,
so they absolutely do have the right to rule here. And to the second point, notice
that, pretty much without exception, conservatives always endorse legal decisions
that reinforce their prejudices and don’t mind if these clearly smack of judicial
activism, while they reserve that term for any decision with which they do not
agree. And since we are talking about legal history, let me insert here that
the vilest thing I have heard yet is a <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/ralph-reed-draws-parallels-between-the-fight-against-gay-marriage-and-the-fight-against-slavery-135710307.html">comparison
of this ruling to Dred Scott</a>, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford">infamous 1857 SCOTUS
ruling that codified the idea that African Americans were not even to be
considered as citizens worthy of rights</a>. That ruling stripped a whole people of their rights, while the ruling in favor of gay marriage did the exact
opposite, insisting that we recognize our LGBT brothers and sisters as citizens who absolutely deserve
equal rights and the privileges afforded to other Americans.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3) Biblical perspective. Of course, more than anything, conservative Christians insist that no matter what earthly institutions may
say, the Bible commands us to condemn homosexuals and, by extension, their
right to marry. I am the wrong person to challenge on this: I was a devout Christian the first couple of decades of my life, and, more relevantly, (unlike, I would say, 99% of Christians), I have actually read the Bible, cover
to cover. Twice. So grab your wet-suit and let's deep-dive this from a Biblical perspective. (Note in advance that I am not even going to go into the quite demonstrably false statement that Biblical marriage is defined as being between a man and a woman. Why bother when a <a href="http://cheezburger.com/6217367552" target="_blank">meme sums it up so well</a>?)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many people opposed to homosexuality (and who thus feel
entitled to condemn gay folks) cite various passages from the Bible. The most
obvious is Leviticus 20:13: "If a man lies with a male as with a woman,
both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death;
their blood is upon them." The problem with this verse is not actually the
verse itself - it's pretty clear in its proscription. The issue is that if you rely
on the Old Testament for your morality, there are many things that many a
Christian does that are <i>equally </i>prohibited, e.g. eating shellfish, getting
divorced, committing adultery, laboring on the Sabbath, and so on. So why this
selectivity? If you can be murdered for being gay, you are equally liable to
have those same stones kill you for working on the Sabbath, for doing something
as mundane as picking up sticks on that day. (No, seriously, it actually cites
that as an example in the book of Numbers. Look it up.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ah, says the clever Christian, but Jesus came along and
replaced the Law and washed away all previous sins with his forgiveness, but
then he reinstated the prohibition against homosexuality in the New Testament
itself by mentioning it several times there! Ha! Gotcha! Well.....except no. Let's break it down.
First of all, even post-Jesus you are still bound by Old Testament law
(including fun stuff like selling your daughter to her rapist for 50 shekels
and going to hell if you suffer an accident or disease that damages your
'manhood'....seriously, have you READ this book?!). See Matthew 5:17-18, the
words of Jesus himself: “<b>Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law</b>
or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly
I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the
least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until
everything is accomplished." [Emphasis mine.] So here we see Jesus saying that all that
old-school stuff stays in effect. Now you're in a pickle here, Christian
literalists. If Jesus didn't come to replace the old Laws, you're in trouble,
and for one obscure sin or another, you deserve to be stoned to death (or
worse: see above about selling your daughters, dads). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But let's go deeper, since Christians might say I have misinterpreted Jesus's words in
Matthew (though these words seem very straightforward to me). Let's say the old
Laws are therefore gone. But gays are still condemned by verses from the <b>New</b> Testament, right? Not so fast. That I know of, there are three verses about homosexual activity in the New Testament, and the very first thing to
notice is that none represents Jesus's personal stance or his own words. (He
mentions homosexuality exactly zero times.) So let's look at those three verses. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">All three (in 1<sup>st</sup> Corinthians, 1<sup>st</sup> Timothy,
and Romans) had better be disregarded by Christians for their own sakes! Read 1<sup>st</sup>
Corinthians chapter 6 (and stop being a cafeteria Christian for once and
read the WHOLE CHAPTER!): homosexuality is simply one <i>among many equally condemned sins</i>. That's
right, </span><span style="background-color: white;">1</span><sup>st</sup><span style="background-color: white;"> Corinthians makes no distinction between a gay person's 'sin' and,
say, an adulterer's sin, or that of an idolater or a thief or a drunkard or
slanderer or swindler. So if you use </span><span style="background-color: white;">1</span><sup>st</sup><span style="background-color: white;"> Corinthians to condemn gays as sub-human abominations before the Lord, my Christian friend, you better watch yourself. That piece of candy you stole in second grade; that time
you got drunk back in....well, yesterday; that time you cheated on a test or
lied about an enemy: according to the Bible, all are regarded by God as <i><b>equally reprehensible</b></i>. So stop
looking at that sty in your gay neighbor's eye and see to the plank in your own
(to paraphrase Matthew 7:5). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Interesting side note here: the part of chapter 6 that
mentions homosexuality has an overall context of prohibiting lawsuits among
Christians. So that divorced, Christian, litigation-specializing lawyer who
cheated on his ex-wife is WAY WORSE than the gay man or woman he condemns, in
terms of sheer volume of sin committed. Still more fascinating is that the second half of
that chapter has to do with sexual immorality, but it fails to mention
homosexuality by name or inference at all, though to be fair, it doesn’t mention,
say, adultery by name, either, and we can safely assume that would be condemned. The point is that nowhere in the Bible is homosexuality called out as being any worse than
other sins like adultery.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">First Timothy chapter 1 and Romans chapter 1 are no different than Corinthians above:
homosexuality is simply listed as an equal among those other sins that our Christian
brothers and sisters commit all the time (but which for some reason they see as less evil, which I am sure is not at all self-serving).
But lest one think I am skimming over this because these verses weaken my point, here are the verses in question: </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">1<sup>st</sup> Timothy: “</span><span style="background: #FDFEFF; color: #001320; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">We know that the law is good if one uses it
properly.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white;">We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for
lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for
those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers,</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="background-color: white;">for the sexually
immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and
perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms
to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.”</span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> (The ‘me’ here is Paul; oddly,
for a book called Timothy, the writer is not Timothy, but Paul; Timothy is the
recipient.) </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Romans chapter 1: <span class="text">Because
of this, God gave them over</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="text">to shameful lusts.</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="text">Even their women exchanged natural sexual
relations for unnatural ones.</span><span class="apple-converted-space"></span> </span><span class="text"><span id="en-NIV-27958" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with
women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts
with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.</span>”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">[Here is where the lazy Christian
stops reading, since his or her own prejudice has been sufficiently reinforced. Alas,
there is more.]</span></span><br />
<br /></div>
</div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span id="en-NIV-27959" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="text">“Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile
to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="text">to
a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span id="en-NIV-27960" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="text">They have become filled with every kind of wickedness,
evil, greed and depravity. They are full of <b><i>envy, murder, strife, deceit and
malice. They are gossips,</i></b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"></span><b><i> </i></b></span><span id="en-NIV-27961" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="text"><b><i>slanderers,
God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil;
they disobey their parents;</i></b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"></span><b><i> </i></b></span><span id="en-NIV-27962" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="text"><b><i>they have no
understanding, no fidelity, no love,</i></b></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><b><i> </i></b></span><span class="text"><b><i>no mercy.</i></b></span></span><span id="en-NIV-27963" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="text"> Although they know God’s righteous decree that those
who do such things deserve death,</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="text">they
not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who
practice them.” [Emphasis mine.]</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bottom line: if gays deserve to be cheated of their civil rights, or even killed, because their ‘sin’ is mentioned in the Bible, then </span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">almost every Christian alive deserves the same fate based on sins <i>they</i> have all committed, sins that nowhere in the Bible are called out as being any worse or better than homosexuality</b></div>
</div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="text"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="text"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One last point in order to address the obvious, last-ditch attempt conservative Christians can make in rebuttal here. They claim that the difference between gays v. gossips, slanderers, thieves, the greedy, the lustful, divorcees, adulterers, et al, is these latter do not live their lives in constant, unrepentant opposition to God, that they at some point stop committing their sins. Someone who commits adultery, for example, may do it only once and then plead for God's forgiveness and be absolved, while the gay person 'chooses' to spend his or her life in constant rebellion. I shouldn't need to point out the obvious flaws here, but for the sake of thoroughness, I will. There are two problems: </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="text"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="text"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1) People in this latter group in fact rarely seem to stop living in defiance of 'God's will'. How many gossipers do you know who stop gossiping? Ask Newt Gingrinch's ex-wives how contrite he was when he cheated on them and divorced them. Ask Donald Trump how many times he has been married and divorced. (Christians conveniently forget that only a spouses's 'immorality' excuses divorce, per Jesus himself.) Ask the Christian investment banker if he ever stopped being greedy from the day he finished his MBA to the day he lay on his deathbed. Know a lot of people who stop lusting until age begins to rob them of it, quite against their will? Of course, there are outliers, but the bottom line is that a group of LGBT-haters screaming 'God hates fags' is full of people in a constant state of sin and quite unrepentant. Which brings us to the second point. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="text"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="text"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2) Gays are the <b>only </b>people conservative Christians are constantly trying to punish through legislation and institutionalized prejudice. Do we have laws against adultery? Not anymore. Greed? Please. It's the foundation of our economy. Lust? People try to limit it, but with limited success (and one suspects they like it that way). (Besides, without lust, we'd lose 80% of the internet.) Gossiping? How much do you figure TMZ alone makes every year, and how many people view it? Thievery? We choose to impose real penalties on only a subset of thieves. If you steal a car, you can go to jail for years. But steal from millions of homeowners and your company - not even you personally - pays a fine and you move on. No, alone among all these 'sinners' are gays, because what conservative Christians can't allow themselves to admit is that most of them just can't relate to that 'sin' the way they so easily do to lust, greed, gossiping, adultery, etc. In short, they find it 'icky' and then build up their case from there. But you being grossed out by something doesn't give you the right to persecute those who do it. <i>People's basic human rights cannot be stripped away because their behavior simply doesn't appeal to you.</i></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="text"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 7.5pt;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So from a civil rights, legal, and Biblical point of
