Original Sin

Original Sin
June 5, 2006

A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine was describing the perspective that he got from a Bible class he attended through his church. The particular lesson was about Adam and Eve. He told me that before these two individuals had a little encounter with the devil in the form of a serpent, humans lived forever. Then they ate the fruit. After that, God discovered Adam with makeshift clothes on and surmised that these humans had gained knowledge of good and evil. Punishment for violating God’s command was that humans subsequently had a finite life span and went on eventually to die. That became a common thread throughout the Bible, that the wages of sin will be death. Then Jesus came to redeem the wages and demonstrate the pathway to eternal life. This is as my friend described it.

Personally, I think the story of Adam and Eve is fanciful. Based upon countless fossil records, nothing indicates anything other than natural selection and a finite life for living organisms, including humans. The story of Adam and Eve is, however, significant in that it illustrates just how much humans are motivated by a yearning for immortality.

But the thing that struck me most about the story of Adam and Eve is the part about sexuality. God discovered Adam clothed. Basically, Adam had covered his genitals out of embarrassment, having gained “knowledge of good and evil”. This strongly implies that sexual organs and the sex act and sexuality are defined by Judeo-Christianity as “evil”. The most telling thing about that, moreover, is that Adam and Eve were ostensibly mates (i.e., essentially married), meaning that this brand of religion regards even sex between a man and his female spouse as evil.

I believe that it is perverse to regard sex as evil, particularly when it happens between mates that are married. Of course, unconscionable things happen involving sex, like rape and incest and to a degree infidelity, but to me these latter acts, that are inherently hurtful and break common law, are better placed in the category of thievery that happens to involve sex. If so, then why should legitimate sex get all the bad press? I think tainting sex reflects ancient attitudes that are not based on logic. Nonetheless, these attitudes are strong, and so they were originally emphasized by well-meaning leaders. This led to the consequence of inducing guilt about sexual matters into ordinary individuals, and this in turn resulted in easy manipulation of the masses. Associating sex with guilt subsequently has come to be one more tool in the chest of those who continue to be manipulators of the masses, particularly among religious institutions. Society is structured to allow these manipulators into leadership roles,and that they are expected to keep us in our places. My guess is that many of the manipulators do not fully realize that they are just that, because they are only implementing the party line. Other tools besides sex/guilt include professing a satisfactory answer to the human yearning for immortality contingent upon conformity; representing deity as the all-powerful king to whom humans are subservient and cannot question without grave consequences; and using guilt to induce people to tithe so as to pay for the large physical plants and numerous personnel of religious institutions---which only serves to keep wage-earners in their places and widens the gap between the wealty and the rest of us.

It appears that the vast majority of Americans associate sex with evil across the board and do not question the underlying implications of the Adam and Eve story. It almost is as if the same weight is given to sex between traditional married couples and sex imposed upon one by another against the will. Both are equally evil, or so Genesis seems to imply.

It is time for humankind to move on beyond accepting without question perverse, preposterous lore and start to become responsible individuals who act that way because we have learned through logic why it is important that we protect one another as we would have others protect us---as opposed merely to following instructions that are based on flawed premises designed for mass manipulation.

© 2006, srman07

Fighting Terrorism

The Real Way to Fight Terrorism
June 4, 2006

In a recent speech before a graduating class, President Bush spoke in terms of fighting terrorism by bringing about democracy in the middle eastern nations. Apparently, one such method is to invade a middle eastern nation (Iraq) and impose democracy on it by force. So far this is not working well in terms of a peaceful transition. However, I am sure that most people in Iraq, although pretty sore at the United States for our arrogance, just want to be able to carry on their lives in peace. And I am pretty sure that these same people, if given the choice, would want to carry on their lives in the framework of a benign government.

So I suppose that it is fair to assert that I agree with President Bush about the ideal of removing Saddam Hussein as Iraq’s leader. But the devil is in the details, as the saying goes, and that is where Bush and I diverge in our opinions. He apparently believes that the end justifies the means. I disagree. The trouble is, he is in the driver’s seat, and I am not.

As to the details, how can we impose democracy on others when we do not really live in a democracy in the United States? Certainly, we have a form of government that we represent to be democratic, and our processes are more democratic than were those in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq (although there were elections in Iraq, too). Saddam could call his country’s government democratic, and we can call ours democratic, too. Most of us believe that Saddam’s government was more like a dictatorship, but most of us believe that our government is democratic.

On the other hand, is the government of the United States really democratic, when we essentially lock ourselves into having a two political party system; and when those two parties easily can determine who gets to run for office by putting a lot of money into certain favored campaigns, leaving the rest to dwindle; and when any one individual’s opinion carries little weight unless it conforms with the opinion of some sort of political action committee, and then that opinion generally only matters proportional with the size of the monetary contribution to that committee (which means that only the rich have opinions that count); and when anyone’s opinion does not matter as much as those of the big money donors who can hire expensive lobbyists who have such access to senators and representatives that they are invited to write new laws that come up for a vote; and when these same lobbyists are allowed to take lawmakers and judges to expensive resorts, which allows for plenty of opportunity to influence them; and when the lion’s share of big money donors are large corporations that only act in their own best interests and not for the greater good; and when one party is capable of gaining control of all three arms of the government so that debate of the issues becomes ineffectual at best; and when party leaders have the capability of stripping committee chairs of their positions when the latter disagree with the party line which is set by the leaders; and when voting machines are set up with no way to verify a vote count in highly contested elections; and when the president is able to modify laws that he/she signs by interpreting the Constitution in any way desired without any oversight from any other branch of our government; and when the Executive Branch is able to operate largely behind closed doors hidden behind the guise of “national security”; and when elections themselves are so expensive that they limit grassroots efforts to attain office based on the issues alone; and when states have the ability to manipulate voter lists to limit who gets to vote based upon flawed information (or incompetence) and get away with it in the end? Really, even our electoral college is debatable despite being well-intentioned, because it imposes another barrier between the individual voter and the election.

The things I have just brought up with regard to the United States’ issues related to democracy fall into two categories: 1) the structure of the government, which is actually more or less set up in the form of a republic biased in favor of the wealthy; and 2) the corruption that this structure enables. Most of the factors I described above have to do with the latter, but our government’s structure easily allows for the type of corruption that exists today.

In this context, we find ourselves having to fight terrorism. An act of terrorism is pretty tangible, but what broadly constitutes terrorism is more complex. A cause is central to terrorism. Terrorists generally are renegades who take the law in their own hands. They think illogically, apparently believing they can change the minds of others to come around to their way of thinking by invoking negative reinforcement of the terrorists’ views: if I blow up some of your loved ones or neighbors, surely you will embrace my dark philosophy. Their cause overrides their consciences (assuming they were ever able to feel guilt), for they define anyone who does not believe what the terrorists believe is the enemy that must be wiped out. This is as opposed to the organized armies of sovereign states, who (when things work right) try to tell the difference between combatants and ordinary citizens and attempt to leave the latter alone. Also, there are those among us who are either sociopaths or are simply mean-spirited and have problems with anger management no matter what. How many of the present-day terrorists are like that? This appears to be a little-publicized area, but personality type logically would be important in shaping a potential terrorist. This is particularly true with regard to the leadership. Leaders must be charismatic or very persuasive or preferably both, and there must be followers who are passive thinkers but passionate about the cause so much that they would allow themselves to do unconscionable things at the bidding of the leaders. Keep in mind, it is not any one of these factors that makes for terrorism, but all of them.