view, conservative Christians simply do not have a leg to stand on here. They may on a <i>visceral</i> level disagree with everything I have written here; but on a
<i>factual</i> level, they can provide no meaningful rebuttal.</span></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183272025553890986.post-22499810515000315272015-01-18T23:50:00.001-05:002015-06-27T14:46:46.711-04:00Jury DutyMy jury duty is complete. I really enjoyed seeing the legal system in process. It was a privilege. The case (now that I am allowed to discuss it) was a DWI one involving a young lady of 28. What was odd about it was that it happened almost four years ago. We were never allowed to know why so much time had passed between arrest and trial, but an earlier trial was alluded to.<br />
<br />
I almost didn't make the jury. I was in the pool and 12 jurors were interviewed before five were dismissed. Of the five replacements, one was dismissed, then.....lucky me. While being interviewed, I made it clear (in response to a question) that I was extremely skeptical of field sobriety tests (e.g. walk a straight line), given that I would be hard pressed to pass one when sober (which got a nice laugh from the assembled). The State accepted me nonetheless, leading me to believe they had more evidence.<br />
<br />
The state put on two witnesses, the two arresting officers. The first officer was a train wreck of apathy and incompetence. She quite nearly destroyed the State's case single-handedly. The second officer did a far better job. The defense attorney was amazing, quite talented. He went after credibility, threw up many distractions/outright red herrings, questioned every shred of evidence. I was very impressed. But at the end of the day, it was clear to me that these were just distractions and that the young lady was quite guilty.<br />
<br />
Seeing that the tricks of the defense counsel were pretty well played, I was concerned about their effect on the other jurors, so I volunteered to be foreman. Another fellow, an attorney as it happens, also volunteered. Not having any reason for either of us to be voted in or out, we (believe it or not) did rock-paper-scissors for it. He won. It soon became evident why he, too, had been interested: he was convinced she was innocent and wanted to sell this to the jury. So the deliberations boiled down to a debate between him and me. Fortunately, though spirited in his arguments, he was a reasonable man and eventually came round to the problems inherent in the defense's strategy. After an hour, we were all on the same page and voted to convict. I was quite grateful to him: without his objections, I don't think any of us would have felt 100% about our decision; the debate his doubts required allowed us to air everything out and feel comfortable about our conclusions.<br />
<br />
After the trial, I ran into both the ADA and the defense attorney in the lobby. Free to discuss the case now, I had some some questions for the ADA; he gave non-answers in a very politic way. For my part, I admonished him that the sloppy performance of the police had nearly cost him the case and that he should do a better job of preparing his witnesses. The defense counselor was very interested to know where he had fallen short. I complimented him on his work and told him that at the end of the day, he just couldn't overcome the facts of the case. But I also told him that should I ever run into legal problems, he would be on my speed dial.<br />
<br />
All in all, an excellent education in how our legal system works! I was quite honored to participate.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183272025553890986.post-19353764884496905042014-03-21T21:01:00.000-04:002014-03-21T21:01:35.176-04:00When is a Putin just a Putin?So I realize I am playing devil's advocate here, and I feel akin to a writer speculating on the motives of Hitler after the Sudetenland, but just for the sake of argument: is the absorption of Crimea into Russian really as horrible as all that? I mean, let's be clear on a few points here. 1) I don't mean to sound like a pre-WWI irredentist here, but the reality is that Crimea is mostly ethnic Russian, and Russian is the predominant language. 2) By my count, Crimea's history is one of constant change of ownership....they seem to change hands roughly every 150 years over the past few millennia. 3) The population of Crimea seems to have genuinely wanted this transfer to Russia. 4) The Ukrainians' lack of ability to maintain a stable central government for the past decade, sort of argues in favor of disaffected minority regions splitting off: if you can't get your act together in Kiev, don't be surprised when people look for other solutions. <br />
<br />
Arguments against: Well, really just one, and that's Putin himself. After South Ossetia and now Crimea, what are the limits of his ambitions for 'Greater Russia'? If gays are his Jews and Crimea is his Sudetenland (or arguably his Anschluß), then what can we expect next? We look back with perfect hindsight to the 1930s and see it all as inevitable and we judge the leaders of the time accordingly; but the fact is that they were dealing with incomplete information, just as we are now. Where is Putin going with all this? That's the million-dollar question. Or potentially the million-life one.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183272025553890986.post-50468337610059486792013-11-08T20:58:00.000-05:002015-10-24T15:44:13.463-04:00Living with Consequences: Principles v People<span style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">What I have never been able to understand about the reasoning of the American Republican party, is how it manages to separate principle from consequence with no apparent self-awareness whatsoever. It's tempting to label this as simple, blatant and willful hypocrisy or bad intentions, but that is too easy: we can't just dismiss a significant portion of the population as evil and leave it at that. For one thing, I personally know several Republicans who suffer this disconnect in their thinking, and I can tell you that they are not evil people. Quite the contrary: some are among the kindest people I know. Some are also quite bright, as are many Republicans (despite what left-wing talking heads would like you to believe), so we can't set their beliefs aside as the inevitable outcome of unintelligent people making policy.</span><br />
<div style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">
So whence the disconnect? I think it stems from two things: 1) an inability to empathize with anyone outside your own sphere of direct experience and 2) an inability to connect principles on the one hand with the logical consequences of acting on those principles on the other. I won't touch that first point as I am neither psychologist nor father confessor. Lack of empathy is a personal problem people need to address through self-examination. But let's look at some examples of that second point.</div>
<div style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">
1) Principle: A combination of small government/low taxes increases freedom and thus happiness. Practical consequence: poor services and infrastructure reduce the quality of life for all. This wouldn't be so bad if Republicans admitted the relationship between these two and asserted that the consequence was worth the principle. But they defiantly refuse to admit that there is a direct, indisputable link between starving a government of funds and that government being unable to provide services and infrastructure that everyone, Republicans included, takes for granted. You hear examples of this all the time, every time you hear a Republican friend complain about potholes or bad schools or poor funding for the police in one breath, while in the next breath bemoaning their high tax burden. There is no such thing as a free lunch: you either pay the price for civilization (i.e., taxes) or you live without the trappings of a civilized society, leading to generally low levels of life satisfaction. Ah, Republicans counter, but wait! It's not that we are saying that all taxes are bad, just that we could have all these nice things with current taxation if only the government didn't waste so much/wasn't so bloated. There's just one small problem with this argument: it has little basis in reality. I am not suggesting the government doesn't waste money. No government since the dawn of civilization could make such a boast. But if you actually take the time to look at the US federal budget and cut away every single thing you could conceivably consider as wasteful, then add in all the things we all want (but that some of us refuse to pay for), you come up with a total that is greater than the sum of taxation that Republicans are willing to pay. Don't take my word for it. Look at the federal budget. Cut away whatever you hate (foreign aid, assistance to the poor, whatever); leave the stuff you like (military spending, servicing the debt in order not to default, Social Security and Medicare, national parks, law enforcement, etc.) and add in what it would take to meet the needs not currently being met (the ones you complain about all the time, e.g. poor roads and bridges, unevenly and poorly funded schools, understaffed agencies that make you wait longer than you'd like, etc., etc.). I guarantee you that unless you are the most hard-core libertarian around, you still have a budget whose needs are not met by the size and revenues of our current government. Do the math. You will be amazed.</div>
<div style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">
2) Principle: government debt is bad and must be stopped at all costs. Practical consequence: starving the economy, harming our creditworthiness and creating an unstable economic environment. First a major correction to the conventional wisdom that right-wing governments are more responsible with spending that left-wing governments: this simply isn't true, either here in the US or in Europe, <a href="http://tennesseine.blogspot.com/2012/02/what-european-debt-crisis-isnt.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">as I showed in a 2012 post</a>. The indisputable, easily verifiable fact is that most of the current US federal debt was run up under Republican administrations. But let's put aside blame and focus on consequences. The fact is that national debt is not (despite the folksy wisdom of some populists) anything like extravagant household credit card debt; it can be and often is an investment in growth, and, depending on interest rates and needs, can be a very smart thing to have. For example, if you have a bridge that is falling apart today and you can borrow $100,000 at 3% to fix it now versus waiting til it collapses in five years and spending $10,000,000 to rebuild it, is debt bad here? If unemployment is high now and that is draining resources from unemployment funds while also reducing the tax base, is it better to allow that to continue with no debt or invest in fixing both the drain on resources and the damaged tax base? Government debt is an investment tool. When used wisely, it is not inherently evil. Granted, we have often used it very unwisely, but for those cases, you might want to look more at Reagan in the 1980s and Bush II in the 2000s, when all we got were irresponsible, deficit-ballooning tax cuts and huge spending programs that did nothing to boost the long-term health of the economy.<br />
<br />
3) Principles: government shouldn't tell the private sector how much to pay workers and government aid to the poor in unsustainable. Practical consequence: a poor minimum wage that has failed to keep up with inflation means that there is ever MORE pressure for the government to help the poor. You want to reduce Medicaid and welfare and food stamps? Much of this money goes not to the so-called 'idle poor' but to the working poor, including the lower ranks of our disgracefully-paid military servicemen and -women. So you can't have your cake and eat it, too: we either have to insist on a decent minimum wage and benefits to allow the working poor to support themselves, or you have to accept higher expenditures on aid to the poor. You can't have <b>both</b> a low minimum wage <b>and </b>a self-reliant lower economic class. It simply isn't realistic. Again, no free lunch.<br />
<br />
4) Principle: sex education is immoral and it corrupts children. Practical consequence: higher teen pregnancy rates and more abortions, two things Republicans also decry. There are few areas where disregard for the practical consequence of principles does more harm than here. The bottom line is that abstinence-only 'education' simply doesn't work. Giving children the <b>real </b>facts about sex, birth control and sexually transmitted diseases, is far more effective at reducing teen pregnancy, the demand for abortions and STDs. This is not an opinion: there are mountains of data to prove this. Don't believe me? Try looking at a map of the distribution of teen pregnancies and STDs and comparing them to the red state v blue state electoral map and tell me you don't see a pattern.<br />
<br />
I could go on, but the picture is clear: Republican principles are completely divorced from their practical outcomes. But what causes this disconnect? I think part of it is the nature of what drives the Republican mentality: unquestioning conformity to principles that are often seen as either divinely mandated or as part of an obligatory legacy of the Founding Fathers. I can't understand the logic of either of these. Even if I believed in a god, it would be one who cared about the actual outcomes for its children. And as for the Founding Fathers, the one thing people forget is that their real legacy is a framework in which we are free to create (and re-create) our own country for our own times. With all due respect to them, they were creatures of their age, and I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in the 18th century. They were a wise group, but they were, by our modern standards, also pretty misogynistic and racist. I do not judge them for that: we are all products of the age in which we live; but neither do I set such people as infallible demi-gods to whose values and ideas and structures I must cling. And they never expected us to: that's why the Constitution is a living, changeable document and one subject to the tradition of juris prudence, a tradition that allows us to adapt this document to changing values and circumstances. Such malleability is key if we are to maintain our Constitution in an ever-changing world. The Fathers couldn't have foreseen ICBMs and Uzis, the end of slavery and the liberation of women and minorities.<br />
<br />
So how do we work with people who believe that they cannot be wrong because their principles come from on high? Well.....we don't. Sorry. Not that I don't want to, not that I don't wish we could, but by definition of who they are, it simply isn't possible to treat with the more radical wing, especially the Tea Party extremists, because their mentality leads them to classify reason and compromise as treason. You can't negotiate with someone who believes he is divinely instructed to do what, and only what, he thinks is necessary, facts and the practical consequences be damned. So all we can do is build as large a coalition as possible of liberals, centrists and the ever-fewer reasonable right-wingers and try to work around, over and under this group and wait for what always happens to reactionaries: their burial by the crushing judgement of history and the unstoppable (if slow) wave of change. The worse they can do is slow us down for a while. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183272025553890986.post-67682402014098350792013-03-01T08:46:00.000-05:002016-11-04T23:08:52.955-04:00The Capitalist Case for Government<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Libertarians are an interesting lot. They espouse the idea
that almost any government is bad government, that the role of the state should
be limited to national defense and a select few other tasks. To the extent they
are talking about civil liberties, I tend to agree with them: I see no reason
for any Leviathan to tell me whom to marry, what drugs I am permitted to ingest, what I can or can’t
say, what a woman chooses to do with her body, etc.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But when it comes to what the government <b><u>should</u></b> do, what role it should
play in the economy and infrastructure, I become confused. As you delve deeper
into libertarian beliefs (and on this subject they are joined by right-wing
Republican beliefs), you soon learn that they are rooted in a deep faith in capitalism
and the wisdom of the markets, in the benevolent guidance of the ‘invisible
hand’. But the idea that the state has no role to play in the economy is in
fact quite anti-capitalist because it ignores a fundamental underpinning of
capitalism, something so basic that it is really part of the definition of
capitalism: comparative advantage. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The concept of comparative advantage was first described by
the father of economics himself, Adam Smith. I’ll let Mr. Smith sum it up in
his own words: <span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%;">"If a foreign country can supply us with a
commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them with
some part of the produce of our own industry, employed in a way in which we
have some advantage."</span> Of course, it doesn’t have to be a foreign
country: it can be any entity that has an advantage over you in how efficiently
or cheaply it produces a good or service. This isn’t just a principle or an abstract idea: it’s a mathematically provable
fact. If you take two goods (or services) and I produce one well and you
produce another well, protectionism or any other means of excluding you from production or market participation makes no sense as we are both materially better off if we trade. In
fact, it goes even further: even if I am better at <i>both</i> of these things than
you are, we are <i>still</i> both materially better off if I perform the task where my
skill most exceeds yours and you perform the other. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So what does all this have
to do with why libertarians, and right-wing Republicans who claim to be
capitalists, shouldn’t object to the many things modern governments do? It’s
because with quite a lot of the tasks required to survive and thrive in modern
life, governments enjoy a distinct <i>comparative advantage</i> over individuals and
even corporations and other organizations. Let’s take safety inspections as an
example. A strict libertarian says that safety of the food supply should be
left to producers, because it is in their best interest not to poison their
customers, who, if so poisoned, would punish them by not buying their products.* A single, centralized governmental food safety
organization enjoys a distinct comparative advantage over private industry
here, and certainly over individuals. The collective cost of all Americans
being responsible for their own food safety testing is ridiculously higher than
what a single agency would cost to perform this task for us all. Even when
compared to industry doing the testing (assuming we were foolish enough to
trust them to do so), government still enjoys the cost advantage through
economies of scale and centralization that help avoid redundant costs and
resources. So why not be good capitalists and pay them to do it through our
taxes? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The same principle applies
to a vast array of goods and services. Health insurance is another, much as
American Republicans and libertarians deny it. The <b><u>verifiable fact</u></b> is that programs like Medicare and Medicaid
have far less costly overhead and operating expenses than do private insurance
companies, who must pay for things like marketing and who of course must make a
profit. At the other end of the spectrum is something like manufacturing, a
task government is quite ill-suited to perform because, due to elasticity of
demand, competition is key to (and effective at) driving efficiency and
innovation, and a government take-over of such a task would by definition
eliminate such competition. And therein lies one of the keys to deciding what
government should and shouldn’t do: price elasticity of demand. That’s just a
fancy way of saying that people will demand something like healthcare service
at roughly the same level regardless of price (so it is quite inelastic). You
don’t say, ‘no thanks, I’ll just leave that arm broken or let that cancer grow
because the price is too high’ the way you would decide to walk or take the bus
if car prices went up too much. That’s why it does make sense for healthcare
insurance to be a government task while car manufacturing is best left to the private
sector: prices for cars are quite elastic since people have many options, thus
ensuring that there will be fierce competition among makers to innovate and
keep costs low through efficiency as otherwise they lose business either to
competitors or to alternative means of transportation. The list of examples
could go on and on: roads, emergency services, schools on the one side;
manufactured goods and value-added professional services on the other side. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So if our libertarian and
conservative friends want to be good little capitalists, let them prove their
understanding of </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">capitalism by applying a reasoned, rational test - versus an emotional,
irrational and ideological one - when deciding what the government should and </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">shouldn't</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"> do. If government enjoys a comparative advantage, and especially if
the good or service in question suffers from highly inelastic demand, then let
them do it and pay them a fair price (through reasonable taxation) to do so;
else, leave it to the private sector.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
<br />
*<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Let’s put aside for the moment the absurdity of allowing people to die in order to allow the market to adjust itself. Let’s also put aside the fact that poisoning with chemicals and impurities can take years if not decades, thus leaving companies with a profit motive to continue poisoning in the short to medium term with no fear of retribution from the marketplace during the lifetime of current management.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183272025553890986.post-85950166998167317102013-02-14T08:18:00.001-05:002013-02-14T08:18:01.458-05:00Rights without Responsibilities<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
It seems that every day we hear more and more about ‘rights’
and ‘freedoms’ from the right wing in this country. We’re subjected to a
constant litany of complaints about the supposed infringement on these precious
commodities. We hear about 2<sup>nd</sup> Amendment rights, rights to low
taxes, freedom from regulation, freedom from obligations to take responsibility
for…wait a moment. What were those two words? Back up. ‘Obligations’?
‘Responsibility’? These two words seem to be outside the vocabulary of these
complainers. How can one go on and on about one’s patriotism and love of
country and rights and freedoms without every mentioning these two words? How
can you love a country to which you feel you owe absolutely nothing but from
which you enjoy all the fruits of its liberties? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You can’t just chant ‘USA! USA!’ and ‘Support the troops’ in
one breath, and in the next breath begrudge the funds (aka taxes) needed to <i>actually, literally support the troops</i>.
You certainly can’t use that old chestnut ‘Freedom isn’t free’ when you want
your freedom to be <i>literally free of
charge</i>. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You can’t bemoan attempts to place sane boundaries around
your 2<sup>nd</sup> Amendment rights when that right begins to cut into the
more fundamental right of six-year-old children to live, to not have their
bodies riddled with bullets from high-capacity, semi-automatic assault rifles.