When you get down to it, superficially an army of terrorists does not sound so different from the army of a sovereign state. In the U.S. Army, are the leaders charismatic (command respect)? Are they persuasive? Are the privates passionate about their cause (freedom)? Is anger management a problem in the Army (no doubt it is)? Only at a deeper level are the differences apparent. Terrorists operate outside of laws that, at least in a democracy, are fashioned by ordinary people so that ordinary people have many freedoms. Terrorists are delusional that they can persuade by negativity, as illustrated above. Terrorists would leave you with no choice but to do their bidding without rebuttal. Basically, Islamic militant terrorists, for instance, might fix it so that Comedy Central goes off the air, so that I no longer have the choice regarding watching it or not. The U.S. Army is supposed to be fighting so that I continue to have that choice. Let me clarify this. I consider my right to watch Comedy Central as highly symbolic of the depth of freedom of choice that the United States allows, while an Islamic Fundamentalist government would probably not allow much choice but to participate in whatever highly restricted content they would offer the public. This is not to deny that in the United States that some groups are pushing to restrict the content we are allowed to see. Indeed, the current administration appears to want to do that as well as rewrite history and engage in pseudoscience to discredit valid scientific findings. But the problem in our country is miniscule compared with the dictatorial nature of Islamic Fundamentalis governments.

So far, terrorists have not succeeded in wiping out whole continents of people in order to leave only the terrorists to live, rule, and reproduce. They have only done highly symbolic things that basically have interrupted commerce and solidified the determination of those of us who oppose them. However, they have also brought out in the open some glaring deficiencies in the deportment of the United States.

So what is the real way to fight terrorism? The biggest way is to be true to ourselves. Get rid of the insidious corruption in our governmental processes. Then we would have a basis for earning the respect of other legitimate nations. Then we could serve as a true role model for others.

A concurrent priority needs to be shoring up our own defenses. Secure our borders. Inspect all shipping crates. Increase domestic surveillance within (not questionably within or definitely outside) the boundaries of the law. Classify potential explosives as controlled substances, if necessary. Create an airtight system of personal identities. Revamp anti-terrorism security nationwide. And stop being dependent on foreign oil, the only major trump card of unstable nations other than nuclear weaponry.

Third, we need to be a friend, not a bully. This does not mean compromising our principles. We can state our principles loud and clear anytime, and as long as we are true to ourselves, our principles will shine as legitimate. If we are a friend, then we are much more likely to build solid relationships with our peer nations and get the mutual cooperation we need, based upon trust.

Fourth, we need to communicate with rogue states rather than refusing to do so. How many times have you failed to communicate, which resulted in misunderstandings that caused things to go wrong? How many times have you chosen to talk about a difficult issue with others only to find that things were not quite the way they seemed and everyone was better off because of talking the situation out? We would probably not be able to avoid military confrontations every time by dialogue, but we would no doubt be a lot better off trying and failing than not trying at all.

Fifth, we need to eliminate the policy of pre-emptive strikes against nations. The most glaring example pointing to the reason for curtailing this policy, of course, is Iraq. Do you realize that the United States unilaterally decided to invade Iraq (along with a few nations the U.S. persuaded to go along with the idea) against the collective wisdom of the United Nations? The U.N. sent weapons inspectors to Iraq that said there were no weapons of mass destruction, and the inspectors were correct. The U.N. found no reason for a second Iraq invasion based upon allegations of aggression, and yet the U.S. did what the Bush Administration wanted to do anyway, and it was based upon no legitimate reason that would hold up under international law. Doing so has not helped our international standing in fighting terrorism at all. When we attack another nation based upon a questionable agenda that is supported by erroneous data, and when most other nations see this clearly at least in hindsight if not ahead of time, how is the international community going to react when we come back later asserting the next premise? Instead, I get the feeling that many other nations are ambivalently waiting around for us to get our come-uppance. Worse, we have spent close to a trillion dollars on a pre-emptive strike when none was due, instead of shoring up our domestic defenses. Do you not realize the glaring twisted priorities that these facts reveal?

Finally, we need to work aggressively towards nuclear disarmament. Who thinks we are going to defend our nation successfully by blanket bombing some attacker, the result of which could likely make the earth largely uninhabitable? Of course, we cannot unilaterally disarm. The nuclear standoff had its purpose at one time, and that probably remains true today, to a degree. But a true, interim verifiable system of an identifiable, equal, limited number of nuclear weapons in the hands of only clearly-defined major superpowers that agree to work on final elimination, after a period of demonstrated mutual trust, would be a very good first step. This would have to be coupled with a system that ensures that others cannot develop such capabilities undetected, but we just about have that system now. There are many reasons for disarmament, but there is no reason more important than to remove the threat of annihilation from those of us who simply want to live our lives, go to work, enjoy our loved ones, and do the rest of things that constitute ordinary living. Do you think nuclear war would enable us to continue with our lives as we know them today? Hardly.

The sum total of all of these things is a big order to fill. We are also far away from doing so. Nonetheless, distance is no reason to keep us from deciding to make the necessary changes to get us back on track. And the end result would likely be this: it is extremely unlikely that any terrorist can stand up to a nation that is a friend, that communicates, that is not an aggressor, that has strong internal defenses, and that remains true to itself.

© 2006, srman07

Lethal Injection in

Lethal Injection in the Context of Surgical Procedures
April 29, 2006

The Supreme Court has delayed the execution of some death row inmates out of the premise that they need to examine whether or not death by lethal injection is “cruel and unusual punishment” and thus is unconstitutional.  The justices have recently heard arguments in this regard.  The specific complaint appears to be that the injections are painful and cause suffering in the period of time after injection but before death occurs.  I shall address only the complaint here.

Recently, I underwent a screening colon procedure familiar to many.  Since I am queasy about such medical encounters, I opted for sedation.  Along came the nurse, who started an IV in my arm.  That involved a needle stick, which was not particularly cruel, and certainly it would not be unusual even in the case of prisoners.  Then along came the anesthesiologist, who smoothly and steadily injected a medicine called Diprivan into my bloodstream through the IV.  There was no burning with that injection.  Also, I barely had time to tell him “good-bye” before I became comatose.  The next thing I knew I was awake again and talking coherently, with no apparent lingering drug effect at all.

I remember nothing about the colonoscopy.  I do know that my undergoing such a procedure without being asleep would surely be extremely uncomfortable, because I am quite sensitive at the point of entry of that tube.  I also understand that the tube must bend and twist, causing pain due to pressure.  Air must be injected into the colon to inflate it, which causes a lot of cramp-like discomfort in itself.  I, on the other hand, felt none of this thanks to Diprivan.

Anesthesiologists routinely give medicines like Diprivan to induce sleep in patients about to be operated on by surgeons.  Then a narcotic is added.  Major operations occur using these two medicines alone, and the patients wake up not remembering any of it or the pain associated with surgical incisions, organ manipulation, and suturing.  Another fact is that an anesthesiologist often must use artificial respiration during the surgery, because the combination of Valium-like medicines and a narcotic, given in sufficient dosage, will stop a person from breathing.  If the anesthesiologist did not cause the patient to breathe artificially, death would occur.  In an awake individual, such suffocation would cause several seconds of an intense smothering feeling before unconsciousness would set in.  However, if you deliberately hold your breath until you can no longer stand it, you will find that this feeling is not knife-like.  I can imagine that my colon exam would be about as intense as but last a lot longer than the suffocation feeling.  Diprivan alone should allow a person to stay asleep and never remember the smothering feeling associated with not breathing, since this sedative is so effective for a colon exam.  Diprivan along with a narcotic would go much farther than Diprivan alone---“overkill”, in a sense.