What about your <i>obligations</i> to them? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You can’t talk about ‘freedom of choice’ in the context of
our healthcare system when real choice and the highest-quality care are
restricted to the wealthiest people. Yes, we have the most advanced healthcare
available in the world, but the vast majority of us aren’t ‘free’ to choose
that level of care. If having the <i>most
advanced care available</i> were synonymous with having the <i>best healthcare system</i>, then our
outcomes would be higher and we wouldn’t be ranked behind most other developed
countries in life expectancy. Without the <i>obligation
</i>to extend healthcare to all Americans, having the <i>freedom</i> for <i>some</i> select
people to choose the best healthcare is meaningless.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Folks on the right wing in this country claim to be the
patriots, the lovers of freedoms. But if you want freedom without
responsibility, you’re not a patriot. You’re a freeloading leech sucking away
resources without wanting to give anything back. That’s not my definition of
patriotism. <o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183272025553890986.post-84925371465591866172012-07-27T13:53:00.002-04:002015-10-24T21:13:43.130-04:00Book reviews, Part 2 of ∞ : The Rational Optimist (continued)<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">It’s not every day that one reads a review in which a fan of a book pillories that same book. Alas, that’s what I find myself doing here. Matt Ridley’s The Rational Optimist is a wonderful read and I can’t argue with its central thesis, to wit: when ideas are left free to interact (‘have sex’ as he colorfully puts it), they create a wonderful synergy that leads to ever-increasing rates of innovation. This thesis in turn supports his optimism that the human race’s condition is steadily increasing and can be expected to continue improving at ever-faster rates, as long as we don’t stifle innovation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Stifling innovation is where the stickiness begins, though. Conveniently enough, everything that happens to conflict with Mr. Ridley’s worldview and political philosophy, just happens to be exactly what is worst for innovation (and, by extension, humankind). Anything that runs afoul of his philosophy, which might best be described as an admixture of libertarianism, laissez-faire economics and neo-liberal approaches and attitudes, is perforce bad for innovation and thus quite deadly, to be eradicated as quickly as possible (though apparently not before pausing briefly to subject it to scathing sarcasm and dismissive ridicule). I get the impression that his political beliefs were changed sometime in adulthood and following a period during which he held very different positions, because usually only the converted show such rabidity in their attacks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">But again, despite his flaws and flashes of anger, I think Mr. Ridley is on the right track here, and I fully support his basic theses. But that doesn’t mean I can turn a blind eye to his work’s many, many flaws and inconsistencies. They need to be addressed, not to <i>refute</i> but rather to <i>strengthen</i> his overarching argument, because it’s one I wholeheartedly support. We need more optimism in this age of doom and gloom. All this defeatism is just leading to more defeats. We need a reason to look forward to what is in fact a brighter future. I hope that by pointing out where his arguments break down, the central thesis may be more solidly supported in future by employing sounder arguments.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Most of Mr. Ridley’s problems fall into a half dozen of categories: 1) straw-man arguments; 2) deception by averages; 3) self-contradiction, arguing one way to support a point here, then arguing the opposite way to make a different point, creating contradictions along the way; 4) glaring inaccuracies and oversights; 5) conflation/guilt by association used to attack positions (e.g. ‘Hitler was evil and a vegetarian; you are a vegetarian; ergo, you are evil'); 6) blind spots (moral, political, logical) caused by the dogmatic nature of this beliefs. Covering all of these in detail would require that I write a book of my own, but I do want to flag a few of the more egregious issues.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Straw Men of the World Unite! Mr. Ridley needs you! To refresh the memory: a straw-man argument is an oft-employed tactic in rhetoric in which one creates some absurd version of one’s opponent’s position, then attacks that absurd version, without ever having to address the real, original version of the argument, then using that sleight of hand to convince the audience of the absurdity of the opponent’s position. An exaggerated example: I say to you that it’s a good idea to include apples in school lunches, and you refute this position by say something like, ‘So I guess now all our kids are going to be vegetarians! What do you have against the meat industry? Do you realize how many jobs would disappear if you put the meat industry out of business? Why are you anti-jobs, Mr. Hughey?! Stop pushing your radical job-killing agenda on this community!’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Mr. Ridley most often employs this tactic when discussing environmental regulation. He argues against many green initiatives by taking them to the most extreme possible versions, then attacking those extremes. For example, he notes that to move completely away from fossil fuels, the UK would have to take measures that indeed sound absurd (e.g. covering 10% of the land with wind farms and areas the size of Lincolnshire with solar panels). </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">His decision to focus on the UK in isolation makes his arguments even weaker, since the UK is unusually highly densely populated AND is a high energy consumer (giving an energy usage/land area ratio of 1.25 w/sq meter). Folks like Ridley speciously use this outlier as an example of why too much energy per square meter is required to make something like biofuel possible, as it only yields .5 p/ sq meter. If UK is the outlier, why is it a valid example? </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Yes, if we shut off fossil fuels tomorrow (an absurd notion) and used only current technology (equally absurd given the time frames for transitioning away from fossil fuels) and chose the mix of solutions that would work only in isolation (e.g. don’t put panels on buildings, but take up land dedicated solely to the panels), then yes, that would be nutty….so clearly the entire environmental movement is absurd and can be safely dismissed! Yay fossil fuels! How silly and juvenile. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">These scenarios he describes remind me of the old adage about current trends: if current trends can’t be maintained, they simply won’t be. If ‘at current trends’ the mile will one day be run in ten seconds, then clearly the current trend won’t prevail! So if with current technology we would one day have to tear up all green spaces to make way for alternative energy production, clearly that will never happen! </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">He’s also rather absurd in his assumption that land area taken up by production of renewables is land area lost to people. It’s not a zero sum game: solar panels can occupy roof tops, for example; wind farms can be put offshore; ocean wave energy plants can be put in areas not readily accessible or even necessarily desirable to people.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> His stance on alternative energy also assumes no progress will ever be made in the efficiency of these sources, so, he seems to argue, why bother with them? By similar reasoning, we should never have bothered with oil or gas, because only deep-sea drilling, advanced extraction methods and (in the case of gas) hydrofracking have yielded the volumes we’re able to achieve today. But none of these techniques existed when we first started getting fossil fuels out of the ground. Only by investing in fossils </span><span style="font-size: 16px; text-indent: -0.25in;">over many years</span><span style="font-size: 16px; text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">did we come up with these new techniques.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Inaccuracies. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Any book sufficiently dense in facts and figures will inevitably contain some innocent mistakes. To make too much hay out of innocent oversights/errors is to descend into pedantry. But there are cases in Mr. Ridley’s book where one gets the sense that the oversights are almost willful attempts to prop up arguments with convenient lapses. For example, Mr. Ridley is very dismissive of theoretical scientific research and apparently finds it quite the waste of human effort and resources. He claims that all the useful technology in the world has come from practical research carried out with profits and gain in mind. What utter nonsense and bunk. And one needn’t look outside Ridley’s own work to find examples to support that opinion: he talks about the usefulness of the laser, but that device would not have come to be without a solid theoretical basis of work done by people who had no industrial applications in mind. And the modern world Mr. Ridley loves would scarcely even be possible without the breakthroughs of Michael Farraday, a man Ridley conveniently ignores but whose whole life was dedicated to work that can pretty fairly be described as theoretical. Without his work, without his discoveries, we’d have few of the modern marvels we take for granted.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Being a Libertarian, Mr. Ridley also conflates the amorality of market mechanisms with the amorality of its players. I'm a firm believer that markets are among the most </span>efficacious means of achieving goals, but they rarely address the negative externalities <span style="font-size: small;"> associated with them, so leaving them entirely to their own devices means too many people often get hurt in the process. So by all means, let markets do their magic, but where they fail to address human needs, apply corrective incentives (as opposed to punishments) to encourage better outcomes. Mr. Ridley sees that as too much of an encumbrance to free markets; I say markets aren't infallible gods and we shouldn't worship them as such.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Unemployment is a perfect example of this. The way our market system is set up, there simply can't be zero unemployment. If there were, inflation would soon spiral out of control. So if this imperfection of the market system is undesirable but also necessary, may we not mitigate its impact by helping the poor and unemployed? After all, we owe our prosperity to some percentage of people unable to get work. So why not address this negative externality associated with inflation control? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
I also take issue with Mr. Ridley's view that all g<span style="font-size: 12pt;">overnment is just some stone around our necks. Through government we can accomplish greatness and handle tasks the market simply won't solve, such as roads, police, education, etc. And despite his silly statement to the contrary, no, 'some rich guy' wouldn't have gone to the moon without there first being a massive public investment in NASA. That was a perfect case of the groundwork needing to be laid by the public so that the private sector could follow. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Finally, I take issue with Mr. Ridley's anti-tax extremism as it ignores the role taxation plays in leveling the playing field. (Leave aside for the moment the fact that there is simply no evidence that cutting away taxes and regulation creates jobs.) Unfettered capitalism in low-tax environments is leading to ever-increasing gaps between rich and poor that won't just go away and that are holding us back, meaning the optimistic world Ridley inhabits simply can't be maintained if people like him get their way and the gaps keep widening between rich and poor. Mr. Ridley would counter that 'on average', we are all getting richer, but that's meaningless if that average moves up only because the top 1% are gaining much more even as the poorest lose out. If I have 100 apples and you have one apple, and I get two more apples while you lose yours, then <i>on average</i> our little group has gotten richer (going from an average of 50.5 to 51 apples per capita)....but under the circumstances, do you care? Mr. Ridley would say huzzah, we're all richer! I don't buy it. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">So, in conclusion, I think Mr. Ridley's overall message is a sound one and I fully support the idea that innovation is the driver of our better tomorrow. But he is too blinded by partisanship and ideology to see that there are limits to the model he describes and supports.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183272025553890986.post-71722289304705393602012-07-09T16:06:00.004-04:002017-10-07T16:06:44.637-04:00Why I Don't Believe<div style="text-align: justify;">
A friend of mine posted a link the other day to an article about so-called 'Out-of-ordinary experiences' (e.g. religious epiphanies) and why they shouldn't be dismissed as kooky, why indeed they should be f<b style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; text-align: left;">ê</b>ted and cherished. I read the piece with mild interest, then moved on. But I couldn't get the article out of my head. For some reason it just nagged at me. Why did it bother me so much this idea that, whatever their provenance, such experiences should be embraced? Forced to confront the idea consciously, I had to spell out to myself what was wrong with this line of reasoning. Finally, it boiled down to this: treating 'Out-of-ordinary experiences' as something to be validated and embraced is dangerous not because of the value they serve to the person experiencing them, but for the harm to which they lead for everyone else. If my belief that the Almighty is whispering career advice to me ends with me trying harder at work, then fine. But it rarely ends there, does it? It usually leads to things like 'well, if God wants me to do this, and God's will is supreme, then anyone standing in my way must be evil; ergo, I am divinely mandated to remove that person from my path at any cost.' Eventually, your experience of divine communication almost always ends up hurting someone else. We don't hear a lot of stories about God saying, 'hey, just stop being such a jackass, be nice to everyone and leave them be', do we? Invariably, God always communicates something that, sooner or later, gets translated into bad news for someone else.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
All this gets me to thinking about why I am a non-believer. I didn't start out my life as one. Quite the contrary. I grew up in the American South, the Bible Belt. As a child, I attended a very strict, conservative, Southern Baptist church. And it suited me just fine at the time. I was fervent in my beliefs as a child. I saw Satan as a very real enemy, someone who used things like rock music to bend sinners to his will.* I even wanted to be a preacher at one point. But starting at about age 15, I started to question things. The first impetus for questioning came from my sense of justice, combined with a growing sense of history. I remember being horrified when I realized that, for example, according to the logic of the church, all people born outside the Middle East before Christ, and outside of Western Asia, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East up through the 15th century, were all burning in hell for the crime of having been born in the wrong place at the wrong time (since they couldn't possibly know Christ). I also began wondering about other accidents of birth: given that most people in the Middle East grow up to be the same religion (Islam) as their elders and given that most people in my country did the same with Christianity, then had my soul been saved only because I was 'lucky' enough to have been born here v there? What a random way to decide the fate of a human soul. How could a just God allow this?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Terribly conflicted but desperate to conserve my faith, I finally sought out the advice of my religion's equivalent of a pope: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Rogers" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Adrian Rogers</a>, the president of the American Southern Baptist Convention and, as it happened, the pastor of my church (Bellevue Baptist in Memphis, where I grew up). He kindly made time in his busy schedule to meet with me at his office at the church in midtown. I posed all these questions to him, expecting that this font of Christian wisdom would put all my doubts to rest and I wouldn't have to keep lying awake at night thinking about 10th-century Native Americans burning in hell. He had no answers. He spouted some clichés, gave stock answers that addressed none of my concerns, then sent me on my way with the words, "I know God has great plans for you, young man." With those patronizing words - he practically patted me on the head - religion started to die in me. It took a lot longer (about another 15 years in fact) before I self-identified as atheist - after all, life is not a TV drama wrapped up in 44 minutes after one meaningful epiphany - but that was more about labels and exhausting other possibilities than holding out any real hope that I could un-lose my religion. The last nail in the coffin of my faith came from living outside the South for many years, experiencing things that caused me to question my belief system even more.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So why don't I believe? There are many reasons, some to do with the nature of deities, others to do with the nature of belief itself, others to do with how Christianity works in practice.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>The nature of eternity.</b> I don't think believers really think this through. One hundred years is a very long time to live. Many people who live that long get frankly bored with life and are ready for death. Now multiply that times a trillion. Then multiply that by a trillion a trillion more times. Add more zeros than there are stars in the sky. And you're still no closer to the infinite amount of time that eternity entails. Eternity is temporal infinity. Can you imagine existing that long? Imagine getting to understand the internal structure of every atomic particle that has ever existed or will ever exist and STILL having eternity to look forward to. Sounds maddening to me. I can't imagine any loving deity would subject anyone to such torture. So when Christians talk about their castles in heaven (as though heaven were just prime real estate for churchgoers), ask them how many trillions of trillions of centuries they could stand to live in even the most beautiful chateau before madness set in.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Polytheism that masquerades as monotheism. </b>Dance on the pinhead all you want: if you step back and really look at the whole Jesus thing, it just doesn't make any sense at all for a religion claiming to be monotheistic. Christians were desperate to follow the monotheistic tradition of their parent religion, but still allow for this 'blood of the son' thing. So - and mind you, this was a sophistry added several centuries AFTER the fact - they came up with the Trinity, a bizarre logical morass in which there is only one god, but 'he' (more on that pronoun later) has a son - but no wife...single dad? - and a holy spirit. Now, I kind of get the logic of the holy spirit, since one could argue that it's just a question of god having a soul himself (though that particular approach doesn't seem to be the one taken by Christians). But a son? Really? Did he create this son himself, in which case Jesus was not eternal? If Jesus is eternal, then how did his dad beget him? And if they are one in the same, how is it one is the son of the other?**</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Killing a son who isn't a son to pay a price that you made up yourself.</b> Wait, what? So god is an all-powerful, supreme overlord who created the universe AND wrote the rule book. And into these rules, he decided to put a clause stating that things like knowledge and sex are bad. And when humankind discovers these things (from a snake, mind you, and a snake that he created himself to boot), he punishes them and sends them out into a cruel world.*** To pay the price for doing a thing that an omniscient god must have known they would do in the first place, humankind has to make all sorts of weird animal sacrifices for the next few millenia. But then one day, to pay the price <i><b>god himself established to begin with</b></i>, he has to make humankind kill his only son. Seriously, if you came from another planet and somebody told you this story, you'd laugh out loud at the sheer silliness of this tale. But since you grew up hearing it from such a young age, it all makes sense. But if some psychopath murdered his son and claimed it was to make up for something he made you do to begin with, that man would end up in jail, and rightly so.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>What does god do with a penis?</b> This one is one of the craziest of all. We refer to god as a male, as a father, and one after whose image men were fashioned. So given that what makes a man a man v a woman are his male genitalia and male hormones, are we saying god has a penis and testosterone? What does he do with those things? The penis is used for waste removal and sex. Which of these two things is god doing? Both? Neither? If neither, in what sense is he a male (and why the penis)? If he isn't a male, is the bible false and in what sense is he a father? If you're going to espouse Christianity as a story of <b>literal truth</b>, you aren't allowed to dismiss these questions. They require answers. And if you are a Christian who dismisses the literalness of the stories, then in what sense are you really Christian? And how do you decide which stories are literally true v just allegorically useful? Doesn't elevating yourself to editor of holy scripture seem rather arrogant?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>If Christians truly believed, they'd go around sobbing in horror all the time.</b> If I really, truly, honestly believed that my spouse or child or parent or even acquaintance was going to spend all of eternity in searing agony, I simply couldn't cope. If I truly believed for one second that some or all the people I loved had that kind of future ahead of them, I simply couldn't function. I would have to spend every minute of every day doing everything humanly possible to stop that fate, and nothing else - not work, not play, not money, nothing - would distract me from that goal. After all, who cares about my 70-odd years on this planet compared to an eternity of agony for everyone I care about? Since few Christians behave in this way, I doubt the sincerity of their belief.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>If Christians truly believed, their suicide rate would be higher. </b>If I am meant to endure for eternity and life here on Earth is under a century - and a tough century at that - and I am 100% convinced that my death will bring me to blissful communion with a god, why not just kill myself? Yes, it's a sin, but committing this one sin would keep me from committing a lifetime of sin, so the net effect will be less sin, not more. And if Christians are willing to overlook things like getting tattoos and failing to stone their neighbors to death for working on the Sabbath, then surely they can overlook this one sin as a small price to pay for being with god sooner? But of course they do not behave this way - and I am glad they don't as I'd miss my Christian friends terribly. This tells me they can't believe all that fervently in the future that awaits them after death.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>I don't need to believe to be a good person. In fact, not believing is what makes me a morally centered person. </b>There is a very twisted rationalization for belief that says that one must believe in order to be good, the reasoning being that only god can confer morality. What silliness. In my experience the exact opposite is true. If I know that god will forgive me for every horrible thing I can think of, just by me asking him for that forgiveness, then I can commit any sin I want! I can rob, kill, pillage, whatever I like, because god will just forgive me with a simple prayer. And anyway, who cares, because what really matters is eternity, right? I mean, killing is bad, but if that person is going to heaven anyway, I have done him a favor, and god will forgive me. But if I reject the idea of god-given forgiveness and I believe life ends with death, then I must do everything I can to ensure I lead a good life, because it's the only one I (and those around me) will ever get, and no one will remove my guilt if I do something evil. If this life is all there is, I must work hard to make it the best I possibly can, and since humans tend to feel worse when they commit bad acts and cause suffering around them, being good just makes sense. This is my response when Christians say that without a god there is no morality, or when they make silly claims like, 'well, if there's no god, why don't we all just go around murdering, raping and pillaging?!' I also want to ask them: what kind of person are you if the only things stopping you from doing horrible things are a god and an ancient text full of contradictions and its own slate of horrid acts? Bottom line is that if fears of retribution and promises of eternal rewards in the afterlife are the only things keeping you from being a horrible person, then I have bad news for you: you already are a horrible person. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So that in a nutshell is why I don't believe in a Christian god. If you do believe, I don't begrudge you that and I won't try to dissuade you. If it works for you, go with it. Just make sure your faith makes you a better, not a worse, person, and don't use god as an excuse for doing harm to others. Stick to that common-sense rule and we'll get along just fine!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
One final note. On the rare occasions I discuss my (lack of) faith with people, I hear a lot of 'well, I don't believe in the literal truth of the Bible, just its message of love and God's mercy.' To that I say, 'then you clearly haven't read this book.' Unlike what I suspect is the vast majority of Christians, I have in fact read the Bible cover to cover. I would say its ratio of hatefulness and bigotry to its goodness and forgiveness, is pretty staggeringly high. And if you don't believe in its literalness, what do you need with the book anyway? Why can't you just be a good person and, if you think it's really necessary, commune with your deity without all the added fairy tales? (Admittedly, I think the god is <i>part</i> of the fairy tales, but the point stands.)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Footnotes:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