It is my understanding that the prison personnel who lethally inject death row inmates use some kind of sedation (thiopental, a rather archaic but effective sleep-inducer if used at the proper dose), a curare-like drug for paralysis, and then potassium chloride or the equivalent to cause the heart to stop.  The objection appears to be that the potassium injection causes a burning feeling in the veins as it travels to the central body.

It is possible that the wrong sedative or an insufficient dose of it is being used for lethal injection.  If the inmate can feel a burning from the potassium, then that person is not sufficiently asleep before the potassium is given.  If the inmate were given Diprivan along with Demerol or morphine sulphate prior to the potassium, that person would most assuredly never feel anything just as surgical patients never feel the knife when they are under this type of sedation. Also, it is possible that thiopental might cause a mild burning sensation in the entrance veins of some who receive it.  Diprivan and Demerol do not cause any burning, are widely available, and are highly effective.

Indeed, prison personnel should be able to inject an inmate lethally using sufficient Diprivan and Demerol alone, causing painless suffocation.  It is only a question of sufficient dosage.  Even so, those who want no possibility of even subtle muscle twitching and who desire the heart rhythm to stop predictably could still inject a curare-like drug and potassium chloride after the lethal doses of Diprivan and Demerol are on board, and the procedure would be equally painless with or without the potassium injection.

Therefore, my opinion is this:  if the complaint about pain is not merely contrived (and I suspect it is), and if there really is pain beyond insertion of the IV associated with lethal injection as it is done currently, then the procedure can be easily changed to make it pain-free.  Compassionate individuals who nonetheless support the death penalty as being the best trade-off for dealing with a situation where nobody wins, would want it to be that way---always.

© 2006, srman07

Teach Them To Fish

Teach Them To Fish
February 25, 2006

On February 7, 2006, there was a remarkable event in history, almost as memorable as presidential funerals and other national events such as the first moon landing.  The memorial service for Coretta Scott King led to the gathering of many people of national prominence, including four United States Presidents, all of whom gave speeches.  The symbolic nature of the event was significant, but as former President Clinton pointed out, now that symbolism must be translated into tangible results.

At this memorial service, one individual pointed out the fact that under the Bush Administration, the budget for war has escalated dramatically, while the budget for the poor has dwindled.  That statement caused both the current and former President Bushes to shake their heads, apparently because they disagreed with what this statement implied.  That is understandable, given that both Bushes display a hawkish pattern, as if the “enemy” were like roaches that you have to kill either one at a time or with the blanket spraying of pesticide, discounting the collateral damage of doing so or its counterproductive nature.  The roach analogy only goes so far, however, because in the case of humans, I see the “enemy” as violent activists that represent the radical expression of the general philosophy of a large group of people.  These radicals effect unconscionable activity as a means of lashing out against the general philosophy of a different large number of people.  The Bushes seem to forget that reconciling philosophical differences between vast sectors of reasonable people would no doubt go a long way towards stemming violence.  Out of the hawkish, “kill the roaches” tendencies comes the commerce of the military-industrial complex.  Some claim that this is the motivating force that drives the hawkishness, but I believe that this type of commerce is an end result that then turns around and reinforces continued hawkishness, like the positive reinforcement that comes when little boys play with toy tanks and have a good time doing it.  And we must not forget that our society, too, represents the general philosophy of a large number of people, and our radicals are the hawks out there engaged in unconscionable activity against the “enemy”.  As I enjoy saying:  “Q:  where are all the Weapons of Mass Destruction?  A:  In the War Room of the White House”.

In the case of the Bushes, all of this has certainly led to a decreased budget for the poor.  But it more strikingly has led to a dramatic decrease in the budget for education.  This latter fact exposes the crux of the matter---the very essence of the Coretta Scott King memorial service, whether anyone else realizes it or not.

The statement that the budget for war has gone up while the budget for the poor has gone down is indicting in itself, but I propose that its implied message, that you can do a great deal of good by giving the poor handouts, is misplaced.  I think that he real problem with the budget is a substantial decrease in the amount slated to be spent on education beyond the marginal amount already being spent.

If we have a significant minority of people who are poor, I believe that there is not any amount of money that we can conjure up in any budget to stop those people from being poor unless that money is spent teaching them how to be poor no longer.  Enabling the poor to acquire complex knowledge and skills so that they can be legitimately employed with a living wage is how our money must be spent instead.  Part of the curriculum must include avoiding pregnancy, not being abusive to others, how to be a responsible person and why, establishing a stable relationship with another person, good nutrition, avoidance of substance dependency, a civics course, how to save and budget money, and how to accumulate and manage wealth.

I asked a friend to review this essay.  She was quick to point out that I must not forget other mitigating ills that face this nation.  For instance, she asks what good a quality education is, if you cannot get a quality job (referring to the wholesale exportation of jobs and replacement of people by machines, etc.).  Truly, we have all sorts of economic and infrastructure challenges ahead (including doing the things necessary to enable young single parents to go back to school), but this essay mainly addresses the extreme importance of a highly-educated public.  Taking calculus might seem irrelevant to a person’s future, until you factor in the side benefits of creating cerebral connections that increase one’s ability to come up with pragmatic solutions to other hurdles in completely different arenas than calculus.  The more developed a human brain is, the less apt it is to accept illogical, simplistic explanations for complex issues and the more likely it is to avoid manipulation by others with hidden agendas.  A more educated public is less likely to be herded as if sheep.  Finally, more to the point about the subject of this essay versus other problems we face:  if we started this instant, it would take probably 18 years or more before we harvested the benefits of quality education.  Who knows what the job market will be then?

The other side of the coin is always the question as to whether the poor are willing to learn.  Certainly some are, and it is only a question of what percentage of the total would enter the mainstream, given the opportunity.  It is mandatory that the rest of us give the disadvantaged the opportunity to learn and work their way out of poverty.  This is really the main thing we have to do, and the rewards can be exponential.  In addition, if we afford the poor the chance for a high-quality education, we will have proof that those who are not genuinely totally disabled [an interesting subject for another essay] and remain poor do so through their own decision.  Then we have the right to hold them accountable.

This is a different concept from merely providing welfare for poor people.  I see welfare as a dead-end street.  Education represents open-ended opportunity.  Give a person a fish, and the person eats for a day.  Teach that person to fish, and that person can fish for a lifetime---if willing to do so and not certifiably totally disabled.  It is up to the rest of us to provide the best possible education for everyone capable of learning.  Is that not what equal opportunity means?

© 2006, srman07

Infinity

Infinity
January 2, 2006

To imagine that something might go on and on forever without stopping--- without having limits---is a different sort of exercise that is somewhat counterintuitive. I think humans tend to want to compartmentalize things. I know I do. So when I think in terms of the infinite, I automatically want to assign limits despite everything I know to the contrary. I have to catch myself to keep that from happening.

In another essay, I described how brutal logic boils it all down to the one thing that most assuredly can be infinite. That thing is nothing. Nothing is a thing? Well, nothing must be a thing that does not consist of anything at all: emptiness, nothing material at all, no expression of any form of kinetic energy. No radio waves or photons. No nothing. That is the thing I am writing about here. Nothing.

You would expect nothing to go on forever. It is, again, brutally logical that the basal state of the macrocosm is zero. Not that on a macroscopic scale you would seem to find any zero anywhere. The macrocosm is teeming with things and their activities. Would you find zero on a microscopic scale? Yes, I believe so. There is the empty space between material things and their activities. That is where nothing is---between physical objects.

Keep in mind that forces such as gravity and magnetism seem to transcend or bridge this nothingness. The nothingness appears to be that way from the standpoint of not containing kinetic or photonic or wavelike energy or physical matter such as atoms and quarks. Gravity and magnetism end up being different animals entirely. They most likely depend on physical matter for their existence. Whether or not they obey the laws of quantum mechanics is uncertain as of 2005, but the answer to that question may be possible in the future as we develop new tools for analysis. Personally, I think it could go either way, but I would lay my money down in the “not” circle.