*There was an upside to this. Since I avoided popular music until the age of about 15, my entire musical world consisted of classical music. So while the churchiness didn't stick, I can at least be thankful to religion for my lifelong love of Beethoven and Wagner.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
**These are exactly the kinds of questions children are smart enough to ask, before adults bully this logic out of them. Kids can smell bullshit much better than adults can, but they lose the ability to do so as they age because adults keep telling them the bs is actually caviar. You can see this when you hear kids asking quite reasonable (but superficially silly) questions of logic such as, 'Can God microwave a burrito too hot for him to eat?' This may seem like a childish question, but the logic it employs is quite valid and the underlying question deserves an answer that you can't provide. So you tell little Timmy to shut up and read his bible that for some reason still uses a translation done in archaic English. Oh, dear.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
***And then they found the human race from just two sets of DNA. Then magically a bit later in the same story, they suddenly have all these other people around. So....were their children coupling with each other? Or were the children reproducing with Mom and Dad? Either way, some serious incest going on there. So much for genetic viability.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183272025553890986.post-37977586339785981762012-06-16T16:18:00.011-04:002013-03-21T12:33:33.227-04:00Travelogue: Barcelona, Paris, Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">I was recently invited to speak at a conference in Paris, so as I usually do whenever business takes me abroad, I did some combining in order to feed my lifelong lust for travel. (I didn't set aside any extra time for Paris itself because I lived there for two years.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Prior to Paris, I stopped through Barcelona, a city where I lived for a year back in the 1990s, and where I still have some friends. It was the first time back since I left in 1999, so it was quite the stroll down memory lane for me. I had dinner at the house of one old friend, then dinner out with another the next evening. For the dinner out, we ate at Tragaluz, which is one of my all-time favorite places to eat. The jamón ibérico and cochinillo asado were amazing. Indeed, all the food/wine was just as wonderful as I remembered it, as was the atmosphere (though they had remodeled, so the layout was different). I was only in Barcelona for a couple of days, so I had time for little else. Still, I did manage to take a long walk up from the Rambla to Montjuic, then down to Plaza de Espanya and back again, and to stop at the Fundació Joan Miró and spend some time there, which was a delight. I also squeezed in a quick trip to see my old flat in la calle Entenza, indulging in a bit of nostalgia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Paris was, well, Paris. Unlike many of the other places I have lived, when I left Paris seven years ago, I was ready to leave. I didn't dislike the city, and I enjoyed living there while it lasted; but it was definitely time to move on. So coming back for the first time in seven years was a mixed feeling, a combination of homecoming and, well, not coming home. I was so busy with the conference that I scarcely had time to enjoy the city anyway, though I did make time the afternoon I arrived before the conference to go for a three-hour long walk around the city. And of course, I made time to have some French comfort food, the Gallic equivalents of hamburgers, fries and pizza: copious amounts of </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">pâté</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">, croques messieurs and escargots.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">After Paris, I took two days off work (and the weekend) to try some new cities, Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest. Normally, I dislike that peculiarly American habit of trying to see a city a day in a whirlwind tour; but I viewed this as more of a scouting trip, just an attempt to get enough of a taste to know if I wanted to come back for a proper visit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">My verdicts:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><b>Vienna</b>: To be frank, Vienna was underwhelming. I spent the day walking around the city center and hitting some of the 'must-sees' like the Staatsoper. Beautiful buildings all, but not of any better quality or of particular distinctiveness compared to what one sees all around Europe. (To be fair, I am sure the Staatsoper would have been far more impressive had I had the chance to see an actual performance in it.) And the throngs of tourists were just too much....I felt I was at Eurodisney, not a European capital. (It also felt oddly subdued for a place that was once the center of central European culture and capital of an empire. As someone I know put it so well, it "seems...</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">to be a city of ghosts and repression.")</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">The place for which I had held out the most hope was the Secession gallery (so named because Gustav Klimt and his fellow modern artists in Vienna in the late 19th century seceded from the mainstream art scene to establish their own showings and, later, their own gallery). I love Klimt's work, and the gallery's most famous work (the Beethoven frieze) centered on my favorite composer. I was therefore expecting quite an experience here. Unfortunately, a combination of not being in the right frame of mind following my less-than-impressive trip to center city, and being in yet another place overrun by tourists, meant that this experience was as little enjoyable as my Vienna stay overall. So by mid-afternoon, I decided to cut my loses and head to Bratislava. Good thing, too: my trip there salvaged the whole day!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><b>Bratislava</b>: Bratislava is very close to Vienna. Even the non-express train only takes an hour and a quarter to get there. But once you alight from that train, you feel like you have entered another world, one far removed from the officious tidiness of Vienna: it just feels 'realer' than Vienna. If you ever get there, I highly recommend a trip to the castle just for the view from the ramparts. St Martin's church is charming and has quite the storied history, so definitely make a stop there. And just generally that whole old town pedestrian area is a quite relaxing area in which to stroll, with minimal tourists.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">But to me, the best thing about Bratislava was the hotel where I stayed, the Marrol's Boutique Hotel. Amazing. Great staff, wonderful restaurant with local delicacies and an attentive, professional waitstaff, and even a nice quiet library where one can have a drink and relax.* (And yes, it's an actual, proper library filled with great books....it's not a place with old magazines and wallpaper with pictures of books on it.) The rooms were very comfortable, and even the minibar was included in the price. I know I sound like an advert for this place, but it was just one of the best hotels in which I have ever stayed. If ever you get the chance to stay there and (wisely) choose to eat in the hotel restaurant, I highly recommend the quail as an appetizer, followed by the local rabbit confit dish. For wine, choose one of the hron varietal wines, typical of Slovakia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><b>Budapest</b>: As much as I wanted to spend the rest of my days at the Marrol's, if it was Friday, it meant Budapest**, so off I went by train to that grand city. It did not fail to impress. I stayed on the Pest side of the Danube at the Kempinski Corvinus, which was an ideal location from which to explore the area. I wandered down the Danube to the Chain Bridge the first evening, just to scope things out. It was a very pleasant way to spend an evening stroll. I dined in a local restaurant and tried my fill of Hungarian fare, including wild young boar.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">The next day, I again crossed the bridge into Buda, but this time with the aim of visiting the Hungarian National Gallery and the history museum. (As I want to end on a positive note about the gallery, I'll just quickly say that the history museum was unimpressive, with unsatisfactory notes and context.) The national gallery is simply not to be missed. Cut out whatever else you must to make time for this! I really enjoyed all the post-Renaissance periods of Hungarian art. I simply had no idea how many wonderful artists Hungary had produced. The prominently-displayed Dorfmaisters*** were lovely, but my two favorite artists were </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Gyárfás Jen</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">ő</span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> (especially his Ordeal of the Bier from 1881) and Orlai Petrich Soma, whose Sappho was positively haunting. I'd make the trip back just to spend another 20 minutes sitting and staring at those two pieces.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">So those were my whirlwind tours. For Western Europe, I now just lack Sweden, Portugal****, Luxembourg, San Marino and Liechtenstein.***** But Eastern Europe is a gem I have only just started to explore. If Budapest and Bratislava are any indications, I have a lot of very rewarding travel left to do in Europe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Footnotes:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">*Relatively relaxed. For the first twenty minutes, I was sharing it with a Norwegian couple who spoke in an eastlander dialect of Norwegian, one in which everything sounds terribly insistent. The woman was describing a recent trip to Lillehammer, but by her cadence and intonation, you'd have thought she was pleading for her life.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">**Allusion intended.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">***Comedic value of this name duly noted. I think he was in 'Fletch'?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">****I find it ironic that the only two major countries I lack, Sweden and Portugal, were right next door to two of the countries where I lived, Norway and Spain.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">*****Well, 'lack' is an odd choice of words here, because I don't really consider myself to have visited a place until I have spent enough time there to form real impressions. For example, I still consider myself to 'lack' Denmark, given that all my trips there have been either pass-throughs or for business, those types of trips that leave little time for much besides airports, transfers, hotels and offices.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183272025553890986.post-79592761587946491362012-05-26T18:19:00.005-04:002012-05-26T23:49:13.016-04:00Finally GETting it: the 2012 GET (Genomes, Environments and Traits) Conference, Boston, 25 April 2012<div class="MsoNormal">As I mentioned in one of my very first blog posts, I am participating in the Personal Genome Project led by Dr. George Church of Harvard. (<a href="http://tennesseine.blogspot.com/2011/01/personal-genome-project.html">Read that post here</a> to get a quick overview of the project.) For the past couple of years, they have had a one-day conference (Genomes, Environments, Traits, or GET) at Harvard Medical School to discuss progress as well as host presentations on related themes and trends. Participants in the study are invited to attend free of charge, so I stopped by to enjoy some very interesting lectures on a wide range of topics, as well as to get a full update on the progress of the project.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And OK, I admit it: I also wanted to meet Dr. Church.* I have always found the idea of ‘celebrity’ rather horrifying. With the exception of a book-signing, I wouldn’t be caught dead asking someone for an autograph, and I firmly reject the idea that just because someone (e.g. actors) is in the limelight, s/he is somehow worthy of our affection and praise. And I believe that if you admire someone for his or her convictions or policies or work, then you should admire the product (i.e. ideas), not the person (who is as fallible as you). In other words, I don’t really do hero-worship, and I don’t have any ‘rock stars’. But Dr. Church is as close as I will ever come to having a hero. His audacious project to sequence 100,000 genomes has the potential to have a greater impact than any other single scientific undertaking in medical history. I realize this doesn’t make him as fame-worthy as, say, an accomplished person like Kim Kardashian or Paris Hilton, but it’s good enough for me.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">For me, the most interesting part of the day was the update on the project itself. The whole team was there, each updating on his or her area of responsibility (bioethics, legal, operations, etc.). They then fielded questions from the group of us there. The question I wanted to ask (but didn’t have to because apparently everyone was thinking it and someone else posed it first) was, isn’t the project terribly skewed towards a certain subset of the population? First there’s education and IQ: since they aren’t aggressively advertising it yet, they are getting mostly people who have a higher educational level; and since they require everyone to pass a test on the basics of genetics, risk and privacy issues at stake, it will also skew towards the more intelligent. Also, looking around the room, I saw a majority male and majority white audience (though admittedly I don’t know for sure how representative that was of the overall participant pool). Add to that the fact that one must be an American citizen to participate and it does seem a little imbalanced. There really wasn’t much of an answer for that. For the educational/IQ and American citizen issues, those are all related to legal/informed consent/privacy requirements, so they can’t really budge there for now. As for ethnicity and sex, presumably at some point they will be making a wider push for more participants and attempt to balance things then. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And that brings me to the next thing I noticed: despite the fact it’s been up and running for a few years now, it is still very early days, so patience is the key word here. There’s so much more to it than simply soliciting, receiving and processing DNA. Remember, nothing like this has ever been attempted before, so there is a very steep learning curve here: how best to collect and process so many samples, and with the best maintenance of the samples; even deciding WHAT to sample, since this is also about environment and about getting as wide a spectrum of data as possible; how to handle the interface with participants; all the legal and privacy issues; how best to process all the data to ensure it’s actually turned into something meaningful. The list goes on and on.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As for the numbers, here’s where it stands right now: there are about 2,000 of us in the project. In the first five years of the project, they sequenced 10 genomes (starting with Church’s, who led by example and released all his data); now they are up to about that many per month. The market cost for the process is down to around USD 4-5k, which is already half as much as last time I checked a year or two ago; and the price will continue to plummet as the process is improved and streamlined (which is an important secondary goal of the project). <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Besides the project update, there were many fascinating presentations on other subjects, from a CEO who has the goal of achieving the 100-dollar genome, to an incredible project that is achieving the ultimate biomimickry: creating actual miniature bio-synthetic organs on which to do drug trials to ensure greater accuracy and reliability of results (not to mention saving a lot of rats!). That latter one was amazing and the implications for drug research are profound. Take for example asthma drug research. Progress in this area has been (literally painfully) slow. One of the main reasons? Animals simply don’t mimic the human version of asthma very well, so researchers often go down dead-end paths, wasting a lot of time and research money along the way. But imagine growing a biosynthetic lung and testing drugs on them directly. The researcher, Dr. Geraldine Hamilton, showed some pictures of some of the actual organs they had created. Astounding accomplishment both from a technical point of view and in light of its staggering implications.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
So what does the future of genetics hold for us? The possibilities are practically endless. As Dr. Church said, we all have some ‘superpower’ in our genes (large or small, whether we are aware of it or not). This can be anything from harder-than-average bones to HIV-resistance. Now imagine identifying thousands of such ‘superpowers’ through large-scale genomic research. Then imagine leveraging that knowledge of individual genes to create therapies for others who lack that particular ‘superpower’. You don’t need much of an imagination to realize that the implications for the future and well-being of humanity are profound.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The future is a wild place, folks. Hold on.<br />
<br />
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
*For the record, I did get to meet him and speak with him for a few minutes, and was quite proud of myself for not gushing overly much. I think I might even have been relatively coherent.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183272025553890986.post-85552652005733403492012-05-14T11:17:00.007-04:002012-06-03T17:58:15.653-04:00Art and Science: Whose Business Are They?<div class="MsoNormal">About twenty years ago, my (now ex-)wife’s brother told me a story I never forgot, because it resonated so strongly with me. (I can’t recall now if the experience happened to him or if he was relaying something that happened to someone else, but for our purposes here, it doesn't really matter.) He was in Paris on holiday and was visiting the Louvre. As he filed past the Mona Lisa, he overheard the following exchange between an American married couple:<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Wife: Well, honey, what do you think?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Husband: What can I say about art? I’m an engineer. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">To me, a society in which its engineers do not feel entitled to an opinion about art, is a society in decline. To say that you cannot/should not have an opinion about art because you are not an artist, is like saying you can’t have an opinion about eating because you are not a chef. Art is an essential human function, one that springs from the core of our humanity.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The same is true about the human yearning to understand the world, as expressed in our pursuit of science and exploration. Besides the fact that I recently saw this former brother-in-law*, I have also been thinking about this story of his because someone asked me why I had blogged about my visit to the Space Symposium, and specifically why I was so interested in the physics of it all. The underlying question seemed to be, “You’re an executive manager with an education in languages and business….what makes you feel qualified to question people like Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Lisa Randall?” My answer is two-fold:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0px;"><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">1) Logic is the underpinning of any intellectual endeavor, so any person capable of pursuing a logical line of reasoning may ask questions about any endeavor if the question addresses the logic (not facts) of the expert’s approach. In other words, no, I will never question Lisa Randall’s grasp of quarks and gluons because I am and will always be hopelessly under-qualified even to formulate an intelligent question on that subject. But can I ask a question about the philosophy of science that underpins her approach? Absolutely I can! Can I reasonably question Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s expertise in astrophysics? No. But can I question the logic behind his reasoning that the traditional NASA/publicly-funded approach to exploration must continue to be the dominate paradigm? You bet I can!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0px;"><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0px;"><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">2) My second reason ends up where this thought started: not only CAN I question scientific minds about their reasoning and approaches; as an active participant in civil society, as a person interested in science and exploration as expressions of our most fundamental human nature, I MUST ask these questions.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This also harkens back to a very basic fallacy often employed in arguments: that expertise in one thing means that one may not be questioned in any area; or conversely, that ineptitude or evil in one area means one’s opinion may never be trusted in any other arena, e.g., the ‘Hitler wanted xyz, ergo xzy <i>must</i> be evil’ argument. Taken to their logical extremes, this means I may not question a scientist’s sanity if he tells me to jump off a building (‘trust me, I did my PhD in gravity!’), and I may assume dogs are inherently evil since Hitler seemed so fond of his. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So as long as we employ logical reasoning, we both can and should engage scientists about their research and ask the fundamental questions. But let’s circle back to the beginning: what about art? As I said, it’s everyone’s business. But then why do so few scientists seem engaged with art and vice versa? I have been thinking about this a lot of late, prompted to do so by several things. One was reading about Lisa Randall’s artistic foray (in which she wrote the libretto for an opera about science). Another reason is a conversation I just had a few days ago on my flight from Boston to Frankfurt. I was lucky enough to be seated next to an artist who just happened to be working on a project that bridges science and art**, and she mentioned her efforts to engage scientists in this way, specifically a project that would require a high level of collaboration between the two camps. (I am being intentionally vague and cagey here as she mentioned one particular project in confidence as it is still in planning phase, and I don’t want to give away anything until her efforts are public.) <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But even when scientists do ‘cross over’, they seem to do so while holding their noses. I hate to keep picking on Dr. Randall, but since I am currently reading her book ‘Knocking on Heaven’s Door’ and it provides a perfect example, I fear I must. On page 128 she notes the aesthetic beauty of the LHC, but then quickly draws back in horror at this idea as she ‘recoil[s] … in thinking of this incredibly precise technological miracle as an art project’. Why is this idea so repulsive, I wonder? What can be more beautiful than such a marvel, and one that seeks to answer many of the exact same questions art has been asking for millennia? Far from recoiling at the idea that the LHC is both art and science, this should be a chance to experience deep wonder at the beauty of the whole endeavor and the way it combines both worlds.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If you’re an artist and you’re smugly agreeing, well, hold on a sec. Artists are just as bad, if not worse. I’ll give you an example. Not long ago, a friend posed the following question on her Facebook page: If you could do a PhD in either art history or economics, which would you choose? Not surprisingly, the people who probably fancied themselves more practical chose the latter, and the more artistically-minded chose the former. But one comment in particular caught my eye. I can’t recall the exact words, but it boiled down to this: why would you choose economics over art history when economics just strips away the soul of things and reduces everything to numbers? This haughty dismissal of the beauty that can await you in the sciences (be they the social or physical sciences or mathematics) is unfortunately quite typical of artists’ reaction to all things scientific. But they are being as close-minded as the disdainful scientist in these cases. Take this specific example of economics. Economics isn’t just math and dollars and GDP. Economics is nothing less than an attempt to delve into the human soul and see what makes it tick, what drives it, what motivates people to behave the way they do. Economics is as much about quirky things like why Israeli mothers might pick up their kids from day school even later when they are fined for it, as it is about the GDP of Liechtenstein. (If you’re scratching your head at that reference, I strongly recommend you read Freakonomics, a must-read for everyone, artist, scientist, lay person alike.) Imagine all the creative possibilities artists are missing out on by being so dismissive of science, then. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So whether you are a scientist thinking about art, an artist thinking about science, or just an average Joe like me thinking about both, please remember: it’s ALL your business, and the more you engage, the better off your society will be.<o:p></o:p></div><div style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .75pt; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .75pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; padding: 0in;"><o:p><br />
</o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .75pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; padding: 0in;">--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .75pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; padding: 0in;">*…who by the way is a man whom I have always very deeply respected, and who is (among many, many other things), an engineer who feels quite entitled to have an opinion about art, thank you very much.<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border: none; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .75pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; padding: 0in;">**Isn’t it funny the way the universe seems to clump these things into packages for us? A more spiritual person would say it is Fate, or even God. I would say such observations betray simple selection bias and are circular to boot, i.e., I am writing <i>because</i> these things happened to happen, so I can’t say they happened <i>because</i> I wanted to write about them. Similarly, people in a universe in which certain laws of physics had to be precisely calibrated for them to exist cannot claim this as proof of any god; it’s just proof that if things had been off, there’d be no <i>they</i> to consider such things.</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183272025553890986.post-72074106614144005592012-04-23T20:36:00.006-04:002013-03-21T12:00:10.661-04:00Living Space: The 2012 National Space SymposiumI had the good fortune to attend the 28th annual National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs here in the US this week. I had been notionally aware of the Symposium before, just as one of those gatherings that occasionally resulted in a headline or two in Wired or Discover. But last September, I was having dinner with a friend who was going to the conference and he told me the types of companies and people who attended; so I looked into it as a possible target conference for the company for which I work. (We attend several conferences a year to find companies in the market for expert translation and localization services, and aerospace and aviation are prime verticals for us.) I decided to give it a shot this year and check it out, with an eye to perhaps being an exhibitor next year. Still to be determined how well the conference went in that respect, but for me personally, it was a lot of fun. <br />