Aside from speculating that there might be other dimensions that contain the majority of gravity that just somewhat interfaces with the macrocosm as we know it, the least weird explanation for gravity and magnetism is that they are each quantifiable weak forces per unit of matter which collectively can do incredible things. But the word “incredible” is an opinion, while in fact the impact of gravity or magnetism is relative to its circumstances, similar to but not exactly like the way speed is in the Theory of Relativity. One could just as well assert that the most remarkable thing about gravity, to single it out, is what it does not do. For instance, why do I not weight 900 pounds on Earth instead of the somewhere-between-one-hundred-and-two-hundred that I do right now? Apparently matter can have only so much gravity and not any more (except maybe for that which is contained within black holes; I probably shall write something about that elsewhere). Never mind discrepancies that might be perceived giving rise to claims that there is not enough gravity to balance everything out. We have probably just not yet discovered the things that fulfill the equation.

So back to nothingness. It certainly makes a lot of sense to me that nothing is the only “thing” that could go on forever and not beg the question as to its derivation. For sure, you could advance the notion that if anything can be infinite, then a “spirit” or even a macrocosm filled with matter, for that matter, could be infinite, too. I guess that the unique thing about nothingness as opposed to something else is that the zero state is the lowest common denominator below which by definition you cannot go. It reminds me of the joke about the lady who claimed that Earth travels on the back of a giant tortoise. When asked what supported the animal, she said that it was simply another tortoise. And when asked what underlay that one, she incredulously asserted that it was “tortoises! Tortoises all the way down!” There is a fundamental difference between tortoises all the way down and nothingness all the way everywhere. Zero has legitimate status, because when asked what underlies nothing, one can only answer that nothing underlies it, because there can not be anything else underlying it, because nothing is the most fundamental state, and anything underlying it would have to be the same thing that it is, and since it is infinite, anything underlying it would have to be it itself: nothing.

It is funny designating nothing as a something, but it is something, because it has a name and it exists as a thing, but it is not a thing at the same time. Nothing is the ultimate paradox. This lends credence to its uniqueness and its standing in the macrocosm. Nothing is one of the best examples of elusiveness that there could be. I think the phenomenon of “nothing” is more elusive than that which is described in the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which also involves elusiveness. “Nothing” has duplicity. It is, and it is not, both at the same time.

I have chosen to use the term “macrocosm” in this essay because I believe that the infinite nature of “nothing” changes the definition of “universe” as we used to use it. If, therefore, the big bang theory is correct, there probably was finite energy released, although enormous by our standards. A definite quantity of energy would have boundaries at any one point in time. And if the big bang could happen here, it could happen elsewhere in the vastness of infinite nothingness. In fact, I suppose it could happen here again. But big bangs must be rare as events go. Otherwise things would get a lot more disruptive than they already are. Anyway, if big bangs can occur elsewhere, then the result would be different universes than ours. Thus, I propose that the term “macrocosm” be used for the sum total of everything out there, while “universe” is that thing which results when a big bang occurs.

To conclude, I am convinced that zero is the basal state of the macrocosm. Universes result from big bangs, which can occur anywhere and at any time. Nothing is the only entity that can go on infinitely without needing to be explained as to where it came from. Yet nothing is elusive, in that it exists and does not exist at the same time, and it is in fact the matrix that contains everything else. Gravity and magnetism can span nothing but depend on the proximity of matter in order to operate. This approach, while simple, appears elegant and would be perfect were it not for the details. However, I boldly speculate that discrepancies among the details will be reconciled once we develop more refined analytical tools.

© 2006, srman07

Reverse Communism

Reverse Communism
12/28/05

From the first, I thought that the sign on Bill Clinton’s wall (“It’s the economy, stupid.”) was demeaning.  This did not diminish the truth in it.  I realize that Clinton was trying to depict the economy as the top factor in determining who gets elected President of the United States---and that this fact tends to get inadvertently overlooked in the exuberance of the campaign process.  On the other hand, I would regard Clinton as generally neither stupid nor forgetful (he has rarely acted that way, and then only selectively and once spectacularly).  The “stupid” part bothers me, but that does not lessen the importance of his admonition.
  
I first wrote a version of this essay in 2004, as inspired by an event on February 25.  That was the day Alan Greenspan strongly advised Congress to consider cutting Social Security benefits for future seniors as a way to ensure that our mounting budget deficit does not overwhelm us.  It actually could have been one of any number of incidents that set me to writing.  I had been formulating this essay for years.  This is not about the wisdom of Greenspan’s remarks.  This is about the swelling national debt with all its ramifications.  This is also about the structure we have for handling the economy and how it relates to our political system.

We found ourselves at the beginning of this decade back in the old situation of the late 1980’s, when there seemed to be no end to our mounting national debt, and the president at that time appeared clueless as to how to stop it.  Subsequently, Bill Clinton became president, raised taxes, cut spending, and left us with a budget surplus.  While all this was going on, the economy soared.  It may be a coincidence that the economy soared, but you must realize that the real significance of this entails its flip side.  In fact, while taxes were raised, the economy did not crash.  That is important to consider.  Taxes were raised, and the economy did not crash---it even soared.  This led to subsequent paradoxes:  the next president came along at a time when the stock market was about to go down.  This probably was a coincidence, too.  A stock market correction was due both from short-term and long-term perspectives.  Then the current president, using the downturn as an excuse, ignored the fact that in the ‘90’s the economy did well no matter if taxes were higher---and he slashed taxes under the guise of stimulating the economy.  Then he professed the wisdom that if you are going to cut taxes, you must cut the budget and thus cut federal services, and hopefully the stimulated economy would then fill the coffers because of higher tax receipts.  But in practice  he went on to ask for and get historic amounts of money for government programs other than those that would help the disadvantaged.  Then he got us involved in overseas military operations at huge expense, and he regarded that as a side issue, budget-wise.  Nonetheless, he used the war as the reason for the deficit, as if we should expect to run a deficit in this situation (a major difference between his father and him is that his father was oblivious and he is non-chalant).  His claims are apparently meant to divert our attention away from the fact that he cut off the very source of revenue that should have paid for it all:  the United States Treasury tax base.

Am I the only one who has remembered that the economy did very well in the ‘90’s right after taxes were raised?  Surely the current president’s administration has some very insightful people within it who should know this fact.  If they do remember the ‘90’s economy and the higher tax base and the budget surplus, then they must have had some other reason for cutting taxes.  This begs the question as to who stands to gain the most from an income tax cut, and over what time frame they will realize it, and why it needs to be that way.

In my opinion, having a lower national debt is better from the standpoint of not having to use future national resources (the tax base) for debt service.  That frees up more money for infrastructure.  There is a contrarian point of view that says that running up debt is good, because it allows you to have your infrastructure and programs now and pay for them while you’re using them.  To me, the flaw in this line of reasoning is that there is a limit as to how much debt you can accrue before you get overwhelmed by it.  The need for infrastructure and programs is almost limitless and likely will continue to be that way in the future, in ways that we may not even imagine today.  By running up a huge deficit, our nation is jeopardizing its ability to upgrade our infrastructure meaningfully in the decades to come.  It is far healthier to pick and choose from the current menu of things we want in order to pick what we really need the most---and do so within our present-day ability to pay for it.  Today’s president apparently does not see it that way.  If he thinks about this analytically at all, apparently he considers only the short-term picture, to the exclusion of the concept of who pays back the debt later.