<br />
Speakers for the week included NASA chief Charles Bolden, Dr. Amy Mainzer, Bill Nye (The Science Guy), P.J. O'Rourke, Dr. Lisa Randall, the head of US Space Command General William Shelton, Mark Stevenson, and Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson.<br />
<br />
Some of the highlights from the conference:<br />
<br />
The panel discussion with physicists Drs. Mainzer and Randall and Bill Nye 'the Science guy' was interesting up to a point, in the way that any discussion panel with three such distinguished people would be. I wouldn't say much new was said, though. The importance of space exploration and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education was the centerpiece, but did this audience need to hear that? This was a continuing issue I had throughout the conference: too much preaching to the choir, and not nearly enough discussion of how we can do a better job of convincing the uncoverted. <br />
<br />
In the follow-up Q&A session after the panel, mine was the first question posed. (Audience members texted questions to the moderator at a number displayed overhead; the moderator then posed them to the panel.)* My question was, quoting verbatim from the sent message, "Are dark energy and dark matter really 'discoveries' or just conclusions we must draw to keep the Einsteinian universe from (figuratively) collapsing? What if the problem is with Einstein?" The question was aimed primarily at Dr. Randall, since this is her area of expertise. She took the question with good grace, and essentially restated the case for these two concepts, though I didn't feel she addressed the true underlying issue I was trying to raise, i.e., is Einstein's universe necessarily the one that all the data point to, or are there some serious gaps which we are trying to fill with theories we can't directly test? I sometimes wonder if, in the tradition of Thomas Khun's theory of scientific progress, the Einsteinian universe isn't on the verge of collapsing under the weight of all the workarounds and bandages scientists seem to keep feeling obliged to add to it to keep it standing. Coincidentally, in the few days following this panel, I read two more articles that supported my doubts. You can read them <a href="http://www.world-science.net/othernews/120417_darkmatter">here </a>and <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2012/04/21/151114725/dark-matter-study-a-disturbance-in-the-force">here</a>. A couple of weeks later, we also saw interesting possibilities about dark matter pop up <a href="http://www.world-science.net/othernews/120417_darkmatter.htm">here</a> and <a href="http://www.world-science.net/othernews/120513_darkmatter.htm">here</a>.<br />
<br />
The talks by NASA chief Charles Bolden and head of US Space Command Gen. William Shelton were two of the speeches to which I had been most looking forward. It was therefore a huge letdown when both gave decidedly underwhelming talks. The general's was by far the worst speech of the whole conference. Instead of exhorting the crowd to get excited about space exploration and funding and enlisting their help to improve STEM education, he basically seemed to be delivering an annual financial report. In a speech full of acronyms that only people who didn't need this information would understand, he delivered dry recitations of financial goals and challenges. Imagine hearing someone read from a company's annual report for 45 minutes. NASA head Bolden's speech followed immediately thereafter, so the bar was set quite low. Even still, it failed to inspire. I was discussing the talks afterwards with a friend and we both wondered about the chicken-and-egg of this situation: does such marked lack of inspiration and excitement come from folks being demoralized by falling budgets, or does America's lack of inspired leadership in this area <i>contribute</i> to the dwindling resources dedicated to this field? <br />
<br />
Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson's opening speech on Tuesday was far more stirring. He is a passionate, eloquent champion of STEM education and space exploration. I wish America had fifty more people like him out there every day, pushing for more NASA funding (which Dr. Tyson feels should be doubled to 1% of our budget from the current .5%) and advancing a STEM education agenda. My only beef with Dr. Tyson is that he is very tone-deaf to any model of space exploration that doesn't follow the traditional NASA- and US-led model. This was underscored when he was given my question at the end of the session. I asked, "Which country/countries will arrive first on Mars and will it be a public or private venture?" So firm is his assumption that any such mission must be American and must be entirely publicly funded, that he didn't even address the question at all, instead veering off onto a tangent about American middle-schoolers being groomed from that age to be astronauts to Mars. Still, the details of his own positions matter less than his important and effective advocacy, so I won't begrudge him his obduracy on these points. Still, as attested by the strong presence of SpaceX at the conference and that company's upcoming, highly symbolic docking with the ISS, as well as by <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/asteroid-mining-venture-backed-google-execs-james-cameron-011205183.html">this week's big announcement</a> about private asteroid mining missions, people need to get used to the fact that it's as likely to be company logos as nation-state flags that fly on some of the most exciting voyages of the future. The sooner the 'old-schoolers' like Dr. Tyson get used to this, the better.<br />
<br />
P.J. O'Rourke was the master of ceremonies for the corporate partnership dinner, and he was, as always, very engaging and funny. (Prior to this conference, I didn't even realize he was such a dedicated space advocate. He actually sits on the board of the Space Foundation.) I do not agree with Mr. O'Rourke's politics, but he is one of those rare Republicans these days who manages to disagree without vitriol and condescension. I had the chance to speak with him for a few minutes at his book-signing and found him to be quite a down-to-Earth**, approachable man. We talked about oil subsidies and oil price manipulation, as well as corporate taxation. I was surprised to find that we agreed on more issues than not, though that is perhaps just due to the coincidence that we happened to be discussing topics on which I have <a href="http://tennesseine.blogspot.com/2012/01/unexpected-things-from-left.html">unusual views</a> for a liberal, e.g. corporate taxation and Obama's meaningless posturing on the oil price issue. <br />
<br />
Saving the best for last (both in its appearance here and on the symposium program), <a href="http://optimistontour.com/">Mark Stevenson</a>'s speech at the closing dinner Thursday night was the highlight of the entire event. THIS was the kind of inspiration and unbridled optimism I had hoped to get from all the major speakers during the conference. Mr. Stevenson's theme was reasoned, dedicated optimism, much in line with a piece he wrote <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/03/20/eight-principles-of-successful-optimists/?KEYWORDS=mark+stevenson">here</a> and in the same vein as his book, An Optimist's Tour of the Future (which I <a href="http://tennesseine.blogspot.com/2011/02/great-books-part-i-of.html">strongly recommended</a> last year). Mr. Stevenson really lit a fire under the audience and pushed them to look towards the future with more optimism. I just wish he had spoken at the opening ceremony instead. It might have inspired the space leaders in attendance to be bolder in the visions they laid out over the following days.<br />
<br />
<br />
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
*Ironically, the moderator said my question showed what an 'intelligent and technically astute audience we have here today.' I say it's ironic because I was probably the least technical person in the entire room, given my liberal arts background and given that many (most?) other attendees were scientists and engineers.<br />
<br />
**Irony of this choice of words duly noted.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-183272025553890986.post-37924641394327141902012-03-28T10:29:00.003-04:002012-03-28T10:31:36.584-04:00Wrong Approach on Healthcare ArgumentsThough I preferred a single-payer solution to healthcare reform, I acknowledge that President Obama's bill is the next-best thing (or at least third best...or...OK, well, at least better than the status quo ante). I was therefore dismayed to read both of his chosen champion's clumsy handling of these arguments and the obtuseness demonstrated by some of the questions posed to him.<br />
<br />
If the Obama administration takes a utilitarian approach to its arguments, it deserves to lose. The Supreme Court is about means, not ends: it was never intended to be the arbiter of fairness and equality as ends unto themselves, but rather of constitutionality as a means. It is therefore pointless - indeed, counterproductive - to take the approach that the healthcare reform bill should be upheld because it is fair, because it prevents those without insurance from shifting costs to those of us who do have it (which is what happens every time an uninsured person is treated in the emergency room and the costs find their way into my premiums). The Constitution does not mandate fairness: it provides a framework (a means) to control how power is shared among the stakeholders in our society, and distributes that power among those stakeholders (i.e. the people, the states and the three branches of government).<br />
<br />
Among the powers deemed fit for Congress to wield is the power to regulate interstate commerce. As the arguments have shown, the essential question boils down to this: is this an existing interstate market that Congress may regulate, or does the act of mandating coverage itself create a new market that must then be regulated (thus making this a case of Congress bootstrapping its way to an overreach)? To convince the Justices that this is an existing market in need of regulation, the government must stop talking about fairness to the insured, needs driving universal healthcare, etc. (in other words, the <i>ends</i>).; rather, they must home in on the fact that this is indeed an existing market in need of regulation (with Congress employing constitutional <i>means</i>). The focus should therefore be solely on the fact that every human being is from birth a consumer within this existing marketplace, one whose interstate characteristics make it subject to Congressional regulation. <br />
<br />
Of course, making these arguments means not getting distracted by all the red herrings the conservative Justices are trying to throw into these proceedings. Having clearly (and unethically) made up their minds before proceedings even started, they are desperate to distract from what should be a clear case of Congress regulating an existing market. We have thus seen slippery slope antics that, among other things, suggest we could eventually be forced to buy everything from broccoli to funeral insurances. But there are clear differences here. You can go your whole life without buying broccoli and still be healthy and still not shift costs to others within an existing market that is in need of regulation. And while death is inevitable, the current requirement that states must bury their dead if no one comes forward, does not create distortions within private interstate markets; it just creates burdens for state and local authorities to meet hygiene and safety standards. <br />
<br />
The other red herring is the 'should' v 'can' argument: a lot of people are arguing that Congress <i>shouldn't</i> be regulating this arena, forgetting that the Justices must rule solely on whether Congress <i>can</i> constitutionally do so. It goes back to ends v means. People of good conscience can disagree whether it is wise of Congress to take this step, and conservatives will say it is not. If the Justices thus act as political conservatives - and all indications are that a majority will do exactly that - then they will vote to strike down health care reform because they believe Congress <i>shouldn't</i> be regulating here. That would be conservative judicial activism. But if they do their jobs and stick to the means - is it <i>constitutionally allowable</i> for Congress to regulate here - then they must vote in favor of the administration. <br />
<br />
But since this is mostly the same set of conservatives who bleated about States' Rights one moment then the next moment mandated a state to stop counting votes and make George Bush president in 2000, I am guessing it is too much for them to stick to principles. The conservatives on the court are exactly what Supreme Court Justices shouldn't be: politicians with an agenda.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0