If you examine the big picture of our national economy, you can see that our major trend---transcending liberal and conservative presidential administrations, congressional balance, and other long-term factors---has been towards the dominance of large corporations governed by elite board members of high business acumen. These large corporations are overseen only loosely by governments, and they seem to be able to operate without external governance at all in many cases.  Large corporations, managed correctly, are able to take advantage of huge economies of scale and thus amass wealth almost exponentially.  They have a tremendous economic advantage over smaller operations, from the standpoint of wielding power.

Mom and Pop stores nonetheless continue to exist alongside the behemoths, and this might actually be useful for the large corporations.  Some Mom and Pops can survive and eke out a living.  This creates the illusion that the large corporations are not so damaging after all.  Likewise, some large corporations have made bad business judgments legally or illegally, and rarely some of these big companies have fallen hard and dramatically.  This also creates an illusion that large corporations are not so invincible after all and thus are not so threatening.

Illusions aside, evidence of the power of large corporations is all around us.  There also is little question that the rich find it easier to get richer than the rest of us.  But where does that leave the poor?  I think that the hard-core poor have little to do with the issue.  Certainly, there have always been people of low advantage, and there probably will continue to be.  These people have little to lose, and so their downside is shallow.  In the United States, the “traditional poor” consists of a bruised minority but a relatively small one.  The current administration certainly has not helped them, but relatively speaking they do not comprise the demographic that is the most in jeopardy.  Instead, we need to focus on the “ordinary person”.  In this context, when conditions are such that the rich get richer exponentially, ordinary people do not have the mechanisms to do so.  This has always been the case, but lately the people who comprise the small minority of the wealthy are becoming richer much more easily, as enabled by a government run by the elite for the elite.

Really, I think having more rich people is not the problem.  Rather, it is the meaning of the wealth in this country and what you can do with it that is a serious threat to democracy.  For as with monarchs in the past, wealth can buy power.  In the United States, power is wielded in more subtle ways than that exercised by a king or queen.  In our country, power is exerted most heavily 1) with political bribes (and by this I refer to the hiring of lobbyists, making campaign contributions that wield influence and solidify later favors, and other such legal payments that make our country “the democracy that never was”); 2) in the ability to buy up the competition; 3) in the nonprofit sector, where huge amounts of money can be controlled and channeled to recipients preferred by the wealthy to the exclusion of others who might be a threat or who the wealthy just do not like; and 4) in the disproportionately easy ability to grow existing wealth into even more, overwhelmingly larger wealth.

So who stands to gain the most from a tax cut, and over what time frame will they realize it, and why does it need to be that way?  Those who have the most money stand to gain the most from a tax cut.  They realize the benefits starting immediately.  It has to be that way so as to plant the seeds for their ability to attain even greater, massive wealth so as to have even more power over ordinary people, and the sooner the better.

The government of our nation throughout all administrations has for decades been heavily biased to enable the above process.  The present-day administration has only served to exacerbate this enablement many times over (for this is truly the presidential administration “of and for the entitled” in just about every way).  Getting ourselves entirely free from this long-existing enablement, if we were to try to do it, is bound to be very difficult.  The elite have such a grip on the government, it may well be impossible to wrench it loose.

These things that are lately getting extreme are being made to seem right by hiding within legitimate capitalism.  Do I not have the right to make a profit and become wealthy?  Of course I do, and so do you.  The problem is not with this right per se, but with the wealthy individual’s legalized ability to undermine democracy using the power that wealth brings.

Whether we in this country really want to have a true democracy would have to be the subject for a different essay.  But at least in order to salvage some semblance of democracy, with the 2004 election we should have mitigated the current extreme trend by removal of the source of its acceleration.  In the 2004 presidential election, however, we did not do so.  Too bad for us.

I maintain that removal of the current administration would have been the right move.  The alternative candidate was not perfect but did not support elitism nearly as much.  And after all, we had few other choices.  In terms of the presidency, in this country we have all the options of a single-pole-single-throw switch (i.e., either on or off, one way or the other).  Removal of the strongly accelerating influence would certainly have taken some of the heat off and would have been a good beginning.  Beyond that, there is much work to be done to decrease the ease with which the wealthy can wield such heavy influence on the system for the sake of perpetuating their own influence.

Such a remedy, to be most effective, should not only dismantle the mechanisms of wielding influence by the elite, but it should also address the mechanisms that can enable those of lesser means to be able to build more wealth.  After all, it surely would be the most constructive and desirable plan to allow the vast majority of the people of this country to be wealthy.  I like to call this “reverse communism”.  Communism entails the re-distribution of wealth and the setting up of systems whereby everyone is homogenized, less wealthy, disempowered, and vulnerable to runaway corruption.  I define reverse communism as being where ordinary individuals and poor people are given every opportunity to attain wealth.  Only the legitimately disabled, those not wanting to participate, or people aspiring to be non-productive citizens would be left behind.  The truly disabled would need a support structure to meet basic needs.  The pathological loners could be left alone.  The latter group could be then offered barely comfortable services for sustenance and afforded a continual invitation to join the ranks of the educated and productive.

A United States with this high quality a populace would surely be far wealthier than even today but with much less economic volatility and a greater ability to live within its means.  A highly educated citizenry would afford our country a sound reason for behaving more like a democracy.  Our penal system would likely not be so over-taxed.  Then we would be able to focus more of our resources on taking care of our truly disabled, providing for universal top-flight educational opportunities for all, maintaining a state-of-the-art infrastructure, fostering a well-funded medical research sector, and developing an advanced program to teach disadvantaged nations how to incorporate our elements of success into their cultures, too.  And we could balance our national budget once again.

Reverse communism would work like this.  Education would be compulsory.  The social service sector would be expanded and empowered to customize appropriate educational circumstances for outliers.  The social service would also have criteria for determining those who are gaming the system and to channel these people into an environment where there are incentives against parasitism and in favor of gainful employment.  Education for grades 1--12 would be free for everyone, with state-of-the-art facilities and well-educated teachers.  The teachers would have the power to achieve order in the classroom.  Discipline would be non-corporal but dreadful, such as being locked up in a room where completion of an assignment is the only way to get released.  Special schools with even more intense social services would be available for those who cannot fit in the usual educational environment.  College or vocational school would not be free but inexpensive enough for everyone desiring it to attain.  To those who would complain that such a system would be “too expensive”, I would only point to the hugely expensive consequences of not having a highly educated public that is capable of attaining wealth and stability.  Intuitively, a population consisting mostly of highly productive families capable of generating wealth is bound to raise our nation’s prosperity exponentially compared with an unstable, low-income populace.

At the schools, intensive courses on all available techniques for saving and investing money would be compulsory.  At that time, the philosophy of taking the long-term approach to attaining wealth would be taught.  That is not all.  The big picture also demands stable families.  Personal responsibility would also be a major subject in the schools to be taught annually and in more sophisticated ways with each advancing year.  So would teaching the subject of the characteristics of, underlying mechanisms of, and remedies for abusive families.  Insight into these areas would be extremely valuable.  This could well set the stage for a higher preponderance of stable, well-educated graduates who possess the skill set and philosophy for attaining substantial wealth, after about 20 years.  There is a counterargument that says that you can teach all you want, but you cannot cause learning to take place.  I agree, but I submit that this is no excuse for not teaching.  Tuning up the classroom environment to where there is mutual respect and also compulsory, expected results as well as tangible, standardized consequences for failure to achieve should also dramatically increase the tendency for students actually to learn the material.

At the same time, our national election system would be revised, to where those running for office would have to do so in the same way and to the same degree as everyone else.  That way, a person’s intelligence, management style, philosophy, and platform would be easier to compare with those of all other candidates.  Thereafter, who can buy the services of the best marketing company would be less of a factor in elections.  In addition, federal and state surcharges would exclusively pay for campaigns.  All adult individuals and all for-profit corporations would pay the surcharge based upon gross income.  There would be no other means of campaign finance.  Bribing a candidate or public official would mandate a minimum 30 year prison sentence without parole.  Boring?  Yes, but fair to a fault, and it has a big chance to release us from the clutches of the elite.

Finally, our federal budget would be balanced, by law.

The above may entail some idealistic elements, but I firmly believe that all of it is realistic and represents much of what we must do and can do if we have the national resolve.  The first step is to rid ourselves of the immediate negative force directed against the ordinary individual.  During the next presidential election, we must put someone in office who is not such an intense elitist.  That would make the next steps much easier to enact.

We must do this because if we do not, our economy is in jeopardy in extensive ways.  As for democracy, I say that in this country democracy is not in jeopardy, for it actually has never existed so far.  Reverse communism has a chance to allow us to have a democratic nation for the very first time.  To me, the economy and democracy are intrinsically intertwined, but the economy is the bottom line.  The structure of the economy can create a cadre of the affluent who are able to buy votes, but it does not have to.  The structure of the economy can make anyone wealthy who wants to be, and it does not have to allow elitists to have a louder voice than anyone else.

I agree with Clinton.  It is the economy.  As for the “stupid” part, let us structure our educational system to enable us to deal with that.

© srman07, 2004, 2005

On Being Labeled a Liberal

On Being Labeled a Liberal
12/18/05

An e-mail document circulating lately got in my InBox, sent by one of my friends who appears to have a certain amount of disdain for “liberals”.

I read the piece called “18 ways to be a good liberal” and found it a mean-spirited attempt to stereotype people who see the world differently from the writer of the “18 ways”.  To me, it displays simmering anger over diversity.  Sadly, this is the nature of our polarized society in the early 21st century.

It seems to me that the conservative movement has effectively demonized the term “liberal” to mean something that it does not and has sensitized many people into feeling that “conservative” is safe while “liberal” is a dirty word.  However, I do not feel safe under this Republican regime.  For instance, running deep budget deficits is anything but conservative or safe.  Republicans are currently being reckless with our nation’s finances, and that certainly is not a trait that meets my definition of conservatism.

But at any rate, I approached the list with curiosity, wondering how much of it applied to me.  So here I have gone down the list in order to find out.

18 Ways To Be A Good Liberal [by unknown e-mail assailant] [and by the way, I corrected the document’s glaring grammatical and punctuation errors that reflect poorly on the assailant’s educational level]
1. You have to be against capital punishment but support abortion on demand.I personally am in favor of both; the former when there is absolutely no doubt as to guilt, and for the purpose of not giving the guilty party the satisfaction of being able to live to represent his or her perverse philosophy; and the latter because of deep concerns about overpopulation, poverty, domestic abuse, and family dysfunction in general, all of which are caused or compounded by having unwanted children.2. You have to believe that businesses create oppression and governments create prosperity.  I believe that some businesses oppress when they are unethical; other businesses do not oppress; some governments oppress, and some enable prosperity (some do both at the same time).  Certainly, the United States has structured financial laws to enable innovation, commerce, and prosperity to a great extent---even more so than, say, Japan or Russia, which are no slouches, either.  Our society’s wealth attests to the success of this structuring.  But we do need to be able to deal better with unethical behavior within both business and government.  3. You have to believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens are more of a threat than U.S.      nuclear weapons technology in the hands of Chinese and North Korean communists.  
I think that these two things are like apples and oranges.  And the writer of the “18 things” is being so shallow as to exclude mentioning what guns are actually a threat to.  I think the biggest threats coming from guns are in letting them get into the hands of a third party (in particular, a youth), in letting them be ready to fire when handled by the untrained, in allowing them to be readily purchased by gang members, and in not stopping known criminals from buying them.  I think it is unconscionable to allow loopholes in our laws so that anyone can buy a gun at a gun show without a background check.  I think that existing laws are wrong when they allow small handgun manufacturers to cater to the desires of street gangs while acting innocent of any intent.  Registered gun ownership by responsible people who only want to hunt or to defend themselves against assailants, burglars, and poisonous snakes in the house is fine with me.

As to the nuclear issue, how can the U.S. be so incompetent as to allow its nuclear weapons technology to be stolen by China and North Korea?  And for that matter, why is the U.S. continuing to pursue aggressive nuclear weapons deployment?  We should be peace brokers and disseminators of good will, in my view.  We are a far cry from that at the present time, and I would wager that we have never been like that to any great extent.  If we increase our weaponry, we can expect others to do the same, especially nowadays when the leadership of our nation does not exude a facade of trust, unlike in previous times. 4. You have to believe that there was no art before federal funding.

This one seems so mindless to me that it is not worth answering to any great extent.  It ignores the economics of art and tries to depict “liberals” as naïve and uneducated.  Instead, ignoring art’s economics is in itself naïve and suggests poor grades in history.  Money from some source is needed to sustain the artist to allow creativity to blossom.  The marketplace is not enough.  Federal funding, state funding, local funding, private foundations, and individuals all are needed for nurturing culture.  Private funding is much larger than government funding, but government grants balance things by having different selection criteria than does the private sector. 5. You have to believe that global temperatures are less affected by cyclical changes in the earth's      climate and      more affected by soccer moms driving SUV's. The person writing this one clearly is ignoring science and has missed the point entirely.  We are all subject to the patterns that develop in nature, cyclical or not.  However, SUV’s and power plants that operate on fossil fuel are altering our planet’s climate, and this time it is not nature’s workings but instead it is the fault of humans.  We have other sources of energy that we can use that would not do such harm, and the people of the United States are being negligent by not endeavoring to change over to them as rapidly as possible.  Any consequences of such human-induced climate changes are our responsibility, not Mother Nature’s.  The person writing Number 5 apparently began being negligent years ago when he or she failed to be attentive in science class.
6. You have to believe that gender roles are artificial, but being homosexual is natural.
There is plenty of evidence already that gender exists as a spectrum in nature, homosexuals are born that way (which would very well qualify as being natural), and all sorts of variability exists in brain structure that will determine our inclinations in many ways including gender.  I think that gender roles are to a degree learned (for instance, women may be conditioned by society to think that they could never be baseball players or to think that they must wear veils in public) but also to a great extent are natural, too, such as how little boys typically gravitate to engineering-related toys, while little girls typically gravitate towards nurturing toys, even if they are not under the influence of adults.  Exceptions to these typical patterns spice things up, but this nation has not yet come to terms with recognizing how people still can do things typical of their subgroups, while at the same time dealing with the reality that talking about stereotypes is taboo.7. You have to believe that the AIDS virus is spread by a lack of federal funding. I call this one another mean-spirited low blow.  This country gets an “F” in personal responsibility, and our society is to blame for that.  Federal funding has little or nothing to do with it.  However, our government reflects our society and enables personal irresponsibility.  Personal responsibility is an individual choice that transcends governmental programs.  Nonetheless, our government can be instrumental in funding research for preventing or eliminating HIV, in coordinating the effort to eradicate the disease, and in funding public awareness programs.  Our government would do well if it stopped rewarding irresponsible behavior and established a program that helps foster personal responsibility (which then might persuade some people to choose to act responsibly).  We have a long way to go before we ever get there.      
8. You have to believe that the same teacher who can't teach 4th-graders how to read is somehow      qualified to teach those same kids about sex. This one reeks of cynicism.  But more to the point:  if this nation did not discount its youth so thoroughly, we would have an excellent educational system with teachers that are more than qualified to teach both subjects.  In my opinion, we would be a lot better off educating our children about sex both at home and at school.  Children tend to make mistakes despite getting all the right information, but it is just so much worse when they do not get any information at all.  Statistically, parents are woefully inadequate at educating their children about sex.  Even if parents were adequate, I think it is important that children hear the same thing from an independent party, also. 9. You have to believe that hunters don't care about nature, but PETA activists do.

I am uncertain if PETA activists care about nature, but they certainly care about non-human animals.  Some large corporations have demonstrated that they will treat animals intended for human consumption with impunity just for the sake of minimizing costs.  The federal government and society in general would turn a blind eye toward this.  Animal rights activists have caused a higher level of humane treatment of animals within the industry.  However, sometimes these activists are too picky as to what they want.  I imagine that the reason for this is that they largely are vegetarians and practice anthropomorphism with abandon.  We should be able to expect that a reasonable person who is not a vegetarian would want animals targeted for human consumption to be treated humanely and not tortured or subjected to substantial pain.  Being vegetarian is a personal choice.  It is incorrect, in my opinion, to assert that humans are naturally vegetarian and have become addicted to animal flesh by exposure to it.  I think it is quite the opposite.  Humans are omnivores.  The evidence is all around us.  Humans are capable of it, and we largely do it (eat both flesh and vegetables, that is).  Those who are vegetarians are that way by choice for any number of reasons, not the least of which is a tendency to project human characteristics upon every other animal, pets and livestock alike.  I certainly respect their right to be that way, but reserve my right to be an omnivore.  I also want my luncheon meat to have been raised with respect along the way. 10. You have to believe that self-esteem is more important than actually doing something to earn      it.
How perverse is this?  You either have self-esteem or you do not.  Neither the government nor anyone else can give it to you as a gift. 11. You have to believe that Mel Gibson spent $25 million of his own money to make "The Passion      Of The Christ" for financial gain only. I think that Mr. Gibson was already pretty rich and secure when he decided to branch out into producing a Christian masterpiece.  I imagine (but do not know) that he has justified his profits by creating a fund to do more such works or to finance humanitarian projects.  I suspect that he was not unhappy over the profits and that he took a healthy slice of them to fund his lifestyle.  For financial gain only?  Hardly---he had a goal, and that was to push the Christian agenda.  Making a lot of money was just icing on the cake.  By the way, “The Passion of the Christ” is an example of a major work of art that received no federal funding. 
12. You have to believe the NRA is bad, because it supports certain parts of the Constitution, while      the ACLU is good, because it supports certain parts of the Constitution.
This person needs to flip the coin over.  He or she, using biting sarcasm against the dreaded “liberals”, appears to forget that he or she must believe that the ACLU is bad, because it supports certain parts of the Constitution, while the NRA is good, because it supports certain parts of the Constitution.  I believe both of these organizations are important, because they represent opposing viewpoints and cause us to debate the issues before we decide what to do.   
13. You have to believe that taxes are too low, but ATM fees are too high. I think any ATM fee is too high a fee.  With regard to taxes, I suspect but cannot prove that the writer of these “18 ways” would probably be the first to complain if certain governmental services were suddenly unavailable because there were no funds.  I would not be the first to complain but would instead be upset about the funding cut.  I believe there is a disconnect among sectors within the brains of those that think that taxes should be lower but that we should have all these programs anyway, including wars.  Many of these people think that the only reason why things are so expensive is because of waste within the programs.  Schools are a prime example of this.  In certain states, the average amount spent per child is in the neighborhood of $4,500 per year.  A nearby private school with world-class facilities has a tuition that costs 2 to 3 times that much.  And then ironically there are complaints about waste in the school systems and calls for the school budgets to be trimmed even more.  No, what we need is balanced budgets, accountable lawmakers and bureaucrats, and independent watchdog oversight organizations with power over those who overspend or divert money to serve their own objectives instead of the common good.  And then we need to provide the tax money to fund education so that everyone has the opportunity to go to schools that are excellent and equivalent to the private schools.
14. You have to believe that Margaret Sanger and Gloria Steinem are more important to American      history than Thomas Jefferson, Gen. Robert E. Lee, and Thomas Edison.
Again, apples and oranges.  All these people are important in their own individual ways.  And does the writer of the “18 ways” want to be selective about history, too?  Surely, all of these people have their dark sides, and this includes George Washington as well.  When will the history books tell the whole story?
15. You have to believe that standardized tests are racist, but racial quotas and set-asides are not.I believe we will stop having racism when we all individually embrace everyone else as equals despite our differences.  From the standpoint of government’s role in education, I believe quotas, etc., are not the answer.  Instead, the provision of mandatory education available to everyone, uniformly high school quality, strong advocacy by teachers that we respect one another, effective but non-abusive discipline standards, and tangible consequences for not taking personal responsibility are important functions of government.  These would likely result in fewer governmental services’ being necessary after about 20 years with such a system in place.  I am not holding my breath waiting for the day when we implement these changes, however.
16. You have to believe that the only reason socialism hasn't worked anywhere it's been tried is      because the right people haven't been in charge. I believe there are several European nations that are much more socialistic than is the United States, and their systems work well to a large extent.  However, no matter what the system is, it really does help to have people in government who are well-meaning, who make decisions that serve the greater good, and who are very ethical.  In general, our elected officials do not meet these descriptions all of the time. 17. You have to believe that homosexual parades displaying drag, transvestites, and bestiality      should be constitutionally protected and manger scenes at Christmas should be illegal. I believe that the person who wrote this one is all mixed up.  Homosexual parades on the street are protected by the Constitution, and Christmas parades on the street are protected by the Constitution.  If this person meant that Christmas displays at the public courthouse should be protected by the Constitution to the exclusion of other displays, would that same person think that it is all right that an Islamic display should also be protected at the courthouse, if only the Islamic display is allowed and not a Christian one also?  Assuming any such displays are allowed at the courthouse at all (and I favor that they not be), should a homosexual display be allowed at the courthouse and not a heterosexual one?  Certainly not.  Public places are for all of the public.  Christians do not have world rights over everyone else, despite the fact that many Christians profess to be the Chosen People and would use this belief to strong-arm everyone else---strong-arm in a charitable, Christian way, of course.
      18. You have to believe that this message is a part of a vast, right wing conspiracy.

Not at all.  I think the message only reflects a culture of intolerance, egocentricity, and narcissism which is widespread throughout our nation, especially nowadays.

There.  Let me see, how did I do?  Certainly I do not have much in common philosophically with the writer of the “18 things”.  Whether or not that makes me a “liberal” by anyone’s definition is debatable.  Besides, the points I advocate largely fit in the area of personal responsibility, accountability, honesty, and serving the greater good.  Attaching a label to anyone in order to try to belittle that person is that last thing I would like to see.  I prefer to take the high road.  I think that is where I should leave this subject to “rest in peace”.

© 2005, srman07

Penguins

Penguins
12/11/05

Several months ago, I had the pleasure of seeing the recently-released highly-acclaimed movie about some penguins in Antarctica.  It was a very enjoyable and thought-provoking film.

I think that the movie fascinated me more with what it did not address than with what it did.  Also, the spin that the directors used in apparently trying to make the movie more endearing to audiences was interesting.  I shall address the latter first.

Humans tend to regard other animals with an anthropocentric slant.  Saying that a dog who is licking you is “kissing” you is one example.  Animal analysts agree that actually the dog likes the salty flavor of your skin.  The dog is not showing you love but is really getting something it wants---another treat.   The dog must be comfortable with you so as to lick you rather than bite you, but being comfortable does not translate into love.  It is a kind of canine hidden agenda to want your salt.  The human interpretation is hidden from the dog, too, since the dog likely does not know the human thinks there is kissing going on, even if it senses that the human does not mind being licked.  Likewise in the penguin film, from the beginning the narrator appears to be trying to make a love story out of a documentary about a non-human animal.  I think doing so is thoroughly anthropomorphic.

But what is love?  Many of us seem to know intuitively what love is and have experienced it.  But trying to put your finger on it, particularly in attempting to compare what humans do as opposed to other animals, is a challenge.  According to a recent version of a popular dictionary, love can vary from one extreme to the other.  The range spans from the kind of affection that we associate with “brotherly love” all the way to the passionate devotion, sexual hunger, and yearning for another human that can make two people want to become united forever.  Are we trying to ascribe any part of this spectrum to penguins?  It certainly seems that the makers of the movie are attempting to do so.

In the movie, mates stood facing one another with “eyelids” squinched and necks slowly and gently alternating between straight up and bent down, occasionally nuzzling one another.  My interpretation of this certainly includes affection.  Clearly, these two birds were not at odds with one another.  Whether this represents love in the human sense is unclear to me.  Not seen in the movie was the sex (which would have actually been interesting to get a glimpse of) because something had to happen in order to produce the big egg that ended up appearing later on.  Then the female had to go 70 miles to gather food, while Dad served as the egg-warmer.  Since food was 70 miles away and conditions were not entirely favorable, both Dad and Mom were apparently too busy to tend to one another, even too busy to get together for a quickie.  There was one more instance later on, according to the movie, when there was time for a little more standing facing one another with necks bent.  Was there sex then, too?  If the offspring survived, after only about nine months the young bird witnessed the departure of its parents and likely would never see them again.  Mom and Dad likewise departed ways and came back after three months seeking other partners.  If we lapsed back into anthropomorphism, we might regard this as a kind of sanctioned infidelity, or maybe it is more like wife-swapping without ever swapping back.  Superficially, not thinking about it too very much, it is endearing to regard at least the mating part as a penguin love story, but I submit that window dressing is about the extent of it.  I think it is quite apparent that penguins do not very much exhibit patterns parallel to either human love or the social trappings that accompany the emotion.  I think it would be fair to assert, based upon watching the penguins in the movie, that the New Scholastic Dictionary for Penguins’ definition of the word “love” would read differently from that of the dictionary of human English language that I consulted.

Now, onward to further observations.  There are certain things the movie showed but did not address and others details that were conspicuously absent.  These things perplex and fascinate me.  I shall write something about several of them.

The movie did not tell whether Antarctica supports more than one flock of penguins.  Undoubtedly it does.  I have not researched this yet, but I would imagine that other “colonies” of penguins elsewhere would be different in ways that, for instance, robins are different from cardinals, except maybe not from the standpoint of color scheme.

There exists irony in the pattern of migration of this flock of penguins.  In a sense, going back to the place of your birth every year is similar to the practice that many other types of fowl exhibit.  However, in the case of these penguins in the movie, it is not the same as how the northern hemispheric birds “head south for the winter” to more favorable conditions.  It is quite a bit the opposite.  These penguins reside in the southern hemisphere, and yet they head south for the winter to some of the worst conditions imaginable on the surface of the earth.  This is thoroughly counterintuitive.  What a pattern to get locked into!  Humans would not do that, would they?  At least, humans would not ordinarily do so on an annual basis.

As with other birds, the penguins are both tough and delicate at the same time.  They have to be strong, determined, and healthy in order to withstand the conditions they must endure.  But they also are so tightly locked into their pattern of living that they are vulnerable to being brought down by a change in conditions.  In the case of the movie star penguins, their environmental requirements are so extreme and specific that you would expect any substantial changes in climate to be devastating.  This observation is especially poignant in light of the earth’s ongoing climate change that is presently happening.  Of course, adverse environmental conditions would negatively affect any type of plant or animal.  Even so, in the case of these penguins with their tight niche market, a distinct inflexibility is evident and is bound to be a liability when facing changes in the habitat.  And it might end up being a bit tougher to save the penguins than, say, the manatees.

If you look at the migrating bunch of penguins in the movie, they more or less fit into a pattern of a single-file march to their final destination.  This is only the big picture, however.  Examination of individual birds shows that some appear to get frisky and deviate out of line from time to time; some will flop on their bellies and navigate that way for a while; some will get lost and freeze to death; some will loiter and then catch up.  These birds individually have their own distinct personalities, just like housecats and dogs and all of us.  It is interesting that these birds have such a compulsion to conform and yet are individuals expressing their personal tendencies within the confines of this conformity.  My interpretation is that the big picture shows conformity in a statistical sort of way, while on the individual level there is a lot of latitude to take personal license---within limits, of course, beyond which the consequence is likely to be death.

The movie initially makes a strong case for protection of the offspring at all costs.  A mother is shown who does not coddle her newborn enough and loses it when it freezes solid.  She goes off to steal one from another mother.  A battle prevents this.  Both the assaulted mother and some nearby companions come to the rescue of the infant.   On the other hand, beyond that things become paradoxical.  The movie turns right around and contradicts its depiction of steadfast protectionism and does not address the inconsistency.  Let a big, hungry bird fly down and pick off a baby penguin for dinner.  Where is the battle in that case?  No, penguins are not humans.  Not one penguin---parent or otherwise---rushed to protect the group of babies under attack.  This is a glaring discrepancy.  Perhaps it is nature’s way of culling out the young penguin population of its more vulnerable members, so much so that there is a built-in selective blindness that the adults have, resulting in their not seeming to recognize treachery when it comes from outside the flock.

And for that matter, where did that big word-bombing bird fly in from, anyway?  Apparently, penguins are not the only animals that can live above ground in Antarctica and tolerate such climate extremes.  It seems to me that conditions are even worse for the big birds that can fly, if they are loners without others to huddle with, and if they create their own wind-chill by flying.  I wonder what else these big birds eat besides vulnerable young penguins.  Frozen penguin eggs, maybe?  If so, that would surely chill their insides further.  To me, it would be astounding for them to eat frozen eggs.  Personally, I would go for something warm-blooded and alive to eat every time I got hungry, if I were the big flying bird.

We should not practice anthropomorphism when it comes to the penguins’ devious behavior, either.  Once again, in the movie there was a penguin mother who tried to kidnap another mother’s baby.  Maybe there is a set of Ten Commandments for Penguins that covers such an infraction, but I doubt it.  Observation suggests that the rules are probably different in the case of penguins.  For instance, horrified humans would seek to prosecute kidnappers, but penguins probably consider it an ordinary occurrence (if they think about it at all) and only try to defend against it.  But it does appear that humans do not hold the patent on cheating and stealing.  Either that, or there is patent infringement going on.  Another fascinating thing is that kidnapping appears to be a relatively uncommon phenomenon among all those penguin mothers who lose their offspring.  This is another strong indication that individual penguins have unique personalities with surprising variability.

And where are all the bird droppings?  Admittedly, in the movie there seemed to be some little dark spots on the snow, but in all of those seemingly spontaneous sequences, not one of the birds got caught in the act of “doing it”.  Could the editors have been that good at culling out the frames that suggested bodily functions?  Or do the birds just store their waste up for the winter, too?

Come to think of it, if you were a penguin and if the usual daytime summer temperatures were 40 below zero Fahrenheit, and if you did not know any different, living would seem rather ordinary.  It just goes to show you that maybe life on Mars is not so implausible after all.

The penguin movie was thoroughly inspiring for at least one of us.  I hope a lot of other people enjoyed it as much as I did.

© 2005, srman07